Past Masters Seventy Nine
Author: Various
Date: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00
Description: More stories in the Life+70 public domain, from magazines such as Cosmopolitan, Blue Book, and Detective Story: 1: Her Fatal Gift / Dahlia Graham 2: The Cotton Stopper / Ernest M. Poate 3: Redeeming Flames / Captain Henry Curties 4: A Troublesome Widow / Edgar Jepson 5: The Infernal Machine / Edgar Jepson 6: Madderson's Mascot / Edgar Jepson 7: The Princess Zimbazim / Robert W. Chambers 8: The Prophetic War Correspondent / George Bronson-Howard 9: The Inexorable Tooth / Ellis Parker Butler 10: The Laughing Woman / Melville Davisson Post 11: The Passing of an Angel / Clarence Herbert New 12: Th

PAST MASTERS

SEVENTY-NINE

24 May 2022

Produced by Terry Walker

("Pulpmeister")

Contents

1: Her Fatal Gift / Dahlia Graham

2: The Cotton Stopper / Ernest M. Poate

3: Redeeming Flames / Captain Henry Curties

4: A Troublesome Widow / Edgar Jepson

5: The Infernal Machine / Edgar Jepson

6: Madderson's Mascot / Edgar Jepson

7: The Princess Zimbazim / Robert W. Chambers

8: The Prophetic War Correspondent / George Bronson-Howard

9: The Inexorable Tooth / Ellis Parker Butler

10: The Laughing Woman / Melville Davisson Post

11: The Passing of an Angel / Clarence Herbert New

12: The Will and the Man / M. McDonnell Bodkin

13: Not Upon the Sleeve / H. Bedford-Jones

14: Breakfast at the Savoy / H. Bedford-Jones

15: Into the Blue / F. Britten Austin

16: The Next-to-Last Laugh / Raoul Whitfield

17: Where There Ain't No Ten Commandments / Culpeper Zandtt

Cumulative Index  #61-79

___________________

1: Her Fatal Gift

Dahlia Graham

Detective Story Magazine 14 Jan 1922

Stories by this author appeared from 1917 to 1922. Nothing else is known.

WHEN the flower-peddling boy jumped for the sidewalk and saved himself from being knocked down by a truck, at the price of the scattering of his tray of violets, Will Blake gave a jeering laugh of glee. There was nothing really funny in the incident and not even a tragic note. It was but one of the trivial events that are constantly happening anywhere— everywhere. The boy glared at Will's grinning face, noted the brutality momentarily dormant and hidden by the convulsed features, and set about gathering up his stock.

Then Will Blake moved off. It was in his power to commit destruction, and he did not lose the chance. At his very first step the heel of his big boot came cown squarely on one of the bunches of violets. The second step resulted in another bunch being kicked aside with mean, unnecessary force. Then, a yard or so farther on Will Blake came to a stop. He stood with hunched shoulders, hands in pockets, and his face now wore its habitual expression of lack of interest. But a few seconds had passed since the incident of the violets, but Will was giving no more thought to the matter. He was dully considering what he should do next. Should he go downtown and chance meeting some friend who would be foolishly generous enough to stand treat, or should he go home?

Pondering this problem Will glanced down at his, feet. He had stared across the street and found there no inspiration. He looked down and and saw another bunch of the violets. The blur of purple surrounded by fresh, green leaves awoke no sense of pleasure or admiration in Will. Nevertheless, he started to grin again, and, stooping, picked up the violets and thrust them in his coat pocket. Dimly, in his queer mind, he foresaw a further chance for some fun. He had enjoyed the misfortune that had overtaken the flower boy, but to his way of thinking it had passed over all too quickly. With the bunch he had in his pocket he intended to instigate something that should have more lasting power. Without thought of paying the boy for the flowers he had picked up from the gutter, Will slouched off. He walked with down-bent head, and there was a look of crafty amusement in his eyes.

Some distance behind William Blake, following, yet not seeming to be trailing anybody in particular, was "Trap" Forbes. Off and on for the past six or seven weeks Trap Forbes had kept his mind alive to the fact that the man now slouching along in front of him might at any moment become one of the "wanted" members of society.

"It would have given me the greatest pleasure to have punched Blake's head and then run him in for pinching that bunch of violets," thought the detective. ''What does a tough like him want with a bunch of flowers, anyway? What devil of mischief got into him? A stick of dynamite or an automatic is more in his line. Violets and Will Blake don't mix, yet— he's got them in his pocket."

At the corner of the street where Will Blake had taken lodgings since his arrival from the town whence had been sent his secret history, Trap Forbes came to a reluctant stop. Had Will been the only suspect it was his duty to keep tabs on, the detective would have stayed where he was and waited all the hours that were necessary for the reappearance of Will, but there are more crooks and criminals and would-be evildoers than there are detectives. There were others that required an eye kept on them. Also, it was nearing the time for Trap to make his report at headquarters.

When he got back to headquarters the detective studied the report that had been sent on from the town recently vacated by Blake. There was nothing unusual in the terse, typewritten account. Blake was a suspicious character, suspected of being mixed up in several burglaries, but there was nothing definite against him; no convictions.

"From the looks of him," thought Trap Forbes as he closed the loose-leaf book of records, "he's about due to get a move on. He's hard up, and he ain't looking for work. I s'pose when he does get busy I'll be the other end of the town. I'd like to land that bird if it was only to pay him for the rough deal he handed that kid with the flowers. What the dickens did he go off with those violets for?"

This was a question Trap Forbes could not answer. Will Blake himself could not have given definite and detailed reasons. There was some idea of mischief in his mind; some form of low trickery, but until he arrived in the one room he called home, he was not quite sure how he could make those flowers useful to him. Neither had he the remotest idea how they would serve him. Yet he felt that in some way they would serve him.

ii

AS SOON as he entered the room which Nora Blake contrived to make fit the purposes of a cozy home, Will dragged the bunch of violets from his pocket and threw them on the table. In the silence that followed, the man turned his back, took off his coat, and flung it across a chair and sat down to remove his boots.

Will's condition of physical comfort was not complete unless he could lounge around in shirt sleeves and socks. Some men dress for dinner. Will was one of the many who liked to eat his meals in "comfort." Also, there was another reason why he bent over his shoe laces. His sense of humor was tickled by his act in giving his wife a bunch of violets, and he would not have the joke fall flat by allowing her to see the irrepressible grin that contorted his mouth. If she saw he was laughing at her, jeering at her, there would be a speedy end to her delusion that he was giving her the flowers in a spirit of kindness and for old times' sake.

"I'll kid her I bought 'em for her. Jolly her along 'til she's all worked up, then I'll jam on thé brakes and tell her where I picked 'em up. I'm sick of the sight of her, anyway. Maybe she'll get real mad and cut loose."

Will dropped one boot to the floor. He was puzzled by the prolonged silence, yet he was not sufficiently master of the art of acting a deceptive part to trust himself to look round. He started on the laces of the next boot. Across the room stood Nora; a wonder too great for words was in her eyes. Had her husband brought home a string of rubies and thrown, them down on the table, she would have been far less surprised. Hesitatingly, and with brows wrinkled in perplexity, the woman stretched out a hand for the flowers.

Her work-worn and labor-coarsened fingers closed round them in a gesture that was caressing and desirous. There was much that Nora Blake had missed in life; many necessities that she had been deprived of. The diary of her days since she had married Will would not make pleasant reading. Yet in that moment when she pressed the violets to her cheek, she knew happiness.

It is often in little things that we find our big moments. Dominant among the flood of memories that seemed to thrust back the sordid years was one thought. It crowned all others in Nora's mind. Will had bought her those violets. He had thought of her. It was true he had been rough, brutal. He drank while she starved; he lazed around while she washed clothes and scrubbed floors. Yes, he had even broken laws, and was a suspect— an uncaptured criminal. Only a moment before Nora had been a woman of dumb, hopeless suffering. She had been numbed by long trials to acceptance of her fate. She had come to the belief that her Will would never be anything but a brute and a waster. Only his death or commitment to jail could set her free from his insults and cruelty. Now— the magic of those violets created in her the wish to think well of the man she had despised. After all, was there not some good in him? Some tender thought of her was hiding beneath his rough manner. She had misjudged him. That was it. Perhaps it had been her fault that he had drifted into evil ways.

So, as other women have done, and will do to the end of time, Nora Blake resolved to give her man "one more chance," but of this she said nothing.

All she did was to place the violets in a glass of water, brush the tears from her eyes with the back of her hand, and set about preparing supper.

Nora had not the gift of fine words, neither had Will the refined intelligence required for understanding the delicately turned phrase.

He had given her a bunch of violets. Therefore, to show that she understood and appreciated his goodness, Nora went out and bought him a steak.

While the steak was cooking Will sat and smoked and grunted monosyllabic replies to his wife's questions regarding his fruitless search for a job. Nora had no great belief that he had been looking for work, but with simple-minded directness she believed she stood a better chance of helping her husband by making him befieve that she trusted and had faith in him. The confidence and brightness of her smile mystified

Will. Another and more important thing also bothered him. Where had Nora got the money to buy that steak? When he had left her in the morning he had been unable to get so much as a nickel out of her. Then the thought occurred to him that he was already reaping good reward from the violcts, and he decided to wait until after supper before he exploded his joke and had his laugh.

"She paid more'n a dollar for this steak," he thought, and, while eating it, grew thirsty. It was not a coffee, tea, or water thirst. It was not a cheap and harmless thirst. It was a thirst that the well-to-do law-breaker satisfies vith choice contraband, and the impoverished dipsomaniac gratifies with a mixture of ether, poison alcohol, and dye.

When he pushed away his plate Will Blake had made up his mind that would have a drink before he retired that night. Yes, he would have several drinks. He summarized his ambition thus:

"I'll tank up to-night or bust."

Then, slumped back in his chair and chewing on the end of a match, he stared reflectively across at Nora. For a few seconds the woman remained unaware that her lord and master was favoring her with a look of intent speculation. Her eyes were fixed on the violets that she had placed on the center of the table, and her thoughts were shaping a picture of what might be if she could persuade her husband to give up his shiftless ways and settle down to honest work. Between them they could easily make more than enough to live comfortably. They would be able to save, and—

Nora looked up. Her gaze was drawn to meet Will's stare and— held. The man said nothing; the expression of his face did not perceptibly alter. He did not move, yet the evil of him seemed to express itself without overt sign. Nora put a nervous, trembling hand to her throat; the sweetness of hope drained away from her. The blank, baneful glare of her husband's eyes brought her to the realization that he was the same selfish brute that he had always been. She— well, she was just a foolish, weary woman. The best thing she could do would be to get up and wash the dishes. She had been going to talk to Will. She had been going to tell him many things. It had been in her to believe that by gentleness and careful speech the whim that had prompted him to bring her the violets might be nursed to the growth of a better man. In gratitude for a trivial act of imagined kindness, she had been ready to make all sacrifices. Now— there was no purpose to be served— no good end to be achieved. Nora knew she had dreamed falsely. Will had not meant a kindness by his act of throwing the flowers on the table. He had—

Will took his hand from his pocket and pointed at the violets. His words dovetailed with Nora's thoughts.

"I picked 'em up outer the gutter," was all he said. And the heart of Nora winced.

Will Blake got to his feet. He stood leaning over the table. His words had been unbelievably cruel. The expression of his savage eyes and sneering mouth now were evidence of grosser and viler thoughts. He laughed when he saw the fear spreading its white mask over Nora's rigid face.

"You've got some dough hid out on me," he said. "I want it. It ain't no manner of use trying to kid me you ain't got none. I know darn well you wouldn't have blowed the last bit on that steak. C'm on. Where is it? Where you got the rest of the coin hid away?"

Too terror-stricken to speak, the woman sat with clenched hands. Will hunched his shoulders and leaned nearer. The table creaked under the pressure of his hands. His eyes narrowed to slits of murderous evil, bored down into Nora's. Suddenly, without warning, she threw out her hands and flung back her head.

Will Blake lurched away from the table. His right hand flew to his hip pocket, and, when he pointed at his wife, he held a thing that can stay the tiger's roar, and quench a woman's scream.

"One squeal," he warned, "and—"

iii

"YOU HAVE the man's address?"

Trap Forbes looked inquiringly at the stranger who had been sent to him by the desk lieutenant.

"If it's William Blake you are looking for, I can tell you where he was a couple of hours ago. Can't say where he is now. There's no telling with a feller of his kind. If you want to see him, we'll go along together," offered the detective. "It's rather a rough neighborhood and— well, I'm sort of interested in Willie. From what we know of him, he's no angel. He's queer, too. Picked up a bunch of violets, put 'em in his pocket, and went home with 'em. Lemme see, your name's—"

"Tennant. Of the firm of Tennant & Clark," said the stranger, proffering a card.

Then, as they walked down the station steps, he added: "I don't see why you should be at all intrigued because a man happens to take home a bunch of violets?"

"That's a good word, although it's a bit shopworn," replied Forbes. "I take it you have never met Will Blake."

Tennant raised his eyebrows. He was a precise, dignified man, and he had a rather more than vague impression that the detective was poking fun at him.

Trap Forbes flashed a quick look at his companion's horn-rimmed, serious eyes. Then he added: "If Blake was taking those violets home as a gift to his wife, then I'll see about getting put on the retired list. I ain't the one to wish no man ill luck, but Will ain't the kind that deserves anything 'cept a smack on the nose. That bird ain't healthy."

When they arrived at the house where lodged Blake and Nora, it was Tennant who led the way up the stairs, but it was Trap Forbes who took the lead when they came to the fourth floor. He heard a woman scream, the crash of furniture, the snarling curse of a man, and that is why Tennant found himself thrust forcibly to one side. Then came the impact of the detective's shoulder against a door. The next moment Tennant saw a bit of real life expressed in the vivid, raw action of the inevitable. He caught a glimpse of a woman's uplifted, agonized face; he saw an overturned table, and, circling round it, a crouching figure holding an automatic. He saw that figure spin round, pausing for the fraction of a second. Then, as the figure leaped toward the detective, something seemed to break that leap midway. Then came a single shot.

Then Tennant became conscious of the fact that he was gazing down on the still form of the man. Across the body was a woman weeping and sobbing.

Tennant walked shakily to the door. There was no use now in facing Blake with the incriminating papers which he had brought with him.

"You shot him," whispered Tennant.

Forbes shook his head.

"There was no need," he muttered. Solemnly he pointed to the fragments of a broken glass lying in a pool of water. A few inches from the edge of the water was a blur of purple and green. "There was no need for me to pull on him," repeated the detective. "He put his heel down on them violets as he tried to rush for the door. As he went down his elbow must have hit the edge of the table. He jabbed that automatic right under his own chin. My bullet's over there, imbedded in the ceiling. Will Blake is— out."

Tennant walked shakily to the door. There was no use now in facing Blake with the incriminating papers which he had brought with him.

_________________

A Doctor Bentiron case

2: The Cotton Stopper

Ernest M Poate

1884-1935

Detective Story Magazine 8 July 1919

I WAS sitting in my own little office, at the back of Doctor Bentiron's house, dictating case record to Miss Morgan, when a nurse knocked at the door.

"The doctor is very busy," she began, "and he says for you to talk with this gentleman and see what he wants." She stood aside to let a stranger enter, a slight, nervous, dapper chap of about thirty-five years.

"I am Doctor Stevens," he stated, "practicing on Webster Avenue, in the Bronx." His utterance was jerky. He talked in a breathless staccato, gesturing with thin, nervous hands. He seemed worried and ill at ease. "It's an important matter," he went on, glancing at my stenographer. So I dismissed her, and gave him my attention.

"I want to get Doctor Bentiron," said my visitor. "I-want him to see a case for me, to consult with me. It's a very important case for me; a mistake would hurt me dreadfully. You see, it's young Douglas— William A. Douglas— and I haven't many millionaire patients." He smiled ruefully.

"Not the William Douglas?" I asked. The story was fresh in my mind.

Doctor Stevens nodded importantly. "The very one," he declared. "He's quite a friend of mine; lived right next door to me for years— still there, in fact, though he's going to move soon." He announced the acquaintance with a certain pride, as men will; and as men will, I looked at him with a trifle more respect for the announcement. "Only night before last he was showing me the plans of the house he's going to build up in Westchester— a two-hundred- thousand-dollar house!" The doctor sighed enviously; I accorded him the little hush that goes with the mention of two hundred thousand dollars.

But the reflected glamour passed. Doctor Stevens wiped his thin face, and I saw that there were waxy pouches beneath his eyes.

"Maybe he won't live to enjoy it." He sighed. "It's a tremendous responsibility: I don't know what ails the fellow. Some acute infection— came on only thirty-six hours ago. He developed a maculo-papular rash this morning, and there's retraction of the head and a good deal of delirium; temperature one hundred and five. So I wanted to get Doctor Bentiron right away; he lectured to me in neurology, you know. Do you think he'll come ?"

"Well," said I, "I'll ask him. Up in the Bronx, say? I don't know you whether he'll go or not. He's pretty independent, you know. When did you want him?"

"Right away, said my guest, twitching the front of his coat.

"There'll be reporters there before we know it— Douglas used to be a newspaper man himself. And I can't tell them anything. I want to get out from under," he confessed, with a sweeping gesture.

The man was plainly unnerved; to be at sea in a case so important was too much for him. I took him to be neurasthenic at best. I left him pacing my little room with uneven steps, and sought Doctor Bentiron's office.

The doctor had just dismissed a patient. He sat alone in the big, bare room, legs crossed beneath his green bathrobe, staring dully at the wall. His eyes were half shut; his expression one of complete boredom. Wreaths of smoke floated about his bearded face, and the ash tray on the arm of his chair was heaped with cigarette stubs. He did not look about at my entry, but—

"Umphf," he grunted. It was a question, I knew.

"It was a Doctor Stevens, from the Bronx," I explained. "He wants you to consult with him. It's William A. Douglas who's sick; the man all the papers have been full of."

"I never read the papers," drawled my chief.

"Why, he's the new millionaire," said I; "the newspaper reporter that old J. Billings Douglas left all his money to. They say he's worth ten millions now; and last month he was making thirty-five dollars a week."

"Umphf,"' said the doctor, quite unimpressed. "What ails the fellow?"

"Stevens says he thinks it's 'cerebro-spinal'— but I don't think he has any idea what it is; and he's scared stiff about it, too."

"Umphf," drawled the doctor reprovingly. "I have been in much the same state of mind, on occasion. It may even come to you, my son, though you be from the Hopkins. Be humble. Yes. Kirke Stevens, isn't it? Class of 1906. I remember him." He pushed one of the battery of buttons which adorned his chair arm, and when the nurse appeared, he asked:

"How many?"

"Nine, doctor."

"Umphf. Time?"

"Eleven-ten, doctor."

"Umphf. Near Bronx Park, you say? I will see one more, and then go up. Crowd the others in with my afternoon appointments if you can, Miss Gallegher; or I'll see them to-morrow. Have my car ready in fifteen minutes. Better come along, Blakely, and get a bit of air."

Doctor Stevens' relief was pitiful; he heaved a great sigh, wiping his face with a lavender-bordered handkerchief. "It's not only an important case," he exclaimed, "he's a good friend of mine. And I'm afraid the skids are under him now. I'll feel a lot better to have the doctor see him."

HE went out into the hall to wait for Doctor Bentiron. Presently a swarthy Italian street cleaner shuffled out of the office, dragging flat feet. With him came the doctor, an arm thrown over the shoulder of the dingy white coat. "All right, Rocco, my boy," said the doctor, and gave him a little reassuring pat. "Come back Saturday." The tired, dragging voice was warm, almost affectionate. It was the doctor's way ; though to a millionaire he might be brusque, even rude, his courtesy never failed toward the humble folk who came to him from all over the city.

He turned toward us, yawning, and sloughed off the faded bath robe which was his usual office coat.

"Coat," he drawled,— stretching frankly, and Hanrahan, the orderly, held for him a shapeless gray Norfolk jacket. He pulled a battered slouch hat over his eyes and drifted toward the door, silent as a shadow, leaving a trail of cigarette smoke behind him.

A nurse stood ready to open the door; we followed the doctor through it, and out to the big blue limousine at whose side stood a liveried footman, unblinkingly at attention. The nurse stood in the doorway; Hanrahan followed us down the steps, ready for any last orders. The unfailing ceremony of Doctor Bentiron's departures contrasted oddly with his carelessness in dress ; it always roused me to a sense of amused admiration. I often wondered whether it was really at his own direction or merely expressed his people's respectful affection.

The chief clambered into his car, groaning— he was wont to move as though each step were a painful effort— and slid far down in the cushioned seat, thin legs thrust straight out before him. As usual, he permitted us to climb over him,

"Drive to the Privaton laboratories first," he told the footman. "I have some blood tests for them to make. "He thrust out a languid hand, and Hanrahan gave him a wooden test-tube container.

I happened to be looking at our guest; he started and flushed at the doctor's directions, and seemed about to speak. But he closed his mouth in a moment, and only twisted the lapels of his coat.

Hitherto the chief had paid no heed to Doctor Stevens; now, being com- fortably settled with a fresh-rolled cigarette, he turned a dull eye toward the younger man. "Umphf," said Doctor Bentiron.

The other did not hear, or failed to understand the doctor's conversational habit. He sat silent, twisting at a coat button.

"Umphf," said the chief once more. No answer. Then, "Doc-tor Ste-vens," intoned the dry voice, still expressionless; but its exaggerated drawl held an arresting quality.

Stevens jumped nervously; the button came away in his fingers, and he stared at it for a moment.

"I asked you," continued the doctor severely, "to give me a full account of the case which I am to see with you." The other looked at him in wonder. "Oh, well," Doctor Bentiron relented, "you should have understood, at least, that I meant to ask that. You force me to waste breath, my son." He was preternaturally solemn; Stevens, who did not know his ways, stammered an apology.

"I'll tell you all I can, doctor," said he, in his rapid, staccato fashion. "The patient, Mr. Douglas, has been in excellent physical condition. I examined him for life insurance only last month; heart, lungs, and kidneys all normal. He has not been exposed— that is, there is no probability— I don't see how he could have got any infection. I was with him night before last; he seemed perfectly well then. Yesterday morning he didn't get up for breakfast. His aunt— she keeps house for him— he's single, about thirty years old—"

"Umphf," drawled Doctor Bentiron. "You are becoming involved, my son. Take a fresh start."

"Why," said Stevens, "I am kind of upset, I guess. Well, his aunt found him in a stupor yesterday morning. He roused up when she shook him, but he complained of headache and of being sick and feverish. I was out all day, but she sent for me last night. Temperature, one hundred and five degrees; pulse, one hundred and thirty; respirations, thirty; lungs, clear. He complained of severe fever pains and perspired a lot. There was a little boil on the back of his neck— a queer, hard, yellow furuncle, and he complained of very severe occipital headache.

This morning his temperature was still up, and his general condition a good deal worse. The abcess was bigger, with a lot of congestion around it; but it doesn't look like a carbuncle to ine. And to-day he has a few scattered papules on his shoulders. He is quite delirious, and there's stiffness and retraction of the neck It seems to be some sort of brain fever, but I really don't know what it is. He keeps cough- ing and hawking and sniffing, too— but there's nothing in his nose or throat. He's getting worse by the minute; he may be critical by now. It's some very virulent infection—so I came for you."

"Umphf,' commented the doctor. "Why didn't you get an epidemologist ?"

The other flushed. "Maybe I ought," he admitted. "I'll get Thompson this afternoon, if you say so, But the cere- bral symptoms were so marked—and I didn't know what to do"—he paused and swallowed hard—'"and so I came to you."

"Umphf," said the doctor again, face masklike as ever; but I think he was pleased. Indeed, one could not but pity the poor chap. He must have been very fond of his patient, thought I.

Doctor Bentiron lighted his third cigarette and flickered a dully specula- tive eye at his seatmate's waxen, twitching face. "It's all very well to take a personal interest in your cases," said he, "but don't take things too much to heart. Have you taken blood cultures:

"If you only knew!" cried Stevens. "You can't understand how I feel, doctor. Yes, I took cultures this morning; I haven't heard from them yet."

"Run up to the lab, when we get there, and ask Howland to hurry them through. You may use my name."

"Why— why," Doctor Stevens hesitated his pale face flushing, "I didn't take them there. You see, I— well, Fordham is so much nearer, so I just ran over there." He seemed oddly embarrassed, I thought.

But now the car swung westward again; we were nearing the Privaion College very rapidly. A tall, shambling man, striding along the sidewalk, looked up at the blue car and waved a sheaf of blue prints in a wide, loose- jointed gesture of greeting.

"Umphf," said the doctor, without looking round. "There's Minakoff," Stevens looked nervously about, and shrank back into his corner, His face was still flushed.

We drew up before the long steps, and the pedestrian hurried toward us. He was a big, rather slouchy-looking person, with a wide, flat chest; all breadth and no thickness. His hands were full of papers. The footman alighted and opened the car door; the stranger thrust in a long, narrow face, deeply flushed over the high cheekbones. His velour hat was pushed far back ; in the middle of his forehead was a round, dome-shaped wen. Altogether he was a singular-looking person.

"How are you, Doctor Bentiron?" he said excitedly, and laughed a high, whinnying laugh, thrusting out a warty, acid-stained hand.

The doctor gave him a languid grasp. "Umph," he said.

Minakoff glanced about, nedded at me, and then caught sight of Doctor Stevens, still huddled back in his corner. The stranger gave our luckless guest a ferocious glare from beneath bushy brows; his eyes glowed strangely from cavernous sockets.

"Ha, imbecile," he shouted, "do you dare come back? But no"— he shook his head vigorously— "no; to-day I am happy. All goes very well." He patted the sheaf of blue prints, now clutched under his left arm.

"Going to build?" inquired the doctor uninterestedly. "I didn't suppose you ever thought of anything but cancer."

"But yes, my friend!" cried Minakoff. "I build. And for cancer— doctor, things move well. It needs but experiment, test, routine work, and my problem is solved. I shall have a word for you, doctor. Come in soon; I will tell you good news!" He made a wide, sweeping gesture, which rapped his fingers sharply against the side of the car.

"Umphf," drawled the doctor again. "Later. I'm busy now. by the way, Minakoff, take these for blood tests in to Howland, will you?"

"Surely, surely, my friend. I will do anything!" He laughed again, on an odd, high note, and licked dry lips. "To-day I am happy. I could dance— sing— anything!" He did indeed cut an awkward, shuffling step or two, then swung loose-jointedly up the long flight of steps, papers under one arm and the doctor's specimens under the other.

The chief looked after him reflectively. '"Minakoff is considerably excited about something," he drawled. "What has he got against you, Stevens? He didn't seem exactly pleased with you."

Stevens was worrying the front of his coat again. "Why," he evaded, "we had a little trouble; he called me down pretty hard."

"Umphf," remarked the doctor, on a rather speculative note; but he asked no more questions.

We rode in silence for a half hour or so, until we came into a region of detached dwellings, each with its little patch of lawn. Here and there were vacant, placarded lots; sometimes one saw a lonesome apartment house, looking as though it yearned for neighbors against which to lean its bare side walls, but the city was drawing away from us. Soon the lawns of Bronx Park showed on our right, and we drew up before a little, old-fashioned house, its green blinds brilliant against a coat of fresh white paint.

"Here we are, doctor," said Stevens, hurrying us in. "I live right next door here."

A little, faded old lady met us in the doorway; she was tremulously voluble, and very conscious of her new black silk gown.

"I'm so glad you've come, Doctor Stevens," she cried. Her veined old hands smoothed the dress unsteadily, with a pathetic pride, even in her perturbation. "Willie seems so bad. I think he's worse, even since you were here. He doesn't know me at all." A tear trickled down her cheek. "The nurse just came; she's upstairs now."

"This is Doctor Bentiron, Miss Simpson," Stevens introduced us, "and his assistant, Doctor Blakely. The doctor has come to see your nephew."

Doctor Bentiron bowed with an old-fashioned stateliness which became him well. The old lady gave him a tremulous hand.

"I'm pleased to meet you, sir," said she, peering nearsightedly over her glasses. "I'm afraid things look awful bad; you must excuse it. I don't know when my house has been in such shape. I haven't swept, or anything; I've been so worried about Willie."

"Everything looks very nice," the doctor assured her. "You must have done your spring house-cleaning."

A tinge of rose color crept into the little old lady's cheek. "It's very kind of you, doctor," she replied. "I did clean house, last week; but everything needs sweeping and dusting. I'm perfectly able to keep things clean, doctor— only I haven't had time." She seemed more at ease now, and the doctor listened as courteously as though he had come expressly for a social call.

"Just sit down, Miss Simpson," he soothed her, "and tell us all about Mr. Douglas' sickness."

She subsided into a hideous plush "spring rocker" with an antimacassar on its back, and smoothed her brocaded silk skirt with loving, workworn fingers. "It seems so strange," she apologized, "wearing silk in the morning. But Willie says we can afford it now, so I do it to please him. Why, he wants me to get a hired girl, even! I guess I'm still able to do my own housework, even if I am old. My eyes are good enough for that," she finished, half appealing, half indignant.

But her eyes must have been pretty poor, after all; in the corners and under the whatnot, dust and cobwebs spoke pathetically of her failing vision.

"Willie seemed just as well as ever on Sunday," Miss Simpson began, having vindicated her housekeeping. "Doctor Stevens was in that night for supper, and the two of them just carried on like boys. Willie was full of that new house he's been talking about, though this one seems good enough to me— a bathroom, and hot and cold water, and gas to cook by, and everything. Well, something woke me up in the night, and I went and listened at Willie's door, because he used to walk in his sleep sometimes. when he was a boy. I thought I heard him moving round, and I called through the door, but then I  could hear him snoring, and I went back to bed.

"But in the morning he didn't get up, and he was always so good about that. I could always start cooking pancakes and know he'd be down when they were ready. So I called to him, and he didn't answer, and I went up to his room. I thought it smelled kind of funny in there, but the window was wide open. It was the paint, I suppose. We just had the house all painted new, you see. Well, he lay there kind of stupid-like, and all flushed up. I was kind of scared, and I shook kim, and he waked up all right. But he said his head ached and he guessed he wouldn't get up, not having to go to the office any more, now we're rich. So I got him some toast and tea, and a poached egg— I always think that's awful tasty when you're sick.

"But he kept on feeling worse all day, and finally I called to Doctor Stevens here to come in. Willie didn't want me to— he said he'd be all right— but I was worried. And he's just kept getting worse and worse. He was quite light-headed in the night; he kept sniffing and hawking as if there was some funny smell around. I guess maybe it was the paint. And he's had such a pain in the back of his neck, and he couldn't eat anything I fixed for him."

"Exactly," said Doctor Bentireon. "I'll go up and see him now."

Stevens led us upstairs to a low, roomy bedchamber. The windows were wide open, but the air was heavy with the smell of fresh paint. With it I thought I detected an odd tang; a faint, half-familiar odor. The doctor stopped and sniffed curiously; then he looked all round, stepped quickly through the door, and stood to one side, eyes roving.

In a big, old-fashioned bed by the window lay a man of about thirty. His thick fair hair was tousled and dank; his face bore a dusky flush. He was muttering and tossing about; a nurse, plainly just arrived, for her hat and coat lay at the bed foot, strove to keep him from getting up.

"Umphf," commented the doctor, still standing at the door; his long, dull eyes vacant. I knew that that abstracted gaze was photographing every detail before him. This room, too, was rather badly swept; under the bed was a fluff of gray dust. I noticed a bit of cotton wool there, too, and wondered if the nurse had thrown it down.

Presently the chief advanced to the bed and began his examination. The patient stared about with bright, glassy eyes, muttering to himself. He kept snorting and smacking his dry, crusted lips. Swittly the doctor went over his reflexes, pressed on nerve trunks here and there. As he bent over to test the sick man's pupils, his nostrils dilated and he sniffed again, then shook his head. Then he turned the patient on his side, exposing his back. Over the muscular shoulders were a dozen or more small pustules of a peculiarly bright shade of yellow; at the back of the neck I saw an angry swelling with softened center.

At this Doctor Bentiron took one look; then he went to the washstand, poured out a basin of water and washed his hands with care.

"Umphf," drawled he unemotionally. "Stevens, my son, you don't need an alienist; send for a vet."

Taking his meaning, I gasped. Stevens stared at him, horror-struck, gasping, then threw out both arms with a thick sob. "W— what do you mean, doctor?" he stammered; yet he seemed to know. Indeed, his manner suggested that some dreadful fear had been confirmed. The waxy pouches under his eyes seemed larger; his pale face was creased with anxiety.

"I mean," drawled the doctor phlegmatically, "that this is hide-carrier's disease— malignant pustule— anthrax. You ought to have known it without my telling."

"Bu— but it can't be, doctor! How could he get anthrax? There's been no chance for infection— er— that I— Oh, it can't be; it's too horrible!" Stevens covered a creased, twitching face, quite broken up.

"None the less, it is anthrax," As

Doctor Bentiron said lethargically. "Look for yourself, man. You must have seen malignant pustule before."

Indeed, the lesions of this dreadful disease are unmistakable. As most  people know, it is an infection of horses and cattle, often called "black-leg," and is rare in man. Occasionally workers in hides and wool become infected through scratches or by breathing in the germs from dust; therefore it is called, in man, "hide-carrier's disease," or "wool-sorter's disease".

Although I had seen but few cases, I recognized the characteristic yellow-centered pustules at a glance.

Stevens had dropped into a chair, face still covered. He seemed utterly unnerved. The doctor stood looking at him for a moment, thumbs in belt, head cocked to one side. I could see that he was dissatisfied; but presently his left shoulder and eyebrow went up in a characteristic gesture of dismissal, and he turned toward the door.

"Take smears from those pustules," he advised, over his shoulder. "Better get him into a hospital at once— not that it makes much difference. If he were lucky enough to be a horse, now, he might possibly drag through." Anthrax in man is almost invariably fatal.

Stevens muttered something without looking up, and made a despairing gesture. We left him so, and went back to the car, the doctor looking uneasily over his shoulder as though he preferred not to explain matters to old Miss Simpson.

On the way home, Doctor Bentiron drooped silently in his corner of the car. He smoked more rapidly than usual; his pose was, if possible, more relaxed and indifferent than ever. By these slight signs I knew that he was not quite at ease. Once he tore a cigarette in the making and said "Damn" in a perfectly expressionless fashion. Then he tilted his hat far down over his eyes and scratched the back of his head.

And so we rode in silence until we had almost reached the Harlem River. Then the doctor laid his half-smoked cigarette carefully down in the ash tray fixed to the side of the car.

"Bentiron," said he gravely, "you are an ass." He was talking to himself, apparently quite unconscious of my presence. "Yes," he declared, "a complete ass. Umphf. Yes." He reached a languid hand for the speaking tube. "Turn around," he directed. "Drive back. On the fifth speed."

The car swung obedienily about.

Doctor Bentiron relaxed once more, and yawned vastly. "Exactly," he intoned, as though continuing a conversa tion. "I must have been asleep. Blakely, my son, did you notice a queer smell in that room?"

"It smelled of paint," I answered.

"And of something else— very faintly, of course; and so did the patient. Of course, it was two days old; but it is a very clinging odor. I wonder that Stevens didn't mention it; he must have noticed it yesterday. Why, the old lady noticed it! Perhaps he did. Umphf. Blakely, what was that smell?"

I strove to recollect the vaguely familiar scent. It was something drug-like.

"Why, it was ether!" I cried out at last.

"Exactly. Ether. Also, that abscess at the back of the neck, evidently the original lesion. About half an inch away from it was a small puncture, oozing thin pus. Now add these things to the extraordinarily rapid onset of a rare disease in a healthy man who has had no apparent chance of contracting it, and what do you infer?"

I shook my head. I preferred to leave inference to the chief; he was better at it.

"Umphf," said the doctor, in mild disgust. "Oh, well! Here we are."

Miss Simpson met us, all in a flutter. Her eyes were red; her poor old lips trembled. Doctor Stevens had gone, she said; was there anything? Had we thought of anything to do for Willie?

"Stevens gone?" drawled Doctor Bentiron. "It's just as well. No, my dear lady, I'm afraid we can't do much for your nephew; but I'd like to see him again for a moment."

But when he reached the sick room, he scarcely glanced at the patient. He went first to the open window and looked out. Just below lay a ladder, evidently left by the painters. The doctor indicated it with a languid thumb. "Very handy," he murmured. "And see here, my son."

Clear cut in the fresh, white paint of the window sill was the print of a heel, pointing inward; each nail head showed distinctly. "It would have been careless of a painter," drawled the chief, "especially with a good light. At night, now si

He turned away and stooped down, looking under the bed. In the dust lay the bit of cotton I had noticed. The doctor poked at it gingerly.

"Umphf," said he, satisfied. "I thought so. Nurse, get me a piece of paper, please."

With a couple of matches he picked up the little swab and rolled it carefully in paper, then straightened himself, sighing deeply. I watched with breath- less interst, for he had retrieved a rolled cotton stopper, stich as are used in laboratories to cover test tubes containing cultures of bacteria. Across its top was pasted a small paper label.

"Pour carbolic all round there, nurse," directed the doctor. "And sprinkle the whole floor with a twenty-per-cent solution before you sweep." And he went out, carrying, his parcel carefully, leaving an amazed nurse to stare after him.

"Ouch!" yelled the patient. "Stop pricking me! Auntie Belle, Auntie Selle, he's jabbing me in the neck!"

"Umphf,"' commented the doctor dryly. "In delirium as well as in wine there is truth— sometimes." He descended the stairs wearily, climbed into the car, and slouched back as though quite exhausted. "Fordham is close by," said he to the footman. "Drive there."

When we reached the Fordham Hospital Doctor Bentiron climbed out and labored into the office. There he stood, perfectly detached and gazing patiently at nothing, until an orderly came to ask his business. It was his way; and it seemed a good one, for he never had to wait long.

Presently we were led up to the hospital laboratory. Here we found Doctor Stevens, looking more perturbed than ever.

"The blood cultures were positive," he said, "and the smears from that abscess showed anthrax bacilli. What can I do? It's horrible— I must go back. Where can I get you on the phone, doctor?"

"I'm going down to the Privaton laboratories for a little while," an- swered the chief.

Stevens stared a moment, his face colorless. "Oh!" he cried. "Oh— ah, yes; of course." The statement seemed to upset him still further; he caught the lapels of his coat and fairly shook himself, then hurried out.

"Umphf," grunted the doctor reflectively, and looked after him for a moment. Then he turned to the interne in charge, unrolling his parcel.

"Just take a smear from this for me, will you?" he asked, poking gingerly at the bit of cotton with a pair of forceps.

As he rolled it over the label came up. "P—A177," I read.

"Umphf," drawled the doctor, unmoved. "I wonder why our friend displays such an antipathy to the Privaton." He stripped off the label, thrust it into a test tube and corked it up carefully, while I looked on, breathless. Then he subsided languidly into a chair and rolled a fresh cigarette. He stared dully at the wall, immobile and patient as a sculptured idol, while the young pathologist stained and examined his microscopic slides.

"Anthrax, doctor,' announced the interne in a few minutes. "See here."

"Umphf," replied the doctor indifferently. "I thought so." He glanced through the microscope for a moment. "Look, Blakely," he directed.

It was a good, clear stain; the long threads of tiny, blunt rods, end to end, were typical. Anthrax germs stain so well that they are largely used in demonstrations to medical students.

"I thank you, doctor," said the chief. "Just mark those slides and keep them, will you, please? There may be a medico-legal end to this, you see. I'll carry the stopper itself down to the Privaton and have cultures taken from it." He rolled it up again and slouched wearily out.

"I suppose the matter is clear to you, Blakely?" asked Doctor Bentiron, as we rolled smoothly homeward.

"Why, no," I confessed; "not entirely. I can see, of course, that Stevens did it, but why and how I don't understand."

"Umphf," drawled the doctor. "You are jumping to a conclusion, my son. How it was done is plain enough; who did it, and why, we have yet to discover. Yes. Let us begin in an orderly fashion,

"Our suspicions being aroused by the circumstances of this case, we ask first: has a crime been committed? To that we may answer, yes. Retired newspaper men who have lately become millionaires are not, in the ordinary course of things, subject to anthrax. It is reasonable to suppose that some one has assisted nature.

"Next: how was the crime committed? That is clear. During Sunday night, some unknown person climbed into Douglas' window, using the ladder which the painters had left conveniently by. He left a heel mark on the window sill. The painting was finished Saturday night, Miss Simpson told me; and that mark could not have been made until the paint was nearly dry. Douglas was sound asleep, but a sharp prick would have wakened him.

So the visitor gave him ether. He used ether instead of chloroform, I suppose, because he had to work in the dark and there would be less danger of an overdose. He didn't want the man to die at once; that would have roused suspicion. Douglas probably kicked and moaned a bit as he went under—there is some struggling with ether—and the old lady heard him. Our unknown friend had just uncorked his culture of anthrax when she came to the door and called. No doubt it scared the heart out of him; he dropped the stopper and it rolled under the bed. He couldn't find it in the dark, and of course he dared not strike a light. So he finally gave it up, I suppose, trusting to luck that no one would recognize what it was, filled a hypodermic with virulent anthrax bacilli and injected them into the back of Douglas' neck. The needle punc- ture still shows, just beside that abscess. Then he climbed out as he had climbed in, laid the ladder down and went quietly home.

"Thanks to Miss Simpson's near-sightedness, the stopper stayed under the bed until we found it to-day. I came close to making a terrible balk. To-day the room would have been swept out; that nurse would have cleaned things up. It was the smell of ether that set me to wondering; and the paint almost covered that up.

"Now let us consider why it was done. In general, a calmly premedi- tated murder results from an ambition complex. Crimes of passion— love, revenge, what you like— are less cold- blooded; they are done on impulse. This sort of thing, well planned and carefully executed, is usually done for money— and Douglas, I understand, is rich. Who would benefit, my son?"

"I don't know," I confessed. "I'm quite sure young Douglas had only a life interest in the estate."

"Umphf," remarked the doctor. "Then he was keeping some seven or eight millions away from the residuary legatee. It is a tidy little sum; one might buy a good many murders with that. I perceive that we shall have to investigate the provisions of old Douglas' will.

"But let us set that aside for the moment, and consider the technique of the crime. It was skillfully done, you will note. It is not so easy to anesthetize a sleeping man without waking him. Also, the choice of ether, to avoid danger from an overdose, indicates special training. And cultures of anthrax are not bought in drug stores. Wherefore I think we are justified in assuming that this was done by a physician."

"Well," I argued, a little aggrieved, "I said it was Stevens. Why, the man's half crazy with fear."

"Umphf," said Doctor Bentiron. "There are other doctors in the city. Don't go too fast. We will keep him under observation. But a general practitioner would scarcely have chosen anthrax, it seems to me. He might have selected typhoid, diphtheria, pneumonia germs, and defied detection. And one can't walk into a laboratory and demand a culture of pathogenic bacteria without some explanation, either. No, this smacks of the laboratory worker. One who handles bactéria daily would think of them before chemical poisons— and he could so easily carry home a culture. Furthermore, it is an idiosyncrasy of the special worker to think first of the rarest thing. Did you ever hear of Casablanca? Probably not; it was twenty years ago.

"Casablanca was an eminent Brazilian bacteriologist who went insane and developed the pleasing habit of doctoring his neighbors' food. He used to have little dinners, and mix streptococci with the soup and spirilla with the salad. Now, if he had stuck to yellow fever and malaria and the like, he might have got away with it. But the passion of the experimenter misled him; he was ultra-scientific, like a Hopkins man." The doctor glanced side-long at me, preternaturally solemn; I graduated from Johns Hopkins. "So when his guests began to die of Asiatic cholera, 'lumpy jaw' and Malta fever, a certain amount of suspicion was aroused, and they pinched him. Yes. Exactly."

Here the car swung westward; we were nearing the Privaton College. The doctor yawned and stirred in his corner. "I wonder why our hypothetical bacteriologist took a labeled culture," said he. "No doubt he intended to return it next morning. It was hard luck to lose that stopper." He spoke in commiserating tones, as though pitying the misfortune of a deserving murderer.

The car pulled up before the long flight of steps, and we got out. Doctor Bentiron slouched wearily up into the building, and down the hall, hands thrust almost elbow-deep into his trousers' pockets. He wandered quite casually into the office of the professor of bacteriology; as always, his manner was as aimless as though he had found himself there by accident.

"I've a bit of cotton here," he began indifferently. "I'd like to have it plated and cultured."

"All right, doctor," agreed our host, looking up benevolently over half-lensed spectacles, "Any idea what's there?"

"Some pathogenic organism," said Doctor Bentiron vaguely, looking about with a sort of careless interest. "By the way, Howland, I've often wondered how you check up on your supply of virulent bacteria."

"We're trying out a new system," explained Professor Howland. "It is quite a job to keep track of them with all the students about; and some instructors are careless enough. One or two cultures were mislaid, and it rather worried me. Now I have made man responsible for all our supply of a given germ. Lowrie, for instance, keeps all the B. typhosus and the gonnococci; Rawlins has the Loeffler bacillus ; Minakoff, anthrax—"

"Minakoff ?" interjected the chief. "I didn't suppose he ever thought about anything but cancer."

"Yes," said Howland, "that's his special work, but we full-time men have to double up a little. He instructs post-graduate students in bacteriology for six weeks."

"Umphf," commented the doctor. "You were telling me how you check up your cultures."

"Yes. We keep a general culture register, and each man keeps a register of his own cultures, besides. When a culture is started, we give it a serial number and letter, with a serial numbering stamp. Then we paste numbered labels on plates and covers, test tubes and stoppers. That way there's no danger of mixing covers when two or more tubes are open at once." He picked up some small gummed labels from his desk, lettered:

"They are for anthrax," he went on. "I was just going to send them in to Minakoff. He stamps the number as he makes a culture and stamps it in his book. The machine prints the same number twice, then sets the next number automatically. A is for anthrax, of course; T, for typhoid, D, for diphtheria, and so on."

"A very good system, I should say, approved Doctor Bentiron.

"It's a little more trouble, of course, but it seems to work pretty well so far," agreed our host. "Saturday afternoon we checked up and found one culture of anthrax missing. Before we started this checking up it might never have been missed. As it was, we traced it at once. It seems that a graduate student in bacteriology— Doctor Kirke Stevens, class of 1906; perhaps you remember him."

The doctor nodded, unperturbed, rolling a sarcastic eye at me; for I was smiling in triumph. I felt that for once I had beaten the chief to a conclusion; even his final argument had pointed toward Stevens, for was he not specializing in bacteriology?

"Well, Stevens had this culture tube, and it seems he dropped and broke it. He told us about it when we questioned him, said he just poured carbolic on the spot and kept quiet. I suppose he hated to tell Minakoff. I don't wonder at it much; Minakoff is pretty severe with his students, but he came to us with a splendid reputation made abroad. He gave poor Stevens an awful calling down— told him never to dare to come into the laboratory again. Of course he cooled right down; these Russians are excitable."

"Exactly," agreed Doctor Bentiron. "Minakoff seems pretty happy about something to-day, though. I believe I'll drop in and see him. He said this morning he had something to tell me."

Professor Howland smiled  indulgently. "The man is hipped on cancer," said he. "I don't know what set him off to-day, but he's full of the proposed cancer research lab; spent an hour showing me plans for it. Of course it will be years before that money is available."

"Umphf," said the doctor, nodding almost imperceptibly in farewell, and went out into the hall.

Through a ground-glass door at its end I heard a deep voice rumbling some song. The chief jerked his head sideways, calling my attention to the sound, then knocked.

"Come!" called the same guttural tones, and we entered a big room, half office, half laboratory. At a wide, flat-topped desk sat Doctor Minakoff, deep in blue prints and specifications. His cheeks were flushed, his craggy features alight with smiles. He looked up at our entrance, deep-set eyes unnaturally bright.

"Ha, my friend," he shouted at sight of the doctor, "enter! Welcome! You come upon a good day." He rose awkwardly, unjointing himself to a surprising height, and thrust out a big, stained hand.

One of his prints fluttered to the floor; I caught it up. It was lettered "Floor Plan of Proposed Memorial Laboratory for Cancer Research."

"Be seated, my friend," Minakoff hurried on, laughing the high, whinny- ing laugh which contrasted strangely with his deep voice. "Let me talk with you. The dream of my life, it is to be realized. My name will stand with Metchnikoff— with Pasteur— with Virchow! It is here— all here!" he cried, brushing back the long hair from his perspiring forehead. His volubility seemed almost feverish, his voice shook with excitement, and his deep-set eyes glowed strangely from their cavernous sockets. I felt a faint repulsion; there was something unnatural about the man's tension.

"I have all here," he dashed on, slapping a pile of notebooks, "all my work. It wants only patience— routine experimentation by many workers— to be proved. The Minakoff cure of all malignant neoplasms! What is my life, or yours, to that?"

"Umphf,"' commented the doctor phlegmatically. "I think rather well of my life, Minakoff. But—"

A hurried rap at the door interrupted him. Before Minakoff could speak, Doctor Stevens' white face appeared. The big pathologist scowled terrifically at him, but Stevens paid no heed.

"Doctor Bentiron," he cried out without apology, "Doctor Bentiron! They said you were here. I must see you— must talk with you— I must explain— at once."

The doctor had subsided into a chair, tipped back against the wall. Now he rose with a reluctant sigh, and trailed out into the hall. I followed him unbidden, for I was bursting with excited curiosity. I felt that this sinister affair was about to be explained, and I must be there to have my little moment of triumph.

Stevens led us to a vacant classroom. Here the doctor dropped immediately into a corner chair and stared sadly at the skylight. "Umphf?" said he.

Stevens paced back and forth, worrying his coat front with restless hands. He kept drawing down his upper lip and gnawing at his short mustache. "I can't bear it!" he exclaimed brokenly.

"Saturday I broke a test tube— I did to explain it myself. I knew you'd hear about it down here, and it would sound so much worse unless I told it myself.

"Saturday I broke a test tube—I had too break it!" he shouted, meeting my skeptical eye. "I'm taking a course in bacteriology under Minakoff. Nobody saw me; it was a culture of anthrax, and I just scrubbed it up and said nothing— Minakoff is so rotten sarcastic! But I scrubbed and cleaned up perfectly well, I'm sure. And Sunday night poor Douglas and I got into a friendly scuffle. I was wearing the same coat— but I'm sure it couldn't have been infected. But I might have scratched his neck— I might have infected him! Oh, I can't sleep for think ing about it!' He wrung his hands. "What shall I do?"

An attendant thrust his head in at the door. "Doctor Stevens!" he called. "Telephone!"

With a frantic gesture, poor Stevens dashed out. The doctor sat unmoved, smoking sleepily and pondering upon the blank skylight. Presently Stevens rushed in again, his pouched face all disordered; a tear trickled down his sharp nose. "Oh! He's gone— he's dead!" He sobbed. "And I did it! Oh, did I do it?"

"Umphf," drawled Doctor Bentiron. "I think not— that way. Stevens!" The dull, tired voice was suddenly urgent. "Who gets Douglas' money now?"

The wretched man looked up in astonishment, his face tear-streaked. "Why," he stammered, "his aunt gets a third and the rest goes to Privaton, to build a laboratory for cancer research. Douglas had only a life interest."

"Exactly," said the chief. "A laboratory for cancer research— with Minakoff at the head, no doubt. Be content, Stevens, my son. You had nothing to do with your friend's murder."

"Murder!" exclaimed Stevens, starting up.

The doctor only yawned and heaved himself up. I followed him back to Minakoff's room. The bacteriologist was still fondling his blue prints and humming snatches of song. His sallow face was deeply flushed; he looked drawn and ill.

"So the memorial laboratory is to be built," drawled Doctor Bentiron, as though there had been no interruption.

"Yes, my friend— almost at once. And I— I am to have charge. It was Mr. Douglas' wish; he himself had cancer, you remember. He had faith in me"

"Umphf," said the doctor placidly. "I thought his nephew had a life interest in the estate."

"Pouf!" cried the other. "This nephew, what is he? An insect. Besides, he is sick— is it not so?"

"Exactly," agreed the doctor, giving him a curious, sidelong glance; a look that swept up and down his long, flat-chested frame and came to rest upon the gnarled, dye-stained hands. "By the way— Stevens, who was just in here, tells me he broke a culture tube on Saturday. What was the number of that tube?"

Doctor Minakoff picked up a big, ledger-like book and ran through the pages. "Here," said he. " 'Anthrax, for graduate students, numbers one hundred forty to one hundred eighty.' It was number 173— crossed off, as you see."

The chief glanced indifferently at the entry, through which a red line had been drawn. "All cultures not crossed off are here?" he suggested.

Minakoff hesitated for a breath. Then, "Yes," he declared. "In the incubator there, all together." He opened the door nonchalantly enough, but his hand shook.

"Exactly," drawled the doctor, his voice perfectly expressionless. "And number one hundred seventy-seven?"

The pathologist reared himself up, his bushy brows knit, and glared at the doctor with deep-set, blazing eyes. But even his indignation could not support that calm, intolerable gaze; his eyes wavered and fell.

"Vhat!" he cried, whipping up his anger; his deep voice was more than ever accented and guttural. "Vhat do you vith one hundred seventy-seven? This, it is impudence. To you I am not responsible!"

"No," agreed the chief indifferently, and yawned; his dull gaze fastened it- self again upon the other's hands. "Not to me. But you were careless; lament- ably careless. Didn't you know some one would find that labeled stopper?" He produced the little label in its glass covering.

Minakoff stood at gaze, his deep-set eyes glassy. A dark flush mounted to his forehead; he staggered back against the table, then recovered himself, laugh- ing crazily— a high-pitched, dreadful laugh,

"So!" he cried. "It was really there, and not on the street, as I thought! Ha! What am I saying?" He passed a stained hand before his eyes as though he were dizzy.

"Not on the street," pursued the doctor inexorably. "In young Douglas' room, under the bed."

"Pouf!" Minakoff laughed. The man seemed irresponsible; I wondered if he were quite sane. "It is nothing! What is the life of that insect to my work? He is sick— dying? So, good! Also, I admit nothing— there is no proof against me. As for that label— as for that— why, you have stolen it from my desk here— even now you took it. Give it up, I say!"

I stared in wonder; no sane man could expect such a story to be credited. but Minakoff ran on, eyes blazing wildly from under craggy brows; his dry, cracked lips twitched uncontrollably.

"You would steal from my laboratory! You also, like this young Douglas whom I killed, would set yourself against my work! No, I say— it shall not be!"

Flecks of foam sprang to his lips. He caught up a heavy microtome knife and leaped at the doctor, who through all this had sat idly smoking and brood- ing upon those acid-stained hands. I started forward, but there was no need; the doctor had moved with that lightning speed which his usual sluggishness masked. He pinned the frenzied man by the wrists, disarming him without effort, and stood so for a moment, holding the big hands before his eyes.

"Umphf," said the doctor contemplatively. "Yes. I thought so. 'He hath fallen into the pit which he digged.' "

He loosed the other's wrists, went over to the sink and washed his hands very carefully.

Minakoff, half fainting, dropped across the table, head among his scattered blue prints.

"Privaton will have its cancer research laboratory," said the chief not unkindly," but you will not be in charge, Minakoff. Come, Blakely."

With no more words he led the way out to the car, clambered in and slid himself down into his accustomed pose. "Home," he told the footman, and rolled a cigarette. "Umphf," he sighed, when it was burning well. "Blakely, my son, the older I grow the more I believe in the wisdom of non-interference."

"But aren't you going to do anything?" I demanded hotly. "It was a horrible, cold-blooded murder. Aren't you going to have this Russian arrested? He ought to be punished."

The doctor exhaled a great cloud of smoke. "Punished?" he drawled. "Let  him be. He is punished by a heavier hand than yours, my son. He must have spilled some of that culture there in the dark. Didn't you see his hands? There was a malignant pustule on his thumb, and the oedema of anthrax is already running up his wrist. He will die suffering as the man he killed suffered."

____________________

3: Redeeming Flames

Captain Henry Curties

1860-1928

Detective Story Magazine, 8 July 1919

THE rattling of the blind awoke me, and cool air blew in upon me. I sat up in bed. Slowly, as a dream action, a hand came under the shade, found the cord and cautiously pulled it. The shade rose and disclosed to me the face of my brother Herbert, white and haggard against the sheen of the summer night.

"What on earth are you doing here?"

The words came involuntarily; the strained look on his face relaxed as I spoke.

"Let me come in," he answered, "and I will tell you."

He swung his leg over the window sill, and came into the room; at the same time I jumped out of bed, slipped into my dressing gown and flicked on the electric light. He looked worse under it than he had done in the dim light, his eyes sunken and furtive and his weak mouth twitching ominously.

"Now," I said, sitting on the bed, "tell me all about it."

He gripped at my hand. "Look here, Jim," he said with a shake in his voice, "l'm in the most awful trouble."

I think I smiled a trifle unpleasantly. "I'm sorry to say, Herbert," I rejointd, "that there is nothing very novel about that remark. I and the rest of our family have heard it a good many times before. In the first place how did you get up here to my window?"

He waved the question aside as of no importance. "On the wall first from the road and then up the rainwater pipe to the balcony. There was nothing difficult about it." He pointed to his dress trousers, the knees of which showed signs of his climb. Though he had a weak will, he was muscular enough.

"Well!"

"You said just now, Jim," he proceeded, "that I had often come to you with troubles, but there's never been anything like this before. I'm afraid I've murdered some one."

I gripped the bed I sat on, and all the blood in my body seemed to go to my heart. This then was the appalling tragedy I had dreaded and had night- mares about. This was the summit of the poor, weak-willed creature's wick- edness. I controlled myself with an effort.

"Go on," I commanded.

"I've been staying with Bolder over in Jersey the last week," he proceeded. As a matter of fact, I had seen nothing of him for over a month. "And last night we came to town to dine and take in a theater."

I had a vivid idea of what that week with Bolder had been— drinking, gambling and reckless motoring.

He had let go of my hand, and now sat twining his own hands, one over the other.

"We changed our minds about the theater," he went on, "after we'd dined at Gaston's, and went to the Midnight Roof Whirl instead. Then we went on to the Red Domino."

"What is the Red Domino?"

"Well, it's a night club— where you can go when everything else is closed up," he explained apologetically. A place where they tango and fox trot and so on, and where you can get supper. There I met Dora."

"Who?"

"Dora Blake." He passed his hand over his white face, and there was a catch in his voice. "That's her real name, you know. I've been a bit soft on her for some time now," he continued vaguely. "Over head and ears, you know, and all that."

I said nothing and waited. Again the episode was not new.

"Last night she was prettier than ever, and she's got a way of looking at you when she dances that makes your head swim."

"Who is she?" I asked.

"She's got a small part in a revue at one of the roof gardens. She's quite straight and lives with her mother."

He saw a look of impatience on my face and changed the subject.

"She let me see her home. WVhen we came away in a taxi together, I was a bit lit up. She hadn't treated me particularly well at the club of late, so I had it out with her."

"Come to the point!" I cried sharply; my patience was giving out.

"That's just what I am doing," he continued. "She laughed at me and told me to get out of the taxi, if I was not satisfied. And then I did a foolish thing. I pulled out this."

He put his hand into a pocket of the loose light overcoat he wore, and produced a small nickel-plated revolver.

"Great Scott!' I cried, "What do you carry that thing about with you for?"

"Don't think I carried it to do her any harm with," he ex laimed frantically, "because I didn't. It was for protection, and—"

"And what?"

"Well, if you will have it, perhaps for myself."

I pictured what a state of mind, drink, weakness and depravity had brought him to.

"I pulled out the revolver," Herbert resumed, "and I swore that there and then, if she wouldn't promise to marry me, I'd shoot myself."

"And did you mean it?"

The trembling hand went over his thin, dissipated face again.

"Well, you see," he explained, "I'd been drinking a lot."

"What took place then?"

"At first she laughed. Then she began to think I was in earnest and tried to get hold of the revolver. Then it happened."

He stopped. I think speech had left him for the moment. He gave a great gulp, and proceeded:

"Jim," he said, "I'd as much intention of doing her any harm, as you or one of the girls, but we struggled together— and she's strong for a woman— the cursed thing went off! She gave a shriek, and I wonder the chauffeur didn't hear her, but he didn't, and then I saw some blood on the white silk scarf around her throat."

He buried his face in his trembling hands, and a great sob shook him. | went over and took him by the shoulder,

"If I am to be of use to you to-night," I said, "you must pull yourself together, and tell me all the details."

He started up at me, the agony of his mind looking out of his haggard eyes.

"Details, of course," he said in an aggrieved tone, "you lawyers must have details, every word of it; the thought of it all is enough for me."

"Unless you tell me everything, now quickly, the fact of my being a lawyer will avail you little."

"And if I do, you'll help me, Jim, won't you?"

"You may take it that I don't want to see my only brother, Herbert Danvers, arrested for murder. Where's the woman?"

"I'm coming to that," he said jerkily. "I told you that I saw a spot of blood on the scarf round her throat, then the spot got bigger, and she collapsed in a heap in the corner, groaned once or twice, and lay quite still."

It was pretty plain that he had killed the woman.

"What did you do then?" I asked.

"I didn't know what to do. I sat and wrung my hands and was sober in a moment. It all seemed so sudden and awful. Then in a moment I thought of something. It was pretty certain that if I went on to the Springfield Apartments on Washington Heights, where Dora lived with her mother, I should be arrested for murder. That would do her no good, and the best thing [ could do was to hide her."

He grasped my knee shaking with excitement.

"We had just passed One Hundred and Eighty-third Street, and something seemed to put into my mind a block of unfinished apartments near by. One half is completed and let, and the man who was building the other half went broke.

"I called the driver and told him to pull up at the entrance of the finished apartment house. When we stopped, I sent him up to the third floor with a fictitious message. The man went without the least suspicion. It was past two, and there was not a soul about. I lifted Dora out of the taxi and ran with her across a board into the shell of the unfinished flats. There I laid her down behind a wall while I went back to send the taxi away.

"I pulled the front blinds down before the man came back, and stood with my head in at the window pretending to be talking till the driver was in his seat again. Then I gave him five dollars, and told him to drive the lady to the Springfield Apartments."

"You must be mad," I muttered.

He took no notice of me, but went on: "I could see at once that she was dead when I got back to her, from the way she was lying huddled in a heap as I had left her, and then I thought as hard as I could how I could hide her. There was a little wooden office in the half-finished buildings, and I went over and tried the door, but it was fastened with a padlock; I managed to wrench out one of the staples with a bit of iron which was lying about, and then I saw that the place was empty. I determined to hide Dora in there and lock the door again."

"Mad!" I repeated.

"I lifted her in and laid her in the corner behind the door out of sight of the window and there I left her with the door locked again."

He sat there hopelessly, twisting his fingers one over the other, his eyes fixed on me as if for a suggestion.

"Why did you come to me?" I asked angrily. "Why must I be dragged into  this?"

He shrugged his shoulders in his old helpless way.

"I thought you could help me. There was no one else to go to."

The half-formed appeal in his voice touched me. I knew him to be friendless and helpless; and I was his only brother and ten years older.

"Does it strike you that this girl may not be dead after all, and that locking her up in that wooden shed shuts out the last chance of saving her? There is only one thing to be done now," I cried, starting up. ''We must go there at once, take her out, and get her, dead or alive, to the nearest hospital. It is your only hope, and the racket you must stand."

Like all weak-willed men he grasped at this new suggection with enthusiasm.

"Yes, you've got it," he cried. "I was a fool to leave her there. It was rotten of me altogether."

I dressed hastily, and he helped me as well as his nerves would permit. Ina few minutes I was ready. Then came the question of getting out without waking my mother, a light sleeper; but the carpets were thick, and presently we stood in the little garden, which adorns the backs of most of the houses in our section of Kingsbridge. It was then about three o'clock. The soft glow, which hardly seems to leave the sky on a summer's night gave us light.

We made our way to the subway and, after a long wait, finally got a train. My mind was full of bitterness, but I am thankful to say I held my tongue. We got out at One Hundred and Eighty- first Street, and started to walk to the half-finished row of apartments where the unfortunate girl had been left.

We were not within four blocks of our destination when I saw that some- thing was wrong in the direction we were taking; there was an ominous red glow in the sky, several people passed us at a run, and a fire engine turned into the street ahead of us.

At the next corner I began to have misgivings and shuddered as if a cold blast had passed over me that hot summer's night. I do not think the same thought had come to my brother, who plodded along at my side with his head down, and the collar of his coat turned up about his ears.

After proceeding another block, any doubt I might have had was ended and I broke into a run.

"It's that row of unfinished flats, a man shouted as he dashed past, and then I knew the worst.

My brother, ghastly pale, was hardly able to keep up with me as I ran.

"Jim, it's awful," he kept gasping. "It's awful."

Then I said something I was sorry for, but the words leaped to my lips.

"Awful!" I repeated. "Supposing she's not dead. What then?"

Herbert stopped and cried aloud, so
that I thought the people would lave noticed him.

"Don't!" he cried. sake, don't say that!"

Then he seized my coat and dragged me forward.

"Come on," he almost screamed, "we may be in time yet to get her."

But any hope in that direction was speedily extinguished when we reached the next street and came in full sight of the burning buildings.

Although we were among the first hundred to arrive, already a cordon of police, who seemed to have sprung from nowhere, were drawn across the road.

Without a moment's hesitation Herbert dashed at this line of police, and was at once caught and swung back.

He fought and kicked and at one moment ] thought he would have got through, but two or three policemen got hold of him. Still he struggled and cried:

"Let me go, let me go! I tell you my girl is in there!"

"There ain't no girls in there," a policeman responded. "It's just a block of unfinished houses with nobody living in 'em."

I think they would have taken him off had I not interfered and explained that he was my brother. Then I got him away into the fast thickening crowd and calmed him a little.

The unfinished shells of the block of apartments, with their bare wooden floors, burned like a bonfire, and it was pretty clear to me, although I knew little of such things, that the firemen could do nothing but let it burn out.

From the big doorway of the inhabited apartments trickled a stream of men, women and children, in little more than their night attire. I got a grip on my brother—  by the look of him I saw that he was near fainting— and whispered a few words in his ear.

"Where was it?"

He nodded his head toward a corner of the burning building, and there I saw that the plank he had told me of, leading from the path into the buildings was now—with that incongruity which is sometimes present in such scenes— untouched by the fire.

"And the shed?"

"Straight behind it."

I took my brother's arm and moved away; beyond the plank and all around it was one seething sheet of flame. | turned sick, and was commiserated by a friendly milkman, who led us into a side street, where already a_ small saloon had opened its doors.

"Seems to have turned you over a bit, hasn't it, mister?" he asked kindly. "You and the other gentleman looks as white as a sheet."

He was even more surprised when I ordered two stiff drinks of brandy, and my brother and I drank the stuff off without water.

Then, there being a convenient taxi standing outside the saloon, I thrust my brother into it and we drove off.

I gripped him by the throat. "Did you see that shed ablaze ?"

"No— no, For mercy's sake, was it—"

At least the evidence of his crime was destroyed.

IT was nearly half past one when I awoke the next day, after a series of nightmares, and it was the banging of the luncheon gong which roused me. On the couch with half my bedclothes over him lay my brother as he had fallen asleep moaning. That moaning seemed to punctuate what little rest L had,

After a bath I sent for Mallard, our old butler, and explained to him that Mr. Herbert was ill and a little off his head, and that he would have to look after him and, if necessary, send for a doctor.

The incident did not alarm old Mallard in the slightest; he was used to

Herbert. I had a more difficult task with my mother and the girls, who were anxious to know the details of my brother's latest escapade. Even my poor mother's sad face did not stifle an overwhelming desire which consumed me. I felt that I must go back to the scene of the fire. I wanted to see the end of it.

Luncheon finished, I stated my intention of going downtown. I ran up- stairs before I started and, finding my brother awake, warned him to keep silent on the events of the early morning. Then without losing another moment, I set out for the unfinished block of apartments. I took a taxi and borrowed the driver's afternoon paper, for I could not trust myself to read the news at home.

There was a fragmentary account of the blaze, but not a word about a body being found.

The scene of the fire did not tell me much more; a sleepy fireman was sitting in the sun reading a newspaper; there were the usual knots of loafers staring at the smoking ruins, and that was all. I tried to sound the fireman in charge.

"Anything been found?" I asked as casually as I could.

The man did not take my inquiry kindly.

"What should be found except brick-bats?" he rejoined.

"No bones?"

"What bones?"

That was all I got.

I still felt strangely restless and, as I strolled away, I remembered that the Springfield Apartments where the dead girl had lived were not far off. Something moved me to stop the first taxicab I met and drive there.

The Springfield Apartments I found comprised a solid-looking row of houses overlooking the river.

There was an elevator. I asked for Mrs. Blake's apartment, and I was taken up to the third floor. There I rang Mrs. Blake's bell. The door was presently opened by a neat-looking and entirely correctly dressed maid.

"Is Miss Dora Blake at home?" I asked, and I felt myself a hypocrite.

"Yes, sir. Will you step inside?"

"Are you sure Miss Dora Blake is in?' I asked, astounded.

She was a girl with blue eyes and she opened them wide.

"Yes, sir, certainly." Then she added after reflection: "Why shouldn't she be at home, sir?"

I troubled her with no further queries, but walked in, and was shown into a cheery little drawing-room with a river view. I gave my name as Brownlow.

Then there entered a tall graceful girl, with her throat strapped up with a little piece of lint, but otherwise looking in perfect health.

"How do you do, Mr. Danvers?" she said. "I expected you, and if I had not, I should have known you by your likeness to Bertie."

"You expected me?" I asked in a dazed way, as she motioned me to a seat.

"Yes," she proceeded in a very business like way. "You see I think Bertie has been going it a little too much lately, don't you?"

I agreed with her.

"That incident in the cab last night was the limit, and I thought it about time he had a lesson. He might have killed me or himself. When the wretched thing went off the shot just grazed my neck. I know I wasn't much hurt, but I thought I would give Bertie a lesson."

"Then you were not—" I asked in a dazed fashion. But oh, the relief of it!

She did not deign to answer me, but handed me her cigarette case.

"I pretended to be dead and I let him carry me into those deserted buildings, but I almost gave the show away once when he nearly dropped me."

"How did you get out of the shed?" I asked.

"Through the window; it was only latched."

"And then you came home?"

"Yes, then I came home, but I fancy the match I used to light a cigarette with must have set fire to the building."

"I should say it was very probable," I acquiesced.

"No one was hurt," she proceeded coolly, "and I have no doubt it was insured and the man was glad to get rid of it."

I offered no comment on this assertion.

"But what are you going to do with Bert?" she asked. sharply.

I shrugged my shoulders.

"Well, I propose this," she continued. "He has asked me to marry him, and I have a sister married to a rancher in the Argentine, who will give us a share in the ranch if we can raise four thousand dollars. It's a wonderful country and a wonderful chance. What do you say? I'll take care of Bert."

I thought it the very best proposition I had ever heard in the whole course of my life.

________________

4: A Troublesome Widow

Edgar Jepson

1863-1938

Cosmopolitan April 1935

UNDER THE LOW, large stars the Christabel lifted lightly to the swell, and Captain Duce, sweating and itching, pursued social knowledge through the pages of a novel.

He had landed the arms; he could read in what peace the stifling heat and the mosquitoes gave him.

The lights of Valdivia, mere glowworms against those large stars, twinkled faintly. They were reinforced suddenly by the flashes of a machine gun on the jetty, and the sinister rattle broke up the stillness and came echoing back from the hills.

Captain Duce pricked up his ears, frowning. Yes: it was a machine gun. He turned a page and read on.

The machine gun rattled away.

There came a pinging rap on the plates of the Christabel and another and another and another, till they rapped like hailstones on a windowpane.

Captain Duce seemed to put down the book, pick up the megaphone, spring across the deck, and loose off the quickfirer in one movement.

The shell screamed over the town and crashed and crashed again among the hills.

The machine gun stopped; the watch rose from. behind the bulwarks; the rest of the crew came tumbling up; all made for the stand of rifles amidships. Captain Duce spoke Spanish through the megaphone. It was not good Spanish, but nervous. It disposed briefly of the legitimacy of the Valdivians and made it clear that if they chipped any more paint off his ship he would knock their malodorous town off the map of South America.

The machine gunners understood and fired no more, but they did not answer. They had peppered the Christabel unwittingly. In their zeal they had failed to perceive that their target was in a direct line between them and her.

A faint cry of distress came across the dim and oily swell— a woman’s cry, not half a cable’s length from the steamer.

“Lower a boat and see what the trouble is, Mr. Evans,” Captain Duce said to his second officer.

In seven minutes the boat was back, and Mr. Evans was coming up the ladder carrying a woman.

Captain Duce frowned; he had little use for women anywhere, much less on the Christabel. He knew his officers; he had not chosen them for the amiability of their dispositions or the gentleness of their manners, but for qualities which made them good assistants in running guns. Mr. Flanagan, the first officer, was a hot-headed, impulsive Irishman, temperamental. Mr. Evans, the second, was a hot-headed, impulsive Welshman, temperamental. Confront them with even a near-attractive woman, and they would show temperament, dnd even in the dim light he could see that this was a near-attractive woman.

Mr. Evans stepped on to the deck and “It iss a woman. She hass got it in the neck. Leastways, she iss bleeding like a pig whateffer.”

“Take her into the spare cabin,” said Captain Duce, and went into his cabin for a small case of surgical instruments, bottles and a roll of bandages. Morton, the steward, hurried for hot water; Evans laid the woman on the bed. She had fainted, and was bleeding from the left arm and left shoulder. She was not near-attractive but attractive and young Captain Duce began to cut away at frock over the shoulder. His small strong, well-kept hands worked defily.

A sailor came in and dumped a suitcase on the floor.

“It wass in the boat. There wass a Small fat Dago in the boat and two Dago boatmen. They had got theirs whateffer,” said Mr. Evans in conversational accents. “The boat sank just as we pulled the leddy and the case out of it. The leddy had the luck whateffer.”

Morton brought a jug of hot water and towels. Captain Duce bared a white shoulder. There was a small hole high up in it, bleeding. He turned the girl over and found that the bullet had gone clean through, missing the lung.

“No harm there,” he said.

The shoulder was not bleeding fast; the arm was. A bullet had drilled the biceps; another had grooved it. He washed the wounds and bandaged them, stopping the flow of blood. He turned to the shoulder. It was a clean wound; but the splinters of bone were in it. It would be slow healing. He took a pair of thumb forceps and felt for them. The lady came to and cried out with the pain.

“Easy. It’ll save you trouble later,” he said, and held her firm and went on plying the forceps.

She writhed and cried out as he cleaned the wound of some of the splinters. Then he washed and bandaged it. She was quiet.

“Some surgeon whateffer,” said Mr. Evans.

“Easy. Ambulance-course training,” said Captain Duce. “I’d take that blood-soaked frock off, only she mightn’t like it. Mightn’t be much underneath in this climate,” he added doubtfully; then, in Spanish: “I'll let you put yourself to bed, Señora.”

“Si, si, señor,” she said faintly.

He gave her a dose of sal volatile; Morton cleared up the cabin, and they left her. As he went out, Captain Duce picked up the suitcase and took it with him. That machine gun might be mere political animosity, or there might be finance behind it. South American politicians seldom came away empty-handed; there might be plenty of trouble ahead.

As he shut the door of the lady’s cabin Evans said, “She iss wearing a wedding ring. Perhaps she wass the wife of that little Dago.”

“Good God, I hope not!” said Captain Duce, startled. “She’d be a widow, and I don’t like widows.”

One of the watch said that three boats had put off from the jetty and were rowing about the harbor.

“Don’t let anyone come aboard and don’t answer any questions, Mr. Evans. Just call me,” said Captain Duce, and he went into his cabin and bolted the door.

The suitcase contained many silk garments. He raised them and uncovered a sheaf of paper. The top sheet was richly and fancifully decorated, and the other sheets were exactly like it. He counted them, twice. There were a hundred and eleven of them— Liberty Bonds, each of one thousand dollars.

The President had looted the Treasury before leaving.

On second thought, they might be his savings. South American politicians often saved up against a rainy day.

Thoughtfully Captain Duce put the bonds back in the suitcase and dropped it into a locker and locked it.

Mr. Evans knocked at the door and said that there was a boat alongside. Captain Duce heard voices bawling in Spanish and a poor English. He walked quietly to the port quarter and looked down into a big boat full of men armed with rifles.

He did not ask them what they wanted. In workmanlike but expletive Spanish he asked them what they meant by firing on his ship. For some minutes they were at cross-purposes. He wished. to know what they meant by spoiling his paint, and what they proposed to do about it. Had they brought the money to pay for the repainting, and if not, when were they going to bring it? Did they think that he had sold them the finest machine guns for a mere song for them to start knocking the paint off his ship the moment they had them?

At last the stout man who had been dancing with hysterical abandon in the stern sheets of the boat, as he tried to outquestion Captain Duce and make it clear that it was not his paint that was of prime importance but the boat they had fired at, a boat which had been making for the Christabel, gave it up and sat down.

Captain Duce came to the end of his breath in time. Thereupon the stout man apologized, hoarsely, tor the error of the machine gunners and promised to lay the matter of the payment for the damage before the Revolutionary Committee in control of the town. Appeased, Captain Duce let him get in his question about the boat.

Yes; Captain Duce had seen a boat— at least, his boat’s crew had seen one. The boat sank just as they reached it; it looked to be full of dead men.

“You didn’t save one of them, Señor?”

“Not a single man,” said Captain Duce truthfully. “They sank like stones.”

“Did any of your men see what they were like?”

Captain Duce turned to Mr. Evans and spoke to him; then he said: “My officer says that one looked to be a caballero, short and fat, and two were boatmen.”

“Short and fat! Madre de Dios! It was the President!” cried the stout man.

A hubbub arose in the boat. Three or four voices cried out that the money was lost— they seemed to know their President— at the bottom of the harbor. An excited discussion followed; someone suggested that the President had been rescued; they must search the Christabel.

Captain Duce thought hard. He told Mr. Evans to get up the rest of the crew quickly and arm them.

The stout man stood up again; he said: “We must request you to let us Search your ship, Señor.”

“Very well, Señor,” said Captain Duce haughtily. “Three of you may come aboard, unarmed.”

He muttered a word to the crew, and with a jingling of rifles they lined the bulwarks above the boat. Then he told Mr. Evans to be slow with the ladder, and hurried to the cabin of the rescued lady. He found her awake, but very pale.

“Some Valdivians are going to search the vessel. Will they know you?” he asked.

“Si, Señor,” she said faintly.

“Well, hide your face with your hair and pretend to sleep.”

She nodded and settled down on the pillow and feebly pulled her hair over her face. He added the finishing touches, leaving most of the cheek bare but every salient feature hidden. Taking the bloodied frock, he locked it up with the suitcase, then hurried to the head of the ladder to see the stout man and two of his friends coming up it. He told Mr. Evans to show them every corner of the ship, and to give them a good dose of the hold and the engine room; he would show them the deck cabins himself.

Captain Duce, wearing a contemptuous air, handed the Valdivians over to Mr. Evans, and after telling Morton to bring soda water and glasses, went back to his cabin and set a bottle of whisky and a flashlight on the table. Then he took up his book.

It was not till three-quarters of an hour later that Mr. Evans appeared at the door of his cabin with the three Valdivians, very hot and dirty and bedraggled.

“You’d like to see the deck cabins,” said Captain Duce amiably, taking up the flashlight. “But we must go quietly. My wife sleeps badly in this oven, and if she is awakened she is angry.”

The stout man gave him a look of understanding.

Before the cabin of the rescued girl the captain made the stout man stoop down so that he could see that there was no one under the bed, opened the door very gently, ran the ray slowly round the cabin, let it rest for two or three seconds on the head on the pillow, then very gently shut the door. He showed them the cabin of Mr. Evans and the red head of the sleeping Mr. Flanagan, then took them into his own cabin and gave them whisky and soda.

They were indeed grateful, and the stout man sat on the locker which held the Liberty Bonds. He protested that their search had been purely formal, and they left the vessel, satisfied with their search but unhappy at their failure to find their President— and the money.

The lights of Valdivia burned through the night, and there was a bustle in the town. Captain Duce went to bed. He rose  three times to look to the wounded girl. With the light he conned the Christabel through the channel into the Pacific. When she was settled on her course to the north, he went to his patient’s cabin and found her awake, her cheeks less bploodless. In the light of day she did not look so Spanish; her eyes were blue, her hair dark brown. She was more than pretty, and she looked to him intelligent and quick-tempered.

In his halting Spanish he said: “We are out of the harbor, and I have your money safe.”

“Madre de Dios!” she said; then in English, “But how fortunate!” She added: “And my husband— the President— did the revolutionaries get him?”

“I’m afraid they got him.”

“He is dead?”

He nodded.

She looked at him with somber eyes. After a pause she said: “I do not pretend to sorrow. Señor Morales was a pig; I detested him. It was a marriage of— how do you say it?— of force. No; of compulsion. Yes; of compulsion. And his jealousy— abominable, I assure you. But you would not understand. No.”

"I suppose you’d like me to land you at some port— Panama— Colon? I’m going back to England through the Canal,” said Captain Duce hopefully.

She looked at him doubtfully, frowning, and said that she did not know what to do; she did not understand why the revolutionaries had not taken her and the money. He told her that they had not seemed to know anything about her being with the President and had accepted his statement that she was his sleeping wife without looking at her.

“But they will learn from Guayaquil that I was with Señor Morales— my husband— as soon as the telegraph is repaired. He cut the wires in three places as we came over the mountains. The navy will come after us, or they will take me on the way to Panama.”

Captain Duce could have kicked himself for not thinking to tell the stout Valdivian that she had sunk with the President. The navy of Ecuador was not good, but they had a destroyer or two that could easily catch the Christabel before she reached Panama. Probably also they would seize the Christabel and try to confiscate her for helping the President’s wife to escape.

“I could get to Callao all right, probably, and land you there,” he said.

She shook her head feebly and said: “The Peruvians hated Señor Morales. He took the mines above Cofocora. They would give me up.”

She had talked too much. He told her not to worry. but to go to sleep; he would find a way out.

He changed the course of the Christabel. He was going to play for time— a little hide and seek on the Pacific expanse. Two hours later he changed the course again, steering due west.

He went to the lady’s cabin, and she awoke at the opening of the door. He asked what she wished him to do.

“Is there much money?” she said.

“A hundred and eleven thousand dollars, I make it.”

Her eyes shone, and she said: “But that makes it easy. You take me to England in this ship. I pay you two thousand dollars, three thousand, five— whatever is right. I would not land alone anywhere in South America with that money. It would be stolen. I will go to my mother’s family— Penhaligons they are— in Cornwall. I shall be safe there. You will take me?”

“I’ll think about it.”

“Oh, but you will help me! I know you will!”

“I'll think it over,” he said, and left her.

A little thought showed him that he must take her to England as she wished, and the only safe way was round the Horn. He decided to take measures.

The quick-firer, which had adorned his deck only as a pledge of good faith— the good faith of the revolutionaries sank with its platform into the hold; painters set about brightening the unobtrusive gray of the steamer with three broad vermilion stripes round her smoke-stack and a broad vermilion stripe round her hull; the carpenter was raising the deck house eighteen inches with a false roof, before they painted it white; a deck hand was erasing her name. Before noon the next day the gray Christabel had vanished from the face of the Pacific, and the gayer Hester Pritchard was steaming down it in her place.

That evening Captain Duce, having locked up the Liberty bonds, took the suitcase to Señora Morales and went into the matter of these bonds. She took the reasonable view that they were hers: she had married the President because if she had not he would have sent her sick father to prison, where he would have died at once, and when, presently, he did die, had taken possession of her property, which the revolutionaries would now confiscate. The bonds represented her property.

His mind at ease, Captain Duce went into the question of whether the new government would be able to trace the bonds. She thought it would find it difficult; on the evening of their flight, her sagacious husband had emptied into the Treasury ten barrels of the best paraffin his country produced, and set fire to it, destroying all records and also diverting the attention of his fellow citizens from his departure. Nevertheless, Captain Duce thought she would be wise to get rid of the bonds a few at a time. In the meantime, she had better say nothing to anyone about them.

Then he told her that he would take her to England if she would pay the extra cost of the journey round the Horn. Joyfully she accepted the offer.

That gave Mr. Flanagan and Mr. Evans the opportunity to make themselves agreeable to her, and they set about doing so with enthusiasm.

Captain Duce watched the progress of the affair with interest and curiosity and in expectation of trouble. The weather was good; the Hester Pritchard ate up the miles peacefully, giving the two mates little to do. They could spend most of their time when on duty— and all of it when not— with the invalid, and they did. Her couch was against the wall of the captain’s cabin, and the ports were open; he could hear everything they said, and they knew it, so that it was no matter of eavesdropping.

Their methods of winning the lady’s heart interested him, or rather their method, for both tried to make themselves valued by telling her the history of their lives. Hour in, hour out, they were impressing on her what splendid fellows they were by the narration of some striking incident in their careers, afloat or ashore.

Neither of them seemed aware that there was a history of the lady’s life, and Captain Duce heard nothing of it, as he would have preferred to do if he must have histories of lives poured into his ears. Their lives soon bored him. He thought they must bore the lady.

If they did, she did not let it be known; her murmur of wonder or admiration came as pat at the fourth narration of an incident as at the first. They were the only amusement she had, and Captain Duce thought it must be indeed flattering to her to have two such adventurous men absorbed in her.

IT was, indeed. Carmencita found it thrilling. Her mother had died when she was twelve; till her marriage she had lived at Guayaquil the strictly guarded life of the Spanish girl; her marriage had been free from romance; after it, her jealous husband had contrived to keep her life nearly as guarded. And here she was, free, with two splendid men vying to win her favor. She was dazzled; she had never had an affair of the heart, and here were two. She was too much of a woman to suffer from that embarrassment of riches. With inborn skill she played one against the other.

For eight days. Then she became aware of Captain Duce. Mr. Flanagan and Mr. Evans had exhausted their romantic possibilities. Captain Duce awoke her curiosity, and his insensibility, in the face of the passion his two officers so openly lavished on her, was not only remarkable but annoying.

She seemed to be of no interest to him. None of the three of them seemed to be of any interest to him. He sat with them at their meals, silent in the midst of their liveliest talk. What did he think about as he sat there so silent? Could he be in love and thinking of the girl?

But in truth he was greatly interested in them. Mr. Flanagan and Mr. Evans were long past speaking to each other; now, if either had to ask the other to pass the butter, he asked him in accents coldly murderous. The lively talk was duologues between one or the other of them and Carmencita. Captain Duce was faintly amused, but he was wondering how much longer she could go on playing them against each other before they broke out.

He must do his best to prevent murder, for he would have to hand the survivor over to the authorities, and that would frustrate his design of getting Carmencita, with her Liberty bonds, off the Hester Pritchard without the government of Ecuador ever learning that she had been on her. Not that he had any great personal interest in Carmencita; but he did like to do a job thoroughly.

Carmencita’s interest grew, and discreetly and with the most casual air she tried to satisfy her curiosity. Mr. Flanagan had a vague story that the captain had been the son of a rich ship-owner who went bankrupt and died when his son had been at school, and that young Duce had left school and gone into the Mercantile Marine. On getting his master’s certificate he had gone into partnership with an arms merchant, fitted out the Christabel; he did the gun-running part of the business, and did it damn well. Mr. Evans could only tell her that there was a story about Duce having half killed a man in Shanghai, a captain who had hazed him when he was an apprentice. He’d got that scar on his forehead in doing it. That did not lessen her interest in him.

Then, almost suddenly, the difference between him and her large admirers struck her: his lean, small head and their well-covered large ones; his small, lean, well-kept hands and their large, fat, rough ones; his quiet sureness and their rather noisy self-assertion. It dawned on her that he was much the better man. As a woman does, she began to crave the best man in her circle.

Then, rounding the Horn, the Hester Pritchard ran into bad weather and Carmencita was very seasick. Mr. Flanagan and Mr. Evans were assiduous, and she hated them. Captain Duce did not come near her, and she hated him.

It was only natural that when they ran into good weather and she recovered and came out of her cabin, she should be cruel first to Mr. Flanagan, then to Mr. Evans. Mr. Flanagan ascribed her cruelty to Mr. Evans, Mr. Evans to Mr. Flanagan, and the outburst came.

Captain Duce was in the chart room when he heard a stamping on the deck and the sound of fists upon flesh, then a scream from Carmencita, as she ran into her cabin and banged her door and shot the bolt. He looked out and saw Mr. Flanagan and Mr. Evans fighting in the waist, attended by the delighted watch, and the rest of the crew arriving. He was relieved; they might fight with their fists till the cows came home. He knew exactly what he was going to do, and he went to his cabin and took two pairs of handcuffs from a drawer and dropped them into his pocket; then he watched the fight through the door of the deck house. He let them hit each other until both were groggy.

Then he went briskly down the deck, and saying, “Stop this! Stop this!” stepped between them.

It fell out as he had expected; both were too mazed to perceive his interposition; Mr. Flanagan hit him and Mr. Evans hit him, feebly but unmistakably. He stepped back and cried sharply: “Mutiny! Put them in irons, Mr. Jackson!” and passed the handcuffs to the boatswain.

In less than three minutes they were overpowered and handcuffed and locked in their cabins.

Captain Duce and Carmencita dined alone, and politeness compelled him to talk to her. She seemed but little distressed by the plight of her admirers, and heard that they would be put ashore at Port Louis with an indifference that proclaimed her heart-whole.

The next morning the Hester Pritchard reached Port Louis and Captain Duce went ashore. He found himself in luck; an old freight steamer, the Doreen, had foundered fifty miles from the port; her crew had reached it in her boats. Before he had arranged for the coaling, the delighted skipper and first mate of the Doreen were the first and second officers of the Hester Pritchard.

Mr. Flanagan and Mr. Evans, softened by soreness, handcuffs, bread and water, and the knowledge that they had violated every canon of maritime decency, heard with relief that the captain did not propose to log them for mutiny and hand them over to the authorities for trial, but to put them ashore with their dunnage, their pay, and their bonus for successfully running the guns.

They thanked him warmly and went ashore after dark. Carmencita’s farewell was distinguished rather by politeness than by sorrow; but they were not deeply hurt. Their passion was at the moment in eclipse; they were sheepish; they felt that their behavior had not been quite gentlemanly.

The next morning the Hester Pritchard left the Falkland Islands on her long climb up the world, her captain’s mind at ease in the assurance that he was now free from all trouble in the matter of his passenger. He did not dream that she was rejoicing immensely that she now had him to herself.

She was right. Mr. Baggett and Mr. Simpson, the new mates, married men with families, did not count. At meals, oppressed by the need for manners, they said little. Captain Duce felt bound to lighten the loss of the admirers of whom he had rid her, and he talked to her, not only at meals, but now and then during the day and evening he would bethink himself of his politeness and spend an hour lightening that loss.

By accident he hit on a fascinating subject— fascinating at any rate to her. Having no small talk, in his direct manner he talked about her. And how flattering his interest was! Carmencita thought— so much more flattering than the hearty passion of her lost admirers.

He grew interested in the subject himself. He had a curious and unusual mind; he wished to know things, a great many things. Also, he was so used to allowing no serious place for a woman in
his carefully planned life that he did not observe. that he was becoming more and more aware of the fact that he had an uncommonly pretty teacher, and was spending more and more of his time with— and greater pleasure in her society.

She was slowly satisfying her curiosity, which had grown keener and keener, about him. Unlike her lost admirers, he seemed under no impulsion whatever to tell her the history of his life. But she obtained facts, one at a time, by questions judiciously inserted in the discussion of the main subject. She learned of his strange desire to know a great many things; also she learned that he had a definite scheme of life and was resolved to let nothing interfere with carrying it through: he was going to have a little place in the country near a golf course, with a good library, and spend two months every summer in the capitals of Europe.

Golf had no appeal for her; but she would be with him. And to spend two months every year with him in a European capital! In Paris— the dream of the South American!

He found the voyage, as a rule so slow, passing very quickly. For her time flew. He never thought of making love to her, but at times he was surprised at the violence of his desire to do so; it taxed his natural self-control to the limit.

She was astonished, amazed even, that he did net. There were times when she was stricken by a dreadful fear— when, for example, she had gone to bed, aching for his kisses, but unkissed— that their association really meant little to him. But she assured herself that it was all right, that he was like that, that these men of action were— undemonstrative: he must be very, very fond of her.

SO THEY CAME in a cold dawn into Falmouth harbor, and the bustle and press of business that awaited him in left in him no room for the softer emotions.

She took her fill, in one of his overcoats, of her first sight of England, then went back to her cabin to keep warm while the Christabel was berthed. He came to it later with her Liberty bonds, She packed them in her suitcase, night before, she had suggested that he should take her to the Penhaligons, since she would feel horribly ill at ease descending on them alone, and he had said it was unlikely that he would have the time, for he had a hundred things to arrange before he could hurry off to London to his partner, who must be furiously impatient to see him. But she had never doubted that he would make time.

At breakfast his mind was full of his business, but he told her he had wired to the Penhaligons that she was coming, and her local train left in three-quarters of an hour, an hour before the express he was catching to London.

“But aren’t you coming with me?” she said blankly.

“I’m afraid I haven’t the time.”

She swallowed her disappointment and said: “And when will you come to St. Brendan’s?”

“There’s very little chance of my finding time to do that.”

“Then I will come to London,” she said.

He looked at her doubtfully and said: “I expect I shall be rushed off my feet. Roberts will have another cargo waiting for me to get off with at once.”

Suddenly she understood: it was over.

She was dazed by the shock— the world went dim. She was vaguely aware that Mr. Baggett called him away. Presently she found herself sitting on her bed in her cabin trying to grasp the dreadful fact, trying not to grasp it. Then a sailor came to carry her suitcase to the station.

She was just aware that she must not let Captain Duce even guess her feeling for him, and she pulled herself together and went on deck. She even contrived to force her face into the semblance of a smile when she shook hands with him and said good-by. She did not thank him; she could not trust her voice.

As she turned her back and stepped on to the gangway there was a sudden violent upheaval in the depths of Captain Duce’s being; he seemed to awake with a shock; something was going out of his life— something that must not go.

Then, in the middle of the gangway, she stumbled, and burst out crying.

He stared at her as she walked along the quay, seeing the pitiful way her shoulders were shaking. They seemed to pluck at his heartstrings. He had not known that he had heartstrings.

“Oh, hell!” he said loudly, and ran across the gangway and along the quay. He overtook her and caught her arm and turned her round and said: “Stop it! You’re coming to London with me! Stop it!”

Not for a dozen yards did she understand that he was with her, that she was not going to be alone. She raised her eyes, already beginning to shine, and said, choking a little, “You’re really very fond of me, George?”

“I should jolly well think I am!” said Captain Duce.

___________________

5: The Infernal Machine

Edgar Jepson

Star (Sydney) 2 March 1910

THE ROOM was all a hard glitter; for electric lights had been set in the old glass chandelier, and its hundreds of lustres flung the white rays backwards and forwards from one to another in a dazzling interchange, and multiplied them to thousands. So hard was the glitter that the late device of civilisation produced an effect of crude barbarism. Its staring brilliance even struck a dull gleam out of the tarnished gilt of the old French furniture.

Prince Paul Urusoff stood very still before the blazing fire, a resplendent figure in his general's uniform. Its gold lace, the orders on his breast, the  scabbard of his sword, all agleam in the white glare. In the perfect balance of hard muscles and calm nerves he stirred no more than a statue.

The servant turned from the table and said:—

"All is ready, Highness."

"You know what, you have to do?" said Prince Urusoff

"Yes, Highness," said the man, and went quietly out of the room.

Prince Urusoff stood smiling, and presently the door opened and Constanin Urusoff came in. He blinked in the glare as he saluted his father, came to his side, and stood looking down into the fire, silent, frowning in an uneasy perplexity, with troubled eyes.  Prince Urusoff turned a little and watched him.

They were very plainly father and son. Constantin, under the hammering of responsibility, might even come to look as grim as his father. He stared into the fire a while, then gave himself a little shake and said, "Did you dine at the palace?"

"Yes; and they gave me dry champagne. I hate it— English muck!" said his father.

"They should know better than that," said Constantin.

"Know better? They know nothing nowadays," growled Prince Urusoff. "Where's Elizabeth?"

"Colonel Svalon is bringing her from the opera."

"Svalon? It's always Svalon; they're never apart, I can't understand why you don't find some, way of stopping it," said Prince Urusoff, frowning.

"I don't interfere. It would be no good. Elizabeth would be hurt. Besides, I want nothing she does not give freely— nothing."

"But it makes you unhappy."

Constantin shrugged his shoulders.

"I don't understand it— to be unhappy without making a fight for it. I suppose it is modern," said Prince Urusoff. "Besides, women are not won like that. When I was young it was different, I should certainly have challenged Svalon."

"If I killed Svalon, it would profit me no more with Elizabeth than if Svalon killed me. She would have a horror of me. She's the gentlest creature."

"The important thing is that she should be happy with you. And— well; we shall see. I think we shall see," said Prince Urusoff; and again his eyes were dancing with mischief, and the smile broke the grim lines of his face. They were silent, and Constantin's troubled eyes stared into the fire.

There was a murmur, the door opened, a servant announced the Countess Zakomelsky and Colonel Svalon, and Elizabeth came into the room, blinking in its glare. Her blue eyes were shining; the clear skin of her rather pale cheeks was flushed; one after another quick smiles wreathed her sensitive lips. She looked a supremely happy child. The staring white light robbed her beauty of some of its color and deepened her air of fragility

Black-eyed, black-haired, high-colored, Colonel Svalon followed her into the room with a gait springy almost to jerkiness. His high cheek-bones and the slight upward slant of the eye-slits showed a strong strain of Tartar blood in him; he looked a man of coarser and even harder grain than the two Urusoffs.

Prince Urusoff's grim face relaxed in an indulgent smile at the sight of Elizabeth; and he bent to kiss her hand with an air almost of devotion. Elizabeth held out both her hands to Constantin; and as he took them she said inn her clear, childlike voice, "Colonel Svalon has just told me another story— a splendid story."

"He is a lucky man to have so many to tell," said Prince Urusoff, as the three men saluted one another.

They sat down at the table, Elizabeth facing Svalon, Constantin facing the Prince. The talk was easy, unchecked, unbroken by pauses. Constantin did not smile often, not even at Elizabeth, but he took a sufficient share in it. Elizabeth seemed to have no ears for anyone but Svalon. She listened to him with shining eyes, parted lips, and flushed cheeks, bent all the time a little towards him.

Under tho stimulus of her eyes and the champagne he talked more and louder, telling them what he had done and what he would do— or, rather, telling Elizabeth; more and more he addressed himself to Elizabeth. There was nothing of the boaster about him. It was the talk of a man who had done things, and, sure of himself, was resolved steadfastly to do greater things. But it was always the unrelieved egotist who spoke.

Svalon had worked and fought for Svalon, and he was going to work and fight for Svalon, and for no one and nothing else. He sneered at the Panslavistic dream; the conquest of Persia, himself the conqueror, was his goal. The East was the proper field for the exercise of his peculiar talents.

Once, when there were no servants in the room, he broke out about the Czar that rankling grievance of the Russian ruling class, speaking of him as "that cowering rat, Nicky Miloush," who could, never keep a decent man near him, whose passion for sneaking a finger into every pile hampered everyone.

Prince Urusoff flattered him, applauding his designs, urging him to develop his plans further. He seemed resolved that his guest should display his powers to the full.

At the end of another discussion of the conquest of Persia he said, with sincere admiration, "You're a great man, Colonel Svalon."

"He is a superman— dreaming in empires," said Elizabeth, softly; and she gazed at him with fascinated eyes.

The three men looked at her. A slow flush gathered in Svalon's face; his restless eyes were still devouring her, and he said, slowly, "I don't know what a superman is, Countess. I'm a soldier— but I have other dreams!"

They seemed to be alone together— to have forgotten the other two. There was a dull, painful anger in Constantin's eyes.

"Open another bottle of champagne, and you can leave us, Vassili," said Prince Urusoff to the servant.

They sat silent. Elizabeth was gazing down with rapt, unseeing eyes. Svalon and Constantin gazed at her. At the pop of the champagne cork all three started.

Vassili put the bottle on the table and went out of tho room.

Constantin and Svalon looked at one another with hostile, challenging eyes.

"A great scheme," said Prince Urusoff,

None of them seemed to hear him. He had been sitting bent forward with his right arm on the table. He drew himself upright; and in a louder voice said,

"One of you is wearing a watch which ticks very loud."

"I'm not wearing a watch," said Svalon.

Constantin shook his head.

"It must be yours, Elizabeth," said Prince Urusoff.

"No; my watches are at home," said Elizabeth.

"It's odd. I hear a ticking. Listen!" said Prince Urusoff.

They were all quiet.

"Yes; there is a ticking— in the corner. It comes from Marie Antoinette's cabinet," said Elizabeth.

Constantin rose, went to tho cabinet, and opened its doors. There were a few pieces of bric-a-brac on tho shelves, but no watch or clock. With a sudden movement he bent towards the floor, drew himself upright, and turned to them. His face was very pale, but he said quietly,

"There is nothing. Let's go to the drawing-room, father."

There was a curious tense silence moment.  Constantin's eyes met those of Prince Urusoff and then those of Svalon. None of the three men looked at Elizabeth.

"Come along, Elizabeth," said Prince Urusoff, rising.

"Why? It's very pleasant "

Then the compelling force in Prince Urusoff's tone struck her; her voice died down suddenly; and she rose and moved along the side of the table, a faint, groping wonder in her eyes.

With strides which were not quick but long, Svalon was at the door, opening it for her. It seemed to stick; and the handle jarred to his tug.

"There's something wrong with the lock," he said, on a strident note.

"Allow me," said Prince Urusoff, letting Elizabeth's hand fall from his arm. He turned the handle, shook it and loosed it.

"The door's locked," he said.

"The window," said Svalon; and he went the length of the room in three strides.

"It's no use— forty foot from the ground and barred," said Prince Urusoff.

Svalon threw it open, gripped one of the bars, and shook at it. An icy wind blew into the room, and a hundred snow-flakes fluttered round his head as he shut the window; and for all the icy blast his forehead was shining.

"What— what— oh, the ticking. It's an infernal machine!" cried Elizabeth.

Constantin caught her hand, and said, "There's no need to be frightened. We've found it in plenty of time to get you away."

She gasped and sobbed once, and stood quiet, trembling.

Svalon came springing, back to the door, and struck it hard with his Hut, testing it. "We must break out a panel," he cried.

"Kyshtim oak, forty years old, and more than two inches thick," said Prince Urusoff.

Svalon sprang to the fireplace— he seemed able to move only in leaps— snatched up the thin poker, and flung it down. "No use; and this flimsy furniture would smash like touchwood against that door," he said, and stood still glowering round at the rosewood chairs and couches.

Constantin ran across the room to him, seized his arm, and shook him savagely, "Where's your resource, man? You must get Elizabeth away!" he cried, hoarsely.

"Can't you see these cursed revolutionist have all the resources? This room was built for them," growled Svalon. He stood hunched together, his brow puckered, his eyes half-closed in an intense concentration.

"Can we pull up a plank and throw the thing out of the window?" cried Constantin.

Without a word Svalon bounded to the corner, and Constantin was nearly as quick. They dropped on their knees, wrenched up the carpet, ripping it from the nails, and dragged it back, upsetting the cabinet. The ticking rang out louder.

"New screws," said Constantin, bending over the bared planks. They stood up and stared round the room, seeking some makeshift tool.

"The knives!" said Svalon, leaping to the table. He snatched up a knife, set his heel on the blade, snapped it in half, and was back in the corner, on his knees, working away at one of the screws which hold down the plank. Constantin was  quick to imitate him. The thin blades chipped and bent; not a screw moved half a turn. Prince Urusoff watched them, with his arm round Elizabeth. Svalon broke three knives and Constantin two before they relaxed in their fruitless efforts.

They rose and looked at one another, and came back to the table. There was no longer any springiness in Svalon's gait; he sank limply into a chair and wrapped a napkin round his bleeding fingers.   Constantin set himself as a shield between Elizabeth and the corner, looking at her with a fury of pity and horror in his eyes. She held her head high, but she was moistening her dry lips with the tip of her tongue. In their silence the sound of the ticking came very, clear.

"So— we are caught like rats in a trap," said Prince Urusoff; and he sat down.

"Like rats in a trap," snarled Svalon. There came two gasping, strangled sobs from Elizabeth; Constantin made a step towards her. She checked her sobs by a convulsive effort and was very still. The ticking struck very loud on their strained ears.

"It's absurd— monstrous— execrable! Cut off like a rat in a trap— at the beginning of things!" shouted Svalon, violently; and he burst into a storm of execrations at the revolutionists.

"Howling won't mend matters," mild Constantln.

Svalon was silent. Then, in a fresh spasm of energy, he rushed to the window, opened it, and shouted for help. The others watched him. His voice drowned the sound of the ticking. It was a relief.

Prince Urusoff said, "The window opens on to the courtyard. Not a servant will be out in it on a night like this. With that wind blowing, no one will hear you."

Svalon banged the window and came down the room, cursing again.

"Don't make such a noise, I can't hear the ticking if you make such a noise," said Elizabeth, fretfully.

"The Countess sets you an example of composure, Colonel," said Prince Urusoff.

"Curse composure!" said Svalon. But he looked at Elizabeth, and some of the savage rage faded out of his face.

"God, it is hard!" he said. "At the beginning of tilings —the very beginning of things. And you, too, Countess— to lose you too!" He threw out his hands. "Everything was coming my way— everything."

Elizabeth, gazed at him with curious, searching eyes, and a faint blush warmed her pale cheeks. He took a stop towards her and held out his arms.

"Come, let us die together. It's all that's left— a few kisses."

Elizabeth took a step backwards,

"No; you're wrong, I'm not— I wasn't— coming to you, Colonel Svalon," she said, quickly,

"This is no time for timidities. We're out of the world. You can be yourself; there will be no one to tell, eh, Highness?" said Svalon.

"There will be no one to tell," said Prince Urusoff.

Svalon made another step towards her, smiling.

"Quick! We have not long— three kisses, perhaps."

A faint repugnance shone in Elizabeth's eyes, a little shiver shook her.

"No," she said, in a faint voice, but clear. "You're wrong— quite wrong. Never, had we been living, would you have kissed me."

"I think I should," said Svalon, quietly. "But what does it matter, now?" He dropped into a chair, filled a glass with champagne, drank it slowly, and then another. The ticking rang out in the silence as jarring as a cracked bell. It hammered on their ears.

"Oh, will it be long? It's dreadful waiting," cried Elizabeth, and her voice broke in a sob.

"Poor Elizabeth! Don't be so frightened. It will be very quick. You will know, nothing— feel nothing— nothing at all," said Constantin, gently; and there was a poignant tenderness, an aching regret, in his tone.

"But It's so dreadful, waiting," she wailed; and then, softly, "Hold me, Constantin."

Constantin made a step forward, and his arms were round her. She raised her face, and their lips met.

"Oh, Elizabeth— poor Elizabeth!" he groaned.

"So that was how the land lay. I thought so," growled Svalon; and, scowling at them, he poured out another glass of champagne. Prince Urusoff laughed softly; then he said, "I think the joke has gone far enough."

Svalon twisted on his chair and looked at him; but neither Elizabeth nor Constantin heard.

"I meant to wait till the alarum went off," said Prince Urusoff, in a louder voice, which caught their ears. "But it might be too great a shock to Elizabeth, The ticking is bad enough."

"Alarum! Joke! What do you mean?" said Svalon, starting up.

"Well, I wanted to test your nerves, Colonel Svalon, so I had a plank taken up and put one of those loud-ticking American clocks underneath it. It's not an infernal machine at all," said Prince Urusoff, smiling.

"Oh!" said Elizabeth; and she twisted herself out of Constantin's arms, and stood gasping and blushing.

"An American clock! An American clock! Well, I'll be shot!" cried Svalon; and he burst into a great shout of laughter, and than roared and roared on a lower note. The roars rang a little hysterical. Presently he was rocking on his feet, holding his ribs, and the tears were running down his cheeks. After a while he got control of himself, checked his laughter, and gasped, "A splendid joke— stupendous!"

"I merely wished to test things," said Prince Urusoff.

"But you're detestable, godpapa!" said Elizabeth; and then she smiled.

"You shouldn't have done it, father! It was cruel— horrible to frighten poor Elizabeth like that," cried Constantin, hotly. He was panting painfully, like a man who has run himself out in a race.

"I don't think you've any great reason to complain, Constantln," said Prince Urusoff, mildly. "And I think Elizabeth will forgive me. I fancy my infernal machine— cleared the air."

"It didn't, godpapa! I never— I always—" cried Elizabeth, and she stopped short, blushing furiously.

There was a jarring click, and then the buzzing tingle of the alarum, smothered by the floor. Elizabeth clutched Constantin's arm with both hands.

Another great shout of laughter burst from Svalon.

"A glorious joke— glorious!" he roared. "I have been nearly frightened to death!"

____________________

6: Madderson's Mascot

Edgar Jepson

Australian Town and Country Journal 2 May 1917

PRIVATE TALIAFERRO P. MADDERSON, an American citizen, of Oakflat, West Virginia, was in a bad temper. At no time during the twenty-five years of his strenuous life had he been a yearner for popularity; but to be in ill-odour with the whole of the 52nd Battalion of Canadian Light Infantry was a little too much for even his four-square soul. He was, too, keenly alive to the injustice of their attitude to him. He had never for a moment intended to kill the battalion mascot.

For no reason in the world, save pure cussedness, the blamed goat had rushed at him sideways and butted him painfully. If one of its horns had not caught his hip-joint, he would have acted more slowly and with less vigour. As it was he had merely caught it by the horns and given it a shake. If its neck had, been half as hard as its horns, it would never have broken like that, and it was not fair to blame him for it. The fact was that these Canadian goats lacked stamina, and he despised them. A billy from the Great North Mountain, now—

It is only fair to the battalion to say that the whole of it did not glower upon Private Taliaferro P. Madderson with equal sourness. The expression of those who had gloomily made a nutritious and appetizing meal off fresh roast mascot was not as sour as the expression of those who had not. None the loss, at the moment Private Taliaferro P. Madderson was disposed to consider his Canadian comrades poor fellows and of no account. As an American citizen he despised them. Plainly they were void of understanding in the matter of goats.

He was somewhat soothed when the sergeant instructed him to report to Captain Kirby at the Battalion headquarters, and Captain Kirby instructed him to examine the ground to the left, of the trench, since the enemy had been so quite lately that they could be up to no good, and he suspected them of driving a sap in that quarter. After all, it was something to be the best scout in the battalion.

He was not long making preparations. With a burnt cork he mottled his uniform and smudged his evenly-tanned face. He filled his water-bottle and crammed his pockets with chocolate and biscuit in case he should not have learnt enough by dawn and have learnt enough during the day. He made quite sure that the Colt automatic which Captain Kirby had lent him— since a rifle is awkward for a scout— was in working order, and disposed of the spare cartridges in a handy pocket. A cartridge-belt catches in things when you are crawling. Last of all he took a dozen yards of strong whipcord from his kit-bag. He had brought back prisoners from these expeditions before now.

The dusk was hot deep when he slipped over the parapet, but he was merged in the landscape before ho had crawled thirty yards into the wire entanglement. Once free of it he crawled quickly, making but a faint rustling,  though there was no great need for caution for another hundred and fifty yards. But on his last expedition, when barely eighty yards from the trench, he lad spotted a more loudly-rustling enemy engaged in that same occupation as himself, and ambushed him from a shell-hole.

Since he was on the outward trial he had not taken him prisoner. He could throw a knife harder and very nearly as straight as an accomplished Mexican. He had not found the enemy scout's cigars equal to good Havanas, but he had approved of them.

To-night was not a white night. He obtained no cigars, and he could not find the sap which Captain Kirby suspected. He crawled a full mile along the German trenches, at times lying still for as long as a quarter of an hour to learn what they were at, or to escape the notice of working parties. To his thinking there was now far too much moonlight. On his return journey he was held up for a long while by a scattered working party. Indeed, be was held up for far longer than he need have been for he lingered on in tho hope of laying hands on a worker with cigars on him.

The dawn found him on the edge of a small shell-torn coppice, about a hundred yards from the German, trenches and three hundred from the British. A few days before, with noisy impartiality, both sides had shelled it on the chance of finding it occupied by the other. But neither had thought it worth occupying.

Taliaferro decided to make it his resting-place for the day, and moved noiselessly through it, seeking a place where he would be so hidden that he might sleep and smoke at his ease. To his surprise he found it a cup-shaped hollow. Its wooded sides sloped down to a turfed glade twenty yards across, and in the middle of the glade were the shell-shattered ruins of a cottage. There was now all the light he needed to find a hiding-place and more. It was an uncommonly likely place for enemy snipers, and it behoved him to go with wariness.

He started on a slanting course down the slope towards the cottage. The enemy doubtless believed It empty. It might make the very hiding-place he desired. Not very far from the edge a faint gasp struck on his keen hunter's ears. It came from the left, a little-higher up the slope. He had been making no noise at all, and he made none drawing his automatic. He could only see a fallen tree-trunk, about five feet away covered with branches torn by shells from trees around it.

Then he heard the faintest chattering of teeth. He had nothing to fear from anyone as scared as that; and whoever it might be was not armed, or he would by now be dead, or at least wounded. He moved forward/drew aside the branches from the part of tho trunk whence tho sound of chattering teeth came, and looked Into a pair of utterly scared, big, brown eyes set in the pale, haggard, dirty face of a little girl.

Taliaferro's blue eyes stared into the brown ones with utter amazement. The child whimpered faintly with the last terror. Unblackened, his gaunt, rough-hewn face was not attractive to children; blackened, it would terrify most, and a child already in such a plight!

"Aw, quit now," said Taliaferro, in as gentle a tone as he could command. It had no effect; the child whimpered, her teeth chattered.

"Onglay! Onglay!" he whispered, urgently, and tapped his chest.

He fancied that her terror-strained face relaxed a little. He had a happy idea. He drew a cake of chocolate from his pocket and held it out to her. She could not open her eyes wider; terror had already opened them to their widest. But her lips worked painfully, she shot out a grimy little claw-like hand, snatched the chocolate from his fingers, and snapped her teeth on it.

Private Taliaferro P. Madderson was not greatly given to sympathising with fellow-creature in distress, but he watched the working, wolfish little face as the child devoured the chocolate, with extraordinary distress. When she had wolfed it down she held out her hand and asked for more. He did not understand her words, but he knew that she asked for more. He shook his head; he was sure that, for a starving child, she had had enough for the present. But he perceived that her lips were bluish and cracked, unscrewed tho top, and gave her his water-bottle. She gulped the water down noisily. He took the bottle from her firmly when he thought that she had had enough.

She dropped back, closed her eyes, and two tears of relief at the soothing of the pangs she had been suffering oozed slowly from under her eyelids and spread among the black eyelashes. The tears made Taliaferro uncomfortable. He was so near to them. Clumsily he patted the grimy little hand. The child opened her eyes and tried to smile. He knew that she tried to smile. Then almost on the instant, she was asleep.

He had full leisure to consider the situation. The child was hiding from German snipers, not from shells. The coppice had not been shelled at all for three or four days. Those snipers were in the coppice now. They would, of course, come and go in the darkness. He had no doubt about the part of the coppice they were in. They were on his right in the half-circle which faced the British lines. He would look into the matter, but he would by no means take the risks that be would have taken in ordinary circumstances. He was resolved to get the child away to safety.

In that tangled welter of broken trees and torn branches it was impossible to move quickly, but it was impossible to keep under perfect cover. He bored a way through it, under it, to the edge of the coppice, and began to work round it at a distance of five yards from that edge. He had gone about eighty yards in some thirty-five minutes when a sound fell on his ears.

It was a gentle snore.

It was a satisfactory sound, though it filled him with contempt for the snorer; any real exponent of woodcraft would have broken himself of snoring in the early stages of acquiring the habit of the woods. It would have been more satisfactory had there been two snorers instead of one. Probably one sniper slept while another watched. At any rate, he would look into the matter.

He crawled towards the sound, which came from a spot about thirty yards away. The nearer he came to it tho louder it grew and the quicker he could move. It would drown any faint rustling. Ten minutes later he peered through a thick screen of fallen branches into the sniper's lair.

It was an ideal lair. There was a clear view of the British trenches down a twenty-yard vista of shell-looped tree-trunks running sideways to the edge of the coppice. No one in the trenches could tell the spot from which the bullet came; the faint, smoke would be dispersed before it reached the top of the trunks; the report would be fairly muffled. A man could work in it for days without being spotted and receiving the attention of a battery.

Taliaferro was charmed by it; he was even more charmed to see that it held only one sniper. It held only one sniper, a stout, brightly redheaded man rolled in a blanket. Only one helmet and one rifle lay beside him; only one pack lay a few feet from him. It was of no importance that six bottles lay in a row beside the pack; six bottles might very well go with one man.

Taliaferro wormed his way with lithe briskness through the screen, of branches. Then he leapt lightly, but landed heavily with his knees on the sleeper's ribs, expelling the breath from his body in a loud grunt.

Taliaferro sat quietly on him while he squirmed and gasped to get it back. Then he turned him round held his shining knife before his dilated eyes while he pressed his large hand on his mouth to prevent any shouting. When he saw from his prisoner's terrified expression, from as much of it, that is, as his large hand permitted him to see, that he had quite grasped his awkward plight, he removed that large hand.

"Mercy, Kamerad," gasped the sniper; and his mild blue eyes stood well out of his head.

"Durned if you ain't the very spit of my ol' Uncle Erasmus!" murmured Taliaferro, in some astonishment.

"Yes! Uncle! Cousin! Brother!" gasped his captive, displaying a good knowledge ol English.

"I don't go so far as to say that," murmured Taliaferro grimly. "But if you so much as a half squeak, Uncle Razzy, I'll fair sink my knife in your ugly carcase."

With that he turned his uncle's double on to his face and knelt on his plump back while he bound his hands behind him with whipcord. Then he bound his ankles, turned him over, cut away some inches of his shirt, rolled them round a stick, and tied that effective gag in his mouth. Then an expert policeman could not have been quicker going through him. There were five cigars and a score of cigarettes and nearly a hundred francs in French money, very useful and welcome. Also there was a Colt automatic, a prize from some dead, or captured British officer.

Taliaferro had often wished for an automatic of his own. In the pack was a large provision of sausage and bread. Also there were 14 more cigars. Taliaferro felt a plutocrat. Then he turned his attention to the bottles. Two were empty, three contained wine, one cognac. His eyes were full of joyful thankfulness as he, raised, it to his lips. Then he lowered it untasted, frowning, and looked over his shoulder towards the child's hiding-place. It would not do; he would need all his wits to get her away. If he began, he would drink the bottle dry. He always did. He swore softly as he forced the cork back into it. Human self-denial has seldom reached a loftier height.

He dragged his captive five yards in among the tangle, Set him up against a tree-trunk and tested the gag Then he whispered:

"Bye-bye, Uncle Razzy. I'll fetch you after sundown — p'r'aps. Don't pull at those knots. They're made to tighten, not loosen. You'll only make yourself durned uncomfortable."

He removed the traces of his captive's passage, threw his helmet into tho tangle, hid the rifle, pack, cartridge-belt, water-bottle, and the other bottles, and resumed his exploration. He examined the track trodden by the sniper to his lair, and came to the satisfactory conclusion that it had been trodden by one pair of boots only. The prints were plain enough, for there had been plenty of rain, and in places they had trodden it muddy. He crawled down it to the turfed glade in which the ruined cottage stood and crawled round it. All the prints about it had been made by one pair of boots.

Then he perceived that the sniper had made a definite path round tho cottage to a shell-hole in its back wall. He thrust his arm into the rubble which half filled the shattered room; his hand felt the cold glass of bottles. He was pleased; always at some point in his future scouting expeditions he would reach that hole in the wall.

Naturally there had been only one sniper in the coppice.

A man with such a treasure to draw on would readily forgo the comfort and pleasure of the companionship of his fellows when he went sniping. He had learned all he wished to know about the coppice, and he made his way quickly, but still with a cautiousness that prevented him from making more than a certain rustling, to the spot where he had hidden the sniper's rifle and pack. He turned the bread, which seemed to him poor and unappetising, out of the puck and put the bottles in. He took a careful look round the lair to make sure that no slightest trace of his visit was to be seen, then girt on the pack, water-bottle, and cartridge-belt, and with the rifle in his hand returned to the child's hiding-place. He found her still asleep and did not wake her.

He scooped himself out a hiding-place beside her, made a meal off the sniper's sausage and his own biscuit, lit a cigar, and lay smoking peaceably with his eyes on the child's face. Already it was less haggard: and her lips were no longer bluish but faintly pink. He felt a strong proprietary interest in her.

He had nearly finished his second cigar when she cried out sharply in her sleep and awoke. Her eyes were full of the horror of a nightmare; and for the moment she did not recognise him. When she did the horror began to fade out of her face. He smiled at her stiffly (smiling was not one of his accomplishments) and patted her little hand gently. Then he set about, giving her another meal: slices of the sniper's sausage on biscuit and a cake of chocolate. He doled the food out to her. She showed herself still very hungry. A draught from his water-bottle ended her meal.

Then they conversed with difficulty. The few words of French that he knew were inapplicable to their situation; and they chiefly used signs. He learnt that her name was Babette— Babette Savary. Her father had gone to fight the Boches; her mother had been killed by a shell.

He showed his sympathy by patting her hand. Then he made it clear to her that she should watch while he slept. He did not think that there was anyone to keep watch against, but, responsible for her, he would omit no precaution. Also, though he did not think that he would find it difficult to get her safely away, he wished to have all his wits about him when he made the attempt; and an hour's sleep would be good for them. She nodded her comprehension almost vigorously. He was asleep in three minutes, and an hour later he awoke fresh and alert.

She smiled at him. From the height and position of the sun he gathered that it was about one o'clock. The enemy would be somnolent from their midday meal, and as quiet as they were likely to be. It was a good time for observation. He crawled to the edge of the coppice which faced their lines, and studied the position of their trenches and the lie of the ground from the point of view of making raids on them. He had no need to make a map; his was a mind trained to retain the configuration of the ground, to judge and remember distances.

He was annoyed that he could not do a little sniping. Hitherto the enemy had sniped, not been sniped, from the coppice, and they were careless. He saw his way to getting three or four before they discovered that they were being sniped from it. Then, of course, they! would shell it, and Babette was in it. However, he could always come sniping another day. He would. At the end of an hour's patient and fruitful observation he returned to Babette.

He found that now that hunger had gone and hope returned, the feminine instinct had reasserted itself. She had cleaned her face with water from the sniper's water-bottle and combed out her hair with her fingers. Thanks also to a child's marvellous power of recuperation, she looked a different creature. Her cheeks were hardly hollow. He perceived that she was younger than he had thought, not more than ten years old. Her lips were wreathed with smiles of welcome as he crawled back in their lair, and when he stretched himself at full length she snuggled up against him. It gave him a curious, pleasant feeling he could not remember ever having felt before. He put an arm round her. He lit a cigar, and presently she fell asleep. He smoked on, finding the sound of her gentle breathing uncommonly soothing. At about six they made another meal.

In the middle of it the evening hate began. Now and again Babette quivered and squeezed a little nearer to him when a rafale of high explosive shells burst on one line or the other.

The evening hate died down with the waning daylight, but it was not till the dark hour before the rising of the moon that Taliaferro set about getting Babette to the British lines, or, to be exact, to the trench where his own  company was posted. He was resolved to bring her to that trench and no other. There there would be less chance that she would be taken away from him. His was not a company to let go of anything it had got hold of with out good and loud howls of protest.

He was in two minds whether to take the sniper with him that night or  fetch him the next. He put it, to himself that prayer and fasting would do Uncle Razzy a lot of good, and he could at any rate be sure of the fasting. On the other hand, Uncle Razzy, looked at from the point of view of a pack-horse, was alluring. He decided to take him. Accordingly he carried Babette to the sniper's lair and fetched Uncle Razzy out of the bushes. Babette cried out at the sight of him, but he reassured her easily.

Then he loaded his captive with his pack, in which were the four precious bottles, rolled in squares of Uncle Razzy's blanket, slung the rifle on his back, girded him with the cartridge-belt, and fastened the two empty water-bottles to his belt, one on either side. He improvised a leading-rein with twelve feet of whipcord, ending in a noose round Uncle Razzy's neck. There would be no difficulty about his strangling himself, If he were minded to make a gallant effort to return to the Fatherland.

They started in single file, Babette first, then Taliaferro leading Uncle Razzy. There were always their two bodies between the child and a bullet. Taliaferro and fear were not wholly strangers, but they had not often met. During that journey they met many times. Never a star shell, German or British, rose bright in the air but Taliaferro's heart sank hard towards his boots. The detestable feeling in the pit of the stomach which assures a man that he is badly frightened oppressed him for minutes at a time.

Babette soon came to know that the moment a star shell broke the darkness she would find herself flat on the ground in Taliaferro's arms. Presently she was a little quicker to drop than he was himself. Uncle Razzy was the slowest. His heavy breathing annoyed Taliaferro. The thought that if the enemy should start searching out the ground with machine guns, they would find Uncle Razzy first was a faint comfort to him.

His hunter's eyes saw far more clearly in the dimness than did those of his companions, and when they came to a stretch of ground pitted with shell holes he picked up Babette and carried her. It annoyed him that he was not broad enough to shield all of her. Twice Uncle Razzy fell into a shell hole. Twice Taliaferro had to loosen the noose round his neck before he thumped him.

When they were a hundred yards from the British trenches Taliaferro put his hands round his mouth and sent the hoot of an owl towards them. He explained to Babette and Uncle Razzy that he did not wish any Canadian son of a gun to draw a bead on him." Babette did not understand; she thought his hooting a pleasant accomplishment, a sign of high spirits.

Ten yards farther on he hooted again, and an answering hoot came to them. He was relieved of all fear of danger from his friends; word would be passed along that a scout was coming in. The last fifty yards were the most trying stage of the journey. They had to go slowly, crawling under the wire entanglements. Taliaferro was in a cold sweat; for at any moment the enemy might start sweeping the wire and the trench parapet in hope to catch a working party. Once Uncle Razzy stuck. Taliaferro not only tore him clear painfully, but he thumped him till he wept.

Twenty yards from the parapet Babette, feebly from her privations, came to a stop. Taliaferro ground his teeth and sweated helplessly till she was again able to crawl on. At last he lowered her gently from the parapet into the trench, dropped on his feet beside her with a great sigh of relief, and stood fairly gasping while she blinked in the light of an electric torch someone had turned on her.

"What the blazes you got there, Mad?" said the sergeant.

"I got a mascot, and a blame sight better mascot than any old goat," said Taliaferro, bitterly.

With a soft, sobbing squeak Uncle Razzy rolled over the parapet and knocked him off his feet.

_________________

7: The Princess Zimbazim

Robert W. Chambers

(1865-1933)

Hearst's Magazine, March 1914

THEY met by accident on Madison Square, and shook hands for the first time in many years. High in the Metropolitan Tower the chimes celebrated the occasion by sounding the half-hour.

"It seems incredible," exclaimed George W. Green, "that you could have become so famous! You never displayed any remarkable ability in school."

"I never displayed any ability at all. But you did," said Williams admiringly. "How beautifully you used to write your name on the blackboard! How neat and scholarly you were in everything."

"I know it," said Green, gloomily. "And you flunked in almost everything."

"In everything," admitted Williams, deeply mortified.

"And yet," said Green, "here we are at thirty odd; and I'm merely a broker, and— look what you are! Why, I can't go anywhere but I find one of your novels staring me in the face. I've been in Borneo: they're there! They're in Australia and China and Patagonia. Why the devil do you suppose people buy the stories you write? "

"I'm sure I don't know," said Williams modestly.

"I don't know either, though I read them myself sometimes— I don't know why. They're all very well in their way— if you care for that sort of book— but the things you tell about, Williams, never could have happened. I'm not knocking you; I'm a realist, that's all. And when I read a short story by you in which a young man sees a pretty girl, and begins to talk to her without being introduced to her, and then marries her before luncheon— and finds he's married a Balkan Princess— good-night! I just wonder why people stand for your books; that's all."

"So do I," said Williams, much embarrassed. "I wouldn't stand for them myself."

"Why," continued Green warmly, "I read a story of yours in some magazine the other day, in which a young man sees a pretty girl for the first time in his life and is married to her inside of three quarters of an hour! And I ask you, Williams, how you would feel after spending fifteen cents on such a story?"

"I'm terribly sorry, old man," murmured Williams. "Here's your fifteen—if you like—"

"Dammit," said Green indignantly, "it isn't that they're not readable stories! I had fifteen cents' worth all right. But it makes a man sore to see what happens to the young men in your stories— and all the queens they collect— and then to go about town and never see anything of that sort!"

"There are millions of pretty girls in town," ventured Williams. "I don't think I exaggerate in that respect."

"But they'd call an officer if young men in real life behaved as they do in your stories. As a matter of fact and record, there's no more romance in New York than there is in the annual meeting of the British Academy of Ancient Assyrian Inscriptions. And you know it, Williams!"

"I think it depends on the individual man," said Williams timidly.

"How?"

"If there's any romance in a man himself, he's apt to find the world rather full of it."

"Do you mean to say there isn't any romance in me?" demanded George W. Green hotly.

"I don't know, George. Is there? "

"Plenty. Pl-en-ty! I'm always looking for romance. I look for it when I go down-town to business; I look for it when I go home. Do I find it? No! Nothing ever happens to me. Nothing beautiful and wealthy beyond the dreams of avarice ever tries to pick me up. Explain that!"

Williams, much abashed, ventured no explanation.

"And to think," continued Green, "that you, my old school friend, should become a celebrity merely by writing such stories! Why, you're as celebrated as any brand of breakfast food!"

"You don't have to read my books, you know'" protested Williams mildly.

"I don't have to— I know it. But I do. Everybody does. And nobody knows why. So, meeting you again after all these unromantic years, I thought I'd just ask you whether by any chance you happen to know of any particular section of the city where a plain, every-day broker might make a hit with the sort of girl you write about? Do you? "

"Any section of this city is romantic enough— if you only approach it in the proper spirit," asserted Williams.

"You mean if my attitude toward romance is correct I'm likely to encounter it almost anywhere?"

"That is my theory," admitted Williams bashfully.

"Oh! Well, what is the proper attitude? Take me, for example. I've just been to the bank. I carry, at this moment, rather a large sum of money in my inside overcoat pocket. My purpose in drawing it was to blow it. Now, tell me how to blow it romantically."

"How can I tell you such a thing, George—?"

"It'syour business. You tell people such things in books. Now, tell me, face to face, man to man, how to get thoroughly mixed up in the sort of romance you write— the kind of romance that has made William McWilliam. Williams famous!"

"I'm sorry—"

"What! You won't! You admit that what you write is bunk? You confess that you don't know where there are any stray queens with whom I might become happily entangled within the next fifteen minutes? "

"I admit no such thing," said Williams with dignity. "If your attitude is correct, in ten minutes you can be up against anything on earth!"

"Where?"

"Anywhere!"

"Very well! Here we are on Madison Square. There's Admiral Farragut; there's the Marble Tower. Do you mean that if I walk from this spot for ten minutes— no matter in what direction— I'll walk straight into Romance up to my neck? "

"If your attitude is correct, yes. But you've got to know the elements of Romance when you see them."

"What are the elements of Romance? What do they resemble? " demanded George W. Green.

Williams said, in a low, impressive voice, "Anything that seems to you unusual is very likely to be an element in a possible romance. If you see anything extraordinary during the next ten minutes, follow it up. And ninety-nine chances in a hundred it will lead you into complications. Interfering with other people's business usually does," he added pleasantly.

"But," said Green, "suppose during the next ten minutes, or twenty minutes, or the next twenty-four hours I don't see anything unusual."

"It will be your own fault if you don't. The Unusual is occurring all about us, every second. A trained eye can always see it."

"But suppose the Unusual doesn't occur for the next ten minutes," insisted Green, exasperated. "Suppose the Unusual is taking a vacation? It would be just my luck."

"Then," said Williams, "you will have to imagine that everything you see is unusual. Or else," he added blandly, "you yourself will have to start something. That is where the creative mind comes in. When there's nothing doing it starts something."

"Does it ever get arrested?" inquired Green ironically. "The creative mind! Sure! That's where all this bally romance is!— in the creative mind. I knew it. Good-by."

They shook hands; Williams went down-town. This story is not concerned with his destination. Or even whether he ever got there.

But it is very directly concerned with George W. Green, and the direction he took when he parted from his old school friend.

As he walked up-town he said to himself, "Bunk!" several times. After a few moments he fished out his watch.

"I know I'm an ass," he said to himself, "but I'll take a chance. I'll give myself exactly ten minutes to continue making an ass of myself. And if I see the faintest symptom of Romance— if I notice anything at all peculiar and unusual in any person or any thing during the next ten minutes, I won't let it get away— believe me! "

He walked up Broadway instead of Fifth Avenue. After a block or two he turned west at hazard, crossed Sixth Avenue and continued.

He was walking in one of the upper Twenties— he had not particularly noticed which. Commercial houses nearly filled the street, although a few old-time residences of brownstone still remained. Once well-to-do and comfortable homes, they had degenerated into Chop Sueys, boarding-houses, the abodes of music publishers, artificial flower makers, and mediums.

It was now a shabby, unkempt street, and Green already was considering it a hopeless hunting ground, and had even turned to retrace his steps toward Sixth Avenue, when the door of a neighboring house opened and down the shabby, brownstone stoop came hurrying an exceedingly pretty girl.

Now, the unusual part of the incident lay in the incongruity of the street and the girl. For the street and the house out of which she emerged so hastily were mean and ignoble; but the girl herself fairly radiated upper Fifth Avenue from the perfectly appointed and expensive simplicity of hat and gown to the obviously aristocratic and dainty face and figure.

"Is she a symptom?" thought Green to himself. "Is she an element? That is sure a rotten looking joint she came out of."

Moved by a sudden and unusual impulse of intelligence, he ran up the brownstone stoop and read the dirty white card pasted on the facade above the door bell.

THE PRINCESS ZIMBAZIM

TRANCE MEDIUM. FORTUNES.

Taken aback, he looked after the pretty girl who was now hurrying up the street as though the devil were at her dainty heels.

Could she be the Princess Zimbazim? Common sense rejected the idea, as did the sudden jerk of soiled lace curtains at the parlor window, and the apparition of a fat lady in a dingy, pink tea-gown. That must be the Princess Zimbazim, and the pretty girl had ventured into these purlieus to consult her. Why?

"This is certainly a symptom of romance!" thought the young man excitedly. And he started after the pretty girl at a Fifth Avenue amble.

He overtook and passed her at Sixth Avenue, and managed to glance at her without being offensive. To his consternation, she was touching her tear-stained eyes with her handkerchief. She did not notice him.

What could be the matter? With what mystery was he already in touch?

Tremendously interested he fell back a few paces and lighted a cigarette, allowing her to pass him; then he followed her. Never before in his life had he done such a scandalous thing.

On Broadway she hailed a taxi, got into it, and sped up-town. There was another taxi available; Green took it and gave the driver a five-dollar tip to keep the first taxi in view.

Which was very easy, for it soon stopped at a handsome apartment-house on Park Avenue; the girl sprang out, and entered the building almost running.

For a moment George W. Green thought that all was lost. But the taxi she had taken remained, evidently waiting for her; and sure enough, in a few minutes out she came, hurrying, enveloped in a rough tweed traveling-coat and carrying a little satchel. Slam! went the door of her taxi; and away she sped, and Green after her in his taxi.

Again the chase proved to be very short. Her taxi stopped at the Pennsylvania Station; out she sprang, paid the driver, and hurried straight for the station restaurant, Green following at a fashionable lope.

She took a small table by a window; Green took the next one. It was not because she noticed him and found his gaze offensive, but because she felt a draught that she rose and took the table behind Green, exactly where he could not see her unless he twisted his neck into attitudes unseemly.

He wouldn't do such things, being really a rather nice young man; and it was too late for him to change his table without attracting her attention, because the waiter already had brought him whatever he had ordered for tea— muffins, buns, crumpets— he neither knew nor cared.

So he ate them with jam, which he detested; and drank his tea and listened with all his ears for the slightest movement behind him which might indicate that she was leaving.

Only once did he permit himself to turn around, under pretense of looking for a waiter; and he saw two blue eyes still brilliant with unshed tears and a very lovely but unhappy mouth all ready to quiver over its toast and marmalade.

What on earth could be the matter with that girl? What terrible tragedy could it be that was still continuing to mar her eyes and twitch her sensitive, red lips?

Green, sipping his tea, trembled pleasantly all over as he realized that at last he was setting his foot upon the very threshold of Romance. And he determined to cross that threshold if neither good manners, good taste, nor the police interfered.

And what a wonderful girl for his leading lady! What eyes! What hair! What lovely little hands, with the gloves hastily rolled up from the wrist! Why should she be unhappy? He'd like to knock the block off any man who—

Green came to himself with a thrill of happiness: her pretty voice was sounding in exquisite modulations behind him as she asked the waiter for m-more m-marmalade.

In a sort of trance, Green demolished bun after bun. Normally, he loathed the indi¬ gestible. After what had seemed to him an interminable length of time, he ventured to turn around again in pretense of calling a waiter.

Her chair was empty!

At first he thought she had disappeared past all hope of recovery; but the next instant he caught sight of her hastening out toward the ticket boxes.

Flinging a five-dollar bill on the table, he hastily invited the waiter to keep the change; sprang to his feet, and turned to seize his overcoat. It was gone from the hook where he had hung it just behind him.

Astonished, he glanced at the disappearing girl, and saw his overcoat over her arm. For a moment he supposed that she had mistaken it for her own ulster, but no! She was wearing her own coat too.

A cold and sickening sensation assailed the pit of Green's stomach. Was it not a mistake, after all? Was this lovely young girl a professional criminal? Had she or some of her band observed Green coming out of the bank and thrusting a fat wallet into the inside pocket of his overcoat?

He was walking now, as fast as he was thinking, keeping the girl in view amid the throngs passing through the vast rotunda.

When she stopped at a ticket booth he entered the brass railed space behind her.

She did not appear to know exactly where she was going, for she seemed by turns distrait and agitated; and he heard her ask the ticket agent when the next train left for the extreme South.

Learning that it left in a few minutes, and finding that she could secure a stateroom, she took it, paid for it, and hastily left without a glance behind her at Green.

Meanwhile Green had very calmly slipped one hand into the breast pocket of his own overcoat, where it trailed loosely over her left arm, meaning to extract his wallet without anybody observing him. The wallet was not there. He was greatly inclined to run after her, but he didn't. He watched her depart, then:

"Is there another stateroom left on the Verbena Special," he inquired of the ticket agent, coolly enough.

"One. Do you wish it?"

"Yes."

The ticket agent made out the coupons and shoved the loose change under the grille, saying:

"Better hurry, sir. You've less than a minute."

He ran for his train and managed to swing aboard just as the colored porters were closing the vestibules and the train was in full motion.

A trifle bewildered at what he had done, and by the rapidity with which he had done it, he sank down in the vacant observation car to collect his thoughts.

He was on board the Verbena Special— the Southern train-de-luxe— bound for Jacksonville, St. Augustine, Palm Beach, Verbena Inlet, or Miami— or for Nassau, Cuba, and the remainder of the West Indies— just as he chose.

He had no other luggage than a walking stick. Even his overcoat was in possession of somebody else. That was the situation that now faced George W. Green.

But as the train emerged from the river tube, and he realized all this, he grew calmer; and the calmer he grew the happier he grew.

He was no longer on the threshold of Romance; he had crossed it, and already he was being whirled away blindly into the Unusual and the Unknown!

Exultingly he gazed out of the windows upon the uninspiring scenery of New Jersey. A wonderful sense of physical lightness and mental freedom took delightful possession of him. Opportunity had not beckoned him in vain. Chance had glanced sideways at him, and he had recognized the pretty flirt. His was certainly some brain!

And now, still clinging to the skirts of Chance, he was being whisked away, pell-mell, headlong toward Destiny, in the trail of a slender, strange young girl who had swiped his overcoat and who seemed continually inclined to tears.

The incident of the overcoat no longer troubled him. That garment of his was not unlike the rough traveling-coat she herself wore. And it might have been natural to her, in her distress of mind and very evident emotion, to have seized it by mistake and made off with it, forgetting that she still wore her own.

Of course it was a mistake pure and simple. He had only to look at the girl and understand that. One glance at her sweet, high-bred features was sufficient to exonerate her as a purloiner of gentlemen's garments.

Green crossed his legs, folded his arms, and reflected. The overcoat was another and most important element in this nascent Romance.

The difficulty lay in knowing how to use the overcoat to advantage in furthering and further complicating a situation already delightful.

Of course he could do the obvious: he could approach her and take off his hat and do the well-bred and civil and explain to her the mistake.

But suppose she merely said: "I'm sorry," handed over his coat, and continued to read her magazine. That would end it. And it mustn't end until he found out Why she had emerged with tears in her beautiful eyes from the abode of the Princess Zimbazim.

Besides, he was sure of getting his coat, his wallet, and its contents. His name and address were in the wallet; also both were sewed inside the inner pocket of the overcoat.

What would ultimately happen would be this: sooner or later she'd come to, wake up, dry her pretty eyes, look about, and find that she had two overcoats in her possession.

It would probably distress her dreadfully, particularly when she discovered the wallet and the money. But, wherever she was going, as soon as she reached there she'd send overcoat and money back to his address— doubtless with a pretty and contrite note of regret.

Yes, but that wouldn't do! What good would the overcoat and the money be to him, if he were South and she shipped them North? And yet he was afraid to risk an abrupt ending to his Romance by explaining to her the mistake.

No; he'd merely follow her for the present. He couldn't help it very well, being aboard the same train. So it would not be difficult to keep his eye on her and his overcoat, and think out at his leisure how best to tend, guard, cherish, and nourish the delicate and unopened bud of Romance.

Meanwhile, there were other matters he must consider; so he wrote out a telegram to Washington ordering certain necessary articles to be brought aboard the Verbena Special on its arrival there. The porter took charge of it.

That night at dinner he looked for the girl in vain. She did not enter the dining-car while he was there. Haunting the corridors afterward he saw no sign of her anywhere until, having received his necessaries in a brand new traveling-satchel, and on his way to his stateroom, he caught a glimpse of her, pale and agitated, in conversation with the porter at her partly opened door.

She did not even glance at him as he entered his stateroom, but he could not avoid hearing what she was saying because her enunciation was so exquisitely distinct.

"Porter," she said in her low, sweet voice, "I have somehow, made a very dreadful mistake somewhere. I have a man's overcoat here which does not belong to me. The cloth is exactly like the cloth of my own traveling-ulster, and I must have forgotten that I had mine on when I took this."

"Ain't de gemman abohd de Speshul, Miss? " inquired the porter.

"I'm afraid not. I'm certain that I must have taken it in the station restaurant and brought it aboard the train."

"Ain't nuff'n in de pockets, is dey?" asked the porter.

"Yes; there's a wallet strapped with a rubber band. I didn't feel at liberty to open it. But I suppose I ought to in order to find out the owner's name if possible."

"De gemman's name ain't sewed inside de pocket, is it, Miss? "

"I didn't look," she said.

So the porter took the coat, turned it inside out, explored the inside pocket, found the label, and read:

"Snipps Brothers: December, 1913. George W. Green."

A stifled exclamation from the girl checked him. Green also protruded his head cautiously from his own doorway.

The girl, standing partly in the aisle, was pow leaning limply against the door-frame, her hand pressed convulsively to her breast, her face white and frightened.

"Is you ill, Miss?" asked the porter anxiously.

"I— no. W-what name was that you read? "

"George W. Green, Miss—"

"It— it can't be! Look again! It can't be!"

Her face was ashen to the lips; she closed her eyes for a second, swayed; then her hand clutched the door-frame; she straightened up with an effort and opened her eyes, which now seemed dilated by some powerful emotion.

"Let me see that name!" she said, controlling her voice with an obvious effort.

The porter turned the pocket inside out for her inspection. There it was:

"George W. Green: 1008½ Fifth Avenue, New York."

"If you knows de gemman, Miss," suggested the porter, "you all kin take dishere garmint back yo'se'f when you comes No'th."

"Thank you.... Then—I won't trouble you.... I'll—I'll ta-t-take it back myself— when I go North."

"I kin ship it if you wishes, Miss."

She said excitedly: "If you ship it from somewhere South, he— Mr. Green— would see where it came from by the parcels postmark or the express tag— wouldn't he?"

"Yaas, Miss."

"Then, I don't want you to ship it! I'll do it myself.... How can I ship it without giving Mr. Green a clue—" she shuddered, "—a clue to my whereabouts?"

"Does you know de gemman, Miss? "

"No!" she said, with another shudder— "and I do not wish to. I—I particularly do not wish ever to know him— or even to see him. And above all I do not wish Mr. Green to come South and investigate the circumstances concerning this overcoat. He might take it into his head to do such a thing. It— it's horrible enough that I have— that I actually have in my possession the overcoat of the very man on whose account I left New York at ten minutes' notice—"

Her pretty voice broke and her eyes filled.

"You— you don't understand, porter," she added, almost hysterically, "but my possession of this overcoat— of all the billions and billions of overcoats in all the world— is a t-terrible and astounding b-blow to me!"

"Is— is you afeard o' dishere overcoat, Miss?" inquired the astonished darkey.

"Yes!" she said. "Yes, I am! I'm horribly afraid of that overcoat! I— I'd like to throw it from the train window, but I— I can't do that, of course! It would be stealing—"

Her voice broke again with nervous tears:

"I d-don't want the coat! And I can't throw it away! And if it's shipped to him from the South he may come down here and investigate. He's in New York now. That's why I am on my way South! I— I want him to remain in New York until— until all— d-danger is over. And by the first of April it will be over. And then I'll come North—and bring him his coat—"

The bewildered darkey stared at her and at the coat which she had unconsciously clutched to her breast.

"Do you think," she said, "that M-Mr. Green will need the coat this winter? Do you suppose anything would happen to him if he doesn't have it for a while— pneumonia or anything? Oh!" she exclaimed in a quivering voice, "I wish he and his overcoat were at the South Pole!"

Green withdrew his head and pressed both palms to his temples. Could he trust his ears? Was he going mad? Holding his dizzy head in both hands he heard the girl say that she herself would attend to shipping the coat; heard the perplexed darkey take his leave and go; heard her stateroom door close.

Seated in his stateroom he gazed vacantly at the couch opposite, so completely bewildered with his first overdose of Romance that his brain seemed to spin like a frantic squirrel in a wheel, and his thoughts knocked and jumbled against each other until it truly seemed to him that all his senses were fizzling out like wet firecrackers.

What on earth had he ever done to inspire such horror in the mind of this young girl?

What terrible, injury had he committed against her or hers that the very sound of his name terrified her— the mere sight of his overcoat left her almost hysterical?

Helplessly, half stupefied, he cast about in his wrecked mind to discover any memory or record of any injury done to anybody during his particularly blameless career on earth.

In school he had punched the noses of several schoolmates, and had been similarly smitten in return. That was the extent of physical injury ever done to anybody.

Of grave moral wrong he knew he was guiltless. True, he had frequently skinned the assembly at convivial poker parties. But also he had often opened jacks only to be mercilessly deprived of them amid the unfeeling and brutal laughter of his companions. No, he was not guilty of criminal gambling.

Had he ever done a wrong to anybody in business? Never. His firm's name was the symbol for probity.

He dashed his hands to his brow distractedly. What in Heaven's name had he done to fill the very soul of this young girl with fear and loathing? What in the name of a merciful Providence had he, George W. Green, banker and broker, ever done to drive this young and innocent girl out of the city of New York!

To collect and marshal his disordered thoughts was difficult, but he accomplished it with the aid of cigarettes. To a commonplace intellect there is no aid like a cigarette.

At first he was inclined to believe that the girl had merely mistaken him for another man with a similar name. George W. Green was not an unusual name.

But his address in town was also written inside his coat pocket; and she had read it. Therefore, it was painfully evident to him that her detestation and fear was for him.

What on earth had inspired such an attitude of mind toward himself in a girl he had seen for the first time that afternoon? He could not imagine. And another strange feature of the affair was that she had not particularly noticed him. Therefore, if she entertained such a horror of him, why had she not exhibited some trace of it when he was in her vicinity?

Certainly she had not exhibited it by crying. He exonerated himself on that score, for she had been on the verge of tears when he first beheld her hurrying out of the parlors of the Princess Zimbazim.

It gradually became plain to him that, although there could be no doubt that this girl was afraid of him, and cordially disliked him, yet strangely enough, she did not know him by sight.

Consequently, her attitude must be inspired by something she had heard concerning him. What?

He puffed his cigarette and groaned. As far as he could remember, he had never harmed a fly.

That night he turned in, greatly depressed. Bad dreams assailed Ms slumbers— menacing ones like the visions that annoyed Eugene Aram.

And every time he awoke and sat up in Ms bunk, shaken by the swaying car, he realized that Romance had also its tragic phases— a sample of which he was now enduring. And yet, miserable as he was, a horrid sort of joy neutralized the misery when he recollected that it was Romance, after all, and that he, George W. Green, was in it up to his neck.

A GRAY morning— a wet and pallid sky lowering over the brown North Carolina fields— this was his waking view from his tumbled bunk.

Neither his toilet nor his breakfast dispelled the gloom; certainly the speeding landscape did not.

He sat grimly m the observation car, reviewing a dispiriting landscape set with swamps, razor-backs, buzzards, and negroes.

Luncheon aided him very little. She had not appeared at all. Either her own misery and fright were starving her to death or she preferred to take her meals in her stateroom. He hoped fervently the latter might be the case; that murder might not be added to whatever else he evidently was suspected of committing.

Like the ticket he had seen her purchase, Ms own ticket took Mm as far as Ormond. Of course he could go on if she did. She could go to the West Indies and ultimately to Brazil. So could he. They were on the main traveled road to almost anywhere.

Nevertheless, he was on the watch at St. Augustine; and when he saw her come forth hastily and get mto a bus emblazoned with the name and escutcheon of the Hotel Royal Orchid, he got in also.

The bus was full. Glancing at the other occupants of the bus, she included him in her brief review, and to his great relief he saw her incurious blue eyes pass calmly to the next countenance.

A dreadful, almost hysterical impulse assailed him to suddenly rise and say: "I am George W. Green!"— merely to observe the cataclysmic effect on her.

But it did not seem so funny to him on after thoughts, for the chances seemed to be that she could not survive the shock. Which scared him; and he looked about nervously for fear somebody who knew him might be among the passengers, and might address him by name.

In due time the contents of the bus trooped into the vast corridors of the Hotel Royal Orchid. One by one they registered; and on the ledger Green read her name with palpitating heart— Miss Marie Wiltz and Maid. And heard her say to the clerk that her maid had been delayed and would arrive on the next train.

It never occurred to this unimaginative man to sign any name but his own to the register that was shoved toward him. Which perfectly proves his guilelessness and goodness.

He went to his room, cleansed from his person the stains of travel, and, having no outer clothes to change to, smoked a cigarette and gazed moodily from the window.

Now, his window gave on the drive- encircled fountain before the front entrance to the hotel; and, as he was standing there immersed in tobacco smoke and gloom, he was astonished to see the girl herself come out hastily, traveling-satchel in hand, and spring lightly into a cab. It was one of those victorias which are stationed for hire in front of such Southern hotels; he could see her perfectly plainly; saw the darkey coachman flourish his whip; saw the vehicle roll away.

The next instant he seized his new satchel, swept his brand new toilet articles into it, snapped it, picked up hat and cane, and dashed down-stairs to the desk.

Here he paid his bill, ran out, and leaped into a waiting victoria.

"Where did that other cab drive?" he demanded breathlessly to his negro coachman. "Didn't you hear what the young lady said to her driver?"

" Yaas, sir. De young lady done say she's in a pow'ful hurry, suh. She 'low she gotta git to Ormond."

"Ormond! There's no train!"

"Milk-train, suh."

"What! Is she going to Ormond on a milk-train? "

"Yaas, suh."

"All right, then. Drive me to the station."

It was not very far. She was standing alone on the deserted platform, her bag at her feet, his overcoat lying across it. Her head was bent, and she did not notice him at first. Never had he seen a youthful figure so exquisitely eloquent of despair.

The milk-train was about an hour overdue, which would make it about due, in the South. Green seated himself. The situation was now perfectly clear to him. She had come down from her room, and had seen his name on the register, had been seized by a terrible panic, and had fled.

Had he been alone and unobserved, he might have attempted to knock his brains out with his walking-stick. He desired to, earnestly, when he realized what an ass he'd been to sign the register.

She had begun to pace the platform, nervously, halting and leaning forward from time to time to scan impatiently the long, glittering perspective of the rails.

It bad begun to grow dusk. Lanterns on switches and semaphores flashed out red, green, blue, white, stringing their jeweled sparks far away into the distance.

To and fro she paced the empty platform, passing and repassing him. And he began to notice presently that she looked at him rather intently each time.

He wondered whether she suspected his identity. Guiltless of anything that he could remember having done, nevertheless he shivered guiltily every time she glanced at him.

Then the unexpected happened; and he fairly shook in his shoes as she marched deliberately up to him.

"I beg your pardon," she said in a very sweet and anxious voice, "but might I ask if you happen to be going to Ormond?"

He was on his feet, hat in hand, by this time; his heart and pulses badly stampeded; but he managed to answer calmly that he was going to Ormond.

"There is only a milk-train, I understand," she said.

"So I understand."

"Do you think there will be any difficulty in my obtaining permission to travel on it? The station-master says that permission is not given to ladies unaccompanied."

She looked at him almost imploringly.

"I really must go on that train," she said in a low voice. "It is desperately necessary. Could you— could you manage to arrange it for me? I would be so grateful— so deeply grateful!"

"I'll do what I can," said that unimaginative man. " Probably bribery can fix it—"

"There might be— if— if you would be willing— if you didn't object—I know it sounds very strange— but my case is so desperate—" She checked herself, flushing a delicate pink. And he waited.

Then, very resolutely she looked up at him. "Would you— could you p-pretend that I am— am— your sister?"

"Certainly," he said. An immense happiness seized him. He was not only up to his neck in Romance. It was already over his head, and he was out of his depth, and swimming.

"Certainly," he repeated quietly, con¬ trolling his joy by a supreme effort. " That would be the simplest way out of it, after all."

She said earnestly, almost solemnly: "If you will do this generous thing for— for a stranger— in very deep perplexity and trouble— that stranger will remain in your debt while life lasts!"

She had not intended to be dramatic; she may not have thought she was; but the tears again glimmered in her lovely eyes, and the situation seemed tense enough to George W. Green.

Moreover, he felt that complications already were arising— complications which he had often read of and sometimes dreamed of. Because, as he stood there in the Southern dusk, looking at this slim, young girl, he began to realize that never before in all his life had he gazed upon anything half as beautiful.

Very far away a locomotive whistled: they both turned, and saw the distant headlight glittering on the horizon like a tiny star.

" W-would it be best for us to t-take your name or mine— in case they ask us?" she stammered, flushing deeply.

"Perhaps," he said pleasantly, "you might be more likely to remember yours in an emergency."

"I think so," she said naively; "it is rather difficult for me to deceive anybody. My name is Marie Wiltz."

"Then I am Mr. Wiltz, your brother, for an hour or two."

"If you please," she murmured.

It had been on the tip of his tongue to add, "Mr. George W. Wiltz," but he managed to check himself.

The great, lumbering train came rolling in; the station agent looked very sharply through his spectacles at Miss Wiltz when he saw her with Green, but being a Southerner, he gallantly assumed that it was all right.

One of the train crew placed two wooden chairs for them in the partly empty baggage-car; and there they sat, side by side, while the big, heavy milk cans were loaded aboard, and a few parcels shoved into their car. Then the locomotive tooted leisurely; there came a jolt, a resonant clash; and the train was under way.

For a while the baggage-master fussed about the car, sorting out packages for Ormond; then, courteously inquiring whether he could do anything for them, and learning that he could not, he went forward into his own den, leaving Marie Wiltz and George W. Green alone in a baggage-car dimly illumined by a small and smoky lamp.

Being well-bred young people, they broke the tension of the situation gracefully and naturally, pretending to find it amusing to travel in a milk-train to a fashionable Southern resort.

And now that the train was actually under way and speeding southward through the night, her relief from anxiety was very plain to him. He could see her relax; see the frightened and hunted look in her eyes die out, the natural and delicious color return to her cheeks.

As they conversed with amiable circumspection and pleasant formality, he looked at her whenever he dared without seeming to be impertinent; and he discovered that the face she had worn since he had first seen her was not her natural expression: that her features in repose or in fearless animation were winning and almost gay.

She had a delightful mouth, sweet and humorous; a delicate nose and chin, and two very blue and beautiful eyes that looked at him at moments so confidently, so engagingly, that the knowledge of what her expression would be if she knew who he was smote him at moments, chilling his very marrow.

What an astonishing situation! How he would have scorned a short story with such a situation in it! And he thought of Williams— poor old Williams!— and mentally begged his pardon.

For he understood now that real life was far stranger than fiction. He realized at last that Romance loitered ever around the corner; that Opportunity was always gently nudging one's elbow.

There lay his overcoat on the floor, trailing over her satchel. He looked at it so fixedly that she noticed the direction of his gaze, glanced down, blushed furiously.

"It may seem odd to you that I am traveling with a man's overcoat," she said, "but it will seem odder yet when I tell you that I don't know how I came by it."

"That is odd," he admitted smilingly. "To whom does it belong?"

Her features betrayed the complicated emotions that successively possessed her— perplexity, anxiety, bashfulness.

After a moment she said in a low voice, "You have done so much for me already— you have been so exceedingly nice to me— that I hesitate to ask of you anything more—"

"Please ask!" he urged. "It will be really a happiness for me to serve you."

Surprised at his earnestness and the unembarrassed warmth of his reply, she looked up at him gratefully after a moment.

"Would you," she said, "take charge of that overcoat for me and send it back to its owner? "

He laughed nervously: "Is that all? Why, of course I shall! I'll guarantee that it is restored to its rightful owner if you wish."

"Will you? If you do that—" she drew a long, sighing breath, "it will be a relief to me— such a wonderful relief! " She clasped her gloved hands tightly on her knee, smiled at him breathlessly.

"I don't suppose you will ever know what you have done for me. I could never adequately express my deep, deep gratitude to you—"

"But— I am doing nothing except shipping back an overcoat—"

"Ah— if you only knew what you really are doing for me! You are helping me in the direst hour of need I ever knew. You are aiding me to regain control over my own destiny! You are standing by me in the nick of time, sheltering me, encouraging me, giving me a moment's respite until I can become mistress of my own fate once more."

The girl had ended with a warmth, earnestness and emotion which she seemed to be unable to control. Evidently she had been very much shaken, and in the blessed relief from the strain the reaction was gathering intensity.

They sat in silence for a few moments; then she looked up, nervously twisting her gloved fingers.

"I am sorry," she said in a low voice, "not to exhibit reticence and proper self-control before a—a stranger.... But I— I have been— rather badly— frightened."

"Nothing need frighten you now," he said.

"I thought so too. I thought that as soon as I left New York it would be all right. But— but the first thing I saw in my stateroom was that overcoat! And the next thing that occurred was— was almost— stupefying. Until I boarded this milk-train, I think I must have been almost irresponsible from sheer fright."

"What frightened you?" he asked, trembling internally.

"I— I can't tell you. It would do no good. You could not help me."

"Yet you say I have already aided you."

"Yes.... That is true.... And you will send that overcoat back, won't you? "

"Yes," he said. "To remember it, I'd better put it on, I think."

The southern night had turned chilly, and he was glad to bundle into his own overcoat again.

"From where will you ship it?" she asked anxiously.

"From Ormond—"

"Please don't!"

"Why?"

"Because," she said desperately, "the owner of that coat might trace it to Ormond and— and come down there."

"Where is he?"

She paled and clasped her hands tighter:

"I— I thought— I had every reason to believe that he was in New York. B-but he isn't. He is in St. Augustine!"

"You evidently don't wish to meet him."

"No— oh, no, I don't wish to meet him— ever!"

"Oh. Am I to understand that this— this fellow," he said fiercely, "is following you?"

"I don't know— oh, I really don't know," she said, her blue eyes wide with apprehension. "All I know is that I do not desire to see him— or to have him see me.... He must not see me; it must not be—it shall not be! I— it's a very terrible thing— I don't know exactly what I'm— I'm fighting against— because it's— it's simply too dreadful—"

Emotion checked her, and for a moment she covered her eyes with her gloved hands, sitting in silence.

"Can't I help you?" he asked gently.

She dropped her hands and stared at him.

"I don't know. Do you think you could? It all seems so— like a bad dream. I'll have to tell you about it if you are to help me— won't I?"

"If you think it best," he said with an inward quiver.

"That's it. I don't know whether it is best to ask your advice. Yet, I don't know exactly what else to do," she added in a bewildered way, passing one hand slowly over her eyes. "Shall I tell you?"

"Perhaps you'd better."

"I think I will!... I— I left New York in a panic at a few moments' notice. I thought I'd go to Ormond and hide there for a while, and then, if— if matters looked threatening, I could go to Miami and take a steamer for the West Indies, and from there— if necessary— I could go to Brazil—"

"But why!" he demanded, secretly terrified at his own question.

She looked at him blankly a moment. "Oh; I forgot. It— it all began without any warning; and instantly I began to run away."

"From what?"

"From— from the owner of that overcoat!"

"Who is he?"

"His name," she said resolutely, "is George W. Green. And I am running away from him.... And I am afraid you'll think it very odd when I tell you that although I am running away from him I do not know him, and I have never seen him."

"Wh-what is the matter with him?" inquired Green, with a sickly attempt at smiling.

"He wants to marry me!" she exclaimed indignantly. "That is what is the matter with him."

"Are you sure?" he asked, astounded.

"Perfectly. And the oddest thing of all is that I do not think he has ever seen me— or ever even heard of me."

" But how can—"

"I'll tell you. I must tell you now, anyway. It began the evening before I left New York. I— I live alone— with a companion— having no parents. I gave a dinner dance the evening before I— I ran away; there was music, too; professional dancers; a crystal-gazing fortune-teller— and a lot of people—loads of them."

She drew a short, quick breath, and shook her pretty head.

"Everybody's been talking about the Princess Zimbazim this winter. So I had her there.... She— she is uncanny— positively terrifying. A dozen women were scared almost ill when they came out of her curtained corner.

"And— and then she demanded me.... I had no belief in such things.... I went into that curtained corner, never for one moment dreaming that what she might say would matter anything to me.... In ten minutes she had me scared and trembling like a leaf. ... I didn't want to stay! I wanted to go. I—couldn't, somehow. My limbs were stiff— I couldn't control them— I couldn't get up! All my will power was— was paralyzed!"

The girl's color had fled; she looked at Green with wide eyes dark with the memory of fear.

"She told me to come to her for an hour's crystal-gazing the following afternoon. I— I didn't want to go. But I couldn't seem to keep away.

"Then a terrible thing happened. I— I looked into that crystal and I saw there— saw with my own eyes— myself being married to a— a perfectly strange man! I saw myself as clearly as in a looking-glass— but I could see only his back. He— he wore an overcoat— like that one I gave to you to send back. Think of it! Married to a man who is wearing an overcoat!

"And there was a clergyman who looked sleepy, and— and two strangers as witnesses— and there was I — I!—getting married to this man.... And the terrible thing about it was that I looked at him as though I— I l-loved him—"

Her emotions overcame her for a moment, but she swallowed desperately, lifted her head, and forced herself to continue, "Then the Princess Zimbazim began to laugh, very horridly: and I asked her, furiously, who that man was. And she said, 'His name seems to be George W. Green; he is a banker and broker; and he lives at 10084 Fifth Avenue.'

" 'Am I marrying him?' I cried. 'Am I marrying a strange broker who wears an overcoat at the ceremony?'

"And she laughed her horrid laugh again and said, 'You certainly are, Miss Wiltz. You can not escape it. It is your destiny.'

" 'When am I to do it!' I demanded, trembling with fright and indignation. And she told me that it was certain to occur within either three months or three days.... And— can you imagine my n-natural feelings of horror— and repugnance? Can you not now understand the panic that seized me— when there, all the time in the crystal, I could actually see myself doing what that dreadful woman prophesied?"

"I don't blame you for running," he said, stunned.

"I do not blame myself. I ran. I fled, distracted, from that terrible house! I left word for my maid to pack and follow me to Ormond. I caught the first train I could catch. For the next three months I propose to continue my flight if— if necessary. And I fear it will be necessary."

"Finding his overcoat in your stateroom must have been a dreadful shock to you," he said, pityingly.

"Imagine! But when, not an hour ago, I saw his name on the register at the Hotel Royal Orchid— directly under my name!— can you— oh, can you imagine my utter terror?"

Her voice broke, and she leaned up against the side of the car, so white, so quivering, so utterly demoralized by fear, that, alarmed, he took her trembling hands firmly in his.

"You mustn't give way," he said. "This won't do. You must show courage."

"How can I show courage when I'm f-frightened? "

"You must not be frightened, because— because I am going to stand by you. I am going to stand by you very firmly. I am going to see this matter through."

"Are you? It is so—so kind of you— so good— so generous.... Because it's uncanny enough to frighten even a man. You see we don't know what we're fighting. We're threatened by— by the occult! By unseen f-forces.... How could that man be in St. Augustine! "

He drew a long breath: "I am going to tell you something.... May I?"

She turned in silence to look at him. Something in his eyes disturbed her, and he felt her little, gloved hands tighten spasmodically within his own.

"It isn't anything to frighten you," he said. "It may even relieve you. Shall I tell you?"

Her lips formed a voiceless word of consent.

"Then I'll tell you. ... I know George W. Green."

"W-what!"

"I know him very well. He is— is an exceedingly— er— nice fellow."

"But I don't care! I'm not going to marry him!... Am I? Do you think I am?"

And she fell a-trembling so violently that, alarmed, he drew her to his shoulder, soothing her like a child, explaining that in the twentieth century no girl was going to marry anybody against her will.

Like a child she cowered against him, her hands tightening within his. The car swayed and rattled on its clanging trucks; the feeble lamp glimmered.

" If I thought," she said, "that George W. Green was destined to marry me under such outrageous and humiliating circumstances, I— I believe I would marry the first decent man I encountered— merely to confound the Princess Zimbazim— and every wicked crystal-gazer in the world! I— I simply hate them!"

He said, "Then you believe in them?"

"How can I help it? Look at me! Look at me here, in full flight— asking protection of you!... And I don't care! I— think I am becoming more angry than— than frightened. I think it is your kindness that has given me courage. Somehow, I feel safe with you. I am sure that I can rely on you; can't I?"

"Yes," he said miserably.

"I was very sure I could when I saw you sitting there on the platform before the milk-train came in.... I don't know how it was— I was not afraid to speak to you.... Something about you made me confident.... I said to myself, 'He is good! I know it!' And so I spoke to you."

Conscience was tearing him inwardly to shreds, as the fox tore the Spartan. How could he pose as the sort of man she believed him to be, and endure the self-contempt now almost overwhelming him?

"I— I'm not good," he blurted out, miserably.

She turned and looked at him seriously for a moment. Then, for the first time aware of his arm encircling her, and her hands in his, she flushed brightly and freed herself, straightening up in her little wooden chair.

"You need not tell me that," she said. "I know you are good."

"As a m-matter of f-fact," he stammered, "I'm a scoundrel!"

"What!"

" I can't bear to have you know it— b-but I am!"

"How can you say that!— when you've been so perfectly sweet to me?" she exclaimed.

And after a moment's silence she laughed deliciously.

"Only to look at you is enough," she said, "for a girl to feel absolute confidence in you."

"Do you feel that?"

"I?... Yes.... Yes, I do. I would trust you without hesitation. I have trusted you, have I not? And after all, it is not so strange. You are the sort of man to whom I am accustomed. We are both of the same sort."

"No," he said gloomily, "I'm really a pariah."

"You! Why do you say such things, after you have been so— perfectly charming to a frightened girl? "

"I'm a pariah," he repeated. "I'm a social outcast! I— I know it, now." And he leaned his head wearily on both palms.

The girl looked at him in consternation.

"Are you unhappy?" she asked.

"Wretched."

"Oh," she said softly, "I didn't know that. ... I am so sorry.... And to think that you took all my troubles on your shoulders too— burdened with your own! I— I knew you were that kind of man," she added warmly.

He only shook his head, face buried in his hands.

"I am so sorry," she repeated gently. " Would it help you if you told me? "

He did not answer.

"Because," she said sweetly, "it would make me very happy if I could be of even the very slightest use to you!"

No response.

"Because you have been so kind."

No response.

"—And so p-pleasant and c-cordial and—"

No response.

She looked at the young fellow who sat there with head bowed in his hands; and her blue eyes grew wistful.

"Are you in physical pain?"

"Mental," he said in a muffled voice.

"I am sorry. Don't you believe that I am?" she asked pitifully.

"You would not be sorry if you knew why I am suffering," he muttered.

"How can you say that!" she exclaimed warmly. "Do you think I am ungrateful? Do you think I am insensible to delicate and generous emotions? Do you suppose I could ever forget what you have done for me?"

"Suppose," he said in a muffled voice, "I turned out to be a— a villain? "

"You couldn't!"

" Suppose it were true that I am one? "

She said, with the warmth of total inexperience with villains, "What you have been to me is only what concerns me. You have been good, generous, noble! And I— like you!"

"You, must not like me."

"I do! I do like you! I shall continue to do so— always—"

"You can not!"

"What! Indeed I can! I like you very much. I defy you to prevent me!"

"I don't want to prevent you— but you mustn't do it."

She sat silent for a moment. Then her lip trembled.

"Why may I not like you?" she asked unsteadily.

"I am not worth it."

He didn't know it, but he had given her the most fascinating answer that a man can give a young girl.

" If you are not worth it," she said tremulously, "you can become so."

"No, I never can."

" Why do you say that? No matter what a man has done— a young man— such as you— he can become worthy again of a girl's friendship— if he wishes to."

"I never could become worthy of yours."

"Why? What have you done? I don't care anyway. If you— if you want my— my friendship you can have it."

"No," he groaned, "I am sunk too low to even dream of it! You don't know— you don't know what you're saying. I am beyond the pale!"

He clutched his temples and shuddered. For a moment she gazed at him piteously, then her timid hand touched his arm.

"I can't bear to see you in despair," she faltered, "—you who have been so good to me. Please don't be unhappy— because— I want you to be happy— "I can never be that."

"Why?"

"Because— I am in love!"

"What!"

"With a girl who— hates me."

"Oh," she said faintly. Then the surprise in her eyes faded vaguely into wistfulness, and into something almost tender as she gazed at his bowed head.

"Any girl," she said, scarcely knowing what she was saying, "who could not love such a man as you is an absolutely negligible quantity."

His hands fell from his face and he sat up.

"Could you?"

"What?" she said, not understanding.

"Could you do what— what I— mentioned just now? "

She looked curiously at him for a moment, not comprehending. Suddenly a rosy flush stained her face.

" I don't think you mean to say that to me," she said quietly.

"Yes," he said, "I do mean to say it.... Because, since I first saw you, I have— have dared to— to be in love with you."

"With me! We— you have not known me an hour!"

"I have known you three days."

"What!"

"I am George W. Green!"

And his head was bowed once more, hopelessly, in his trembling hands.

Minute after minute throbbed in silence, timed by the loud rhythm of the roaring wheels. He did not dare lift his head to look at her, though her stillness scared him. Awful and grotesque thoughts assailed him. He wondered whether she had survived the blow— but like an assassin he dared not look to see what he had done, but crouched there, overwhelmed with misery such as he never dreamed that a human heart could endure.

A century seemed to have passed before, far ahead, the locomotive whistled warningly for the Ormond station.

He understood what it meant, and clutched his temples, striving to gather courage sufficient to lift his head and face her blazing contempt— or her insensible and inanimate but beautiful young form lying in a merciful faint on the floor of the baggage-car.

And at last he lifted his head.

She had risen and was standing by the locked side doors, touching her eyelashes with her handkerchief.

When he rose, the train was slowing down. Presently the baggage-master came in, yawning; the side doors were unbolted and flung back as the car glided along a high, wooden platform.

They were standing side by side now; she did not look at him, but when the car stopped she laid her hand lightly on his arm.

Trembling in every fibre, he drew the little, gloved hand through his arm and aided her to descend.

"Are you unhappy?" he whispered tremulously.

"No.... What are we to do?"

"Am I to say?"

"Yes," she said faintly.

"Shall I register as your brother? "

She blushed and looked at him in a lovely and distressed way.

"What are we to do?" she faltered.

They entered the main hall of the great hotel at that moment, and she turned to look around her.

"Oh!" she exclaimed, clutching his arm. "—Do you see that man! Do you see him!"

"Which man— dearest—"

"That one over there! That is the clergyman I saw in the crystal. Oh, dear! Oh, dear! Is it going to come true right away?"

"I think it is," he said. "Are you afraid?"

She drew a deep, shuddering breath, lifted her eyes to his. "N-no," she said.

Ten minutes later it was being done around the corner of the great veranda, where nobody was. The moon glimmered on the Halifax; the palmettos sighed in the chilly sea-wind; the still, night air was scented with orange bloom and the odor of the sea.

He wore his overcoat, and he used the plain, gold band which had decorated his little finger. The clergyman was brief and businesslike; the two clerks made dignified witnesses.

When it was done, and they were left alone, standing on the moonlit veranda, he said, "Shall we send a present to the Princess Zimbazim?"

"Yes....  A beautiful one."

He drew her to him; she laid both hands on his shoulders. When he kissed her, her face was cold and white as marble.

"Are you afraid?" he whispered.

The marble flushed pink.

"No," she said.

_________________

8: The Prophetic War Correspondent

George Bronson-Howard

1884-1922

Redbook  Sept 1905

IT IS HARDLY POSSIBLE to lose in a game when a blind goddess stands at the back of one's chair and hands one the high cards— that is to say, it is hardly possible if one has the slightest modicum of brains. The one to whom I refer is John Charles Hoddinott and the blind goddess is and always has borne the name of Luck. John Charles Hoddinott had the requisite modicum of brains— hardly more.

Luck had been handing Hoddinott the high cards ever since the days when he came up to New York from a little country village, and got on the staff of the Clarion. No one on the Clarion staff thought much of Hoddinott, because there was nothing in the man's make-up to inspire thoughts of the likeable kind. But he was humble at that period. He became the Clarion's war correspondent in the Philippines solely because he was the captain of a militia regiment ordered to service out there. The Clarion was operated on an economical basis, and saw no reason for paying the expenses of a high-salaried man to do their war correspondence when Hoddinott's expenses were being paid by Uncle Sam, and his services could be had at a very reasonable figure.

By securing for him an appointment on the general's staff, Luck again played into Hoddinott's hands. Having the requisite modicum, he sent satisfactory dispatches because he was in a position to get the news without much trouble. His services were satisfactory, and when the troubles were over in the Islands, the Clarion established Hoddinott in Manila as its regular correspondent incident to his informing them that he already held an Insular appointment and would send their dispatches for a moderate salary.

Hoddinott remained in Manila until the Russo-Japanese fracas was precipitated. The Clarion had not sent out a man and feared to miss the early part of the war. Hoddinott being but ten days' journey from the scene of action, was in receipt of a wire which ordered him to the front in rush terms. Hoddinott secured leave from the Insular Government, packed his volunteer uniforms in his trunk, got out his revolvers, bought quantities of copy paper, and took the steamer for Hong-Kong.

In due time he came to Shanghai, and there he ran into Charles Ellerton Minories, novelist. Minories is a very celebrated person, as you who read may know. Do you not recall his Divided Destinies? A weekly paper was paying Minories a salary which nearly equalled that of the President of the United States to do the war.

Hoddinott met Minories, offered him cigarettes, had them refused, and was snubbed. But that affected Hoddinott not at all. He had his own opinions of himself, and nothing could change them. He tagged after Minories and explained what brotherhood between those of the Fourth Estate should be and would be as far as he was concerned.

Minories took a boat to Chefoo in order to escape Hoddinott, but Hoddinott discovered that he was going and took the same boat. At Chefoo, they put up at the Sea-View Hotel, and here Minories, tired of Hoddinott, proceeded to vitriolize him. Hoddinott's resentment was aroused. He replied to Minories in no uncertain terms. They quarreled and finally fought. Hoddinott being a much stronger man than Minories, knocked the novelist down and quitted the room.

Hoddinott left Chefoo for Ching-wang-tao the next morning. From the latter place, he took the train to Ying-kow, crossed the frozen river Lia-ho and came into our midst.

There were twelve of us in Newchwang at that time, and the dove of peace hovered over the mess which we had established in an old Chinese inn which was rehabilitated and fitted for our living purposes. We had a decent cook, four Chinese boys, and a stable. We were of one mind in that each of us purposed to secure attachment to the Russian forces. To this end we lived very peacefully in Newchwang and tried to curry favor with General Kondraterovitch and the civil administrator, Grosse, who knew more about the war and told less than anyone in Manchuria.

Most of us had campaigned before and knew that the race is not always to the swift. The Russians had the right to deny the privilege of attachment if they chose. Their plea was that those who were prejudiced against them should not be allowed to report their doings. We saw the justice of this argument. Therefore we were careful to wire nothing inimical to the Russian cause even though we knew that many things were happening in Newchwang which would make good "copy" for the newspapers that had sent us to the land of the Manchu.

Now this we considered particularly artful on our part, for an uncensored wire was at Yingkow, just across the river; and we might send what we pleased without interference from the Russian censor. But we also knew that the slink-eyed Chinese clerks furnished to the Russians copies of every message sent by us, and we did not wish to commit to the care of these Celestials any  sentiments that bespoke a desire for Russia's downfall.

So there we sat in Newchwang, quiet, restful, trained out of impatience. We were on a basis of friendship with the Russian officers. Often they bought champagne for us at the club. Once after taking considerable of this same champagne, one of the Russian officers kissed Jimmy Archer. The fact that Jimmy was kissed proved that the Russian officer looked on Jimmy as a brother. The fact that Jimmy did not knock the officer sprawling proved that Jimmy was a very sagacious correspondent and was willing to stand much in order to compass his ends.

The time was drawing nigh when our patience was to be rewarded. General Kuropatkin had come to Newchwang and we had met him. Troops marched in and out and heavy guns were dragged down from Mukden. The ice in the river was breaking up and a Jap attack was believed imminent. Our permits, so we were told, were on their way from St. Petersburg. Our papers were frantically wiring for news, and we were placidly advising patience. It gave us some satisfaction to advise patience to our managing editors. It was our only way of getting even for the number of times the Russians had commended to us the virtue of that same thing.

Then, into our midst like a bomb ready to explode, came Hoddinott; and from the time of his coming vanished peace and quietness and entered chaos and disorder. We did not know Hoddinott in the first place or we would have thought many times before we admitted him as a member of our mess.

John Charles Hoddinott did not wait to become known to us before taking many liberties. From liberties, he passed on to insults. Lord! how that man went out of his way to insult us. Because he had been a volunteer officer, he imagined that he knew more of war than any of us, and he hesitated not at all in telling us so. He ridiculed our patience; said he'd soon show the Russians what was what. Then trouble began.

The second day Hoddinott was in town, the American consul lost a little of his judicial calm and in a moment of conidence informed Douglas Lorry that if Hoddinott ever came into the American consulate again, he (the consul) would risk his official position and kick Hoddinott out. It seems that Hoddinott had been reading him a few lessons on the manner in which Consul Hiller should represent his country in a foreign land. That was Hoddinott. He knew so much more than anyone.

Hoddinott will never realize what an ass he made of himself— he can't. To begin with, he strutted about in his uniform as captain of volunteers (which he had no right to wear) and insisted on being addressed as ''Captain Hoddinott." He made an enemy of the British attaché— a very nice fellow— who had been trying to help him. He was ejected from the mansion of the Russian civil administrator and warned never to come there again. He was arrested for speaking in too loud a tone to General Kondratorovitch; and Consul Hiller had to put in the better part of an afternoon effecting his release. Altogether, Hoddinott set an example of what a correspondent should not be when in a foreign country.

Of course, the worst thing for us was the fact that Hoddinott made an enemy in the civil administrator; and we found on calling the next day that the civil administrator was not receiving any war correspondents. We returned to our mess and cursed the young man from the Clarion.

As if he had not landed us in a bad enough hole, he needs must dig up all the stuff which we had left unused, and wire it. This stuff was anti-Russian. That was why we had not used it. Hoddinott not only used it but exaggerated it, making just the sort of stories that play up well under the head of "Russian Atrocities," or something of the sort, beloved by copy-readers.

Meanwhile Minories came to town, refused to join our mess on discovering that Hoddinott was a member of it, established himself in a little hotel and looked on. He didn't say much. That wasn't Minories' way.

But to return to Hoddinott. The stuff which he wired was more or less true; and, as I said before, we knew it would make good "copy." So when Hoddinott began to heat the wires with it, our papers heated them the other way with inquiries couched in offensive language, relating the fact that the Clarion was beating us and beating us badly. Thus were we forced into wiring everything whether it was anti-Russian or not; for we knew that it would get out through Hoddinott and we derived no pleasure from contemplating the results of being scooped by him.

All this sort of thing would have been bad enough by itself; but Hoddinott, flushed with the idea that he was the only correspondent who dared show the Rus- sians his mettle, became extremely offensive and insulting toward everyone. One day he went too far. By courtesy of the British residents of Newchwang we had been put up at the Newchwang Club, Hoddinott included. It happened that Hoddinott took a dislike to a big Englishman named Holroyd, and on this particular occasion he leaned against the bar by Holroyd's side and drew offensive comparisons between their respective countries, ending up with a wholesale criticism of Britons and some nasty personalities. Holroyd flushed all over and invited Hoddinott outside to settle their differences. The Clarion man refused and sneered at him; whercupon Holroyd called him a name which no man stands for and repeated his invitation. But instead of accepting, Hoddinott sailed in for Holroyd then and there and did for him. He was a good fighter was Hoddinott; but to do such a thing in a club to which he belonged only by courtesy was something no self-respecting man would do.

That settled Hoddinott with the club people. They fired him out. It was rather nasty for us Americans, you may well imagine.

I met Minories that night and he asked me cver to his rooms at the hotel. Now, personally, I don't like Minories, his ways, his ideas, or his writings. He is too coldly intellectual, too devoid of the natural emotions, and too reserved to suit me; then, too, his outrageous theories about every man for himself without regard for honor or friendship pretty nearly set one crazy when Minories sets out to give them in his icy logic. Minories is what I call an unmoral man— he couldn't be immoral because, truth to tell, I don't believe he ever had any morals. No man with morals could have done what Minories did in Hoddinott's case. True enough, Hoddinott deserved it, but a man with the right ideas wouldn't care to mix up in that sort of thing.

Minories knew this very well. That, no doubt, is the reason he swore me to secrecy before he unfolded his scheme. I don't know why he selected me for his confidence; but I suppose it was necessary to "try it on the dog" and I was the most convenient at the time.

"Look here, Risley," he said to me, "if we expect to make the front with the Russians, we must get rid of that little beast, Hoddinott. He's done us more harm now than if we'd gotten out in the square in a body and declared for Japan. Now I didn't make this journey out here to be left in the lurch when the fighting begins. The Linleys want this stuff badly: they're paying me a lot; and I must deliver the goods. Besides the Harveys want to bring out a book by me on the war. So you see I can't have my chances jeopardized by a bumptious young fool, and what's more, I'm not going to—"

I asked him what the remedy was to be. In order that you may understand our situation at the time, I'll tell you that we hadn't the slightest idea where Kuroki's army was going at the time except what drifted to us from Tokyo via London, and that was precious little. We, of course, understood that Kuroki intended to try to cross the Yalu; but the Russians so laughingly pooh-poohed the chances of such an occurrence and impressed us with the strength of their fortification on the Ai River that none of us thought the little beggars had much of a chance—at any rate, not for months. We didn't take the Russians' words entirely. There were two British officers in Newchwang who had been on the Yalu, and who declared that, properly defended, it was impassable. At that time, we had lots more respect for Russian prowess than we have now.

The night on which Minories outlined his scheme to rid us of Hoddinott's presence was that of April 30th, 1904. And this was the scheme: "I've written a cablegram," he said, taking a folded paper from his pocket. "I'll read it to you," he said.

It was a vivid penpicture of the taking of the Ai forts and palisades, the crossing of the Yalu on pontoons, and the utter route of the Russian forces. Minories was an expert on military tactics and his account was glowingly plausible. The local color was all correct too, for Minories had studied up the theatre of war pretty closely. The cablegram finished with this statement: "This is exclusive news and you may rely on it, but the Associated Press will not have it for at least twenty four hours. It is a clean beat." He looked at me with a dry grin.

"You bet the A. P. won't have it," I returned, grinning also. ''What awful rot, Minories! I don't say the Japs can't cross the Yalu, but it'll be many moons before they do it. At the present time they've got as much chance as a snowball in perdition."

"Hope you don't think I'm going to send that to my sheet," drawled Minories. "I don't cable much anyhow. Kindly note to whom this cable is addressed and also the signature at the end."

I took the typewritten sheet in hand. When I noted address and signature, I gave a little squeal. For I understood Minories then.

The cablegram was addressed to "Clarion, New York," and the signature was "' Hoddinott."

Minories took the paper from my hand. 'Rather a good scheme to get rid of the little bounder— what?" he asked with another of his dry grins. 'When his paper gets that and runs half a dozen extras, only to find it's a fake, what'll happen to Captain Hoddinott— eh?"'

"He'll be fired, of course," I stammered. ''Good God! Minories! You don't really mean to send that— it'll ruin him forever. Good Lord! you don't mean to do it. No, that's damned rotten— you won't—"

Minories folded the paper and put it in his pocket.

"Oh let up on that," he said. "Of course I'm going to send it. Think I spent all that time for fun. Rather not. This is going just as soon as I get across the river to the cable. office."

He got up, pulled on his fur-trimmed jacket, and knocked some mud off his riding boots. Then he lighted a cigarette.

"But look here," I protested hotly. "It's a dirty trick. I'll not stand for it. It'll ruin him."

"He deserves to be ruined— little beast," said Minories. 'And I'll beg you to remember that you passed your word to keep quiet, and I know you're not the kind to break your word. So just forget about this, Risley. You're not doing it. So long."

And with that he went out and down to the river-bank, where he took a boat across to Yingkow. Here he filed the dispatch, and when he came back, a couple of hours later, he informed me that he had spent the money necessary to get it to Tien-tsin, where, by virtue of Hoddinott's R. T. P. (receiver-to-pay) it would be forwarded on to New York.

Then, in no measured terms, I told Minories what I thought of him. He only grinned and said something about the pity of being handicapped with eighteenth century ideas of honor. "If you look at it that way, why don't you go tell Hoddinott. It's time enough yet to recall the dispatch. But you won't— of course not. You gave me your word of honor: that binds you. Now, I haven't any word of honor. Oh, Risley! what an utterly inconsistent ass you are." In all good-nature he proffered me a cigarette and went away. There's no use in arguing with a man of Minories' stamp.

WHEN I turned in that night, I was extremely sorry for Hoddinott: and sorrier for his paper. It's no pleasant thing to run a fake like that and have all the paper's rivals shouting ''Canard" at it.

But the next day, I quit sorrowing for Hoddinott and began to extend a few sympathetic thoughts to myself. My Chinese boy awakened me at seven o'clock and handed me a cablegram. I read something to this effect:

"Clarion correspondent sends complete account Japanese victory on Yalu River and Clarion has beaten town. Associated hasn't confirmed, yet says probable. Wake up and send story. Rush."

Then in the glory of my manhood and the consciousness that I was right, I seized my fountain pen and indited something to the effect that the Clarion correspondent was a liar and that there hadn't been any Japanese victory. I sent this off and felt satisfied that I had called down my managing editor in a way he would not soon forget.

When I went in for breakfast, I found the rest ot the fellows busily writing away at cablegrams, and it transpired that each one of them had received a cable similar to my own. That is, all except Hoddinott. He had been drunk the night before and did not know exactly what he had done. Now, spread before him, was a cablegram that worried him considerably more than ours did.

"What's this you sent about a Japanese victory, Hoddinott," asked Carroll. "You're always getting us into hot water."

"Oh! go soak your head," replied Hoddinott rudely. "I'm not a bureau of information. "

"'No— a bureau of misinformation," supplemented Jimmy Archer suavely. "Don't bother about it, boys. From what I saw of Hoddinott last night he wasn't fit to send anything intelligible."

Hoddinott glared at him and rolled a cigarette. We set to work on our breakfast, but none of the crowd was very hungry. While we sipped coffee and smoked, Minories came in. He made no allusion to the night before by either word or gesture and listened passively to the explanations from our crowd.

"I wouldn't worry about anything Hoddinott sent," he comforted.

If Hoddinott hadn't been so worried, I think he would have struck Minories. There was an ugly look in his eye. But Minories had hardly spoken when one of our Chinese boys came in and handed Hoddinott another yellow envelope.

Hoddinott dropped hot ashes on his hands, and his fingers trembled as he tore open the cable. He looked at it, his eyes blinking rapidly, and then held it close to his eyes, scrutinizingly it with the most eager expression I have ever scen on man's face. Then he got up slowly and went across the room where he poured out a long dose of Scotch. He drank it down neatly, then turned a sneering eye on us.

"You people listen to this," he said. And this is what he read us:

"Congratulations on your splendid beat. We were ahead of New York and London both by twenty hours. Associated Press confirmed your story ten minutes ago. Yours varies considerably, but main facts the same—"

There was a lot more to it, but that's about all I heard. I felt weak at the stomach. I looked around and saw the sickest looking crowd I ever want to see: each one looked as if he had been crushed to earth by the sudden descent of a heavy body on his head. But Minories didn't blink an eye. He went on smoking a cigarette, and presently asked, in a perfectly cool tone, the manner in which Hoddinott had sccured his information. Now Hoddinott didn't know, but he wasn't telling anyone that.

He replied with his usual courtesy: "I guess that'll be about all from you, Minories. I beat the whole bunch of you, and that ought to hold you for a while. Some time I'll teach you how to be war correspondents." Then he hied himself across the river and, I suppose, got the dispatch from the files. What he thought when he read it, I don't know. He didn't tell anyone. He had the requisite modicum of brains, and he played the high cards that the blind goddess put into his hand.

When Minories and I got outside, I looked at him. 'You're too realistic a romancer," I said. "That's what you are!" I was a litile bitter. It's not pleasant to see success come to a man like Hoddinott.

Minories shook his head a little sadly. "I'm too careful about details and local color," he replied. 'It's hell, isn't it, Risley?"

I said it was, and that's all we ever said about it. But that's the way Hoddinott made his coup; and afterwards, when he was taken down with enteric fever and had to be shipped home, the Clarion made him their London correspondent.

All of which proves that Luck is a very blind goddess indeed.

__________________

9: The Inexorable Tooth

Ellis Parker Butler

1869-1937

Red Book Magazine, Dec 1915

Philo Gubb, "the foremost deteckative in all of Iowa," returns. This is one of the twenty or so Gubb stories never collected into a book.

PHILO GUBB, the paper-hanger detective, graduate of the Rising Sun Detective Bureau's Correspondence School of Detecting (in twelve lessons), sat on a bundle of wall paper in his bedroom-office-decorating-shop.

"Wet or dry?" he asked.

Lawyer Lynch stopped short in his vehement striding up and down the room.

"What— what do you mean?" he demanded fiercely. "What do you think I'm talking about, the weather? The week's wash? Wet or dry! I said the child had a nurse."

Philo Gubb blushed. He was a bachelor, and speaking of such things made him blush; but a detective must, know the facts. He coughed apologetically.

"It was in regard to the nurse I was speaking about," he said. "The inquiry I asked from you was: Was the nurse wet or dry?"

"I suppose if she went out in the rain, she'd be wet, and if she stayed in the house, she'd be—" Lawyer Lynch exclaimed with vexation at the interruption of his flowing description of the crime. "Oh!" he said suddenly and rather sheepishly. "I see! Why, the child— the baby— was raised on a bottle, as I understand it. Ardelia must be a dry nurse, if that's got anything to do with it."

"It has quite a considerable much to do with it," said Philo Gubb. "If the nursing person was of the other kind of sort, it would make quite a considerable difference into the way I would handle this case."

"Then you will handle it?" asked Lawyer Lynch eagerly. "You'll get right at it?"

Philo Gubb cast his birdlike eyes over the long row of disguises hanging on his wall— the disguises furnished, at twenty-five per cent off catalogue prices, by the Rising Sun Supply Bureau and which he was accustomed to wear in tracking criminals to their lairs.

"I might start to begin the preliminary getting ready work," he said, "but I couldn't commence to start the real work for about three days."

"Mr. Gubb," said the lawyer, stopping and facing him, "I urge haste! This woman, this mother whose little child has been torn from her arms, is prostrate on her couch with grief. She is in an agony of motherly— ah— agony. Each moment her little babe is kept from her is an eternity to her, Mr. Gubb. Imagine yourself, Mr. Gubb, a fond mother—"

"That's one thing," said Mr. Gubb flatly, "I haven't no ability to imagine myself into."

Lawyer Lynch ran his hand through his red hair and scowled at Mr. Gubb. Lawyer Lynch was a young man; he had been a lawyer about six months; he took himself and this first case of his most seriously. He had always taken himself seriously. While telling Philo Gubb the history of the misunderstanding that had led up to the crime of abduction, he had walked the floor, he had shaken his fists at the ceiling, he had called on the gods to bear witness, he had rumpled his stiff, upstanding red hair and had grasped it with both hands. Не had held his trembling hands toward the floor as he tremulously mentioned the poor little child wrested away from its mother. He had beaten his breast as he cried for vengeance. .

"Three days!" he exclaimed now. "Three days? And must that poor mother wait three days before you set out to find her poor little child?"

"No deteckative couldn't be expected to set out onto a baby business dressed into a cowboy disguise," said Philo Gubb firmly. "The criminal classes is most keenly shrewd, and a baby-stealer would look with suspicion onto a deteckative that disguised himself up as a cowboy— or even as a Scottish Highlander with bagpipes. No, Mr. Lynch, I can't get to work onto the case no sooner than. three days, because"— and he put out his hand and took up the Rising Sun Supply Bureau's catalogue— "three days is the soonest period of time into which I can expect to receive this disguise Number Sixty-two— Female nurse— Eighteen dollars— Cap fifty cents extra."

Lawyer Lynch stood in his best attitude, his hand in the breast of his coat, and scowled.

"And if the aforesaid Ardelia had turned out to be a wet nurse, I wouldn't have took the case at no price. No, sir! A deteckative gentleman can't be ex- pected to carry out the disguise of a wet nurse to full and complete perfection in all respects. Now, what was this Ardelia nurse like?"

"She's sixteen and about five feet tall, very plump and rosy-cheeked."

Philo Gubb arose. It has been said again and again that he looked, when standing, like a flamingo— a six-footer. It will do no harm to say it again.

"Details like them are necessary to a deteckative to help him fix up the com- plete likeness of his disguise," he said, and he went to his desk and jotted down the information Lawyer Lynch had given him.

The abduction case was not one of entire mystery, but it had its exceedingly puzzling features. Mr. Lynch had already related the case to Mr. Gubb. A certain Samuel Johnson had married a certain Mary Smith. To this couple child was born. When the child was a year and eight months old, Mary Johnson, through the efforts of Lawyer Lynch, had secured a divorce from her husband, and the court had rightly enough given her custody of the child. All  this excitement had had an effect on Mrs. Johnson's nerves, and she hired the girl Ardelia to take care of the child. Samuel Johnson had, seemingly, disappeared from the town, but one late afternoon Ardelia had rushed into the house crying that Mr. Johnson had waylaid her and had stolen the baby, baby carriage, nursing bottle and all. Mrs. Johnson was immediately prostrated and had remained in bed ever since. It was to find Mr. Johnson and secure the return of the stolen child that Lawyer Lynch had come to Philo Gubb.

One puzzling feature of the case was that Mr. Johnson had, evidently, not left Riverbank. A man with a baby in a baby carriage cannot board a train without being seen. He could, perhaps, have abandoned the baby carriage and have hidden the baby under his coat, but no abandoned baby carriage had been found, and Lawyer Lynch assured Mr. Gubb that the baby was not the kind that could be hidden under a coat and smuggled aboard a train. While the baby already had five teeth, it was cutting a sixth, and this sixth tooth was a large and painful one to cut. The baby was, as Lawyer Lynch said, "опе continuous howl." It may be possible to smuggle thirteen-inch guns, diamond necklaces, Mexican ex-presidents and such things, but the imagination is staggered by the idea of smuggling a baby that is one continuous howl. Mr. Johnson had so far, however, been able to sequestrate the child. The baby, Mr. Johnson and Ardelia seemed to have disappeared off the face of the earth.

For Ardelia had also disappeared. No sooner had she thrown Mrs. Johnson nicely into hysterics by her brazen announcement of the theft of the child than she rushed from the house. She had not been seen since.

Ordinarily Mr. Gubb would have pro- ceeded to the home of Mrs. Johnson at once, to ask the necessary questions, but this was not possible. At any mention of the baby, Mrs. Johnson's grief took the form of hysterical convulsions, and, as Lawyer Lynch said, "she tries to stand on her head." On this account, Mr. Lynch was himself barred from her room and was obliged to conduct all business through Mrs. Wentz, a fat, strong-armed practical nurse who was taking care of Mrs. Johnson.

Mr. Lynch described the missing child for Philo Gubb— black hair, five teeth and one arriving, plump, just able to walk, able to say a few utterly indistinguishable words and to howl like a hyena. When the description was completed, Mr. Gubb studied his memoranda carefully.

"And nourishment?" he asked.

"Nourishment? Oh! Milk, out of a bottle— out of a nursing bottle."

"I should wish you to fetch me one of a similar sort of kind," said Mr. Gubb gravely. "Аnd I should also wish you to find out and let me know what proportions is put into it."

"To find out what?" asked Lawyer Lynch.

"What proportions of milk, et cetery and so forth, is put into it," explained Philo Gubb. "I'm going to detect where this child is at into the disguise of a nursing maid, and if I find the child I may have to induce it to accompany itself along with me by feeding its accustomed food into it. I want you should get me the make-up of the formula of the milk into the nursing bottle."

This was a proper precaution. Children accustomed to one style of nursing bottle will not accept another kind. This is a fact well known to all nursing- bottle manufacturers and accounts for the surprising promptness with which they attempt to get printed matter in praise of their particular type of nursing bottles into the hands of female parents after the coming of the little darling. Nursing-bottle manufacturers spend thousands of dollars annually buying names and addresses of parents of recently born children. The lists are secured from newspaper clippings and from bureaus of vital statistics. When Mr. Green walks proudly to the office of The Bingtown Daily Whooper and blushingly hands across the counter, an item reading, "Born, to Mr. and Mrs. Jason J. Green, a son," he is inevitably pulling a trigger that will react by shooting into his home the advertising matter of at least eight nursing-bottle manufacturers. A child may be mistaken in its mother, but after two days' experience with a nursing bottle, it will not take any other. A detective has to know all these things. To acquire this knowledge at second hand is an enormous task; to acquire it at first hand is easy; that is why so many detectives are married men and fathers. A few, however, who were once babies themselves— as Philo Gubb had been— know these things by instinct. That was how Philo Gubb knew. He had himself been a bottle baby.

On the eighth of August (Detective Gubb had ordered a disguise Number Sixty-two on August fifth, by wire), Philo Gubb stood in his room preparing to set forth to discover and secure the stolen baby. On the flat portion of his roll-top desk, where the inkstand usually stood, rested a small two-burner gas stove from which a rubber tube ran to the nearest gas jet. One burner of the gas stove was unlighted; from the other burner forty ог more small blue flames wavered and. gave forth heat.

Lawyer Lynch, his hands clasped behind his back in a more-or-less Henry Clay style, tramped up and down the room, his brow creased by impatience. From time to time he cast an impatient glance at Philo Gubb.

"Not ready yet?" he would ask, and as Mr. Gubb vouchsafed no reply, he would resume his nervous walking.

Mr. Gubb was disguised as Ardelia Metherthwaite. The costume consisted of a dark blue cotton gown, fitting neatly at the waist; a large white apron with a bib that pinned at the shoulders; and a white cap with a blue bow and streamers. As this would not otherwise remain on his head, Mr. Gubb had slipped a large rubber band over the cap and under his chin. This accounted for his reluctance answering Lawyer Lynch. The rubber band fitted so tightly that whenever Mr. Gubb opened his mouth, the band snapped it shut again suddenly. He had thus bitten his tongue twice, and he was loath to indulge in useless conversation.

The costume, quite properly, was built for a young and sprightly nursemaid, and the skirt was correspondingly short. In fact, the costume was sold or rented most frequently for private theatricals of the comic opera sort, and in such dramatic affairs nursemaids invariably make up in stockings what they lack in skirt. In the good cause of modesty, however, Mr. Gubb had discarded the stockings and retained his trousers, and these, with his large, yellow leather shoes, added a touch of the unexpected to his disguise and made it more complete.

A criminal, seeing Mr. Gubb approach, would be more apt to be confused because he could not be sure whether he was being approached by a man or a nursemaid. If the criminal peered under a box-car and saw Philo Gubb, he would think he saw a man, but if he saw Philo Gubb approaching behind a low board fence, he would think he beheld a nurse-maid. Although Mr. Gubb did not think of it, he could practically change his identity in an instant by hopping suddenly from behind a fence to behind a box-car.

At the moment, Mr. Gubb was engaged in an operation that demanded all his faculties. His brow was creased with the lines of deep attention that are seen on the brows of alchemists at the moment when they are just completing an experiment that may end in the transmutation of a base metal into gold. In one hand Mr. Gubb held a watch and in the other a spoon. In the watch hand was also clasped a bath thermometer and in the spoon hand a small bottle of lime-water. On the lighted gas burner stood an aluminum saucepan, and in this was a quantity of milk. It was on this that Mr. Gubb's attention was so closely fixed. Suddenly he glanced at the thermometer and put his watch into the hot milk.

"Drat it!" he exclaimed, with annoyance. "Thats what comes from you walking down and up all the continuous time!"

Mr. Lynch stopped short.

"For heaven's sake, don't overboil this kettleful," he cried. "Its the sixth! You'll never get started."

"And if you keep talking a conversation at me, there's no telling when I'll get started," said Philo Gubb. He jerked his watch out of the hot milk and inserted the thermometer. A glow of exultation overspread his face. With a deft opening of his hand he dropped both the watch and the thermometer on the floor, shut off the gas, took the spoon in the hand thus emptied and began stirring the milk while he dribbled lime-water into it.

"There!" he exclaimed. "I got it correctly right according to the directions of the formula this time. This milk should be wholly satisfactory unto the infantile child."

He let the lime-water bottle and the spoon fall after the watch and the ther- mometer and took hold of the handle of the saucepan.

"Wowp!" he cried, or something like it.

"Burn yourself?" asked Lawyer Lynch coldly.

Mr. Gubb was trying to suck the entire inside of his right palm.

"Put lime-water on it," said Lawyer Lynch. "There's nothing better for a burn."

Mr. Gubb looked at the lime-water bottle. Its contents were running down one board of the floor. He tucked his skirt around his waist, got upon his hands and knees and held his hand in the stream of lime-water. It was grateful and soothing.

"If you wished to stop doing nothing and be usefully of help," he said, "you could lift down that pan of milk and them thermos bottles so as I could be filling them up with it whilst giving myself some relief from the pain."

Lawyer Lynch. did as lie was in- structed. There were four thermos bot- tles, and Lawyer Lynch stood them in a row. Mr. Gubb kneeled with his hand in the puddle of lime-water and with his left hand carefully tilted the pan of milk. Quite a little' of it entered the necks of the thermos bottles. More per- haps would have been saved had Mr. Gubb not used his left hand and had he not wrapped his handkerchief around the hot handle of the saucepan.

I have always held that no life work holds so many moments of intense in- terest as the life work of a detective. АП the fox-like shrewdness of the criminal is pitted against the eagle-eyed, keen- brained skill of his pursuer. Mr. Gubb inserted the stoppers into the necks of the thermos bottles, screwed on the tops and inserted the bottles into their cases, two bottles to the case. Each of the leather cases had a shoulder strap, and Mr. Gubb hung one сазе over one shoulder and one over the other. On his trimming-table stood an open valise, and into this Mr. Gubb packed six hygienic nursing bot- tles, two rubber nipples that he had al- ready sterilized, a bone teething-ring, a tin rattle, his revolver, a box of cartridges, tliree false mustaches,—in case he needed to change his disguise,—a small bottle of talcum powder and a ham sandwich wrapped in oiled paper. The sandwich was for himself and not for the child. He had been so busy he had not had time to eat.

"There!" he exclaimed thankfully. "I'm ready to start to commence begin- ning."

Lawyer Lynch rubbed his hands with satisfaction. He took up his hat.

"Where are you going to?" asked Mr. Gubb as he snapped the lock of the valise.

"Im going with you," said Lawyer Lynch. Detective Gubb looked at him.

"A deteckative sleuth don't have no- body go along with him whilst he is trailing after a clue," he said firmly, "especially into baby cases. It aint the usual custom generally used."

"Т don't care what it is," said Lawyer Lynch, no less firmly. *I'm paying you and I'm going along."

Mr. Gubb began to unshoulder the thermos-case straps.

"Into that case I decline to proceed further along onto this case," he said flatly. "Into an ordinary case I might not say you a negative refusal, but into a baby case I've got to be solidly firm. Suppose you try to imagine a supposition that the baby is asleep when I discover upon it!"

"Well, suppose it is?"

"Into that case," said Philo Gubb, "а deteckative would ought to observe the most finest kind of silence, especially when the babe is teething its teeth like this one is. A detective can't have a grandstand gallery coming along to wake up the baby. No, sir! If you go, I don't go!"

"Oh, well!" said Lawyer Lynch. "Have it your own way! I only thought I might hasten you a little. You've been time and eternity, almost, getting ready."

Detective Gubb swung the straps upon his shoulders again. He took up the valise in one hand. :

"And what disposal shall I make of

339
the child when I recover it back?" he asked. "Do you want I should fetch it to your office ?"

"Great Scott, no!" cried Lawyer Lynch. "Take it to the mother. She's mourning for it; I'm not. I'm not the child's affectionate parent. Take it to Mrs. Johnson."

"ГІ so do," said Mr. Gubb; and he accompanied Lawyer Lynch into the corridor and parted from him there.

ELDOM had the graduate of the Ris- ing Sun Detective Bureau's School of Detecting undertaken a more seem- ingly hopeless case. He had not a single tangible clue—nothing he could put under the microscope: not a button off a coat, not a lock of hair, nothing! And
yet Philo Gubb was not daunted. He:

had, it is true, the various facts and de- scriptions supplied him by Lawyer Lynch—the description of the stolen baby, the description of Mr. Samuel Johnson, the description of Ardelia Metherthwaite, the description of the baby carriage. With his usual keen per- ception that a detective must, as far as possible, put himself in the criminal's place, Mr. Gubb went directly to Ninth Street, selected the house that most closely answered Lawyer Lynch's de- scription of the Johnson residence, and followed from there the route most likely taken by the criminal as he bore off the child.

As he walked he held the valise before him, both hands on its handle, and tried to imagine he was pushing a baby carriage. He tried to imagine the feel- ings of a father stealing his own child and fearing pursuit; and he did not long find it difficult to imagine the fear of pursuit, for before he had wheeled the imaginary baby carriage quite a block, pursuit materialized. Eight of the pursuit were boys, and one was a wide-eyed, open-mouthed girl who repeated over and over as she hurried along, "Say, Jimmy, what's he doin'? Say, Jimmy, what's he doin'? Say, Jimmy, what's he doin'?" until Jimmy said, "Aw, how d' I know? He's crazy," and then she approached Mr. Gubb and put the question frankly: "Say, Mister, are you crazy?"

Mr. Gubb stopped. short in intense vexation. He moved the valise back and forth as one moves a baby carriage to sooth a restless infant.

"Ssh!" he whispered. "Run away. I'm a deteckative deteckating, and I'd admire to have you all run away and let me alone."

The effect was instantaneous. The pursuit, so far as it was boys, immediately placed its hands to its mouths and shouted. In general effect the shouting was: "Ye-ow, Billy! С'm on! C'm on quick! Here's a deteckative deteckating! Hurry!"

This clinging and faithful pursuit— which was so close that at times a part of it got in front of Mr. Gubb and was stepped on — suggested that the baby stealer must have done all possible to puzzle it. Mr. Gubb therefore turned the first corner, and the next corner and the next corner after that. As he pro- ceeded in this zigzag path, he increased his speed until he hardly paused to ease the imaginary wheels of the imaginary baby carriage up or down the curbs at the crossings. As he fled he was able fairly well to imagine the brain condition of a fatherly baby-stealer. In such a position a baby-stealer would seek a safe hiding place in one of two places, viz:

(A) In the slums.

(B) In some hut in the remote woods.

Riverbank had no slums but it had what must, under the circumstances, serve as slums. On the edge of town it had:

(A) The Italian quarter.

(B) The Negro quarter.

(A-B) The place where the Italian quarter merged into the Negro quarter.

While not slummy, these three quarters, or two quarters and a half, were populated by families that left their garbage cans on the sidewalk longer than the other families of Riverbank. That was something, and gave the section a slummy odor, at least. To this was added the remarkable abundance of child life. A baby-stealer taking refuge in "A" or "В" or "A-B" could turn his loot into the street with reason- able security that no ordinary sleuth would be able to identify' the stolen child among so many other children. 'The only danger would be that the child-stealer might himself never be able to separate his loot from the common mass of one-to ten-year-old blacks, whites and yellows.

Mr. Gubb, pushing his valise before him, made directly for the near-slums and thus unwittingly rid himself of his pursuit. At a certain corner two blocks from the "A"-"B" — "A-B" sections of Riverbank, his pursuit stopped short and put its thumbs in its mouths. The reason for this was that if it went further it would suffer from the endless feud existing between the Ninth Street Gang and the Fourteenth Street Gang. Reluctantly the pursuit watched Philo Gubb enter the zone of influence of the Fourteenth Street Gang; then it turned and went back to Ninth Street.

Midway between Thirteenth Street and Fourteenth Street, Philo Gubb seated himself on a horse block and unslung one of the thermos cases. He opened the valise and took out one nursing bottle and one rubber nipple. He filled the nursing bottle carefully from the contents of the thermos bottle, placed the rubber nipple where it belonged, returned the thermos bottle to its case and the case to his shoulder, arose and proceeded. Beginning at "А-В," Detective Gubb. slowly worked his way through "A," offering the nursing bottle to every white child of the requisite youth. Seventy six out of a possible ninety-four took the nursing bottle greedily. Of the seventy-six who thus qualified as possible candidates for the honor of being the stolen child, eighteen gave evidence of teething. Оf the eighteen thus culled from the mass, four, upon their mouths being pried open, revealed five teeth already sprouted.

Detective Gubb felt his pulses beating high with approaching triumph. He placed the four infants on the edge of the plank walk and studied them closely. Except for the dirt that smeared their faces they were as unlike as four children could be, and while any one of the four might be the child he sought, this was equally true of the remaining three. In such a quandary Philo Gubb was at a loss for but a moment. Begin- ning with the child at the left of the row as they faced him, Mr. Gubb point- ing his long forefinger at them, and moving it from one to the next as he spoke, he repeated these celebrated lines:

Eeny meeny, miney mo,

Crack a feeny finey fo,

Omma nootcha,

Poppa toocha,

Rick, stick, stan, straw,

O-u-t spells out!

Three times Detective Gubb repeated these talismanic words, and at each final "out" he lifted one child from the row and set it aside. Before the remainder, consisting of one child, he knelt, opening his valise and taking from it the paregoric bottle and a spoon, and dropping ten drops of the liquid into the bowl of the spoon, he was about to drug the innocent creature into silence and sleep when he cast a hasty glance to right and to left to assure himself he was not observed. Instantly he stood erect. The paregoric dripped harmlessly into the dust at his feet.

Down the sidewalk, pushing a respectably white baby carriage, came a young female person who, in every detail, met the description of Ardelia Metherthwaite, the recreant nursemaid, as given by Lawyer Lynch. In the baby carriage sat a child of approximately the age of the stolen Johnson. The child lay back in the carriage, yelling and kicking, biting one finger of its left hand while it pounded angrily with its right. Mr. Gubb, following the rule laid down in Lesson VIII of the Rising Sun Correspondence School's course of twelve lessons, hastily concealed himself behind a tree and awaited the approach of the nursemaid and the carriage. Behind his back he deftly concealed the nursing bot- tle and the vial of paregoric, and he held the spoon in his teeth, which clasped it firmly, aided by the rubber band that held his cap. Not until the carriage was immediately opposite the tree did Philo Gubb spring to the middle of the sidewalk, full in front of the baby carriage.

With a wild cry of fear, the unsuspecting nursemaid turned and fled.

There was no time to be lost. Detective Gubb knew that if the father of the child were concealed somewhere in the near-slums, it would be but a few moments before the recreant nursemaid regained her senses and ran to Mr. Johnson with the tale of the attack. He worked quickly. With a dexterity hardly to be expected in a bachelor— even if a graduate of the Rising Sun Detective Bureau's School of Detecting — Mr. Gubb glanced into the child's mouth and counted its teeth. Five on hand and one a-comin'! With equal skill he placed the nipple of the nursing bottle in the child's mouth. Instantly the infant ceased howling. It grasped the bottle with both hands and imbibed its contents with every evidence of joy and gratitude. Hastily Mr. Gubb tucked his valise under the child's feet, and hastily he placed himself behind the handle of the carriage, and still more hastily he fled, propelling the baby carriage out of that neighborhood at a speed that must be called nothing less than reckless. With one hand Mr. Gubb held his skirts out of the way. With both legs he ran. The baby carriage swayed and jumped like a ship in a gale. Twice it rolled around corners on two wheels. Once it all but lost its precious cargo going over a bump. Not until he had put many blocks between him and the scene of his meeting with Ardelia did Mr. Gubb wheel the baby carriage into the snug harbor of an alley, where he hid behind a rubbish barrel. He sought the paregoric bottle; but he had lost it in his hasty flight.

Luckily the infant did not need to be drugged. The haste of the flight had disarrayed it somewhat. Its garments were awry; it lay partly on its head and partly on one shoulder, with one foot over the side of the carriage and the other nestling against its neck, but it still held the bottle with a death grip, and it still imbibed the delicious fluid with gurgles of satisfaction.

With trembling hands Detective Gubb prepared a second bottle against a time of need, and after a glance over his shoulder to make sure the coast was clear, he wheeled the carriage up the alley in the direction of the spot on Ninth Street from which he had originally taken up the trail. He reached the house without further adventures.

As Mr. Gubb wheeled the baby carriage through the gate and up the walk to the house, the front door opened and a large, heavily built lady of a dark brown shade of countenance stepped out upon the small porch. It was evident that she had been weeping; she wiped her eyes as she stood there.

"Whut yo' want?" she asked.

"I am Gubb, the deteckative," answered Philo Gubb, not without pride in his tone, "аnd I have found and fetched back the lost child."

The heavily built colored lady raised both hands above her head in a highly emotional manner. "Glory be!" she cried. "Mah chile! Ma chile! Ma lil' los' Em'ly! Come to yo' ma, you honey girl !"

She rushed— no, she did not rush ; she couldn't; but she waddled hastily forward and threw herself upon the baby carriage. Detective Gubb turned pale. Instinct told him there was going to be trouble and without delay. He steeled himself to meet it. He assumed a haughty, uncompromising air. He was none too soon. The colored lady drew back from the baby carriage.

"Ar-r-r-r!" she growled. "What yo' mean, white man, swindilatin' me lak dis? Fotchin me mah lil' los' Em'ly, when she aint fotched at all? What yo' mean, white trash ?"

Mr. Gubb stared at the woman coldly.

"Mrs. Wentz," he said, using the name of the practical nurse Lawyer Lynch had said was caring for Mrs. Johnson, "into a matter of this kind of sort I don't choose to wish to deal with the hired help. I prefer to speak my conversation directly at the mother of the infant babe. Where is Mrs. Johnson?"

"Yah!" snarled the colored lady unamiably. *Don' you call me none o' dem Dutch names! Ah's Missus Johnsing."

"I mentioned the cognomen of Mrs. Johnson," said Philo Gubb.

"Well, whut Ah say but Johnsing? Ah's Missus Johnsing. Ah's de lady whut los' a baby chile."

"Then," said Philo Gubb firmly but kindly, "this is your child. I recovered it back for you."

Mrs. Johnson looked at the baby.

"Huh!" she exclaimed. "Dat ain' mah chile!"

"It most certainly surely is," said Philo Gubb. ''Wasn't your child toothing a teeth?"

"Yas, sah, but—"

"This infant child is toothing a teeth," said Detective Gubb. "In the deteckative profession, clues is the surest things to go by, and you can look into the inside of this child's mouth and see the most inexorably teethed tooth you ever saw. This infant child answers all the plans and specifications that was give to me. I got the child, and the case is finished."

"Dat aint mah chile!" laughed Mrs. Johnson scornfully. "Mah chile is a black chile; mah chile aint no white chile."

Mr. Gubb sighed patiently.

"Connoisseuring infantile babies aint no part and parcel of the business I'm into," he said. "I didn't never study up onto the ways and habits of youthful infants. Maybe it faded."

"Fade? Mah chile fade? Mah lil' Em'ly don' fade. She fas' black."

"Madam," said Philo Gubb, "every mother is apt to be mostly partial to the good merits of her own child, but sometimes she is mistaken. There's no question of doubt you thought your child was fast black, but this is your child! If this child did not fade, how did it get white?"

"Why— why—" stammered Mrs. Johnson. " 'Co'se Ah aint never heard of a black chile fadin', but—"

"Here is the child," said Philo Gubb. "You can look to see the tooth it is teething yourself."

PERHAPS Mr. Gubb, by his earnest argument, might have convinced Mrs. Johnson. She seemed to hesitate. Philo Gubb was gathering his logic for  another assault, and he might have won had Lawyer Lynch not at that moment chanced to pass.

"So! so!" he cried. the boy, Mr. Gubb!"

Mrs. Johnson let her thick lips curl with scorn. She opened them to speak.

"Ма! Ма!" cried a shrill voice from her house. "I foun' lil' Em'ly. She was under the washtub."

Mrs. Johnson did speak.

"Yah!" she exclaimed., "Yo' 'white folks think yo' mighty smart! Yo' try to work off a white chile on me. Maybe Ah'm fool enough to stand that ef mah Іг Em'ly ain' found herse'f jus' now. Maybe Ah been persuaded mah chile fade out white. Maybe so! But dey ain' no white pusson can persuade me mah lil' gal chile tu'n into a boy chile in no half hour! No, sah!"

Mr. Gubb stared blankly.

"But— but the child is most unquestionably teething a tooth—" he said.

"Right! Quite right!" exclaimed Lawyer Lynch. "I don't know what you are talking about, and I don't know why you stopped here to talk to this colored person, but if you are now ready to proceed, Mr. Gubb, we will hasten up the street to the home of Mrs. Johnson, where that poor woman is waiting in dire impatience for the return of this little darling. For it is her baby, Mr. Gubb— you have accomplished a miracle in recovering it so quickly."

With admirable duplicity, Detective Gubb hid his surprise.

"I was just immediately about to proceed onward into that direction," he said, grasping the handle of the baby carriage and turning the vehicle toward the gate. "I had to stop temporarily off at this house to prove to that colored female lady that this wasn't her female infant baby."

________________

10: The Laughing Woman

Melville Davisson Post

1869-1930

The Red Book Magazine Feb 1923

THE reader read, as he has been taught to read, with the modulated chant which the Church of England had adapted from the great Latin service. But the spirit of the man who listened was standing apart from the words he heard; it was standing in repose, in reflection.

It was a morning of early autumn. The huge, fashionable church was crowded to the very doors. Beyond the exquisite memorial windows, the sun, like a caress, lay on the fragment of parked country which had been selected by this exclusive social colony for its summer residence, and which had been pruned, beautifully, like a vine.

The man who sat on one of the altar benches of the church, with the secretaries of the British Embassy, was profoundly impressed. He looked like a fair-haired, sun-tanned English youth in the clerical dress of a novitiate of the Church of England, but he was in fact the very strangest of all those strange wards which the British Empire undertakes to train under English institutions to its will; having finished with Eton and Oxford, he was here as a summer guest of the Embassy at the country place it had taken some distance across the hills from the fashionable resort.

He sprang from the romance of a Buddhist crusade. When Dorjine, in the years before the Great War, persuaded the Dalai Lama that he could convert the Czar and all Russia to Buddhism, it was arranged for a Russian prince of the royal house to visit Tibet. This prince was given a young sister of the Lama for wife, and this son was born. And the English government, always far-sighted, undertook to shape this youth, under its influence, for the head of the Tibetan government, or Dalai Lama, in its high, celibate, monastic order— the oldest, the most rigid monastic order in the world, excluding women, excluding the thought of woman.

Fair-haired and sun-tanned, in his clerical dress of the Church of England, the youth was of today and Western in his physical aspect; but within he was of yesterday and Oriental; and this Song of Solomon, rich with the sensuous imagery of the East, profoundly impressed him.

About the man within the cool spaces of the church, the symbols of this vast Western religion were displayed— of brass, of silver, of gold, of silk softened like ivory, and wonderfully embroidered.

Old, studied in the moods of human emotion, and wise were the great religious orders that had put together this majestic symbolism— as though no sense could be omitted from this worship. It stood, with its devices, before every doorway to the human heart.

Peace, an immense security, was the promise of this service to the soul of man confused by emotions. And it appalled the soul that it would soothe and comfort. Its serene pronouncement, on every ecstasy of the senses, put the soul in fear.

Vanity! Even as the priests of Buddha had assured him.

As though the whole of all human experience had been examined!

Age, crippled with failure, accepted the pronouncement; but Youth forever resisted, its white eager shoulder crowding against the door.

It resisted on this morning— not in vigor, but in a vague reflection. The man who listened to the service— the man in the first maturity of youth— was concerned with the experience of life about to be denied him.

What was this thing that he was giving up?

His confirmation into the celibate order of his Buddhist religion had been long planned, and was now, in reality, only a little way ahead. Until now he had not thought about it. He had gone carelessly, it seemed to him, like a child sentenced to a prison, with no thought, until the wall loomed at a turn of the road.

Vanity! How did he know that?

He had no experience of life. He had lived surrounded by Buddhist tutors, sequestered, like the virgins of the pagan rituals. The atmosphere of his great Oriental religious order had enveloped him— his acts, his will, the very imaginings of his heart. How did he know?

And as the voice advanced pronouncing the great love-song, human and sensuous, here, in the sacred books of this religion, the spirit of the man idled, curious, before the actual physical mystery that inspired these vivid extravagancies.

What was this love of women?

Upon it the sacred text fell back when it would seek an extreme expression; the language of this passion provided that text with its ultimate simile. And the expressions in this Oriental love-song were hot and dripping with life, fragments of the human heart.

Men using words like these had hold of something unknown in his experience— and to remain unknown! The fact, as though unrealized until this moment, suddenly appalled him. To remain unknown!

And all at once, as though the human mystery had but now suddenly appeared before him, as though until this hour he had never thought to examine it closely, he looked eagerly over the great audience.

Two persons, midway of the church, seated near the center aisle, arrested his attention. His eager glance passed before these two persons, lingered— remained: a man at middle life and a girl.

Here in its golden lure was the mystery he renounced. And the spirit of the man, standing apart from the deep, even, level voice that filled the remote spaces of the church, profoundly regarded her.

The girl, in every aspect of her, was distinguished: the white, smartly cut gown, the filmy hat, like a web in a frame of suggested color— every detail.

And her features were alluring and exquisite: her cloud of dark hair, beautifully outlining the symmetrical forehead; the line of the eyebrow above the clean-cut arch; the chiseled nose; the lovely mouth with its dainty color, and the short upper lip incomparably exquisite and sensitive, as though divinely fashioned for the ecstasy of every human emotion. And the rich color, vaguely shadowed out, under the transparent skin, sown, as appeared to the eye, with gold flecks, was beyond any descriptive word.

She was the substance of everything lovely and distinguished. And the spirit of the man, awakened and entranced, suddenly realized that it stood here, on this morning, before an ultimate perfection of Nature.

A perfection of Nature!

The words instantly assumed an immense meaning. To produce this exquisite creature, the creative energies of Nature had been at work from the beginning, for so long a time that the human understanding staggered at the thought of it, and with ah endless patience.

A perfection of Nature! But why had Nature labored to this perfection? And her great method was the mystery upon which the words of his Oriental order would presently, forever, close the door.

To some other man, under the lure of such an immense conception, this divine creature would go smiling, her arms extended.

The realization, sudden and vast, descended upon him as with the impact of a blow, and the heart in him staggered with a desolation. Exiled, excluded from this ecstasy, the life of his monastic order seemed a night of black loneliness.

If the other was vanity, what thing, appalling and awful, was this!

AND he was a man not at all lacking in attractiveness. He had the fine blond beauty of the Russian at his best. He was strong and virile, not unlike the fine figures of the Old Testament in their golden youth— David when he stood between the assembled armies with his sling; the sons of Jacob in the fields; or that one, choice and goodly, of which the Lord spoke apart in the ear of Samuel: "Tomorrow about this time I will send thee a man out of the land of Benjamin—"

He had the curled yellow hair, the clean-cut features, the strong, proportioned body, the wide gray eyes and the serenity of these vague figures in the majestic legend. It was not possible for him to be unconscious of it. The glance, the arrested attention of women, everywhere, as with a pressure, reminded him.

He had been reminded on this very morning.

His way here lay through one of the towns to the south, and on the edge of it, in a wide meadow, a great circus with all its mammoth gilded paraphernalia was unloading— as though the wonders of fairyland were in exodus, the creatures of the Thousand and One Nights traveling out of Bagdad: a hundred white horses with their attendants; beasts, mammoth and dusky; and bespangled women.

They regarded him! And one he himself had regarded.

She lay in the thin morning sun on the top of a gilded wagon, her body prone, a bare arm extended over the border of the carved wagon-top. She too was dark, after the manner of this girl now exquisitely before him in the cool spaces of the church that the reader's voice filled. But the dark was rich and tropical, a wild, gypsy, passionate coloring— a flower of some soft southern country, hot-blooded and impulsive, not restrained, not bred out— luxuriant and free.

She lay close to the flat top of the gilded wagon as though her body caressed it, every contour soft and pressed into the lines of the carved top as into a mold that by some sorcery lovingly received it, lovingly longed for it and held it tenderly and firm as in the gestures of a caress.

Her hair was a cloud about a face that laughed, softly with no souncj, a dimpled, luminous smile packed with deviltry.

By chance, it seemed to the man, as by the sudden invisible pull of a heavenly magnet, he had looked up at her. There had been no sound, no motion, nothing to attract his eye as he passed below her in the dust of the road. And yet, suddenly, as at a command of Nature, he had looked up!

And she had laughed that laugh without a sound, without, as it seemed to him, the slightest visible evidence of a motion, as one in some fabled garden might catch the face of a bronze, above a flowering vine, that laughed... He had not paused in his stride, nor spoken; there had been no word, no gesture. And yet the laughing face that followed him, regarded him; and his head, half turned, had remained her way until the wagon of the circus had as by a curtain removed her.

He had gone on in his long walk to join the secretaries of the Embassy at the morning service of this great, impressive, fashionable Western church.

And on his way here, like Judah on his way to Timnath to shear his sheep, he had met a lure. But unlike Judah he had gone on, leaving the lure smiling by the way.

But he had not gone on in peace.

It was the deviltry of the laugh that troubled him! Out of the inconceivable charm of what hidden mystery did this laugh issue? It moved something obscure and amorphous nesting in the very fibers of his body. The man was  young; the taste of the apple of the Garden was unknown to him. But from the most mysterious, the most subtle impulse in the world, this cloistered innocence could not protect him.

Nature was greater than the Buddhist ritual. What amulet had his monastic order to stand against the deviltry of this laugh?

The activities of the mind cannot be measured by the ticking of a clock. These reflections, these vivid alluring pictures, these troubled memories, passed before him in a brief, a limited portion of time.

The Oriental in him vividly realized the imagery of the greatest love-song in any language known to us.

"How beautiful are thy feet with shoes, O prince's daughter!"

And to this man with the blood of Asia in him, these words had an object and a meaning. The prince's daughter was before him, here, wonderfully to the eye, this incomparable girl lovely and distinguished... Or was it that other, gorgeous and tropical on the top of the gilded wagon, the daughter of an Oriental nomad prince?

"Thy neck is as a tower of ivory."

Wonderful imagery, how it fitted to the lure! A tower of ivory! The white throat under the distinguished head, the sun-browned column under the face that laughed. How well the hedonist of Syria knew the word!

The reader's voice went on:

"And the hair of thine head like purple!"

Beautiful conception of an eye morbid for detail.

But it was true! Amazingly, inconceivably, it was true! He recalled it. Against the thin morning sun, the cloud of hair above the gilded wagon-top had a faint purple haze in it. And the hair of the heavenly creature before him, banked about her distinguished face, had a vague purple background in the light softened by the colored windows.

"How fair and how pleasant art thou, O love, for delights!"

And with a great upward sweep the imaginings of his heart raced forward. What mysterious knowledge, hidden and packed with ecstasy, had inspired this sentence, this comment crowning the appraisal!

Night would soon come on.

THE man had returned through the hills, avoiding the road that he had followed on his morning journey. He wished, like every human creature, profoundly disturbed, to be alone. But he had not wandered in the open. He lay in the deep grasses at the wooded border of a hilltop. Beyond him, obscured by a forest, was the town that he had tramped through; and below was the bend of the great river, wide, marking the sweep of a vast arc of silver around the big shoulder of the forest extending like a giant's arm to the north.

It was hot— the sudden oppressive heat of an autumn afternoon. The air was heavy. It enervated the senses like a drug. And it remained hot as the night came on, as though the world had entered a stellar space occupied by an atmosphere heated and sensuous.

He lay at full length in the hot dried grass like one overpowered by an opiate. He seemed to lie without thought and without motion. But it was merely the illusion of inertia. The lotus-eater, his hands under his relaxed head, his limbs extended, and pressing the earth beneath him like a dead weight, gives to the eye this impression of serenity, of a lifeless indolence, that his heated fancy, burning within him, awfully negatives.

The man had not found peace in the open places of the hills.

Passion carried into a solitude is elevated to a tyranny. Nature, the great enchantress, presents her drugged cup, and after it is drunken leaves the victim in the sacred groves to his fancy.

And on this day her drugged cup had been swallowed brimming. The man's fancy awfully assailed him. They appeared, these two exquisite women, in alluring visions. And so potent is the ancient drugged cup that in the man's fancy they had the aspect and the realities of life.

They were here!

If he turned his head, one of them came and stood behind him. And if he closed his eyes, the leaves falling on his face were soft hands that touched him. They changed, these two alluring women, blended, became one exquisite creature, the distinction of the one added to the golden deviltry of the other.

And very nearly that heavenly thing appeared!

Almost, to sight and hearing, it appeared!

With a supreme effort of the will, the man stumbled to his feet. In a moment he would see her, and his mind would go.

It was night. The world as by some trick of sorcery was in a blue hazy darkness. The man hurried, stumbling down the long wooded hill to the river, to the tiny boat in which he had crossed this morning when he had followed the faint path along the river to the highway skirting the town. Now returning through the hills, he descended to cross the river.

He was a long time, in the blue haze of the night, on his way down; he was haunted, followed; and confused, he kept losing the way.

The moon rose. He found the boat, released it and pulled out
into the river. There was a form of light— the deep blue haze, dense and palpable, illumined by the moon as behind a cloud, enveloped the world.

He fled from an illusion that multiplied itself as in the facets of a brilliant, and peopled the night. And he fled in vain!

His boat was still obscured by the thick wooded growth that extended here into the river, when suddenly, with a great backward stroke of the oars, he stopped.

Laughter reached him!

His body lifted rigid, his fingers like steel. It was close beyond him, this laughter on the silver surface of the open water toward which his back was set. He trembled internally with panic. He knew the thing that had happened. These illusions pressing for reality had finally won a way through to forms and voices. The thing that had happened to the saints was, by some briefly recovered vigor of evil, about to happen to him!

The hot air of the autumn night lay on the river like the fume of a distillation.

He knew from whence the laughter rose, and wherefore it was multiplied. It was the illusion, manifold, confused and varied, of the girl in the church, of the girl on the top of the gilded wagon; and that golden silent laughter had got now the lure of voices.

They laughed, these divine illusions; and beyond in the bend of the river they awaited him.

He would drive the boat across, with great strokes, and escape this sorcery. Perhaps they had not yet won a way into the forms of life. Disembodied voices— perhaps the thing was that!

It was not that!

His mighty thrust drove the little boat out into the open river. And the amazed man, releasing the oars in the locks, put up his arm across his face like one who would ward off a blow.

The whole sweep of the silver river flashed with the white bodies of Nereides; they were everywhere, extending through the blue moon-haze to the rocks of the shore beyond. The boat under the impetus of the powerful oar-strokes had glided almost noiselessly into the very nest of them. For a moment, as though disconcerted by this thing of a fixed reality, they cried out and withdrew, but almost immediately they returned, and a great burst of laughter rippled like a wave over the silver surface of the river.

The man sat motionless, his arm in the defensive posture across his face. And the naked creatures, with their golden laughter, swarmed down upon him. A babble confused and extending itself in every direction, rose— cries, voices, words that the amazed man was too shaken to distinguish.

They enveloped him, these siren creatures. They seized the boat, convoyed it. It went on without the stroke of an oar. The reality of these white bodies, panting in this golden babble of sound, in this immense sweep of silver water, was beyond any conception of the human fancy. He was mad, the man stammered in his heart— or it was real.

And reality it could not be!

When could the whole water of a river be peopled with Nereides, save out of the womb of the mind?

The boat continued to advance. A hand, cool, dripping with water, touched his arm, moved along it as though it fingered upward from the throbbing peak of his heart and drew him down to the gunwale of the boat. And his eyes, released from the shield of his arm, saw a head weighted with dark hair, wet and massed like the heavy foliage of a vine, about a face that laughed.

With an immense effort the man rose, balanced himself an instant on the unsteady seat and sprang far out into the water. The moving boat had very nearly reached the opposite shore, and the long leap carried the man into the shallows. He plunged forward, gained the cover of the wood and escaped, the burst of golden laughter following him like the mingling notes of a siren chorus.

But the security which the man expected in his house did not await him.

HE seemed to arrive, awakened, in a place which he had hitherto inhabited in a sort of somnambulism. The severity of the ancient monastic order was, in a measure, maintained in this house which he occupied, situated on the grounds adjoining the summer residence of the Embassy— the wooden table, the bench, the. shelf for the sacred texts. But the spiritual essence of these things had changed; the place was desolate!

He sat down on the bench before the table. And Nature, the great enchantress, the divine guardian of life, had her mighty will with him. Fropi the tension that had peopled the night with Nereides he felt that he had escaped. But he had, in fact, escaped from nothing. It was, only, that the Enchantress turned him a little in her drugged hands.

And a sense of loss, complete and utter, like the darkness of the pit, descended on him. The one thing, he now desperately saw it, the one only thing for which he was born and suckled, and for which he ate bread and became a man— a thing hidden until now— had on this day stepped out into the light and beckoned.

And if he failed it, the reason for his being here was ended, all the care, the patience, the endless labors of Nature, bringing him in strength to the fullness of his life, were barren; all the agony that he had given to his mother, the milk that he had drunk, the fruits of the earth that he had eaten, were wasted; he would be a thing of no account, useless to the great plan, to be broken up by the eternal forces in disgust.

And slowly, a little farther, in her drugged hands the Enchantress turned him.

And it seemed to him that his fathers sleeping in the earth approached and condemned him. The gift of life handed down to him must be passed on. To this life-line the dead clung; they reached to immortality with it. Did he break it, they would be, all, adrift to the farthest ancestor— flung off to be derelict forever in the wash of some outer darkness! They crowded around him in their awful anxiety!

And yet a little farther under the hands steeped in Lotus!

Why should the ecstasy of life be denied him?

"Joy cometh in the morning," it is written.

At any rate, the will to joy came. He would return into the world and claim what Nature had shown him.

THE sun gilding the hilltops found him on the way. And as though the will drew what the heart longed for, it appeared. At a turn of the road in a cool deep of the wood, he came, with the abruptness of a vision, upon the girl and the man who had been before him yesterday in the church. They rode in the early morning—  smart, elegant, distinguished, the horses traveling almost without a sound in the dust.

And the lure of this heavenly creature, in the dress of a boy, was even more divinely visioned: the black boots with the silver spurs, the white breeches, the shirt confined at the waist with the broad webbed belt, and the cool, beautiful, distinguished face under the polo-helmet with its chin-strap. Lovely, beyond anything that the mind could imagine, was the exquisite body of this girl.

They passed him.

The girl did not even look, but for an instant the man regarded him. And it was this glance that extinguished the hope within him. It put him immeasurably down. And he saw clearly, what he had not yesterday considered, the strength and the iron vigor of this man, the determined will, to be stopped by nothing. To take from this man what he possessed, one must pry open his dead clinched fingers.

There were men in the world, then, ruthless and determined, whose resistance he had not considered. This granite fact, with which the bubbles of his fancy must inevitably collide, he had wholly failed to realize. One passed him with the thing he wished, and he could not meet, even, the cold sweep of his eye!

Trampled under, beaten down and perplexed, the youth went on.

He had been a fool. He reflected. This girl of wealth, of distinction, was of course inaccessibly beyond him. But the other was not. She was the nomad of a gypsy caravan, and he could win his way to her.

He went on, his heart climbing again.

This other he would search out and possess. She awaited him; he had only to find her; that golden laugh descending on him like the sun had disclosed her heart. He had been blinded and for a moment a fool! She, this other, had been the prepotent influence. She, Nature's mysterious agencies, laboring to the purpose of her plan, had selected for him. She had dominated his imaginings, peopled the silver river, in his fancy, with a horde of white bodies tumbling in the mood of a golden laugh... He went on.

IT was midmorning when he reached the town. Crowds of people blocked the way. Determined with his great purpose, he shouldered through.

The one long street was the theater of a barbaric pageant. Elephants, spangled riders, caparisoned horses and immense bands of music advanced. And there followed, reproduced here an inconceivable age after its reality, the visit of an Oriental beauty, in every gorgeous extravagance, to the court of that exquisite voluptuary who had immortalized, in his Song, the charms of women.

The man, winning his way through to the curb, remained a moment uncertain. The vast splendor of the pageant confused him.

On an immense float covered with a cloth of gold lay a woman fanned by two half-naked Numidian girls, under a great canopy of striped silk supported on gilded standards. And beside the float a nimble creature dressed in a riot of color and covered with bangles of brass, leaped in the abandon of a wild dance. There followed hordes of women, in every spectacular costume that a crude fancy, endeavoring to reproduce the visit of the Queen of Sheba, could imagine.

Then the fans, immense, downy and soft, moving as in rhythm above the Oriental beauty, for a moment revealed her.

And the man on the curb,— this Buddhist novitiate in the clerical dress of the Church of England, this youth,— straining forward on his toes, sprang into the street, crossed in a stride and leaped onto the float. He seized the girl's wrist in his hand and began to pour out all the confused longings of his heart— a tumbling, passionate torrent of words.

For a moment the girl, whom he had first seen on the gilded wagon-top, was startled. Then she half rose and turned toward the gorgeous dancing woman beside the float, her face radiant with that beautiful noiseless laugh:

"Hey, Mabel!" she called, her voice crude and strident. "The pulpit Johnny that we si-reened last night, in the big wash, wants to wed me. Can you beat it!"

AND before the man— flung back, bruised, numb, as by the battering of a wave— there appeared in fancy a vast, immobile image of Buddha, over beyond this pageant: serene in an eternal calm, as though abominably indifferent to the soul of man, bewildered by emotions and drugging itself with dreams.

___________________

11: The Passing of an Angel

Clarence Herbert New

1862-1933

Blue Book  Dec 1933

OUTSIDE, the gray afternoon had left a legacy of fine misty rain which fell with steady persistency while Inspector Beresford played game after game of chess with his American friend, Dr. Samuel Adams, in the Inspector's comfortable Mount Street apartment. The fire of cannel coal in the living-room grate served to banish the dampness and chill. Presently, when a seemingly unimportant knight of the Doctor's had plugged the final hole in the Inspector's plodding campaign with an undeniable "mate," they leaned back in their chairs to refill pipes and rest a bit. Into the soothing stillness shrilled a sharp "b-r-r-r" of the telephone-bell.

Beresford reached for the instrument.

"Aye— Inspector Beresford speaking. ... Who?... Oh, aye! Parkinson— yes, Mr. Goldman's butler— in Montagu Square. Very good! Carry on, Parkinson! ... What's that? You'd like to have me come around there as soon as convenient? Are you speaking for Mr. Goldman? No? Hmph! Is Mr. Goldman in the house now?... At home, but 'indisposed,' eh? I say! ... Look here, Parkinson! Is it anything serious? ... Oh— you fancy it'll be quite so, eh? Very good! I'll be there inside of half an hour."

For a moment or two, the Inspector sat there pulling at his pipe— mentally reviewing what he knew about Joseph Goldman.

"What's up?" Adams asked. '"Sounded rather mysterious. Burglary?"

"Butler says it's a bit more serious than that."

"Name's familiar. Who is Goldman?"

"In the States, I fancy you'd call him an 'angel'— the sort of chap who backs various shows when they need financin'. When he guesses right, he makes a small fortune on each one; when he's coaxed into something which doesn't prove to   have the proper kick, he loses out— though he usually pulls a minimum loss. Mostly, he's successful— chaps in the city rate him as worth over half a million, sterling, today."

"Know him very well?"

"Better than I like to. He's called us in a few times to hound men and women whom I believed absolutely innocent of wrongdoing— I was convinced they had been 'framed.' But he produced evidence enough for an arrest, so we had to go on. The juries convicted but one of them. Chap has a pleasant, ingratiating manner, an' a lot of influence one way or another— but personally I've never liked him; always felt he's a rotter underneath. Come along! ... We've to find out what is making him 'indisposed' this evening."

THE house in Montagu Square was a large double one with a narrow strip of ground on either side and a tall box hedge along the street-line. The butler Parkinson admitted them, took their hats and sticks, and led them up to the second floor over deep-piled carpets. On the half-landing of the foyer stairs, there was a tall clock in a rosewood case. Adams saw with surprise that the hands pointed to one-thirty a.m., and looked at his watch to make sure that the clock wasn't a couple of hours fast. Evidently he had lost all sense of time while playing that game of chess.

Entering a large front room at the right of the hall, the butler quietly beck-
oned them to the side of a handsome Florentine bed with posts and an overhead canopy. In it, partly covered by the bedclothes, Goldman was lying motionless, his eyes open, with an expression of fright and horror in them. His mouth was sagging, the tongue bunched back in the throat, and the lips distinctly bluish. Apparently, the man had made an attempt to throw back the clothes and spring out of bed, but had been unable to do so.

Parkinson looked from the Inspector to the figure on the bed, and back again.

"I fancy there'll not be much doubt, sir? He was warm when I first came in— and— and touched him, like. But 'is 'and is much colder, now. At first, I thought it might be a fit, sir—but I soon decided 'e was gone, sir. It occurred to me that I should call in 'is physician, Sir Bemish Traymore. But there was something about the look of 'im which made me fancy it might bea case for the police— an' you bein' in a manner of speaking a friend of the master's, I fancied you'd best drop in quietly by yourself an' 'ave a look at 'im before I took any further h'action, sir."

"You were quite right in that, Parkinson. The expression on his face isn't like that of natural death. What do you think, Doctor?"

Doctor Adams stepped closer and bent over the dead man's face— examined the expression— the blue lips— the rigid position of the figure.

"Prussic acid,' he said promptly. "You get a faint scent as of crushed peach-leaves, or bitter almonds, if you bend over his face. The blue lips and rigidity are other symptoms. Did he have anything to eat or drink after he came up to this room, Parkinson?"

"Not unless 'e 'elped 'imself from the tantalus over there by the cabinet, sir. But there'd be an empty glass left h'out for washin', h'if 'e 'ad, sir. The master was not in the 'abit of eatin' or drinkin' after 'e came up to retire, sir. Whatever 'e 'ad, 'e'd be 'avin' below— before 'e came h'up, sir."

The Inspector nodded.

"H-m-m— prussic acid is pretty quick stuff, to the best of my recollection— a matter of ten or fifteen seconds at the outside. So if he took it himself in anything, there would be an empty plate or glass or bottle somewhere around in plain sight— prob'ly on the floor. It wasn't injected with a hypodermic, or the scent wouldn't be so noticeable around his face—"

Adams broke in with the question:

"Was he in the habit of snoring while asleep, Parkinson ?"

"Yes sir; quite loudly, sir."

"And a person can't snore loudly, with a closed mouth! Simple enough proposition. Somebody got into this room while he was snoring— and tipped a paper of cyanide crystals into his open mouth! He'd cough, as the powder got into his throat— struggle up on his elbow, suddenly awake—realize that his heart and respiration had stopped short— gasp a couple of times, and pass out. — You can get the Yard surgeon around before breakfast for an autopsy, Beresford— just to check up that impression. But the murderer hasn't been gone, probably, more than an hour. Time to get busy on him is right now, while any traces there may be are fresh. You have your regular routine way of going at that sort of thing. My hunch is that you won't find a thing in the way of a clue— but I may be wrong in that."

BERESFORD nodded, looking speculatively at his friend.

"And what'll you be doing, Doc?"

"Trying to approach the proposition from another angle— we'll compare notes after an hour or two. Parkinson, let's sit down over here in the corner while the Inspector is busy. I'd like to have you tell me everything you can about Goldman. Not married, was he?"

"No sir— not yet. But'e was by way of bein' h'engaged to the Honorable Florence Kingsly— second daughter of Lord Montavane. The marriage was arranged for the fifth of next month, sir— the 'ouse avin' been done over complete during the last six weeks, sir."

"Had Goldman any family living in the house?"

"Nobody but 'is secretary, sir. Sometimes 'is typist would stay the night if she'd been workin' late. Servants, to be sure—the cook, footman, two maids, valet, chauffeur, gardener, an' myself,— the butler— sir. You see, the master was in the 'abit of h'entertainin' 'ere, quite frequ'ntly— theatrical folk comin' an' goin' h'every few days."

"How old a man was he?"

"Well, I did 'ear a city man say he'd known 'im over twenty years gone. H'about forty-five, I'd say."

"And his fiancée?"

"Not over twenty, sir—beautiful gel."

"Not exactly a love-match— eh?"

"Oh, no, sir— money an' position. 'E'd 'ave purchased a peerage very shortly, I understand—an' 'is lady bein' a peer's daughter would 'ave 'elped a bit in that. I did 'ear that Lord Montavane was 'ard-up an' that Goldman was to pay h'off some mortgages on 'is property h'if the Honorable Florence would 'ave 'im, sir. Very likely there was something of the sort. It's said she was as good as h'engaged to a Leftenant in the navy, sir— but of course this would 'ave broken it h'off,"

"You say he never has been married?"

"Not since I came to 'im, sir. It's a bit 'ard to say what might 'ave 'appened before that— 'im bein' a ladies'-man if ever there was one! 'Is study, h'across the 'all ere, is filled with photographs stuck h'about h'everywhere— all of 'em h'autographed— some of 'em quite ready for their bawth or a painter's brush, sir."

"Have you happened to hear the name of the navy man whom the Honorable Florence liked so well?"

"Leftenant John Fleming, sir—on 'Is Majesty's battleship Hood, at last h'accounts,"

"ARE any of Goldman's shows running just now?"

"Aye, sir—there'll be two h'on the boards h'at present—the 'Jolly Buccaneers' an' the 'Widowed Bride'."

"I suppose the members of the casts are here quite frequently ?"

"Some of 'em, sir— not so many. 'E was a bit particular who 'e h'allowed to come 'ere. 'E just couldn't h'abide 'gold-diggers'. An' of course their berths depended upon their respectin' 'is wishes."

"Ever hear any high words or quarreling between Goldman and any of the men or women who came here?"

"Never, sir! Not h'even when they were balmy. 'E was a diffic'lt man to quarrel with, Goldman was— h'always kept 'is temper, drunk or sober."

"Ever hear of anybody threatening him for some fancied injury— possibly from losing money to him or through  him?"

"No sir—I can't say that I 'ave. Of course h'any man of wealth 'as those who dislike 'im for 'avin' it— beggars 'e's refused money to. But that sort doesn't commit murder h'as a rule. 'E's prosecuted a few for breach of contract an' even for h'outright stealin'— sometimes I've fancied 'e was just 'atchin' up a charge against 'em to get 'em h'out of 'is way. Well, they'd naturally bear ill-eelin', d'ye see—couldn't 'elp it. But they'd not risk doin' 'im in and gettin' 'anged for it, sir. No fear!"

"HOW many of you had keys to the house?" Doctor Adams asked.

"Goldman 'ad two— one on a key-ring in 'is pocket, an' the other kept in a drawer of 'is desk h'across the 'all. And I 'ad one— which three would be all for the front door. Then I 'ave one— cook an' chauffeur each 'as one— for the back door leadin' from the garden, in rear."

"Are you quite sure that none of his friends— particularly women— have duplicate keys to the front door?"

"Not unless they got an impression some'ow an' 'ad one made, sir. 'E was nervous h'about anyone gettin' in when 'e didn't wish for them, sir— breakin' in upon 'im unbeknownst-like."

"H-m-m— he naturally would have a good bit of legal work in connection with his shows. Do you happen to know who his attorneys are?"

" 'Is solicitors? Oh, aye, sir! Messrs. Holden, Frayne an' Burbish, of Gray's Inn. Mr. Frayne is a K. C— andles practically all of the master's h'affairs. Lives down in Surrey, below Sydenham. They were frequ'ntly through on the telephone durin' the evening when the master was in a 'urry, like, to put something h'into Mr, Frayne's 'ands."

"How did Goldman get along with the household staff? Was he easy to work for— or arbitrary and difficult to please?"

" 'E liked to 'ave 'is h'orders carried h'out, sir— just as an' 'ow 'e gave them. But I'd say he was considerate, sir. Paid good wages. 'Ad in a medico if anybody was ill—first-class food for the servants' table— decent quarters for 'em, an' quite reasonable hours. Personally, 'e was a bit cold, in a manner of speaking— not like our country gentry. You h'understand, sir, 'e 'ad what might be called 'foreign blood'— though there'll be many of 'is sort in the peerage. But 'e was always Satisfactory in 'is relations with the 'ousehold— never lost 'is temper with them or used language. Not the sort one might care to serve with little or no pay, sir, if you get. what I mean— an' yet what one might call a satisfactory h'employer."

"T think I catch the distinction, Parkinson. Was his fiancée in the house often— or her father, Lord Montavane?"

" 'Is Lordship but the once, sir— at the dinner when the marriage-h'arrangem'nt was h'announced. The Honorable Florence not h'over twice altogether, I fancy— both times with an older woman as chaperon. I'd say, in a manner of speakin', sir, that she couldn't bring 'erself to be alone with the master, as yet."

"Was there any one particular woman whom Goldman had here more frequently than the others,— one who seemed free of the house,—eh ?"

"Not for a year or more, sir. Before that, I fancy a Mrs. Gordon would be of that description. She always 'ad a leading part in one or another of 'is shows— that is, for a year and a half, she did. Came 'ere to the 'ouse in 'is h'absence, occasionally, an' made 'erself h'at 'ome until 'e came in. Sometimes she'd h'order an' h'eat 'er dinner 'ere when 'e was h'out of town, though she never stayed the night to my knowledge, except when others were stayin' h'also. Something h'over a year ago, she went to h'America with one of 'is shows— an' we 'eard in a roundabout way that she was taken ill an' died in New York or some such place. I fancy she was 'is particular type— because, d'ye see, the Honorable Florence is much the same. Of course one wouldn't say they were twins in h'appearance or anything like that— but in a general way there was a typical resemblance— same build an' manner of carryin' themselves."

Inspector Beresford returned at this moment from his investigations of the lower floor. He said briskly:

"Now, Parkinson, I fancy we'd best have a look at the study you mentioned, across the hall—his desk and papers will be in there, of course. There's not the least doubt as to Goldman's having been murdered— so you may consider the house in possession of the police, and do nothing without their permission. We'll take his keys and go through that desk— may be some letter or paper in it which will put us on the right track."

In the study— a large room with its walls covered by pictures, bookcases and photographs— the Inspector went through the dead man's desk, rapidly but thoroughly, in about half an hour.

DOCTOR Adams, as he filled and lighted his pipe, said quietly:

"Parkinson, I'd like to have you look about this room very carefully, and see if you notice that anything is missing."

The butler did this, methodically.

"Aye, sir. The picture in the silver frame on top of the desk is not the one as was in it when the Master retired. Since the marriage-arrangem'nt was h'announced, 'is fiancée's picture 'as been in that frame which 'e 'ad made special for it, of solid silver, sir. The lady in it h'at this moment will be a Miss Gerraghty, now h'actin' in the 'Widowed Bride,' sir —she 'as been with a pile of blondes in the lower drawer of that book-cabinet on the front wall, sir—not recently h'in favor, as you might say. Also—a large picture of the Mrs. Gordon I mentioned to you, sir, is missing from the wall at the side of the goldfish window."

"Hmph! ... The Honorable Florence and Mrs. Gordon both gone, are they! I wonder if he had any other pictures of them ?"

"I fancy 'e would, sir. The lower shelf of the cupboard in that Chippendale 'ighboy, opposite, was by way of bein' a sort of receptacle for portraits of ladies who 'ad taken 'is fancy most particular, h'at one time or h'another, an' 'ad gone into the discard, so to speak, when 'e procured what 'e considered better ones. With your permission, sirs, I'll just run through them— bein' familiar with the h'appearance of the ladies mentioned."

In three or four minutes, the butler had laid upon the desk two large photographs— neither of them autographed. "Mrs. Gordon was never in the 'abit of signing her name on pictures, sir— an' of course Goldman must 'ave procured this one of the Honorable Florence from a photographer when the engagem'nt was h'announced. You'll notice there's a bit of resemblance, sir— as I was remarkin'."

"Well," Adams nodded, "it's not a very striking one, but it's there when you look for it. The fact that both of the other pictures have been removed from this room since dinner suggests a connection somewhere between the two.— What's the newspaper-clipping, Beresford? Where did you find it?"

"On the blotter of this desk when we came into the room— from the society items of some news-sheet— evidently copied from one of the London gazettes— announcement of a marriage having been arranged between Goldman and the Honorable Florence, with some description of who the parties are and the houses in which they will live when married."

ADAMS took the clipping and carefully scrutinized the type-faces, with the paper on which they were printed. One of the American newspapers— Sunday supplement of a New York City paper, I'd say at a guess. The date penciled at the top is that of Sunday, two weeks ago. H-m-m— let me keep this with my memoranda and these two photographs for a few days, wilt you, old chap? Seems to me they may help."

At Adams' suggestion, the Inspector had telephoned Mr. Robert Frayne, K. C., at his Surrey home, requesting him to come up at once if possible, and the solicitor had evidently arrived in his car, for at this moment the doorbell rang.

Parkinson ran down to admit Frayne and fetched him up to the study, where Beresford rapidly sketched what had happened to Goldman, and mentioned two or three of the points turned up since they had entered the house.

"You understand, Mr. Frayne, that this is unquestionably a police case— that we are quite within our rights in going through Goldman's personal effects and asking you for whatever information seems necess'ry. As a solicitor, this will be obvious to you. I fancy our immediate requests in that line would be whether Goldman recently has executed a will or has an older one still effective— and its provisions— also whether  he had completed any prenuptial settlements upon his fiancée and her father, and whether he had entered into any contracts which are binding upon his estate. In short, who benefits by his death—and to what extent?"

FRAYNE considered these questions a moment or two before replying.

"If you are positive Mr. Goldman really was murdered, Inspector— and the evidence you have would appear to settle that— I fancy your questions are entirely permissible. Very good! Three weeks ago, my client handed over to Lord Montavane bearer-securities amounting to twenty thousand pounds as a part of his marriage-settlements upon the Honorable Florence Kingsly— the sum being for the purpose of enabling His Lordship to clear off three mortgages upon the family estates. Fifty thousand more was placed in a trust for the lady and her children, she to have but the interest during Mr. Goldman's lifetime. In a will executed at the same time, there were some forty bequests running from one hundred pounds to five thousand— to servants, friends and family connections—none of them nearer than first cousins, There is one bequest of ten thousand to a certain woman, if living— or to her children, if she died and left any. All the rest and residue, amounting to upward of two hundred and fifty thousand, is left to his children, if there are any— if not, as endowment of a first-class club to be established for actors and actresses. There are no restrictions upon the wife's— that is, the Honorable Florence's— trust of fifty thousand— which becomes altogether hers if he dies without heirs— or upon the mortgage-money."

The Inspector and Doctor Adams absorbed all this with gradually deepening expressions of doubt.

"How many persons may possibly know of these provisions in the marriage-settlements and the will, Mr. Frayne?"

"As to the marriage-settlements, only Lord Montavane and his daughter. They're quite certain to keep close mouths upon the matter because it does suggest to outsiders the purchase and sale of a bride. As to the will— not a soul in the world besides myself. I typed the original drafts and the copies of all the documents— placed them in our Chancery Lane safe-deposit trunk as soon as executed, as stipulated by Goldman. To be sure, he may have mentioned to three or four of the legatees that they were down for a comfortable bit in his will—but knowing the man's natural secretiveness as well as I do, I doubt that."

"Then, considering all the leaks of knowledge which you admit as possible, there would be at least these persons who benefit to a greater or less extent by his death: His fiancée and her father— the navy man to whom she was supposed to have been engaged— any or all of the servants in this house— the woman who gets the ten thousand— the person who stole two photographs from this room and a key which is missing from a drawer of this desk, at some time since Goldman retired, tonight— the person who read this newspaper clipping, presumably in New York, and took the first available steamer to come over here. Sixteen persons, men and women, who stood to gain something in one way or another by his death— though three of the sixteen may have been actually the same person.

"Only seven fingerprints have been found upon the ground and second floors of this house, and Parkinson is of the opinion that half of those may be his own. Not a window or door has been forced. There is no blood, no trace of poison anywhere except what must be in Goldman's body, no evidence whatever except the news-clipping, the missing key and the photographs. Sixteen persons are equally under suspicion— or more, if they happened to get a hint of what was in the papers you drew up! Look around this room, Frayne— and tell me frankly your conclusions as to the sort of man Goldman was. Eh? We both knew him! Come now— what would you say?"

"WELL, I've never been able to understand the fascination this type of man has for so many women," Frayne said reluctantly. "The 'gold-diggers', of course— we may discount them. But the average decent, cultivated woman— could one of them look at the pictures around this room and even imagine such a man bein' faithful to any one woman? Yet they seem to fancy theirs is the exceptional case, an' that they can hold him."

"What gets me," Beresford burst out, "is what in the name of common-sense the British public can expect Scotland Yard to do in running down the person who put this fellow out? Individually, I'd say that he or she was rather a public benefactor—but naturally one can't take that ground. We simply can't wink at deliberate murder!"

"Wait a bit, now, Inspector! ... Suppose we check up your list of suspects and see if we can't get some eliminations? Lord Montavane and his daughter, for example. The Kingslys are of our oldest an' best stock— do you seriously think for one moment that either the father or daughter would kill the man she was engaged to? He already has his mortgage-money— nothing could get that away from him, whether Goldman lived or died. Neither can anybody get the girl's fifty thousand. Would she kill him on the chance of contesting his will for the bulk of his estate as her dower-right— which she couldn't do if she married again, as she certainly will?"

BERESFORD theorized aloud: "As nearly as I can size up the situation, His Lordship forced her into this marriage by some pressure which 'she couldn't resist, when she was very much in love with Leftenant Fleming— it's prob'ly almost breaking her heart— she must fairly loathe Goldman! Well, then— having got what he was after for himself and her, what more natural than for the father to eliminate the blackmailer permanently? Take the girl herself— presumably she sees no way out but suicide— simply can't an' won't live with Goldman. But—if he were to sicken and die suddenly— Lord, what a relief! Well, why shouldn't he die suddenly? Take Leftenant Fleming— navy man— not the sort to accept calmly the loss of everything he holds dear. What can he do? Remove the cause of all the trouble an' get the girl? Sounds simple enough! Eh? Either one of the three may have stolen the key or those two pictures. I'll admit I can see no connection between the pictures, as yet.

"In a lesser degree, thirteen other persons stood to benefit by the man's death— mostly in the way of money— and who knows the compelling amount? With one type of man, a hundred pounds. With another, ten thousand!"

Adams had been prowling about the room, examining every corner of it. Presently a point struck him which had been overlooked.

"Er— Parkinson— the men in Goldman's shows must have given him autographed photos from time to time, What became of those?"

" 'E kept 'em in one of the bookcase drawers, sir—h'over in that corner."

The American pulled open the drawer and rapidly skimmed through sixty or more pictures of men— some were in costume, as they appeared on the boards— some, in evening kit or morning suits. At the bottom of the pile he came upon a smooth-faced attractive man in clerical rig— an actor who evidently made up to look twenty-five or fifty as the case might require— a typical "churchman's face." Holding it up for the butler to see, he looked a question.

"That would be Mr. Snaith, sir— James Borrowdale Snaith, as 'e is billed— now playing in the 'Widowed Bride. 'E makes up as a curate, a rector or a bishop— h'according as might be required. Considered one of the best h'on the boards, sir— in such characters."

"Do you remember whether his picture ever has been hanging on these walls since you came?"

"It never 'as, sir. In fact h'I was not aware that the master 'ad a picture of 'im. I've 'eard they were quite thick, some years ago— when they were younger— but I've not 'eard of Mr. Snaith an' the master bein' together of an evening for some time."

"He's not by any chance an ordained churchman? Eh?"

"Oh, no, sir! Quite h'otherwise, I fancy!"

"I suppose you wouldn't recall whether he was well acquainted with— say— Mrs. Gordon, for example?"

"T 'ave no recollection of their h'ever 'being in the same comp'ny, sir. The theater is one of my favorite recreations, sir. I do not remember their names as bein' in h'any cast at the same time— anywhere."

"You say he's now playing in the 'Widowed Bride'? Any idea where his diggings would be?"

"Very likely you would find 'im at the 'Otel h'Irving, sir—just h'off Shaftesbury Avenue. It'll be an 'ouse patronized by the profession h'almost exclusively."

INSPECTOR BERESFORD took Parkinson and Frayne upon another examination of the house— leaving Adams in the study. In a moment or two, he got out of his chair and looked along the bookshelves for a Burke's Peerage, which he soon located— turning up the Kingsly family in all its ramifications and jotting down a few lines of memoranda. Then he picked up the telephone and asked the operator to put him through to a number in the same exchange. After a wait of several minutes, a sleepy butler answered the phone and was requested to ask Lady Sarah Edgerton if she would speak to Dr. Samuel Adams upon a matter of the utmost importance, through the branch phone at her bedside. It was evident that the butler considered this a most outrageous request at that time of night— but he knew the American to be a particular friend of Her Ladyship, and roused one of the maids to go in with the message.

LADY SARAH was irritated at being roused from her sleep, but her curiosity was piqued. She was a neighbor of Lord Montavane down in Cornwall—the families having been intimate for several generations—and somewhat sleepily gave Adams exactly the information he'd been fairly certain she could supply. She considered the engagement between the Honorable Florence and Goldman little short of a crime— though she said the girl was a good-enough sport to go through with it after having given her promise. The County families knew that the Kingslys were somewhat hipped for money to keep up the estate, which was being eaten into by the taxes— but nobody seemed to know just what pressure had induced the girl to break off with Fleming— who would not be in position to marry for a few years— and promise herself to the theatrical "angel." Lady Sarah considered herself amply repaid for being awakened when Adams assured her the marriage would never take place. Then he replaced the receiver on its forks. He had supplemented the data already dug up with inside information which almost enabled him to reconstruct the tragedy of that night— almost— but not sufficiently for a conviction.

For over an hour he sat there alone in that betraying study— pulling occasionally at his pipe and drawing geometric designs upon a sheet of paper. His face bore the same intent look which appeared when he wrested a game of chess from the Inspector, after a hard-fought battle of wits. Arranging the names of the possible suspects in a column, he selected one combination after another, and tried fitting them to the known circumstances. Four times out of every five, the final eliminations logically worked down to the same individual—concerning whom there had not been the slightest trace of real evidence in anything connected with the murder.... As daybreak lightened the streets, the grounds, and the rooms within the house, Adams decided that whether he found himself up a blind alley or not he would concentrate for a few days at least upon the one person who logically must be the criminal.

Parkinson served them an appetizing breakfast at seven—after which Adams took a taxi east to the Shaftesbury Avenue neighborhood and inquired for Mr. Borrowdale Snaith at the Hotel Irving. The man wasn't stopping there, but was sufficiently well known for the manager to locate him within a few minutes at a near-by professional boarding-house— and the American found him at breakfast in his two-room suite. At first, he indignantly refused to make any such admission as Adams suggested— but the visitor displayed such uncanny knowledge of his affairs in general (mainly from shrewd guesses) that he finally exploded:

"But— but— my God, sir! ... You're trying to pin me down to an admission that I once committed an exceedingly illegal act for which I presume I could be sent to Dartmoor or some such place, even now!"

"Well, I've not gone into the law exhaustively, but I rather doubt that. Suppose two Oxford undergraduates chaff their companions into staging a mock marriage— presumably, just as a lark? Could you arrest and imprison the student who impersonated the rector?"

"If the bride and groom went off to live with each other afterward, I fancy there'd be no doubt of it! A mock ceremony as a joke is one thing— actually impersonating a clergyman and performing what appears to be a bona-fide ceremony is quite diff'rent, d'ye see!"

"Suppose we consider it merely a practical joke among a lot of students, and keep it on that basis? Did you ever see the supposed bride, afterward?"

The question came with such apparent carelessness that Snaith unconsciously made the admission before he realized it:

"Oddly enough, we never got a glimpse of each other until some five years afterward— when we met, playing in the same show. I fancy she never was quite sure of me, but one day she casually asked if ever I had been ordained— said my clerical impersonation was otherwise too good to be true. Of course I said that I hadn't— and kept up the assumption that we never had met before."

"Have you run across her recently— seen her name billed anywhere?"

"Haven't seen or heard of her these last two or three years."

"And you really were not at Oxford when that mock marriage was staged— you and the bride were playing in one of Goldman's shows down in Plymouth, weren't you?"

"I was, myself— under the stage name of Percival Williams. That was two years before I started doing clergymen. The bride wasn't on the boards at all, but of County aristocracy— living at home with a titled father and mother. It never struck me until long afterward that the mock marriage was anything but a professional rag ribbed up by Goldman— who was a pretty unscrupulous practical joker when he was in the mood. Of course none of the cast was in position to refuse him anything in reason— he was backing the show, d'ye see."

THE news-clipping Inspector Beresford had found on Goldman's desk was dated Sunday, the 27th of the month.

On Wednesday the 30th, the Mauretania, the President Roosevelt and the Albert Ballin had left New York for Southampton and Cherbourg. On the chance that an English person would naturally pick an English boat for the crossing, Adams was among the first to enter the West End Cunard office when the doors were open— inquiring where he could locate the purser of their last boat from New York. As she was leaving on her return trip next day, it chanced that the officer was on the premises at that moment. At first glance, he identified the photograph shown him— saying that the person depicted had recently crossed with them from New York and had left Southampton on the London Express. From that time until four in the afternoon, Adams made a round of the West End hotels devoted to theatrical patronage, showing the photograph he had to the managers with a caution that it was a Scotland Yard inquiry— that they were not to mention him or the picture to anybody. At last one of the hotel men scribbled a name and address upon a slip of paper and handed it to him. The place proved to be an apartment in a new block. of moderate-priced flats occupied by the families of city men, with a scattering of artists and musicians not closely affiliated with the theatrical profession— a neighborhood where one might come upon illustrators or successful opera-singers, but rarely actors or actresses.

Doctor Adams found the apartment on the third floor— handed the maid a card which merely bore his name and that of his New York club. As he had figured, the lady supposed him to be some one she had met in New York, and came to him in the little drawing-room. He smilingly said that she probably wouldn't recall him— but his manner was so pleasant that she did think they had probably met somewhere. He noticed evidences of packing, and asked if she were leaving town.

"Yes— I only came over here between shows on a matter of business. Going back on the same boat, tomorrow."

SHE was astounded by his next apparently casual remark.

"Mrs. Gordon, can you remember just when you first met Borrowdale Snaith— who began playing under the name Percival Williams?"

"Why— how— I don't understand! Oh, you've run across him here in London— I remember, now, he's billed in the 'Widowed Bride.' How did he happen to say he knew me?"

"He didn't— until he found I knew too much for him to lie out of it. His specialty is impersonating the clergy, as you doubtless know. And his first attempt at anything of that sort was years ago in Plymouth, when he was hounded by the man to whom he owed his job, to impersonate a young rector and officiate at a marriage which the other man preferred not having too legal. The bride, when her father dies, will be a Baroness in her own right. She thought, and her family thought, that she was legally married to that other man and had eloped with him. They considered the, elopement a disgrace to the family, and never knew who the man was—never attempted to find her. She naturally supposed she was a legally wedded wife until she found herself in the same cast with an actor whom she recognized at once— though he thought, and still hopes, that she didn't. This prospective Baroness has a lovely younger sister, recently engaged to a navy man who probably can't marry for a few years at least. The sisters were devoted to each other. The man who went through that mock marriage with the elder sister had a report circulated that she— under the stage-name she'd adopted— had died in New York, and he privately sent her a check for ten thousand pounds, which she returned to him, torn to pieces. On the 27th of last month she read in a New York paper the reprinted announcement of her younger sister's approaching marriage with the man who had tricked her and ruined her own life, and she felt sure that the girl had been somehow forced into it by some sort of black-mailing pressure on her father. Of course there was no chance here for another trick marriage; but she knew the man for an absolute rotter— knew he would throw her sister aside like an old glove as soon as he tired of her— ruin her life just as completely in other ways. So this prospective Baroness— this loving elder sister— took the first boat across to see what could be done about the situation. Well, the problem has been solved— and the sister extricated. Point is, what's going to happen next?"

"Are you by any chance connected with the police, Dr. Adams?"

"Merely to the extent of investigating crime problems as a side interest."

"And your object in telling me this story? Have you any evidence that I am implicated in the matter?"

"Knowledge, Mrs. Gordon— not evidence. Frankly, I doubt if there's even enough circumstantial evidence to implicate you."

"Do you imagine that any attempt will be made to prevent my sailing tomorrow as I've planned to do?"

"No. In any case, I should not give Scotland Yard what data I have until you're at sea."

"Aren't you forgetting the wireless?"

"I doubt very much if enough evidence turns up to hold you on the boat."

"You'll notice I make no admission whatever that there is the slightest truth in what you have inferred, Dr. Adams. Tell me what it really was that induced you to come to me with it."

S| Bags I think, upon reflection, you will get a good deal the same slant on the affair that I do. Some day— years from now, possibly— the little kaleidoscopic bits of this Chinese puzzle are going to be fitted together in circumstantial juxtaposition until it will be known— by inference at least— who killed Joseph Goldman. There will be times when the sister's husband will watch her in a brooding, speculative way. Her father— her friends— will have moments of the same doubt. ... If one carries out a certain action which seems imperative, it always exacts its price in one way or another— and it is difficult if not impossible to sidestep the payment. True, thousands of crimes will remain undiscovered— even unsuspected— until this Earth disintegrates. It's merely a question as to whether one cares to chance it. Now I mustn't delay your packing any longer. Thank you for seeing me— and good-by."

IN a discussion of the case at Scotland Yard that evening, it was tacitly admitted that unless further entirely unexpected evidence happened to be turned up, Goldman's elimination was likely to be labeled as one of the many unsolved mysteries. There were too many suspects with motive and opportunity— but not a shred of even circumstantial evidence against any one of them. After listening to the general opinion, Doctor Adams pointed out that they were trying to assemble facts with no imagination— no acceptance of inferential logic as a factor. They laughed at him indulgently— asked what time-limit he would suggest before agreeing with them.

"Not more than three days, gentlemen. The name of the murderer may be known tonight— published in the morning newspapers, but without any such accusation. Myself— I'd say about day after tomorrow. If we hear nothing before that, I suggest that we, and Mr. Frayne, spend the evening with Beresford in his Mount Street diggings. That's where the story began— and where I'm sure it will end."

They were convinced that he was entirely balmy— but on the evening mentioned, were in Beresford's apartment— playing auction bridge while the Doctor adjusted and modulated the Inspector's American radio-set. Just before midnight, the last-minute news began coming through the speaker from 2LO— the second report coming from a New York express liner in mid-Atlantic. Her Marconi officer said that the stewardess in charge of a certain room on the "B" deck had been unable to find the occupant that morning— a Mrs. Jessica K. Gordon of Cornwall. The Captain had ordered a search of the boat which had continued unsuccessfully throughout the day. As they had been driving through heavy weather and high seas, it was supposed that the lady had been washed overboard. London and New York offices of the Line were requested to communicate with any relatives of Mrs. Gordon's who could be located. As the Doctor switched off the radio-set with an air of finality, the other men looked at him in surprise—then in stupefaction.

"My word! Do you mean us to understand she was the woman whose picture was stolen from Goldman's study ?"

"The woman who took her own and her younger sister's pictures away with her after killing Goldman— lest they be contaminated by their surroundings and the atmosphere of tragedy."

"You mean to say—she confessed?"

"Good Lord, no!... Confessed nothing! You haven't a shred of real evidence against her, and she knew it. Everyone who formerly had known her supposed that she died in New York a year ago— never dreamed she was in London. We talked over the various slants in the situation, and agreed, without being definite, that such an action was pretty sure to exact its price sooner or later, whoever committed it. Well, we let it go at that."

ADAMS told them the story as he had reconstructed it by the sheer cold logic of what he had learned in the first twenty-four hours.

"If she'd been entirely innocent, she'd have gone back to her show in New York as if our talk never had happened. If she killed him— well, her disappearance at sea is the logical outcome— isn't it?"

"Oh, by Jove!" Beresford exclaimed. "The only way out, d'ye see! Because we'd have been quite sure to spot her at long last—an' she'd have paid the penalty. You simply can't let a murderer go free! ... They're always liable to do it over again!"

"Well—" Doctor Adams shook his head. "In a case like this I don't agree. It doesn't always follow. And for the sake of everyone concerned I'm going to exact a promise that her part in it never will be made public. You've no evidence against her beyond my bare statements— which I'll deny if necessary. I salute a courageous woman, who did what seemed to her the only possible thing to do— and then paid the price."

__________________

12: The Will and the Man

M. McDonnell Bodkin

1850-1933

Blue Book, May 1907

"MR. CARVAL, I want you to be quite frank with me."

"I could not be otherwise if I tried, Miss Wingfield."

"We'll see. To begin with, you may put aside your airs and graces. You're not in love with me, nor I with you, nor likely to be. This is a business talk for our mutual advantage."

She drew a cosy armchair to the fire and dropped down luxuriously amongst its velvet cushions.

It chanced that his face was in the light and hers in the shade. Mabel Wingfield, in the glory of her stately loveliness, need not fear the most searching sunlight that ever shone out of the heavens. Still, possibly she had her own reasons for the arrangement. With her bright brown eyes fixed on Adrian Carval's face she went on:

"You are rich, Mr. Carval?"

"Moderately, Miss Wingfield."

"Yet you would like to marry money?"

"Naturally, Miss Wingfield."

"That's straight. Well, I can help you, and I will, if you will help me. You are very fond of Connie Burke?"

"Is this a confessional, Miss Wingfield?"

"If you wish to call it so. I'll take my turn in a moment. You promised to be quite frank, you know."

"And I will. Miss Burke is a charming girl, pretty, clever, vivacious, but—"

"She has no fortune?"

"Precisely."

"That's your mistake; that's where my information comes in. This is a very handsome place, Mr. Carval, this Forland Chace, where we are fortunate enough to be guests."

"Very, Miss Wingfield, and very handsome of Sir William Hood to ask me down to his party and to give me the opportunity to meet so many pleasant friends."

He bowed gracefully in her direction, but she took no heed of the challenge.

With her eyes still fixed on his face she went on slowly:

"Forland Chace, with its priceless pictures and art treasures and its broad acres, is the sole property of Miss Constance Burke— one of the wealthiest heiresses in England."

"You're chaffing," he answered lightly, but he was quivering with excitement.

"I'm in sober earnest. You know, I presume, how the place and estate came— or was supposed to have come to Sir William Hood. No? Then I must teli you in as few words as I can.

"Old Nathaniel Burke, who died a year ago, was an eccentric bachelor— all old bachelors are more or less; he was more. His favorite cousin, Miss Constance Burke, lived with him at Forland Chace. It was generally taken for granted that she was to be his heiress. Indeed, the old man himself made no secret of the fact that he had signed a will in her favor.

"But during the last year of his life he grew to be a confirmed invalid, and a hospital nurse, Miss Honor Murphy, had to be got to help Miss Burke to look after him."

"Miss Honor Murphy! Not the good- looking, lively, red-headed girl that is staying here now?"

"The same. She is a lady by birth, you see, and Sir William owes her a kindness, as you shall hear. Old Nathaniei fell desperately in love with his nurse."

"I'm not surprised. I've a kind of fancy for the girl myself."

"His was more than fancy. He was mad about her, wanted to marry her right away; to leave her every rood of land and every farthing of money he had in the world."

"And she?"

"Laughed at him good-humoredly, told him she would have to leave the place if he went on talking such nonsense, and she would be sorry to go. Then he begged she wouldn't leave him, and promised good behavior, and cried like a child, I'm told.

"From that time forward he sank rapidly. The eccentric old bachelor, Nathaniel Burke, died, I do believe, of that rare complaint— a broken heart.

"He may possibly have suspected that Miss Connie Burke influenced the nurse,with whom she was very intimate, to refuse him. Anyhow, when he died no will was found. Miss Connie was left comparatively penniless, and For- land Chace, with its heirlooms and acres went to his heir-at-law, Sir William Hood, who had already, as you know, a magnificent house and property of his own at Sherwood."

"So much I knew already." Adrian Carval answered carelessly, when she paused for an instant. "The worse luck for Miss Burke and her future husband, whoever he may chance to be."

"That is only the first chapter of my story, the prologue, to make what follows plain. Now I am coming to the exciting part." Her eyes were intent on his face. 'This morning I had a letter from Mr.Weatherwise, who was Nathaniel Burke's solicitor and is mine, and my very good friend as well. He tells me— Are you listening, Mr. Carval?"

"With both ears, Miss Wingfield."

"He tells me that the missing will has been found amongst the documents in Mr. Burke's box in the office. He sent me a copy. It is very short— a mere scrap of paper. 'I will and bequeath all I die possessed of to my beloved cousin and adopted daughter, Miss Constance Burke."

"Why did he write to you, Miss Wingfield?" There was no mistaking Mr. Carval's interest now.

"My story provokes that question. He wished to get Miss Burke's address to communicate with her direct— wants her for a client, I dare say— and knows she is my very dear friend." There was a mocking emphasis on the word "friend." "Не suggests that meantime I might break the matter gently to Sir William, to whom no doubt it will be a disappointment."

"What do you mean to do about it?"

"Nothing for the present. I will give you four days' law."

"Me?"

"Yes, you, to pay your disinterested court to the unconscious heiress."

"It's no use, Miss Wingfield. Sir William's son and heir, the eminent King's Counsel, is in love with Miss Connie and she with him, if I'm any judge of such matters. I'm too late in the field."

"A mere passing fancy," she answered so hotly that Carval started with a sudden inkling of the truth. "I have made up my mind," she went on with quiet determination, "that Mr. Robyn Hood, K. C., shall not marry Connie Burke."

"May I ask why?"

"Certainly, but I needn't tell you. Think what you like— I don't care what you think. Isn't it enough for you that our interests are the same— that I can help you while you help me? Listen, I've spoiled their love-making up to this, and I'll spoil it to the end.

"One day nearly a week ago I watched them spooning in the garden. She was shy and distant. Oh, І know that sort of shyness! But I saw her pluck a little monthly rose— the only blossom on the bush— shake the snow from its petals, and after a moment drop it quite carelessly on the path. He picked it up, of course. He thought she didn't see him, but I knew she did. So I stole the rose from his room— he must have thought she reclaimed it— and dropped the poor little bud beside a half-smoked cigar in a passage where she could not help seeing it as she passed.

"Since then they have been cold and distant, a very pretty lover's quarrel as it stands, and I don't want it made up."

There was a moment's pause. Her cheek flushed, she hesitated as if there were something she wanted yet did not like to say. Then she went on іп a hard voice:

"I'd better tell you everything, Mr. Carval, that you may understand. Since then some foolish little notes have passed between them, or rather, tried to pass. But they never reached, you understand. I needn't go into details. Miss Connie fancies herself slighted; she is hurt and haughty. This is your chance; now is the acceptable hour. You have only to speak and conquer."

"You flatter me, Miss Wingfield."

"No mock modesty, if you please. You are good-looking— oh, you know that better than I can tell you; you men are vainer than women— and you have a plausible tongue of your own. You are a most admirable love-maker. I have had experience, you know."

There was a note of mocking raillery in her voice and smile.

He answered as lightly:

"It is not kind to recall defeat on the brink of—"

"Of victory? I have said it. 'Faint heart never won fair lady.' Yours is not faint, and the lady is— some people think— fair. 'Little hand hath muckle gold,' as the song goes. It is a stake worth playing for. When I next visit Forland Chace, Adrian Carval shall welcome me as host."

"There shall be no other guest so wel- come," he answered, and so the bargain was made between them.

"PARDON ME, Miss Burke, if I seem obtrusive; I cannot bear to see you weep!"

By careful watching, Adrian Carval had managed to come upon Miss Connie Burke ''accidently" as she lay bundled up in a great leathern chair in a corner of the huge, unfrequented library sobbing as if her heart would break.

"I don't want your sympathy, Mr. Carval," she snapped out, "аnd I'm not crying." It was a bold statement with the tears still wet on the flushed cheeks, but she made it defiantly, with the blue eyes kindling behind the tears.

"I am glad I was mistaken," he answered softly; "I thought I heard you sobbing as I came in for a book. Once again I humbly ask your forgiveness."

He looked so shy, so abashed, so sad for her sake that she took pity on him. She was a mere child in the frank, impetuous truthfulness of her nature.

"I beg your pardon, Mr. Carval," she said meekly; "I was very rude to you just now, and it was a fib to say I was not crying. Oh, I'm very miserable." The tears gushed again to her eyes.

With soft brown hair disheveled, with cheeks flushed and tear-stained, and eyelids red with weeping she looked a very picture of misery. A very pretty picture all the same, as Adrian Carval thought complacently. But in his eyes and voice there was only the deepest sympathy.

"I would give the world that I could comfort you," he said tenderly.

"But you cannot! you cannot! no one can. Oh, go away, please, and leave me to myself."

But he only came a step closer and took the little hand that hung by her side very gently inhisown. It was soft, cold, and limp as a dead bird.

"Forgive me," he whispered again, with the light of passion in his deep blue eyes, with the thrill of passion in his low, rich voice. "I feel it is mean, un- manly, to speak at such a time, but I am not master of myself. I love you, Miss Burke; surely you must have seen that I love you with every fiber of my body— with every thought of my soul. Give me the right to comfort you."

She snatched her hand away and stood at gaze like a startled fawn.

"Oh! don't speak to me like that! You don't mean it, and it hurts me to hear it!"

"With all my heart I mean it."

"But I am as poor as a church mouse— do you know that, Mr. Carval? I have not a farthing of my own in the world, and they say that you—"

"That I love money? Say it out, Miss Burke; I can never be angry with you." His voice was that of a man deeply wounded. "I love money, it is true, that I may lavish it on those I love. Without you all the wealth in the world were mere dross to me."

"But I don't love you, Mr. Carval; I can never love you!"

"I will not ask your love; I only ask the right to keep on loving you. Your love may come in time; if not, your friendship is more to me than the love | of all the women in the world besides."

"But it is impossible— cannot you see it is impossible?"

He grew grave of a sudden. "Miss Burke," he said slowly, "if you tell me you love another I will trouble you no more. I will not even ask his name. Indeed, I need not ask his name. Рагdon me; I should have guessed before. How could I have hoped against—"

Slighted love and maiden pride stung her to sudden revolt.

"Stop! stop!" she cried, before he could speak the name she saw forming itself on his lips. "It is not that! it is not that! indeed, you are wholly wrong. Mr. Carval," she went on desperately, before he could speak again, "I will marry you on your own terms if you will have me."

"Have you!" he cried in ecstasy, "You are welcome to me as sight to the blind; as new life to the dying; as Heaven to the saint! My whole life is too short to show my love and gratitude." He raised the little cold hand and kissed it passionately. If he had claimed her lips reaction and revulsion would have ruined his hopes, but Adrian Carval knew the game and forbore.

That evening in the drawing-room he whispered in Mabel Wingfield's ear:

"You may send your letter; the sooner the better." She understood and that night wrote Mr. Weatherwise.

The conspirators were only just in time. Next day it chanced that the same moody restlessness had sent Connie Burke and the son of the house, Mr. Robyn Hood, K. C., along the same lonely walk by the edge of the running stream the frost had chained. They met in the white silent woods through which the winter sun with its red edge on the horizon sent a rosy glow.

She would have passed him with a word and nod, but he blocked the way.

"Miss Burke," he asked abruptly, "why are you angry with me? What have I done?"

"Nothing, nothing," she answered hastily. "Do let me pass."

"First you will forgive me?" he pleaded. "I cannot tell you how I grieve to have even unconsciously offended."

He looked so handsome and so honest, pleading humbly to her, with the glow of the setting sun on his manly figure and frank, young face, that there came a gush of sudden tenderness that frightened her. Her heart beat hard and fast; her lips trembled.

"Indeed, indeed, I am not angry!" she faltered. "І am sorry if I have made you think so. You are right, Mr. Hood. Let us both forgive and forget, and part friends."

She held her hand out timidly.

He caught and held it.

"Forgive, but not forget," he cried. "I could never forget you, Connie, if I lived for a thousand years. Don't say the word 'part; we must not part! Oh, Connie, you can have no notion how much I love you! All the world is nothing to me in comparison. I hoped— forgive me, darling— I hoped you cared for me a little. Tell me I may keep that hope, that I may keep this hand forever as my very own?"

He fondled it softly in both of his, but with heightened color she snatched it from his clasp.

"Mr. Hood," she began.

"Call me Robyn for this once," he pleaded.

"I cannot, I dare not!'' she cried desperately; "I'm engaged to be married to Mr. Carval!"

She hid her face in her hands and burst into a passion of weeping, swaying as if she would fall.

For a moment he stood like one stunned, and the color left his cheeks.

"Carval!" he gasped out. "It is not true— it cannot be true! And you love him, Connie— you love Adrian Carval and not me?"

Only her sobs answered.

"Do you love him, Connie?" he insisted. "Sау that you love him and I will go away and trouble you no more."

Her silence emboldened him. He slipped his arm about her trembling form and drew her hands softly from her blushing face. Half unconsciously she nestled closer in his arms; their eyes met and he kissed her.

The next moment she tore herself from his clasp.

"Oh! how could you!" she wailed. "Do you want to kill me with shame. I have promised him— I have promised him, and as Heaven is above me I swear I will keep my word. Let me go for God's sake let me go!"

With that she slipped past him and fled lightly, swiftly as a bird down the walk, leaving him standing alone in the gray gloaming.

ALL NIGHT Connie Burke lay awake, weeping and planning. A thousand thoughts Chaced each other through her restless brain. But she was not wholly without hope. She would throw herself, she resolved, on the generosity of Adrian Carval, and implore her release. She even formed beforehand the words of her appeal. As they passed before her mind in confused procession, ever shifting and changing, she slowly fell away from all conscious thoughts in a peaceful sleep.

But the morning dawning bright and clear to others, brought new eomplications to trouble her, riveting her chains.

"Any letters, Maria?" she said sleepily from her pillows to the maid who came in with the hot water.

"One, miss," Maria answered, and handed her an official blue envelope addressed in formal hand to "Miss Constance Burke."

Miss Constance Burke— it may be noted in passing— always read her letters in bed.

Having sufficiently tantalized her curiosity with the address and seal and postmark, she tore open the envelope.

DEAR MADAM:

We beg to inform you that we have just discovered the last will and testament of your cousin and our client, the late Mr. Nathaniel Burke, of Forland Chace, duly signed and attested. By this will he bequeaths to you all his real and personal property of which he dies possessed, including the family seat and lands of Forland Chace. We beg to enclose copy of the will, and remain, madam,

Your obedient servants,

J. W. WEATHERWISE & Son.

For a moment after she had dropped the letter on the quilt all other thoughts in her mind were submerged in blank surprise. Then, after a little, various conflicting feelings began to struggle through.

The first she recognized was keen regret. It would have been so pleasant to have given back the inheritance to Robyn Hood— herself with it. But now she realized that this sudden wealth stood between her and her heart's desire. She could not beg release from Carval. The wealthy heiress could not— for very shame and honor's sake— desert the man who had loved, wooed, and won her as a pauper. She was little more than a child. Let that be the excuse that the new-made mistress of Forland Chace buried her face in the pillows and bewept her good fortune.

Sir William Hood took the news like a gentleman, and congratulated his cousin on her splendid inheritance, and offered her cousiniy and kindly counsel as to the management of her business.

The Christmas guests at Forland Chace, as the tidings were buzzed about amongst them, contrasted his courteous serenity under this sudden stroke of ill-fortune with the sulkiness of ason. But there was at least one person amongst them who guessed what Robyn Hood's real feelings were and how little in his present mood the loss of the estate had troubled him. She had guessed his real grief the moment the engagement had— as the phrase goes—been "given out."

"Mr. Hood," cried Nurse Murphy suddenly one morning, when by chance she came upon him moping over a book in the library, "аге you going to let Connie Burke marry that mercenary cad, Adrian Carval?"

A fine looking young woman was Nurse Murphy— tall, strong, and graceful, with a wealth of glossy. dark-red hair coiled in thick ropes at the back of her shapely head, and the dazzling complexion that so often goes with dark-red hair.

He looked at her for a moment in silence, bewildered at the abrupt question.

"What can I do about it, Miss Murphy?"

"What can you do about it! I like that!" She did not look as if she liked it. "Do something— do anything you like: but don't let the sweetest girl in the world marry that handsome cur. You're fond of her and she's fond o' you and there you sit and sulk, instead of doing something to stop it. He only cares for her fortune."

"You're not quite fair to him, Miss Murphy. He didn't know of her fortune when he asked her."

"Not know!" she answered scornfully; "you bet he did, or he would not have asked her. I know him. Not fair to him, indeed! Fair to the man who is going to steal your girl from you? Oh, I'm ashamed of you! All's fair in love and war, Mr. Hood."

"You think so? Then there is a plan we might try! Will you help me?"

"With all my heart; for Connie's sake mind you, not yours. I could have had this fortune myself. I suppose you have heard that? I'm as poor as a church mouse, but I refused for her sake. I got him— old Nat Burke, I mean— to make the will in her favor. Now what do you want me to do?"

"I want you to help me to commit forgery."

He said it slowly, with his eyes fixed on her face. But she never hesitated for a moment.

"Forgery!" she cried impetuously, "manslaughter, if you like; I'd drown him in the lake with my own hands. Oh, how I hate a mean man! Go on with your plan."

"You know old Nathaniel's handwriting?" She nodded.

"I have heaps and heaps of love-letters of his."

"Could you imitate his signature?"

"Like my own."

"All right then. We must between us forge a new will for him dated later than the other, wholly in your favor. I know the book Connie is reading in the library— a big Shakespeare, a great favorite of old Nat's. We'll stick the forged will between the leaves where she must find it. Of course Connie— Miss Burke, І mean—"

"Stick to Connie."

"Of course Connie will tell every one at once of her great discovery— Adrian Carval first of all. If he is what you take him to be, he'll back out of the engagement, and then—"

Her Irish blue eyes danced with de- light and devilment.

"Oh, we'll take the 'then' for granted!" she cried impetuously. "The plan is first-rate, and it's bound to come off all right. "There's more fun in it than you can guess; but you'll find out later on. Now I'll run and fetch the letters and we'll go to work at once. There will be no one here for two hours at least."

All that afternoon Miss Murphy was specially civil to Mr. Carval, and lured him out for a long skate alone on the lake.

"What a bright, jolly girl she is!" he thought as he went to bed that night, and deuced fond of me, too! I can see that with half an eye. It's a shame she's a pauper."

The next morning he had a note— his first from Miss Burke— a very strange kind of little love-letter.

DEAR MR. CARVAL:

I would be very grateful if you could meet me this morning in the library before breakfast.

Yours, ever faithfully,

С. BURKE.

He found her waiting for him in the library, holding an official-looking paper. She was strangely excited— he could see that at a glance— though she strove hard to conceal her excitement. Her bosom rose and fell quickly; her color came and went.

"My dear Miss Burke!" he began soothingly.

But she broke in on his smooth speech with sharp impatience.

"Read this!" she cried, "before you speak. I found it last night іn the book that I was reading, and I thought it right to send for you and show it to you at once."

She gave him the paper with a hand that trembled, and he took it and read it silently twice over before he mastered its contents, yet it was very simple. This new will was almost in terms the same as the other; the name Honoria Murphy was substituted for Constance Burke, and the date was six months later. That was all. For along minute there was dead silence between them.

"So it is the other girl after all," his angry thoughts ran. "What a fool that witch Mabel Wingfield has made of me! Is there no way out of this hole, no way out?"

But his nimble wits rallied to meet the emergency. When he spoke again it was as master of himself and of the situation.

"Miss Burke," he said very courteously, but there was now no trace of fervor in his voice, "I am deeply grieved at this for your sake, and, if I may say so, for my own. It makes something I had to say to you more difficult. It renders me liable to misconstruction by any one less generous than yourself."

"Go on! say it, say it!" she cried impatiently, for she guessed what was coming.

"Miss Burke, when I had the honor to ask your hand in marriage you may remember you told me that you could never love me."

"I remember it well, and I meant it," she answered, the light of hope kindling in her eyes. "Gо on."

"Those words of yours have troubled me ever since. I felt it was cruel and selfish to press my claims upon your pity, for your happiness, believe me, is dearer to me than my own. І felt I had a duty to discharge, no matter at what cost to my own feelings. I had determined when I got your note this morning to discharge it. The paper that I have just read makes my task unfortunately harder, but the duty remains the same. You, at least, I know will not misunderstand me. Miss Burke, I will not claim you as a loveless bride. I release you from your generous promise."

She threw up her hands with a sudden gesture of joy and freedom. Then she dropped him along, sweeping, mocking curtsey.

"Mr. Carval, I thank you!"

"I trust you understand my motives?" he said.

"Oh, quite! quite! Now you may gо."

The careless scorn in her voice stung through his self-control as he slunk from the room.

AN HOUR later Robyn honestly confessed the trick they had played, and confessed that it was an heiress that he wooed before he claimed her love and had his claim allowed.

"I wonder what further mischief Honor has in her head?" Connie said when they settled down at last to coherent conversation.

They soon learned that.

As they strolled down a remote walk by the lake's edge, they came suddenly on another couple to all appearance similarly circumstanced. Adrian Carval would have slunk quietly by, but Honor Murphy left his arm and ran to her friend and clasped Connie's hand in both her own.

"Congratulate me, my dear!" she cried unblushingly, "I am engaged to be married to Mr. Carval. It's a secret, but I couldn't keep it from you, of course. Oh, he wrote me such a lovely, lovely letter! I shall always treasure it, saying he was glad I was poor; that he loved me, and had always loved me for myself alone!"

"But you told him about the will, Honor, of course?"

"You mean the second will; dearest, the bogus will, leaving me everything, which Mr. Hood and I concocted and put in the book for you to find? Oh, no, of course not. Where was the use? He never heard of any will, you know. He thought that you were the heiress all the time, and he gave you up and your fortune, he swore, for love of poor little me. He does not care in the least for money, do you Adrian, darling?"

But Adrian had heard enough. The whole horrid plot broke on him like a thunderbolt. He turned at once and fled down the walk, pursued by a peal of mocking laughter, in which Honor's voice rang clear above the rest.

THE DAMAGES in the great breach of promise case, "Murphy v. Carval," were laid at £12,000; but the case was settled out of court for £1,000, which Nurse Murphy handed over to her hospital.

________________

13: Not Upon the Sleeve

H. Bedford-Jones

1887-1949

Blue Book June 1941

COLD was the night; and the beleaguered town lay hungering. Powder lacked not, but fuel was scant, and food priced high. Howard Smith shook the snow from his coat and shivered, and tightened the muffler about his throat.

"You're a fool," said his companion roughly. "Still time to turn back; we'll get another man for the job. I never thought you'd be the one to show up."

"Turning back is bad luck," said Howard Smith in his quiet insistent way.

The other man caught his arm, with a stifled groan.

"Will ye not listen, Howard? If no one else knows you, she will; and I tell you, she's lost her head over this Captain Blount, with his noble family and all! You'll get no mercy. It's the noose or a firing-squad, of a certainty,"

"If caught," amended Smith. "Yes, no struggle is so savage, so bitter, so terrible, as a civil war. And that's what this is, at bottom. But why worry, old friend? I'm safe."

"Oh, you're a fool, I say!" exclaimed the other man....  "We part here, then, Once past that door, you're on ypur own. Blount's the man you deal with— Burgoyne's aid and secretary. To think he's the man, of all men, with whom she's in love! A young fop, I understand."

Howard Smith looked at the lantern-lighted door beyond them, the wide, heavy door of a tavern whose frosted windows glowed with ruddy light. To the door was affixed a large printed notice.

"You know, it's not a little thing I have to do," he said reflectively. "No other can serve as I can serve, or play the part I can play. I must do it, because that Virginia gentleman out yonder on the heights depends upon me. I didn't know Peggy was in Boston, of course, but it's too late now to back out even if I so desired. I've been passed through the lines; there'll be reports about me and so forth. Well, go your ways! You know where to reach me, each Monday and Friday; I know where to reach you at need. Good luck."

"And the same to you." The other man pressed his hand warmly and went crunching away down the crisp-footed street.

Howard Smith turned to the door. As he inspected the placard posted there, a slight smile twisted his thin, wide lips. The lantern outlined his face: a handsome, thinly carven profile, the face of a scholar with deep, strong eyes.

The printed notice, in huge type, announced that the comedy of "The Busybody," followed by the farce "The Blockade of Boston" for the first time on any stage, would be presented at Faneuil Hall on January 8, 1776; that is to say, four days hence.

Smith opened the door and entered; he walked with a decided limp, and this limp naturally made him a marked man.

The tavern rang with voices and scraps of song. It was crowded with officers, whose scarlet coats, pipe-clayed belts and gilt epaulets made brave show. The smell of hot grog and mulled wine was in the air, countering the blue haze of tobacco from long clay pipes. A silence fell as Smith entered, and all eyes went to him as he opened his coat and removed the heavy muffler, to reveal snowy linen, excellently cut garments of the latest fashion, the gold fob and seals of a dandy. He smiled at the men about the nearest table.

"Your pardon, gentlemen," he said with calm assurance. "I am in search of Captain Horatio Blount, of General Burgoyne's staff. I understand he is here?"

His Majesty's commission meant rank, birth, pride of caste, influence; rarely did it entail snobbery or gaucherie. Several officers were on their feet at once, voices cried out for Blount, and Smith was led into the adjacent room, where a group sat at a table. Blount rose. He was a young man, dark, slender, with a forceful air oddly unnatural.

Howard Smith, quietly at ease, bowed slightly, and gave his name.

"My business with you, sir, is of a private nature," he went on. "If you will have the goodness to grant me five minutes? I am the bearer of a letter from Major Andre, who is now in New York."

"Oh, by all means! " exclaimed Blount. "And how's Andre, the gay dog ? Damme, sir, he should have been an artist, not a soldier. But come along, come along. You're a stranger here? I knew of no ship arriving."

"I came through the American lines," said Smith.

The other halted. "Eh? You mean they allowed you to come through?"

Smith smiled. "Certainly. Why not? I made no secret of being from New York."

"Egad!" exclaimed Blount, upon the silence. "Then the Yankee peasants are getting wondrous lax of a sudden!"

"On the contrary, sir. They did not consider it worth while making war upon a crippled man. My foot was crushed in a carriage accident in Pall Mall, last year."

These words in conjunction with Smith's limp, produced an instant, awkward apology; Blount, in confusion, led the way to a private room.

Smith's letter was produced and read. Blount warmed up immediately, cordially.

"Why, you're the very man for us!" he exclaimed, shaking hands. "Stage experience; you know the theater; you've written for it.... Gad, you must meet Burgoyne at once!"

"I had the honor of knowing him two years ago in London," said Smith. "In fact, I gave him some slight assistance with the first play he wrote, one for the marriage of his brother-in-law, Lord Stanley. Garrick afterward put it on at Drury Lane, you know."

"Better and better! Have you dined?"

"Not yet. I've secured lodgings with Madam Draper."

"An excellent woman, devoted to the cause," broke in Blount, and took his arm. "Come, join us at table; famine may be upon Boston, but we still eat. I'm to join the General in an hour. You shall accompany me."

Back to the company, with a general introduction and a more particular one to the table Blount had left. Room was made, and Howard Smith found cordiality on all sides. "Wine with you, sir— an honor!" The gentlemen, both officers and volunteers with the force, were still awkwardly conscious of that crippled foot.

Smith lost no time in establishing himself ; his background was simple. Born in New York, he had gone to England three years ago. A year at Oxford, and he had abandoned college for Fleet Street; with the officers around, he soon found many mutual friends. The carriage accident had left him unable to move for long months, until at last he took ship for New York. There, after meeting Andre and others, he had come on to Boston.

He did not say that he had spent nearly a week in the camp of General Washington, whose half-organized army was holding the city in siege.

THE name of Andre was an open-sesame, for the young major was the most popular man in the army. Was he promoting theatricals in New York? Zounds, sir! He had put the theater upon its feet here— most delivish talent imaginable! He and Burgoyne together had done it.... And what were these rebels like? One heard there were actually some gentlemen in their rabble.

"Oh, that reminds me!" exclaimed Blount. "We must get to the General. He'll be glad of whatever information you can give about the rebel forces."

Leaving was not so easy, for the amateur theatricals held a stout place in all hearts. Many of these officers had roles in the forthcoming production on January the 8th, with female roles being taken by belles of the town— that is to say, of loyalist families. Boston in general considered this very improper and shocking.

"These New Englanders have demmed amusing prejudices," drawled someone. "Did ye hear about the ranting preacher last Sunday, who proclaimed that the theater was the anteroom to hell? A fact, 'pon my honor!"

"He may be the one whose meetinghouse Howe has just pulled down to make fuel for the troops," spoke up another, and a roar of laughter and profane comments ensued.

Howard Smith, looking on and listening, gathered that Puritan Boston had sundry laws against theatrical performances, and that these officers gleefully went out of their way to offend such New England prejudices. Indeed, their playbills were ironically sent to Washington and other leaders of the rebel troops.

And this, oddly enough, had caused Howard Smith to be in Boston; those playbills had opened the way, had inspired his presence. Only a crippled man could serve in this spot; only an habitue of Fleet Street and of London theaters could have fitted into his present role....

The two men got away at last, bundled to the ears. Arm in arm with Captain Blount, Smith had now no fears of sentries or night-watch.

He had, further, come to a shrewd estimate of his companion. Blount, who admittedly was on his first campaign and had his commission by dint of family influence, was no soldier at heart. His forceful manner was an assumption that concealed a gentle, sensitive nature; he had arrived from England in the fall, and had scarcely heard a shot fired. He was, as he confided boyishly, a bit of a poet at times.

So they arrived at the house where Burgoyne was billeted; the sentry passed them smartly; they were with the General.

A pleasant, kindly, handsome man, Burgoyne; young and talented, he was more at home with a pen than with a sword. When the two men entered the room where he sat writing before the fire, he dropped his quill and came to his feet, hand outstretched.

"Howard Smith, upon my soul! An apparition, bred of cold New England stars? Nay, solid flesh! Welcome, man; what miracle has brought you? Did you drop from the skies?"

"No. Through the rebel lines. Any friend of General Burgoyne, said they, might pass and welcome."

"The deuce you say!" Burgoyne caught Smith's whimsical twinkle, and broke into a laugh. Then, noticing the limp, he stiffened. "Hello, what's this? Hurt? A chair, man, a chair! Blount, get that decanter of Madeira. This demands a toast!"

Explanations, greetings, messages from Andre, news from London.... Then Blount broke in with eager word.

"He's just through the lines, General Burgoyne! He can tell all we want to know!"

"A miracle, sure as my name's John Burgoyne! " The General lifted his glass. "Your health, Smith! Now for the word. What sort of army have these rebels?"

SMITH lied judiciously.

"Poorly trained troops, if at all, but plenty of them. They seem well armed, to amend their lack of training. Their numbers astonished me. A good ten thousand men, I'd say."

"A rabble," said Burgoyne; "but they can fight."

"They've been completely reorganized, I understand," went on Smith.

"We observed some sort of celebration on the second," said Burgoyne; "no doubt in honor of His Majesty's most gracious proclamation."

"On the contrary," Smith rejoined, "I believe it was in celebration of the reorganization of their rabble army, and because of a Union Flag received from their Congress, as they call it."

"Oh, that reminds me!" broke in the General. "I must ask you about that flag; we're devilish anxious to make use of it in the theatricals. Blount, write down what Smith has to say, like a good chap, and get the word to General Howe. Then we can settle down and be at our ease."

Blount obeyed, and Smith spoke freely if not truthfully. He liked Blount; the young officer had solid worth and he was briskly competent. When the task was done, Blount himself took the report to headquarters.

Left alone, Burgoyne relaxed.

"Gad, Smith! The age of miracles is not passed, eh? I've had Blount scraping the town for someone to help us, and here you turn up like an angel! "

"In disguise," said Howard Smith. "How can I be of any help to you?"

"Our theater here. We've put on performances since early in the fall."

"Oh, I see! Well, General, London knows you for an amateur actor of ability. And your play?"

Burgoyne leaned forward. "Look, man! This is something more. We're showing these scurvy provincials a bit of culture, I admit; but we're hard put to it on certain technical points, in acting, in stage managing, in stage business and so forth. Your appearance is providential. I hereby appoint you manager of His Majesty's amateur playhouse. Yes or no?"

"Why, yes, if I can be of any service! "

"Good. Then that's settled. Tomorrow niglit's rehearsal will see you in charge." The General leaned back. "Now, have ye seen the playbills ?"

"Yes."

"Then lend me your ear. I've writ a farce, 'The Blockade of Boston,' which badly needs some help from you. It's not generally known that I writ it, of course; Howe says it might be ill taken if 'twere known that an officer of general rank produced a farce; hut all the same, it's mine." Burgoyne winked. "And I must not iorget about the flag. I want to use it, when my Washington makes his entrance. What sort of flag is it? Can we get one ?"

"Easily made," said Smith. "They told me it's the first flag that's been adopted for their forces. It has thirteen stripes, red and white, to signify the colonies, and in the upper left square, the English Union."

"Damned rebel effrontery!" declared the other with swift choler.

"Oh, they don't call themselves rebels," Smith put in. "There seems to be no intention of resigning allegiance to His Majesty, although there's a good deal of talk about it."

"Well, the rascals will soon have another sort of talk to busy 'em. Pity that any gentleman like this man Washington should demean himself to lead such a riffraff."

Smith shrugged. "So they said about Cromwell, a hundred and thirty years ago."

"Eh?" Burgoyne's large and intelligent eyes drove at him. "Surely you've no sympathy with these peasants in arms? You've too much sound common sense."

"Naturally. Who spoke of sympathy? He's an able man, however. By the way, I met your friend Major Andre, as you know; he seems an extraordinarily brilliant chap."

Burgoyne waxed ardent on the new subject, and the danger was avoided.

FURNISHED with a pass that safe-guarded against any peril, Howard Smith went to his lodgings, later, highly satisfied with all things— except his own business here. Except from one direction, he anticipated no risk whatever. It was the role he played that irked him, and plagued him sorely. The business of a spy is never a pleasant one to any man of honor; it must be undertaken, as Smith had undertaken it, of necessity.

Lying awake in the cold dark night, he thought of how his old friends in New York had pleaded with him to do this work; of how he had been sent on to Washington in the camp before Boston town; of how the bleak Virginian had waxed vehement over their hot punch and persuaded him to the errand, with a fiery energy that brooked no protests.

"Think you I'm a rebel in arms against my King and brother officers, to pleasure an idle hour? Think you I take pride in being called traitor, by those whom I've honored? Think you, Mr. Smith, that I enjoy dishonor? No, but by God, my own heart and intellect tell me otherwise! I do what I can; that's the motto for a man, these days. We have the damnedest, direst need of you. If Howe attacks, we're lost; give him false information to keep him from it. He's starving; so are we. Take this position in Boston, and keep us informed; play your part... I'd do it myself if I could— my hand on it, my word on it! All religious cant aside, I believe, sir, that the Creator has given honest men one sure guide; my appeal is made solely to your sense of duty. Integrity lies in the heart, not upon the sleeve."

True, perhaps; none the less, it irked him until he fell asleep....

Burgoyne took him next day to headquarters. He met Howe, the hard-driving, capable general in command. "Give him information to keep him from it!"

Smith gave the information, quietly confident; somehow, one never mistrusts a crippled man. These Britishers knew nothing of his earlier history, of his hot-headed outbursts in New York against injustice and tyranny, of how he had been pitched neck and crop back into the heart of England by his scandalized family. Now his family themselves had become patriots, swept out of New York, gone somewhere and scattered— he knew not whither. And he was here.

He walked about town that afternoon. He visited Madam Draper's establishment, where her fiery loyalist news-sheet was printed; he dropped into a shop or two; he turned with dusk into the bookstall kept by his friend from New York. Here he leaned over the brown calf volumes to speak a low word to the one man who knew him.

"Send the sure report that Howe will not attack for the present.

"Thank God! " breathed the other man.

"How goes it?"

"All well."

"It's important that there be no postponement of the theatricals on the 8th. We must have word of any change; something's planned for that night."

"Very well. Unless you hear from me, all goes well. Better not get in touch with me as planned; it will be safer for me to reach you."

A nod. He walked out into the street, a book under his arm, and went his way. Six o'clock was close. Six, at Faneuil Hall, for a dress-rehearsal.

THE assemblage was prompt. Burgoyne was here, and Captain Blount, who had a small role in the farce; a dozen officers besides, and half as many ladies. The flickering footlights were lit, and two huge whale-oil lamps illumined the stage, but the body of the house was gloomily dark.

Howard Smith was presented to the company, most of whom remained seated in the pit for the present, as the new stage manager; there was no chance for individual introductions, as a hot discussion instantly arose. With the performance three days away, rehearsals had been most lamentable, and Burgoyne was of the opinion that it might be well to postpone the affair for a week.

"Suppose, gentlemen," suggested Smith, "that we settle the question after this rehearsal? Postponement would be a bad thing for the morale of all concerned. Boston is very largely in sympathy with the rebel cause, I find, and we should give these good folk no handle for jeers and scoffing. Perhaps, with your cooperation, we can smooth away all difficulties and carry on."

Amid eager applause, rehearsal was called.

At once, Smith saw where the trouble lay; the lines were ill-learned, and the amateur prompter was slack, while much of the "business" was poorly done. The act finished, he tore into the players, showed them where the faults lay and how to correct them, and assumed the prompter's job himself. They went through the act again, and Burgoyne was delighted.

"Zounds! Now we have something!" he exclaimed. "On with the game, lads! No need of postponement, if the remainder goes like this!"

It went better, indeed, and with two more rehearsals "The Busybody" would be in good shape for presentation. The players stood back, removing wigs and costumes, and the members of the "Blockade of Boston" company came on the stage. And Howard Smith found himself looking into the mocking eyes of Peggy Williams.

He bowed over her fingers, touched his lips to them, heard her low words.

"So you've changed sentiments, my dear Howard, since we last met? I wonder! Change of pace has brought change of mind, perhaps?"

They were cruel words; they stung. "Quite true, Mistress Peggy," he said. "Men change, but women do not, it seems."

This drove deep; she bit her lip, blood rose in her cheeks, and in her eyes Smith perceived that he had made a mortal enemy. He was too angry to care.

AT their last meeting, before he went to England, they had quarreled bitterly. She had no sympathy with the colonies, she was of a Tory family; more, something had come up to utterly disillusion Howard Smith. He had gone overseas heartbroken. Looking back, he could see clearly, in the focus of distance, the coldly cruel workings of her heart. No, she had not changed.

Yet she was beautiful, with an icy but stately beauty that enthralled men. He watched her now, doing a scene in the farce opposite Captain Blount, and saw again how magnificent was her loveliness and charm. Then he wakened.

"Here, here!" he broke in. "Pardon me, Blount— you're losing all the effect there. Let me show you the way of it, if you don't mind."

"Gladly," said Blount, stepping aside.

Smith had a fair copy of the farce in his hand. He took up the scene with Peggy, who played an American shepherdess. (No doubt Burgoyne took for granted that there were such creatures in New England.)

"One moment, Mistress Williams," he cut in. "As I conceive the author's meaning, those lines should be delivered with a crass and stupid air, to offset their violence. You are the tender, unsophisticated, silly little Amaryllis, prating of liberty; let it waken laughter in the audience."

"Hear, hear!" came from Burgoyne. "Capital, my lad, capital!"

Peggy's eyes flashed; but she curtsied and went through the lines again, to applause. Smith yielded place to Blount, and the rehearsal went on. Afterward, Smith was speaking with Blount when Peggy came up to him, smiling.

"My aunt is here, Howard; I'm stopping with her. You must come and pay your respects. She'll be delighted to see you again, especially with your present political views."

"Eh?" Captain Blount spoke up, surprised. "Then you two know each other?"

"We're old and very dear friends," said Peggy sweetly, "from New York before the war. We shall expect you, Howard! And now may I ask your escort, Captain Blount? I promised Aunt Kate I'd be back early, and you know how she worries."

Burgoyne approached, with an imperative gesture to Blount. He bowed over Peggy's hand, then turned to his aide with a low word.

"Howe has agreed to a reconnaissance in force day after tomorrow; the morning of the 7th, sunrise. See to it that orders are sent the commanders whom we've discussed. Colonel Halkett in charge. If the Yankees weaken, he's to push on through."

Peggy and her escort departed. Burgoyne took Smith's arm with warm commendations of his work, and war was again forgotten in the stage. The other ladies departed with their escorts; the lights were extinguished; Howard Smith was dragged off by enthusiastic officers to the nearest tavern, there to talk late into the night over a bowl of rum punch.

Later, Smith again lay awake, staring into the darkness. Now he had a message of vital import to send,, and he revolted against the doing. Back into his mind came the speech of the grave, hot-tempered Virginian. "My hand on it, my word on it; integrity lies in the heart, not upon the sleeve! " He fell asleep at last, comforted.

WITH morning, he visited the bookshop and delivered his message.

"Get it through at all costs!" he concluded. "If the reconnaissance breaks through, a general attack will follow. Washington must learn that it's a test of his lines!"

"It will get through," was the earnest response.

Afternoon brought Captain Blount.

"Smith, I must have at you; information has reached me," said Blount, plunging at it doggedly. "It's told that— gad, man, I blush to repeat it!— that you're here as a spy for the rebels. There it is," he hurried on. "I can't believe it. I know it's not true, that it's some mistake. Give me your word it's not so, and the matter's closed."

"I think much of my honor, Blount," replied Howard Smith gravely.

"Damme, man! Anyone can see you're a gentleman!" burst out the other. "Therefore give me your word, accept my apologies, and the matter's ended."

"That I'm no spy?" Howard Smith smiled suddenly. "No. I'll not involve my honor in any such question."

Blount eyed him hard, puzzled and miserable and dogged.

"Look ye: I'm told that you're known in New York for a rebel. That you were prisoned there for sedition and treason; that you near killed a King's officer—"

"True, quite true," said Smith coolly. "Before the war, in hot youth; errors, for which I was punished. Then I went to England. I was no spy there, I can assure you! And now I'm back here, drinking the King's health with right good will and doing my bit to encourage the morale and stage presence of His Majesty's officers. And," he added with a humorous twinkle, "a spy needs two good feet to run with. I've but one."

Blount's face cleared. He joined in Smith's laughter, but uneasily.

"Forgive me," he said with contrition. "I knew there was a mistake, but—"

"There was no mistake," said Howard Smith gently.

"Deuce take me if I can understand you!" exclaimed the other.

Smith took his arm.

"Don't try; I'm easily understood. Look elsewhere, my dear chap. I know the source of this ridiculous story. Shall we discuss it?"

Blount drew back. "Zounds, no!"

"Right. You and I alike would go far to defend the good name of a woman. Here no such thing is at issue. I loved Peggy Williams, Blount, with all a boy's devotion; why, when we quarreled I came near to throwing myself into the river! When I took ship for England, my sleeve was wet with tears, the first night out."

Thawed, discomfited and disarmed by these confessions, Blount remained irresolute. Howard Smith went on with a quiet poise that made his words doubly impressive. And he said the one thing that could win this man's confidence and belief.

"In view of what's happened, Blount, I must tell you that I greatly wronged Peggy Blount. One of those things that can never be recalled. Jumping at conclusions, I thought her heartless, cruel, utterly selfish and inhuman. Yes, I confess it. I even charged her with it. When, in reality—"

"She's the finest and noblest of women!" Blount exclaimed fervently. Smith assented.

"Yes. Therefore, quite naturally, in view of my asinine conduct, she bears a grudge. Who wouldn't, under such circumstances ? Poor woman, to be the victim of a boy's petulance and fiery misapprehension! What she said about my conduct in New York is more than true; when we parted, I was a reckless, silly, drunken fellow—"

"Say no more, I beg of you!" Honest Blount caught his hand and wrung it. "My dear old chap, I understand perfectly; I've been a bit of a fool myself, you know. I cherish your friendship for this confidence— 'pon my word, I do! And I shall respect it, believe me. I would that you and Peggy might be friends again."

"No, no! I've injured her too deeply for that," said Smith, shaking his head. "Let matters rest. The fault is and was my own, quite entirely. If you attempt to patch matters up, 'twill only hurt your own standing with her. So let be."

"With all my heart," replied Blount, quickly. "We shall see you tonight?"

Smith smiled. "Why not?"

"And, I implore you, forgive me for even suspecting you of such base actions."

Smith winced. "Tut, tut!" he broke in. "A great man once said to me words which bear upon all the events of life: Integrity lies in the heart, not upon the sleeve. Worth remembering."

Captain Blount departed, much moved.

Smith lit his pipe, thoughtfully, not too happily. So, he had weathered that storm! He felt sorry for Blount, once more; a fine young fellow, blind to the truth, honest as daylight. Somewhere in the future, poor Blount had a sad disillusionment awaiting him.

The evening's rehearsal passed off without incident. Mistress Peggy, bound later to dinner and an assembly, was a marvelous creature in shimmering gown, shimmering jewels, shimmering furs; as Burgoyne commented, she was enough to turn the head of any man alive, but Howard Smith viewed her with indifferent gaze. That she had eyes only for Captain Blount, and he for her, was obvious enough. Smith wondered if she were really in love. It was quite possible, he thought cynically; Blount was heir to a title and a fortune, across the water.

BOSTON wakened next morning to the sound of gunfire. The rattling volleys rose and died, the cannon fell into silence ; back to quarters came the troops and the wagons with the wounded, and cursing officers, amid ironic cheers of patriot city folk. The reconnaissance had failed, and the snow upon the far heights lay reddened.

Smith did not stir abroad that morning. A thin snow was drifting down and the streets did not tempt him. Thus, he heard no details until he came to table at noon. Madam Draper, breathing fire and fury against the rebels, had several officers among her lodgers, and she had full knowledge of the morning's repulse— though she would scarcely publish it in her Tory sheet.

"A disgrace!" she fulminated. "Who ever heard of such dishonor? That rabble actually turned cannon upon His Majesty's troops! They are blind to all sense of decency and virtue! They were planted behind barricades, instead of fighting in the open like brave men! What's the world coming to, that such dishonorable tactics are permitted?"

"To war, madam," said one of the officers, and Smith suppressed his smile.

"However," added the good lady, "a sloop-of-war arrived in harbor an hour ago from New York, with dispatches. Perhaps we shall have some better news from that quarter. I hear that two of the staff officers engaged in a brawl this morning, too; a duel may come of it."

"Did you hear their names, madam?" inquired somebody with interest.

"A captain on Burgoyne's staff— I think Blount was the name," she replied. "The other was an officer on General Howe's staff; I have not yet learned the details."

Howard Smith, warmly muffled, limped through the streets to Burgoyne's billet. He got no news here. Burgoyne was at headquarters and Blount with him; dispatches had arrived from New York with the sloop, and others from England, and headquarters was in ferment. The orderly on duty knew nothing about any duel but "hoped to Gawd new orders would jerk the cooped-up bloody army out of this 'ere bloody rebel town. Repulsed by them ragged peasants.... Gawd bli'me—who ever 'eard of such goings-on?"

Rehearsal at six; the final dress-rehearsal. Smith turned up early at Faneuil Hall; thus far, he had learned nothing further, but here came news thick and fast, as members of the cast drifted in. Smith listened with dull incredulity.

A brawl? Worse, far worse; during the ghastly affair of the morning, Blount had actually drawn sword on Colonel Michaelson of Howe's staff, attached to the party. Why? A mystery. Gad, what a fool! To do such a thing, in face of the enemy! After all, superior officers were superior officers. Rumor went that Blount was under arrest.

"No, he's not," spoke up someone. " 'Ware, gentlemen! Here he is now."

Here he was, escorting Peggy. Before the footlights, she dropped his arm and turned from him. Her voice struck out in cold hauteur.

"You need not trouble, Captain Blount. I shall arrange otherwise for an escort home. Our acquaintance, sir, is at an end. Whether you are cashiered or resign, 'tis all one to me."

Openly said, cruelly said.... Blount bowed to her, very white. The other officers surrounded him eagerly; he shook his head. Howard Smith met his gaze, saw he was hurt to the very quick, saw the proud, bitter anguish in his eyes, and came to the rescue.

"Places, gentlemen! Captain Blount, will you have the kindness to act as prompter for the comedy and allow me to give more attention to the stage? Thank you. Orchestra, ready?"

In response, the fiddles struck up, and the comedy began.

AT the back of his mind, Smith remained aware of Captain Blount. He was puzzled. It was worse than a mere hurt; the man seemed mortally stricken, almost in a daze. Burgoyne was not coming tonight, someone murmured significantly, was settling some affair with General Howe. Smith caught the aside. She had spoken the word cashiered— did it mean that Blount was done for, his career ended? And what had occasioned his mad action?

The comedy was finished. The actors dispersed; those for the farce took the stage. An orderly from Burgoyne arrived with a package. It was the rebel flag, just finished, to be used in the General's farce. Smith shook it out— thirteen stripes, red and white, the British Union in the corner. He tossed it to the actor who represented General Washington, uncouthly uniformed, with trailing rusty saber and comic wig, and went to where Blount stood at one side.

"Join me for supper, afterward," said Smith.

"Eh ? Oh, thanks very much! Afraid I can't." Blount's frozen demeanor broke. "Sorry, old chap. I must back to the General at once."

"Well, cheer up. Don't take it so hard. After all, it's just her way."

iii

"HER WAY? Oh, you mean Peggy!" Blount broke into a harsh laugh. "Upon my word, Smith, I wasn't thinking of her."

"You'll not let us down tomorrow night?"

"Trust me, old chap! I say! Shall we dine together, after the performance?" Blount spoke impulsively. "I'll be free then, you know."

"Delighted! I'll speak to Madam Draper, and we'll have a bite in my room. Now go into your part, and keep your chin up, and if you need a friend, count on me."

Blount warmed. When he stepped on the stage and bowed to Peggy Williams, his color had returned; he smiled, he was himself again, he had a new bearing.

Afterward, he quickly disappeared. A group of others departed with Peggy.

Next day, Boston buzzed with rumors. Word had come ordering evacuation, they said, but this was impossible until more ships arrived. Evacuation! Tory citizens quailed at the thought; rebel sympathizers could be recognized by their broad grins.

In the afternoon, Smith went to the bookshop, for the last time.

"I'm leaving," he said abruptly. "I can't go on with this."

"Howard, you've done magnificent work for the cause!" came the response. "Go, if you like. We'll replace you. When?"

"Tomorrow."

"Agreed, then. Nothing will interfere with that performance tonight, I trust?"

"Nothing."

EVENING, and a clear night in prospect, as six of the clock approached. Smith, limping along to Faneuil Hall, breathed with a new freedom; he had done his work, he had served, he was through with it all. A weight was lifted from his heart.

The hall blazed with lights and flared with color. Everywhere were uniforms; Howe was here, and his staff, the good Tory ladies of the town had turned out in their best, officers of the fleet and of the army were crowded into the hall. On either side of the stage, as was the custom, they were six deep.

Howard Smith, in the rear, saw to the costumes, put stage-fright to flight with a word and a smile, and went to the prompter's place. He greeted Blount with a hearty clap on the shoulder, but was shocked by the young man's haggard air. No time to talk now; he went ahead, the signal was given, the fiddles struck up, the buzzing tongues in the house fell silent.

The comedy ran through its course, and ended to a thunderous burst of applause from the jam-packed house. The players took their bows, and joined the throngs beside the stage. Smith, in the wings upstage, sent word to the orchestra. The fiddles struck up the prelude to the farce.

The imitation Washington, in full comic regalia, trailing the flag behind him, was on stage, awaiting the curtain's rise, when Smith was aware of a commotion. One officer halted another, almost beside him, with excited words.

"Have ye heard ? They say the rebels are attacking in force— Charlestown—"

The curtain lifted.

Offstage, Howard Smith was aware of stamping feet, of new commotion, of startled voices; a tall figure brushed him aside and strode out on the stage—a sergeant of grenadiers.

STOPPING short, the sergeant flung up his arm and shouted:

"The Yankees are attacking our works on Bunker's Hill! They've crossed the Neck and are inside our lines!"

Scattered applause broke forth; to most of the audience, this was part of the farce.

But the figure of General Howe came erect instantly. His voice burst out in a stentorian alarm shout:

"Officers! To your posts, all officers! "

ONE startled, incredulous instant— then the entire house was in frantic pandemonium.

Behind the resplendent figure of Howe, officers were bursting from all sides for the doors. Those on the stage went leaping through and over the orchestra, overturning fiddlers and drummers; actors were frenziedly getting rid of costumes and wigs. Shriek upon shriek went up. Women, taken by stark panic, screamed and fell, fainting. They were unregarded. Shouts of men drowned their cries. There was a mad crush for every exit. Scenery toppled and crashed. Seats and benches were splintered. From the streets outside came the clatter and bang of gun-carriages, horses at mad gallop.

The stage was cleared. A single figure remained, unhurried, unexcited. Howard Smith turned, and saw Blount approaching him.

"What?" he exclaimed. "Aren't you off with the rest?"

"No," said Blount. "The order was to all officers. I am no longer an officer. My resignation was handed in today and accepted."

Smith looked at him for a moment; the man was ten years older overnight.

"Good," he said cheerfully, "Come along; slip out the back way."

They passed in silence through the reverberant streets, hearing the distant rattle of volleys and boom of cannon.

Neither spoke until they were in Smith's room, where a fire burned and a cold meal was set on the table.

They threw off their cloaks and hats; then Smith filled the wine-glasses and picked up his own.

"A toast, Blount!" he exclaimed. "A toast to the future!"

The Englishman smiled mirthlessly, lifted his glass, and drained it.

"You toast what does not exist; no matter," he said.

"Sit down. Tell me about it. What's all this about a duel ? Did you really fly out at Howe's staff officer?"

Blount stretched out in a chair and sighed in weary relaxation.

"Yes. The thing struck me to the heart; I lost my head, went all to pieces. I've no doubt I'd have killed Michaelson on the spot without regret, had I not been restrained. It's haunted me ever since. I dream of it."

"What on earth are you talking about?"

Blount lifted his head in surprise. "Mean to say you don't know ?"

"I haven't been able to get any explanation."

"It was a rebel, wounded. He was alongside the road— a poor devil, bleeding, in rags," said Blount. "He staggered to his feet and shook a sword at us, and shouted something. 'To hell with the King!' I think it was.... Well, Michaelson rode at him and cut him down."

Blount paused, then broke into a passionate cry: "Needless, useless, cold-hearted cruelty! The poor devil could have done us no hurt. He was a man, wounded. Michaelson split his head with his saber.... Oh, God! Well, there it is. War, of course; I was a fool. Yet I'd do it again."

Howard Smith was silent for a moment.

"Why, Blount, I honor you!" he said then softly.

"I resigned, perforce," said Blount. "They would allow no duel."

"I see. Here, more wine; you need it. You've done the right thing. No regrets! And so this is why she threw you over so publicly, eh?"

"Lord, no! " Again Blount looked up. "She said she'd give me my answer when we reached the hall; she did so. Publicly. But not because of that. And, Smith: I've come to understand what you said the other day. You generous rascal! It was not you who did her a wrong. You lied to me. You discovered what was in her, you feared to tell me the truth."

Howard Smith's lips curved in a slow smile.

"Why, what's this? You really do understand, do you? Yes, I admit it, Blount; you were in no shape to comprehend the truth. Apparently you are now. What's happened to make the difference?"

"I'll tell you," said Blount, and broke off. Then: "Gad, to think of it! This morning I had everything in the world, everything! Tonight, nothing. In one day!"

"One day is a mere speck to the gods; it can be an eternity to us," said Howard Smith. "No man may consider himself except as one point in a line that is itself in time a mere point.... Well?"

"You know there were dispatches from England this morning?" rejoined Blount. "Among them was news for me. Everything's gone crash at home. The pater died suddenly; every penny's been lost in speculation. My mother died a couple of years ago. I've nothing left— nothing! Nothing there, nothing here; everything swept away in one day! And Peggy— well, I told her about it. You heard her answer. She dropped me like a hot cake, and did it in public, so everyone would think it was on account of the other matter. Calculating, what?"

Smith whistled softly.

"So your eyes are opened to her reality! One blow upon another, each to counter-balance the one before.  Curious ! "

Blount gulped down his wine. "I'm damned glad to be able to talk it out to you. What's ahead? I don't know. I must get away from everything and everyone who knows me. I must start afresh, from the bottom."

"No harm in that; may do you good." Smith leaned forward. "See here! Go with me. I'm leaving town tomorrow. There's a new horizon waiting for us— for a crippled man and a man without a future. All America's waiting, Blount! Chances, opportunities, everything. You weren't made to be a soldier. I'm unable to be one. Very well, accept the fact and let's find our own future together. Chuck the past and forget it; face forward! What d'ye say?"

BLOUNT listened with eyes kindling, alight, then suddenly ablaze. Color leaped into his cheeks. He sprang to his feet, sending his chair back with a crash, and thrust out his hand to grip that of Smith.

"Done!" he said. "Done! And it fits. It fits you, it fits me, it even fits her.... Zounds, man, it fits! "

"What does?" asked Smith, smiling at the younger man's reawakening of eager interest.

"Something you uttered the other day. 'Integrity lies in the heart, not upon the sleeve!' I've remembered that speech. Great words, noble words! "

"They were said to me by a great and noble man," answered Howard Smith.

And as he spoke, the roar of distant cannon shook the icy windows.

____________________

14: Breakfast at the Savoy

H. Bedford-Jones (As by Michael Gallister)

Blue Book June 1941

ROGER BLANE was leaving the Savoy when the doorman stopped him, with the suggestion: "It's getting along to the hour, sir, and you'd be quite comfortable here—"

"Too much so, I fear," said Blane, buttoning his overcoat. "Your luxurious shelter isn't for a mug of a Canuck like me. I want to see things."

A Canuck from the windy plains, and he looked it— with the strapping, solid health of twenty-four, in London for the first time, with a week's leave to brighten his eyes. Ferrying bombers across from Newfoundland was a nerve-racking job, and he enjoyed being in mufti once more, free of all trammels. Air-raids or no, he had looked forward to London a long time, and he had nothing on his mind.

He was not in this enviable condition long, however.

Catching a bus with a laudable ambition of calling on some very distant relatives who lived somewhere back of Kensington Mansions, he alighted at King's Gate and struck off afoot for his goal. It was a chill evening and the dimmed lights of a pub attracted him; he stopped in, had a whisky-and-soda, inquired his way, and started off again.

Just then the banshee wail came whirling across the sky, a demon full-throated.

Blane halted, irresolute. He had not a ghost of an idea where to look for shelter, was not even certain that he wanted shelter; he had come to see things. He soon changed his notions about that. Scurrying people streamed along the street and ducked out of sight. The anti-aircraft barrage began to boom and bark aloft; roar upon roar shook the air as bombs burst, the siren screamers maddened nerves and brain, and shrapnel fragments started to hail down, very slivers of death.

"TAKE cover, you fool! " said a voice.

Blane was aware of a slim, dark-cloaked shape at his elbow.

"Thanks," he shouted. A shuddering, rocking roar reverberated. He stared up and around as another thin, infernal scream came blasting down the darkness.

"That's nowhere near. When the note goes down the scale, it's going farther away. Take cover, will you?"

A woman's voice, he now realized.

"Where?" he demanded.

"My Lord! With hotels everywhere around— Here, come along, silly! "

The woman pointed and started away. He followed obediently. A nice voice, he told himself, despite its impatience.

Apparently she knew her way around. Hotels, yes; not the swanky type, but huge old rambling structures of Victorian vintage, all blacked out, of course. He wondered what had happened to the cheerful pub and its crowd; probably it had a shelter of its own down below.

Blindly following his guide, Blane climbed steps, passed into a structure of some kind, and found himself amid hurrying people. Dim lights pierced the obscurity; more steps ahead, downward this time, and the infernal din of the skies and city waned to a faintly rocketing background, and then was gone. More steps; electric bulbs appeared. This was a corridor filled with jostling shapes. Blinking at the lights, Blane turned to his companion and found her turning to look at him. He smiled and looked again. Gad! Aquiline features, a flash of wide gray eyes—why, she was no more than a girl, and a lovely one!

"Splendid! " he exclaimed. "And I've some sandwiches in my pocket. Plenty of them."

"What's splendid?" she demanded.

"You. This. Everything!" His enthusiasm was unaffected.

She gave him another look.

"American, are you?" Her voice was scornful. "A show for your benefit!"

"Canadian," he corrected cheerfully.

"On leave to see the sights. I'll be over to take a hand as soon as the R.A.F. passes on my application. Just now I'm a delivery-boy. We've ferried over a lot of bombers for you folks."

"Nice, safe work," said she, with open antagonism, and drew away from him.

They were passing into a large, low-ceiled but comfortably furnished room. About the walls stood folding cots, neatly racked. Chairs were everywhere; people were everywhere. The tables held magazines, newspapers; two servants were preparing tea at a side table. At first glance it was all matter-of-fact. Then, looking again, Blane realized that what struck the wrong note was the people themselves.

Many were frightened, some were in tears; all were stiff, and on high tension. While the majority were obviously hotel guests, others had come in from outside, as their coats and hats testified; an old man with women grouped around him was quietly sobbing. The crowd flowed in, filling the place like flooding water.

Blane found himself alone; his companion had left him, had gone across the room and was seating herself on one of the cushions ranged along the wall. He took an empty chair, removed hat and coat, and with a word of thanks accepted a cup of tea from one of the two men-servants.

"Nice, safe work," she had said scornfully. He smiled to himself, unworried, and looked at her. She was all in dark blue, her cloak flung back, and her brown hair massed about her aquiline features. She was just lighting a cigarette.

He saw the change that came into her face, the startled fear and horror that filled it, her eyes staring, one hand going to her lips as though to repress a cry. He followed her gaze; two men and a woman were entering, bowed in by a member of the hotel staff who made obsequious efforts to find them a place in one corner. All were in evening attire; the woman was of a statuesque beauty,

He saw the startled fear in her face.... Two men and a woman were entering.

The two men were dark, powerful of build and feature, authority and command in their manner; high cheek-bones, strongly carved of nose and mouth and chin. Brothers, thought Blane, or possibly father and son; hard to say which, but they were obviously related, if one could judge by looks.

Blane turned his head and looked at the girl again. She was staring at the three but had composed herself; he thought her face had become white and drawn and tense. She put up a hand and jerked at her hat-brim, pulling it down as though to hide her eyes; she stooped forward and sat with her hand to her mouth as she smoked. Evidently, she feared recognition. Fear, no doubt of it. Fear was in her face, and something more, something greater and more terrible, that shook her with emotion.

More people came flooding into the shelter now— a chef in his white cap and apron, waiters and housemaids. The hotel staff had been emptied underground, for there was no distinction of rank or class down here. Tongue-clackings filled the place. A bad raid; this part of town was catching it heavy, Blane understood.

A woman with a white-faced child came along. Blane rose, gave her his chair, took his coat and hat and went over to where the three in evening dress sat. He secured a cushion and made himself comfortable against the wall, directly beside them; he could not see them now, but he could look across and see the girl, and, better, he could hear them.

THE two men were discussing business. They had pleasantly modulated voices; that of the woman cut in, musical, rich, haunting. She spoke of their own shelter, destroyed two nights ago by a direct hit; luckily there had been no one in it at the time.

"Unless Sylvia was there," said one of the men.

She made ah angry little sound.

"No such luck! I don't know what the world's coming to! ... And to think we've not been able to learn anything—"

Her words ended abruptly, as though one of the men had warned her. Sylvia? That might be the girl across the room, thought Blane. Nice name, Sylvia.

"Oh, Perkins is all right," one of the men said lightly. "The house is safe with him."

"It had better be," said the other, ominously. "He knows what—"

Check, again. Looking across at the girl, Blane saw her moving, coming to her feet; she was holding a handkerchief to her face. He knew instinctively that she had reached the end of her rope; a terrific nerve-strain of some kind. A man brushed him, a waiter with a tray, bringing tea to the three beside him. The man spoke respectfully.

"We just had word from above that it's quieted down a bit, sir."

He passed on with his tray. The woman spoke.

"Well, we stay right here, George! I'll never spend another night like last one. We can have cots here."

"Right, Tressilis," said one of the two men. So, thought Blane, they were not related after all! "Better make a night of it in comfort."

His eye on the girl, Blane saw that she was on her feet, unsteadily. He rose and stood in front of the three here. At this moment one of the hotel staff appeared.

"The All Clear has just sounded!" he announced. "Those employed in the offices may resume their occupations. All guests are advised to remain here for the present, however; this has been too short to be true. The Jerries will certainly be along again."

Sylvia— if she were Sylvia— was joining in the rush of figures making for the exit. Blane stood quiet, knowing that he was blocking sight of her from the three. She passed. He fell in behind her, and saw her put out a hand to the wall for support.

"Steady, Sylvia!" he said quietly. "They didn't catch on."

She turned her head and flashed him one tumultuous glance from a white face— a look of startled amazement and agitation. Then she went on. They mounted, passed through the dim-lighted lobby, and came out upon the hotel steps. The sky was filled with distant clamor, a red glow hung upon the horizon above the chimney-pots; the clang-clang of fire-engine bells sounded almost sweetly upon the night.

They were alone here. She swung about.

"You were blocking their view of me." Her voice was composed but softened. "Thank you. What do you know?"

"Only what your face told me," he replied quietly. "And a few words they spoke. They're staying for the night.... The house is safe with Perkins, they said. Apparently the lady and 'George' would like to know where you are."

"Wouldn't they, though!" Sylvia exclaimed bitterly. "Damn the lot of them! She's my sister. George Tressilis is her husband. Garven's his cousin; Cornishmen both.... What was that you said?" She turned with abrupt words, eagerness flaming in her voice. "About the house?"

"That it's safe with Perkins," said Blane.

There was a moment of silence. A deep breath broke from her.

"Oh! If I were only a man now!" she said, under her breath, like a sigh.

Blane descended a step and turned. The glow in the sky was brightening. He could see her face as he gazed up at her; she was looking off into the distance, above him. Flippant words came to his tongue, but they were not flippant as he spoke them.

"God made us what we are, and did a good job of it, Sylvia."

Her eyes dropped to him. "What a strange thing for you to say!"

"I'm a man; make use of me," he went on. "You have your wish. Can I help to keep that fear from coming into your heart again? Then permit me, do!"

"You don't understand—"

"Yes. All it's necessary to understand is your face— you, Sylvia." He moved, threw back his shoulders, laughed a little. "Oh, I'm not romantic! Really, I'm most prosaic. But you're not. You're a symbol of all beautiful things the world has lost. Let me help you if I can, if there's any help I can give."

She stood looking at him for a space, then suddenly shivered and flung a glance over her shoulder. She had remembered the three.

"We must get away from here!" she said abruptly, and put out her hand to him. "Thank you again, Canuck. It's a damned risky job; means jail if we're caught. And this Perkins— he's George's chauffeur— can handle any two men in a pinch."

"Oh! You only asked for one man," said Blane, laughing again. "But as long as you say 'we,' let's get to it, whatever it is. Maybe Perkins never tackled a Canuck."

"And no questions asked?"

"Thousands— when the time comes. Where do we go from here?"

"Two streets over. It's not far."

SHE took his arm; they gained the sidewalk, and started out. The glow in the sky was from a big fire somewhere; the reflection lighted their way dimly.

"Damn the lot of them! She's my sister." The words recurred to Roger Blane with curious emphasis; here was a pretty family tangle of some kind, he reflected. He had not the faintest idea what it was all about, and did not care particularly; he was like that, sometimes. Well, to be honest about it, he did care too. He was banking with all he had, with every atom of faith and energy and enthusiasm in him, on this girl's face.

"I should have made for the City," she observed, "or for anywhere away from here. I've been on the loose three days now. These air-raids are wonderful— for anyone on the wrong side of the law."

"I never did like the law particularly," said Blane cheerfully. He was careful not to ask questions. "Glad I got away from the Savoy. Regular underground hotel there; I wanted to see the rough side of things."

"Don't worry, you will. This is just a breather."

"What I'm driving at is that the Savoy's still there in case of need."

She pressed her hand, within his arm, in an intimate little gesture of comprehension.

"Sorry I called you a fool, Canuck."

"Don't be; it's a fact. You'll get used to it, I hope."

They swung around a corner. Dim shapes flitted along the street; voices echoed within the darkened houses. She spoke again.

"I've a door-key; we can get in, unless Perkins hears us. I'll need ten minutes
to get into the safe."

"You'll have twenty."

So that was it: Robbing the family safe, eh? And she had skipped out three days ago... It looked queer, all of it. However, if she was depending on him to keep Perkins quiet, well and good; Perkins would be quiet.

He laughed suddenly.

"You know, I always thought Perkins was the name of a housemaid or something of that sort. It usually is, in novels. Hello! They've got the fire."

The glow was dying away. Sylvia looked up and around, anxiously.

"Sharp work. One batch of Jerries comes over and starts a fire, the others come along to use it.... Oh! "

The thing shrieked and wailed across the heavens, the banshee cry of a lost soul.

"Quick! We're nearly there!" she went on, hurrying her pace. "Around this corner, down the block . . . fourth house. Hurry, hurry! My key's for the area-way; they don't know I have it.... I'll need a match. For a light."

"Can do," said Blane. Gad! What an infernal racket all of a sudden! "Takes thirty seconds for an archie shell to make twenty thousand feet, twenty for the fragments to fall... take your time, child."

They were going full blast, guns whose voice was like the fall of bombs; golden shell-bursts starred the far sky in evil mimicry. The noise was terrific.

"There's an underground close by," she was saying, her words almost lost. "We can make for it later."

Then she turned and was gone. He followed, down the steps of an invisible house. She was fumbling at a door; he struck a vesta, held it in cupped hands until she found the key-hole. The door swung, and they were inside; she closed it and shut out the worst of the pandemonium, and spoke at his ear.

"Take my hand; I'll lead. We must get upstairs."

Her fingers were cold as ice, vibrant with excitement; he folded his own around them, rubbed her hand between both of his, and struck out after her.

Everything was black as pitch. She stumbled over something, gained her balance anew, and they went on. Another door, then stairs going upward; these ended, and a door opened upon lights. Candles, one in a room.

"Quickly! The library!" she breathed, and freed her hand.

FURNITURE covered, pictures gone from the walls, broken windows shuttered—rooms readied against disaster. The house vibrated to rocking explosions; from above came a sound as of rifle-fire— shrapnel fragments piercing the slates. Earth and air alike shuddered to the siren screams of falling bombs. Blane thought longingly of the cool sweet silence of that shelter they had left. How on earth did these people stand it, night after night? How did this girl stand it?

The thought burst like a shell in his brain. Was it possible that she had gone to pieces under the strain, that he had lent himself to a raid-shocked woman's fancies? For an instant the thought paralyzed him; then he put it away, angrily.

She opened a door. He came after her into a charming little library, a small room walled with books, where two candles burned in high silver holders. On the table were the remains of a meal, with whisky and glasses; in the fireplace burned a few embers.

"Oh, the beast!" exclaimed Sylvia indignantly. "He's been making himself at home!... Well, no time to lose—"

She flew at the books. A section of the shelves opened back to her hand, away from the wall, revealing the door of a safe. She looked over her shoulder at Blane.

"If he caught us here, he'd have us. Hadn't you better wait outside?"

"Sound sense to that," said he. Going to the table, he poured himself a drink, downed it, poured another for her and handed it to her, and then stepped outside into the adjoining room. Here he sank into a covered chair and waited, trying to relax.

It was difficult, with the evil cacophony of reverberant din that filled the air. It was impossible, when he sighted a shadowy figure in the next room; he tensed on the edge of his chair and sat motionless, staring, every nerve taut.

That would be Perkins, coming now straight for the library entrance, unaware of the dark figure in the chair. A tall man, stooped a little, mustached features thin and hard; he passed within a yard of Blane and pulled open the door, and stood there, looking in. His voice came like a hollow mockery amid the unceasing tumult.

"You, miss! Out o' that!"

Blane sat unmoving. He faintly heard the girl's startled cry; then from Perkins broke a wildly exultant word, as he whipped something out of his pocket.

"Got you for fair! Now you'll go back into these, and no breaking away this time! You can go up before a magistrate for this!"

"Oh, Canuck, Canuck! " came the wail of Sylvia.

Perkins sprang forward; he was engaged in a struggle with the girl when Blane came into the doorway behind him. In the man's hand was a pair of handcuffs. He had Sylvia by the arm and was trying to click the bracelets on her wrists. She struck him across the face; he lashed out at her.

Blane, unhurried, got the man's arm, twisted it behind him, got the other wrist, and held him. Perkins, twisting his head, uttered a squawking oath of amazement.

"Easy does it," said Blane, and his eye took in the papers and money and sheaves of letters spilled over the floor. "Get your stuff together, Sylvia, and—"

HE'D have sworn that no man could have broken the hold he had on Perkins; but, next instant, Perkins became a volcanic fury. The bomb helped. The scream of it was horrible; the concussion actually shook the house, shook plaster from the walls, and Blane rocked to the impact of air. It must have struck very close.

Perkins was free. Luckily, Blane still wore his overcoat; it saved him from the hammer-blows that tore into him. The man knew his business; he struck low and fast. Blane doubled up and went forward, took a facer that laid his cheek open, then gripped Perkins by one ankle and they came down together.

With this, Blane really went to work. After a moment he came up on one hand, fumbled around with the other, got the handcuffs, and nipped the wrists of the senseless Perkins together.

Sylvia was staring at him, her eyes wide, her face white as death, as he rose.

"Well, get organized! " he said, gasping a little. Those blows had hurt. "Have you found what you want? Then tidy up and let's go."

She swooped suddenly on the packets of banknotes and the papers; scooped them up, thrust them at him. He filled his pockets with what she gave him. No time now to ask questions or think about consequences. The safe door closed, the book-shelves slammed back into place. Blane caught up the whisky-bottle, just as she darted forward and knocked the candles from the table, plunging the room into darkness.

"Come, come!" lifted her voice in almost hysteric urgency.

Gulping a drink from the bottle, Blane trailed after her, caught up with her in the adjoining room, and voiced protest and inquiry. It was no time to be sauntering down the street, he pointed out; she stared at him in helpless perplexity.

"But we can't stay here, Canuck! It's only a block to the underground."

"Tell you what. Get back to the areaway, and wait for a lull."

She nodded and led the way to the lower level once more. Blane struck a match and lit a cigarette; they found the door, opened it, looked up into the street. The sky was a lurid glare, the guns and shells were at a terrific crescendo. She closed the door again.

"Here's a bench." She guided him, and they sat down. She took the cigarette he offered; the match-flame gave momentary relief from the intense darkness here. "I won't feel safe till I'm entirely away from this house."

"Sure; keep your chin up. — Oh, my sandwiches! Suppose we have a bite; they're a bit crushed, but no harm done."

He got them out, opened them, and forced her to eat. "There must be somewhere you'll be safe ?" he asked presently.

"Yes, of course; if I can only find Sir James Agnew, I'll be all right. He's my uncle; he'd stop all this terrible affair at once. But I can't find him! I've been trying for three days; you've no idea how frightfully everything is done up in the City! "

"Oh, we'll run him down," said Blane cheerfully. "What's his business?"

"I just told you! He's on the bench."

"Same as we are, eh? Oh, you mean he's a judge?"

"And nobody knows where anyone is, or anything," she said hopelessly. "That's why they could do this to me— because of the awful confusion. I'm twenty-one, you see, but if they could make me marry Garven then everything would be all right. It's on account of my sister being my guardian— trying to stave off an accounting for the lost funds—"

Her voice trailed away and was gone as the earth shook; the air sucked at them, the walls trembled, the rafters creaked as though in earthquake. Blane found himself holding her in his arms, found her clinging to him; fright had seized them both. He patted her shoulder and was thankful for the feel of reality.

So that was her story— that explained everything.

It was gone in a second roaring concussion, but this was not quite so bad; still, it kept them together with the frantic clutch of terror.

Blane ventured a shaky laugh.

"Regular Victorian dime novel, Sylvia— handcuffs, forced marriage and so on. Well, forget it now."

"I— I hope so," came her voice. "The money in the safe was mine, really. So were most of the other things. Are you cold ?"

"Hell, no! I'm scared," said Blane, trying to stop the fit of shivering. "I should be the noble aviator of fiction, superior to all alarms; I'm not. This damned affair does something to you. I can't sit here any longer. Let's clear out and chance it! "

She sighed. "Yes. Now you know how I felt, Canuck. Come on."

They separated, rose, went to the door and pulled it open. The hideous din assailed them anew, but now it had retreated down the sky. They ventured forth to the street, holding hands like children.

Sanity came back, with the lull of noises. Blane eyed the lurid skies; his cheerful humor returned. All over now, he told himself; she was safe enough, the villains were checkmated. Nothing to do except see the night out, get back to the Savoy, locate Sir James Agnew and then Sylvia—

They both heard it; the wailing scream rose and rose to an almost ultrasonic intensity. Thirty seconds of nerve-piercing hell, the realization that it was still rising in pitch, that it was for them....

Blane caught hold of the girl and dragged her down, aside, into another area-way below the street level— but it caught him before he could drop beside her.

The concussion was beyond human comprehension. It was, in fact, a hundred feet away and within a house to the right. The house dissolved. Blane saw the buildings across the street rising at him in the red flame-burst; he was off his feet, blown through the air— a crash, and it was over. ... A soundless, silent crash that released him into an agelong darkness.

HE heard two women talking. Said one:

"That's what it does for you, my dear. Makes you just unutterably weary, as though it dragged all the vitality and energy right from you. That's air-raid nerves."

"Well, thumbs up!" said the other, laughing a little, but not in mirth. The laugh was weary and forced. "Hello! What's this stretcher-case doing here?"

"Arkwright brought him in. She said he didn't rate hospital. The doctor said he was stunned from concussion. Canadian Air Force man, by his papers, on leave. I thought best to leave him here a bit; give him some tea and he'll come around presently."

"Right-o! Not hurt, eh? Nice face. Well, thank God it's over for the night! "

"Let's hope so. An hour now since the All Clear — four o'clock.... Ah! Tea's ready! "

Blane's eyes opened; he did not open them, they just opened. Bending above him, he saw two women in blue. One wore a helmet with a big black A on the front. Behind them were walls of sandbags. Other women were grouped near by.

He tried to move, to speak, and could not; his body just would not obey at all. Ope of the two knelt and held a cup to his lips.

"He's awake! " she said. "Here, drink this and you'll feel better."

He drank. Both women were looking down at him. Sudden recollection swept him.

"Where am I? Where is she?" Words bubbled from him. "She was across the street—"

One woman glanced at the other; their faces changed indefinably.

"Sorry, laddy," said one. "There was no one else.... Oh, I say! You weren't from that Parkway crowd, were you?"

"Parkway?" echoed Blane blankly.

"A bad business," went on the woman. "Direct hit on a shelter— worst thing we've had in weeks. I don't think a soul escaped alive." She turned to the other. "Brought the whole building down on top of them, you know. It was while you were gone."

Blarie found himself coming round. He was on a stretcher. He sat up, gripped a hand above, and came to his feet. About him still hung his overcoat, more or less in shreds, but the bulging pockets seemed intact.

"What is this place?" he asked, looking around.

"Auxiliary Ambulance station," said one of the women. "You'd better rest a bit."

"Rest? Nonsense! Where is she?" he broke out, suddenly sweating and vehement. "We heard it coming. ... I shoved her into a basement. ... It blew me across the street. I remember that, all right.... Where is she, I say? Answer me!"

One of the women took hold of him, gently, but with firmness.

"Now, my son, buckle down," said she, a sad kindness in her face. "You were picked up; the driver reported all the houses across the street blown to bits— well, two or three of them anyway, and a fire going. That section caught it bad tonight. I'm mortal sorry, but if there was anyone else— Well, the luck fell your way, that's all."

"Luck!" said Blane, staring into her face. "Luck! My God!"

He went from sweat to ice; everything in him was frozen. So she was gone, in that hell; it had been his doing. He had been the one who wanted to go into the street.... He had tried to save her, and instead, had—

THEN his nerves went all to pieces.

After a bit, the night air revived him. One of the drivers was giving him a lift toward the Savoy; dawn was stealing down from the sky; the woman beside him talked as she drove, quietly, steadying him. He had been begging her to take him back to the spot— he could not tell where it was, exactly.

"It was all searched hours ago, be sure of that," she was saying. "Nothing is passed up; the firemen do a grand job. Dear God, we know so well! Go around to the police later in the day; they'll have the names of any who were found, afterward. All we'd know would be the ambulance cases to the hospitals."

Dreadful certainty there, and it wrenched a groan from him. He did not know the girl's name, except for that one name, Sylvia. And she was dead, in that hell-blast....

He walked the last mile or so through the dawn and the littered streets, a bareheaded spectral shape with bruised and cut cheek and hopeless agony in his eyes. He passed an underground station, disgorging its hundreds of sheltered people with their blankets and pillows and children.... A policeman stopped him, caught his arm, shook him, and stood back when he saw the wet eyes.

"Beg pardon, sir— just wanted to make sure you were all right."

He walked on, into what was left of Charing Cross and the Strand, and turned in at the Savoy drive. It was broad daylight now; as he stepped into the narrow hotel doorway, a deep groan welled up within him; he had wanted to bring her here! Why, just when that last scream had wrenched the heavens apart, he had been thinking that now everything was over, that nothing remained but to reach the Savoy and clear up her troubles....

The porter left his desk, caught Blane's arm, helped him to a lounge. He had begun suddenly to stagger.

"I'll 'ave you a drink in no time, sir... Take it easy— do, now."

Blane slumped down, chin on chest. The drink came. He downed it, and looked up. The porter was speaking anxiously.

"Mr. Blane, isn't it? You're a Canadian, sir? Were you at the Parkway last night?"

"Parkway? Parkway?" The name had a vague familiarity. Oh, yes! That woman in the shelter had mentioned it. "What the devil are you talking about?"

"The Parkway, sir. That old hotel down Kensington Road way. The Jerries got it twice last night, direct hits; everyone there is gone, they say—"

"Never heard of it," said Blane. "What the hell are you gossiping about?"

"Why, sir, I've got a call here. It's for a Canadian gentleman from the Savoy who was in at the Parkway last night.... The lady doesn't know the name— a gentleman, she says, known as Canuck—"

BEFORE Blane's mind a vision grew, all in the fraction of an instant. The girl in blue leading him—an old hotel, the candle-lit lobby— the shelter down below....

Then he was on his feet, bursting toward the desk, running, hurling himself at the telephone, shouting into it in wild incoherence.... Her voice, her voice! All the heartbreak of the world gone and forgotten.

"Hurry! " he cried. "Hurry— for God's sake, hurry, Sylvia!"

"But why?" came her question.

"Why? Good Lord—" He started to shout again, checked himself, dashed the tears from his eyes, and laughed; but tears were in his laugh too. "Breakfast, of course— our first breakfast together— breakfast at the Savoy! Hurry, hurry, hurry! "

"All right," she said, and the phone clicked.

Blane swung around. Porter, charwomen, clerks— they were all looking at him; they had all heard him and now they were all smiling. Why, the whole world was smiling— and the sun was coming up over London!

__________________

15: Into the Blue

F. Britten Austin

1885-1941

Blue Book March 1924

IT WAS in a bitterly pessimistic frame of mind that, having seen my baggage into the hotel, I went for a first walk along the asphalted esplanade of Southbeach. I had no pleasure in the baking sun, in the glittering stretch of the English Channel that veiled itself in a fine-weather mist all around the half-horizon. The exuberant, bold-eyed flappers, promenading in groups of three or four, the vivid poly-chromatism of their taste in sports-coats, seemed to me merely objectionable. The hordes of worthily respectable middle-class families complete with children— with many children— that blackened the sands and overflowed into the fringe of the water oppressed my soul with their formidable multiplicity.

I thought, in a savage emphasis of contrast, of the neat little yacht that should now be bearing me across the North Sea to the austere perfection of the Norwegian fiords. And I cursed myself for the childish imbecility of exasperation with which— when, at the last moment, with my suitcases all packed, I had received a telegram informing me that the yacht had come off second-best in a collision with a coal-tramp— I had picked up Bradshaw and sworn to myself to go to whatever place I should blindly put my finger upon as I opened the page. The oracle had declared for Southbeach— Southbeach in mid-August! I shrugged my shoulders— so be it! My holiday was spoiled anyhow. To Southbeach I would go. And now, as I contemplated it, I was appalled. What was I going to do with myself?

A paddle-wheel excursion-steamer came up to the pier, listing over with the black load aboard of her. Up and down the beach, in five-minute trips, a seaplane went roaring some eight hundred feet above the heads of the gaping crowd. I had done all the flying I wanted in the war, thank you very much. Other potentialities of amusement there were apparently none. If I could not discover a tolerably decent golf-course, I was a lost man.

I am not going to give the chronicle of that first day. It would be a study in sheer boredom. That night, after one of those execrable dinners which are the peculiar production of an English seaside hotel, I had pretty well made up my mind that— oracle or no oracle— I would shake the sand of Southbeach off my feet on the morrow. Sitting over my coffee in the lounge, I was in fact already consulting the time-table for a morning train, when my cogitations were suddenly interrupted by a violent slap on the shoulder.

"Hello, Jimmy!"

I looked up with a start, before my identification of the voice had time to complete itself.

"Toby!— Toby Selwyn— by all that's splendid!" It was years since I had seen him, but in this dreary desert of uninteresting people he came like an angel of companionship, and I welcomed him with delight. "Sit down, man. Have a drink!"

HE did so, ordered a whisky-and-soda from the hovering waiter. I looked at him as one looks at an acquaintance of old times, seeking for changes. I had not seen him since the Armistice, when our squadron of fighting scouts was demobilized and a cheery crowd of daredevil pilots was dispersed to the four quarters of the globe.

He had not greatly altered. His face was a little thinner, more mature. His hair was still the same wild red mop. His eyes— peculiar in that when he opened them upon you, you saw the whites all round the pupil— had still that strange look in them, as though somewhere deep down in them his soul was like a caged animal, supicious and restless, which I so well remembered. The reason for his nickname jumped back into my mind. It was from his little trick of suddenly and disconcertingly going "mad dog," not only when he swooped down, against any sort of odds, upon a covey of Huns, but in the mess. Some one had called him "Mad dog;" it had been affectionately softened to "dog Toby," and "Toby" he remained.

"And what on earth are you doing here?" I asked.

He smiled grimly.

"Earning my living, old bean. Introducing all the grocers in England to the poetry of flying, at ten bob a head."

"So that was your machine I saw going up and down the sea-front today?"

"It was. Five-minute trips— two bob a minute, and cheap at the price. Had to do something, you know. So I hit on this. There are worse things. Put my last cent into buying the machine— ex-Government, of course. She's a topping bus!" His voice freshened suddenly with enthusiasm. "It's almost a shame to use her for hacking up and down like this. You must come and have a look at her."

"Thanks," I replied, "I'd like to, but—"

OUR conversation was abruptly interrupted. Toby had jumped to his feet. Coming in through the door of the lounge was— miracles never happen singly!— an only-too-familiar, smiling and middle-aged married couple and— Sylvia! Toby obscured me from them for an instant as he went eagerly toward them— an instant where I weighed the problem of whether to stay or bolt. The last time Sylvia and I had met she had told me, with a pretty sympathy that ought to have softened the blow, that she would always be glad to have me as a friend, but— The problem was resolved for me, before I could decide. Toby was leading the trio up to me.

"I want to introduce an old pal of mine— Jimmy Esdaile."

Mr. and Mrs. Bryant shot a swift smile at each other and then to me as we shook hands. Sylvia almost grinned. I felt a perfect fool. "Good evening, Mr. Esdaile," said Sylvia in her sweetest tones, her gray eyes demurely alight.

Mr. Esdaile! The last time, it had still been "Jimmy." It is true that since I had somewhat. boorishly informed her, upon that occasion, that I had no manner of use for being her friend, I had scarcely a legitimate grievance if now she chose to be frigid.

"Won't you sit down, all of you?" I suggested. "Mr. Bryant, you'll take a Grand Marnier with your coffee, I know."

"Thanks, Jimmy, I will," said Mr. Bryant, seating himself. I saw Toby stare. His astonishment visibly increased as Mrs. Bryant, having comfortably disposed herself upon the settee, added in her motherly fashion: "And what in the world are you doing here, Jimmy?"

"That's what I'm asking myself," I replied. Toby cut me short in what might have been a witty answer had I been allowed to finish it.

"You people know each other, then?" he demanded.

Mr. Bryant smiled.

"Yes. We've met Jimmy before— haven't we, Sylvia?"

He used to be an acquaintance of ours in London," corroborated Sylvia imperturbably, delicately underlining the word acquaintance.

Toby probed me with a peculiar look, suddenly almost hostile. I could guess that he was asking himself whether I had come to Southbeach in pursuit of Sylvia. One did not need to be a detective to discover his own eager interest in her. It was patent, with no attempt at concealment. Those strange hungry restless eyes of his seemed to devour her. Quite apart from any personal feelings— any time during the last six months I could have assured you, with perfect sincerity, that my heart was stone dead,— I didn't like it. Toby was not the sort of chap—

But I had no opportunity to intervene. Mr. and Mrs. Bryant, with a genuine kindly interest in me and my doings that at any other time I should have appreciated, monopolized me. And Sylvia flirted with him, demurely but outrageously. She called him Toby with the most natural ease in the world. He, poor devil, was awkward in an uncertainty whether she were playing with him, jerkily spasmodic in his answers, devouring her all the time with those strange eyes of his, wherein I recognized that same caged-animal look familiar to me as a preliminary to an outburst of "mad dog" on those nights when there was ragging in the mess. She, I could see, was enjoying herself at playing with fire.

At last I could stand it no longer. I switched off from the amiable platitudes I was exchanging with her parents, interrupted her in her markedly exclusive conversation with him.

"I didn't know Toby was a friend of yours, Syl— Miss Bryant," I said.

She turned candid eyes upon me.

"Oh, yes, we have known Toby quite a long time—soon after you dropped us— nearly six months, isn't it, Toby?"

She took, evidently, a malicious pleasure in reiterating his Christian name. I messed up the end of my cigarette before I remembered not to chew it. Toby looked up. suspiciously.

"T had no idea, either, that you were a friend of the family, Esdaile," he said. He also had dropped the "Jimmy."

Sylvia answered for me.

"Not exactly a close friend," she said sweetly. "Are you, Mr. Esdaile? We had almost forgotten each other's existence."

I could have smacked her.

Toby looked immensely relieved. I could see that, for the moment at least, he definitely put certain doubts out of his mind. He seemed to be trying to make up for his spasm of hostility when next he spoke.

"He's an old pal of mine, anyway, aren't you, Jimmy? It's like old times to see you again. D'you remember that little scrap with a dozen Huns over Charleroi? That was a good finish-up— the day before the Armistice."

I remembered well enough— remembered that after that last fight, at the very end of the war, I had landed by a miracle with my nerve suddenly gone. I had never been in the air since— for a long time could not look at an airplane without a fit of trembling.

Sylvia glanced at me in surprise. The secret humiliation of that finish had made me pretty close about my war-doings.

"Oh, you two knew each other in the war, then?" she said.

"I should rather think we did!" replied Toby. "Jimmy was my squadron-leader— and he's some scientist in the air, let me tell you." His tone of admiration smote me like a bitter irony. "Don't forget you're coming to look over that bus of mine tomorrow morning, Jimmy."

"I don't know that I can," I replied. "I'm off back to town tomorrow." I said this with a glance to Sylvia which found her quite unmoved.

"Are you, really?" she said. "What, on a Sunday?" Her eyebrows went up in mocking admiration for my courage.

Confound it! I remembered suddenly that tomorrow was Sunday. I can put up with any reasonable amount of hardship, but the prospect of a Sunday train on a South Coast railway!

"Kamerad!" I surrendered. on Monday."

"Good!" said Toby. "The tender conscience of the local municipality does not permit them to allow me to earn my living on the Sabbath. Tomorrow is a dies non. We'll spend the morning tinkering about the machine together. It'll be like old times, before we went up for a jolly old scrap with the Hun-bird. She's worth looking at, too— built for a radius of a thousand miles and a ceiling of over twenty thousand feet."

"Really!" I said, with a touch old-time professional interest. "But what on earth do you want a machine like that for? She's surely scarcely suitable for giving donkey-rides up and down a beach?"

"She does all right," replied Toby. "And I like to feel that I've got something with power to it. That I could if I wanted to—" His curious restless eyes lost expression, as though the soul behind them no longer saw me, contemplated something remote.

"Could what?" I challenged him.

HE came back to perception of my presence.

"Eh? Oh, nothing." He looked at me with that familiar sudden suspiciousness which seemed to accuse one of attemped espionage into the secrets of his soul. I remembered that even in the mess, intimate as we had all been together, he had always been a queer chap. One had never really known what he was thinking or planning. He turned now to Sylvia.

"Miss Bryant.has promised me that one day she will let me take her for a -flight," he said, banishing the hardness of his eyes with that little smile of his which was so peculiarly attractive wnen he chose to exert his charm.

"I'll come tomorrow," she replied promptly. "And then you'll have to take me gratis."

"Of course I will!" he answered, clutching at her promise with a flash of eager delight in his eyes. "You didn't imagine I was going to charge you for it, did you? That's settled, then."

Mrs. Bryant interposed in motherly alarm.

"Oh, Sylvia! Don't do any. of your mad-cap tricks!— You will be careful, wont you, Mr. Selwyn?" She turned to me. "Are you sure she will be safe with him, Jimmy?"

"My dear Mrs. Bryant," I assured her, "If there is a better pilot in the world than Toby, I don't know him."

Mr. Bryant took the pipe from his mouth and glanced cautiously at his wife.

"I'd rather like to go up too,' he said.

But Mrs. Bryant vetoed this volubly and emphatically.

"No, no, no!" she exclaimed. "Not two of you together! Suppose anything happened!"

I smiled at her nervous fears.

"Nothing will happen, Mrs. Bryant— make your mind easy. Toby's perfectly safe. And if Mr. Bryant would like a flight, I'm sure Toby would be pleased to take him."

Toby was looking at Sylvia's father with his enigmatic eyes.

"Of course I will," he said. "But I don't want to worry Mrs. Bryant. I will take Mr. Bryant another time."

The conversation drifted off to other topics. At last, Mrs. Bryant rose for bed.

"And mind, Mr. Selwyn," she warned him smilingly as she shook hands with him, "I shall try hard to persuade Sylvia not to go."

"But you wont succeed, Mother!" an- nounced Sylvia radiantly. 'Good night, Toby. Good night, Mr. Esdaile!" With which parting shot she left us, and the lounge was suddenly horribly empty.

WE sat there for yet some time, Toby and I, puffing at our pipes in silence. He leaned back on the settee, with his eyes closed. I was thinking— never mind what I was thinking; but my thoughts ranged far into tle dreary future of my life. My glance fell on him, scrutinizing him, prob- ing him, weighing him, as he lay there all unconscious of it. About his feelings I had no doubt. Were they reciprocated? I remembered that peculiarly attractive smile of his, the alluring touch of mystery about him— and almost hated him for them. That was the kind of thing which appealed to women, I reflected bitterly.

He opened his eyes.

" 'Puro é disposto a salire alle stelle,' " he murmured to himself, staring as at a vision where this somewhat gaudy hotel lounge had no place.

"What's that?" I said, not quite catching his words.

"Eh?" He looked at me as though he had forgotten my presence, was only now reminded of it by my voice. "Oh, that's the last line of the Purgatorio— where Dante, having drunk forgetfulness of the earth from Lethe, is ready to ascend with Beatrice into the stars of the Paradiso. .... All right, Jimmy," he added, with a smile of sardonic superiority which irritated me, "don't worry yourself with trying to understand. You wont. You're one of those whose idea of the fit habitation for the divine soul shining through the eyes of your beloved is a bijou residence in a London suburb. After a few years of you, your wife, whoever she is, will be another Mrs. Bryant."

"Many thanks!" I replied, somewhat nettled, and a little puzzled also. This was anew Toby. We were not given to cultivating poetry in our mess. "But since when have you taken to studying Dante in the original?"

"Oh, I've had plenty of time," he answered, his eyes straying away from me evasively. "I've lived pretty much by myself these last few years." He rose to his feet, cutting short the subject. "Let's go for a stroll, shall we? Get a breath of fresh air into our lungs."

I ASSENTED willingly enough. At the back of my mind was an obscure idea that, in the stimulated sense of comrade-ship evoked between two friends who walk together under a night sky, he might open himself to some confidence that would help me to a more precise definition of the relationship that subsisted between himself and Sylvia. In this I was disappointed. He walked along the asphalt promenade, now almost deserted, with the sea to our left marked only by an irregular faintly gleaming line of white in the black obscurity, without a word. He did not even respond to my efforts at conversation. Apparently he did not hear them. Overhead, the metallic blue-black heaven was powdered with a multitude of stars, twinkling down upon us from their immense remoteness. He threw his head back to contemplate them as we walked in silence. He baffled me, kept me somehow from my own private thoughts.

Suddenly he switched upon me.

"There can't be nothingness all the way, can there?" he demanded of me with a curious vehemence of interrogation. His hand made an involuntary half-gesture toward the scintillating dome of stars. "There must be something!' His manner had the disconcerting intensity of a man who has been brooding overlong in solitude. "At a distance everything melts into the blue. I have seen blank blue sky where on another day there's a range of mountains sharp and clear across the horizon. And they pretend that in all those millions of miles there is nothing— nothing but empty space!" He finished on a note of scorn.

"But surely the astronomers—" I began.

"Pah!" he interrupted me. "What do you or the astronomers know about it? Shut up!"

Shut up, I did. He was evidently not in the mood for reasonable conversation.

He also shut up, pursuing in silence thoughts I could not follow. At last he brusquely suggested returning to the hotel.

Nes morning, when I met him in the breakfast-room, he was quite his old cheery self, and whatever resentment of his last night's rudeness still rankled in me, vanished in the odd charm of his smile. He reminded me of my promise to spend the morning with him tinkering about his sea-plane. I acquiesced, for two reasons. First, I had nothing else to do, and I still retained enough of the impress of my old flying days to be genuinely interested in looking over a machine. Secondly, Sylvia would be coming to it for her flight. An uneasy night had not brought me to any satisfying theory of her real attitude toward him.

It was a bright sunshiny morning as we left the hotel, but a southwest breeze ruffled the surface of the sea; and the white isolated clouds that drifted across the blue overhead were evidently the advance-guards of a mass yet invisible beyond the horizon. Within an hour or two the sky would almost certainly be overcast. For the moment it was fine, however, and I enjoyed the fresh clarity of the air as we walked down the pier together. At its extremity, on the leeward side of the steamer landing-stage, the seaplane rode the running waves like a great bird that had alighted with outspread wings, the water splashing and sucking against her floats as she jerked and slackened on her mooring-ropes.

We hauled in on them, clambered down into her. She was, as he explained to me, intended for a super-fighting-scout, with an immense radius, a great capacity for climb, and a second machine-gun. The space where this second machine-gun had been, just behind the pilot, was now filled with four seats, in pairs behind each other, for the passengers, and he had had her landing- wheels replaced by floats. The morning was still young— nine o'clock struck just as we got on board the machine; and for the next two hours we pottered about her, cleaning her powerful motor, tautening the wire stays to her wings, looking into a hundred and one technical details that would have no interest for anyone but the expert. I enjoyed myself, and Toby was almost pathetically delighted to have some one with him who could enter into his enthusiasms. He had; I could guess, been leading a very solitary life for a long while.

Apparently he almost lived on board her. All sorts of gear were stowed away in her. In one of the lockers I found quite a collection of books, including the Dante he had quoted, and a number of others of a distinctly mystical type— odd reading for a flying man. In another, close to the pilot's seat, was a German automatic pistol.

"Souvenir of the great war, Daddy!" he smiled at me as I handled it.

"But do you know it's loaded?" I objected disapprovingly.

"Yes," he replied. "I shoot sea-gulls with it sometimes— chase 'em in the air. It's great sport."

I shrugged my shoulders. Chasing sea-gulls with a pistol was just one of those mad things I could well imagine Toby doing.

We gave her a dose of oil, filled up her petrol-tank—one of her original pair had been removed to make space for the pas- sengers, but she still had a five-hundred- mile radius, he told me—and looked round for something else to do.

"Would you like to take her up and see how she climbs?" he invited me.

"No, thanks!" I replied hurriedly, uncomfortable in a sudden embarrassment. I had, thanks to the Armistice, managed to conceal my humiliating loss of nerve from the other fellows. "I've given up flying."

His queer eyes rested upon me for a pen- etrating glance, and I felt pretty sure that he guessed. But he made no comment.

"All right," he said. "I expect Miss Bryant will be along presently. We'll sit here and wait for her."

WE ensconced ourselves in the passengers' seats and sat there smoking our pipes. The mention of Miss Bryant's name seemed to have killed conversation between us. We sat in a silence that I, at least, felt to be subtly awkward. The intimacy of the morning was destroyed. Each of us withdrew into himself, each perhaps preoccupied with the same problem. Once, certainly, I caught his glance hostile upon me. As I had expected, heavy clouds had come up from the southwest, and the sky was now almost completely overcast. But immediately overhead there was still a clear patch where, through a wide rift in the gray wrack, one looked into the infinite blue. Leaning back in his seat, he stared up at it with eyes that were dreamy in a peculiar fixity of expression.

"Jimmy," he said suddenly, in a voice that was far away with his thoughts, "in the old days, when you were flying high to drop on a stray Hun,— say, at twenty thousand feet, with the earth miles away out of touch,— didn't you ever feel that if you went a little higher— climbed and climbed— you would come to something— some other place? Didn't it almost seem to you that it would be as easy as going back?"

I glanced at him. Into my mind flitted a memory of his last night's wild talk about the stars. He had always been a little queer. Was he—not quite right?

"I can't say it did," I replied curtly. "I was always jolly glad to get down again."

He looked at me.

"Yes— I suppose so!" he commented. There was almost an insult in his tone.

Before I could decide whether to resent it or to humor him, I saw Sylvia approaching us along the pier, charming in her summer dress, but prudently with a raincoat over her arm.

"Here's Miss Bryant!" I said, glad of this excuse to put an end to the conversation.

He leaped to his feet with a peculiar alacrity.

"At last!" he ejaculated, as though an immeasurable time of waiting was at an end. He quenched a sudden flash of excitement in his eyes as he caught my glance on his face.

She stood above us on the pier, smiling.

"Here I am!" she said. "But it isn't a very nice morning, is it?"

"It will be all right up above," replied Toby. "Come along— down that next flight of steps." He was trembling with eagerness. I wondered suddenly whether I was wise in letting her go up with him. The man's nerves were obviously strung to high pitch. On the other hand, I had the greatest confidence in his skill— and it was only too likely that she would misinterpret any objections from me, would refuse to listen to them.

While I was hesitating, she had already descended to the lower stage, and Toby had helped her along the gangplank into the machine.

"You see I've brought my raincoat," she said. "It'll be cold up there, wont it?"

"That's no use," replied Toby with brutal directness. "Here!" He opened a locker where he kept the flying-coats for his passengers. "Put that on."

HELPED her with it. She looked more charming than ever in the thick leather coat, the close-fitting leather helmet fram- ing her dainty features. Then I made a step toward the gangplank.

"But aren't you coming too?" she demanded in surprise.

Toby answered for me.

"Esdaile doesn't care for flying," he said with a sardonic smile, looking me straight in the eyes. There was a sort of mocking triumph in that unmistakable sneer.

"Oh—but please!' Sylvia turned to me pleadingly. "Do come!"

"I'd rather take you up alone," said Toby in a stubborn voice, looking up from the mooring-rope he had bent to untether.

She ignored him, laid a hand upon my arm.

"Wont you?" she asked.

"I should infinitely prefer not to," I replied awkwardly. I cursed myself for my imbecility, but the.mere idea of going up in that machine made me feel sick inside, still so powerful was the memory of that moment long ago when, ten thousand feet up with a Hun just below me plunging in flames to destruction, I had felt my nerve suddenly break, my head go dizzy in an awful panic. "Please excuse me."

She could not, of course, guess my reason.

"I sha'n't go without you," she said obstinately. Her eyes seemed to be telling me something I was not intelligent enough to catch. "And I want to go. Please— Jimmy!"

I surrendered.

"All right," I said, feeling ghastly. "I'll come."

Toby stopped in the act of pulling on his flying-coat, and looked at me. His face was livid, his eyes almost insanely malignant in a sudden fury of bad temper.

"Don't think you're going to spoil it!" he said, through his teeth. 'I'll see to that!"

With that cryptic remark, he swung himself into the pilot's seat and started the engine with a jerk that almost threw me into the water. I slid down to the seat beside Sylvia. Toby had already cast off the one remaining mooring-rope, and with a whirring roar that gave me an odd thrill of old familiarity, the propeller at our nose a dark blur in its initial low-speed revolu- tions, we commenced to move over the waves.

For a moment we had a slight sensation of their rise and fall as we partly tore through them, partly floated on their lifting crests, and then suddenly the engine-note swelled to the deafening intensity of full power; the blur of the propeller disappeared; a fount of white spray, sunlit from a rift in the clouds, sprang up on either hand from the floats beneath us, hung poised like jeweled curtains at our flanks, stung our faces with flying drops. For yet a minute or two we raced through the high-flung water; and then abruptly the glittering foam-curtains vanished. Our nose lifted. We sagged for another splash, lifted again, on a buoyancy that was not the buoyancy of the sea. I glanced over the side, saw the tossing wave-crests already twenty feet below us.

Instinctively I looked round to Sylvia to see how she was taking it. Her eyes were bright, her face ecstatic. I saw her lips move as she smiled. But her words were swallowed in the roar of the engine, and the blast of air that almost choked one, despite the little mica wind-screen behind which we crouched. I bent my ear close to her face, just caught her comment as she repeated it.

"It's— wonderful!" she gasped.

Then she clutched my arm in sudden nervousness as the machine banked side-wise. Below us, diminished already, the pier, the long promenade of Southbeach, whirled round dizzily in a complete circle, got yet smaller as they went. Toby was putting the machine to about as steep a spiral as it could stand. As we went round again and yet again, with our nose seem- ing to point almost vertically up to the gray ceiling of cloud and our bodies heavy against the backs of our seats, I had a spasm of alarm that turned to anger. What was he playing at? It was ridiculous to show off like this! I did not doubt his skill— but it would not be the first airplane to stall at so steep an angle that it slipped back in a fatal tail-spin. I noticed that Sylvia was not strapped in her seat, and promptly rectified the omission. It might be all right, but with an inexperienced lady-passenger, it was as well to take precautions if he was going to play tricks of this sort.

UP and up we went in those dizzy spirals, Southbeach— disconcertingly never on the side on which one expected it— miniature below us; and I could not help admiring, despite my sickening nervousness, the masterly audacity with which he piloted his machine on the very limit of the possible. He never turned for a glance at us, but sat, lifted slightly above us by our slant, doggedly crouched at his con- trols. I could imagine his face, his lips pressed tight together, his queer eyes alight with the boyish exultation of showing us— or perhaps showing me?— what he could do. I did not need the demonstration. I had seen him climb often enough like a circling hawk, gaining height in an almost sheer ascent, racing a Hun to that point of superior elevation which meant victory.

There had been a time when I could have beaten him at it. But there was no necessity to play these circus-tricks now— above all, with a lady on board. Why could he not take her for an ordinary safe flight over the sea, gaining, in the usual way, a reasonable margin of height on an angle that would have been almost im- perceptible? I quivered to clamber forward and snatch the controls from him as still we rose, perilously high-slanted, in sweep after circular sweep. The gray-black stretch of cloud was now close above us, the rounded modeling of its under-surface like a low roof that seemed to forbid further ascent.

Again Sylvia clutched at my arm, her face alarmed, and I bent my head down to catch the words she shouted against the all-swallowing roar of the engine. They came just audible.

"Is he— going— through this?"

Toby was still holding her nose up, plainly intending to get above the clouds. I saw no sense in making her uneasy. I put my mouth close to her head.

"Blue sky— above!" I shouted.

She nodded, reassured.

The next moment we had plunged into the mass. Except for the sudden twists as we banked, we seemed to be motionless in a dense fog. But the engine still roared, and drops of congealed moisture, collecting on the stays of the upper wings, blew viciously into our faces. The damp cold struck through me to my bones, and I remembered suddenly that I was in my extremely unsuitable ordinary clothes. There was no saying to what height this mad fool might take us— he was still climbing steeply— and I had no mind to catch my death of cold. Hanging on with one hand to the side of the canted-up machine that threatened to fling me out directly I rose from my seat, I managed to reach the locker where he kept the flying-coats for his passengers, wriggled somehow into one of them.

It was only by setting my teeth that I did it, for my head was whirling dizzily and, cursing the day I had strained my nerves beyond breaking-point, I had to fight back desperately an almost overmastering panic that came upon me in gusts from a part of me beyond my will. I could not have achieved it, had it not been for the fog which, blotting out the earth beneath us, obliterated temporarily the sense of height. I was shaking all over as I got back into my seat. I glanced at Sylvia. She was sitting quiet and brave, a little strained, perhaps, staring at the blank fog through which we drove in steadily upward sweeps.

SUDDENLY we emerged into dazzling sunshine, warm despite the cold rush of the air. All above us was an infinite clarity of blue. Sylvia— I guessed rather than heard— shouted something, waved her arm in delighted surprise, pointing around and beneath. Close below us was no longer the earth, but that magical landscape which is only offered by the upper surface of the clouds. We rose for yet a minute or two before we could get the full impression of it. At our first emergence, great swelling banks of sunlit snow overtopped us here and there, blew across us from moment to moment, uncannily unsubstantial as we went through them, in mere fog. Then finally we looked down upon it all, the eye ranging far and wide over a magnificent confusion of multitudinous rounded knolls, of fantastic perilously toppling lofty crags from which streamed wisps of gossamer vapor, of grotesque mountains and tremendous chasms, such as the wildest scenery of earth can never show.

Familiar as it was to me, I could not help admiring anew the immense sublimity of that spectacle which drifts so brilliantly under the blue arch of heaven when the shadowed earth below teems with rain, that spectacle which the eye of earth-bound man never sees. To the extreme limit of vision it stretched, apparently solid, a fairy country gleaming snow-white under the vertical sun, across which our shadow, growing smaller at each instant, flitted like the shadow of a great bird.

I felt Sylvia's hand squeeze me in her delight. My exasperated annoyance with Toby died down, all but vanished. Perhaps he wasn't such a fool, after all. It was worth while to show her this. That was what he had climbed so steeply for. Now he would flatten out, circle once or twice to imprint this fairy scene upon her memory, and then descend. But he did not. He did not even glance round to us. He held the nose of the machine up, climbed still, higher and higher, in those sheer and dizzy spirals.

This was getting beyond a joke. I glanced at my watch, computed the min- utes since we had risen from that gray-green sea now out of sight beneath the horizon-filling floor of cloud. We must be already over five thousand feet up. That was surely quite enough. He might lose his direction, cut off from the earth by that great cloud-layer, miss the sea for our return. A forced landing upon hard ground with those water-floats of ours would be a pretty ugly crash. I craned forward, looked over his shoulder at the dial of the barograph. We were seven thousand! What on earth—

I shouted at him, but of course he did not hear it in the deafening roar of the engine. I caught hold of his shoulder, shook him hard. I had to shake a second time before his face came round to me. It startled me with its strange set fixity of expression, the wild eyes that glared at me. I gesticulated, pointed downward. He opened his lips in a vicious ugly snarl, shouted something of which only the ugly rebuff of my interference was intelligible, turned again to his controls, lifted the machine again from its momentary sag.

I sank back into my seat, quivering. Sylvia glanced at me inquiringly. I shrugged my shoulders. She had not, I hoped, seen that ugly snarl upon his face. The cloud-floor was now far below us, its crags and chasms flattened to mere corrugations on its gleaming surface. The sea-plane rose, circling round and round untiringly, corkscrewing ever up and up into the infinite blue above us.

I was now thoroughly alarmed. What was he playing at? I worried over the memory of his furious face when I had made my estured expostulation. Surely he could have no serious purpose of any kind in thus climbing so steeply far above any reasonable altitude. There was no serious purpose imaginable. Unless— no, I refused to entertain the sudden sickening doubt of his sanity. He was playing a joke on us, on me. Guessing that I had lost my nerve, and angry with me for spoiling a téte-à-téte flight with Sylvia, he was maliciously giving me a twisting. Presently he would get tired of the joke, flatten out.

But he did not get tired of it. Up and up we went, in turn after turn— rather wider circles now, for the air was getting rare and thin, and sometimes we sideslipped uncomfortably, and the engine flagged, threatening to misfire, until he readjusted the mixture—but still climbing. Far, far below us the cloud-floor was deceptive of our real height in its fallacious similitude to an immense horizon of snow-covered earth.

I glanced at my watch, calculated again our height from the minutes. We must surely now be over twelve thousand feet! I shrank nervously from the mere thought of again moving to look over his shoulder at the barograph. An appalling feeling of vertigo held me in its clutch. That last glance over the side had done it, reawaken- ing all the panic terror which had swept over me that day when— at such a height as this— I had seen that Hun plunge to destruction and had suddenly realized, as though I had but just awakened from a dream, my own high-poised perilous instability. I sat there clutched and trem- bling, could not have moved to. save my life. I would have given anything to have closed my eyes, forgotten where I was, but the horrible fascination of this upward progress held them open as though mesmerized. I tried to compute the stages of our ascent from our circling sweeps. Thirteen thousand— thirteen thousand five hundred— fourteen thousand— fourteen thousand five hundred— fifteen thousand— I gave it up. It was icily cold. My head was dizzy, my ears sizzling with altered blood-pressure. My lungs heaved in this rarefied atmosphere. I glanced at Sylvia. She looked ill; her lips were blue; she was gasping as though about to faint.

She looked at me' imploringly, made a gesture with her hand toward Toby's inexorable back. I shrugged my shoulders in sign that I had already protested in vain. But nevertheless I obeyed. Once more I leaned forward and clutched at his shoulder. Once more, after I had shaken him furiously, he turned upon me with that savage snarl, shouted something unintel- ligible, and switched round again to his controls.

Sylvia and I looked at each other. This BOOK MAGAZINE
time she had seen. In her eyes I read also that doubt of his sanity which was tortur- ing me. She motioned me toward the cock- pit, pantomimed my taking over control. It was impossible. I gestured it to her. Even if my nerves had been competent to the task, it was certain that Toby would not voluntarily relinquish his place. To have attempted to take it from him—if he were indeed mad—would have resulted in a savage struggle where the equilibrium of the machine would inevitably have been lost—in about two seconds we should all of us be hurtling down to certain death. The only thing to do was to sit tight and hope that he would suddenly have enough of this prank, and bring us earth- ward again. But even if he had suddenly vanished from his place, to clamber over into the cockpit and take charge was more than I could have done at that moment. There was a time when I might have done it. But now I was shaking like a leaf. I could not have pushed a perambulator, let alone pilot an airplane.

And still we climbed, roaring up and up. The yellow canvas of the lower plane, gleaming in the sunshine, seemed curiously motionless against the unchanging blue that was all around us. The earth, the very clouds below us, seemed totally lost. I could not bring myself to venture a glance down to them. We seemed out of contact with everything that was normal life, sus- pended in the infinite void. And yet the engine roared, and I knew that we still climbed.

HE must have been somewhere about twenty thousand feet. My head seemed as though it would burst. I was breathing with difficulty. A little higher, and we should need oxygen. Toby's face was of course hidden from me, but he sat steadily at his controls, apparently in no embarrassment. Probably he had recently been practicing flying to great heights— it would be his queer idea of amusing himself— and was more habituated to changes of atmospheric pressure. I looked at Sylvia. She was plainly much distressed— and more than distressed, frightened. I cannot describe the anguish which gripped me as I contemplated her. Whatever I had tried to pretend to myself down. there on that distant earth in those six dreary months since my pride had been wounded; I knew now, with an atrocious vividness of realization, that I loved her. And I could do nothing—nothing—to save her, if that lunatic in front did not come to his senses! The imploring look she fixed upon me was exquisite torture. Speech was impossible in that deafening roar of the engine, but she made me understand— the bitter irony of it!— that it was in me she trusted. I took her hand, pressed it to my lips. If we were to die, she should at least know what I felt for her. And then— oh, miracle!— I felt my hand pulled toward her, taken to her lips. She met my eyes with a wan smile of unmistakable meaning.

And then, just as I was all dizzy with the shock of it, the roar of the engine ceased. There was a sudden silence that was awesome in its completeness. Our nose came down to slightly below the horizontal. Thank heaven, he was tired of the joke, was flattening out, was going to descend! We began, in fact, to circle in a wide, very slightly depressed, slanting curve. Toby twisted round from his seat, one hand still upon the controls. There was a grim little smile on his face as his eyes, curiously glittering, met mine.

"You get out!" he said curtly. His voice sounded strangely toneless, far off, in that rarefied upper atmosphere.

For a moment I had a spasm of alarm, but I could not believe he was serious. It was too fantastic, at twenty thousand feet in the air.

"Don't be a silly ass, Toby! Take us down. The joke has gone far enough." My own voice was thin in my ears.

He ignored my protest.

"This is where you get out!" he repeated stubbornly.

Was the man really mad? I thought it best to humor him, managed to force a little laugh.

"Thanks very much, but I'd rather go back with you," I said.

"We're not going back," he replied with grim simplicity. "But you are— here and now."

This was madness right enough! Our only chance was to get him into conversation, turn the current of his thoughts some- how, coax him back to earth.

"Not going back?" I grinned at him as if he were being really funny. "Where are you going, then?"

"We're going on— Sylvia and I."

HE smiled at her fondly, nodded as though sure of her assent. She uttered a little cry of alarm, clutched at me.

All the time, while we were speaking, he was steering the airplane automatically with one hand, bringing her round and round in wide, flat circles where we lost the minimum of height.

"On?" I said in innocent inquiry, while my brain worked desperately. Curiously enough, in that moment of crisis, I found my head as clear, my nerves as steady, as they had ever been in my life. All my dizzy turmoil had vanished. I forgot that I had ever had a panic in the air. I was merely trying to think of some scheme by which I might be able to replace him at those controls. "On— where?"

He jerked his hand upward.

"Up there! On and on, until we come to—" He stopped himself suddenly, his face diabolically suspicious. "You think I'm going to tell you, don't you? You think you'll be able to follow us? But you wont! You get out— here and now— d'you understand?"

I tried to be cunning.

"But Toby!" I objected. "I think I know the way— better than you do, perhaps. Change places and let me take the machine."

It was a false move.

"What?" he cried. "You think you know the way, do you? You think you know the way beyond the stars?" He burst suddenly into a hideous laugh, thin and cackling in the awesome silence of that upper air. "Then you'll never get there! I'll see to that! Get out!"' He gestured over the side, into the blue abyss above which we circled. "Quick!"

I GLANCED at Sylvia. She was sitting numbed with horror, incapable of speech. As I looked, she jerked forward in a gesture of wild protest abruptly checked by the straps which held her in her seat. The airplane rocked in its now tender equilibrium just as something went crack past my head. My eyes were back on Toby in the fraction of an instant. Still twisted in his seat, he was leveling that automatic pistol at me. I could see by his eyes that he was in the very act of pressing the trigger for the second time.

Four years' war-service in the air make a man pretty quick. In a flash I had ducked, flung myself upon him over the slight partition between us, wrenched at his wrist. Risky as it was, it was certain death to all of us if this homicidal maniac was not dealt with. His awkward half-turned position put him at a disadvantage, but he fought grimly, with all a maniac's strength, trying to point the muzzle of that pistol at my body. Automatically, of course, he rose to face me, relinquished the controls to use both hands. I felt the machine lurch and plunge dizzily nose downward. I had one lightning-quick thought— thank God, Sylvia was strapped!— and then I tumbled over the partition head-first into the cockpit.

It was not thought but instinct with which I clutched the steering-stick,—  one had not much time for thought when fighting the nimble Fokker,— got into some sort of position on the seat. We were vertically nose down, spinning horribly— but not once but many times in the war I had shammed dead, gone rushing earthward in a realistic twirling spin and then abruptly flattened out of it upside down and come up like a rocket over the pursuing Hun. This was simpler. I had only to pull her out of it— and only when I pulled her out of it, circled her round once for a long steady glide, did I realize that I was alone in that cockpit. There was no Toby!

I glanced back to Sylvia. She sagged in her seat against the straps— fainted. Just as well, I thought grimly. I touched the engine to a momentary activity to test it, shut it off again for a long circling descent toward the cloud-floor far below. An exultation leaped in me, the exultation of old days of peril in the air. I thought of Toby, with whom I had shared so many, with a sudden warming of the heart. Poor old Toby! He had died as after all he perhaps would have wished to die, high up in the infinite blue— dead of shock long before he reached the earth. I thrilled with the old-time sense of mastery over a fine machine, delicately sensitive to the controls, as that massed and pinnacled cloud-landscape grew large again beneath me. My one anxiety was whether it hid sea or land. Then, just as we drew near, I saw a deep black gulf riven in its snowy mass— saw down through that gulf a tiny model steam-ship trailing a long white wake. ....

The wedding? That was last year.

___________________

16: The Next-to-Last Laugh

Raoul Whitfield

1896-1945

Blue Book June 1928

FUNNY THINGS happen at Rook Field, and that fact isn't so surprising. All sorts of nuts try to put something together that will do something in the air that has never been done before— and if the boys think that the something has a third of a chance it's given a try-out. MacComas has a pretty level head, and it isn't every Inventor who can get his pet theory into a hangar at Rook. But enough of them do to make things interesting.

Now Eric Burnson had a duraluminum-surfaced baby plane that was supposed to be a world-beater. After listening to what Burnson said it should do I got the idea that it hardly needed a pilot. I didn't say a thing. It was Joe Curtis who spoke up.

"We had one something like this baby, a year ago," he stated grimly. "But I was lucky— I happened to be flying the big ones."

Burnson was short and rather stocky. He had thin,features, a high forehead, and very peculiar eyes— he seemed to be seeing right through things. They were gray, and the pupils appeared to be slightly dilated. He burned right through Joe's blue eyes, nodding, his, head slightly.

"Perhaps the designer of the baby plane was fortunate, too," he stated quietly.

Joe's face didn't change, but his eyes narrowed just the slightest degree.

"He was," he returned grimly. "He didn't go up in his ship— and Lew Bellows came down fourteen thousand in a loose-winged spin. We haven't had a tricky ship here, not one as tricky, anyway— until MacComas told us that—"

Joe stopped. Burnson smiled with tight-set lips.

"That my plane was accepted for tests, eh?" he finished. "Sorry— but can't you do a sneak?"

Joe flushed. "Don't have to go that far," he snapped. "I've already told Mac that I refuse to fly it."

That was coming back at Burnson pretty strong. I caught the faint flicker of rage that flashed in those gray eyes; then it was gone, and the inventor smiled coldly.

"That's your privilege, of course," he stated. "I've had the Burnson up two thousand. But I'm not qualified to test my own ship as thoroughly as an experienced pilot."

JOE CURTIS shrugged his shoulders. He looked Burnson squarely in the eyes. "It would be a damned good idea," he said slowly, "if some of you fellows learned to fly before you started inventing!"

I started to cut in, to say something that might break the tension. But I couldn't think of anything decent enough. And Burnson came right back.

"The creative and the mechanical mind are quite different," he stated coldly. "A chauffeur seldom helps to improve the automobile industry."

And that got Joe. He's pretty much of a fighter, anyway. I thought for a split second that he was going to swing on Burnson. But he didn't. He just laughed.

It was one of those throaty, nasty laughs, packed with contempt, and I saw Burnson stiffen. Then there was a little silence, broken by the scraping of Joe's chair as he shoved it back.

"I'm not laughing at you, Burnson," he stated, his voice coldly amused. "I'm laughing at that crate of yours. And it isn't the last laugh, either. The public will give you that. I'm giving you the next-to-last laugh!"

Then he got to his feet, swung around and strode from the Field-office room in which the four of us had been gathered.

Burnson's face was white, and the hand that rested on the table which held his blueprints was clenched tightly. MacComas, the superintendent of the testing end at Rook, was frowning. A door slammed back of the departing Joe Curtis.

"He's off his feed," I suggested, after a little silence.

The Super shook his head.

"That isn't it, Al," he told me. "How about it, Burnson— has he any real scrap with you?"

Burnson shook his head. "It happens that I'm not crazy about him," he stated directly, "but I've never clashed with him— until just now. Never had much contact with him, actually."

MacComas looked at me.

"Want to do the work on the baby Burnson, Al?" he asked.

I hesitated— but not long. It's the practice at Rook to put it up to a test-pilot. Sometimes ships lay around in the hangars or on the dead-line for weeks before they get into the air. Taking off a trick ship for the first time is a big gamble. But I had a hunch that Burnson knew his stuff.

"I'll feel her out— this week," I said slowly, "if it's all right with Mr. Burnson."

Eric Burnson nodded. "I'm glad to have you work on my plane," he stated simply. "I suggested Curtis because he'd been doing a lot of small-ship testing. Naturally, I think he's wrong in figuring that the Gull wont pass measure."

I grinned. "It's all in the game," I stated. "And I don't want to live to be a hundred, anyway."

MacComas grunted. "You will," he said grimly. "Only the good die young!"

THIS Gull plane of Eric Burnson's was , supposed to revolutionize the flying game. It was a very small single-seater, and it had been designed to adopt most of the principles of natural bird-flight. It was supposed to be able to get off a pocket-handkerchief field, and to land on building roofs. A graceful little thing it was— and it looked fast.

When it hit dirt the wings ceased to support the ship— and were planned to act as air brakes, stopping all forward motion. The elevators could be spread fan-tailed in flight. It was tricky— there was no doubt about that. And the trickier they are, the more dangerous they are; but if the ship was up to snuff it would move everything along fast— in the air.

But I decided that I'd be sure and inspect my 'chute-pack before I took the

Gull off. And I also decided that I'd get altitude without rocking the boat any more than I had to rock it. If I could get five thousand or better it wouldn't be so bad. I could take a chance on getting clear, at that altitude.

I was thinking things over when I climbed the stairs of Ma Gray's house, four miles from the Field— we haven't any quarters at Rook— and headed for my room. The door was partly opened, and when I got inside I found Joe Curtis sitting on the bed, a scowl on his face.

"A great guy, you are!" I stated. "You sure ran out of that job sweet and pretty!"

Joe swore softly. "And they grabbed you for the dirty work, I suppose! " he muttered. "She'll fall apart in the air, Al."

I grinned. "I'm being paid good coin for testing ships," I stated slowly. "MacComas accepted this one. Somebody's got to do the trick!"

"Well—" Joe lighted a pill— "that somebody doesn't have to be me. And it wont be you!"

I stiffened. Joe and I had been pretty thick for a couple of years, but we hadn't reached a point where we told each other what we could and what we couldn't do.

"No?" I questioned. "How come, Joe?"

He just smiled. "When do you figure on getting her off the ground?" he asked slowly.

"I haven't started to figure yet, Joe," I returned.

He chuckled. "The only reason I asked, Al," he came back, "was because that's a mighty intelligent ship— according to Burnson. And I've got some good cigars over at my room. Didn't want to leave a window open and have it fly in after the smokes."

But Joe wasn't fooling me any by using the funny stuff. So I gave it to him straight.

"Don't mix in on this deal, Joe!" I warned. "Mac passed the assignment to me— and I'm testing that Burnson plane. You've had your laugh. Now give Burnson a chance to have his."

Joe Curtis flicked the ashes from his pill. His eyes were little slits.

"It might not be a laugh," he stated. "Not for you, anyway."

I swore softly. "You're getting old and sentimental, Joe," I told him. "You do your stuff— and I'll do mine. Just because you turned Burnson down and I didn't—"

"You did," Joe interrupted grimly; "only you're not wise to that fact yet!"

AS I mentioned before— a lot of funny things happen at Rook Field. And some happen that aren't so funny. The morning after I had the little chat with Joe Curtis, MacComas called me to the Field in a hurry. I drove out, and caught him at his desk.

"Listen to this one, Al," the test-boss ordered, picking up a piece of white paper from his desk. "Just came through the mail, postmarked from the city. Typewritten and unsigned. All set?"

I nodded. Mac read in a low voice:

'Take our warning and don't test Burnson's Gull. It's curtains for the pilot who rides her in the sky. She'll never get altitude for a jump. MacComas, don't be a killer!'

Mac paused, tossed the note over to me. I read it carefully. Then I tossed it down on the desk again.

"Well?" I asked. "What about it?"

"Who sent it?" Mac asked me.

I shook my head. I thought of Joe Curtis. But Joe hadn't had time to get to the city, which was about fifty miles distant— not to get there and have the letter come back in the first morning mail.

"You win!" I stated. "Some crank, I suppose. Of maybe some ship designer who thinks Burnson might have the goods."

MacComas grunted. "I don't like the last line," he stated slowly. "I've never sent a man up in a ship that he didn't think was right. This Gull is the biggest freak we've had here in a long time. But somehow, I figure that Burnson—"

He stopped, and I finished it for him.

"Has the goods?" I asked.

Mac shook his head. "Not exactly that," he stated. "But he has enough to rate him a test. We haven't gone forward very far— in the air. Al, how do you feel about the Gull?"

I grinned. "I want to skyride her," I came back steadily. "I'm curious."

Mac nodded. "Well, I wanted you to see this note," he said. "She's ready for the air, isn't she?"

"She is," I replied. "I'm going to have a talk with Burnson this morning— and I'll bounce her around the Field a bit after lunch. May not get her up until tomorrow, though."

The test-boss nodded. "Take your time, Al," he stated. "And if you get feeling funny about it— just tell me."

I shook my head. "It'll be all right," I stated. "We may have a world-beater. I'll chase along and meet Burnson. Forget about the note, Mac."

He smiled, and I headed for-the-hangar at the south end of the Field, in which we were keeping the Gull. There were quite a few things I wanted to talk over with the piercing-eyed Burnson.

He was to show up at nine. But at ten there was no sign of the inventor. At eleven I called the small hotel in which he had been putting up, a few miles from the Field. They hadn't seen him since the previous noon. He wasn't at the Field, and I knew the man well enough to be sure he'd be on the job— with tests for his pet plane close at hand! He'd been working two years on the Gull, and had been dreaming about it for ten.

I GOT Mac, and we drove over to the hotel. After considerable talk they let us into his room. The bed hadn't been slept on. Everything was in perfect order. Burnson's bags and extra clothing— both were in the closet.

"Let's get back to the Field," Mac suggested. "If we don't locate him within a few hours there's only one thing to do."

We didn't locate Eric Burnson, and Mac called the police and told the story— at about three bells. And while he was doing it I suddenly woke up to the fact that I hadn't seen Joe Curtis around the Field. That was unusual. Joe loved his ships— he was always about. Not once in the last four months had I failed to see him, unless I knew where he was. I thought of his final words, the night before: "You did! Only you're not wise to that fact yet!"

Meaning that I'd really turned Burnson down, as he had, only I didn't know it. And the "yet" was significant.

I shook my head slowly. "Joe wouldn't mess up a Government deal like this," I muttered to myself. "He isn't that dumb."

But I thought of the note. It had been written by some person who knew planes, and knew Rook. Burnson had disappeared— and Joe Curtis was not around the Field.

When Mac had finished giving the police the little information he possessed, I told him about Joe. It's all right to tell Mac these things—^he understands. He shook his head.

"Looks bad," he stated. "Joe's gone and lost his head— that's all. He's been working too hard, and I didn't notice it. He's sore at Burnson, anyway. Never has liked him because he's been so sure of that Gull plane. And he thinks a lot of you, AI. He's done something—"

Mac broke off abruptly, staring beyond me, toward the door of the Field-office. I faced around—and into the room walked Joe Curtis. He was smiling. But he didn't say a thing. He half-turned toward the door— Eric Burnson was following him in!

Burnson's face was white. His eyes held an expression I couldn't quite fathom.

"Where in hell have you been?" Mac muttered, being the first to recover. "We've got the police looking—"

"I'm all right," Burnson interrupted in a low, steady tone. "There was an"—he hesitated, and his eyes flickered to those of Joe Curtis, and then went back to Mac's again— "an accident!"

"An accident?" I stared at the inventor. "What kind?"

"It happened to a friend of mine," Burnson stated, and managed a faint smile. But it wasn't a go. All three of us knew he was lying. His eyes showed it.

Mac shrugged his shoulders. He turned toward the telephone.

"I'll tell the police you're here," he stated. "Thought we'd better play safe. There's been some publicity about the Gull, and I figured some crank might have had it in for you."

Then Joe Curtis laughed. And I saw rage flash in Burnson's deep-set eyes. He was controlling himself with an effort, that was certain.

MAC made his report to the police. Joe grinned as he heard the test-boss state that there had been an "accident." Nothing serious, Mac explained. Everything was all right now. He hung up, and then faced us.

"Well," he stated, addressing the inventor, "you gave us a scare! But I suppose the affair is your own business. Al was waiting for you to— We want to get your ship in the air within a few days."

"I've changed my mind about the Gull," Burnson said, slowly and rather unsteadily. "Something has come up— and I've changed my mind."

That was all. There was absolute silence in the office. Mac was staring at Burnson, but my own eyes went from the inventor's to those of Joe Curtis. And Joe just sat there with a grin on his lean, browned face. Mac spoke first.

"Changed your mind?" he muttered. "What about?"

Burnson spoke more rapidly this time. Color was returning to his face, his thin features.

"I'll fly the ship on the first hop-off," he said quickly. "And then, if she seems to handle well enough— I'd like to have—" He hesitated, his eyes meeting mine momentarily— "to have Curtis carry on the remaining test work."

I stiffened. Joe pulled out a pack of cigarettes from his pocket.

"It's all right with me," he stated cheerfully. "Glad to try it, Mr. Burnson."

Mac frowned. I just looked at Joe through narrowed eyes. He lighted a pill.

"If she's right— suppose you take her up just before dusk, when the air's quiet," Joe suggested to Burnson. "Then I'll do some work tomorrow— if she's still right."

BURNSON'S eyes gleamed. But he just nodded his head. Mac looked at me.

"Al had the assignment," he commenced doubtfully, "and it seems to me that—"

"Show them the letter you got, Mac," I interrupted, and the test-boss handed it to Joe. Burnson moved to his side— they read it together. I watched Joe closely.

"Bunk!" he muttered. "I don't think the Gull's that bad. It sounds like a joke to me."

Burnson was muttering something to himself. I smiled grimly at Joe.

"You ought to know!" I told Joe, and walked out of the room. When I got outside, with the door slammed back of me, I heard Curtis laugh again. And I was very sure, then, that he did know.

But I couldn't figure the game out. Joe Curtis had come in with Burnson. And Joe was relieving me— and getting the test-job on the Gull. After he'd turned it down in the first place, he was taking it now. Why? And why, also, was Burnson letting him have it? Certainly the two men hated each other. They couldn't mask their feelings enough to hide that.

The more I thought of it— the more hot I got. It wasn't that I was crazy about testing the Gull. But I didn't like to see Joe step in and grab the job; not after what he'd said. And Burnson was letting him get away with it. And so would Mac. If the inventor wanted Joe— he'd get Joe That was almost a creed of the Field. But did Burnson want Joe?

"Not on your life!" I muttered, and pulled up short.

I'd been walking blindly along the deadline, and I'd reached the hangar in which the Gull was kept. And that gave me the big idea. I didn't like those laughs of Joe's. They went mostly for Burnson, but they included me, too.

"All right!" I muttered, "we'll see who gives this baby the first test!"

And I headed for Burnson's duraluminum-surfaced, fan-tailed Gull.

I HAD her on the dead-line, and was feeling out the controls, when I jerked my helmeted head and saw Joe emerge from the Field-office. The crew was back out of the way, and the engine of the little girl had revved up all right. We were set for the take-off. I'd have to pass up the ground-hopping, but that didn't mean so much, anyway. I had a pet 'chute-pack strapped to me, and was sitting on it comfortably.

Joe turned his head my way— and I waved a hand. He let out a yell that I didn't hear because of the throttled-down exhaust rumble, and leaped off the steps that led to the Field-office door. I saw Mac come boimcing out— and then Burnson.

And I gave her the gun.

"The next-to-last laugh for Joe," I muttered; "the last laugh for me!"

She rolled. Out from the dead-line into the wind. She didn't need much ground on which to take off. I got her tail up, sitting tensely in the cockpit and saying a few of my favorite test-prayers. She skidded a bit, and I used the rudder to straighten her out. But she wasn't handling right. And for once the prayers didn't take.

We hit a ground-gust. Her nose dropped. I jerked the joy-stick back. The nose came up— but her tail dropped. She didn't zoom— she did skid. Her under-carriage struck; something crackled. I thought for a split second that we were going to crack up right then.

But we didn't. We got off— and this time we stayed off. The baby Gull climbed— climbed up into the sky minus most of her under-carriage!

I sat tight, and held the ship in a mild climb. Testing was out of the question now. In a ship of the Gull's size loss of even a portion of the undergear meant ragged flight. And the Gull was in the air now for the first time.

At three thousand I tried a mild bank— and she almost got away from me and slipped into a spin. But I managed to get her back on even keel again. Staring down and back, I got a glimpse of ground-crew men holding up the wreckage. As if I wasn't fully aware of the fact that I'd battered part of it loose!

At five thousand I got around in a bank, but the Gull's air work was sloppy, and she had a left wing-droop. The only thing that was functioning right was her engine.

"Looks like a hop-over!" I muttered. "Can't land this baby— not in this shape!"

The Gull was supposed to land slow, and on a small field. But not without undercarriage! I could risk a stall landing, but even then I'd crack up pretty badly. I couldn't see what was left below, but it was a sure thing that not much of the two wheels and the tail-skid remained. A 'chute-jump seemed the only way out.

I got two thousand feet more altitude. It wasn't the first time I'd been over the side, but the conditions weren't the best for a get-away. I'd have to handle the Gull as long as I could, and the cockpit was so tiny I'd have to wriggle out of it. But it had to be done.

ABOUT a half-mile to the north of the Field, figuring on the wind drifting me back toward Rook, I climbed the Gull at about a thirty-degree angle. Slipping the safety-belt, I squirmed out of the cockpit, holding the stick as long as I could. When I released it I had one foot on a wing surface, and as the nose dropped down I got the other one over. My left hand gripped a strut, the right one fumbled for the ripcord ring, and found it.

Then I let go. It seemed as if I missed the tail assembly by inches. I somersaulted down, counted seven— jerked the rip-cord ring. The lead parachute got out— and then the bigger spread crackled in the air. There was a terrific jerking— the harness tightened about my body. And I was drifting now— drifting beneath the 'chute toward Rook Field.

Figures were running toward me as I neared the north end of the Field. There was a loud boom— the finish of the Gull. I wondered how Burnson would take it. And then I flexed my legs, made ready for the seventeen-foot-a-second contact with the earth.

I landed hard, and was out of the 'chute before it could drag me. Feeling pretty shaky, I sat down and dug a pill out of my khaki shirt pocket. And while I was lighting up Joe Curtis reached me.

HE stood looking down at me, breathless  and scowling. I managed a grin.

"You damned idiot!" he muttered finally. "After all I did—"

Then he shut up. But that was enough for me. I was mighty curious.

"Spill it, Joe!" I stated. "What did you do?"

"I flew in and sent that note to Mac!" he stated grimly. "And then I cornered Burnson over in town— and made him take a drive with me, and give me a promise or two. He didn't want to do it— but he came through, finally."

I nodded. "Figured you did it, Joe," I stated. "But why? You were going to fly that ship."

"Like hell I was!" he came back. "Not until Burnson took off first. And I'm not so sure that he would have taken off. She was rotten underneath, Al— and I knew it. Burnson practically admitted it— this morning, after I stuck a gun under his face and got him out of town. He wasn't sure, of course. But he had to sacrifice something— to get what he wanted. And he eased up on the under-gear. Why, you didn't give it a hard rap, but it ripped right off! He nearly went crazy when he saw what had happened. Then he keeled over, fainted."

Joe shook his head slowly. "And after all I did— trying to keep you from breaking your neck—"

I chuckled. The other fellows were coming up now. "Guess he'll be more careful on the next one, Joe," I said. "If you hadn't been so high-hat—"

"You'd only have laughed at me!" Joe cut in. "Just because I turned it down you were sure I was sore because you grabbed it. And besides, it was only a hunch. Inspection didn't show any great weakness."

I grinned. "I was after the last laugh, Joe," I muttered. And then I got to my feet. "But I guess you get the candy— with the next-to-last laugh!"

Joe just grunted. "With a head like yours," he stated sarcastically, "you, wouldn't have needed a 'chute-pack."

I let it go at that.

_________________

A Doctor Galt story

17: Where There Ain't No Ten Commandments

Culpeper Zandtt

(Clarence Herbert New, 1862-1933)

Blue Book June 1928

IT had been habit with Galt for many years to cultivate the faculty of close observation— first, as one of the necessary things in his professional work, and afterwards, when he had retired from general practice, as the line of least resistance in the study of human nature. Always an admirer of the late Haroun al Raschid, he frequently adapted one of that eminent jurist's methods in obtaining first-hand information by prowling about whatever place he happened to be in, at night, when the people, relaxing from their daily occupations, were bent upon pleasure or profit or devilment, and therefore most nearly their real inner selves.

Being decidedly welcome in Government circles at Singapore, the Doctor had the run of the most exclusive houses in the city and suburbs. Upon an evening in June, he had dropped in at the lawn-party and ball the Narvinsons were giving at their Tanglin villa—and noticed a man who had come out on the P. & O. two weeks before.

He judged Habburton to be a man of thirty-one or two— well set up, his clear eyes and skin indicating clean out-of-door living most of the time. It was generally supposed that he was a professional writer, and made a decent enough living at it. Some of the staff knew his family— to others, he had presented the sort of letters which give a person entrée at all times.

He could talk when in the mood, holding the women fascinated as they listened to him— or if at dinner in one of the clubs, with so much of keenly absorbing interest that men drifted over from other tables to listen. But he wasn't often drawn out of his shell, preferring to look on and think his own thoughts. In fact, the women were beginning to suspect an "affair" which occupied him to the exclusion of everything else— and kept after him more than he liked,in their efforts to probe the mystery.

Something of this came up in a chat the Doctor had with one of them, after trailing her to a rustic summer-house.

"Sit down a few minutes, Kate, and give me a bit of information."

"With pleasure. Doctor— but I shouldn't stay more than a moment or two. It's Mr. Habburton's dance, you know."

"Hmph! Will you wager a quid that he's aware of the fact? You girls corner him— say that you're saving a dance or two— and of course the poor chap has to put his name down on your cards. But I'll bet that if you let him alone, he'd be sitting this one out by himself. Habburton has something on his mind— if you ask me."

"That's what we all think— but nobody has the slightest idea what it can be. It seems to me he's trying to forget something, and just can't manage it. Perhaps he's drinking too much— that would account for his preoccupation, wouldn't it?"

"Not as long as his eyes and skin look as they do. I don't think the man ever drank to excess in his life— except sporadically, perhaps. The type who might deliberately drink two or three quarts of hard liquor without showing much effect from it— if it came into his mind that he'd get a memory-obliterating kick, that way. And if ever he did anything like that, he'd be dangerous— sort of a man to let alone until the liquor is out of him."

HABBURTON knew the Doctor, of course— they'd met at several houses and clubs. They spoke once or twice at the Narvinsons. Then Galt missed him, somebody thought he had taken a rickshaw up to the Tanglin Club. The Doctor was beginning to be interested— followed the man, found him in one of the small card-rooms playing poker with four of the members— very good poker, too.

When the game broke up at midnight, Galt suggested taking him down to the Raffles in his car. As Galt was turning into the drive in front of the hotel, Habburton said:

"Where were you going from here. Doctor? You live at the Singapore Club when in town, do you not? Your garage must be over in that neighborhood. Suppose you drop me wherever you put your car up— then I'll take a tram out Keppel Harbor way. Good old moon, tonight— I'd not sleep if I turned in at the Raffles."

"H-m-m— if you don't object to company, I'll run you out to the Harbor in the car— out to the Gap if you like, along the Buena Vista Road. Perfect night for it; most beautiful road on the whole Island— sea-view all the way."

"No safe place to leave your car at night. What I had in mind was a bit of slumming— something rather worse than you'll find in the city. There are a lot of sailors' dance-halls an' boozin'-dives out there in the Harbor district— gamblin'-places, too— most of 'em in the little Malay kampongs which straggle along the north side of the road, but run by Chinese who make fortunes out of 'em."

"And you were thinking of prowling, through a lot of joints like that all by yourself? What is this—a suicide-pact with somebody? It's safe enough for me, I reckon, because most of the Chinks in town know me by sight— for somewhat unusual reasons. But even if you wore dungarees instead of these conspicuous whites, you'd be drugged and shanghaied before morning in all probability. Oh, I understand the psychology of the thing all right— a man gets into a jam at times when nothing but being damn' reckless and taking a lot of chances will suit his mood. Dunno but I feel some like that myself tonight. Want company— or not?"

"Mighty decent of you to suggest it, Galt! If it were anyone else, I'd say no—  just because I'm rotten company for anyone, tonight. But I've heard a lot about you— an' liked what I heard. Very good! Put your car to bed in its regular hotel; then we'll go have a look-see. Have you such a thing as a gun about you?"

THEY got into a tram which ran down Collyer Quay on the water side of the Club. In it were a couple of naval officers going out to their cruiser at the new base— half a dozen deck-hands, greasers and stokers from one of the Jardine-Matheson boats— three P. & O. men with girls whom they had picked up somewhere in the city and were taking out for an all-night dance— two well-to-do Chinese, arid a couple of Tamil girls of the Harbor type. Along the quay were Chinese house-boats, five or six rows deep, with most of their families asleep on deck-mats among pigs, chickens and other live-stock— though some of the women were curled up along the gunwales, crooning over native guitars while their men squatted on their heels and smoked.

Out along Anson Road and Keppel Road, back of Tanjong Pagar, some of those in the tram got out, but more got in— Malays, Burmese, Tamils and Chinese, then a mate and two men from one of the cargo-boats, so drunk that nothing but the homing saltwater instinct guided them in the right direction. Had any of them been alone, he would have wakened aboard some outward-bound steamer, eventually, but probably not his own— and some Chinese boardinghouse keeper would have collected a shipping-charge for him. Sailors are rarely killed in any of the longshore dives unless by one of their own kind; they're worth more alive— and drunk.

After passing the wharf at the foot of Mt. Faber, Habburton and Galt got out. Nestling under the three-hundred-foot hill upon which is the Signal Station, a straggling conglomeration of low stone buildings and Malay houses stretched along one side of the tram-line as far as the New Harbor Docks and for some distance beyond. From some of these came echoes of phonograph records, dance-hall pianos, fiddles and saxophones.

Galt had been in a number of the city dives along the upper River in the Chinese suburb, and the Rochore Road neighborhood in the East End, but never had investigated the Harbor District. He had supposed Habburton must be familiar with the locality, but the latter's knowledge of it proved to be mostly from hearsay.

"I fancy we'll not strike the two places where most of the stories originate, Doctor, until we've looked about a bit. I'd say we'll not do better than pick out what sounds like music a cut or two above the rest— an' then run it down. What? Listen a second! Eh? That's not quite so bad— what? Somewhere in back of these other buildings, I'd say. Here's a little by-path which seems to be used a lot— dirt's packed hard, d'ye see. Come along!"

A hundred yards back from the tramline, they found themselves in a Malay kampong with the houses close together, the occupants squatting on their raised verandas in the nwonlight—smoking and chewing betel-nut. Presently they came upon a stone building of two stories from which came a sound of well-played dance music— a tango at that particular moment, which some of the Malay and Chinese women dance as well as an Argentina. It must be remembered that sailors' dance-hall women of whatever race are neither mulch, gamelan nor geisha. They may dance a bolero alone upon request, for the money thrown at them; but their terpsichorean efforts are devoted to dances which sailors know and in which they participate.

The entire ground floor, obstructed only by four massive posts supporting the one overhead, was a single, poorly lighted room with a bar at one end and tables along the walls, leaving a good-sized space in the center for dancing. A small annex jutting out from the rear wall behind the bar was used as kitchen and storehouse; the windows were set unusually high in the walls and were less than a foot in width. Upstairs the space was divided into sixteen small rooms, each with a charpoy, cheap washstand, table, chair and small mirror.

Choosing an inconspicuous table in one corner, the two sat down and ordered mugs of ale. When the coolie returned with them, Galt's fingers were absent-mindedly playing with a curious little object— a cube of the finest ivory not quite three-quarters of an inch square, upon one face of which a peculiar Chinese ideograph was inlaid in gold— two other faces having a little dot of gold in the center of each. Habburton, in a casual glance, supposed that the Doctor had some poker-dice in his pocket and was idly playing with one of them— but the China boy who was serving the ale almost turned a shade lighter in color and became exceedingly respectful. Before leaving them, he said in a very low tone:

"Numbel One mans no likee sailo'-gal— no wantee Tamil— M'lay. Me catchee topside memsahib-gal chop-chop— bling this side when mans wantee. You likee— can do. Bling Numbel One Scotch an' chow-chow wine—you likee?"

"Maskee. You bling one time champagne-in icee, John. No wantee memsahib-gal this side now— mebbeso bimeby."

Habburton understood enough pidgin to follow this— and was interested.

"I say. Doctor— what got into that, coolie all at once? Fancied he was a bit high-hat when he went for that ale— but you had him almost lickin' the Blanco off your white buckskins in a second or two! I recall your sayin' that most of the Chinks in town know you— but that doesn't explain their almost grov'lin'!"

"Oh, they think I'm pretty friendly with some of their big men, I reckon— no telling what I might do to them if I got sore. Just as well to have 'em in that frame of mind in a place-like this— we'll not be drugged or picked upon unless we go looking for trouble."

HABBURTON was studying the men and girls at the other tables as their faces peered through the reeking eddies of stale tobacco-smoke or one of the insufficient lights shone down upon a head, here and there. It was a heterogeneous collection of raw, rudimentary humanity drawn by the lure of primal passions too compelling to balk at race or color prejudices— a Goya done in sepia and black, inspired by sheer devilishness.

"D'ye know, good old Gustave Dore should have had a go at this—rather in his line, don't you think? Or Hogarth— what? Material for another 'Inferno,' an' the 'Rake's Progress' up to date. Though the 'Rake' was a cut above this in education, of course—fancy he wouldn't have cared about 'em off-color. For the fellow before the mast, the old deck-hand, the seasoned stokehold rats— even the bucko-mates who've graduated from wind-jammin' into Steam— none of 'em with two brain-cells in the lot— a place like this supplies the essentials. Liquor which kicks like a mule, to fuddle themselves with, an' women to dance an' sing, an' dream with— young an' good-lookin', even if they're all a creamy brown or yellow. As a matter of fact, in quiet decency of behavior, these girls are a good many cuts above the ugly quarrelsome white hags they get in the dance-halls of Tilbury, Hamburg, New York or Sydney. Over in that nest of dives back of Rochore Road, there are some middle-aged Malay women who've lived in hell for years an' want nothing better than to make more bell before they pass out. But in this joint they seem to be a cut above the down-an'-outers. My word! .... Look at the little China girl coming so quietly around this comer! Must be one of the owner's private stock— notice the coolies slippin' in between her an' those bounders who are beckoning her to their tables!"

Habburton reached out for another chair. "Er— have you time to sit down an' chat with us a bit, sister?"

"Oh, yaes— I like come talk with you nice-lookin' mans. Pleas'— I mus' not drink chow-chow wine— it make me foolish. You buy limon-squash fo' me—yaes?"

She was dressed in lavender satin tunic and trousers, beautifully embroidered in pink and white apple-blossoms, thick-scded cloth- shoes of good comfortable size— evidently never having had her feet deformed according to the old Chinese custom— and her face was healthily clean— free from almond paste. In answer to their courteously indirect questioning, she smilingly admitted being Madame Chrysantheme, though from Amoy instead of Nagasaki, naively said that she was a very good pianist and guitar-player, that she knew all the American and Continental dances including the "black-bottom." Presently she went out on the floor with Habburton for a tango, the two of them doing it so artistically that they had the floor to themselves, while those at the surrounding tables clapped in time with the castanets and threw quite a shower of coins at their feet when the music stopped. Habburton, of course, paid no attention to these, and the girl merely motioned to one of the coolies, who pick the money up and disappeared with it. Those of the onlookers who were partly sober thought they understood this— that the money was the China girl's perquisite, and that she probably belonged to the owner— but the drunker ones began muttering among themselves, spitefully egged on by some of the Malay women.

"Blimmel 'E's nort but er bloody toff a-bargin' in 'ere to show hoff an' kick our coin t'hell f'r 'is fancy Chink! 'E's er bloody rotter— that's wot h'l s'y!"

A good-looking but fat and bleary Tamil girl got up from one of the tables and squirmed her way around to them, slipping past the coolies who tried to block her. Reaching for another chair, she was about to sit down with them— saying;

"Ullo, boys! You off some yacht—yaes? Give me dollar— I match Apple Blossom— see w'ich git you mans an' w'ich git thaes mans!"

The little Amoy girl leaned forward and rapidly hissed in a dialect which Galt partly understood, though his friend didn't:

"You one beeg fool! I theenk you die pretty soon! Thees mans b'long Great Tong! He lif' one finger, you b'long bottom-side chop chop— throat cut before knowing what happen. Go 'way, fat sow— before Great One say kill!"

THERE had been several little things to corroborate this statement since the two white men had come in, as the Malay well knew. An expression of abject fear came into her face. She made a low salaam— awkwardly, because of the liquor that was in her—and went back to her table, where the sailors wanted to know what had been done or said to her, resenting what looked to them like something insulting.

"The bloody toff! Wot'd 'e s'y to ye, Meroe?"

The muttering spread from table to table around the dimly lighted room. Faces which would have looked tough enough in broad daylight took on more sinister lines as they peered out toward the strangers through the smoke-eddies. Hands crept furtively back under coat-tails to loosen knives in their sheaths. And the women, with the age-old wisdom of the East, felt the taste of blood in the air, the premonition of approaching tragedy— waited, motionless, for that which was to come, glancing from the corners of their sloe-black eyes to see who would start it.

Then a bucko-mate got up from the table where the Malay girl had been sitting, and swaggered across the floor to their corner. He was powerfully built— evidently considering that he needed no other weapons than those born with him— and was carrying but half his customary liquor-ballast, so that he considered himself in just the proper condition for a fight. Resting his knuckles upon the edge of their table, he thrust his bloated face within a foot of Habburton's.

"Hi s'y —you! Wot wuz ye a-s'yin' ter me lidy-friend ter mike 'er go an' cry? Wot wuz ye a-scarin' of 'er for? Tell me that, ye pizen-face bloke!"

The scarcely tasted mug of adulterated ale was standing near Habburton's arm. The next instant its contents were dripping from the mate's face.

"Just a moment, now! If you want to fight, get out there on the floor an' put up your hands!"

Galt muttered: "He's twenty-five pounds heavier, and he'll rough you whenever he sees a chance! Can you really box? Don't let him close in!"

IF Butcher Muggins was "a-goin' to polish-hoff the cove," that satisfied the crowd. They didn't expect much of a show, because Muggins had once cleaned out this same dance-hall with the leg of a buffet-table— but they could chuck what was left of the toff out on the tram-line after the mate was through with him.There were no preliminaries. Habburton merely slipped out of his white coat, which Apple Blossom impassively held for him. What was to be would be— that was on the knees of the gods. Had there been time, she would have run up the road and burned two punk-sticks in the temple of the Three Compassionate Widows— but it looked to her as if everything would be over before she had gone half the distance. In her pitying little Chinese heart, she thought this handsome Englishman had been foolish to throw the ale in the brute's face— the affair might have been managed by the house-coolies; the best they could do now was to protect both white men afterward.

At the urging of his cronies, the mate also shed his coat— but he said it would make no difference. When the two met in the center of the floor he started to rush his adversary, both arms flying like a windmill— but instead of hitting anything, he ran against a staggering blow upon the side of his jaw and another just below the breast-bone which made him feel sick and weak. For two or three minutes he boxed more warily— then jumped towmd Habburton with his head down, intending to take a couple of stiff blows while he jabbed his massive knee upward into the other man's abdomen— but the Englishman had seen worse things than that done in the War; and that knee, striking nothing but air, threw the mate off his balance until he lowered his guard and received a terrific blow squarely upon the chin. He crashed full length upon the floor with a jar which shook the building— and he stayed there.

Then hell started to break loose. Knives and pistols were drawn —the crowd surged toward the victor, now calmly getting into the coat an admiring Chinese girl held for him. Except for three or four bleeding knuckles, he wasn't marked.

Suddenly, the big room filled with coolies who poured in through front and rear doors— tall, powerful men from the Yunnan foothills of the Himalayas. The crowd were disarmed and forced back into their seats while a dignified Cantonese in a richly embroidered satin outer vest bowed respectfully to Dr. Galt and asked his wishes concerning the men who had tried to rob him. As the Doctor afterward told Habburton, the kick of the joke in the whole affair was that probably every man who had started to attack them in that dance-hall would have been found in the Strait next morning with his throat cut, had the Doctor given such an order.

Galt, however, was satisfied to call it an evening and get back to the Club, where he took Habburton for a few hours' sleep.

BEFORE leaving his guest, Galt said:

"From general appearances, old chap, I'd say you're feeling somewhat better. You went looking for trouble and you got it— if I hadn't been there, it might have been damned serious before you got through. If this is going to be a habit, I may not be along the next time unless— well, a medico learns to keep his mouth shut, you know, and sometimes he's able to prescribe a bit. Now, if you feel like giving me the story behind all this. I'll be glad to hear it and make any suggestions I can. If you don't, it's all right with me. I know these waters pretty well— all over the place— might be of assistance, possibly. Eh?"

"Doctor, you're a brick! I appreciate fully what you did for me tonight— owe you an explanation as a matter of courtesy. Sit down here, if you're not too sleepy— get your pipe going! I'll give you the gist of it. You know, of course, that I do books an' magazine stuff— but it's under a couple of noms de plume, so nobody has connected me with it. Made twelve hundred pounds last year— mostly from the American market— will do a lot better this year, barring unforeseen misfortunes. Have you ever heard of Colonel Parmenter out here— retired list?"

"Name seems familiar— wait a second! Isn't he British Resident up the Peninsula, somewhere? Selak— I think? Been up there with the present Sultan two or three years if I'm not mistaken? Eh?"

"That's the man. Ever hear anything about him personally?"

GALT looked thoughtful for a moment, then shook his head.

"Only that he apparently satisfies the governor, so far— and manages to get along with the Sulian. I know His Highness and rather like him— spent a few weeks up there last year. One of the more inaccessible states— not anywhere near the Siamese Railway line, but the berth is one of the least difficult ones for a British official. Not one of the Federated States— so he's merely there to advise upon outside matters. Parmenter was down on leave while I was there. Ahmed Mahmoud seems a decent sort— educated at Cambridge, progressive, minds his own business, does as much as he can for his people and has too good a head to be influenced by any of this Red propaganda going about. The job of Resident is something of a sinecure, I'd say. No conspiracies to watch— no arms-smuggling— sanitary conditions fairly good except during the rains when they get occasional fever and cholera. In fact, I'd say the Resident hasn't much to do aside from writing his reports and killing time. Of course a real pukka Resident would be getting up sports among the brownies just to keep himself fit and benefit them— trying to assist the Sultan in carrying out his improvements. But the average man in such a berth takes the ground that he loses prestige in the Oriental mind by letting 'em see him do too much work, or by mixing with 'em beyond what's necessary. So, if
he has no other white man but a deputy, he drinks, eats, and sleeps too much— gambles— frequently goes native."

"Hmph! You seem to know a good third of what I was to explain, Doctor! Parmenter was alone up there for the first eighteen months an' while his reputation was decent enough at home— likable sort of a big husky chap, you know— I fancy he was anything but a pukka Resident at the end of those eighteen months. Did everything you've mentioned, with a few extra embellishments of his own. Wife's a charming woman of the rather delicate type, though she's good at tennis an' rides well. Parmenter's a strappin' full-blooded chap an' of course that sort of man can be, at times, dev'lish repulsive to just that finer sort of woman. Well, he sent for her more than a year ago— an' suggested that she fetch along her cousin. Miss Patricia Osborne, for comp'ny.

"Pat's by way of bein' rather stunning as to looks— breezy, out-of-doors girl— good at all sports—crack shot. Not an Amazon— just medium height— able to look out for herself against anything but overpowering weight an' brute strength. She an' Parmenter have known each other since before her cousin's marriage to him— he's taken the liberty of being rather familiar with her as a matter of course, because of his wife's relationship. Now this Nora Parmenter's no fool. She knew her husband expected Pat to be even more company for him than for her— quite relished the idea of having two white women to be familiar with instead of one. She put it up to Pat with some hint of what the situation prob'ly would run to— but neither of 'em had any notion of what the fellow had been up to out here or how entirely both would be in his power in such a place as Selak."

"I take it you and Miss Osborne— eh?"

"Why, I fancy we both understand it that way. She's no idea how much I'm making with my professional stuff— fancies I'm waking to see my way clear, I suppose; but I think she's as fond of me as I am of her. At all events, my last letter from her— which came down the Strait by cargo-boat last week with a request that Selby of the staff would forward it to me in London, where Pat supposes I am at present— speaks of Nora's bein' in poor health, getting more an' more run down, losing weight, no resistance. Pat also writes that the climate an' the isolation have changed Parmenter a good bit, that he drinks too much, is more domineering— inclined to be more familiar than before. She asks if I don't think it might be advisable to have him recalled, or given six months' leave so they could all go home. Nora has oodles of money, which Pat thinks she willed to him if he outlives her—"

"Just a moment! Is Mrs. Parmenter still in love with the man?"

"Prob'ly not— though it's diffic'lt to say. A woman will take a lot from a man she's once loved before the last shreds of that affection are broken. She was getting rather fed up before she came out here— an' must have seen enough to cure her entirely, I fancy."

"And she's presumably worth a damned sight more to him dead than alive, if Miss Osborne's supposition about her will is correct. Great cats! Why will a woman be such a fool as that! If she dies there in Selak, the only course is to bury or cremate her on the spot. And in such a position, Miss Osborne might find it almost impossible to avoid marrying the man! As I recall it, his deputy has been on leave for some months— no white man or woman there to help her— not much chance for getting safely out unless she appealed to the Sultan, which might be out of the frying-pan onto the coals. Why the devil didn't you start for there after getting that letter, Habburton?"

"With what excuse? No accommodations except in the Residency, which I fancy is full up. One doesn't go barging-in upon the Sultan with a demand for chow an' lodging. Might get together a hunting-party—but that means a lot of official red-tape in case His Highness doesn't like to have us hanging round, shootin' his game. To be of any use at all would mean stickin' pretty close to the Residency— which Parmenter could an' would forbid. His wife has given no indication that she needs help— hasn't even written in for medical advice; prob'ly hasn't the least suspicion as to what may be causin' her run-down condition. I may be crazy, myself, even to think of such a thing! A man may drift into being a pretty rotten bounder, you know, without going anywhere near as far as murder— she'd never believe that of him unless it were proved to her. I fancy no such idea is even in Pat's head! She might be inwardly relieved a lot to see me in Selak, but she couldn't permit any inference that she had sent for me to make the long trip from London, out. What excuse could I give Parmenter an' Nora for plumpin' myself down upon 'em in an already overcrowded house?"

"In other words, your position is that of the average Englishman with a proper regard for the conventions and decencies. Well— it's my turn to sit in at this and draw cards, I reckon! Have you such a thing as a valet or China boy?"

"Back in London— aye. But I don't lug anything of the sort all over the globe with me— no point in it, unless one's a millionaire."

"My boy, Ling Foh, will pick out a husky Yunnan coolie for you— good luggage-carrier, clothes-cleaner, barber, or fighting-man if necessary. I reckon we can get together everything we need before night and go up the Strait in the morning on one of the rubber-tramps bound for some little shipping-wharf within sixty or eighty miles of the Selak border. His Excellency will give me a letter to Ahmed Mahmoud which will make us persona grata at the Palace. I've a standing invitation to visit him, anyhow— but an official letter will give better color to the trip, and we can take hunting-gear along to fill in the odd days. If what we suspect concerning Mrs. Parmenter's ill-health is true, her case probably wont be hop)eless for two or three months, yet— the brute wouldn't dare be too precipitate. But we shouldn't lose an hour in getting there. I think you would have started within the coming week if your recklessness hadn't gotten you eliminated before that— but you might have made a mess of explaining when you turned up in Selak. By going with me, there's no explaining to be done."

"But— I say, old chap! I appreciate this offer of yours no end, but really, you know I can't be putting you out to any such extent as this! The expense is no consideration; I'd gladly stand the whole of that an' pay for your professional services as well. But one cawn't ask you to go out of your way like this for people you don't know!"

"Look here, Habburton— what you fear as a remote possibility, I see as a very real probability, and it goes against the grain to let a brute of Parmenter's type get away with anything like that. I've nothing to do but amuse myself— take such adventure as may happen along. So we'll just go up to Selak and have a look-see— incidentally fetching Miss Osborne back with us when the affair is settled one way or the other."

NEVER having had experience with that sort of country before, the trip in from the little rubber-wharf at which the cargo-boat dropped them was a trying one for Habburton— a five-day nightmare. They could have taken canoes up a little river, thirty miles farther up the coast to a point where the Sultan had managed to have a narrow road cut through the jungle for the motor-trucks bringing out his crop— but Galt had thought it better to slip unseen from the jungle into the kampong surrounding the Palace, and be some hours on the ground before their arrival became known at the Residency. So they had traveled in hammocks slung from a stout pole carried by four bearers, having what the Londoner considered narrow escapes from snakes and jungle-beasts.

He had once been lion-hunting in the district around Mt. Kenya, East Africa—but there, the country had been more or less open, with tall grass and occasional clumps of scrub trees. The Peninsula jungle, on the other hand, is as dense as that of the Amazon Valley or Borneo, with the trees meeting so thickly overhead that there is scarcely more than twilight along the narrow trails beneath them. Monkeys incessantly chatter overhead, traveling for miles by swinging themselves from one branch to another. Tawny leopards and tigers slink through the underbrush, stalking whatever they see that is good eating. Thirty-foot pythons slither gracefully among the tree-branches or drop their coils unexpectedly upon whatever may be moving beneath them. Eventually, two rather dirty men with their China boys and bearers halted by a little brook just outside the Sultan's kampong to shave, wash and put on cleaner khaki from their packs.

Galt would have bet that there was a carefully folded suit of evening clothes somewhere in Habburton's luggage because most Englishmen will dress for dinner among other whites whether they're in the heart of a tropic jungle or on the slopes of the Himalayas— but the Doctor's only concession in that line was two suits of washable white linen that weighed very little, took up a minimum of space, and could be washed at any brook— pressed by patting upon a smooth slab of stone if no iron was available.

The official letter which he had brought from the Governor at Singapore referred to the possibility of Ahmed Maffmoud's obtaining a loan from the Chinese banks for road-development throughout his State, secured by bonding his little principality if there was enough rubber under cultivation to warrant it carrying one main road through to a shipping-point on the Strait and sending out his crop in motor-trucks. It was, of course, nothing more than the or another— but there was between the lines what he took as implication that, were he inclined to join the Federated States under British protection, there might be Government loans as well. Anyhow— it placed the Doctor and his friend upon even a pleasanter footing than they would have had if dropping in upon His Highness as merely a hunting-party. They were given very comfortable rooms in the guest-wing of the Palace, and the Residency people were invited to meet them at dinner.

PARMENTER arrived with his wife, Miss Osborne and the recently returned deputy, who had found himself obliged to occupy a hastily cleaned-up Malay house in the kampong (though he couldn't yet see why there wasn't room for him at the Residency). When Patricia's eyes fell upon the man she had been almost praying for, she was struck speechless— it seemed impossible that he really could be there. Whatever doubts there may have been in her mind as to how much he cared for her were settled for all time by the fact of his presence, and she was in his arms with no thought of how it might look to the others. With a deep and lovely blush, she remarked that she'd no idea he was in that part of the world and was tickled pink to see him.

During the dinner, Galt chatted genially with anyone who addressed him— but the Sultan thought he was quieter than during his previous visit, noticed that he seemed to be studying the Resident and his wife rather closely. His Highness didn't jump at conclusions— that wasn't the Oriental way, and the official letter which the Doctor had brought him wasn't of the sort which might have been used as a pretext. So far as he could see, the Doctor's hunting and botanizing intentions were bona fide ones which, probably, had been planned some time in advance— his fetching Habburton along was natural enough from his knowledge that the Londoner had friends in Selak whom he would like to see. On the other hand, Ahmed Mahmoud was beginning to suspect that something was wrong at the Residency. It was quite evident that the Colonel didn't intend to have outsiders of any sort about the house; he even mentioned to Habburton his regrets that they couldn't entertain him at the Residency because of the crowded conditions there— which drew the quiet remark:

"I believe no suggestion has been made as to your putting us up, Parmenter— but I fancy you'll find us about the veranda an' living-room a good bit while we're here. Can't expect us to stand out in the sun whistling for Nora an' Pat to come up to the Palace with us— or go trekkin' into the jungle. What?"

"Oh, we expect you'll be droppin' in occasionally, of course— when not huntin' or occupied with His Highness. But Mrs. Parmenter is in poor health— really not up to doin' any entertainin' at all, d'ye see— ah' she gets nervous if Miss Osborne is out of her sight. Beastly climate here, you know."

"Why not have Galt overhaul her a bithe's the reputatiop of being a first-chop physician an' surgeon."

"Not necess'ry at all! She's a prescription from her own medico in London who understands her case perfectly, an' I'm by way of bein' rather good at first-aid, myself, in any emergency. She's not in a serious condition, y'know— merely run down. Can't expect her to improve in this weather— fancy she'll pick up in a few weeks, when we're past the monsoon."

ENOUGH of what Galt supposed might be the situation had been explained to Ling Foh— and that silently efficient Cantonese had begun investigating before he'd been in the kampong twelve hours. Such trading as was done with the outside world was in the hands of his countrymen, as is the case all through the Orient— and a good deal of the more burdensome labor as well. So that merely the hint that his master was one of the dreaded and respected Great Tong sufficed to bring him all the underground assistance he needed. And the Doctor's supposed affiliation with the mysterious beneficial Society spread around the kampong— into the various parts of the Palace, until it was presently whispered in the Sultan's ear by his Wazir. Ahmed Mahmoud was inclined to doubt the rumor— until the little ivory cube which the Doctor was known to carry in his pocket was described to him. That settled it. His respect for the genial American medico was vastly increased.

Three or four days passed with Mrs. Parmenter a trifle weaker. Galt prescribed a tonic— which the Resident found on her bureau and threw out of the window, as she afterward told the Doctor. He and Habburton spent each afternoon on the veranda with the ladies—giving the medico a chance to slip her a powder which he knew would counteract her weakness to some extent— but they were told plainly enough to keep away from the Residency in the evening. The women invited them to dinner just once— but Parmenter canceled the invitation upon the ground that his wife really wasn't up to it, and even said he thought their staying around in that neighborhood was having a bad effect upon her because she kept wanting to show them courtesies which her failing strength wouldn't permit. That night, His Highness remarked:

"Mrs. Parmenter seems to me drifting into a rather serious condition. Doctor— though her husband makes light of eet. What you think?''

"She'll die in less than two months unless something can be done for herl What's your opinion of Parmenter? Think he cares much for her?"

"Chap ees really most devoted— much more so than manner would indicate!"

"Then my professional experience and instinct are worthless. How do you get that impression?"

"In the Orient, as you yourself know, Doctor, there ees always an underground information bureau— the servants are close observers— eavesdroppers, if you like— they know what goes on. Thees Parmenter— waits upon hees wife himself— prepares most of her food— brings it to her in bed, or in deck-chair or veranda. He gets up in night to see that she ees comfortable— most attentive. Outwardly— in public— he ees brusque with her— but in private, no. Her ayah and the coolies say he ees a most devoted husband."

"Your Highness has noticed, of course, his excessive familiarity with Miss Osborne— presumably on the basis of the family connection, but rather more than is customary even with .that excuse. Do you also happen to know that Mrs. Parmenter left him practically all of her money in a will signed before she came out? And you tell me he wont let anyone else prepare or serve her food, except the breakfasts, when he's asleep!"

"Ah! So? One does not look for this sort of theeng among the English! And what weel you do. Doctor?"

"Haven't decided— yet. It's a rotten situation! You may gamble upon one thing, however— I'm not going to let that fine woman die in any such way as this! Where do I stand with you in the matter?"

"Considering the facts: that will— hees manner with Miss Osborne— hees driving you out of the Residency and preparing hees wife's meals— I theenk you quite justified in shooting the bounder! If necessary, I will have him arrest' and confined in my Palace pending investigation. Eet may cause complications with Straits Government— but I am an independent Sultan— I do what I consider justifiable."

"That's the mean point in the whole proposition! I've already proof enough to imprison the fellow for twenty years if his wife lives—or hang him if she dies—but there's the Government side of it! Nasty mess to stir up over one of His Excellency's own officials— puts the Raj in a bad light with the Orientalsl"

NEXT evening, Galt took his companion for an after-dinner stroll through the kampong— looking at the native and imported wares in the little shops— walking on until they approached the Residency grounds from the edge of the jungle and stood concealed by the shrubbery where they could see Parmenter helping his wife out of her chair on the veranda and up to her room— leaving Pat Osborne alone in her deck-chair. Habburton shivered a little, and whispered:

"Possibly you'd best give me a dose of quinine, old chap— may be in for a touch of fever! There's something dev'lish in the air, tonight— I seem to get a taste of blood in it! Don't know what you've dug up by way of evidence, but I'm becoming almost convinced that poor Nora is bein' slowly murdered!"

"Looks that way to me— and it's got to be stopped right now! Another few days, and she'll be past anything I can do!"

"My God, man— you really mean that? Then, by heaven, I'm going up there and kill himl Been itchin' to do it for three weeks!"

"Not unless he gets me first. Jack. You can't afford it! Any action I may take will be at least given the benefit of the doubt by the Straits Government until I've produced evidence to justify it— but in your case, it would be set down to jealous rage on Patsy Osborne's account. Thrashing him senseless is all right enough if it comes to that— but be sure you don't kill him. Psstl He's put his poor wife to bed now, and is coming down again. We'll get a bit nearer, behind those two bushes— in case Pat needs us."

Parmenter didn't get down to his heavy drinking each night until Pat Osborne had retired and he had strolled over to Frank Reed's house for the usual game of cards in which some of the datos occasionally joined him. It was lowering the prestige of the Raj, as Reed had pointed out when he first refused to permit such a game in his quarters—^but the datos in question were educated men in spite of their appearance in the Malay costume, and Parmenter had argued him out of it. So that he was little the worse for liquor when he came out on the veranda and sat down on the foot-rest of Pat's chair— slipping an arm around her waist and trying to kiss her.

Squirming over the chair-arm, however, she managed to get upon her feet and twist out of his grasp.

"This sort of thing has got to stop! I've put up with it partly on Nora's account— partly because I've been in a somewhat helpless situation. But I've got a man of my own here, now—he'll be smashing you if you don't stop this!"

"What— that waster! A poor scribbler who couldn't keep you in stockings an' nighties, Pat! No! What you want is a man— able to give you what you want— an up-standin' red-blooded man, d'ye see. 'Well— I fear poor Nora'll not be with us long— she's a good bit weaker tonight. Afterward— no need to consider the conventions in a place like this— foolish to wait more'n a month or so—"

"Oh, you rotten— murderer! If ever you lay a finger on me again I'll kill you— understand?"

"Hoity-toity— what's all this rot you're sayin'! You're talkin' like a crazy woman, Pat! You know what care I take of Nora— you see it all day long for yourself! The servants see it! You're all upset over this writin'-bounder bargin' in upon us when nobody wanted him or his fool medico about the place! Come, now—give us a kiss an' say you're sorry you said what you did to me— what? Eh? You'll not? Oh, very good—we'll see about that! What you need is a master, my girl! "

With an unexpected spring, he had her in a grip too strong to break and was pulling up her chin to press his lips upon hers when a quiet voice which gave an impression of ice remarked, just behind him:

"That'll be about all, Parmenter! Take your hands off Miss Osborne and let's go into this a bit. Now— you heard what I said! I'll give you until I count three!"

''Damn you, Galt! What d'ye mean— bargin' in here without permission, after I warned ye to keep away in the evenings? Ye'll go down those steps an' off my ground, or it'll be the worse for ye!"

''If I do, you'll hang— in a few months— for the deliberate murder of your wife!"

"Damn your soul for a filthy, lyin', drunken quack! I'm goin' to smash ye for that until ye can't stand! "

The calm voice was still icy— and, to his amazement, compelling: "Wouldn't it be better to step into the living-room, where we'll not be spreading this affair all over the kampong for every Malay and Tamil and Chink to discuss? Go on in, you fool— I'll show you where you stand! We'll take Miss Osborne with us to hear the discussion. Eh?"

"We'll not! It'll be lively in there, presently— she might get hurt! You keep out, Pat!"

"I really couldn't think of it, you know. Somehow— it strikes me you're going to hear a few things you'll not like— and swallow them. So I'll accept your left-handed invitation and hear the pow-wow."

WHEN the three were seated,—the Resident behind his table-desk in the corner, Galt on the opposite side, in front, and Miss Pat near the end of the desk,—the Doctor coldly made a few statements.

"Habburton and I heard something of your wife's symptoms before we left Singapore. To a physician with some years practice in Asiatic waters, they pointed to an Oriental method of elimination quite frequently used out here— overdoses of digitalis, partly counteracted by an extract from one of the Eastern plants which prevents any immediately dangerous effect upon the heart from the digitalis but leaves it slightly weaker after each dose, until eventually the heart-action becomes worn-out— and fails. The poisoning may be prolonged for more than a year in some cases— but two or three months is usually considered long enough in Asia to produce seemingly natural death which no autopsy can prove to have been otherwise, if the previous facts are unknown. Digitalis, of course, is one of the well-known heart-remedies prescribed by all physicians. You follow me, I trust? Very good. You have here in the Residency the usual medicine-chest— but, in your case, with extra-large bottles of digitalis and other drugs which are deadly under certain conditions. The digitatis bottle is two-thirds empty. I had it stolen just after you prepared your wife's dinner.

"Next— in this particular neighborhood, the plant I mentioned grows abundantly if one knows where to look for it in the jungle. You have repeatedly fetched in bundles of its leaves and distilled the juice from them. You may claim to have been taught that the plant had curative properties which you hoped might benefit your wife— but its use with digitalis would be against you in any court where a physician was called upon for professional testimony. The facts concerning your wife's will would clinch the matter. When I mentioned to His Highness that will and your familiarity with Miss Osborne, he merely shrugged and threw up his hands—then smiled in his Asiatic way. He'll order you hanged if I say so. That's what you're facing. Any remarks or suggestions?"

"Hmph!.... Upon my soul. Doctor, I marvel at your consummate cheek in coming to me with any such cock-an'-bull story! You've some notion of tellin' it in court, I suppose? Eh? But if you, as a medico, don't prefer such a charge against me, who the devil do you suppose will— eh? An' I'll take jolly good care you don't! Now what have you to say?"

"Merely this: I'm taking your wife and Miss Osborne up to the Palace at once. You may do what you please— but you'll not come near either of them before they reach Singapore with me."

PAT OSBORNE had had the opportunity for judging what was usually in Parmenter's mind by the tone of his voice— and she had been getting increasingly apprehensive for the last few minutes, sensing the approach of something horrible which she might not be able to prevent. Galt's arraignment had been conclusive— would be even more so in any court— if he lived to give it! That was the grim possibility which almost stopped the beating of her heart. She knew Parmenter had been absently fingering the handle of a drawer in his flat-topped desk, as he talked, and that he kept a brace of automatics in it. Galt's testimony was the only direct proof which could be put in evidence against him. What was coming would have been obvious to anybody within hearing. She started to scream a warning— but the conviction that it would only precipitate matters paralyzed her. It is doubtful if the Resident could have killed Galt had he snatched the pistol out and fired instantly because the Doctor's motions were quicker than the eye could follow when there was occasion for being a split-second faster than some one else— but Parmenter was fool enough to relish playing with his victim a bit, hoping to see the fear of approaching death in Galt's eyes.

The Doctor's bullet, fired from below his edge of the desk, tore the pistol out of the other man's hand, temporarily paralyzing it from the shock. Pat Osborne jumped for the pistol as it lay upon the floor and grabbed it before Parmenter could stop her— but he was over the desk with a smashing blow aimed at Galt's head before either of them realized what he was going to do. The Doctor could easily have killed him as he ducked away from the blow and sprang to his feet with leveled pistol— but Habburton, who had been standing just outside the door where he could watch the proceedings, ran into the room and took matters into his own hands before there was any necessity for his friend further to defend himself.

A blow upon the side of the Resident's head knocked him several feet away on the floor, but he was up again instantly, taking the position of a trained boxer— murder in his eyes. Considering the man soft from lack of exercise and liquor, Habburton was careless— being himself knocked flat by a sickening blow to pay for it. This, however, showed him what he had to deal with— he expected every foul trick his opponent might get a chance to try. Patricia thought that her eyes registered every move in the sickening, brutal struggle the next ten minutes— but afterward could remember little save a whirling, struggling, striking pair of figures which hit against and smashed nearly every movable object in the room. Habburton recognized in a moment or two the deadly animus in his adversary, and knew that he was fighting for his life— so played the game with increasing coolness as the other man became more and more crazy with rage. He was occasionally hit— that was unavoidable.

But the opening he had been watching for came at last—a terrific blow with all his weight behind it came up from his waist, landing upon the point of Parmenter's chin.

While the man lay unconscious, they tied both his wrists and ankles, and Galt obtained from the medicine-chest and Parmenter's room all the scientific evidence he needed. Then they persuaded Nora— who had no illusions about her husband's "tender care" but didn't suspect that he was actually murdering her— to be placed in a hammock and carried up to the Sultan's Palace where Galt could treat her without interference.

MEANWHILE a number of dusky figures had stealthily crept up on the veranda— a mass of brown faces were peering in at each window when the Resident gradually recovered his senses. Recognizing his own China boy, he called to him and was freed from the lashings. The boy then gently sponged his face and fetched a clean suit of "whites." He was a faithful servant, but had little respect for a master who had "lost face" with the whole community. Parmenter asked him if he wanted to make five hundred dollars. The eyes and face were expressionless, as usual. Parmenter then showed him the money— handed him half of it— said he could have the rest when he had killed Dr. Galt. And the China boy spat in his face.

For an hour, Parmenter sat alone in his chair behind the desk— thinking— thinking— recalling every word that Galt had said— the unbreakable case which he had so relentlessly built up from evidence in his possession. Then he took the other automatic from the drawer, tested the action, saw it worked perfectly. That last degrading insult from his China boy had made him visualize how he appeared to other people— even the brownies, whom he despised.

He hesitated for a moment, with the muzzle of the gun over his heart, shook his head— probably a minute or two of consciousness— too long! Placed it against his temple— and pulled the trigger.

IN about two weeks, Galt decided that Nora was sufficiently improved to stand the trip down to Singapore. They had proved to her beyond all question what Parmenter had been trying to do— but she couldn't seem to understand it.

"I would have divorced him at any time— whether he wanted some other woman or not— so there was no excuse for killing me upon that score. And he couldn't have gotten a penny by my death. There had been no love between us for several years; so before leaving London to come out here, I had made a new will leaving all I had to some one else."

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Index to Past Masters Nos 61-79

The "Author Index" to Issues 1-60 has been uploaded separately.

Achmed Abdullah

The Mystery of the Talking Idols 63

George Ade

Making the Grade 78

"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

The St. Bernard Myth 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

Armistice  78

A Barrack Ghost Story 76

Beauty in Flight 76

The Diamond Necklace 62

The Great Auk's Egg Affair 61

Fool Proof  75

The Hat Trick 71

Haunted  78

Jacobs and Gale, Tobacconists 70

Local Color 75

An Old Norman-French Story 76

A Railway Murder 70

Remorse 76

Retribution 74

Revenge 74

The Ruins of the Abbey of Fitz-Martin 64

The Skipper's Scheme 73

The Stamp Thief 71

The Thriller 71

A Solicitor's Story 75 (as by "S.S.")

F. Anstey

Taken By Surprise  66

Francis Henry Atkins

The Lay Figure  63

Edouard A. Aujard

The Flood 75

The Swing of Sentiment  75

Stacy Aumonier

A Source of Irritation 73

Straight Griggs 78

F. Britten Austin

Into the Blue 79

Irving Bacheller

Holy Poker 71

The Prodigal Village 71

Robert Barr

The Last Straw 72

J. M. Barrie

The Adventure of the Two Collaborators 75

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

Breakfast at the Savoy 79

Death Gave Him His Chance  63

Not Upon the Sleeve  79

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

J. D. Beresford

The Hidden Beast 75

Harold Bindloss

Trooper Jenkins 68

Ottwell Binns

The Britisher 73

Dixon's Romance 75

Algernon Blackwood

The Kit-Bag 76

M. McDonnell Bodkin

The Will and the Man 79

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

Coutts Brisbane

Without Fear 76

George Bronson-Howard

The Prophetic War Correspondent 79

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

The Inexorable Tooth 79

Just Like a Cat 71

Mr. Wellaway's Host 77

The Ninety And Nine  69

Something for the Kid 77

Sir Gilbert Campbell

The Mystery of the Essex Stairs 62

Scott Campbell

The Point of Contact 70

The Price of Perfidy 78

A Study in Green 73

Under the Crown 70

Without Air 73

Agnes and Egerton Castle

The Great Todescan's Secret Thrust 70

Robert W. Chambers

The Princess Zimbazim 79

Mark Channing

Intrigue 74

Anna Alice Chapin

Through the Dragon's Valley  63

The Scales of Time 63

G.K. Chesterton

The Sword of Wood 65

Peter Cheyney

Christmas With a Punch 75

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

Captain Henry Curties

Redeeming Flames 79

Norbert Davis

You Bet Your Life 77

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

Prospector 75

Richard Dowling

The Going Out of Alessandro Pozzone 62

Edward Dyson

A Golden Shanty 65

The Third Chair 65

Fred Engelhardt

Heritage of Osiris 75

George Allan England

Drops of Death  68

Howard Fitzalan

The Red Hand 78

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

J. S. Fletcher

Ex-Officio 76

Homer Eon Flint

The Planeteer  77

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

Ltnt Edgar Gardiner

Up Irrawaddy Way 74

Arthur Gask

Rejuvenation 66

Strychnine for Village Dogs 62

Theophile Gautier

The Mummy's Foot 62

George Gilbert

In Maulmain Fever-Ward  63

Lady Gilbert

Aurora's Treasure  75

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

F. A. J. Godfrey

Not Proven 76

Dahlia Graham

Her Fatal Gift 79

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

Fame For Mr. Beatty 75

Uncle Ned's Teeth 76

Julian Hawthorne

Calbot's Rival 67

Nathaniel Hawthorne

The Great Stone Face 66

Miles Henslow

Mystery Flight 75

Kenneth Herford

An Echo of the Quarter 73

Smiley's Scoop 73

Beatrice Heron-Maxwell

The Act of God 74

The Outcast 65

Headon Hill

The "Artemis" Mystery 65

The Bank Clerk's Love Story 65

The Dining-Car Clue 65

Limping Justice 65

S. B. H. Hurst

The Ball of Fire  74

The Receipt 74

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

Edgar Jepson

The Infernal Machine 79

Madderson's Mascot 79

A Troublesome Widow 79

Jerome K. Jerome

The Dancing Partner 74

Rudyard Kipling

The Phantom Rickshaw 73

Otis Adelbert Kline

The Dragoman's Secret 74

Stolen Centuries 65

Thomas H. Knight

The Man Who Was Dead 61

Edmund Leamy

My First Case 74

Henry Leverage

Black Light 66

The Crimp 66

Crooked Charity 67

R. C. Lehmann

The Umbrosa Burglary 67

Henry Leverage

Over the Wall   76

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

Fred MacIsaac

The Abominable Test 76

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

Richard Marsh

A Silent Witness  77

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

Clarence Herbert New

The Passing of an Angel 79

Where There Ain't No Ten Commandments ("Culpeper Zandtt") 79

Douglas Newton

Straight Enough 73

David Wright O'Brien

Hokum Hotel  68

Fitz-James O'Brien

The Wondersmith  64

Owen Oliver

The Awakening  74

Vincent O'Sullivan

The Business of Madame Jahn  64

Thomas Nelson Page

What was the Lady's Choice? 62

Miles  Overholt

Wrong Number 75

Sir Gilbert Parker

At the Sign of the Eagle  70

Max Pemberton

The Devil To Pay 63

The Dumb Avenger 75

G. G. Pendarves

The Black Camel  65

The Sin-Eater 74

The Withered Heart  74

Hugh Pendexter

Lyacus Whittle— Globetrotter 70

Ernest M Poate

A Person from the Police 63

The Cotton Stopper 79

Doctor Grimes Awaits Probate (as by Arthur Mallory)  73

Expert Testimony 74

Inside the Limousine 78

To Professional Services— $100,000   70

Melville Davisson Post

The Laughing Woman 79

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

Edith Rickert

The Chair That Smiled 74

Walter Ripperger

The Cardboard Clue 62

School For Murder 69

Morley Roberts

The Egregious Goat 73

Arthur Somers Roche (novelette)

In the Money 67

Michael Romain

Genesis   76

Anthony M Rud

The Invisible "Blinker" 73

Duncan Campbell Scott

The Witching of Elspie 78

J. Johnston Smith

Queen Of Diamonds  75

Thorne Smith

Birthday Present 66

Andrew Soutar

Bluebeard 63

D. H. Souter

Conroy 74

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

Georges Surdez

Charles the Bold 76

Spite Corner 76

Emile C Tepperman

Coffin Cache 63

E. Temple Thurston

A Cameo 69

Roger Torrey

Black Murder 78

Dice and No Dice 77

Murder By Accident 77

Ticket to Death (as by John Ryan)  77

Edward W Townsend

A Deal in Mines and Morals 77

E Charles Vivian

How the Girl Came to Bentley's 62

Cyril G. Wates

The Visitation 76

Edgar Wallace

The New Doctor  76

R. A. J. Walling

A Chat With William Le Queux 68

Mrs. Rooth's "Murder" 61

The Spook of Cornelius 61

"Wanderer"

Waif of the Bush 74

Stanley G Weinbaum

The Red Peri  69

Albert Richard Wetjen

The Chief of the Loch McCree 61

Raid on Jigger's Reef 76

Harvey Wickham

The Man With the Painted Nose 75

Ethel Lina White

An Unlocked Window  78

Fred Merrick White

Early Closing Day  64

Gentlemen of the Jury  65

The Missing Blade 75

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

Bothon 78

The Chadbourne Episode 75

The Door 71

Passing of a God 75

The People of Pan 77

Sea-Tiger  78

The Shut Room 75

Sweet Grass 76

The Wonderful Thing  70

Raoul Whitfield

The Great Black 65

The Next-to-Last Laugh 79

H. C. Witwer

Money to Burns 71

Mary E Wilkins

The Shadows on the Wall  64

Edward Woodward

Clarence 75

Arthur Leo Zagat

Coward's Kill (novelette)  69

E. F. Ziska

Man of Ages 78

__________________

Table of Contents

- 1: Her Fatal Gift / Dahlia Graham
- 2: The Cotton Stopper / Ernest M. Poate
- 3: Redeeming Flames / Captain Henry Curties
- 4: A Troublesome Widow / Edgar Jepson
- 5: The Infernal Machine / Edgar Jepson
- 6: Madderson's Mascot / Edgar Jepson

- 7: The Princess Zimbazim / Robert W. Chambers

- 8: The Prophetic War Correspondent / George Bronson-Howard

- 9: The Inexorable Tooth / Ellis Parker Butler

- 10: The Laughing Woman / Melville Davisson Post

- 11: The Passing of an Angel / Clarence Herbert New

- 12: The Will and the Man / M. McDonnell Bodkin

- 13: Not Upon the Sleeve / H. Bedford-Jones

- 14: Breakfast at the Savoy / H. Bedford-Jones

- 15: Into the Blue / F. Britten Austin

- 16: The Next-to-Last Laugh / Raoul Whitfield

- 17: Where There Ain't No Ten Commandments / Culpeper Zandtt

- Cumulative Index  #61-79