Author: Various
Date: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00
Description: Another selection of short fiction gathered from magazines and newspapers, with some familiar names, such as M P Shiel and Earl Derr Biggers, writing in unfamiliar genres. Humour, romance, crime... 1: The Priestess of the Purple Petunia / Margaret Busbee Shipp 2: The Flaming Chariot / Guy Gilpatric 3: The Seringapatam Medal / T. C. Bridges 4: The Slatter Case / T. C. Bridges 5: Lost: A Millionaire / Anonymous 6: Dixon's Theories / Val Jameson 7: The Witness / Thomas Cobb 8: A Matter of Interest / Robert W. Chambers 9: The Hunter's Moon / Frederick Irving Anderson 10: Ponsonby and the Pantheres

PAST MASTERS 106

Produced and Edited by Terry Walker ("Pulpmeister") from short stories in magazines, newspapers and other sources, and all in the Life + 70 years public domain.

16 November 2022

Contents

1: The Priestess of the Purple Petunia / Margaret Busbee Shipp

2: The Flaming Chariot / Guy Gilpatric

3: The Seringapatam Medal / T. C. Bridges

4: The Slatter Case / T. C. Bridges

5: Lost: A Millionaire / Anonymous

6: Dixon's Theories / Val Jameson

7: The Witness / Thomas Cobb

8: A Matter of Interest / Robert W. Chambers

9: The Hunter's Moon / Frederick Irving Anderson

10: Ponsonby and the Pantheress / Richard Dehan

11: Henry and the Restless Sex / Earl Derr Biggers

12: The Shadow of the Vulture / Robert E. Howard

13: Dickie / M. P. Shiel

14: The Crusader / Charles E. Van Loan

15: The Key / Peter Cheyney

16: "Not according to Text" /  Charles G Booth

17: The Sights They Missed / Albert Payson Terhune

_____________

1: The Priestess of the Purple Petunia

Margaret Busbee Shipp

1871-1936

Munsey's Magazine, Sep 1924

MAJOR CHETWOODE had engaged his berth to Calcutta several days in advance, but the station master explained to him that two American ladies had the compartment until they reached Mogul Serai, where they were to change for Benares. So when he got on the train at the station before Mogul Serai he found a seat in another car, which was already crowded, but had his Indian bearer put his belongings— bedding roll, bags, and polo sticks— into the compartment which was shortly to be vacated.

On reaching Mogul Serai, the major's bearer came to his master with a look of utter bewilderment on his usually impassive face, not wholly accounted for by his report that the memsahibs were not going to Benares at all, but straight on to Calcutta, and were staying obdurately where they were. Their Hindu bearer was in despair because of this sudden change of plan, as he had counted on going with them to Benares at the time of the lunar eclipse, when the sacred Ganges is even more than ordinarily sacred.

Chetwoode had little interest in their servant's disappointment. He was vexed enough at having to explain matters to the two American women, who were probably unused to trains in India. There was half an hour's wait at Mogul Serai, so there was plenty of time for them to alter their plans again and take the train for Benares when it arrived. The train to Calcutta was crowded, and the major would have to sit up all night unless he could secure the place which was rightfully his.

Where distances are so long and days so hot, travel in India is arranged with special regard to comfort by night. On the mail trains the first-class compartments are big and roomy, each fitted with a bathroom, in which there is a tub or a shower. There are two long couches, upholstered in leather, placed lengthwise. Each person brings his own bedding roll, with sheets, pillow, blanket, and even mattress, and his Indian bearer makes up his bed at night and puts it out of the way in the bedding roll by day.

Annoyed that the foreigners thought possession was ten-tenths of the law, but secure in his rights as a Britisher who had reserved his place in advance, Chetwoode entered the apartment.

His military training stood him in good stead. Without the habit of self-control he would have gasped with surprise at the apparition before him— an astonishing figure to encounter on a dustily prosaic train.

She was young and amazingly pretty, but far more than amazingly garbed. Her robe— he supposed it was a robe— was a shimmering, shaded purple, deepening from mauve and wistaria to the royal color of Tyre. It billowed about her feet, half concealing her purple silk sandals, and fell away from her arms, which were bare and white and slenderly lovely.

"I am awfully sorry to disturb you," he began.

Her slender hand silenced him with an imperious gesture.

"Salaam!" she commanded.

He did nothing of the sort. He overlooked her mistake.

"I was saying that I regret the necessity for intrud—"

"Salaam!" she cut him short, as one not accustomed to having her authority questioned. "I am the Priestess of the Purple Petunia." She turned to the other occupant of the car, with a scarcely veiled threat in her rippling voice: "Salaam! Instruct our visitor in fitting courtesy by your example."

A bright-eyed elderly woman rose with distinct grimness and made an exceedingly stiff and awkward salaam. The veriest sweeper's brat in all India could have done it better.

Chetwoode turned to her more hopefully.

"You are going to Benares, I understand? I have this compartment to Calcutta. Your train will be leaving in half an hour, so if your companion wishes to— to change her robe, I will go outside and return later; but you will have to hurry."

Before the older woman could reply, the girl spoke authoritatively:

"You will not go. You will remain. You will serve me. That is the purpose for which you have come. You are the charioteer of the Peacock Car. Open that roll!"

She pointed to a bulging holdall, secured with two straps. It was very knobby and protuberant, and seemed to have been done up rather badly.

"Open that quickly, charioteer!"

Major Chetwoode grew a degree more stiff-necked.

"I'll call your bearer," he suggested.

Already the girl seemed to have forgotten her request.

"Call me Amethyst," she said, so gently, so prettily, that he thought of poor little mad Ophelia .

It was increasingly evident that this lovely, imperious creature was stark mad. With a veering mood, she turned to the elderly woman, who was regarding her with a marked lack of sympathy, and stamped her foot.

"Why are you gaping at me like that? Minion! Slave! Scum of the foam, trash rejected by the sweeper, remember you are vowed to serve! Open that roll."

"There isn't time," protested Chetwoode. "The train to Benares—"

But grudgingly, unwillingly, the elder woman was bending over the holdall and fumbling with the straps.

"Is it necessary for you to obey her?" he asked in a low voice.

She nodded acquiescence, as she tugged at the tight straps. Chetwoode stood with his arms folded. He would not have a part in such nonsense.

The girl in purple sat on the floor, spread the holdall like a blanket, and began to undo bundle after bundle— teakwood elephants from Delhi, lacquer from Jaipur— carved wood from Kashmir, saris and sandalwood from Surat, a poshteen from Peshawar— until at last she found the old brass lantern for which she was searching. She lifted it over her head, swinging it slowly seven times and chanting a queer, rapid jargon which was unfamiliar to Chetwoode, though he knew half a dozen vernaculars.

Time was slipping by, but there are circumstances in which a gentleman is helpless.

At length she sprang to her feet, holding her lantern high above her sunny hair.

"I am the Priestess of the Purple Petunia," she chanted. "In the night my lantern will have no eyes, it will be blind. There will be strange things to see, for he who talks little may talk less , but my lantern will be blind and asleep." She turned disdainfully to the older woman. "Pack them up, and quickly!"

With lips set tight together, the older woman began to gather up the packages. Chetwoode would have been inhuman not to have helped her, and finally he had them all back in the holdall, though so much more bulgingly and protuberantly than before that he decided her bearer must be a remarkable packer.

"Thank you," said the older woman, her voice curiously unsteady.

"Not accustomed to even a little chance kindness!" thought the man.

"You may go away now, woman," said the girl indifferently. "You need never come back, unless you wish. I do not need you— you who think you are my keeper. You did not think I heard? You thought I was asleep? The Petunia never sleeps. Now that I have the charioteer, he can wait on me and tie up my bundles over and over and over and over and over!"

"I'll be damned if I will!" determined Chetwoode, but inaudibly. He turned to the nurse— or keeper, or whatever might be her ghastly job— and said: "I'll buzz off and find a place somewhere. My bearer will come for my things."

He had an uneasy feeling that it was unwise to leave his polo sticks there even for a few moments— too convenient for poor Amethyst to crack her guardian's head!

"Sorry to have inconvenienced you," he said, addressing the elderly lady. "Er— sorry!"

That was meant to include the whole tragic situation.

The girl clasped the lapel of his coat.

"You are leaving me, charioteer? And shall I never, never drive in the Peacock Car, with the perfume of petunias making the morning sweet?"

Extraordinary, but there really seemed to be a purplish tinge in the blue depths of her eyes!

"Good-by, Ophelia " he said kindly, and hastily corrected himself. "Amethyst, I mean!"

After he went out, his bearer came in and removed his master's belongings, with open disapproval and impeccable dignity.

ii

THE TRAIN to Benares was late, so the wait at Mogul Serai stretched out longer. Chetwoode was walking up and down the platform when he recognized an old Indian conjurer whom he had once greatly be- friended— a ragged, turbaned man, with brilliant black eyes, teeth stained red with betel nut, and a tiny drum, on which he was beating monotonously.

Fakr-ud-din glanced up, saw Chetwoode, and prostrated himself, touching the ground with his forehead.

"Preserver of the poor," he cried, "the hour is ripe for me to return thanks for the inestimable favors you have bestowed upon this unworthy slave and his miserable home. Now I see your fortune clear, which unto this hour has been hidden from me as if covered by the waters of the Jumna. There has been decreed for you, huzoor, a happy marriage, great gold, fair and honorable sons, and a daughter." The change in the conjurer's tone was as if he tossed in a daughter carelessly, for good measure. "The hours march swiftly toward you, huzoor, bringing these good gifts, though all of them smaller than your great merit."

"Fine promises, Fakr-ud-din!" replied Chetwoode in the man's own vernacular. "Many thanks! Shall I give you a rupee now for so much good fortune, or shall I send you twenty when it comes true?"

To Chetwoode's surprise, instead of eagerly clutching at the extended rupee, the man's burning gaze seemed to seek something far beyond him.

"I see water, very far away, and above it a kingfisher is flying. Purple and blue meet in its feathers, as they meet in the eyes of thy bride. I will await the twenty rupees, huzoor, but, as I am old and very poor, I am glad that I shall not have to wait long."

"Plucked that idea of purple in a girl's eyes right out of my mind," thought Chetwoode amusedly. "How does the old rascal manage to do it?"

It was a very hot night, a breathless sort of a night. After midnight, when the train made one of its long station stops, cramped from his seat in the crowded car, Chetwoode went outside to stretch his legs. He chanced to stop to light a cigarette just as he was passing the compartment in which he had that curious encounter. A delicious bubble of laughter floated toward him, a sound as arresting as a bird's note, followed by an appealing—

"Aunt Meg, you were such a glorious sport! I'll never forget your expression as you made that first salaam, not if I live to be a hundred! I'm glad I can just lie here and laugh, for it's too hot to sleep. Headache better, dear?"

"Yes, but my conscience is troubling me about the way that young man was ousted from his rightful place."

"And so good-looking, and so stiff-necked, and so accustomed to exacting obedience! Why, I could almost obey him myself!"

Chetwoode, who had stood rooted to the spot by the revelation of how he had been duped, suddenly realized that he was eavesdropping, and turned away; but he stopped long enough at the telegraph office to send a telegram before he went back to his place.

THE TRAIN reached Calcutta at six in the morning, a rather agreeable hour on a bright, balmy morning in February. Chota hazri— the morning cup of coffee and a piece of toast— had been served in their compartment, so Patsy and her aunt were feeling quite fit as they emerged, with their Indian bearer following, directing the customary swarm of coolies who scrambled to get their bags. To Patsy's utter amazement, Major Chetwoode stood waiting. He bowed ceremoniously.

"Your obedient charioteer. The Peacock Car is waiting for you, Amethyst."

Now it was absolutely evident that this man was a gentleman. It was as plain to be seen in his face and bearing as to find the Washington Monument in the girl's native city; and though shamefaced and astonished, Patsy longed to see it through.

Chetwoode took charge of the situation with admirable sang froid. He turned to her aunt.

"I am Major Chetwoode," he said. "Your niece is going for a spin with me down the Strand Road and around the Gariahat Road. We will come by for you at nine, if you will both do me the honor of breakfasting with me."

"It's only six o'clock now," objected the bewildered aunt. "What are you going to do until nine?"

Chetwoode's smile made his rather stem young face look more boyish.

"I don't know what she is going to do. I am going to scold her. You admit that she deserves it?"

Aunt Meg rallied, like the good sport she was.

"Indeed I do admit it," she returned emphatically, "and I shall be glad to breakfast with you."

Patsy followed Chetwoode meekly to where his chauffeur was waiting with his roadster; but it wasn't the rakish new car that claimed the girl's attention— it was the tiny enameled peacock fastened on the hood, and the great basket of petunias, in every shade of purple, that adorned the seat.

"The Peacock Car, the perfume of petunias, and your humble charioteer," he said, as he helped her in.

"Then you knew all along that I wasn't a perfect lady lunatic?" she demanded. "Truly and honestly it wasn't just plain piggishness! It was a combination of— of solicitude and bravado." Patsy began to talk very fast, her cheeks very pink. " You see, we were to get off at Benares, but Aunt Meg developed an excruciating headache, and there were such throngs of pilgrims at the stations, because of the lunar eclipse, that she decided to go straight on to Calcutta. Just then your man came in with your luggage, and she knew it would be impossible for us to stay where we were or to get another compartment on that crowded train. An idea came into my mind. 'I can manage it,' I said. 'All I ask is for you to promise to do anything I say.' She promised readily enough, and I slipped on that odd negligee, because, when I wore it at college, the girls used to call me the Purple Petunia. The idea of making you think I was crazy just suddenly grew in my thoughts. The gibberish I talked was a language my brother taught me when I was little. You really guessed all along?"

Then it was his turn to make a clean breast, ending with his telegram to his serv- ant, who had gone to work, as ordered, to fix an enameled peacock paper weight to the hood of the car, and to bribe a sleepy florist to cut flowers at an unearthly hour.

The car sped on, a fairy chariot of youth and laughter and nonsense.

iii

SMALL wonder that Aunt Meg was abusing herself roundly for being a trusting and romantic fool to let her favorite niece go off with a perfectly strange young man! Here it was five minutes past eleven, and he had said they would be back at nine. She couldn't even remember the heathenish name of that road they were going on. She probably ought to call up the police, and—

And there they were at the end of the corridor, just as she was beginning to be nervous!

They seemed absolutely oblivious of the fact that they were late, utterly unaware that a cup of restaurant coffee and a bite of toast was not sufficiently sustaining to last from six to eleven; yet about them there was such a splendid glow, such a vibrating youthfulness!

Patsy was swinging a basket of petunias, and her pretty laugh rippled like moonlight on water, thought Aunt Meg, who had grown up in the gentle sentimentality of the Victorian age. She had never seen Patsy look like that — starry-eyed, almost remote in the radiance about her.

"Darling Aunt Meg, we're engaged!"

"Engaged?" Aunt Meg's voice rose sharply with incredulity and anxiety. "Patsy, I never heard of such absurdity, such rashness—"

"Oh, but it isn't rash, precious— not in the least rash," Patsy interrupted eagerly. " It's just the way both of us have planned it for years. Don always swore he was going to propose to a girl at ten o'clock in the morning, because things get such false values on a ravishing night, between two enchanting waltzes. He said that when he wanted a woman to be his wife at ten o'clock in the morning, he would know it was the real thing. It was thrilling, the last eight minutes, sitting there waiting for it to be ten o'clock, so that he could propose, with our eyes glued on my wrist watch! And you know I've always said I wanted a man to fall in love with just me, Patsy, and not know anything about the money until afterward. Don had to stop at the post office to send twenty rupees to an old Indian conjurer, who told him he was going to marry a girl with purple in her eyes. He actually did, Aunt Meg, and I was so pleased I sent him twenty, too. Don said the old fellow told him he was to have 'great gold,' so he supposed a philanthropic movement to raise army pay checks would be the next thing in order, as his lucky star seemed to be in the ascendant. Then I told him how glorious it was to marry a man who didn't even know I was grandfather's granddaughter! Don't you see, Aunt Meg, how well advised, how almost premeditated, everything is? In fact, I think the papers will call it a balanced union!"

"They are more apt to say that I kidnaped her," hazarded Chetwoode cheerfully.

"After starving her aunt and natural protector into submission," amended Aunt Meg, somewhat tartly. "But we have this comfort— whatever they say will sound more credible than the truth. I am thankful the real facts can never get into print."

__________________

2: The Flaming Chariot

Guy Gilpatric

1896-1950

The Saturday Evening Post  27 Dec 1930

IT was an afternoon of lowering skies and leaden seas on which the whitecaps gleamed with that unaccountable brightness which presages a storm. A wind that had swept across four hundred miles of Mediterranean since it took its leave of Africa was whisking away these whitecaps, turning them into spray, and then sullying the spindrift with clouds of Tyne-coal soot which belched from the funnel of a singularly ugly tramp steamer. This vessel was the Inchcliffe Castle, and she was snouting her way northward past the Balearics toward Marseilles at a spanking clip of seven knots. Now it happened that this rate of speed, although considerable for her, and being, in fact, about twice as fast as a man can walk, was by no means satisfactory to Mr. Montgomery, the mate. Therefore he growled impatiently to himself, strode to the speaking tube and whistled the engine room.

'The bridge'll speak to the chief,' he said.... 'Oh, are you there, Mr. Glencannon? Well, I s'y, ain't there nothing you can do to choke another knot or so out of 'er? There's a chap out 'ere 'oos sculling past us in a punt.'

'Ah, noo!' replied a voice in which were combined the tin of the tube and the timbre of Aberdeen. 'What ye say. Muster Montgomery, is inaccurate on the vurra face o' it! In the feerst place, the poont is a type o' craft unknown in these waters, and the waters is too deep for it anyway. In the second place, I've got the old teapot deleevering her maxeemum and leaking steam at every pore. And in the theerd place. I'll thank ye to leave the engines to me and mind yere ain domned business. Whereupon, with crushing finality, the tube snapped shut.

'There!' complained Mr. Montgomery to the quarterjnaster at the wheel. 'Bly'me if there ever was a man like 'im!' And returning to the starboard wing of the bridge, he trained his binoculars astern at a three-masted barkentine which, close hauled and with all sails set, was scudding along in swift pursuit.

'Why, I never seen anything like it!' he muttered, in awed and reluctant admiration. 'In another 'arf hour, that perishing old windjammer'll be showing us 'er 'eels! I'd better notify the Old Man.'

Shortly, he was joined by Captain Ball, who borrowed his glasses and scanned the barkentine with an expert eye. 'Well,' he said after a thorough inspection, 'he's certainly giving her all she'll take, but he'll jolly well yank her sticks out if he doesn't watch her!'

'Yes, and he'll jolly well pass us if we don't watch 'im!' said Mr. Montgomery. ' 'Umiliyting, I calls it, sir— being trimmed by a ruddy windjammer!'

'H'm,' mused Captain Ball. 'Sail beating steam. It is a narsty idea, at that! I'll just speak to Mr. Glencannon.' And he, too, stepped to the tube and had parlance with the choleric genius who presided below.

When he returned, his face was purple and his moustache was trembling. But soon the clank of furnace doors and the scrape of coal shovels came up through the skylights— these, and a voice raised in profane exhortation. Then the pulse of the engines throbbed swifter to the stimulus of steam, and the deck plates set up a new vibration as the Inchcliffe Castle protestingly increased her gait through the water.

'Ah-ha, now we're snorting!' said Captain Ball, glancing at his watch and peering through the glasses at the indicator of the patent log. 'I bet Mr. Glencannon'll get a good ten and a quarter out of her.'

Mr. Montgomery shook his head dubiously. 'I suppose 'e could if anybody could, but just the syme, captain, afryde that blinking syle boat will shyme us yet!'

The crew, now, were watching the vessel astern. They stood in groups along the Inchclijfe Castle's well deck, marvelling at the other's speed, waxing   sarcastic about their own ship and laying bets as to the time which would elapse before they took the windjammer's wake. For steadily, steadily, she was overhauling them.

Captain Ball beat his fist upon the bridge rail in helpless exasperation. 'Hell's bones!' he groaned. 'She's an old-time racing clipper, or the ghost of one, that's what she is! I was fifteen years in sail myself, and I tell you no ordinary tub can travel like that. No, nor no ordinary skipper, either!'

'I can't myke out 'er nyme; there's no 'ead-boards on 'er,' said Mr. Montgomery, addressing Captain Ball. 'My word, captain, look! Look what 'e's doing! 'E's planning to shyve us close!'

'Yes, so's he can give us the horse laugh when he goes by,' growled Captain Bali.

High aloft above the barkentine's deck, tiny figures clambered out along the foreyards, while below, groups were hauling in on the main and mizzen sheets until the great sails stretched taut as drumheads. Heeled over until her lee rails hissed whitely through the water, she charged along like a massive pile of gale-driven thunderclouds. Her sails were dirty and frayed and patched; her black hull was streaked and lumpy as the outside of a leaky tar barrel and yet, despite it all, she was regal, majestic, beautiful. As she swept alongside the Inchcliffe Castle the roar of water past her bows and the drone of wind through her towering pyramid of hemp and canvas made a hymn to honour the passing of a queen.

'By George, what a sight!' exclaimed Captain Ball. 'I say, just ask Mr. Glencannon to step up here. He might as well share our shame.'

By the time Mr. Glencannon, in overalls and carpet slippers, had arrived upon the bridge, the two ships were neck and neck.

'Toosh!' he said disgustedly, wiping the perspiration from his chin. 'So yon's the cause o' all the uproar! Weel, I've seen sailboats monny's the time before '

'Yuss, and I s'pose you've orften 'ad 'em syle rings around you too,' sneered Mr. Montgomery.

'No, I never ha',' replied Mr. Glencannon with unshaken calm. 'And for the vurra gude reason that all the vessels I've sairved on in the past had speed enough to get oot o' their own way. But as long as ye've seen fit to get pairsonal. Muster Montgomery, I'll just remind ye that '

He was interrupted by a shout. Down on the Inchcliffe Castle's well deck, the men were pointing excitedly toward the barkentine.

'Look, look yon!' exclaimed Mr. Glencannon, following their gaze. 'Why, domned if I ever beheld such a spectacle!'

The vessel's decks and rigging were peopled with characters who might have stepped from the pages of the Old Testament. Every man aboard her was clothed completely in black and had hair that swept his shoulders and a flowing beard!

'Lunateeks oot for a peekneek!' pronounced Mr. Glencannon, breaking the awed silence.

'Lunatics and no mistake, but they're great sailors all the same!' grunted Captain Ball. 'That's the skipper— the big brute there on the quarter-deck. I say, give the old shellback a hail. Mister Mate.'

'Barkentine a-hoy-y-y!' called Mr. Montgomery. 'Wot's yer nyme?'

'What the hell is it to you?' bellowed a voice from between the cupped hands of the bearded skipper, and its accent was distinctly American.

'Haw!' chuckled Mr. Glencannon delightedly. 'There's yere answer, Muster Mate! Yon is a master o' repartee and a mon after my ain heart!' And reaching for the whistle cord, he applauded the patriarch with three hoarse blasts of the Inchcliffe Castle's siren. Then, as the poop of the barquentine slid past the Castle's bridge, he removed his cap and waved it politely— salute which the bearded one acknowledged by thumbing his nose.

Mr. Glencannon, outraged by this gratuitous discourtesy, leaned over the rail and shook his fist. 'Why, ye whuskery Yankee goat!' he shouted. 'Get oot o' our way or well run ye doonl'

'In a hawg's eye you will!' scoffed the bearded one, turning on his heel to glance into the binnacle. 'Well, so long, you limping lime-juicers! Ill tell 'em you're coming in Marseels!' He paused just long enough to thumb his nose once more— this time over his left shoulder, and with something of a flourish.

The wind was freshening, and in response to a gust the barken- tine lay over and surged triumphantly ahead.

'Well,' sighed Captain Ball mournfully, as her transom hove into view, 'that's that! What's her name anyway?'

'Flaming Chariot,' read Mr. Glencannon, squinting his eyes. 'Flaming Chariot, o' Savannah, Georgia.'

ii

With much coughing and churning, two little French tugs butted the Inchcliffe Castle between the granite walls of the Bassin de la Joliette. She ran out her lines and made fast to the wharf. Mr. Montgomery, his labours ended, waved to the bridge from the fo'c'sle head and pointed to a stately three-master berthed in the opposite side of the dock.

'Well, damme if it isn't the Flaming Chariot!' exclaimed Captain Ball.

The Marseilles harbour pilot, hearing him, nodded, and placing his forefinger against his temple, agitated it as though scrambling eggs. 'Fous— ils sont fous— all crez-zee,' he declared, indicating the barkentine. 'Crez-zee Americains!'

'Yes, I fancy they are a bit cracked,' agreed Captain Ball, observing that those members of the Flaming Chariot's crew who were not engaged in labour were wearing long black robes and smoking corncob pipes. 'Who are those chaps, anyway?'

'Crez-zee Americains,' repeated the pilot, in full and final explanation.

For the next few days the gentlemen of the Inchcliffe Castle were too busy to bother about their hirsute neighbours. But one afternoon, when the cargo had been discharged and they were awaiting orders from the agent, Captain Ball yawned, stretched and said something about paying the barkentine a visit.

'Me visit them impudent coves? Well, orl right if you s'y so, sir,' agreed Mr. Montgomery reluctantly. 'But suppose we tyke Mr. Glencannon along. Arfter orl, it's 'im we 'ave to thank for our disgryce.'

'I'll deem mysel' honoured to accompany ye, captain,' said Mr, Glencannon. 'I'd like to mak' an inspection aboord yon Yankee zoo. The boorish behaviour o' that whuskery skeeper still rankles beetterly.'

They strolled down the pier and entered the gate at the opposite side. Over their heads soared the mighty jib-boom of the Flaming Chariot— a spar which jutted from her bow out over the traffic to the very centre of the Rue Sainte-Pauline.

'An old clipper hull— of course, I knew she was a clipper!' declared Captain Ball. 'Look at the taper of her; why, she's built like a wedge!'

'Vurra curious,' conceded Mr. Glencannon somewhat absently, as he abhorred all sailing ships, and this one in particular. 'But whoosh, captain, do ye look at the rust and feelth o' her. 'Tis a wonder the old tub stays afloat!'

'You bet it's a wonder! Why, do you realize, gentlemen, that this craft must be at least sixty years old? Before they rigged her as a barkentine, I wouldn't doubt if she'd done seventeen knots or better.'

'Only fawncy!' remarked Mr. Montgomery, casting a sour glance at Mr. Glencannon. 'Seventeen knots and not a hengineer aboard 'er! Bly'me, look!' And he lowered his voice. 'Look there, captain! The silly blighters are wearing sandals!'

With their flowing black robes tucked under them, a number of the crew were sitting in the shade of the deck-house, rolling dice. Two or three of them were smoking, and from the condition of the adjacent scupper, it was apparent that the remainder chewed tobacco. They looked, talked and behaved like a conclave of renegade saints.

Aft, beneath the awning, the skipper was engaged in darning a pair of red flannel drawers. Beside his deck chair stood a two-gallon jug and a tin cup, to which he referred frequently and with gusto. It was during such an interval that he spied the delegation from the Inchcliffe Castle.

'Well, damned if it ain't the limping lime-juicers!' he roared. Howdy, brethern — howdy! Come aboard and rest your hats!'

'A-weel,' murmured Mr. Glencannon. 'He seems a bit more ceevil, but I dinna trust him. There's the ladder to yere left, captain.... After you, sir.'

They were welcomed on the deck by the bearded skipper, who towered at least six feet seven in his sandalled feet and was broad and resonant in proportion.

'I'm glad you-all dropped in, brothers!' he boomed. 'We're clearing with a cargo for Barcelona to-morrer night. Jest unjoint yourselves under this here awning while I go to my room and break out a fresh jug. Sho, it's the slickest home-made cawn you ever tasted! I can't abide these namby-pamby Dago liquors, can you?'

Shortly he reappeared with a jug and three tin cups. 'Aft, the mates!' he shouted; and then, uncorking the jug: 'The mates is my sons,' he explained. 'I'd like for you all to shake hands with 'em.'

They were joined by three hairy, bearded huskies who stood fumbling with their robes and digging shyly at the deck caulking with their horny bare toes.

'Gents,' said the skipper, 'these here's my sons — Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego.... Tell the comp'ny howdy, boys.... You, Meshach, take your fingers out of your nose!'

'Do ye look at yon Meshach,' whispered Mr. Glencannon, plucking at Mr. Montgomery's sleeve. 'I saw him this morning, wiping up the dock wi' five French stevedores.'

'Yes,' the skipper was saying, as the trio shuffled away, 'they're three good boys and three good mates. And now I'll interduce myself. I'm Ezekiel the Prophet.' Quite oblivious of the startled expressions of his visitors, he shook hands all round.

'I spose I ought to ax pardon for the way I acted t'other day,' mused the Prophet, as he tilted the jug over the crook of his mighty arm. 'I'm always kind of short-tempered when I'm at sea. And then, besides, we'd lost the Prophetess only the night before.'

'Oh, noo, let me understand ye, sir,' said Mr. Glencannon with ready sympathy. 'Do ye mean to say that Mrs. Ezekiel is— er— dead?'

'Yop, you got the idea,' nodded the skipper airily. 'During the night, ma heard the Call, so she clumb up to the crosstrees and jumped overboard. It was a mighty slick passing. I'm here to state!'

'Weel, weel, weel, I never!' breathed Mr. Glencannon in amazement.

'Why, sure you never!' beamed the Prophet. 'I reckon it all sounds strange to you, brethren, because you don't understand our religion. Well, it's a danged good religion. I'm the boss of it, back in Savannah. I wrote it all myself.' And helping himself to a sizable snifter of corn whisky, he raised his cup, bowed politely and tossed it oif,

'Dawg-gone!' he exclaimed. 'That there's the stuff for your bunions! How does it set with you, gents?'

'It's vurra deleecious,' said Mr. Glencannon. 'It tastes a wee bit like petroleum, only sweeter.... But aboot yere releegion, sir, ye interest me. I'm a member o' the kirk in gude standing, and a bit o' a theologian mysel', so I wonder wad ye just briefly expound yere doctrines for my benefeet?'

'Well, they're pretty complicated,' said the Prophet guardedly. 'Besides, we don't want no Scotchman in our religion, anyway.'

'Oh!' said Mr. Glencannon, gagging as the corn whisky reached his tonsils, and therefore failing to feel the kick which Mr. Montgomery landed on the bulge beneath his deck chair. By the time he had finished his drink and refilled his cup, the Prophet was telling Captain Ball about the ship.

GUY GILPATRIC

187

'Why, sho, she's one of the oldest and fastest ships afloat!' he declared. 'She was a clipper, built to run the blockade out of Charleston during the war, and '

'The war? Weil, that ain't so long ago,' chimed in Mr. Montgomery.

'Aye,' agreed Mr. Glencannon, taking his nose out of his cup and feeling to see if his moustache was on fire. 'I reecall the war as though it were yusterday!'

'From 1863 to now ain't long? And you, Mr. Scotty— you say you can remember it? Oh, why, hell, boys, it's the Civil War I'm talking about— the American War of the Rebellion, not the German War.'

'Oh,' said Mr. Montgomery. 'A bit of a family brawl, so to s'y. Well, I 'adn't never 'eard of it.'

'No, you wouldn't of, you being a limejuicer,' said the Prophet, deep pity in his voice. 'But I'll tell the world it must 'a' been some war jest the same! Why, if you look sharp along them bulwarks and deck-houses, you can still find canister shot and minnie balls under the paint and pry 'em out with your knife. Yes, sir'— and his eyes twinkled strangely— 'we've found some mighty funny things aboard this here old ship!'

Mr. Glencannon, engaged in further experimentation with the liquor, had heard comparatively little of this discourse. At about this time, as a matter of fact, he was surprised to find himself floating in a silvery fog through which voices filtered strangely. He peered curiously at the distance-dimmed faces to see if this sudden separation of his astral and physical selves was occasioning comment, but observing that the company was too busy having another drink to bother about such minor psychic phenomena, he banished his fears and joined them. It was really very pleasant, albeit a trifle confusing.

Once he was conscious of singing 'Scots wha hae wi' Wallace bled' through all its several verses. Again, he realized that a whiskery giant was weeping upon his shoulder and that the whiskers tickled his ear.

There was a lapse of time, and then, magically, the scene shifted. He was seated at a table around which were Captain Ball, Mr. Montgomery, and four men with long beards.

A negro, similarly bearded, but wearing a gingham apron over his black robe, was serving fried chicken smothered in a creamy white sauce, and pouring a colourless liquid out of a jug. The chicken was delicious. The liquid tasted something like petroleum, only sweeter.

'Yea, verily!' boomed a thundering challenge out of nowhere. 'We Americans can outsail, outfight, outdrink and outspit any other nation on the face of this earth!'

'Amen!' came a basso response from three black figures seated in a row. 'Amen and hallelujah!'

'A hoonderd poonds ye're wrong!' cried somebody, springing to his feet. 'Though ye trimmed us at sea, ye domned Yankee, I'll bet ye five hoonderd o' yere ain dollars that ye canna do it again, and you to arrange the details!'

Mr. Glencannon was about to applaud these stalwart sentiments, but then, too late, he realized that the voice was his own, and that, instead of springing to his feet, he had merely fallen into the mashed turnips.

iii

MR. GLENCANNON was awakened by someone shaking him violently, and he opened his eyes to find himself in his room aboard the Inchcliffe Castle.

'Come, wyke up!' said a voice which he recognized as that of the mate. 'Wyke up! You 'aven't any time to wyste, you 'aven't!'

With difficulty managing to disengage his tongue from the roof of his mouth, 'Any time to waste for what?' he inquired thickly. 'What is the necessity for a' the roosh and boostle?'

'Why to get ready for the ryce— the life-boat ryce you challenged the Prophet to larst night!'

'Life-boat race? Why, mon, ye're daft! Whatever are ye talking aboot?' Mr. Glencannon sat bolt upright and then abruptly lay down again.

'Well, it's you who's daft, if you arsks me,' shrugged Mr, Montgomery. 'Nobbut a cryzy man would 'ave challenged them gryte 'airy aypes to a rowing ryce and bet a 'undred pounds on it, like you did!'

'A hoonderd poonds?' repeated Mr. Glencannon weakly. 'Ah, noo, noo, Muster Montgomery, let's get this straight. I dinna reecali a word of itl'

It appeared, from the mate's explanation, that the race would be rowed over a course from the basin entrance to the Anse des Catalans light-buoy and back; that Mr. Glencannon and the Prophet Ezekiel would act as coxswains of the respective crews; that the craft used would be two identical lifeboats furnished by the Inchcliffe Castle, and that the race would start promptly at two p.m.

'Yuss, and you agreed to it yourself larst night,' insisted Mr. Montgomery. 'Orl 'ands of both ships 'as been betting on it since morning. It's 'arf arfter twelve now' so you'd jolly well better be picking your crew and getting ready, you 'adl'

'Whoosh!' said Mr. Glencannon, rising with a Spartan effort. ' 'Tis vurra plain that with a hoonderd poonds at stake I must summon a' my keenest faculties.' And reaching under his bunk, he dragged forth a bottle of Duggan's Dew of Kirkintilloch, filled a tumbler to the brim and drank it without a flicker of an eyelash.

'There!' he said, smacking his lips. 'I shall noo pull on my troosies and set my intellect to work. Meanwhile'— and he bowed his head and gnawed thoughtfully at his moustache— 'meanwhile, Muster Montgomery, I'll thank ye to order Number 1 lifeboat lowered into the water richt away, and to have Number 3 let doon so's it's exactly opposite the loading door on the poort side. Stand by till I give ye the word to lower it the rest o' the way.'

'Right-ol' said Mr. Montgomery, stepping briskly out on deck and blowing his whistle. Then, having given his orders, 'Strike me if I don't believe 'e's sunk this time!' he chuckled. 'Even that Scotch 'ighw'yman can't swindle his w'y past a boat-load of ruddy seven-foot 'Erculeses!'

But later that afternoon, as he stood with the cheering crowd upon the pier head, he changed his mind— yes, and cursed himself for having bet his money on the Flaming Chariot's crew. Even though the racing craft were still beyond the Vieux Port, it was evident that the Castle's was well in the lead. Through his glasses, Mr. Montgomery could see that the men were pulling along swiftly, easily, and that Mr. Glencannon, standing in the stern sheets with the tiller between his knees, was fortifying his strength with copious draughts from a quart bottle. Several similar bottles, he observed, were in circulation among the oarsmen.

As the boats approached the finish line, the bearded giants were jaded, weary and sore beset. The Prophet Ezekiel, garbed in his flowing robes, raised voice and arms in futile effort to goad them on.

'Row, row, ye shuddering sinners!' he stormed. 'You, Shadrach, fer the love o' tunket put some beef into it! Hep! Stroke! Hep!... Wake up, Zeruiah, wake up, gol dang it, before I take this here tiller and flail the livin' wamus off'n ye!'

But his eloquence was of no avail. Leisurely the Inchclijfe Castle's boat crossed the line a dozen lengths in the lead.

As it did so, Mr. Glencannon turned, struck an attitude, and with a sweeping gesture thumbed his nose at his vanquished rivals. Then, reacting to the strain of it all, he took a final swig from his bottle and collapsed into the boat.

'Well, I never seen the like, sir!' said the crestfallen Mr. Montgomery. ''Ow in the world 'e ever myde that crew o' Liverpool riffraff row like so many Hoxford and C'ymbridge hexperts is a fair miracle to me!'

'Yes,' chuckled Captain Ball knowingly, 'but you never want to forget, Mister Mate, that when it comes to miracles, Mr. Glencannon 's a pretty handy chap to have about.'

'But 'ow did 'e do it, that's orl I asks— 'ow did 'e do it?'

'Huh!' Captain Ball snorted. 'Why, when you was up there standing by for his word to lower Number 3 into the water, what do you s'pose he was doing through that loading door— fishing for bloaters?'

'I 'aven't the fyntest notion wot 'e was doing,' sulked Mr. Montgomery.

'Well,' whispered Captain Ball, glancing cautiously about him, 'he was lashing a big steel ash bucket to Number 3's keel— that's what he was doing! Why, it was a regular sea anchor! It set up a drag in the water under that boat like towing a busted bass drum!'

'Lawks!' gasped Mr. Montgomery. 'An arsh bucket! W'y, a team o' blooming lorry 'orses couldn't myke any speed dragging that!'

'No, nor neither could them whiskery psalm-singers,' agreed Captain Ball. 'Maybe it'll learn 'em some sea manners!'

'It's learned me my lesson about Mr. Glencannon, anyw'y,' said Mr. Montgomery ruefully. 'Arfter I've forked out for my bets, I'll go below and 'ide my 'ead in shyme until the ruddy Flyming Chariot puts to sea. And I 'opes they sinks on their w'y to Barcelonia!'

NEXT morning bright and early, Mr. Glencannon strolled along the Quai du Port and turned into the sunshine which flooded the broad Rue Cannebiere. There was a smile on his face and a song in his heart, for in the wallet directly over it reposed a portly packet of American bank notes.

'Weel,' he chuckled, 'it a' goes to prove ye dinna need whuskers to be sagacious! And it also proves that it's a costly pastime to gae aboot insulting decent people on the high sea. And noo I shall mak' arrangements for sending my winnings hame to Scotland.'

Turning into the banking offices of the Credit Marseillaise, he made known his wishes and presented his notes at the grilled window.

The cashier moistened his thumb on a sponge and prepared to count the neat stack of tens and twenties. Suddenly he paused, frowned, looked up.

'Monsieur,' he announced coldly, 'this money is not good!'

'Not good?' repeated Mr. Glencannon, grasping the marble ledge for support. 'Ah, noo, mounseer, this is no occasion for humour! Ill thank ye to cease yere leevity and do as ye're bid.'

'It is not an affair of the drollery,' insisted the cashier. 'Have the goodness to regard, monsieur— why, one can easily see for one's self!' He pushed the bills back to Mr. Glencannon. 'Read, monsieur — read there carefully what is printed.'

With trembling fingers, Mr. Glencannon picked up a bill and examined it. Across the top, in large letters, was engraved 'Citizens' Bank of Atlanta, Georgia,' and then, smaller, on the line below, 'Confederate States of America.'

'Weel, I'll be domned,' he murmured weakly. 'That old Yankee swundlerl'

Then into his mind came a vague and tantalizing half memory, obscured by a strange silvery fog. He tried to summon the rest of it, but it eluded him. He shook his head sadly.

'It's a' vurra peerplexing,' he sighed. 'Vurra peerplexing indeed. But, yes, I do seem to recall somebody, somewhere, saying something aboot an American Ceevil War. A-weel'— and he stuffed the bank notes into his pocket and turned toward the door— 'I fancy there's nowt to do but gae oot and find a pub where they haven't heard the war news.'

___________________

3: The Seringapatam Medal

T. C. Bridges

Thomas Charles Bridges, 1868-1944

Western Herald (Bourke, NSW) 2 Sep 1949

British author born in Bagnères-de-Bigorre, Hautes-Pyrénées, France, and raised in the UK. In the late 1880s he moved to Florida, and in 1894 returned to the UK. He lived on Dartmoor with his wife from 1900, and a number of stories, including this one, are set there. He wrote under several pseudonyms, including Sexton Blake stories. He wrote many children's stories, and many non-fiction articles.

'A CONVICT escaped to-day from Dartmoor,' came the voice of the radio announcer. Janice Pelton dropped her book on her lap and listened eagerly. Even her husband, busy polishing something with a piece of chamois leather, turned to listen.

The voice went on: 'He was one of the breakfast orderlies who rise early to serve the meal for the other prisoners and it is believed that he climbed the sixteen foot wall that surrounds the prison yard at about five a.m. At any rate it was home time before his escape was discovered. His name is Kerry, and he is known as Red Kerry from the colour of his hair. He was serving a five year sentence for burglary with violence.'

'Burglary with violence,' repeated Janice, who was a slim, upright little woman with fair hair and brilliantly blue eyes. 'Oh, Bill, and you still have the medal in the house. Why in the world didn't you put it in the bank as I asked you?'

'Don't worry, old thing, ' said Bill indulgently. 'Red Kerry isn't coming to Narracombe. The odds are he has already stowed away in a goods train on his way to Bristol or London.'

'You can't possibly tell,' his wife retorted. 'Why, only last year a convict broke into a house at Postbridge and frightened an old woman nearly out of her wits.'

'We'll lock up good and tight tonight, Janice,' Bill promised.

Janice was not consoled.

'I shan't sleep a wink,' she declared. 'That medal it too valuable in a lonely house like this.'

'But no one knows about it,' Bill replied.

'Hugh Scovell knows and you have not forgotten how angry he was that Uncle Godfrey left it to you instead of him. And I'm quite sure that fat, dark man who came here in the big car and asked if we had any old prints to sell  was after it.'

'Fact is, I hate to have it out of my sight, darling. Isn't it a lovely thing?' asked Bill enthusiastically holding out a large medal of solid gold.

On one side was shown the British lion at the throat of the Indian tiger; on the obverse was a beautiful little engraving of the city of Seringapatam. This was the Seringapatam gold medal of which only five or six cast.  It had been awarded to Bill's great great grandfather who had been a general in the East India Company's service, and was Bill's proudest possession.

Janice barely glanced at it. 'Lock it up, Bill, at once.'

Bill rather reluctantly put the medal back into its, case, placed the case carefully in the top right-hand drawer of his desk, locked the drawer and put the key in his pocket.

NARRACOMBE, the Pelton's home, stood in the valley of the West Dart. It was a pleasant little house with some sixty acres of grazing and quite a good garden. Bill and his wife were both country folk sand the place suited them perfectly. It had been left to them by Bill's uncle, Godfrey Pelton, together with the land, and the furniture, and a nice little income of £500 a year.

Hugh Scovell, Bill's bachelor cousin, who lived a dozen miles away, inherited £10,000, so it would seem he had not much to complain of.  But because he was older than Bill and because he had a greedy disposition he was much annoyed that Bill had been left the family heirlooms. Bill disliked him cordially, and saw as little of him as possible.

The Peltons' servants were a married couple, Frank and Annie French, Frank worked on the farm and garden, Annie in the house. They lived in a cottage at some little distance from the house.

The wireless news ceased, to be followed by dance music.

'I'm going to bed, Bill' Janice continued. 'Mind you see to all the doors and windows. Specially those at the back of the house.'

'Right you are,' said Bill. 'I'll have my nightcap, then I'll come up.'

As Janice left, Bill mixed a whisky and soda, drank it slowly, then, pipe hi mouth, went round the ground door, seeing to doors and windows. Last of , all he came to the front door, which opened into the hall sitting-room. It was his habit to have a look at the weather last thing sit night. He opened the door and glanced up at the sky, but there, was not much to be seen, for the night was cloudy and exceedingly dark. As he turned to come in again he heard a movement close by.

Then it seemed to him as if the roof had fallen on his head and for some time earthly affairs ceased to interest him. When he came to himself he was sitting in his own chair, tied hand and foot and gagged with a handkerchief. His head ached so abominably that it was difficult to open his eyes. When at last he managed to do so the first thing he saw was a man busy opening the drawers of his desk. The light was poor for there was no electricity in Narracombe and Bill had left only one small lamp burning, yet this was enough to show Bill that the intruder wore a badly made, very muddy grey suit and that his hair was of the colour commonly known as 'carrots.' Red Kerry without doubt, and Bill groaned as he realised that Janice had been right and he wrong. Now the fellow had his keys and would get not only the money in the desk— a matter of five or six pounds— but also the medal.

The convict heard the groan and chuckled callously.

'Groan as much as you please,' he remarked. 'It won't do me no harm. And don't worry about your woman. She ain't hurt but she's locked in her room. As he spoke he found the medal.

'Lumme, here's a bit o' luck,' he continued as he. weighed it in his hand.  'Twenty quids worth o' gold.' He thrust it, and the money into his pocket. 'Now I'll 'ave a drink and a mouthful o' grub and a suit o' your clothes, and push along. Your folk'll loose you in the morning.'

As Red turned Bill noticed that he had a handkerchief tied across the lower part of his face. Did the fellow really imagine that disguise of that sort was any good? His hair alone identified him. It nearly broke Bill's heart to think that the brute would almost certainly melt down that priceless medal. Nor was it any help to think how Janice would reproach him. Though she wouldn't say so. Janice was just as proud as Bill himself of the heirloom. And Bill, gagged as he was, could not even remonstrate with the thief.

It was at this moment that Bill say the front door being pushed quietly open. Bill's heard gave a jump. This must be a warder, for no one else would be about at this time of night. The medal would be saved after all.

It wasn't a warder. The head that poked in was covered with the Tam O'Shanter cap that convicts wear and the hair beneath it was almost scarlet. As for the face, it was the grimmest Bill had ever sighted and was not improved by thick red stubble on cheeks and chin and a huge smear of black peaty mud across the forehead. A second convict was the double of the first. Bill began to doubt his sanity.

The newcomer saw Bill and gave him one quick stare, then his greenish eyes settled on the first lag with an expression of such ferocity as made Bill's blood chill. Busy with the whisky decanter, and with his back turned, lag Number One had not yet seen Number Two. Nor had he heard the door open.

'Oo are you?' remarked Number Two in a deep, harsh voice and as the first lag whirled the other was on him. Number One ducked, dodged and made desperately, for the open door. He hadn't a hope. The second man caught him before he could reach it, tripped him, and the two went to the floor together with a thump that made the lamp flame jump and shook the whole house.

'Open up!' demanded Number Two, but, since he had the other by the throat, the only answer was a despairing gurgle. Bill was nearly frantic. Janice would be scared to death. She would, of course, think that he— Bill— was the victim. He struggled furiously to free himself, but the only result was to upset his chair and land himself on the floor with a force that nearly knocked his remaining senses out of him.

He had just enough left to realize that Convict Number Two had choked the other into insensibility and was going through his pockets. First he found the money which clearly gave him great satisfaction, then he discovered the medal. He looked at is a moment with evident interest, then shook his head and flung it on the table.

'I ain't taking no medals, mister,' he said to Bill, then seeing Bill's predicament, he got up, strode across and lifted him and the chair together. His strength was enormous.

Then he ripped away Bill's gag.

'I dunno 'oo this bloke is,' he said. He showed large white teeth in a fierce grin. 'Now I wants grub and a change. Tell me where I can get 'em and I'll turn you loose afore I goes.'

'Food in the kitchen. Clothes in the left hand room at the top of the stairs. And, Red, my wife's locked in the bedroom on the opposite side of the passage. Tell her I'm all right, will you?'

'I'll let her out,' Red promised and hurried into the back of the house to find the promised food. He looked as if he needed it.

The passage door had hardly closed behind him before the front door opened for a third time, and Bill could hardly believe his eyes when he saw Janice hurry in, followed by a prison officer.

'Oh, Bill, has he hurt you?' Janice cried as she flung her arms round her husband. The guard was gazing at the man on the floor.

'Looks as if this is the chap who's got hurt,' he said drily. Then for the first time he spotted that Bill was tied. He looked amazed but had sense left to produce a knife and cut the cords.

'Don't ask me,' Bill answered his inevitable question. 'I went outside on to the porch, got knocked on the head, and when I came round I was tied up like this. Someone must have come in while I was asleep and laid that blighter out. Was it another warder?'

The man shook his head.

'It weren't no-one from the prison,' he replied. 'It couldn't be. I'm the only one within two miles. Your lady, she got out the window and found me on Huccaby bridge and fetched me.'

'That was splendid of you, Janice,' said Bill, so warmly that Janice blushed.

The officer went on, 'Well,  I've got my chap and if you're all right, I'll take him back where he belongs. They'll be pleased to see him. May I borrow your car, sir? I'll take good care of it, and you shall have it again in the morning.'

'Certainly,' said Bill promptly.

A FEW MINUTES later he and Janice watched the tail light of the car disappear up the steep road. Then Bill began to chuckle. The chuckle became a laugh, the laugh a roar.

Janice shook him.

'Bill, don't be so aggravating! Stop it. What are you laughing about? What really happened?'

'It— it wasn't Red at all,' gurgled Bill. 'It— it was Hugh.'

'Hugh— Hugh Scovell?'

'Nobody else. And— that guard didn't know him. Thinks he's Red Kerry. He— Hugh will have a grand time, explaining. In fact, I don't see how he can explain. And I'm sure I'm not going to do it for him.'

He went off again, laughing till tears ran down his cheeks. Janice at last was beginning to understand.

'You mean to tell me that Hugh dressed up as a convict and wore a red wig in order to steal the medal?'

'That's it, old thing. He must have planned it the minute he heard.'

'But— who— who knocked him out?' demanded Janice.

'The real Red! You ought to have seen him.  And the real Red is a sportsman. Janice. He wouldn't take the medal, and he pulled the gag out of my mouth and promised to let you loose. He'd have done it, too, I'm, sure.'

'Where is he now?' asked Janice.

'A mile away by this time, I expect. Good luck to him, say I.'

Then at last Janice laughed. 'I hope so, too,' she declared. 'But Bill, to-morrow, as soon as you get the car, that medal goes to the bank in Plymouth.'

'It does,' said Bill. 'And you come too, and we'll celebrate. After all, it was you who really turned the trick.'

_____________

4: The Slatter Case

T. C. Bridges

Queanbeyan Age and Queanbeyan Observer (NSW) 10 Oct 1919

Featuring some thinly disguised place names. Moorlands Prison is Dartmoor Prison; the River Arrow is the River Dart; Arrowmeet is Dartmeet; Okestock is Okehampton; Chaddercombe is Widecombe.

CAPTAIN Wreford, Deputy-Governor of Moorlands Prison, sat alone in the big bare office. His chief, Colonel Peyton, was away on leave, and all the cares of the great penal establishment were upon his shoulders. The post was just in,  and Captain Wreford was steadily opening letter after letter. At last he came to one addressed to himself. He slit the envelope with the paper-knife which he held in his strong, square hand, and took out a sheet of stiff-looking paper, with the familiar "Home Office" heading.

"Dear Wreford," he read. "You remember that Slatter conspiracy case. New and important evidence has come to light, and it begins to appear that young. Philip Holmes, whose evidence was so strongly discredited at the time, may have been right after all. He, if you recollect, was Slatter's junior partner, and at the time was believed to have had knowledge of the swindle which Slatter was perpetrating, although he swore that he was completely ignorant of what was going on. He was the only one of the four prisoners who was not actually sentenced, but he left the Court under the shadow of suspicion, and what has become of him no one knows.

"But that is by the way. What is to the point is that a new trial has been asked for by Mr. George Holmes, Philip Holmes' uncle, and that the new evidence which he brings forward justifies this. But the issue will undoubtedly hang on what can be got out of Raper, Slatter's chief clerk, who is at present under your care at Moorlands.

"I want you to send him to London at once. Put him in charge of a good man, and deliver him at Brixton not later than the evening of the 18th.

"Yours sincerely,

"Frank L. Arran."

Captain Wreford read the letter, through twice. "H'm! I was never quite satisfied about that case," he said, thoughtfully. "I remember how straightly young Holmes gave his evidence. And yet the end of it was that though he was not sentenced, he went out of court a ruined man. By Jove, I'd like to hear the new trial."

He broke off suddenly.

"It's getting decidedly dark!" he exclaimed, and almost as he spoke there came a low heavy rumble like a loaded cart crossing an iron bridge.

"Thunder, by Jove " His face grow suddenly anxious. "I hope they've got the farm parties in." He touched a bell by his side, and a moment later the door opened and a broad-shouldered, soldierly-looking man in dark-blue entered the room. On his shoulders were the brass letters P.W., which meant that John Cullen, once a private in Captain Wreford's own regiment, had now attained the coveted rank of Principal Warder .

"Cullen," said Captain Wreford, "are the parties coming in?"

"Yes, sir. I heard the whistles a moment ago." Suddenly the window blinds began to flap and rattle violently. Cullen sprang to close the windows.

"It's coming, and no mistake, sir," he said. "Some of 'em will have wet jackets before they get in."

"Ah, here's the first of them," he added, as a long line of convicts in their red and blue working slops came tramping in at the main gate.

"Cullen!" The warder went back to the table.

"You know that man Raper?" said 'Captain Wreford.

"Yes, sir."

"He has to go to London to give evidence at a trial. I wish you to take him up to Brixton to-morrow.

"Very good, sir."

There was a blinding flash of lightning, and the whole building shook with the crash of the thunder which it let loose. Next moment the rain blotted out everything.

Captain Wreford snatched an oilskin from a peg on the wall: "I must go and lend a hand," he said, quickly. "Come, Cullen."

Through the rush and roar of the storm, party after party of soaked and bedraggled convicts came hurrying in, herded by warders in streaming oilskins. Searching for once was omitted. Only the roll was called, and as fast as it could be humanly managed the men were swept off to their cells.

"All correct! All correct!" Time after time the familiar phrase announced that the tally was complete; until the last party of all was being counted. There was a pause, and the face suddenly drawn and anxious.

"What is it, Macey?" demanded the Deputy. sharply.

"I'm a man short, sir," answered Macey, in a low voice.

"A man short! Who is it?"

"Raper, sir."

"Raper!" repeated Wreford. "Raper! Heavens, what ill luck! I had rather that any other man in the prison had escaped."

The brimming puddles flashed to spray under the flying wheels of Captain Wreford's two-seater as the swift little car flew down the long straight road towards the River Arrow. The Deputy had got upon Raper's track with the least possible delay. He had ascertained, that the man must have slipped out of the gang at the very moment, when the storm broke.

A convict named Murton, who had a grudge against Raper, had volunteered the information that a car had been seen to pass slowly along the road a little before the storm broke, and that Raper, who was working next him, had watched it eagerly. Further evidence was obtained that, during the storm, a car which was probably the same, had driven through the village of Moorlands, and had turned to the north along the main road leading to Okestock. It was almost certain that Raper had escaped in this car. As Wreford's own car was capable of fifty miles an hour, he had every hope of overhauling the fugitive before he reached Okestock, fourteen miles away.

The car, lightly braked, fled swiftly down the long hill. The clouds had broken and the sun was drawing steam from the soaked moor, and as they neared the bottom this formed a thin haze over the valley. The car had almost reached the level when Cullen gave a sudden cry.

"Brake, sir! Brake! The bridge is down."

Down went Wreford's foot, and at the same time he flung the hand brake forward into its last notch. The little car rocked dangerously, and for a moment it seemed that she would turn right over. But Wreford held her, and she came to rest with her front wheels on the very arch of the bridge and not a dozen feet from the gap in its centre which the mist coils had for, the moment  completely hidden.

Wreford drew a long breath.

"Good thing you saw it, Cullen. That's about as close a call as I want!"

He sprang out, went to the edge of the gap, and looked over into the roaring depths below.

"There's no crossing this," he said.

Cullen shook his head. "I don't see what we can do, sir, except go back and try the bridge at Arrowmeet."

"What's the use of that?" I snapped the Deputy. "It's twelve miles round if it's an inch. Raper would be at Barnstaple or Ilfracombe before we reached Okestock."

"Then I'm afraid we're done in, sir," said Cullen.

It was at this moment that a head appeared above the stone wall bordering the road, and a man came scrambling over. He wore an oilskin coat and carried  a fishing rod.

"Have you seen a car pass?" asked Wreford, quickly.

"Yes," replied the other, pushing back his hat and showing a young and rather pleasant face, and a pair of steady grey eyes. "A large black American car went over just before the flood carried the bridge away."

"He's done us," said Wreford, bitterly, glancing at Cullen.

"A convict escaped?" questioned the stranger.

"Yes," Wreford answered, ruefully. "A man called Raper. And the deuce of it is that he will probably get clear away."

The other had come a step nearer. His face was suddenly eager.

"He'll have made for Okestock," he said, keenly. "Can't you wire and have him stopped? I can describe the car."

"I've tried to telephone," Wreford told him. "But the wire crosses the bridge here and of course has gone with it."

"So it does. I'd forgotten," said the other, quickly. "But if you could get to Chaddercombe Post Office it would be all right."

"Chaddereombe!" repeated Wreford testily. "Chaddercombe's a mile the other side of this internal flood."

"I know," replied the other, quietly. "But only a mile. You wouldn't need the car to get there."

Wreford stared at the man. "How are you going to cross this?" he demanded, pointing to the flood; which boiled like a hungry beast through the ruins of the central arch.

The stranger stared thoughtfully at the sliding avalanche of water, at the same time laying down his rod.

"Got any petrol tins?" he asked.

"Yes, I've got two spare tins at the back."

"Empty them and let me have them," said the other, at the same time laying down his rod.

"What the deuce are you going to do with them ?" demanded Wreford.

"They're as good as a cork jacket any day," answered the young fellow, calmly.

"You mean to swim that river?" gasped Wreford. "Why, you're crazy."

"I don't think so. I'm willing' to try, anyhow." As he spoke he was peeling off his coat.

Cullen came close to the Deputy.

"Let him try, sir," he whispered. "I know him. He's young Mr. Perry from Craycott. The same as fought and beat Billy Baines from the Silver Dagger Mine last Christmas."

Wreford shrugged his shoulders. "You can try if you like." he said to Perry. "But I won't be responsible for such lunacy."

"I don't ask you to," said Perry, calmly. "Give me the tins."

His preparations were soon complete. Stripped to shirt and trousers, he roped the two tins firmly around his body, one at his back and one in front. Climbing back over the wall, he waded into the shallow edge of the flood. Wreford stared at him with beating heart.

Three, steps, then Perry was in to his waist, and in an instant the river had him and whirled him away like a straw.

"It's madness, Cullen!" groaned Wreford. "It's murder."

But Cullen was already over the wall and running down the bank, and the Deputy followed. Perry was fifty yards away. The petrol tins held him in the water, but even so the risk was frightful. The river bed was a mass of rocks, and though these were now hidden, their presence was indicated by enormous spouts of tawny foam.

He was in the very centre of the torrent and travelling so fast that the two men on the bank could hardly keep abreast. Perry was fighting hard, trying to force himself out of the  central rush, and gain slacker water under the far bank.

"Look! Look, sir!" cried Cullen. "He's out of the worst!"

He was right. Perry was fighting like a demon. Wreford could hardly breathe as he watched the battle. The river seemed like a wild beast, endeavouring to drag the brave swimmer back into its clutches.

"He'll never do it," muttered Wreford again.

"He will, sir. He will. You watch him," cried Cullen.

Wreford could not share Cullen's confidence. Perry was flashing down stream again at fearful speed. And just beyond, the river narrowed between high banks into a boiling gut set with huge boulders. Nothing with breath in it could possible survive the passage of that race.

"Go it, Mr. Perry," roared Cullen. At that moment Perry made his supreme effort, and the torrent, suddenly tired of its cruel game, flung the stout swimmer sideways. Wreford, hardly able to believe his eyes, saw him clinging with both hands to a clump of thick rushes under the far bank.

"He's done it! I told you he would, sir," shouted Cullen, almost beside himself with excitement.

Wreford drew a deep breath but did not speak. His eyes were on Perry, who was now drawing himself up out of the water. They saw him gain his feet and untie his petrol tins. Then he waved his hand, and set off at a rapid pace across the moor.

Wreford turned to Cullen: "As plucky a bit of work as ever I saw, Cullen. And now we must leave the rest to him, and you and I had best get back to the prison."

WREFORD'S feelings for the rest of that long afternoon were not enviable. It is never good for a Governor to lose a prisoner, but in this case the prisoner was one of such importance that there would be serious trouble ahead if he had really got away.

Darkness was falling and, he was back in his own house when' a servant came in.

"A gentleman to see you, sir. Mr. Perry, his name is."

Cullen sprang up and went out into the hall. There stood Perry.

"Sorry to be so long," he said, "but we had to come a long way round."

"But Raper— what about Raper?" demanded the Deputy.

"Oh, he's in the car outside with a policeman," answered the young man, calmly.

"You've got him! But how?"

"I was coming out of the post-office at Chaddercombe when a car drove up. A big Rolls with two men touring. I told them what was up, and like good sportsmen they volunteered to help. So we drove on to Okestock and there he was. The local police had had my message and collared him and his pal too."

Wreford breathed a sigh of relief.

"Splendid!" he said. "I can't say how grateful I am to you. But talk of sportsmen, I think your feat this afternoon was the most sporting thing I ever saw or heard of."

Perry shook his head, and smiled. m .t "Don't give me too much credit," he said. "I was at least as keen on catching the fellow as you were."

"You!" exclaimed Wreford. "Why? What have you to do with Raper?"

"Quite a lot," replied the other, in his quiet drawl. "You see my full name happens to be Philip Perry Holmes. It's only since I came to live on the Moor that I have dropped the last name. And I hope it won't be long before I may sign it again as I used to."

Wreford put out his hand.

"My dear fellow," he said, cordially. "You can't wish it more fervently than I."

__________

5: Lost: A Millionaire

Anonymous

Millthorpe Post (NSW) 23 Feb 1901

"MRS. COLLINS-COX is in the waiting-room, wd desires to see you immediately, sir," said one of the men, entering the room where I was in conversation with the chief at Scotland Yard.

"Collins-Cox, Collins-Cox?" repeated the chief. "Isn't that the great American millionaire, who has recently settled in London?"

"Yes, sir."

"Show her in at once. Wiseman, you remain for a time."

A few seconds later Mrs. Collins-Cox came quickly into the office, and the door closed after her. She was a pleasant looking lady of seven or eight and twenty. Clearly, she was greatly excited about something.

"Sir," she cried, coming forward, suddenly, "I've lost my husband! He has disappeared."

"Since when ?" asked the chief, beckoning her to a chair.

"Since yesterday evening."

" Oh," he said, smiling, "I should not worry about that, madam. No doubt he will come back safely. Did he not say he was going?"

"Oh, it's not that, sir, that frightens me. It is this, which I received a little while ago!" and ehe drew from her hand-bag a small cardboard box, and dropped it upon his desk.

My chief took the box, opened it, and abstracted its contents— a letter, and a small packet. Leaning over his shoulder, I read the words of the former:

Dear Madam,

Rest assured that your husband is right and safe, so long as you don't attempt to find him. If you do, you will regret it. He desires me to send you the enclosed cheque (£10,000) which you are to change and convey in cash to us after our instructions. You will go to the bank, cash the cheque, put the money in a hand-bag, and to night, at eight sharp, when it is dark, you will go to Cross Street, Whitechapel, and pat the bag against the railings of No. 17, exactly where you find a white cross on, one of the flags. You will go alone, and act secretly all through. It is your husband's, wish, for the successful issue of our plan means his life. If the money falls into wrong hands, your husband will write us another cheque, which you will cash and bring to us. So you will save  yourself trouble by seeing it doesn't, and following our instructions.

When we have the money, your husband will return. Put the bag down on the white cross, and walk a way. quickly. You will be followed; and if you don't walk away, or if you look back, or there is anyone spying about, you will be a widow within two hours. Be careful, therefore. To betray us is to betray yourself and Mr Collins-Cox. Meantime, we enclose first instalment of your husband to show we mean business,—

Charlie Kidnapper and Co., Ltd.

The chief next took the small packet, undid the paper, and suddenly recoiled from it. It was a human finger, cut from the socket, and, wearing a plain gold serpent ring.

I took up the finger, and examined it very carefully.

"Do you recognise this finger and ring to be your husband's?" I asked.

"The ring, certainly, but I can't be sure of the finger. Men's fingers are so much alike."

"Hum! Do you remember what— er— yes, what finger Mr. Cox wore this ring upon?"

"The third finger of his left hand always."

"Then calm your fears, madam; a million chances to one this not your husband's finger, since it is the second of some hand. Of course, it may be genuine. But I don't think so. Your husband has been kidnapped.

"Do you wish me to take up this matter?" I asked, turning to my chief. He nodded, and I turned to Mrs. Cox.

"Go to the bank, cash the cheque, and return home, where you will find me. You must do this, because you are probably being watched. Stop a bit, though, madam! Have you the cheque with you?"

"Yes, it's here in my purse."

I took it from her, and crossed to the window, to examine it. It was made out payable to Mrs, Cox, on a sheet of ordinary note-paper. The body was written out in one hand with a steel pen, and the signature was in another.

"Are you sure the signature is all tight?" I asked of Mrs. Cox.

"As far as I know, it is," she answered, "but I could not say for certain, though I attribute the dissimilarity from his usual signature to his being nervous when he wrote it."

"It is dissimilar?"

"Yes, my husband wrote a very firm hand, and that is rather shaky."

"Well, madam, please do, what I tell you. Go to the bank, and meet me at your house. Let me lend you this black hand-bag. It will suit your purpose."

With that I took up my hat, and went off.

I walked down Carlton House Terrace to the Cox's house. To the footman who answered my summons I said I wished to see Mr. Cox's valet, and in a few moments this lordly gentleman came to me with a mixed manner of cordiality and condescension. In a short time Mrs. Cox returned.

"I guess I shall go mad before this day is out," said she as she came into the room, followed by a man carrying my hand-bag.

" Oh, no," I said, cheerfully. "I want to see yon alone."

She dismissed the man and then; sank into a chair.

"Yes, I've got the money, after the greatest difficulty," she said, answering my look. "But have you discovered anything? "

"Yes, two things." I replied. " I want these things : A piece of cream note-paper— get it from your cook— a steel pen, ink, and a specimen of your husband's signature. Please get these things yourself, and let no one know. New, tell me— who is in this house?"

"Myself— you mean usually? Well, Mr. Cox, myself, the secretary, three male and fire female servants."

"They all live here?"

"Except the secretary— yes."

"This gentleman, has he been in your employ long?"

"Three years."

"We might get some information from him, perhaps. However, for the present, I'll see no one. Will you please get me those things?"

Mrs. Cox went out, and returned in a few minutes with what I had asked for.

I smiled as I saw the note paper. Though it was not the same make, it was very like what had been used for the cheque for £10,000.

" What are you going to do?" Mrs. Cox asked.

"I can't do much until eight o'clock, so I I'm going to try a little experiment."

I took from her the specimen of her husband's signature, and examined it. From my pocket-book I drew a piece of tracing-paper, and this laid upon Mr. Cox's signature, which I went over carefully some thirty-or forty times. Then I took the sheet of note paper and calmly forged the millionaire's name, making a queer little curl at the tail of the "x" similar to what I had noticed in the signature of the £10,000 cheque, which was not to be seen in the specimen signature of Mr. Cox before me.

Mrs. Cox watched me, with an air of profound mystification, as I put the sheet of paper, bearing only the name, "C. Collins-Cox," upon the table, and covered it up in such a way that, no other part of the paper was visible.

"Now," I said, "you will be good enough to summon everyone in the house, and let them remain in the next room until I call them?"

She went away, and a few minutes later returned, saying that everyone was in the room adjoining the one in which I sat.

"Very well, then. I want them to come in here one at a time. Begin with the secretary."

"Ask Mr. Stainer to come here," said Mrs. Cox.

Mr. Stainer came. He was a tall, gentlemanly man of thirty, wearing gold-rimmed spectacles.

"Of course," I said to Mrs. Cox, in an undertone, but loud enough to be heard, as he came forward, "if it's genuine you must change it, and do as instructed.  It will cost you a cool ten thousand pounds, but that can't be helped.

"Mr. Stainer," and I turned to him quickly, " can you tell me if this is Mr. Cox's signature?"

"Yes, it is."

"Be sure, please. It's a highly important matter. Look at it closely," He leant .over it, and examined it like a near-sighted man for a minute. I watched him, noticing his hands trembling and his lips twitch nervously.

"Yes," he said, quietly. "I'll swear to  that. But I fancy he was unwell when he wrote it, for it is very shaky for Mr. Cox."

All the others were brought in in turn, but no one else was able to identify the signature.

"I want a cab," I said, smiling.

A cab was called, and I went out and gave the driver a note, with instructions to take it to the Yard and await an answer. Then I returned to the room, and drew Mrs. Cox aside.

"Don't breathe a word to anyone," I said; "but does it not strike you as strange that the man who best knows your husband's writing should be the one to say most emphatically that my forgery was written by. your husband?"

"Yes," she said, in a whisper.

Ten minutes later, the cab returned and landed one of our men. He was shown in to me; and at my request, all the servants were recalled. When they were assembled, I turned to our man and said

"Chambers, you will remain in this house until nine o'clock to-night. You will allow no one but Mrs. Cox to leave while you are here, and you will see that nothing whatever in passed out of the house, by anyone to anyone, and  that no communication whatever is held by the inmates with outsiders, not even with trades-people. You will make it your duty, if anybody— I say anybody— attempts to break these rules, to immediately arrest them. You understand?"

"Yes."

At this Stainer looked the picture of confusion, and very pale.

"I shall be here at seven o'clock," I said, in a whisper, to Mrs. Cox. "Have an old dress, cloak, and hat of yours ready for me, and a room at my disposal, if you please."

Then to Chambers I said, in the same tone, "Pay particular attention to Mr. Stainer. He interests me."

And then I came away.

AT ABOUT half-past seven the same evening, a woman, tall, agile, and well but quietly dressed, with a' rather thick veil that hid her face, which, for the first time for eighteen months, had been denuded of a brown silken beard and moustache, left Mr. Cox's house in Carlton House Terrace, and, walking to Waterloo Place, got into a cab. She gave the driver an address, with instructions for it to be reached by a roundabout route, and placed beside her on the seat of the cab a black hand-bag.

The cab eventually stopped in Oxford Street. The woman sprang out, paid the driver, and hurried eastward. Presently she encountered four or five cabs plying for hire at the curb. With a quick glance around her, she sprang into one of these, gave the driver an address through the roof-trap, and the cab rolled off at a quick rate.

The cab rattled eastward— past Newgate, the Exchange, through Fenchurch Street, and finally pulled up a few yards from a small beershop in Whitechapel.

The woman alighted, paid the cabman, and crossed to the other side of the road, whereof our laborers were standing talking together. She went up, and held an animated conversation with them for a few minutes. Then the four men moved off in different directions, leaving the woman standing alone in the shadow of a doorway. Here she remained until a neighboring clock struck eight, when she issued from her hiding-place, and turned down a by-street.

The street in which she now found herself was narrow, dark, and deserted. The light was barely sufficient to enable the woman to see a white cross upon a flagstone in front of No, 17, and upon this she put the hand-bag she carried.

The moment she had done so, she started to run down the street, but she did not run far, turning very sharply into the deep shadow of a projecting wall. From there she could see up and down the street, the mysterious house, and the hand-bag.

The house was apparently empty. Not a light was there in any window. She was attentively watching the windows of No. 17 for an indication of life, when she heard a strange grinding sound that made her start. No one was to be seen. Everything was exactly as it had been before, except that the bag had gone! Vanished!

"Fool!" she cried, "I might have guessed it!"

Running out of hiding, she drew a police whistle and blew it thrice, and then set about to examine the flagstone. Yes, the cement around it was in loose powder. Someone had shifted the flag; someone in the cellar below, and the bag was gone and the flag pushed back.

There was no area door, so the only way to gain admittance to the house was by the front door. She flung herself against it again and again. But it resisted all her efforts. And she stopped to consider. At that moment a laborer ran up.

"It's all right," he said. "We've got him, bag in hand. He had laid his plans well for a quick escape at the back, and he ran into my arms as we entered. The house is quite empty."

"Oh, are you sure?" I asked, for, of course, the agile female was myself,

"Perfectly certain. The house is absolutely empty of everything and everyone."

"Ah, then I think I can understand. Get me a cab, and take the chap to the station in another. Charge him— but how can you? Stop! Charge him with being found upon enclosed premises with burglarious intent, That'll do for the time. Ha! ha!"

Two cabs were procured. In one we put our prisoner— a well-dressed ,man of a pronounced American type— between two of my Scotland Yard laborers, and sent him to the local station. The second cab l took myself, and in it I drove to Carlton House Terrace.

When I arrived at the Cox's I found the footman just paying off another cab.

"Oh, then Mr Cox has returned?"

"Yes, sir. Just this moment arrived."

"Where's Mr. Stainer?"

"Your friend has him locked in the pantry. He arrested him by, your instructions half an hour ago."

Running up the steps, I pounced sight upon Mr. and Mrs. Cox locked in each other's arms. He wore an air of mystification, while she was simply bubbling over with delight.

"What does all this mean?" asked Mr. Cox, turning upon me. "It's mystery upon mystery! Who is this woman?"

"This woman," I replied, "is Detective-Sergeant Wiseman, of New Scotland Yard, who has just discovered one of the neatest little plots invented. Your secretary's a genius—"

"I don't understand," he said, looking at me as if he fancied I was playing a joke at his expense.

"You had a telegram yesterday?" I asked.

"Yes, which took me to Paris on a wild goose chase. Someone has been making a fool of me. The telegram purported to come from an old friend in Paris, and requested me to go to him there without moment's delay or a word to anyone. I did go. His name was not known at the hotel. I cabled to New York, and had an answer to say my friend was there and well, so I came back. What does it mean?"

"It means this," I answered. " It means that your secretary and two men—one of whom is now in custody, the other probably in Paris— plotted to fleece you of £10,000. Your secretary forged your name on a sheet of note-paper which was made out as a cheque for £10,000, payable to your wife. This is a large sum, and the chances of getting such a cheque honored at a short call were remote, unless the person offering it could satisfy the bankers it was all right. How to do this set the plotters wondering, until they hit upon the grand scheme of getting your wife to change the cheque."

And then I recounted to him our adventures and their result.

"The kidnapping idea was introduced in order to frighten your wife, and the finger, which was that of someone else adorned with one of your rings, which your secretary found in your bedroom, was calculated to further unnerve her.

"Madam," I concluded, turning to Mrs. Cox, with a slight evidence of justifiable pride, " I congratulate you upon coming to Scotland Yard. You have proved me with the only really interesting case I have had for years."

Two of the conspirators were duly punished, but the third was never discovered.

___________________

6: Dixon's Theories

Val Jameson
fl. 1900-1920s

Muswellbrook Chronicle (NSW) 26 Nov 1910

DIXON AND CRABBIT, two elderly pioneers, held a fourth interest each in the "Rainbow," a copper-show of uncertain value. Uncertain because, despite the precious time and labour expended on its development by the partners, the shaft failed to deepen beyond 50 feet.

The other shareholders, Cox and Wilton, were employed on capitalist mines on the same field, sharing their wages with Dixon and Crabbit to protect their own show. Otherwise they would have been forced to abandon it for want of capital.

Any new-chum could buy the "Rainbow" cash down for five hundred pounds, and the quartette syndicate would have been individually satisfied with the deal. It was not prudent on the Duffersdorp copper field to send your shaft down too quickly as the lodes or shoots had a characteristic of perishing out when least expected, leaving the rash proprietor to scratch his thinking poll and use hard Australian swears. For his chance of effecting a sale would then be up a tree.

Grown wise by the experience of others, Dixon and Crabbit scratched the surface and toned at the windlass without increasing the size of their dump, sending down when unobserved the stone that had been raised, and carefully avoiding the strip of grey copper ore that lay exposed at the bottom.

At first Dixon did the shepherding work alone and Crabbit paid in his share of the backing from his wife's earnings. Mrs. Crabbit took in washing, a lucrative business on mining fields, so lucrative that a married woman could support a husband and large family in comfort. Relieved of the necessity of filling the family bread basket, Crabbit could pass his time luxuriously smoking and lounging on hotel seats.

One day he strolled over to the "Rainbow" and behold Dixon stretched under the shade of a gum-tree, smoking and enjoying a fascinating "Deadwood Dick."

As he gazed at the placid countenance of the idler, Crabbit's breast burned with indignation and envy Here was a man doing nothing at the rate of thirty shillings a week. Allowing his wrath to evaporate in tobacco, fumes, he wisely left without entering a protest.

On the following Monday morning he was busily fussing around the dump when Dixon leisurely turned out of his tent to commence his day's work. Contracting his bushy eyebrows and frowning heavily Dixon watched the sandy head of Crabbit disappearing down the ladders.

He strolled up to the dump and thrust his head over the shaft—

"What're you doin' here?"

"Work!" retorted the man below, driving his pick into the "face" with terrific energy for such a puny arm.

Black wrath spread over Dixon's countenance as he again bellowed—

"What for?"

"Thirty bob a week!" came the reply from the pit.

"Yer'd be more use helpin' the missis at the wash tub than you are here!" snarled Dixon.

"You come down 'ere an' say that!" retorted Crabbit, whirling the pick over his head.

"Come oop an' face me an' I'll give ye more than  ye want of it.  An' mind  this, Crabbit, I'm ready for yer." He shook his fist menacingly at the upturned face below.

Crabbit, though small, was plucky. He promptly climbed to the surface and entered into a pugilistic duel with evident relish. He danced round his less nimble antagonist, backing and darting, till suddenly he shot forth a puny fist and met the patriarchal nose of Dixon.

It was a telling blow. Blood flowed freely. Maddened with vengeful ire Dixon made a savage lunge, but, with a quick movement and rearward shove, Crabbit dodged the attack and laid his adversary sprawling on the dusty ground.

"Satisfied now?" he said, as the stumpy figure resumed the perpendicular with obvious reluctance to resume the combat.

"I'm satisfied about your fists, Mr. Crabbit, but I don't give much for your theories."

Victorious Crabbit could afford to be magnanimous. Dixon was nursing his nose in a voluminous handkerchief.

"Your opinion of my theories can stand over for the present," he replied, turning toward the shaft.

"If you'd only fight fair, a man 'ud nave a better chance," growled the vanquished hero, "On'y cowards strike from the rear."

"Well, keep your nose to the rear next time, said Crabbit, mischievously.

The affair settled Crabbit's right to work his own share without the interference of Dixon. Inflated with the pride of conquest, he assumed managerial airs.

"You'd better make a start on that drive, Dixon. I s'pose you know there's ten ton of ore to be got out."

"Don't you make any mistake, Crabbit; you're not comin' here to boss me! I know nothin' about this ten ton."

"Cause you didn't attend the meetin' on Saturday night."

"Meetin' or no meetin'," said Dixon, "while I'm a shareholder in this mine no motion concernin' the workin' of it shall pass without my consent."

"You lazy old scoundrel!" said Crabbit. "So long as you can git thirty bob a week loafin' round the dump, your troubles 'bout makin' the show pay."

Dixon took refuge in dignified silence, lit his pipe, and seated himself on a log.

"Take it easy, old man," said Crabbit, squatting affably beside him. "Two can play at this game."

Five minutes afterwards the pair were in the throes of an argument on how to run Australia on Dixon's theories, and the chances of the ore being got out were as remote as ever.

Dixon, in appearance, could have posed for an illustration of one of the old Hebrew patriarchs. Long, high-bridged nose, white bushy eyebrows, deep-set piercing black eyes, long beard, and a benevolent smile. He also had fang-like teeth, but these were only exhibited when getting the worst of an argument. His fatherly air and benevolent smile created a favourable impression on Mrs. Crabbit and the young Crabbits.

He had a habit of finding himself at their hessian dwelling-place just as a meal was in progress. Feigning surprise he would apologise profusely for intruding at such a time, but he so enjoyed a chat with Mrs. Crabbit who understood his theories. '

His insinuating flattery met with success every time. Mrs. Crabbit pressed him to a seat at the table and helped him as liberally as her bettor half to the good things of the meal. Crabbit glanced sourly askance at these hospitable attentions, but dared not murmur. His wife was a woman who asserted her independence, having earned it at the wash-tub. The immaculate white collar and shirt worn on Sundays when in the role of churchwarden Dixon promenaded with the collection-plate was a further proof of the good woman's sympathy. The patriarch was cutely conscious of the social and political advantage obtained by associating himself with the one and only church.

At last the long-hoped-for prospective buyer arrived, equipped with leggings and the air of an expert. An expert was always revealed, in the opinion of the Duffersdorp, by his leggings. An expert minus leggings was no expert at all.

This particular expert happened on the two working partners of the "Rainbow" in the midst of an argument. Crabbit, supported by his shovel, had talked him self sheer out of wind, and could only shake his head at the gesticulating eloquence of Dixon.

"Hello! down there!" interrupted the stranger.

"What's that?" Both looked up, startled.

"Who's the owner of this show?"

"I'm your man," responded Dixon, promptly ascending the ladders.

"That's me!" chirped Crabbit, close, at his heels.

Reaching the surface, they sandwiched the stranger in eager attention, one on each side.

"I'm here with a view to purchase," he explained, with an air of importance. '"This show has been recommended as a promising proposition. I s'pose you'll let mo get a look into the lode?"

"Cert'nly," replied the partners in a breath, and promptly escorted the alleged expert down the ladders.

"You've a good wide lode," observed tho stranger, proving by his error that ho was as innocently green in the knowledge of geological formation as tho country rock he was gazing at.

"That's country rock, sir," explained Crabbit, forgetful of prudence in his desire to air his superior knowledge.

Dixon rewarded this blunder with a sly sharp kick on the shin.

"Country rock be blowed!" he thundered. "This is the best lode on the field. My mate here has not much experience of mines, sir, an' doesn't know the meaning of country rock."

"H'm!" commented the stranger, suspiciously. "That so?"'

But Crabbit's shin was smarting, and Dixon's bumptiousness was past endurance.

"Don't be misled by that conceited ignoramus, sir. I'll quickly show you which is lode and which is rock."

Dixon tapped his forehead significantly to indicate a shortage in his mate's mental faculties, but Crabbit pointed out the seam of ore four inches wide on one side of the shaft, passing under their feet, and dipping narrower still on the opposite side.

"That, sir, is copper ore. All the rest is country rock taking its colour from the metal."

Dixon waxed furious. "Don't pay any attention to the ravings of that lunatic."

"I'll give you lunatic!" menaced Crabbit.

"Good-morning!" said the stranger, scrambling up the ladders. "When you've settled the matter between you, I'll call again. But I'm afraid the country rock is too mixed in this locality."

"There!" exclaimed Dixon, as the stranger's leggings vanished from the mouth of the shaft, "you've done it, idjit. Gone an' lost the only chance we've had with your vile temper;"

Shortly after this event the copper market experienced a slump. The "expert" left the district without purchasing any of the "shows," and things looked very glum, indeed for Duffersdorp. Many of the men who had been holding on in tho hope of selling lost heart altogether, forfeited their claims, and left for the wallaby track again.

Among the deserters were Messrs. Cox and Wilton, who expressed themselves tired of working a "dead horse." Dixon and Crabbit were then in sole possession of the "Rainbow," But the loss of thirty shillings per week affected them far more than their increased interest in the claim. It simply  spelt I disaster lip the patriarch, who had no devoted wife to manipulate the suds for his support.

After much persuasion, a local, storekeeper agreed to provide him with "tucker" in exchange for a lien on his share, and advised the partners to sink another ten feet while waiting for the market to recover.

"To my mind," he said, "the bally lode looks more likely to come in than pinch out. No use being faint-hearted over it. 'Neck or nothing' is my motto. You try it."

Following this advice, they tried it, and, alas! it resulted in nothing. There was neither neck, body, or limbs to the lode. It simply expired, vanished, was not a mere stringer threading the rock.

One day Crabbit was tenderly carried home on a bush ambulance, in a state of collapse brought about by a mysterious explosion while he was descending the shaft.

After the local doctor had discovered no serious injury to Crabbit's anatomy and supplied him with a tonic to soothe his shattered nerves, the invalid aired his views of the catastrophe to his sympathetic wife.

"Oh, Teeny! Teeny! I warned you aginst that old Snider. You guv him such a warm welcome 'ere that 'e tried to pot me 'an slip into my shoes. I understand 'is theories now. I'm dyin', Teeny, I know it, for all the doctor says I ain't. I 'ope you'll be 'appy with the old fiend. Don't let him get a hold of your purse or 'e'll pot you too!"

Mrs. Crabbit mopped the tears from her eyes, after this affecting speech.

"Let 'im come near this house again an I'll scald 'im with boilin' suds, the old scoundrel."

At that moment the patriarchal face itself peered cautiously in through the open door.

"I can't tell you how distressed I feel at this painful accident. Your dear husband—"

"Get out o' this!" shrieked the invalid. "Where's the boiler suds, Teeny?"

Taking the hint, Dixon speedily removed his features from reach of the threatened deluge.

The affair was much talked of amongst the men, around tho campfires and in groups down tho street, and suspicion rested on the patriarch, though accidents with explosives often happen in mines, yet the suspicion of foul play whispered abroad, combined with the disappearance of a portion of the church funds, caused a strong feeling of aversion against hitherto popular Dixon. A hint of "drumming-out," the prospectors' summary method of dismissing undesirable citizens, reached Dixon's ears, and to avoid this penalty, he decided to quit unrequested.

The only lament following his unostentatious exit came from the local storekeeper, victimised by debt.

________________

7: The Witness

Thomas Cobb

1854-1932

World's News (Sydney) 31 May 1924

British novelist and short story writer.

AFTER the delightful quarter of an hour, during which Jimmy Willmer had settled everything so satisfactorily with Muriel, the inevitable interview with Mrs. Merridew seemed like an anti-climax.

Muriel had met him with engaging frankness. There had been no false shame about her. She was a frank-looking girl, who had recently passed her twenty-first birthday, fair-haired, blue-eyed, and, wonderful as it appeared, she created the impression that she was as pleased as Jimmy himself. Still, there remained Mrs. Merridew.

"I think it will be the best for me to tell mother," Muriel had said, and the same evening a letter was brought to his rooms by hand, making an appointment for three o'clock the following afternoon.

Mrs. Merridew had four daughters and had succeeded in providing eligible husbands for three of them. She looked dignified and severe, ensconced behind a small round table on which stood a crimson cyclamen in a pot. Jimmy had not felt so nervous since the day he conducted his first case at Quarter Sessions. Mrs. Merridew began by remarking that his income at present must be a negligible quantity.

"And," she continued, "how can I feel certain that your grandfather will not withdraw your allowance?"

"Oh well," said Jimmy, "he's not very likely to do that, you know."

"Still, it is quite conceivable," she persisted, "and I have to consider my duty to Muriel. What guarantee have I that Mr. Willmer will leave you his money, old and crotchety as he is?"

Silting on the other side of the cyclamen, Jimmy was beginning to feel humiliatingly small. Mrs. Merridew seamed bent on crossing the t's and dotting the i's. If it had not been for the war, no doubt, he might have become self-supporting by this time, but, in any case, it was ridiculous to insinuate that his grandfather, who had providei for him since the death of his paier.ts years ago, would leave him in the lurch.

Mrs. Merridew, for her part found herself in a difficult position. Granting that old Mr. Willmer made Jimmy his heir, Muriel would do even better than any of her sisters, but still, her mother preferred a bird in the hand.

"I can only say,'' she concluded, "that you ought to have been more patient. This weather is exceedingly treacherous, even to the young. But. assuming that Mr. Willmer countenances your engagement, I shall raise no objection, though it must be distinctly understood there is to be no question of marriage till your fortune is perfectly secure."

IT WAS unfortunate that old Mr. Willmer entertained a dislike for Mrs. Merridew. It was true that he had not seen any member of her family during the last three years, he was seventy-five, but took such excellent care of himself that he might, and Jimmy sincerely hoped that he would, live for another decade. He seldom Ieft his house in Sloane Crescent during the winter months, and this evening he was sitting before the drawing-room 'fire, having just finished his after-dinner pipe.

"More fool you!"

Such was his exclamation on hearing Jimmy's momentous news.

"The Merridews are a scheming, mercenary crew. I've known Mrs. Merridew for years— knew her unfortunate husband. She has an eye for nothing but the main chance."

"You can't say that of Muriel," answered Jimmy.

"What's bred in the bone!" Mr. Willmer persisted. "I can't argue. If it were not for my money, she wouldn't. look at you."

"Upon my word," said Jimmy, "it's ludicrous to speak of Muriel in that way. You have only to see her face. Suppose I bring her on Sunday afternoon."

Mr. Willmer's grunt wars taken for assent, but. on Saturday morning Jimmy received a few lines from his grandfather to the effect that Tuesday would suit him better. They reached the house at four o'clock, when the butler smiled in a friendly vray on Jimmy and took them to the drawing-room.

Mr. Willmer. tall, very little bent, cleanshaven, carefully dressed, was standing on the hearthrug, with his back to the fire. As he held out his hand, he looked scrutinisinsjly at Muriel through his spectacles and came to the conclusion that she was the more dangerous because of her peculiarly frank, ingenuous expression, which might easily deceive such an impetuous young man as Jimmy. Mr. Willmer. however, was too experienced to be easily deceived, and, well, Jimmy would see!

Mr. Willmer made no reference to the engagement, though he played the courteous host. He went as far as to ask Muriel to pour out the tea, asked after her mother and sisters, talked of books and plays, though he had not been at a theatre for years, but gradually grew silent for longer and longer interval?.

Jimmy was keeping a close watch upon his grandfather. The old man soon tired. Every week seemed to make a difference. But although his visitors had obviously stayed long enough, it was greatly to be desired that he should say something in acknowledgment of the engagement, so that Muriel might make a satisfactory report of the interview to her mother.

Jimmy, of course, knew that everything would turn out quite, all right. It was " true there had never been any explicit promises about the future, but he had been dependent on Mr. Willmer since his fifteenth year, and there was no doubt that his allowance would be increased so that he might be married within a reasonable time.

Nor was it to be questioned that in due course he would come into a very comfortable income; and, in fact, as he sat before the fire, with one eye on Mr. Willmer and the other admiringly on Muriel, he felt little fear about the future.

Mr. Willmer's chin had dropped on to his chest, and he had not spoken for some time, when Jimmy rose from his chair. He was till, well-built, good-looking, and, as he stood by Muriel's side, they made a gallant pair. He rested his hand on her arm and she glanced smilingly into his race.

"I think it's time we were off," said Jimmy. "Dmi't trouble to get up," he added, as Mr. Wilmer slowly rose.

"No trouble. Jimmy, no trouble." The old man seemed to become suddenly wide awake.

"Goodbye, Mr. Willmer," said Muriel, holding out her hand, of which, however, no notice was taken.

"One moment, one moment," cried Mr. Willmer.

The recess on the left of the fireplace was filled by a nest of bookshelves, and when he shuffled towards it, Jimmy thought that he was going to lend Muriel one of the books about which they had been talking. But he took up a legal-looking document from the top shelf, and, with this in his hand, made.his way to a small table in the middle of the room.

"What have you got there?" asked Jimmy.

"To tell you the trurh," was the answer, "I've been making a new will. It only reached me an hour or two ago, and I thought that, perhaps. Miss Merridew would not mind witnessing it."

She looked rather startled. Mr. Willmer's age appearing to give the making of a will a certain painful significance. Jimmy, for his part, felt surprised at the request.

"What are you going to do?" exclaimed Mr. Willmer, as his grandson went to ihe bell

"I thought I would ring for Jenkins."

"Jenkins! Why in the world should you ring for Jenkins?"

"There must be two witnesses, you know," said Jimmy, "and they must both be present while you sign As Muriel is to he one, I thought Jenkins would do for the other."

"No, no," replied Mr. Willmer. "You ought to know that a beneficiary under a will can't act as a witness. I have left Jenkins a small legacy. Naturally, after all these years."

"Quite." said Jimmy.

Mr Willmer had his back to the others as he stood by the table untying the red tape and spreading the document out before liim. while Muriel moved some of the ornaments to make room for it.

"You and Miss Merridew will do perfectly." he said.

That was the most trying moment of Jimmy's life. He saw that, since he was a competent witness, he must be left out in the cold. He thought of Mrs. Merridew and saw trouble ahead, and at the same time strove to show no sign of disappointment.

As Mr. Willmer took a fountain pen from his waistcoat pocket and removed the cap, Jimmy pushed forward a chair.

"Thank you. Jimmy. Thank you," said the old man, sitting down. Having adjusted his spectacles, he leaned forward and slowly signed his name, afterwards "holding out the pen to Muriel. "I don't know whether you can write with it," he added.

"Very nicely, thank you," she answered. "Where am I to put my name?"

"Show Miss Merridew, Jimmy!" Jimmy indicated the place.

"You must put your address," suggested Mr. Willmer. "And your occupation."

She was leaning over the table, and now, with the pen in her hand, she turned her head, gazing into his face.

"I'm afraid 1 haven't one," she said.

"Write 'spinster,'" answered Jimmy. She made a bewitching grimace at the word and presently handed him the pen.

"Mind you write nicely, Jimmy, dear!" she whimpered.

Having written "James Carew Willmer. Barrlster-at-law," and added his address in the Middle Temple, Jimmy carefully replaced the cap on the pen before returning it to his grandfather, then solemnly said 'Goodbye.' And as soon as he was outside the house, took Muriel's arm. explaining, to her astonishment, what his attestation signified. They would both have felt considerably nore astonished, however, if they could have seen what Mr. Willmer was doing at the moment.

Standing on the hearthrug, he took the recently executed will in his hands and lore it across, then, putting the halves together, tore them again, finally placing the fragments on the top of the fire, and holding them down with the poker till they were entirely consumed.

He began to look forward with intense impatience to Jimmy's next visit. He always saw his grandson two or three times a week, and, as a matter of fact, he arrived on Friday late in the afternoon, looking scarcely the same man. The light had gone out of his eyes. His face was haggard, he looked like one who did not sleep of nights, and seemed to have nothing to say till, after an unusually short stay, he rose from his chair.

"I may as well tell you and get it over," he blurted out. "My engagement's off. Mrs; Merridew has been putting her foot down. She doesn't consider I am in a suitable position."

"Ah!" said Mr. Willmer significantly.

No doubt Muriel had told her mother that Jimmy had witnessed the will, and Mrs. Merridew had understood what was implied... hence these tears! Now, Mr. "Willmer was almost tempted to reassure Jimmy, but felt afraid lest he should defeat his own end. If Muriel and Mrs. Merridew learnt that the will had been destroyed, Jimmy would again be caught in their toils.

Although Mr. Willmer reminded himself that he had been cruel only to be kind, he could not help reproaching himself when he saw Jimmy so woebegone during the ensuing: two or three weeks. He came to Sloane Crescent as regularly as usual, seeming determined that his grandfather's conduct should make no difference to his own. but he had little to say for himself. Men have died from time to time, but not for love. Mr. Willmer consoled himself by the assurance that Jimmy would soon recover from his disappointment, and, indeed, a difference shortly became perceptible. His cheeks filled out, his eyes shone, and Mr. Willmer chuckled.

He was sitting alone at six o'clock one evening when Jimmy was announced. Although the spring had come again, and Mr. Willmer wondered whether it was destined to be his last, the evenings were still cold and there was a good fire.

"By Jove! You look uncommonly comfortable in here!" cried Jimmy.

"Glad to see you," said Mr. Willmer. "Quite well? You look well, at all events."

"Top hole," answered Jimmy.

"Sit down,' "said Mr. Willmer, Lut his grandson remained standing, looking down at the old man, with his hands in his trousers pockets. "I've something to say to you; Jimmy."

"That's rather odd."

"Why?"

"Well, I've something to say to you."

"You recollect," suggested Mr. Willmer, "the afternoon you witnessed my will, I put it in the fire the moment you left."

"Good heavens, why did you do that?"

"I wasn't taking risks. Life's so certain, especially when a man's my age. My only object was to lead Miss Merridew to believe you had nothing to expect from me."

"You succeeded in that, anyhow," said Jimmy.

"As things have turned out," Mr. Willmer continued, "you'll admit the ruse was justified. I knew these people so well. I knew the girl would throw you over."

"It was Mrs. Merridew who chucked me," cried Jimmy.

"Anyhow, you're well out of it. I have only waited to tell you till there was no fear of renewing the engagement."

"Quite out of the question,"said Jimmy, with a grin. "To tell you the truth, Muriel's married."

"Good gracious! She hasn't lost much time. When did that take place? Asked Mr. Willmer.

"The end of last week. You see she didn't mind taking her chance."

"Whom with?" demanded Mr Willmer, sharply.

"Why, with me."

"What?" cried Mr. Willmer, starting to his feet.

"So on Friday morning," Jimmy explained, "we walked to the church just round the corner from the house and the knot was tied."

"Bless my soul!" ejaculated Mr. Willmer. "What did Mrs. Merridew say?"

"Say!" answered Jimmy. "Amongst other pleasant things, that she would never speak to either of us again."

"I'll write to her to-night," said Mr. Willmer. "When are you going to bring your wife to see me?"

"Well, I've brought her. She's waiting outside in a taxi."

"Good heavens, man, why in the world don't you fetch her in?" exclaimed Mr. Willmer, excitedly.

Jimmy was out of the room on the instant, and Mr. Wilmer was standing with his back to the fire when Mr. and Mrs. Jimmy Willmer entered. The old man held out his hands, and Muriel, running impulsively forward, threw her arms round his neck.

________________

8: A Matter of Interest

Robert W. Chambers

1865-1933

The Cosmopolitan Jul, Aug 1897

MUCH as I dislike it, I am obliged to include this story in a volume devoted to fiction: I have attempted to tell it as an absolutely true story, but until three months ago, when the indisputable proofs were placed before the British Association by Professor James Holroyd, I was regarded as an impostor. Now that the Smithsonian Institute in Washington, the Philadelphia Zoölogical Society, and the Natural History Museum of New York city, are convinced that the story is truthful and accurate in every particular, I prefer to tell it my own way. Professor Holroyd urges me to do this, although Professor Bruce Stoddard, of Columbia College, is now at work upon a pamphlet, to be published the latter part of next month, describing scientifically the extraordinary discovery which, to the shame of the United States, was first accepted and recognized in England.

Now, having no technical ability concerning the affair in question, and having no knowledge of either comparative anatomy or zoölogy, I am perhaps unfitted to tell this story. But the story is true; the episode occurred under my own eyes—here, within a few hours’ sail of the Battery. And as I was one of the first persons to verify what has long been a theory among scientists, and, moreover, as the result of Professor Holroyd’s discovery is to be placed on exhibition in Madison Square Garden on the twentieth of next month, I have decided to tell, as simply as I am able, exactly what occurred.

I first wrote out the story on April 1, 1896. The North American Review, the Popular Science Monthly, the Scientific American, Nature, Forest and Stream, and the Fossiliferous Magazine in turn rejected it; some curtly informing me that fiction had no place in their columns. When I attempted to explain that it was not fiction, the editors of these periodicals either maintained a contemptuous silence, or bluntly notified me that my literary services and opinions were not desired. But finally, when several publishers offered to take the story as fiction, I cut short all negotiations and decided to publish it myself. Where I am known at all, it is my misfortune to be known as a writer of fiction. This makes it impossible for me to receive a hearing from a scientific audience. I regret it bitterly, because now, when it is too late, I am prepared to prove certain scientific matters of interest, and to produce the proofs. In this case, however, I am fortunate, for nobody can dispute the existence of a thing when the bodily proof is exhibited as evidence.

This is the story; and if I write it as I write fiction, it is because I do not know how to write it otherwise.

I WAS walking along the beach below Pine Inlet, on the south shore of Long Island. The railroad and telegraph station is at West Oyster Bay. Everybody who has traveled on the Long Island Railroad knows the station, but few, perhaps, know Pine Inlet. Duck shooters, of course, are familiar with it; but as there are no hotels there, and nothing to see except salt meadow, salt creek, and a strip of dune and sand, the summer-squatting public may probably be unaware of its existence. The local name for the place is Pine Inlet; the maps give its name as Sand Point, I believe, but anybody at West Oyster Bay can direct you to it. Captain McPeek, who keeps the West Oyster Bay House, drives duck shooters there in winter. It lies five miles southeast from West Oyster Bay.

I had walked over that afternoon from Captain McPeek’s. There was a reason for my going to Pine Inlet— it embarrasses me to explain it, but the truth is I meditated writing an ode to the ocean. It was out of the question to write it in West Oyster Bay, with the whistle of locomotives in my ears. I knew that Pine Inlet was one of the loneliest places on the Atlantic coast; it is out of sight of everything except leagues of gray ocean. Rarely one might make out fishing smacks drifting across the horizon. Summer squatters never visited it; sportsmen shunned it, except in winter. Therefore, as I was about to do a bit of poetry, I thought that Pine Inlet was the spot for the deed. So I went there.

As I was strolling along the beach, biting my pencil reflectively, tremendously impressed by the solitude and the solemn thunder of the surf, a thought occurred to me: how unpleasant it would be if I suddenly stumbled on a summer boarder. As this joyless impossibility flitted across my mind, I rounded a bleak sand dune.

A summer girl stood directly in my path.

If I jumped, I think the young lady has pardoned me by this time. She ought to, because she also started, and said something in a very faint voice. What she said was “Oh!”

She stared at me as though I had just crawled up out of the sea to bite her. I don’t know what my own expression resembled, but I have been given to understand it was idiotic.

Now I perceived, after a few moments, that the young lady was frightened, and I knew I ought to say something civil. So I said, “Are there any mosquitoes here?”

“No,” she replied, with a slight quiver in her voice; “I have only seen one, and it was biting somebody else.”

I looked foolish; the conversation seemed so futile, and the young lady appeared to be more nervous than before. I had an impulse to say, “Do not run; I have breakfasted,” for she seemed to be meditating a plunge into the breakers. What I did say was: “I did not know anybody was here. I do not intend to intrude. I come from Captain McPeek’s, and I am writing an ode to the ocean.” After I had said this it seemed to ring in my ears like, “I come from Table Mountain, and my name is Truthful James.”

I glanced timidly at her.

“She’s thinking of the same thing,” said I to myself. “What an ass I must appear!”

However, the young lady seemed to be a trifle reassured. I noticed she drew a sigh of relief and looked at my shoes. She looked so long that it made me suspicious, and I also examined my shoes. They seemed to be fairly respectable.

“I— I am sorry,” she said, “but would you mind not walking on the beach?”

This was sudden. I had intended to retire and leave the beach to her, but I did not fancy being driven away so abruptly.

“I was about to withdraw, madam,” said I, bowing stiffly; “I beg you will pardon any inconvenience—”

“Dear me!” she cried, “you don’t understand. I do not—I would not think for a moment of asking you to leave Pine Inlet. I merely ventured to request you to walk on the dunes. I am so afraid that your footprints may obliterate the impressions that my father is studying.”

“Oh!” said I, looking about me as though I had been caught in the middle of a flower-bed; “really I did not notice any impressions. Impressions of what?”

“I don’t know,” she said, smiling a little at my awkward pose. “If you step this way in a straight line you can do no damage.”

I did as she bade me. I suppose my movements resembled the gait of a wet peacock. Possibly they recalled the delicate maneuvers of the kangaroo. Anyway, she laughed.

This seriously annoyed me. I had been at a disadvantage; I walk well enough when let alone.

“You can scarcely expect,” said I, “that a man absorbed in his own ideas could notice impressions on the sand. I trust I have obliterated nothing.”

As I said this I looked back at the long line of footprints stretching away in prospective across the sand. They were my own. How large they looked! Was that what she was laughing at?

“I wish to explain,” she said gravely, looking at the point of her parasol. “I am very sorry to be obliged to warn you— to ask you to forego the pleasure of strolling on a beach that does not belong to me. Perhaps,” she continued, in sudden alarm, “perhaps this beach belongs to you?”

“The beach? Oh, no,” I said.

“But— but you were going to write poems about it?”

“Only one— and that does not necessitate owning the beach. I have observed,” said I frankly, “that the people who own nothing write many poems about it.”

She looked at me seriously.

“I write many poems,” I added.

She laughed doubtfully.

“Would you rather I went away?” I asked politely.

“I? Why, no— I mean that you may do as you please— except please do not walk on the beach.”

“Then I do not alarm you by my presence?” I inquired. My clothes were a bit ancient. I wore them shooting, sometimes. “My family is respectable,” I added; and I told her my name.

“Oh! Then you wrote ‘Culled Cowslips’ and ‘Faded Fig-Leaves,’ and you imitate Maeterlinck, and you— Oh, I know lots of people that you know;” she cried with every symptom of relief; “and you know my brother.”

“I am the author,” said I coldly, “of ‘Culled Cowslips,’ but ‘Faded Fig-Leaves’ was an earlier work, which I no longer recognize, and I should be grateful to you if you would be kind enough to deny that I ever imitated Maeterlinck. Possibly,” I added, “he imitates me.”

“Now, do you know,” she said, “I was afraid of you at first? Papa is digging in the salt meadows nearly a mile away.”

It was hard to bear.

“Can you not see,” said I, “that I am wearing a shooting coat?”

“I do see— now; but it is so— so old,” she pleaded.

“It is a shooting coat all the same,” I said bitterly.

She was very quiet, and I saw she was sorry.

“Never mind,” I said magnanimously, “you probably are not familiar with sporting goods. If I knew your name I should ask permission to present myself.”

“Why, I am Daisy Holroyd,” she said.

“What! Jack Holroyd’s little sister?”

“Little!” she cried.

“I didn’t mean that,” said I. “You know that your brother and I were great friends in Paris—”

“I know,” she said significantly.

“Ahem! Of course,” I said, “Jack and I were inseparable—”

“Except when shut in separate cells,” said Miss Holroyd coldly.

This unfeeling allusion to the unfortunate termination of a Latin-Quarter celebration hurt me.

“The police,” said I, “were too officious.”

“So Jack says,” replied Miss Holroyd demurely.

We had unconsciously moved on along the sand hills, side by side, as we spoke.

“To think,” I repeated, “that I should meet Jack’s little—”

“Please,” she said, “you are only three years my senior.”

She opened the sunshade and tipped it over one shoulder. It was white, and had spots and posies on it.

“Jack sends us every new book you write,” she observed. “I do not approve of some things you write.”

“Modern school,” I mumbled.

“That is no excuse,” she said severely; “Anthony Trollope didn’t do it.”

The foam spume from the breakers was drifting across the dunes, and the little tip-up snipe ran along the beach and teetered and whistled and spread their white-barred wings for a low, straight flight across the shingle, only to tip and skeep and sail on again. The salt sea wind whistled and curled through the crested waves, blowing in perfumed puffs across thickets of sweet bay and cedar. As we passed through the crackling juicy-stemmed marsh weed myriads of fiddler crabs raised their fore-claws in warning and backed away, rustling, through the reeds, aggressive, protesting.

“Like millions of pigmy Ajaxes defying the lightning,” I said.

Miss Holroyd laughed.

“Now I never imagined that authors were clever except in print,” she said.

She was a most extraordinary girl.

“I suppose,” she observed after a moment’s silence—“I suppose I am taking you to my father.”

“Delighted!” I mumbled. “H’m! I had the honor of meeting Professor Holroyd in Paris.”

“Yes; he bailed you and Jack out,” said Miss Holroyd serenely.

The silence was too painful to last.

“Captain McPeek is an interesting man,” I said. I spoke more loudly than I intended; I may have been nervous.

“Yes,” said Daisy Holroyd, “but he has a most singular hotel clerk.”

“You mean Mr. Frisby?”

“I do.”

“Yes,” I admitted, “Mr. Frisby is queer. He was once a bill-poster.”

“I know it!” exclaimed Daisy Holroyd, with some heat. “He ruins landscapes whenever he has an opportunity. Do you know that he has a passion for bill-posting? He has; he posts bills for the pure pleasure of it, just as you play golf, or tennis, or squash.”

“But he’s a hotel clerk now,” I said; “nobody employs him to post bills.”

“I know it! He does it all by himself for the pure pleasure of it. Papa has engaged him to come down here for two weeks, and I dread it,” said the girl.

What Professor Holroyd might want of Frisby I had not the faintest notion. I suppose Miss Holroyd noticed the bewilderment in my face, for she laughed, and nodded her head twice.

“Not only Mr. Frisby, but Captain McPeek also,” she said.

“You don’t mean to say that Captain McPeek is going to close his hotel!” I exclaimed.

My trunk was there. It contained guarantees of my respectability.

“Oh, no; his wife will keep it open,” replied the girl. “Look! you can see papa now. He’s digging.”

“Where?” I blurted out.

I remembered Professor Holroyd as a prim, spectacled gentleman, with close-cut, snowy beard and a clerical allure. The man I saw digging wore green goggles, a jersey, a battered sou’wester, and hip-boots of rubber. He was delving in the muck of the salt meadow, his face streaming with perspiration, his boots and jersey splashed with unpleasant-looking mud. He glanced up as we approached, shading his eyes with a sunburned hand.

“Papa, dear,” said Miss Holroyd, “here is Jack’s friend, whom you bailed out of Mazas.”

The introduction was startling. I turned crimson with mortification. The professor was very decent about it; he called me by name at once.

When he said this he looked at his spade. It was clear that he considered me a nuisance and wished to go on with his digging.

“I suppose,” he said, “you are still writing?”

“A little,” I replied, trying not to speak sarcastically. My output had rivaled that of “The Duchess”— in quantity, I mean.

“I seldom read— fiction,” he said, looking restlessly at the hole in the ground.

Miss Holroyd came to my rescue.

“That was a charming story you wrote last,” she said. “Papa should read it— you should, papa; it’s all about a fossil.”

We both looked narrowly at Miss Holroyd. Her smile was guileless.

“Fossils!” repeated the professor. “Do you care for fossils?”

“Very much,” said I

Now I am not perfectly sure what my object was in lying. I looked at Daisy Holroyd’s dark-fringed eyes. They were very grave.

“Fossils,” said I, “are my hobby.”

I think Miss Holroyd winced a little at this. I did not care. I went on:

“I have seldom had the opportunity to study the subject, but, as a boy, I collected flint arrow-heads—”

“Flint arrow-heads!” said the professor coldly.

“Yes; they were the nearest things to fossils obtainable,” I replied, marveling at my own mendacity.

The professor looked into the hole. I also looked. I could see nothing in it. “He’s digging for fossils,” thought I to myself.

“Perhaps,” said the professor cautiously, “you might wish to aid me in a little research— that is to say, if you have an inclination for fossils.” The double-entendre was not lost upon me.

“I have read all your books so eagerly,” said I, “that to join you, to be of service to you in any research, however difficult and trying, would be an honor and a privilege that I never dared to hope for.”

“That,” thought I to myself, “will do its own work.”

But the professor was still suspicious. How could he help it, when he remembered Jack’s escapades, in which my name was always blended! Doubtless he was satisfied that my influence on Jack was evil. The contrary was the case, too.

“Fossils,” he said, worrying the edges of the excavation with his spade, “fossils are not things to be lightly considered.”

“No, indeed!” I protested.

“Fossils are the most interesting as well as puzzling things in the world,” said he.

“They are!” I cried enthusiastically.

“But I am not looking for fossils,” observed the professor mildly.

This was a facer. I looked at Daisy Holroyd. She bit her lip and fixed her eyes on the sea. Her eyes were wonderful eyes.

“Did you think I was digging for fossils in a salt meadow?” queried the professor. “You can have read very little about the subject. I am digging for something quite different.”

I was silent. I knew that my face was a trifle flushed. I longed to say, “Well, what the devil are you digging for?” but I only stared into the hole as though hypnotized.

“Captain McPeek and Frisby ought to be here,” he said, looking first at Daisy and then across the meadows.

I ached to ask him why he had subpoenaed Captain McPeek and Frisby.

“They are coming,” said Daisy, shading her eyes. “Do you see the speck on the meadows?”

“It may be a mud hen,” said the professor.

“Miss Holroyd is right,” I said. “A wagon and team and two men are coming from the north. There is a dog beside the wagon—it’s that miserable yellow dog of Frisby’s.”

“Good gracious!” cried the professor, “you don’t mean to tell me that you see all that at such a distance?”

“Why not?” I said.

“I see nothing,” he insisted.

“You will see that I’m right, presently,” I laughed.

The professor removed his blue goggles and rubbed them, glancing obliquely at me.

“Haven’t you heard what extraordinary eyesight duck shooters have?” said his daughter, looking back at her father. “Jack says that they can tell exactly what kind of a duck is flying before most people could see anything at all in the sky.”

“It’s true,” I said; “it comes to anybody, I fancy, who has had practice.”

The professor regarded me with a new interest. There was inspiration in his eyes. He turned toward the ocean. For a long time he stared at the tossing waves on the beach, then he looked far out to where the horizon met the sea.

“Are there any ducks out there?” he asked at last.

“Yes,” said I, scanning the sea, “there are.”

He produced a pair of binoculars from his coat-tail pocket, adjusted them, and raised them to his eyes.

“H’m! What sort of ducks?”

I looked more carefully, holding both hands over my forehead.

“Surf ducks—scoters and widgeon. There is one bufflehead among them— no, two; the rest are coots,” I replied.

“This,” cried the professor, “is most astonishing. I have good eyes, but I can’t see a blessed thing without these binoculars!”

“It’s not extraordinary,” said I; “the surf ducks and coots any novice might recognize; the widgeon and buffleheads I should not have been able to name unless they had risen from the water. It is easy to tell any duck when it is flying, even though it looks no bigger than a black pin-point.”

But the professor insisted that it was marvelous, and he said that I might render him invaluable service if I would consent to come and camp at Pine Inlet for a few weeks.

I looked at his daughter, but she turned her back— not exactly in disdain either. Her back was beautifully molded. Her gown fitted also.

“Camp out here?” I repeated, pretending to be unpleasantly surprised.

“I do not think he would care to,” said Miss Holroyd, without turning.

I had not expected that.

“Above all things,” said I, in a clear, pleasant voice, “I like to camp out.”

She said nothing.

“It is not exactly camping,” said the professor. “Come, you shall see our conservatory. Daisy, come, dear! you must put on a heavier frock; it is getting toward sundown.”

At that moment, over a near dune, two horses’ heads appeared, followed by two human heads, then a wagon, then a yellow dog.

I turned triumphantly to the professor.

“You are the very man I want,” he muttered; “the very man—the very man.”

I looked at Daisy Holroyd. She returned my glance with a defiant little smile.

“Waal,” said Captain McPeek, driving up, “here we be! Git out, Frisby.”

Frisby, fat, nervous, and sentimental, hopped out of the cart.

“Come!” said the professor, impatiently moving across the dunes. I walked with Daisy Holroyd. McPeek and Frisby followed. The yellow dog walked by himself.

ii

THE SUN was dipping into the sea as we trudged across the meadows toward a high dome-shaped dune covered with cedars and thickets of sweet bay. I saw no sign of habitation among the sand hills. Far as the eye could reach, nothing broke the gray line of sea and sky save the squat dunes crowned with stunted cedars.

Then, as we rounded the base of the dune, we almost walked into the door of a house. My amazement amused Miss Holroyd, and I noticed also a touch of malice in her pretty eyes. But she said nothing, following her father into the house, with the slightest possible gesture to me. Was it invitation, or was it menace?

The house was merely a light wooden frame, covered with some waterproof stuff that looked like a mixture of rubber and tar. Over this— in fact, over the whole roof— was pitched an awning of heavy sail-cloth. I noticed that the house was anchored to the sand by chains, already rusted red. But this one-storied house was not the only building nestling in the south shelter of the big dune. A hundred feet away stood another structure— long, low, also built of wood. It had rows on rows of round portholes on every side. The ports were fitted with heavy glass, hinged to swing open if necessary. A single big double door occupied the front.

Behind this long, low building was still another, a mere shed. Smoke rose from the sheet-iron chimney. There was somebody moving about inside the open door.

As I stood gaping at this mushroom hamlet the professor appeared at the door and asked me to enter. I stepped in at once.

The house was much larger than I had imagined. A straight hallway ran through the center from east to west. On either side of this hallway were rooms, the doors swinging wide open. I counted three doors on each side; the three on the south appeared to be bedrooms.

The professor ushered me into a room on the north side, where I found Captain McPeek and Frisby sitting at a table, upon which were drawings and sketches of articulated animals and fishes.

“You see, McPeek,” said the professor, “we only wanted one more man, and I think I’ve got him.— Haven’t I?” turning eagerly to me.

“Why, yes,” I said, laughing; “this is delightful. Am I invited to stay here?”

“Your bedroom is the third on the south side; everything is ready. McPeek, you can bring his trunk tomorrow, can’t you?” demanded the professor.

The red-faced captain nodded, and shifted a quid.

“Then it’s all settled,” said the professor, and he drew a sigh of satisfaction. “You see,” he said, turning to me, “I was at my wit’s end to know whom to trust. I never thought of you. Jack’s out in China, and I didn’t dare trust anybody in my own profession. All you care about is writing verses and stories, isn’t it?”

“I like to shoot,” I replied mildly.

“Just the thing!” he cried, beaming at us all in turn. “Now I can see no reason why we should not progress rapidly. McPeek, you and Frisby must get those boxes up here before dark. Dinner will be ready before you have finished unloading. Dick, you will wish to go to your room first.”

My name isn’t Dick, but he spoke so kindly, and beamed upon me in such a fatherly manner, that I let it go. I had occasion to correct him afterward, several times, but he always forgot the next minute. He calls me Dick to this day.

It was dark when Professor Holroyd, his daughter, and I sat down to dinner. The room was the same in which I had noticed the drawings of beast and bird, but the round table had been extended into an oval, and neatly spread with dainty linen and silver.

A fresh-cheeked Swedish girl appeared from a further room, bearing the soup. The professor ladled it out, still beaming.

“Now, this is very delightful!— isn’t it, Daisy?” he said.

“Very,” said Miss Holroyd, with the faintest tinge of irony.

“Very,” I repeated heartily; but I looked at my soup when I said it.

“I suppose,” said the professor, nodding mysteriously at his daughter, “that Dick knows nothing of what we’re about down here?”

“I suppose,” said Miss Holroyd, “that he thinks we are digging for fossils.”

I looked at my plate. She might have spared me that.

“Well, well,” said her father, smiling to himself, “he shall know everything by morning. You’ll be astonished, Dick, my boy.”

“His name isn’t Dick,” corrected Daisy.

The professor said, “Isn’t it?” in an absent-minded way, and relapsed into contemplation of my necktie.

I asked Miss Holroyd a few questions about Jack, and was informed that he had given up law and entered the diplomatic service— as what, I did not dare ask, for I know what our diplomatic service is.

“In China,” said Daisy.

“Choo Choo is the name of the city,” added her father proudly; “it’s the terminus of the new trans-Siberian railway.”

“It’s on the Yellow River,” said Daisy.

“He’s vice-consul,” added the professor triumphantly.

“He’ll make a good one,” I observed. I knew Jack. I pitied his consul.

So we chatted on about my old playmate, until Freda, the red-cheeked maid, brought coffee, and the professor lighted a cigar, with a little bow to his daughter.

“Of course, you don’t smoke,” she said to me, with a glimmer of malice in her eyes.

“He mustn’t,” interposed the professor hastily; “it will make his hand tremble.”

“No, it doesn’t,” said I, laughing; “but my hand will shake if I don’t smoke. Are you going to employ me as a draftsman?”

“You’ll know tomorrow,” he chuckled, with a mysterious smile at his daughter.— “Daisy, give him my best cigars; put the box here on the table. We can’t afford to have his hand tremble.”

Miss Holroyd rose, and crossed the hallway to her father’s room, returning presently with a box of promising-looking cigars.

“I don’t think he knows what is good for him,” she said. “He should smoke only one every day.”

It was hard to bear. I am not vindictive, but I decided to treasure up a few of Miss Holroyd’s gentle taunts. My intimacy with her brother was certainly a disadvantage to me now. Jack had apparently been talking too much, and his sister appeared to be thoroughly acquainted with my past. It was a disadvantage. I remembered her vaguely as a girl with long braids, who used to come on Sundays with her father and take tea with us in our rooms. Then she went to Germany to school, and Jack and I employed our Sunday evenings otherwise. It is true that I regarded her weekly visits as a species of infliction, but I did not think I ever showed it.

“It is strange,” said I, “that you did not recognize me at once, Miss Holroyd. Have I changed so greatly in five years?”

“You wore a pointed French beard in Paris,” she said— “a very downy one. And you never stayed to tea but twice, and then you only spoke once.”

“Oh!” said I blankly. “What did I say?”

“You asked me if I liked plums,” said Daisy, bursting into an irresistible ripple of laughter.

I saw that I must have made the same sort of an ass of myself that most boys of eighteen do.

It was too bad. I never thought about the future in those days. Who could have imagined that little Daisy Holroyd would have grown up into this bewildering young lady? It was really too bad. Presently the professor retired to his room, carrying with him an armful of drawings, and bidding us not to sit up late. When he closed his door Miss Holroyd turned to me.

“Papa will work over those drawings until midnight,” she said, with a despairing smile.

“It isn’t good for him,” I said. “What are the drawings?”

“You may know tomorrow,” she answered, leaning forward on the table and shading her face with one hand. “Tell me about yourself and Jack in Paris.”

I looked at her suspiciously.

“What! There isn’t much to tell. We studied. Jack went to the law school, and I attended— er— oh, all sorts of schools.”

“Did you? Surely you gave yourself a little recreation occasionally?”

“Occasionally,” I nodded.

“I am afraid you and Jack studied too hard.”

“That may be,” said I, looking meek.

“Especially about fossils.”

I couldn’t stand that.

“Miss Holroyd,” I said, “I do care for fossils. You may think that I am a humbug, but I have a perfect mania for fossils— now.”

“Since when?”

“About an hour ago,” I said airily. Out of the corner of my eye I saw that she had flushed up. It pleased me.

“You will soon tire of the experiment,” she said with a dangerous smile.

“Oh, I may,” I replied indifferently.

She drew back. The movement was scarcely perceptible, but I noticed it, and she knew I did.

The atmosphere was vaguely hostile. One feels such mental conditions and changes instantly. I picked up a chessboard, opened it, set up the pieces with elaborate care, and began to move, first the white, then the black. Miss Holroyd watched me coldly at first, but after a dozen moves she became interested and leaned a shade nearer. I moved a black pawn forward.

“Why do you do that?” said Daisy.

“Because,” said I, “the white queen threatens the pawn.”

“It was an aggressive move,” she insisted.

“Purely defensive,” I said. “If her white highness will let the pawn alone, the pawn will let the queen alone.”

Miss Holroyd rested her chin on her wrist and gazed steadily at the board. She was flushing furiously, but she held her ground.

“If the white queen doesn’t block that pawn, the pawn may become dangerous,” she said coldly.

I laughed, and closed up the board with a snap.

“True,” I said, “it might even take the queen.” After a moment’s silence I asked, “What would you do in that case, Miss Holroyd?”

“I should resign,” she said serenely; then realizing what she had said, she lost her self-possession for a second, and cried: “No, indeed! I should fight to the bitter end! I mean—”

“What?” I asked, lingering over my revenge.

“I mean,” she said slowly, “that your black pawn would never have the chance— never! I should take it immediately.”

“I believe you would,” said I, smiling; “so we’ll call the game yours, and— the pawn captured.”

“I don’t want it,” she exclaimed. “A pawn is worthless.”

“Except when it’s in the king row.”

“Chess is most interesting,” she observed sedately. She had completely recovered her self-control. Still I saw that she now had a certain respect for my defensive powers. It was very soothing to me.

“You know,” said I gravely, “that I am fonder of Jack than of anybody. That’s the reason we never write each other, except to borrow things. I am afraid that when I was a young cub in France I was not an attractive personality.”

“On the contrary,” said Daisy, smiling, “I thought you were very big and very perfect. I had illusions. I wept often when I went home and remembered that you never took the trouble to speak to me but once.”

“I was a cub,” I said; “not selfish and brutal, but I didn’t understand schoolgirls. I never had any sisters, and I didn’t know what to say to very young girls. If I had imagined that you felt hurt—”

“Oh, I did—five years ago. Afterward I laughed at the whole thing.”

“Laughed?” I repeated, vaguely disappointed.

“Why, of course. I was very easily hurt when I was a child. I think I have outgrown it.”

The soft curve of her sensitive mouth contradicted her.

“Will you forgive me now?” I asked.

“Yes. I had forgotten the whole thing until I met you an hour or so ago.”

There was something that had a ring not entirely genuine in this speech. I noticed it, but forgot it the next moment.

“Tiger cubs have stripes,” said I. “Selfishness blossoms in the cradle, and prophecy is not difficult. I hope I am not more selfish than my brothers.”

“I hope not,” she said, smiling.

Presently she rose, touched her hair with the tip of one finger, and walked to the door.

“Good-night,” she said, courtesying very low.

“Good-night,” said I, opening the door for her to pass.

iii

THE SEA was a sheet of silver, tinged with pink. The tremendous arch of the sky was all shimmering and glimmering with the promise of the sun. Already the mist above, flecked with clustered clouds, flushed with rose color and dull gold. I heard the low splash of the waves breaking and curling across the beach. A wandering breeze, fresh and fragrant, blew the curtains of my window. There was the scent of sweet bay in the room, and everywhere the subtile, nameless perfume of the sea.

When at last I stood upon the shore, the air and sea were all aglimmer in a rosy light, deepening to crimson in the zenith. Along the beach I saw a little cove, shelving and all ashine, where shallow waves washed with a mellow sound. Fine as dusted gold the shingle glowed, and the thin film of water rose, receded, crept up again a little higher, and again flowed back, with the low hiss of snowy foam and gilded bubbles breaking.

I stood a little while quiet, my eyes upon the water, the invitation of the ocean in my ears, vague and sweet as the murmur of a shell. Then I looked at my bathing suit and towels.

“In we go!” said I aloud. A second later the prophecy was fulfilled.

I swam far out to sea, and as I swam the waters all around me turned to gold. The sun had risen.

There is a fragrance in the sea at dawn that none can name. Whitethorn a-bloom in May, sedges a-sway, and scented rushes rustling in an inland wind recall the sea to me— I can’t say why.

Far out at sea I raised myself, swung around, dived, and set out again for shore, striking strong strokes until the flecked foam flew. And when at last I shot through the breakers, I laughed aloud and sprang upon the beach, breathless and happy. Then from the ocean came another cry, clear, joyous, and a white arm rose in the air.

She came drifting in with the waves like a white sea-sprite, laughing at me from her tangled hair, and I plunged into the breakers again to join her.

Side by side we swam along the coast, just outside the breakers, until in the next cove we saw the flutter of her maid’s cap strings.

“I will beat you to breakfast!” she cried, as I rested, watching her glide up along the beach.

“Done!” said I— “for a sea-shell!”

“Done!” she called across the water.

I made good speed along the shore, and I was not long in dressing, but when I entered the dining-room she was there, demure, smiling, exquisite in her cool, white frock.

“The sea-shell is yours,” said I. “I hope I can find one with a pearl in it.”

The professor hurried in before she could reply. He greeted me very cordially, but there was an abstracted air about him, and he called me Dick until I recognized that remonstrance was useless. He was not long over his coffee and rolls.

“McPeek and Frisby will return with the last load, including your trunk, by early afternoon,” he said, rising and picking up his bundle of drawings. “I haven’t time to explain to you what we are doing, Dick, but Daisy will take you about and instruct you. She will give you the rifle standing in my room— it’s a good Winchester. I have sent for an ‘Express’ for you, big enough to knock over any elephant in India.— Daisy, take him through the sheds and tell him everything. Luncheon is at noon.— Do you usually take luncheon, Dick?”

“When I am permitted,” I smiled.

“Well,” said the professor doubtfully, “you mustn’t come back here for it. Freda can take you what you want. Is your hand unsteady after eating?”

“Why, papa!” said Daisy. “Do you intend to starve him?”

We all laughed.

The professor tucked his drawings into a capacious pocket, pulled his sea boots up to his hips, seized a spade, and left, nodding to us as though he were thinking of something else.

We went to the door and watched him across the salt meadows until a distant sand dune hid him.

“Come,” said Daisy Holroyd, “I am going to take you to the shop.”

She put on a broad-brimmed straw hat, a distractingly pretty combination of filmy cool stuffs, and led the way to the long low structure that I had noticed the evening before.

The interior was lighted by the numberless little portholes, and I could see everything plainly. I acknowledge I was nonplussed by what I did see.

In the center of the shed, which must have been at least a hundred feet long, stood what I thought at first was the skeleton of an enormous whale. After a moment’s silent contemplation of the thing I saw that it could not be a whale, for the frames of two gigantic bat-like wings rose from each shoulder. Also I noticed that the animal possessed legs— four of them— with most unpleasant-looking webbed claws fully eight feet long. The bony framework of the head, too, resembled something between a crocodile and a monstrous snapping turtle. The walls of the shanty were hung with drawings and blue prints. A man dressed in white linen was tinkering with the vertebrae of the lizardlike tail.

“Where on earth did such a reptile come from?” I asked at length.

“Oh, it’s not real!” said Daisy scornfully; “it’s papier-maché.”

“I see,” said I— “a stage prop.”

“A what?” asked Daisy, in hurt astonishment.

“Why, a— a sort of Siegfried dragon— a what’s-his-name— er, Pfafner, or Peffer, or—”

“If my father heard you say such things he would dislike you,” said Daisy. She looked grieved, and moved toward the door. I apologized— for what, I knew not— and we became reconciled. She ran into her father’s room and brought me the rifle, a very good Winchester. She also gave me a cartridge belt, full.

“Now,” she smiled, “I shall take you to your observatory, and when we arrive you are to begin your duty at once.”

“And that duty?” I ventured, shouldering the rifle.

“That duty is, to watch the ocean. I shall then explain the whole affair— but you mustn’t look at me while I speak; you must watch the sea.”

“This,” said I, “is hardship. I had rather go without the luncheon.”

I do not think she was offended at my speech; still she frowned for almost three seconds.

We passed through acres of sweet bay and spear grass, sometimes skirting thickets of twisted cedars, sometimes walking in the full glare of the morning sun, sinking into shifting sand where sun-scorched shells crackled under our feet, and sun-browned seaweed glistened, bronzed and iridescent. Then, as we climbed a little hill, the sea wind freshened in our faces, and lo! the ocean lay below us, far-stretching as the eye could reach, glittering, magnificent.

Daisy sat down flat on the sand. It takes a clever girl to do that and retain the respectful deference due her from men. It takes a graceful girl to accomplish it triumphantly when a man is looking.

“You must sit beside me,” she said— as though it would prove irksome to me.

“Now,” she continued, “you must watch the water while I am talking.”

I nodded.

“Why don’t you do it, then?” she asked.

I succeeded in wrenching my head toward the ocean, although I felt sure it would swing gradually round again in spite of me.

“To begin with,” said Daisy Holroyd, “there’s a thing in that ocean that would astonish you if you saw it. Turn your head!”

“I am,” I said meekly.

“Did you hear what I said?”

“Yes— er— a thing in the ocean that’s going to astonish me.” Visions of mermaids rose before me.

“The thing,” said Daisy, “is a Thermosaurus!”

I nodded vaguely, as though anticipating a delightful introduction to a nautical friend.

“You don’t seem astonished,” she said reproachfully.

“Why should I be?” I asked.

“Please turn your eyes toward the water. Suppose a Thermosaurus should look out of the waves!”

“Well,” said I, “in that case the pleasure would be mutual.”

She frowned, and bit her upper lip.

“Do you know what a Thermosaurus is?” she asked.

“If I am to guess,” said I, “I guess it’s a jellyfish.”

“It’s that big, ugly, horrible creature that I showed you in the shed!” cried Daisy impatiently.

“Eh!” I stammered.

“Not papier-maché either,” she continued excitedly; “it’s a real one.”

This was pleasant news. I glanced instinctively at my rifle and then at the ocean.

“Well,” said I at last, “it strikes me that you and I resemble a pair of Andromedas waiting to be swallowed. This rifle won’t stop a beast, a live beast, like that Nibelungen dragon of yours.”

“Yes, it will,” she said; “it’s not an ordinary rifle.”

Then, for the first time, I noticed, just below the magazine, a cylindrical attachment that was strange to me.

“Now, if you will watch the sea very carefully, and will promise not to look at me,” said Daisy, “I will try to explain.”

She did not wait for me to promise, but went on eagerly, a sparkle of excitement in her blue eyes:

“You know, of all the fossil remains of the great bat-like and lizard-like creatures that inhabited the earth ages and ages ago, the bones of the gigantic saurians are the most interesting. I think they used to splash about the water and fly over the land during the Carboniferous period; anyway, it doesn’t matter. Of course, you have seen pictures of reconstructed creatures such as the Ichthyosaurus, the Plesiosaurus, the Anthracosaurus, and the Thermosaurus?”

I nodded, trying to keep my eyes from hers.

“And you know that the remains of the Thermosaurus were first discovered and reconstructed by papa?”

“Yes,” said I. There was no use in saying no.

“I am glad you do. Now, papa has proved that this creature lived entirely in the Gulf Stream, emerging for occasional flights across an ocean or two. Can you imagine how he proved it?”

“No,” said I, resolutely pointing my nose at the ocean.

“He proved it by a minute examination of the microscopical shells found among the ribs of the Thermosaurus. These shells contained little creatures that live only in the warm waters of the Gulf Stream. They were the food of the Thermosaurus.”

“It was rather slender rations for a thing like that, wasn’t it? Did he ever swallow bigger food— er— men?”

“Oh, yes. Tons of fossil bones from prehistoric men are also found in the interior of the Thermosaurus.”

“Then,” said I, “you, at least, had better go back to Captain McPeek’s—”

“Please turn around; don’t be so foolish. I didn’t say there was a live Thermosaurus in the water, did I?”

“Isn’t there?”

“Why, no!”

My relief was genuine, but I thought of the rifle and looked suspiciously out to sea.

“What’s the Winchester for?” I asked.

“Listen, and I will explain. Papa has found out— how, I do not exactly understand— that there is in the waters of the Gulf Stream the body of a Thermosaurus. The creature must have been alive within a year or so. The impenetrable scale armor that covers its body has, as far as papa knows, prevented its disintegration. We know that it is there still, or was there within a few months. Papa has reports and sworn depositions from steamer captains and seamen from a dozen different vessels, all corroborating each other in essential details. These stories, of course, get into the newspapers— sea-serpent stories— but papa knows that they confirm his theory that the huge body of this reptile is swinging along somewhere on the Gulf Stream.”

She opened her sunshade and held it over her. I noticed that she deigned to give me the benefit of about one eighth of it.

“Your duty with that rifle is this: If we are fortunate enough to see the body of the Thermosaurus come floating by, you are to take good aim and fire—fire rapidly every bullet in the magazine; then reload and fire again, and reload and fire as long as you have any cartridges left.”

“A self-feeding Maxim is what I should have,” I said with gentle sarcasm. “Well, and suppose I make a sieve of this big lizard?”

“Do you see these rings in the sand?” she asked.

Sure enough, somebody had driven heavy piles deep into the sand all around us, and to the tops of these piles were attached steel rings, half buried under the spear grass. We sat almost exactly in the center of a circle of these rings.

“The reason is this,” said Daisy: “every bullet in your cartridges is steel-tipped and armor-piercing. To the base of each bullet is attached a thin wire of pallium. Pallium is that new metal, a thread of which, drawn out into finest wire, will hold a ton of iron suspended. Every bullet is fitted with minute coils of miles of this wire. When the bullet leaves the rifle it spins out this wire as a shot from a life-saver’s mortar spins out and carries the life line to a wrecked ship. The end of each coil of wire is attached to that cylinder under the magazine of your rifle. As soon as the shell is automatically ejected this wire flies out also. A bit of scarlet tape is fixed to the end, so that it will be easy to pick up. There is also a snap clasp on the end, and this clasp fits those rings that you see in the sand. Now, when you begin firing, it is my duty to run and pick up the wire ends and attach them to the rings. Then, you see, we have the body of the Thermosaurus full of bullets, every bullet anchored to the shore by tiny wires, each of which could easily hold a ton’s strain.”

I looked at her in amazement.

“Then,” she added calmly, “we have captured the Thermosaurus.”

“Your father,” said I at length, “must have spent years of labor over this preparation.”

“It is the work of a lifetime,” she said simply.

My face, I suppose, showed my misgivings.

“It must not fail,” she added.

“But— but we are nowhere near the Gulf Stream,” I ventured.

Her face brightened, and she frankly held the sunshade over us both.

“Ah, you don’t know,” she said, “what else papa has discovered. Would you believe that he has found a loop in the Gulf Stream— a genuine loop— that swings in here just outside of the breakers below? It is true! Everybody on Long Island knows that there is a warm current off the coast, but nobody imagined it was merely a sort of backwater from the Gulf Stream that formed a great circular mill-race around the cone of a subterranean volcano, and rejoined the Gulf Stream off Cape Albatross. But it is! That is why papa bought a yacht three years ago and sailed about for two years so mysteriously. Oh, I did want to go with him so much!”

“This,” said I, “is most astonishing.”

She leaned enthusiastically toward me, her lovely face aglow.

“Isn’t it?” she said; “and to think that you and papa and I are the only people in the whole world who know this!”

To be included in such a trilogy was very delightful.

“Papa is writing the whole thing— I mean about the currents. He also has in preparation sixteen volumes on the Thermosaurus. He said this morning that he was going to ask you to write the story first for some scientific magazine. He is certain that Professor Bruce Stoddard, of Columbia, will write the pamphlets necessary. This will give papa time to attend to the sixteen-volume work, which he expects to finish in three years.”

“Let us first,” said I, laughing, “catch our Thermosaurus.”

“We must not fail,” she said wistfully.

“We shall not fail,” I said, “for I promise to sit on this sand hill as long as I live— until a Thermosaurus appears— if that is your wish, Miss Holroyd.”

Our eyes met for an instant. She did not chide me, either, for not looking at the ocean. Her eyes were bluer, anyway.

“I suppose,” she said, bending her head and absently pouring sand between her fingers— “I suppose you think me a blue-stocking, or something odious?”

“Not exactly,” I said. There was an emphasis in my voice that made her color. After a moment she laid the sunshade down, still open.

“May I hold it?” I asked.

She nodded almost imperceptibly.

The ocean had turned a deep marine blue, verging on purple, that heralded a scorching afternoon. The wind died away; the odor of cedar and sweet bay hung heavy in the air.

In the sand at our feet an iridescent flower beetle crawled, its metallic green and blue wings burning like a spark. Great gnats, with filmy, glittering wings, danced aimlessly above the young golden-rod; burnished crickets, inquisitive, timid, ran from under chips of driftwood, waved their antennae at us, and ran back again. One by one the marbled tiger beetles tumbled at our feet, dazed from the exertion of an aerial flight, then scrambled and ran a little way, or darted into the wire grass, where great brilliant spiders eyed them askance from their gossamer hammocks.

Far out at sea the white gulls floated and drifted on the water, or sailed up into the air to flap lazily for a moment and settle back among the waves. Strings of black surf ducks passed, their strong wings tipping the surface of the water; single wandering coots whirled from the breakers into lonely flight toward the horizon.

We lay and watched the little ring-necks running along the water’s edge, now backing away from the incoming tide, now boldly wading after the undertow. The harmony of silence, the deep perfume, the mystery of waiting for that something that all await— what is it? love? death? or only the miracle of another morrow?— troubled me with vague restfulness. As sunlight casts shadows, happiness, too, throws a shadow, and the shadow is sadness.

And so the morning wore away until Freda came with a cool-looking hamper. Then delicious cold fowl and lettuce sandwiches and champagne cup set our tongues wagging as only very young tongues can wag. Daisy went back with Freda after luncheon, leaving me a case of cigars, with a bantering smile. I dozed, half awake, keeping a partly closed eye on the ocean, where a faint gray streak showed plainly amid the azure water all around. That was the Gulf Stream loop.

About four o’clock Frisby appeared with a bamboo shelter tent, for which I was unaffectedly grateful.

After he had erected it over me he stopped to chat a bit, but the conversation bored me, for he could talk of nothing but bill-posting.

“You wouldn’t ruin the landscape here, would you?” I asked.

“Ruin it!” repeated Frisby nervously. “It’s ruined now; there ain’t a place to stick a bill.”

“The snipe stick bills— in the sand,” I said flippantly.

There was no humor about Frisby. “Do they?” he asked.

I moved with a certain impatience.

“Bills,” said Frisby, “give spice an’ variety to Nature. They break the monotony of the everlastin’ green and what-you-may-call-its.”

I glared at him.

“Bills,” he continued, “are not easy to stick, lemme tell you, sir. Sign paintin’s a soft snap when it comes to bill-stickin’. Now, I guess I’ve stuck more bills in New York State than ennybody.”

“Have you?” I said angrily.

“Yes, siree! I always pick out the purtiest spots— kinder filled chuck full of woods and brooks and things; then I h’ist my paste-pot onto a rock, and I slather that rock with gum, and whoop she goes!”

“Whoop what goes?”

“The bill. I paste her onto the rock, with one swipe of the brush for the edges and a back-handed swipe for the finish— except when a bill is folded in two halves.”

“And what do you do then?” I asked, disgusted.

“Swipe twice,” said Frisby with enthusiasm.

“And you don’t think it injures the landscape?”

“Injures it!” he exclaimed, convinced that I was attempting to joke.

I looked wearily out to sea. He also looked at the water and sighed sentimentally.

“Floatin’ buoys with bills onto ’em is a idea of mine,” he observed. “That damn ocean is monotonous, ain’t it?”

I don’t know what I might have done to Frisby— the rifle was so convenient— if his mean yellow dog had not waddled up at this juncture.

“Hi, Davy, sic ’em!” said Frisby, expectorating upon a clamshell and hurling it seaward. The cur watched the flight of the shell apathetically, then squatted in the sand and looked at his master.

“Kinder lost his spirit,” said Frisby, “ain’t he? I once stuck a bill onto Davy, an’ it come off, an’ the paste sorter sickened him. He was hell on rats—once!”

After a moment or two Frisby took himself off, whistling cheerfully to Davy, who followed him when he was ready. The rifle burned in my fingers.

It was nearly six o’clock when the professor appeared, spade on shoulder, boots smeared with mud.

“Well,” he said, “nothing to report, Dick, my boy?”

“Nothing, professor.”

He wiped his shining face with his handkerchief and stared at the water.

“My calculations lead me to believe,” he said, “that our prize may be due any day now. This theory I base upon the result of the report from the last sea captain I saw. I can not understand why some of these captains did not take the carcass in tow. They all say that they tried, but that the body sank before they could come within half a mile. The truth is, probably, that they did not stir a foot from their course to examine the thing.”

“Have you ever cruised about for it?” I ventured.

“For two years,” he said grimly. “It’s no use; it’s accident when a ship falls in with it. One captain reports it a thousand miles from where the last skipper spoke it, and always in the Gulf Stream. They think it is a different specimen every time, and the papers are teeming with sea-serpent fol-de-rol.”

“Are you sure,” I asked, “that it will swing in to the coast on this Gulf Stream loop?”

“I think I may say that it is certain to do so. I experimented with a dead right whale. You may have heard of its coming ashore here last summer.”

“I think I did,” said I with a faint smile. The thing had poisoned the air for miles around.

“But,” I continued, “suppose it comes in the night?”

He laughed.

“There I am lucky. Every night this month, and every day, too, the current of the loop runs inland so far that even a porpoise would strand for at least twelve hours. Longer than that I have not experimented with, but I know that the shore trend of the loop runs across a long spur of the submerged volcanic mountain, and that anything heavier than a porpoise would scrape the bottom and be carried so slowly that at least twelve hours must elapse before the carcass could float again into deep water. There are chances of its stranding indefinitely, too, but I don’t care to take those chances. That is why I have stationed you here, Dick, my boy.”

He glanced again at the water, smiling to himself.

“There is another question I want to ask,” I said, “if you don’t mind.”

“Of course not!” he said warmly.

“What are you digging for?”

“Why, simply for exercise. The doctor told me I was killing myself with my sedentary habits, so I decided to dig. I don’t know a better exercise. Do you?”

“I suppose not,” I murmured, rather red in the face. I wondered whether he’d mention fossils.

“Did Daisy tell you why we are making our papier-maché Thermosaurus?” he asked.

I shook my head.

“We constructed that from measurements I took from the fossil remains of the Thermosaurus in the Metropolitan Museum. Professor Bruce Stoddard made the drawings. We set it up here, all ready to receive the skin of the carcass that I am expecting.”

We had started toward home, walking slowly across the darkening dunes, shoulder to shoulder. The sand was deep, and walking was not easy.

“I wish,” said I at last, “that I knew why Miss Holroyd asked me not to walk on the beach. It’s much less fatiguing.”

“That,” said the professor, “is a matter that I intend to discuss with you tonight.” He spoke gravely, almost sadly. I felt that something of unparalleled importance was soon to be revealed. So I kept very quiet, watching the ocean out of the corners of my eyes.

iv

DINNER was ended. Daisy Holroyd lighted her father’s pipe for him, and insisted on my smoking as much as I pleased. Then she sat down, and folded her hands like a good little girl, waiting for her father to make the revelation which I felt in my bones must be something out of the ordinary.

The professor smoked for a while, gazing meditatively at his daughter; then, fixing his gray eyes on me, he said:

“Have you ever heard of the kree— that Australian bird, half parrot, half hawk, that destroys so many sheep in New South Wales?”

I nodded.

“The kree kills a sheep by alighting on its back and tearing away the flesh with its hooked beak until a vital part is reached. You know that? Well, it has been discovered that the kree had prehistoric prototypes. These birds were enormous creatures, who preyed upon mammoths and mastodons, and even upon the great saurians. It has been conclusively proved that a few saurians have been killed by the ancestors of the kree, but the favorite food of these birds was undoubtedly the Thermosaurus. It is believed that the birds attacked the eyes of the Thermosaurus, and when, as was its habit, the mammoth creature turned on its back to claw them, they fell upon the thinner scales of its stomach armor and finally killed it. This, of course, is a theory, but we have almost absolute proofs of its correctness. Now, these two birds are known among scientists as the ekaf-bird and the ool-yllik. The names are Australian, in which country most of their remains have been unearthed. They lived during the Carboniferous period. Now it is not generally known, but the fact is, that in 1801 Captain Ransom, of the British exploring vessel Gull, purchased from the natives of Tasmania the skin of an ekaf-bird that could not have been killed more than twenty-four hours previous to its sale. I saw this skin in the British Museum. It was labeled ‘unknown bird, probably extinct.’ It took me exactly a week to satisfy myself that it was actually the skin of an ekaf-bird. But that is not all, Dick, my boy,” continued the professor excitedly. “In 1854, Admiral Stuart, of our own navy, saw the carcass of a strange gigantic bird floating along the southern coast of Australia. Sharks were after it, and, before a boat could be lowered, these miserable fish got it. But the good old admiral secured a few feathers and sent them to the Smithsonian. I saw them. They were not even labeled, but I knew that they were feathers from the ekaf-bird or its near relative, the ool-yllik.”

I had grown so interested that I had leaned far across the table. Daisy, too, bent forward. It was only when the professor paused for a moment that I noticed how close together our heads were— Daisy’s and mine. I don’t think she realized it. She did not move.

“Now comes the important part of this long discourse,” said the professor, smiling at our eagerness. “Ever since the carcass of our derelict Thermosaurus was first noticed, every captain who has seen it has also reported the presence of one or more gigantic birds in the neighborhood. These birds, at a great distance, appeared to be hovering over the carcass, but on the approach of a vessel they disappeared. Even in midocean they were observed. When I heard about it I was puzzled. A month later I was satisfied that neither the ekaf-bird nor the ool-yllik was extinct. Last Monday I knew that I was right. I found forty-eight distinct impressions of the huge seven-toed claw of the ekaf-bird on the beach here at Pine Inlet. You may imagine my excitement. I succeeded in digging up enough wet sand around one of these impressions to preserve its form. I managed to get it into a soap box, and now it is there in my shop. The tide rose too rapidly for me to save the other footprints.”

I shuddered at the possibility of a clumsy misstep on my part obliterating the impression of an ool-yllik.

“That is the reason that my daughter warned you off the beach,” he said mildly.

“Hanging would have been too good for the vandal who destroyed such priceless prizes!” I cried out in self-reproach.

Daisy Holroyd turned a flushed face to mine, and impulsively laid her hand on my sleeve.

“How could you know?” she said.

“It’s all right now,” said her father, emphasizing each word with a gentle tap of his pipe-bowl on the table edge; “don’t be hard on yourself, Dick, my boy. You’ll do yeoman’s service yet.”

It was nearly midnight, and still we chatted on about the Thermosaurus, the ekaf-bird, and the ool-yllik, eagerly discussing the probability of the great reptile’s carcass being in the vicinity. That alone seemed to explain the presence of these prehistoric birds at Pine Inlet.

“Do they ever attack human beings?” I asked.

The professor looked startled.

“Gracious!” he exclaimed, “I never thought of that. And Daisy running about out of doors! Dear me! it takes a scientist to be an unnatural parent!”

His alarm was half real, half assumed; but all the same, he glanced gravely at us both, shaking his handsome head, absorbed in thought. Daisy herself looked a little doubtful. As for me, my sensations were distinctly queer.

“It is true,” said the professor, frowning at the wall, “that human remains have been found associated with the bones of the ekaf-bird— I don’t know how intimately. It is a matter to be taken into most serious consideration.”

“The problem can be solved,” said I, “in several ways. One is, to keep Miss Holroyd in the house—”

“I shall not stay in!” cried Daisy indignantly.

We all laughed, and her father assured her that she should not be abused.

“Even if I did stay in,” she said, “one of these birds might alight on Master Dick.”

She looked saucily at me as she spoke, but turned crimson when her father observed quietly, “You don’t seem to think of me, Daisy.”

“Of course I do,” she said, getting up and putting both arms around her father’s neck; “but Dick— as— as you call him— is so helpless and timid.”

My blissful smile froze on my lips.

“Timid!” I repeated.

She came back to the table, making me a mocking reverence.

“Do you think I am to be laughed at with impunity?” she said.

“What are your other plans, Dick, my boy?” asked the professor.— “Daisy, let him alone, you little tease!”

“One is, to haul a lot of cast-iron boilers along the dunes,” I said. “If these birds come when the carcass floats in, and if they seem disposed to trouble us, we could crawl into the boilers and be safe.”

“Why, that is really brilliant!” cried Daisy.

“Be quiet, my child! Dick, the plan is sound and sensible and perfectly practical. McPeek and Frisby shall go for a dozen loads of boilers tomorrow.”

“It will spoil the beauty of the landscape,” said Daisy, with a taunting nod to me.

“And Frisby will probably attempt to cover them with bill-posters,” I added, laughing.

“That,” said Daisy, “I shall prevent, even at the cost of my life.” And she stood up, looking very determined.

“Children, children,” protested the professor, “go to bed— you bother me.”

Then I turned deliberately to Miss Holroyd.

“Good-night, Daisy,” I said.

“Good-night, Dick,” she said, very gently.

v

THE WEEK passed quickly for me, leaving but few definite impressions. As I look back to it now I can see the long stretch of beach burning in the fierce sunlight, the endless meadows, with the glimmer of water in the distance, the dunes, the twisted cedars, the leagues of scintillating ocean, rocking, rocking, always rocking. In the starlit nights the curlew came in from the sand-bars by twos and threes; I could hear their faint call as I lay in bed thinking. All day long the little ring-necks whistled from the shore. The plover answered them from distant lonely inland pools. The great white gulls drifted like feathers upon the sea.

One morning, toward the end of the week, I, strolling along the dunes, came upon Frisby. He was bill-posting. I caught him red-handed.

“This,” said I, “must stop. Do you understand, Mr. Frisby?”

He stepped back from his work, laying his head on one side, considering first me, then the bill that he had pasted on one of our big boilers.

“Don’t like the color?” he asked. “It goes well on them boilers.”

“Color! No, I don’t like the color either. Can’t you understand that there are some people in the world who object to seeing patent-medicine advertisements scattered over a landscape?”

“Hey?” he said perplexed.

“Will you kindly remove that advertisement?” I persisted.

“Too late,” said Frisby; “it’s sot.”

I was too disgusted to speak, but my disgust turned to anger when I perceived that, as far as the eye could reach, our boilers, lying from three to four hundred feet apart, were ablaze with yellow and red posters, extolling the “Eureka Liver Pill Company.”

“It don’t cost ’em nothin’,” said Frisby cheerfully; “I done it fur the fun of it. Purty, ain’t it?”

“They are Professor Holroyd’s boilers,” I said, subduing a desire to beat Frisby with my telescope. “Wait until Miss Holroyd sees this work.”

“Don’t she like yeller and red?” he demanded anxiously.

“You’ll find out,” said I.

Frisby gaped at his handiwork and then at his yellow dog. After a moment he mechanically spat on a clamshell and requested Davy to “sic” it.

“Can’t you comprehend that you have ruined our pleasure in the landscape?” I asked more mildly.

“I’ve got some green bills,” said Frisby; “I kin stick ’em over the yeller ones—”

“Confound it!” said I, “it isn’t the color!”

“Then,” observed Frisby, “you don’t like them pills. I’ve got some bills of the ‘Cropper Bicycle,’ and a few of ‘Bagley, the Gents’ Tailor—’”

“Frisby,” said I, “use them all— paste the whole collection over your dog and yourself— then walk off the cliff.”

He sullenly unfolded a green poster, swabbed the boiler with paste, laid the upper section of the bill upon it, and plastered the whole bill down with a thwack of his brush. As I walked away I heard him muttering.

Next day Daisy was so horrified that I promised to give Frisby an ultimatum. I found him with Freda, gazing sentimentally at his work, and I sent him back to the shop in a hurry, telling Freda at the same time that she could spend her leisure in providing Mr. Frisby with sand, soap, and a scrubbing brush. Then I walked on to my post of observation.

I watched until sunset. Daisy came with her father to hear my report, but there was nothing to tell, and we three walked slowly back to the house.

In the evenings the professor worked on his volumes, the click of his type-writer sounding faintly behind his closed door. Daisy and I played chess sometimes; sometimes we played hearts. I don’t remember that we ever finished a game of either— we talked too much.

Our discussions covered every topic of interest: we argued upon politics; we skimmed over literature and music; we settled international differences; we spoke vaguely of human brotherhood. I say we slighted no subject of interest— I am wrong; we never spoke of love.

Now, love is a matter of interest to ten people out of ten. Why it was that it did not appear to interest us is as interesting a question as love itself. We were young, alert, enthusiastic, inquiring. We eagerly absorbed theories concerning any curious phenomena in Nature, as intellectual cocktails to stimulate discussion. And yet we did not discuss love. I do not say that we avoided it. No; the subject was too completely ignored for even that. And yet we found it very difficult to pass an hour separated. The professor noticed this, and laughed at us. We were not even embarrassed.

Sunday passed in pious contemplation of the ocean. Daisy read a little in her prayer-book, and the professor threw a cloth over his typewriter and strolled up and down the sands. He may have been lost in devout abstraction; he may have been looking for footprints. As for me, my mind was very serene, and I was more than happy. Daisy read to me a little for my soul’s sake, and the professor came up and said something cheerful. He also examined the magazine of my Winchester.

That night, too, Daisy took her guitar to the sands and sang one or two Armenian hymns. Unlike us, the Armenians do not take their pleasures sadly. One of their pleasures is evidently religion.

The big moon came up over the dunes and stared at the sea until the surface of every wave trembled with radiance. A sudden stillness fell across the world; the wind died out; the foam ran noiselessly across the beach; the cricket’s rune was stilled.

I leaned back, dropping one hand upon the sand. It touched another hand, soft and cool.

After a while the other hand moved slightly, and I found that my own had closed above it. Presently one finger stirred a little— only a little— for our fingers were interlocked.

On the shore the foam-froth bubbled and winked and glimmered in the moonlight. A star fell from the zenith, showering the night with incandescent dust.

If our fingers lay interlaced beside us, her eyes were calm and serene as always, wide open, fixed upon the depths of a dark sky. And when her father rose and spoke to us, she did not withdraw her hand.

“Is it late?” she asked dreamily.

“It is midnight, little daughter.”

I stood up, still holding her hand, and aided her to rise. And when, at the door, I said good-night, she turned and looked at me for a little while in silence, then passed into her room slowly, with head still turned toward me.

All night long I dreamed of her; and when the east whitened, I sprang up, the thunder of the ocean in my ears, the strong sea wind blowing into the open window.

“She is asleep,” I thought, and I leaned from the window and peered out into the east.

The sea called to me, tossing its thousand arms; the soaring gulls, dipping, rising, wheeling above the sand-bar, screamed and clamored for a playmate. I slipped into my bathing suit, dropped from the window upon the soft sand, and in a moment had plunged head foremost into the surf, swimming beneath the waves toward the open sea.

Under the tossing ocean the voice of the waters was in my ears— a low, sweet voice, intimate, mysterious. Through singing foam and broad, green, glassy depths, by whispering sandy channels a-trail with seaweed, and on, on, out into the vague, cool sea, I sped, rising to the top, sinking, gliding. Then at last I flung myself out of water, hands raised, and the clamor of the gulls filled my ears.

As I lay, breathing fast, drifting on the sea, far out beyond the gulls I saw a flash of white, and an arm was lifted, signaling me.

“Daisy!” I called.

A clear hail came across the water, distinct on the sea wind, and at the same instant we raised our hands and moved toward each other.

How we laughed as we met in the sea! The white dawn came up out of the depths, the zenith turned to rose and ashes.

And with the dawn came the wind— a great sea wind, fresh, aromatic, that hurled our voices back into our throats and lifted the sheeted spray above our heads. Every wave, crowned with mist, caught us in a cool embrace, cradled us, and slipped away, only to leave us to another wave, higher, stronger, crested with opalescent glory, breathing incense.

We turned together up the coast, swimming lightly side by side, but our words were caught up by the winds and whirled into the sky.

We looked up at the driving clouds; we looked out upon the pallid waste of waters; but it was into each other’s eyes we looked, wondering, wistful, questioning the reason of sky and sea. And there in each other’s eyes we read the mystery, and we knew that earth and sky and sea were created for us alone.

Drifting on by distant sands and dunes, her white fingers touching mine, we spoke, keying our tones to the wind’s vast harmony. And we spoke of love.

Gray and wide as the limitless span of the sky and the sea, the winds gathered from the world’s ends to bear us on; but they were not familiar winds; for now, along the coast, the breakers curled and showed a million fangs, and the ocean stirred to its depths, uneasy, ominous, and the menace of its murmur drew us closer as we moved.

Where the dull thunder and the tossing spray warned us from sunken reefs, we heard the harsh challenges of gulls; where the pallid surf twisted in yellow coils of spume above the bar, the singing sands murmured of treachery and secrets of lost souls agasp in the throes of silent undertows.

But there was a little stretch of beach glimmering through the mountains of water, and toward this we turned, side by side. Around us the water grew warmer; the breath of the following waves moistened our cheeks; the water itself grew gray and strange about us.

“We have come too far,” I said; but she only answered: “Faster, faster! I am afraid!” The water was almost hot now; its aromatic odor filled our lungs.

“The Gulf loop!” I muttered. “Daisy, shall I help you?”

“No. Swim— close by me! Oh-h! Dick—”

Her startled cry was echoed by another— a shrill scream, unutterably horrible— and a great bird flapped from the beach, splashing and beating its pinions across the water with a thundering noise.

Out across the waves it blundered, rising little by little from the water, and now, to my horror, I saw another monstrous bird swinging in the air above it, squealing as it turned on its vast wings. Before I could speak we touched the beach, and I half lifted her to the shore.

“Quick!” I repeated. “We must not wait.”

Her eyes were dark with fear, but she rested a hand on my shoulder, and we crept up among the dune grasses and sank down by the point of sand where the rough shelter stood, surrounded by the iron-ringed piles.

She lay there, breathing fast and deep, dripping with spray. I had no power of speech left, but when I rose wearily to my knees and looked out upon the water my blood ran cold. Above the ocean, on the breast of the roaring wind, three enormous birds sailed, turning and wheeling among each other; and below, drifting with the gray stream of the Gulf loop, a colossal bulk lay half submerged— a gigantic lizard, floating belly upward.

Then Daisy crept kneeling to my side and touched me, trembling from head to foot.

“I know,” I muttered. “I must run back for the rifle.”

“And— and leave me?”

I took her by the hand, and we dragged ourselves through the wire grass to the open end of a boiler lying in the sand.

She crept in on her hands and knees, and called to me to follow.

“You are safe now,” I cried. “I must go back for the rifle.”

“The birds may— may attack you.”

“If they do I can get into one of the other boilers,” I said. “Daisy, you must not venture out until I come back. You won’t, will you?”

“No-o,” she whispered doubtfully.

“Then— good-bye.”

“Good-bye,” she answered, but her voice was very small and still.

“Good-bye,” I said again. I was kneeling at the mouth of the big iron tunnel; it was dark inside and I could not see her, but, before I was conscious of it, her arms were around my neck and we had kissed each other.

I don’t remember how I went away. When I came to my proper senses I was swimming along the coast at full speed, and over my head wheeled one of the birds, screaming at every turn.

The intoxication of that innocent embrace, the close impress of her arms around my neck, gave me a strength and recklessness that neither fear nor fatigue could subdue. The bird above me did not even frighten me; I watched it over my shoulder, swimming strongly, with the tide now aiding me, now stemming my course; but I saw the shore passing quickly and my strength increased, and I shouted when I came in sight of the house, and scrambled up on the sand, dripping and excited. There was nobody in sight, and I gave a last glance up into the air where the bird wheeled, still screeching, and hastened into the house. Freda stared at me in amazement as I seized the rifle and shouted for the professor.

“He has just gone to town, with Captain McPeek in his wagon,” stammered Freda.

“What!” I cried. “Does he know where his daughter is?”

“Miss Holroyd is asleep— not?” gasped Freda.

“Where’s Frisby?” I cried impatiently.

“Yimmie?” quavered Freda.

“Yes, Jimmie; isn’t there anybody here? Good heavens! where’s that man in the shop?”

“He also iss gone,” said Freda, shedding tears, “to buy papier-maché. Yimmie, he iss gone to post bills.”

I waited to hear no more, but swung my rifle over my shoulder, and, hanging the cartridge belt across my chest, hurried out and up the beach. The bird was not in sight.

I had been running for perhaps a minute when, far up on the dunes, I saw a yellow dog rush madly through a clump of sweet bay, and at the same moment a bird soared past, rose, and hung hovering just above the thicket. Suddenly the bird swooped; there was a shriek and a yelp from the cur, but the bird gripped it in one claw and beat its wings upon the sand, striving to rise. Then I saw Frisby— paste, bucket, and brush raised— fall upon the bird, yelling lustily. The fierce creature relaxed its talons, and the dog rushed on, squeaking with terror. The bird turned on Frisby and sent him sprawling on his face, a sticky mass of paste and sand. But this did not end the struggle. The bird, croaking wildly, flew at the prostrate billposter, and the sand whirled into a pillar above its terrible wings. Scarcely knowing what I was about, I raised my rifle and fired twice. A horrid scream echoed each shot, and the bird rose heavily in a shower of sand; but two bullets were embedded in that mass of foul feathers, and I saw the wires and scarlet tape uncoiling on the sand at my feet. In an instant I seized them and passed the ends around a cedar tree, hooking the clasps tight. Then I cast one swift glance upward, where the bird wheeled screeching, anchored like a kite to the pallium wires; and I hurried on across the dunes, the shells cutting my feet, and the bushes tearing my wet swimming suit, until I dripped with blood from shoulder to ankle. Out in the ocean the carcass of the Thermosaurus floated, claws outspread, belly glistening in the gray light, and over him circled two birds. As I reached the shelter I knelt and fired into the mass of scales, and at my first shot a horrible thing occurred: the lizardlike head writhed, the slitted yellow eyes sliding open from the film that covered them. A shudder passed across the undulating body, the great scaled belly heaved, and one leg feebly clawed at the air.

The thing was still alive!

Crushing back the horror that almost paralyzed my hands, I planted shot after shot into the quivering reptile, while it writhed and clawed, striving to turn over and dive; and at each shot the black blood spurted in long, slim jets across the water. And now Daisy was at my side, pale and determined, swiftly clasping each tape-marked wire to the iron rings in the circle around us. Twice I filled the magazine from my belt, and twice I poured streams of steel-tipped bullets into the scaled mass, twisting and shuddering on the sea. Suddenly the birds steered toward us. I felt the wind from their vast wings. I saw the feathers erect, vibrating. I saw the spread claws outstretched, and I struck furiously at them, crying to Daisy to run into the iron shelter. Backing, swinging my clubbed rifle, I retreated, but I tripped across one of the taut pallium wires, and in an instant the hideous birds were on me, and the bone in my forearm snapped like a pipestem at a blow from their wings. Twice I struggled to my knees, blinded with blood, confused, almost fainting; then I fell again, rolling into the mouth of the iron boiler.

WHEN I struggled back to consciousness Daisy knelt silently beside me, while Captain McPeek and Professor Holroyd bound up my shattered arm, talking excitedly. The pain made me faint and dizzy. I tried to speak and could not. At last they got me to my feet and into the wagon, and Daisy came, too, and crouched beside me, wrapped in oilskins to her eyes. Fatigue, lack of food, and excitement had combined with wounds and broken bones to extinguish the last atom of strength in my body; but my mind was clear enough to understand that the trouble was over and the Thermosaurus safe.

I heard McPeek say that one of the birds that I had anchored to a cedar tree had torn loose from the bullets and winged its way heavily out to sea. The professor answered: “Yes, the ekaf-bird; the others were ool-ylliks. I’d have given my right arm to have secured them.” Then for a time I heard no more; but the jolting of the wagon over the dunes roused me to keenest pain, and I held out my right hand to Daisy. She clasped it in both of hers, and kissed it again and again.

THERE is little more to add, I think. Professor Bruce Stoddard has edited this story carefully. His own scientific pamphlet will be published soon, to be followed by Professor Holroyd’s sixteen volumes. In a few days the stuffed and mounted Thermosaurus will be placed on free public exhibition in the arena of Madison Square Garden, the only building in the city large enough to contain the body of this immense winged reptile.

When my arm came out of splints, Daisy and I— But really that has nothing to do with a detailed scientific description of the Thermosaurus, which, I think, I shall add as an appendix to the book. If you do not find it there it will be because Daisy and I have very little time to write about Thermosaurians.

But what I really want to tell you about is the extraordinary adventures of Captain McPeek and Frisby— how they produced a specimen of Samia Cynthia that dwarfed a hundred of Attacus Atlas, and how the American line steamer St. Louis fouled the thing with her screw.

The more I think of it the more determined I am to tell it to you. It will be difficult to prevent me. And that is not fiction either.

__________________

9: The Hunter's Moon

Frederick Irving Anderson

1877-1947

Popular Magazine  20 Jun 1927

Another  tale with Oliver Armiston, the "extinct author."

ALONG toward three o'clock the old coon dog, Nip, came slinking in, rather dubious about his reception; for he had been gone a long time on affairs of his own; in fact, he had concluded these affairs and was jauntily on his way home, when he happened to remember what he had been brought out for, and he came sneaking back. But all he found under the waxing moon was a cold camp of horse blankets, arranged in so many life-like attitudes, among the spreading roots of the old oak, by the bubbling spring at the upper end of the wood lot, known since time forgotten as the Horse Pasture. The moon had come up through the notch in the timber on Town Hill, where the Ives boys had cut their pine. It was a white night, clear as crystal spring water, and so cold that the frost snapped in the laggard sap of the apple trees. The bubbling spring tinkled metalically where the ice built little eaves about the rim.

Nip, cringing and all set to jump and run, sniffed his way from one bundle to another, giving this one a wide berth and ignoring another altogether. He had his own opinion of his master's choice friends, and he was at no pains to conceal it. When he came to "Bi's" blanket, he cunningly inserted his nose in a warm crevice and pried an opening for himself and crawled in, without rousing the sleeper. No more hunting for him this night, if he knew it! He stretched out luxuriously against the small of Bi's back, and undoubtedly the scoundrelly dog would have stayed there, warming and giving in warmth, until he was kicked out in the morning— as had happened on former egregious occasions— had not there come an alarm about four o'clock, that brought him bounding to his feet in demoniac fury and quaking terror, as he fought off the clinging blanket.

JUST what had caused Nip to make half-hearted passadoes at the most umbrageous of those ominous shadows that lurk on the edge of woods by moonlight, none of the aroused and irate horse blankets thought it necessary to inquire. Poor Nip had come to the fate of Cassandra. No one believed him! When he barked on trail, it was the general belief that he had run in a skunk; as a watchdog at home, he was equally discredited. And he was not permitted to sleep indoors because of the violence with which he was wont to dream.

"That darned fool sneaked in on us again!" said Bi, recovering his blankets. "Shet your fuss, or I'll brain you!" he threatened, swinging viciously at Nip, who was in the act of backing out of a charge much more ferociously than he had plunged into it.

Jason, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes, declared sepulchrally that any one who ever caught him, Jason, hunting behind that particular lop-eared piebald, mangy, flea-bitten excuse for a coon dog, again, had his leave to put a load of rock salt into him, Jason.

"You was the one that wanted I should fetch him," said Bi.

"Well, he is the only dog in town," said Jason. He added dryly: "And he has moved out of town, hereafter, as far as I am concerned. That dog's lost his nose!"

Uncle Charlie, always a little more curious or cautious than the others, was moving along the edge of the woods, pausing now and then to listen. In the character of "Natty Bumppo," of Leatherstocking fame, which he maintained even in the face of a civilization that had advanced to decadence in these parts, he took nothing for granted, not even Nip. No sound rewarded him, only unbroken silence. In fact, old Nip himself, seeing Uncle Charlie penetrate those terrible glades with impunity, started off quietly on his own hook and was forgotten.

Armiston, and his guest, Parr, the police deputy, for whose delectation this coon hunt was organized, came out of their horse blankets less snappily than their rural friends. Encased like cocoons in blankets that had known horse quite recently, their slumber had been not only peaceful but profound; but to awake to the discovery that everything they touched— axes, lanterns, guns— was coated with wraiths of ice from frozen dew, gave them rheumatic twinges of astonishment.

"What time is it?" demanded Oliver Armiston, teeth chattering. He was too selfishly cold to think of his own watch.

"Four o'clock," said Orlo, opening his lantern to light it.

"Get out!" protested Jason. "Why, it wa'n't one o'clock when we sat down to wait for that fool dog to come in."

"And the moon wa'n't up, either," said Orlo.

That was true. When they sat down to light their pipes and wait for Nip, golden Sapella, blue Rigel, and green Aldebaran had hung overhead; now the stars were snuffed out, and the moon was riding free of the treetops. A watch said ten minutes past four. There was no room to doubt that sleep had taken three hours from them; thanks to Nip, it hadn't taken more.

"I remember," said Orlo, chuckling over the blanket he was rolling for Parr, "one time we sat down to wait for Nip, and when it set in to rain, we picked out a big tree and rolled up under it. Well," he laughed, "daylight woke us up! Of course, Nip was there, sleeping with Bi! But the tree was a dead one, without a branch or leaf. Wet? Well, you can just bet!"

The lanterns were all lit now, timid flares that hardly held a candle to the splendid hunter's moon. But when they stepped into the gloom of the woods, the swinging lanterns conjured up a troupe of lights and shadows that glittered ghostily in and out among the trees, as the party advanced. The weird effect was heightened by the fact that they walked under hemlocks, with soft needles underfoot to mask their footfalls. They were away up in the western part of town, beyond the old Emmons place. For this, as well as for everything else to-night, it seemed, they were indebted to that false alarm, Nip. It was he, running ahead and teasing them along with his whines and whimpers of false hope, who had lured them up here to this unaccustomed spot, doubtless for reasons best known to himself.

"Here's what he was barking at," said Jason, coming to a halt in a little moonlit clearing. The sod was torn up, and the fresh red clay was exposed as if by two active men with pick and shovel. Uncle Charlie dropped to his knees and flashed his electric torch among the clods; the raw earth held the imprints of the murderous cloven hoofs of deer. One could picture a death battle of lovebitten stags plunging, striking, butting.

"He's running them!" cautioned Uncle Charlie, holding up a warning finger. Breathlessly they listened. Out of the hollow tube of night in the forest, the inept ear can summon a medley of harmonies and dissonances, as from some far-off swirling swarm of harpies, stirred by mutterings, suppressed screams, sighs, giggles and whisperings. Orlo and Uncle Charlie abruptly resumed the march, the others falling in behind. They broke a path through a skirmish line of brush and were under the trees again, the attendant shadows of the swinging lanterns circling before them, just out of reach. Parr pulled deep at the crisp air, laden with balsam.

"This is the life!" he thought. "They've got nothing in town like this for tired business men.'

Six hours ago— or had it been six centuries?—the great Parr, policeman, the inexorable pursuer, had emerge from a room, where for hours he had been slowly wearing down the resistance of a desperate murderer, extorting a confession. Everything in that room stank of humanity at its worst. Looking back on it now, over the span of a few hours, it seemed incredible that the triumph of that miserable confession should have given him so much elation. Well, he had stepped out of it, as one steps out of a cloak. When he left the train up here to join his friend, Armiston, for this week-end, he had turned a page. Here was the sheer simplicity of saner things! And here he was now, trudging along in a forest almost primeval, with tree trunks dancing crazily in the witching lantern light; and here and there a break in the canopy, to let through a splash of the waxing moon, heavy with freezing dews. Parr threw back his head. He had needed that sleep, and he thanked that rascally cur dog. Now, refreshed, he was even grateful to old Nip for having lured them so far from home before abandoning them, so that they must track back across thickly wooded hills, where even roads were memories.

The pleasant drone of voices accompanies them. Now and again, a pause for listening, watching! To the two city men the voices of the night said nothing, but to the others the woods were alive with articulate sounds, Parr himself, walking down Fifth Avenue of an afternoon, saw things in the crowd unseen by other eyes. So here for Uncle Charlie, and in a scarcely less degree for the others.

"But didn't you ever get a coon with him?" Oliver was asking. They were talking again about the nefarious Nip.

"We used to, yes, lots of times," said Orlo, quick to defend Nip's bygones. Nip had lost his repute only recently.

"Remember the time we let Catesby Loring come along?" asked Jason, laughing

"Catesby Loring?" said Oliver. "Why, I know Catesby Loring."

"Not this one, I guess," came the deep voice of Orlo. They were crawling over an old stone wall, half buried in vines, and he held the lantern high for them to see their footing.

"He's a sleepwalker," said Jason. "He'll get out in the middle of the night and whistle for his horse, and ride him, hell bent for leather, and never wake up!" He paused. "Well!" he resumed, to fill the gap of interruption, "Nip ran a coon up that ash which stands by the big pool on Thorpe Brook, on your place. You know the tree." Armiston didn't, but he was ashamed to admit it. Out here one should know and have friends among rocks and trees, as he does among human beings. "I climbed!" said Jason, chuckling. "Gee! Gosh! It was an awful climb. It's thirty feet to that first limb, straight as a telephone pole. And the darned coon jumped, just as I reached for him!"

"Reached? What did you reach for him for?" demanded Parr fiercely.

"To push him off, of course!" said Jason. "Well, that coon lit, right in front of Catesby Loring! And Catesby grabbed him quick, by the hind legs, and he swung him against a tree to bash his brains out before he could turn and bite. Only it wasn't a tree. It was Catesby's brother-in-law, Dominick, standing there in the dark."

The narrator paused on this happy period.

"Well," he resumed, "when we finally pulled Dominick out of the brook, his nose was broken, and his jaw was broken in two places. Oh, he was hopping mad! He swore Catesby was trying to kill him. I'm not so sure but what he was, at that," concluded Jason. "Things that happen since might look like it."

"How about the coon?" demanded Parr.

"Oh, it knocked the coon silly! Nice big fellow. Eighteen pound, wa'n't it, Orlo?"

Orlo nodded. Yes, it had weighed eighteen pounds.

"I know a Catesby Loring in town," repeated Armiston.

"This is another one," said Orlo. "He matried an Italian woman. He goes off for a long time and then comes back. I'll show you where he lives—down here a piece."

THE voice of Nip emerged from the depths, plaintive and weird. It ceased on a Staccato yelp.

Lifted feet arrested themselves; swinging lanterns became still; even the attendant shadows paused. They were all vibrant expectation.

"He's run in something!" This from Bi, excitedly.

"Sounds like a skunk!" put in Jason, though why a dog's bark, coming from afar, suggested skunk, was too much for city lodgers.

"No," said Bi. "I don't think so. Hark!"

They strained their ears painfully. Curious, thought Parr, how one could build up suspense over nothing. A nearby brook was laughing over some secret of its own. They started on.

"Where was he barking from?" asked Oliver.

"Over by the reservoir," said Bi.

"No, sir! Sounded to be up by the pond," said Jason.

"He's down in the hollow back of the Loring place," said Uncle Charlie. Orlo nodded.

But when they finally came in sight of the Loring place, half an hour later, it was not the cheery bark of a dog, calling in the laggard hunters, that had guided them. There was no Nip. The gossiping drone of voices ceased, as they came near, as if muted by the nearness of the man they had been talking about. In town, the Loring houses— there were several distinguished branches of the family— were mansions, show places. This Catesby Loring lived on a little island in the midst of an ocean of hardhack— hardhack, the symbol of sloth and deterioration up here. In late August, the steeple flowers, throwing up their bright mauve plumes, must have made it a wildly beautiful garden.

Now it lay dun and desolate. The house itself, which had stood empty a long time before this last Catesby Loring took to coming back, was a thing of slabs and patches. It was overshadowed by three memorable pines, huddling together, vast, primitive, their dark silhouette splashing a Japanese print against the bright sky. Catesby Loring apparently made some effort to keep the yard about his door free of the encroaching hardhack, but beyond the rubble fence the shrub stretched across the pasture to the woods; its velvety pile was broken here and there by spots of grass and outcropping of rock in the revealing moon.

The men were in a sunken lane, stepping from bog to bog. To any one looking on, as they so silently picked their way, each with his gun or ax or club, they must have seemed a formidable party. They must skirt the sleeping house closely; there was no other way around, except through thickets. Ice crackled, as some one of them made a misstep. '

"Quiet!" warned Orlo over his shoulder. 'She's liable to give us both barrels of a shotgun."

The going became soppy. There was a live spring in the lane. They clung to the dry land on the steep sides.

"Isn't there a dog?" asked Oliver nervously. He was at Orlo's shoulder. Orlo shook his head, smiling up at the sky.

"No dog would live with him," he said. "There are men like that."

THEN, as they came to the head of the lane, where it turned into the barnyard, Catesby Loring himself stepped out from the shadow of the wagon shed into the bright white night and paused, facing them, without a word. He swung a shining ax easily in one hand, and in the other he carried a loop of rope. He was bareheaded; he had drawn on his trousers over a shirt; he was barefooted. Maybe the moonlight magnified him, but in that instant's pause he seemed almost heroic, with brawny arms and chest uncovered, the wind lifting his thick, wild hair.

The hunters had come to a standstill. Uncle Charlie, who was foremost, shifted his ax, not to swing, but to grasp it as a man grasps a quarter stave to fend off a blow.

"Easy, Charlie!" cautioned the low voice of Orlo. "Don't wake him up!"

Uncle Charlie nodded, not taking his eyes off the man.

Catesby Loring lifted his head and whistled shrilly through his teeth, a harpy scream. He seemed to listen for a moment, then he advanced. He swung from bog to bog, avoiding the icy water, as if by instinct. He moved swiftly through their ranks, within touch of their hands. As if their feet were chained to the ground, they leaned away from him, lest he brush them in passing.

"Yes, he is a Loring!" thought Oliver Armiston, holding his breath, as the sleep walker fared on. No one could mistake that head. It wore the pride of eagles. They were Cape folks who had made their money in whaling. The boast of the Catesby Loring in town was that he had never done a day's work in his life. What was the vainglory of this kinsman of the mighty thews?

Twenty steps beyond them he came to a halt by the bars of a field gate. He stood, his head lifted, as if staring out over the barren pasture. He whistled again, turning an ear. Silence. He whistled again— a peremptory summons— and again! After a pause of several seconds, the answer came, the neigh of a horse. The horse was coming at a gallop, whinnying eagerly, hoofs striking fire among the boulders. Catesby Loring laughed silently to himself; with a single twist of his wrist he stuck his ax solidly in the gatepost, the shining bit biting deep. Then he let down the bars. The horse came hard at him, but the man did not give ground. The horse stopped short beside him. For a moment man and animal stood rigid, statuesque, a truly beautiful picture in the moonlight.

"Better wake him up," urged Parr below his breath.

"No. It would kill him!" replied Orlo in the same tone. Such, at least, was the legend of the countryside. Catesby Loring slipped the halter rope about the obedient animal's neck and, continuing the chain of action, he sprang up and astride. The creature swung, curvetted, and in three strides was going at a run. Catesby Loring was beating him wildly with the halter end. The hoofs rang against the boulders. The shadows at the edge of the woods enveloped them.

"He'll cast that front plate!" said Orlo.

"What? What's that?" cried Oliver, coming to, with a start.

"He's got a loose shoe! There it goes now! Listen!" Orlo held up a hand. Oliver listened. There may have been some change in the accent of those wild hoofbeats to tell an apt ear that the horse had cast a shoe, and which shoe, but Oliver's ear was not educated to it. For a long time they could hear the pounding of the earth, but finally even that died away. But the spell still held them.

"Have you ever seen him ride before, Orlo?" asked Oliver.

"Yes." Orlo was troubled. He stared at Oliver, then turned to stare at the dark woods that had swallowed the phantasm of the horseman. "I never seen him ride that way before— with his eyes shut," he said. "He always had them wide open!"

"But he couldn't see anything," protested Armiston.

"Maybe not, but it didn't seem so spookish," said Orlo.

"Won't he come back?"

"Sometimes he does. Then again he goes away and stays. Once we found him over by Blandford."

"We had better rouse out the house," said Parr, looking at the ramshackle home of the Lorings, where it crouched in the shadows of the pines.

"No, thank you!" retorted Orlo. "They are not a pair to monkey with!"

It seemed heartless to depart, but they finally started off, with many a look behind, and now and then a pause, listening. They crossed the ridge and dropped down into the valley of their river, expecting, to the last, to hear the sound of the returning hoofbeats. But there was nothing. It must have been six o'clock when they paused at Orlo's gate. The moon was hiding behind a coal sack in the heavens, and the Dog Star was blinking across the sky at the brightening east.

"Come in and have a bite," invited Orlo. He yawned. It was chore time, and he wouldn't go to bed. But they didn't stop. When Oliver and Parr got home, Aunt Ivy was opening up for the day. This was her cleaning day, Saturday, a day of dust and soapsuds.

WHEN they came down for a second breakfast at eleven, they found Jason there.

"That dog, Nip," said Aunt Ivy, examining a jar of honey in the light of the kitchen window, "has got too much on his mind."

This was her way of consoling them for coming in without a coon.

"I wonder if he came home," said Parr, making a bib of his napkin, for he saw that waffles and honey were indicated. He was pleased to note that he was slipping into the habit of referring to his animal friends as if they were people.

"That dog isn't coming home again," put in Jason from the lower end of the table.

"Eh? What's that?" at him.

"Something happened to that dog," said Jason positively. "I could tell the way he yelped. You'll find him in a trap or something, over by Spectacle Pond."

"Uncle Charlie says he was down by Catesby Loring's," said Parr.

Aunt Ivy looked up from her batter.

"He was riding again, last night, that man," she said, the spell of the weird gripping her. "I wonder where he thinks he's going, when he's that way."

There was a problem for a sage to ponder. Just then there came the familiar creak of wheels. It was Orlo at the gate. His team pulled out of the wheel track to pick at the frosted rowen, and Orlo lay back against the bolster, on the reach, cutting off the heads of mullein stalks with deft strokes of his whip.

"Did he come home yet?" asked Jason. Orlo would know. All sorts of intelligence, but especially the kind that tapped itself, across country from one hollow log to another, sought out Orlo first. He shook his head.

"I'm going up to do his chores," he said. "Isn't his woman there, either?"

Orlo's whiplash decapitated a mullein stalk, with the report of a pistol shot.

"Some one come by just now says it looks like no one is home," he said. He drew in his lash, examining it critically. The screen door swung on rusty hinges.

"If you men are coming, you come!" threatened Aunty Ivy.

For the first time Orlo was regarding them fixedly. Parr felt it, coursing up and down his spine. His nerves had begun to tingle when Jason spoke of Nip. Parr was "marked" for murder. In town, it was said, the police slips would flow by him, like water under a bridge, every day, without arousing a lifted eyebrow; then, with no reason visible to an ordinary person, he would suddenly pick out one and go into action. He had the unerring sense of murder.

"We aren't coming, Aunt Ivy," he called to her. "Something has happened up above. We'll go along, Orlo."

"I reckoned there would," said the old lady, letting the door fall to; she stared out over hill and valley. '"He's got too good blood."

Parr was going to the kitchen for his cap and things, and he was surprised to find Orlo behind him. No word had been spoken, no suggestion uttered, but Jason and Oliver were unhitching the team. No one knew what had happened, but, strangely enough, every one seemed to know what to do.

Orlo took down the telephone and called a number. He nodded to Parr, while he waited. "I guess he's going off for a spell, again," he said; then, turning to the telephone: "Hello, Sam!" he cried. "Say, Sam, Catesby was riding last night. On the roan colt. It throwed ashoe, on the nigh... What's that?"

He cocked his head, listening intently, turning to the telephone as if it were something animate. "Yeah," he agreed, nodding; and, seeing Parr's eyes on him, he covered the mouthpiece with a hand and whispered: "They found his horse in the woods, with its head bashed in." He turned to the telephone and cried in 'a loud voice: 'Maybe he killed it with a rock or something, himself... What's that?... I don't know. I'm going to see now. He's on foot—and barefoot, to boot."

He hung up, his hand still on the ear-piece.

"They found his horse, with its leg broke and its head bashed in," he said. "Hello, Millie! Get me Johnny Hines at the Barrington depot, will you?" The station agent answered at once. No, Catesby hadn't gone out on the morning train.

He called still another number, one more of his faithful outposts.

"If Catesby comes by, let me know, will you, Henry?" he asked. To the inevitable question he would answer, "I don't know, I'm going up to see now."

Thus with a few brief strokes Orlo closed the gates of his dominions.

"What do you make of it, Orlo?" asked Parr.

"Well, when I come to think about it, I didn't like it so well,' said the constable.

IN the barnyard Jason had backed out the flivver and put in an ax, a crowbar, and a log chain. They went up Town Hill and turned off that ancient thoroughfare of water bars and treacherous outcroppings of smooth granite, into an obscure alley among the trees, that plainly bore the kindly sign, "Not a road." Now the tools came in handy. There were saplings grown up to bar the path, and boulders thrust up here and there to rip out their vitals. To the city men their progress held no hint of the terrain they had traversed before dawn this morning, and it was with a start of surprise that they first caught sight of the abode of the Lorings.

It was a thousand times more forlorn by daylight. It had never been picturesque, even in its heyday. It was all wood and wood rots. The roof of one of the ells had been left to fall in, and some of the upstairs windows were open to the weather.

Orlo said: ''Some one is ahead of us. The cows have been turned out."

The car halted in a little thicket, through which they examined the cold chimneys and slattern rooftrees. Orlo cupped his hands and hooted like an owl, very convincingly.

"OOooOOO-OOO! Hoooo!" he hooted, with eerie accents.

The answer came instantly, from no determinable point of the compass.

"Hooo-ooOOO!" it said, in utter desolation. It was the familiar code— Uncle Charlie.

"System!" grunted Deputy Parr, in admiration. He wished he could reduce his affairs to such simplicity. He wished he might have an Orlo and an Uncle Charlie in town. He had his clever operatives, of course, with twenty thousand men to pick from. But the best of them had to be told what to do; and even his twin shadows, shabby Pelts and handsome Morel, did not work with the beautiful absence of backlash of this pair. They left the car in the brush and walked down the ragged road. Uncle Charlie was waiting for them. He had something to show them— poor old Nip hanging on a rope's end from a beam in the hay barn. Chickens eyed them with polite, stiffnecked curiosity; a pair of shoats sunned themselves on the manure heap; pigeons cooed up above; and the barn cat rubbed itself against Uncle Charlie's legs. The kitchen door stood open, and they entered. The walls were plastered with torpid flies, waiting for morning fires that would never again be lighted. There was a bucket of new milk on the floor.

They made no effort to be quiet. There were no eavesdroppers, none to disturb. Parr, the old campaigner, used his eyes from habit. He was seeking the tell-tale marks that always attach themselves to such a spot, at such a time, from which in a flash, as on a printed page, he would read the whole story. But for him the print on this page was dim. He got the sense of the thing, but at the same time he was baffled. The great man-hunter, who throughout the adventures of the night had been trying to sponge his mind clean of the taint of murder, was clutching at it again, with the same old fervor; but here the machinery was different, the properties were different, and the reason differently informed. He found it impossible to tell himself why he knew this was murder.

"Nip followed him in," said Uncle Charlie, a little hush in his tones for the old dog. '"That's what he was running."

They had a maddening way of giving you only an elliptical fragment of their thoughts, as if their few words would be the key to unlock the rest.

"Him? Who?" demanded Parr, his nostrils quivering with the scent.

"Catesby," said Uncle Charlie in surprise.

"Followed him from where?" Parr was pressing home his point.

IT was Oliver Armiston, the extinct author, to whom Parr was wont to ascribe a clairvoyant power at times, who gave the answer. "From where the two bucks were fighting," he said. white lock.

Armiston's eyes gleamed brightly. Parr knew the signs. The tips of the writer's fingers were itching, and he was yearning for his trusty typewriter. With the old machine for his medium, Oliver could build up, letter by letter a trellis of words on which his thoughts might climb and branch out like a vine. That is the way he had schooled himself to think, by writing.

Orlo and Jason had drifted out. Uncle Charlie was taking down an empty gun rack that hung above the sitting-room door. Parr scowled. Everybody seemed to know what was going on but himself.

"The two bucks?" he repeated, eying the rapt Oliver. His eye lighted. "You mean up on the hill— the thing that woke up Nip and started the row?"

"Ves," said Oliver gravely. He was intent on Uncle Charlie. Charlie was taking the gun rack to pieces. It was made, as was the custom here in the hills, of the front feet of a deer, dried and drawn up at a sharp angle to serve as the brackets.

"Catesby was up there when we were? What the devil was he doing up there?" The deputy was piecing out the problem for himself, gradually. "I thought you said no one was within five miles of us," he cried.

"I expect that's what Catesby thought, till Nip started the row!" said Oliver.

"But what was he doing up there?" barked Parr.

"Digging!" said Oliver and gave him a cold look.

"Am I right, Charlie? Wasn't he digging?"

Charlie nodded. He twisted a deer's foot out of the rack and passed it to Oliver. Armiston stared at it, puzzled. He parted the cleft hoof. A ball of red clay, still damp, was imbedded there.

"This was the two bucks fighting," said the old woodsman. "He punched the earth with that, to make it look like deer tracks, if any one happened along and saw the earth broken."

"Charlie," said Oliver slowly, "do bucks fight this time of year?"

"No. That's what fetched me back this morning— to see what he'd been burying up there."

"And you found— his housekeeper?"

"Yes," said the old woodsman, He cast a look around the miserable house. "He was always trying to get clear of her," he said.

Oliver passed the telltale hoof, with its incriminating red clay, to Parr.

"It is a curious thing," said Armiston, in his abstracted manner, "but I have been thinking all morning that there is not a single incident that's happened, since we rolled up in our blankets to wait for old Nip to come in, out there in the Horse Pasture, that is irrelevant. It all dovetails. Everything fits. We were not up there to wait for Nip! We were waiting for Catesby Loring to come along, only we didn't know it. Nip," he cried, addressing the old dog, as if his soul still hovered about them, "we are going to hang him for you! Orlo!" Orlo was coming back. "Orlo, he wasn't asleep at all! He was faking!"

"I know it," said Orlo placidly.

"When Nip ran him in, he finished Nip and then waited for us," said Oliver. "He thought we were following him— that we came for him! When he stepped out there into the head of the lane, in the moonlight, it was to fight! With our axes and guns we were formidable enough. But I don't know— he must have been desperate— until—"

He paused, looking from one face to another.

"Until what?" cried Jason.

"Until Orlo called out to Uncle Charlie, 'Don't wake him up, Charlie.' Remember? That gave him his cue. He saw we thought he was sleep-walking. So he pretended he was sleep-walking and stalked through us and whistled in his horse. He shut his eyes. That's where he slipped up. Probably he didn't know he held his eyes wide open when he really was sleepwalking. No, of course he wouldn't."'

"That's what brought me back here this morning," confessed Orlo. "I got to worrying about it."

"And this is what fetched Uncle Charlie back," said Parr, holding up the cloven hoof.

"He won't get far, barefoot," said Orlo.

But he did. He got through the lines before they were drawn.

LATE in the year, Oliver Armiston, the extinct author, came back to town and settled for the winter. He was scarcely at home when he found himself being called upon one night in December by his friend, the deputy commissioner of police, Mr. Parr. It was snowing. Parr got out of his greatcoat and was discovered to be dressed in evening attire. He made a fine figure.

"Get into your 'soup-and-fish,' " he said. '"We are members of the Monday Night Opera Club." 'There are wheels within wheels— this Monday Night Opera Club is the very center of all the driving pinions of society. It was this club that brought over a grand duchess, with all her jewels. The deputy sat down in his favorite chair, selecting a cigar. There was something about him that caused his friend, Armiston, to move fast. Parr had the air, one might say, of the sword of Damocles. Oliver emerged handsome and very distinguished looking, with his single white lock pulled down prominently in front. They drove through whirling snow to the Metropolitan. They had a parterre box all to themselves, through some function of kingship that the police deputy possessed and occasionally exercised. On the darkened stage was occurring the altar scene from "La Vestale." The liquid voice of a great singer had finally come into its glorious own here, and Oliver was ecstatic.

But, in the midst of it, Parr plucked him by the sleeve and drew him out to the dim foyer and down the alley in the rear of the boxes. A door stood partly open; and in the cloak room of one of the parterre boxes a man sat back against the wall, asleep, or, at least, with his eyes closed, under a small light.

Parr muttered in Oliver's ear: 'Shall we pick him up now? What say?"

Oliver turned on the policeman.

"Look!" commanded Parr. "Where did you see that face last?"

There could be no doubt of it. Catesby Loring had the thin lids drawn down over his eyes, just as the lids were drawn down in that other face upturned to the moon, at the head of the sunken lane. For an instant Oliver felt the prickling in his fingers of that tense moment, and he heard the pounding of those wild hoofs. Parr was drawing him gently away. They were back in the gloom of their box again. But the opera had vanished. All his senses seemed to have gone dead. The lights came on, and the great house buzzed with life.

"It is impossible, of course!" cried Oliver. "I'm going to find out!"

"You won't," challenged Parr, following along.

"May we come in?" asked Armiston suavely, pushing open the door of the Loring box.

"Yes— yes!" drawled Catesby Loring. "It's nice to see you, my boy!"

He was as tall as the other, had the same carriage of the head, but without the magnificent mane which had made it heroic. To-night Catesby Loring wore his black hair clipped close. He might have had the same breadth of shoulders, the same barrel of a chest, but the lines of his coat discreetly suppressed their emphasis, A romantic figure, as few men can be in the clothes these tailors begrudge us! And his hands, when he met Oliver's grasp, had fingers of steel, a wrist that might have swung that ax in the stroke that buried its head in the gatepost. But the eye was mild, hopelessly bored.

The dilettante looked from one to the dther. He extracted his hand from Oliver's light grasp and presented it, with his chilly smile, to Parr. Parr had a great trick of searing a guilty man with a look. Not one murderer in a thousand could withstand it. He saved it for special occasions. This was one. But now it was a dud. The exquisite Catesby rather curled his lip over Parr, the policeman, the while he pleasantly patronized Oliver, the littérateur.

"Ah, Doris!" Catesby Loring turned, as a charming girl of sixteen stepped through the curtains, and laughingly ranged herself beside her distinguishedlooking parent. "My little girl! Mr. Parr—and Mr. Armiston, who is very fond of lions, especially man-eaters! Ha-ha!"

That ended the confrontation.

BACK home in Armiston's study, the two smoked in prolonged communion. Parr said: finally:

"He is a cold fish!"

"It is incredible!" cried Oliver.

Parr smiled. "It is a disease," he said.

But Parr believed he had a way to break his nerve. A week later, one afternoon, Morel, the handsome man, who was given society jobs, because he was the only cop Parr had who could walk across a drawing-room floor, stopped Catesby Loring when he was coming out of a board meeting.

"The big fellow wants to see you downtown, some time," said Morel. "I think you'll catch him around four, this afternoon."

It was just four when the Loring car drew up at the curb. Catesby stepped out and went in. Parr was seated at his empty desk. His desk was always clear, as if he were waiting for something to happen. He reached out, without rising, and drew up a chair for Catesby. Catesby sat down. Parr looked at him with his professional look. Catesby withstood it, with bland surprise.

"Well?" he inquired.

Parr touched a button, and an inner door opened. Orlo and Uncle Charlie came in. They were not dressed up for the occasion. Parr had gone to considerable pains to see to that. He had plotted with Jason and sent up his car to kidnap them au naturel, without letting them know why, for it was quite as important for him that they be as much surprised as Catesby by the confrontation.

They came in awkwardly, all the grace of men who were used to the feel of sod underfoot, leaving them when they stepped out onto the polished floor and into the grandeur of the room. At sight of Catesby Loring they came to an abrupt stop. They showed no astonishment outwardly. They had hunted together too many years and had schooled themselves what to do in a crisis. What to do? Do nothing! It takes nerves, and self-control. Pause, wait, see what the ether fellow is going to do. Let him make the false move!

An audible sigh escaped Catesby Loring.

"Hello, Orlo," he said. "Hello, Charlie! So you've come for me?"

"Yes, Catesby," said Orlo. His tone was quiet, but he looked oddly at Parr, as if the deputy were putting some slight on him.

It was Catesby himself who took command. It was as if he had thought it all out, in readiness for this moment.

"I'd like to go back just as I have always gone back," he said. "No one around here needs to know anything about it."

He turned to Parr, as if for answer; but Parr said nothing. Catesby drummed on the arms of his chair.

"I've got a daughter," he said. "I brought her in the other night, when you were about to say something to me, just because I needed a little more time to arrange my affairs." Here he noticed Oliver, for the first time, in the shadow of the street window, and bowed slightly. "I've been training Doris all my life to expect my comings and goings, and not ask questions. There was always the chance to be considered of my not coming back. She knows what to do, if I don't."

He had a keen look of understanding for them all, one by one.

"Is there some way I can go without giving rise to comment here?" he asked, turning to Parr.

"Orlo and Charlie came down in my car," said Parr. "You will all go back together. You are in their custody."

When the door shut on the three who were going back, Parr was silent for a time. Then he said: "Somehow, he managed to put me in the wrong." And he ended it on that note.

________________

10: Ponsonby and the Pantheress

Richard Dehan

1863-1932

The Cost of Wings and other Stories, 1914

I HAVE called this story "Ponsonby and the Pantheress," because Ponsonby's nocturnal visitor undoubtedly belonged to the genus Carnaria, species F. pardus, the Pardalis of the ancients. The whole thing hinges on Ponsonby's getting a ticket of invitation to a mighty dinner given by one of the great City Livery Companies. Had he refused the invitation, and stayed at home with Mrs. Ponsonby, it would have been better for him— and for her. He would not to-day have been a silent, atrabilious man, who goes upon his way in loneliness— that mated loneliness which is of all desolate conditions on this earth the most desolate— with a vampire gnawing underneath his waistcoat. She would not have been a much-wronged, cruelly neglected woman— or the other type of sufferer, the woman who has been found out; and for ever robbed of that which women hold dearest in life— the power to create illusions.

It was a great dinner at that City Hall— a feast both succulent and juicy, and upon a scale so prodigious as to put it utterly beyond the power of a single-stomached man to do justice thereto. Many of the guests had thoughtfully provided themselves with several of these necessary organs, but Ponsonby— who had recently sold out of the Army, and invested his commission money in business, and settled down with Mrs. Ponsonby in a neat little house in Sloane Street— was still young, and fairly slim.

The baked meats and confectionery were excellent, and "the drinks"—as Betsey Prig might have observed— "was good." It was revealed to Ponsonby that he had absorbed a considerable quantity only by the swollen condition of his latchkey when he tried to fit it into the door of the little house in Sloane Street. But after a short struggle the door opened, and Ponsonby paused a moment on the doorstep to take some observations on the weather. It was just one o'clock as he looked at his watch in the moonlight. Ponsonby was reminded of Indian moons by the lucent brightness of the broad silver orb that floated so majestically on the calm bosom of the dark overhead. She was getting near her wane, but only notifying it by an exaggerated handsomeness, like a professional Society beauty. Ponsonby thought of that simile— all by himself— and was proud of it, as he had always been a man more celebrated for his moustache than his intellect. He tied a knot in his mental pocket handkerchief to remember it by, and, facing round to go into the house, was a little disconcerted to find the hall door gaping to receive him.

Then he went in, barred and bolted very carefully, and set the spring burglar alarum— for once. Ponsonby was unusually careful and deliberate in his movements on this particular night. Then he sat down on the hall bench and took off his boots. Then he switched off the electric hall light. Then he pondered whether he should or should not have just one brandy and soda before going to bed—because he had come home so clear and calm and cool-headed from that City dinner. Ay or No— and the Ayes had it. He went into the dining-room. It had been furnished for the Ponsonbys on the best authority; in oak, with Brummagem-Benares brass pots and tea trays. The window curtains, and the drapery which hung before a deepish recess in the wall to the left of the door as you entered, were plush, of that artistic shade of olive-green which is so shabby when it is new that you can't tell when it gets old. The recess had originally been intended for a book case; but young married people just starting in life never have any books— they are too much bound up in each other— and so it had been covered up. You can put things behind a covering of this sort which you do not care to expose to the gaze of the casual guest— a row of old slippers, or a pile of superannuated Army Lists, or a collection of summonses— or the Family Skeleton.

Ponsonby switched on the light, and opened the liquor case with his watch-chain key, and got a tumbler and soda siphon from the buffet, and lighted a cigar. Then he sat down in an armchair, unbuttoned his white waistcoat, loosened his collar, and prepared to be lonelily convivial. He thought of his girl-like bride asleep upstairs, with her cheek upon her hand, and her gold-brown hair swamping the pillow. It says much for the state of Ponsonby's affections, that while he knew the uses of the monthly half pint of peroxide which was an unfailing item on the chemist's bill, he could still be poetical about that tinge of gold. But newly married men seldom look into the roots of anything. He lifted his glass and drank her health. "To Mamie!" he said, as the frisky gas bubbles snapped at his nose. And then he glanced over the edge of the tumbler at the curtained recess behind the door. And the short hairs of his head rose up and began to promenade. And his teeth clicked against the glass he held. For a bolt of ice had shot through either ear orifice straight to his brain. In other words— Something had laughed— an ugly laugh— behind that drawn curtain.

In another moment it was put aside. A woman came out of the recess that had concealed her, and stood before him.

Not to mince matters, she belonged to the class we are content to call unfortunate. From her tawdry bonnet to the mud-befouled hem of her low-necked silk dress— a preposterous garment, grease-stained and ragged, and partly hidden by an opera cloak of sullied whiteness— the nature of her profession was written on her from head to foot. She was not without beauty, or the archæological traces of what had been it; but as she grinned at the astonished man, showing two rows of strong square teeth, yellowed with liquor and cigarette smoking, and the gathered muscles of her cheeks pushed up her underlids, narrowing her fierce, greedy eyes to mere slits, and the hood of her soiled mantle fell back from her coarsely dyed hair, she was a thing unlovely. She seemed to snuff the air with her broad nostrils, as scenting prey; she worked her fingers in their dirty white gloves, as though they were armed with talons that longed to tear and rend; and, as she did so, Ponsonby was irresistibly reminded of a panther.

Ponsonby had shot panthers in India, and had once been slightly mauled by a female specimen. It was an odd coincidence that the old scars on his left shoulder and thigh should have begun to burn and throb and shoot unpleasantly as the yellow-white fangs of the intruder gleamed upon him, framed in by her grinning, painted lips.

But Ponsonby recovered himself after a moment, and asked her, without ceremony, how the devil she came there? He was not a particularly bright man, but he knew, even as he asked. She had been crouching in the shadow under the portico— some of the Sloane Street houses have porticoes— when his cab drove up. She had watched him get out. Then, when he had been standing with his foolish back to the open door, gaping at the moon, the Pantheress had skulked in, with the noiseless, cushioned step that distinguishes her race. And now he had to get rid of her.

Which was not as easy a task as one might think.

He began by telling her that he was a married man.

"Knew that," said the Pantheress. "Saw you take off your boots in the hall. Saw you drink her health." She mimicked him. "To Mamie!" And laughed again— that unspeakably jarring laugh.

Ponsonby grew irate. He took his courage in both hands and went into the hall, where he softly undid the door fastenings. Then he came back, and offered to show his visitor out.

She was in the act of pocketing a silver race cup, won by Ponsonby at a Pony Hurdle Handicap on the Bombay course in 1890, when Ponsonby came back. He caught her wrist and bade her drop it. She gave it up sullenly. Then, with a sudden accession of feminine meekness, she said she would go— if he would stand her a drink.

It seemed a cheap bargain. The unwitting Ponsonby got out another glass from the buffet cupboard, and mixed her a brandy and soda, not too weak. She drew a chair— his wife's chair— to the table, and sat down, throwing her dingy cloak from her whitewashed shoulders. She put her hand to her head, and drew thence a long steel pin with a blue glass head, and took her gaudy bonnet off and threw it on the table. She did not hurry over the consumption of the liquid, and Ponsonby began to grow impatient. When he hinted this, she asked for a cigar.

He gave her one, and a light. And she drained the last drop in the tumbler, and stuck the burning weed between her teeth, with a coarse masquerade of masculinity. Ponsonby heaved a sigh of relief.

"Now, my girl, come along— time's up!" He started for the door.

The Pantheress got up, and leaned against the mantelshelf, smoking. She intimated that she had changed her mind— and would remain. Ponsonby lost his temper, and threatened ejection by main force.

"Put me out? You daren't!" rejoined the Pantheress. She added some adjectives reflecting upon Ponsonby and the honor of his family—but with those we have nothing to do.

Ponsonby's under jaw came out, and his forehead lowered. He strode toward the Pantheress; her sex was not going to plead for that delicate piece of femininity, it was evident.

"I daren't, eh?"

"You daren't. Because I'd tear, and scratch, and scream, I would— till the police came— till your wife woke up and came downstairs to see what the row was about. Nice for you, then! Easy for you to explain— with two glasses on the table!"

Ponsonby broke into a cool perspiration. He spake in his soul and cursed himself for a fool— of all fools the one most thoroughly impregnated with foolery. For he saw that he had been trapped. The Pantheress rocked upon her hips and laughed, shaking out a coarse aroma of patchouli from her shabby garments.

"You had me in and stood me drinks. I can swear to that. My swell toff, I think you'd better knock under!"

Ponsonby had to arrive at that conclusion, thinking of his wedded happiness and the golden-brown hair scattered on the pillow upstairs. He was awed to the pitch of making overtures— of asking the Pantheress how much she would take to go?

The Pantheress sprang high. Twenty pounds.

Ponsonby had not as much in the house. With great difficulty, and much exercise of eloquence, he got her to bate five. It was necessary that she should be brought to forego another five, for all the ready cash he could muster did not amount to much more than ten. How to attain this desirable end? Ponsonby had a dramatic inspiration.

He had read many novels and seen many plays. In most of these the main plot turned upon the ultimate victory of Human Virtue and Truth over Vice and Disintegrity. In these books or dramas Vice was generally personified by an adventuress— a brazen, defiant person, who had made up her mind to ruin somebody or another; and Virtue, by an innocent girl or pure young wife, who pleaded until the hardened heart was melted, the fierce eyes moistened by an unaccustomed tear— until, in short, the naughty woman abandoned her unhallowed purpose and left the nice one mistress of the field. The theory is an admirable one in a book or in a play, but in real life it does not hold good. Ponsonby has since learned this; but at that time he was youngish and inexperienced.

He would weave a net, with those golden-brown tresses upstairs, in which to catch the Pantheress. He begged her to listen, and told his story quite prettily. He explained how, three years before, his regiment having newly returned from India, he had met at a certain South Coast resort, separated by a mile or two of arid common from a great dockyard town, a lovely girl. She was a friendless orphan, the daughter of a clergyman, had been a governess, had broken down in health, and, with the last remnant of her little savings, taken a humble lodging near the sea, in order to benefit by the ozone. How she had found, during her innocent strolls on the beach, not only that health of which she had been in search, but a husband. And, finally, how every fiber of her soul, being naturally bound up in that husband, and her present state of health delicate, the infliction of such a blow as the Pantheress contemplated striking might not only strike at the roots of love, but of life.

With which peroration counsel concluded, not wholly dissatisfied with himself. He wiped his brow, and sent a hopeful glance at the Pantheress. Her features had not softened, nor was her eye dimmed. Her lips twitched, certainly, but the convulsive movement was merely the herald of a yawn.

"You're a good one to jaw!" she said, when he had finished. "Come, I'll not be hard on you. How much have you got?"

He named the amount.

"Hand out!" the Pantheress bade him.

He would give her half the sum then and there, Ponsonby said, with a gleam of strategic cunning, and the other half when she was fairly outside the hall-door— not before.

The Pantheress nodded, and clutched the first installment from his hand greedily, and caught her dirty bonnet from the table and threw it on her head. "No larks!" she said warningly— "come on!" and moved to the room door, where she paused. "Ain't you got manners enough to open it for a lady?" she remarked in an aggrieved tone. Ponsonby, hastily restoring the tell-tale second glass to the sideboard, sprang forward and grasped the handle— and dropped it as though it had been red-hot, for he had caught the sound of footsteps— light, regular, measured footsteps— descending the stairs. He could not utter a word. He turned a white face and glaring eyes upon the Pantheress. And the steps came nearer. As the dining-room door opened, he fell back, helplessly, behind it. The wall seemed to open and swallow him— thick, suffocating folds fell before his face; he had backed into the curtained recess whence the Pantheress had emerged thirty fateful minutes previously. Through a three-cornered rent in the stuff, just the height of his eye from the ground, and through which that beast of prey had probably watched him, he looked—and saw his wife!

She wore a loose white wrapping gown; her hair— the hair— hung in waves about her shoulders. Barring the bedroom candle she carried, and losing sight of her prosaic nineteenth-century surroundings, she resembled one of Burne Jones's angels. But her calm expression changed, and her voice was tuned to a key of unangelic indignation, as her glance lighted on the painted, brazen Defiance, erect and bristling, before her.

"You... a woman, what do you want? How did you?— how dared you come here?"

The Pantheress was about, in answer, to launch the first of an elaborate flight of insults, couched in the easy vernacular of Leicester Square, when she stopped short. Her thick lips rolled back from her gleaming fangs in a triumphant grin. She bent forward, with her hands upon her thighs, and made a close inspection of the face of Ponsonby's wife.

"What! Luce?"...

The other recoiled, with a slight cry. And Ponsonby, in his retirement, was conscious of a deadly qualm— for Mrs. Ponsonby's Christian name was Lucy! When he opened his shut eyes and peeped through the rent again, it was only to receive a fresh shock— for Mrs. Ponsonby and the Pantheress were sitting, one on either side of the table, chatting like old friends.

"Luck was poor," the Pantheress was saying, "and me low down in my spirits. So when I found the door of a swell house like this open, 'I'll pop in,' says I to myself, 'and look about for a snack of something and a drop to drink, and then make off if I can, clear, or else go to quod— like a lady.' And I did pop in— and I did look about— and the first thing that turns up is— you! On a smooth lay, ain't you? Always a daring one, you were. A clergyman's daughter, and an orphan! We've most of us been clergymen's daughters and orphans in our time, but not a girl of us ever looked it more than you. And you're married! Ha! ha! With a swell church service, and singin', and a Continental tour to give the orphan a little change of scenery. She'd seen so little in her time, the poor dear! Lord! I shall die of it!"

The woman rocked with silent laughter. It seemed to the man behind the curtain that her eyes, across his wife's shoulder, glared full into his—that her coarse jeers were leveled at him. He could not have uttered a sound, or stirred a finger, for the dear life. A kind of catalepsy had possessed him. But he saw them drink together, and heard them talk... turning over with conversational pitchforks the unspeakable horrors of the dunghill whence his white butterfly had taken wing.... Ponsonby had never been an imaginative man, but that midnight conference wrought his sensibilities to such a pitch that, leaning against the wall in the corner of the curtained recess, he quietly fainted.

HE CAME BACK to consciousness in darkness through which struggled no gleam of light. He did not know where he was until he staggered out from behind the stifling draperies and switched on the light with shaking hands. Then he found himself in his own dining-room. There were no glasses on the table— the spring bar of the liquor stand was in its place, the brandy decanter was, as he remembered to have left it, half full. He found his candle on the sideboard and lighted it, and went into the hall. The hall-door was barred and bolted.

"Thank God, I have been dreaming!" said Ponsonby, and went upstairs.

There she lay— a breathing picture of reposeful innocence— fast asleep. Ponsonby stooped and kissed the hair that flooded her pillow and invaded his own, and silently swore by all his deities that he would never go to another City dinner as long as he lived. Before he crept into bed he knelt down— a thing he had not done since he was a boy— and said awkwardly, "O God, I'm glad it was a dream! Thank you!"

He slept the sleep of the weary, and rose, not a giant, it is true, but very much refreshed. He dandered down to the breakfast table in a leisurely way, humming a tune. As he shook out his newspaper, the absurdity and improbability of his recent vision struck him for the first time; he laughed until he ached. Then he dropped his newspaper, and stooped to pick it up. Something bright that lay upon the carpet under the table attracted his notice. The man put forth his hand and took it, and his ruddy morning face underwent a strange and ghastly alteration. For the thing was a long steel bonnet pin, with a vulgar blue glass head! Men have died suddenly of pin pricks before now.

But Ponsonby's tortures are lingering. He is alive still, and she is still Mrs. Ponsonby. He has never spoken— the Secret of the Blue Glass Pin is hidden from the woman who walks Life's path with him. But sometimes she is haunted by a dreadful Doubt, and at all times he is bestridden by an overwhelming Certainty.

________________

11: Henry and the Restless Sex

Earl Derr Biggers

1884-1933

The Saturday Evening Post, 5 March 1921

IN THE far-off, placid days, when woman's place was still the home, the love story was a much less complicated affair. Then Grace or Mabel or Genevieve, returning from the school that had finished her, curled up on a sofa in the parlor in the genial company of a box of chocolates and a copy of When Knighthood Was in Flower. There she waited, disturbed only by the occasional rattle of dishes manipulated by mother in the kitchen.

Between this dear girl and the grave intervened but a single possibility— the arrival of the young knight on his milk-white charger. At the first faint sound of Cupid paging her she leaped to her feet, rearranged her hair and ran out on the porch with open arms. Unless the competition happened to be unusually keen the knight had little difficulty in persuading her to desert the parlor. She had never liked the wallpaper, anyhow. The first thing father knew he was paying for a trousseau and sweeping rice off the front walk.

But times have altered. The parlor is deserted. Grace and Genevieve and Mabel are abroad in the marts of trade, and doing very well, thank you. The young man who would catch the eye of one of them must swap his charger for a touring car— and he must be able in argument. Can he persuade his lady that matrimony offers the same thrills and excitement as a good job downtown? Canhe prove his ability to support her in the style to which she has been accustomed by her own weekly pay envelope?

In the long list of stumbling-blocks that may detain the eager lover that pay envelope has taken its place, the greatest of them all. The handsome commoner who fell for the Crown Princess of Ruritania had considerable chasm to span. The poor but honest ribbon clerk who adored the millionaire's only daughter was in for a bit of bridge building. But in all history there has been no such gulf as this— the frowning, impassable gulf between the young man who gets forty dollars a week and the girl of his choice in the same office who is getting sixty.

On the worried side of such a gulf John Henry Jackson sat at his desk in the office of the Phoenix Advertising Agency. A tall young man of twenty-five or so with keen blue eyes— not bad-looking, if you came right down to it. In fact, had the Phoenix people paid young men according to their looks— but they didn't. They had it on a more sordid basis, and forty a week was regarded as good money for a copywriter new to the game.

John Henry glanced across to the desk that stood just outside the door marked "George H. Camby, President." There she sat, on the pleasanter side of the chasm, Miss Myra Dalton, old Camby 's secretary. Affectionately John Henry regarded the back of that head, which was, he knew, fairly buzzing with efficiency. Somewhere around on the other side shone her face, very lovely, but at the moment stern and preoccupied.

For these were business hours, and how she reveled in them ! Not because she was decorative did old Camby pay her that sixty a week. The best secretary in town, said Camby, who was no idle boaster. She was, too. She had that passion for detail, for accuracy, which is the vice of so many otherwise charming women. And dog-gone it, reflected John Henry, how she loved her job !

Only the night before he had taken her to dinner— a strained moment when he paid the check— and then to the theater, seats down in front, an extravagance she could have managed so much more easily. The play was a sort of holdover from an earlier day, when the mating of man and maid was a matter of moonlight and soft glances, strong arms that clasped and fair cheeks mantling with blushes. It had thrown John Henry a little off his balance.

They decided to dispense with the crowded trolleys and walked home. Up above shone a cold October moon in a setting of bright, glittering stars. What the play had begun the heavens now completed. John Henry went quite mad. He resolved to turn back the clock, ignore the chasm, put his fate to one supreme test.

"It's a wonderful night, isn't it?" he began. "Just look at that moon!"

"Cold, though," said Myra. "Do you think Mr. Camby will land that new chewing-gum account?"

"I— I don't know. How should I?" John Henry's ardor cooled. "Can't you forget Camby— on a night like this? "

"I can't forget my work. I love it."

"Silly old work!" sneered John Henry jealously.

"If you feel that way," she rebuked, "you'll never get on."

"Perhaps not. But aren't there other things in life besides getting on? In that play to-night "

"Oh, yes— the play! Very nice. Very pretty— but fifty years behind the times."

John Henry made no answer. Twenty minutes later at her door he said good night, himself as chill and distant as the moon.

Now in the cold gray light of the morning after he was glad she had foiled his purpose. After all, some gulfs were not so easily bridged. A man might ask a girl to desert all her loved ones, to go with him to a far land, to make his people her people, his life her life. But could he ask her to ex- change two hundred and forty dollars a month for a half interest in one hundred and sixty — with apartment rents where they were? Well, hardly!

There was, John Henry reflected, only one way by which he could span the chasm. He must climb and climb until he had passed her on the pay roll. Even then, he felt, it would be no easy matter to alienate her affections from her job, but without that advantage on his side the attempt was impossible.. Not that he thought her mercenary, but she was a business woman— she faced facts.

John Henry looked about the office of the Phcenix agency, which must be the scene of his triumph. His heart sank. How was he to rise above these other men, all faithful, clever, industrious? Why, it would take years! And he was young, impatient.

He thought of the business stories he had read in magazines. There it was always so simple for the young hero in need of imme diate cash to deliver. He merely snooped around the business until he found a flaw in it, then he went boldly to the boss and began,

"Now lookit here, Mr. Blank—"

The boss would hear him out with increasing admiration, and in the end make him treasurer of the concern.

John Henry smiled. He pictured himself setting Camby right on the business. In many ways Camby was a regular business man. He took three hours for lunch, eating more than was good for him, then smoking big black cigars and outlining impossible schemes on the tablecloth with a fork. When at the office he was always in an important conference. Miss Dalton would open his door and hear him saying: "You know that third hole out at Idlewild? Well, I got a long clean drive off the tee—"

Whereupon she would close the door softly and solemnly announce: "Mr. Camby is in an important conference. He mustn't be disturbed."

Yes, Camby was the regular type. But in one way he appeared to differ from the business men of the stories. He knew more about his business than even the lowest man on his pay roll. It was inconsiderate of him, but it was true.

Sighing, John Henry began to scribble on the pad of paper before him. He gave little thought to what he was doing:

All Aboard for Happiness! Choo-Choo Gum, Five Cents a Ride

He read it over, laughed, and copied it out under the heading, "Memorandum for Mr. Camby." Rising, he walked over and laid the yellow slip on Miss Dalton's desk.

"Please give it to the chief," he directed. " He's in an important—"

"—conference. I know. But when he holes out on the eighteenth hand him this message from his faithful slave."

Miss Dalton's face rebuked him. She did not approve of such levity— in business hours. But John Henry only laughed, and went out to lunch. He forgot all about his childish memorandum.

SOME DAYS later George H. Camby, returning from lunch, picked up John Henry in the outer room of the agency and escorted him into the sacred precincts.

"Sit down," directed the eminent president.

He removed his overcoat, releasing from undeserved obscurity a prominent stomach. Rubbing his hands briskly as a sign that he was back on the job and all was consequently well with the world, he took his place behind his desk and picked up a yellow .slip of paper.

" 'All aboard for happiness! Choo-Choo Gum, five cents a ride,' " he read. "Jackson, are you responsible for this deathless masterpiece?"

"I— I'm afraid I am," admitted John Henry. He re- flected that he ought to be fired.

"Well," said Camby, leaning back and patting his stomach with a rather touching show of affection, "it sounded silly to me— downright silly. But— you never can tell. I showed it to Foster— he's advertising man for the Cladox people, who are putting out that new gum— and it hit him hard."

John Henry laughed. His employer frowned at this lack of reverence in the younger generation.

"Yes, sir," he went on, "Foster thought it just simple and elementary enough to appeal to the great army of gum chewers. His company has decided to adopt the name and the slogan. Of course that means we get the account."

"But," cried John Henry, appalled, "couldn't you reason with him— show him how wrong he is?"

"I'm not sure he is wrong," replied Camby. "The silly thing keeps running through my head. 'All aboard for happiness— Choo-Choo Gum'— may be something in it after all. Anyhow, I'll not antagonize a man who's going to give me half a million dollars to spend for advertising."

He stopped. He had said too much, and knew it.

"Half a million!" gasped John Henry. He had brought an account of that size into the office!

"Wait a minute," said Camby. "Before you ask for it let me give it to you. This thing shows you may have a trace of selling brains after all. Somehow I don't think you've been overworking them here. Would a raise to fifty a week speed you up, do you think?"

"Sure to, "smiled John Henry. "And— thank you very much."

Camby pressed a button on his desk. Myra Dalton's pretty "ace at the door was the answer. As John Henry went out he heard Camby's first words to the secretary:

"Miss Dalton, please tell the cashier that, beginning next Saturday, Mr. Jackson's salary—"

John Henry returned to the corner with his plum. He was pleasantly thrilled. Half the gulf bridged! He would show Miss Myra Dalton! She rather jave the impression that she did lot believe he could catch up with her— and now, by writing i dozen words on a paper, he lad cut off ten dollars. Only :en remained. After all, the thing began to look absurdly simple. He had a momentary twinge of conscience as he thought of millions of jaws mov- ing in unison— all aboard the Choo-Choo, chewing hard. Be- side the point. The point was that he was creeping up on Myra.

It was Saturday. The office closed early, and John Henry won the privilege of walking home with her. The autumn air colored her cheeks and put a new sparkle in her eyes. There was no longer a pencil in her dnning hair or absurd tortoise-shell spectacles on her charming nose. She was transformed rrom a human machine to a frail young girl, feminine, teasing, desirable.

"Congratulations," she said. 'Of course I couldn't help knowing— about the raise, I mean."

"Oh, that!" said John Henry carelessly. "Yes, I'm getting an in my chosen profession. Before very long they'll foolishly think me worth as much to them as you are."

"Perhaps," she answered. "But if that is your ambition"—she smiled mischievously— "you ought to be warned that you must move a bit faster."

"Wha— what do you mean?" asked John Henry.

"I had a raise, too— several weeks ago. Since I know your salary it's only fair you should know mine. Mr. Camby is paying me seventy-five a week!"

John Henry stopped dead in his tracks amid the fallen leaves and stared at her. This was a knock-out blow.

"Well," he said sadly, "that ends my hour of glory." They walked on. "I ought to be delighted for your sake, I know. But confound it"— there was the gulf wider than ever, five dollars wider, even with his raise; what was the use?— "it spoils everything!" he finished.

"I'm sorry," she said softly. "But why are you so anxious to— to catch up with me?"

If she had asked that a moment before he would have told her, wildly, fiercely, convincingly. But now— on the wrong side of a twenty-five-dollar gulf— not now. He said nothing.

"I think I know," Myra went on. "You're just like all the men— it hurts your pride to feel that a poor, weak, worthless woman is of more value to your concern than you are. That's it, isn't it? Come on— confess!"

"Whatever I feel," replied John Henry warmly, "I can see one thing: That office is no place for me. Ten dollars a week raise! Too slow— altogether too slow! I'm going to break away— get out on my own. You hear me?"

"I do! But what stroke of genius do you contemplate?"

"That's all right. I don't know yet. But the idea will come. And when it does— watch my smoke ! Choo-Choo Gum. Baby talk! I'm wasting my talents! I'm through!"

"Sounds thrilling," commented Myra sweetly. "By the way, Mr. Camby asked me to stop at the Coopers wilh some papers. Tom Cooper is home, you know— sick with the grip. Want to come along— or are you too busy?"

"I'll come," said John Henry.

They turned down a quiet residential street and arrived presently at the house of Cooper, head copy writer for the Phoenix agency.

Mabel Cooper was at the door, in the act of dragging inside two wild hyenas who were unaccountably her off-spring. The youngest, a girl, was screaming shrilly.

"Why, hello, Myra!" called Mrs. Cooper. "And Mr. Jackson— how are you? I'm so glad— Nellie, in heaven's name, will you stop that noise?"

"He kicked me!" announced Nellie, pointing to her brother.

"She bit me first," countered Tommy Cooper, scraping muddy shoes along the hallway.

"Go upstairs, both of you," their mother ordered, "and start getting undressed. It's bath time."

Two voices now joined in yells of rage and pain.

"Want supper first!" screamed Tommy.

"You never have supper first," said Mabel Cooper wearily. "Now we're not going all over that old argument again to-night. Will you obey me, or must I get the hairbrush?"

She herded them to the stairs and started them up. On each step they paused for renewed objections, fresh yells.

"Please excuse this little picture of domestic bliss," Mabel said. "Do you want to see Tom? I'll call him."

Tom Cooper, from above, replied that he would be down in a minute. The children faded from view, but not from hearing.

Mabel Cooper dropped down upon a chair. She had been a gay and pretty girl five years before, buyer for the smartest gift shop in the city, accustomed to her yearly trip to Europe or the Orient in search of novelties. Now she looked utterly wearied, utterly married— captured, but not quite tamed.

"Oh, I am tired!" she sighed. "I've had that all day. And it's the cook's night out. We can't even go out to dinner— Tom sick, and no one to leave with the children if he wasn't."

"You poor thing!" sympathized Myra.

"My dear"— Mabel Cooper was unusually frank in this, her zero hour— "if a man ever asks you to marry him, run for your life! Even if he's the dearest man in the world— and Tom is all of that. But after a woman has held down an interesting job— been her own master- spent her own money— you've no idea the let-down marriage can be! That tied-down feeling! You know how I used to run off to Tokio, to Paris, every fall. And now I can't even run down to the corner for a loaf of bread!"

Tom Cooper came down the stairs, wearing a dressing gown, looking weak and pale. He accepted Camby's roll of documents.

"Awfully good of you to bring these, Myra," he said. "I see you haven't been able to shake John Henry—"

From above came the sound of a slap, then roars of primeval anger.

"Children, children, please!" Mabel called.

"Mabel, in heaven's name, can't you keep those kids quiet?" said Cooper.

Mabel Cooper's face flushed. "Keep them quiet! I like that! If you think you can do any better why don't you lend a hand? All day all day I've had them, while you— you—"

Words appeared to fail her. "Children, what is it now?"she called, and without a word to her guests she ran upstairs,

"Poor old girl!" said Tom Cooper uncomfortably. "Just about done up. Three nursemaids in the past month— two utterly incompetent slatterns and one trained children's nurse, as autocratic as the Kaiser used to be. You've no idea— wouldn't allow us in the nursery! What's the world coming to anyhow?"

"We'd better be getting along," suggested John Henry.

"Oh, must you hurry? Well, of course—" He went to the foot of the stairs. "Mabel, they're going!" he called. But Mabel heard nothing above the din.

"Please don't disturb her," Myra said.

"No, better not," Cooper agreed. He saw them to the door. "I hope to get down to the office Monday," he said with a glance over his shoulder toward the stairs that was eloquent in meaning.

For a time the two young people walked along in silence.

"Poor Mabel!" said Myra presently.

"My mother," said John Henry slowly, "had six children. But I never heard her talk about that tied-down feeling."

"No?" The girl smiled up at him. "Your mother was a dear, I'm sure, but the world has changed since her day. Woman's horizon has broadened. She wants to be something more than a mere household drudge. She wants to be independent— now and then, at any rate. She's had a taste of freedom, and she's found she likes it."

"I suppose it's the war," mused John Henry. "Poor Tom! Wants to know what the world's coming to. Who can tell him? Women are all upset— restless. I notice it everywhere I go. By the way, you'd probably have that tied-down feeling yourself if you— if some man—"

"I'm sure I should," smiled Myra. "I adore the office."

They walked on.

"Tied down!" murmured John Henry. "Want to get away now and then. No one to leave with the children." He stopped suddenly. "By Gad, why couldn't somebody capitalize that restlessness? Be a pioneer, I mean. Find a way out— do the human race a favor— and incidentally make a lot of money. Why couldn't I?"

"Hire out as a nursemaid, you mean?" asked Myra.

"Not exactly," he laughed, and resumed the walk. "Though I do like children — always have. But here I've been looking for an opportunity, and an idea begins to stir. This city is full of women with that tied-down feeling. If I could do something to help them I'd be a hero."

"Do you think so?"

"I know it!" he answered blithely. They had reached her door. "All I've got to do is think of some plan— some scheme—"

"That's all!" she said sarcastically.

"Easiest thing in the world," he assured her.

For once he was glad to leave her. He wanted to be alone. He went on his way down the street, fiercely thinking.

ALL that evening John Henry paced the floor of his room. He was deep in the throes of a big idea. But was it a big idea? He couldn't decide. Would it lead him on to fortune— or to the door of a home for the unsettled of mind? At times it seemed practicable, magnificent. At others it struck him as utterly silly.

He unlocked his trunk and took from a tin box at the bottom four Liberty Bonds, each for five hundred dollars. He turned to the bond quotations in the evening paper. About seventeen hundred there. In his savings account two hundred and sixteen more. Should he risk it all on one desperate throw?

The first few days of the following week at the office he seemed feverish, distraught Frequently he rushed out for conferences- and these were really important confer- ences, for he had decided on the throw.

It was Thursday, however, before he took anyone into his confidence. Then, descending on Mr. Camby late in the afternoon, he announced his resignation from the Phoenix forces, to take effect on Saturday. Camby seemed genuinely distressed.

"Someone else giving you more money?" he asked.

"No, sir," said John Henry. "I'm going into business for myself."

"I don't want you to misunderstand me," Camby replied, "but I think you're making a mistake. You lack experience. It may not seem so to you, but running an advertising agency requires a lot of executive brains, special knowledge—"

"I'm not starting a rival agency," interrupted John Henry.

"No? Then— h'm— may I ask— that is, if you want to tell me—"

"The business I am about to set up," said John Henry, a bit uncertainly, "is a rather peculiar one. It may not hit you very hard at first glance. But— I've thought it over very carefully, and it strikes me it will fill a long-felt want. I'll I be jollied at the start, but in time I'll make good. I think so anyhow. I'm risking all my savings on it."

"Yes, yes!" Mr. Camby was acutely curious. "What are you talking about?"

John Henry took a roll of paper from his inner coat pocket and spread it out before his chief.

"Here," he announced, "is the advance proof of my first advertisement, to run in the papers next Monday morning. Please read it over and tell me what you think of it."

Mr. Camby complied eagerly. On the blurred paper he discovered this:

THE CHILDREN'S INN

A New Idea— But This is a New World

Mr. John Henry Jackson announces the opening, on Monday, the first, of his Inn for Children at 2375 Euclid Avenue, within easy reach of the shopping and theatrical district. House renovated and refurnished throughout. Meals prepared by an expert dietitian. Your little ones under the care of a staff of trained yet kindly nurses from the time they register until they check out. Better care than at home.

IS THE LITTLE WOMAN RESTLESS?

DOES SHE COMPLAIN ABOUT THAT TIED- DOWN FEELING?

WHY NOT TAKE HER ON A SECOND HONEY- MOON?

The children? Leave them with us. Daily bulletins on health and conduct furnished absent parents by wire at our expense. We will take the little darlings off your hands for an hour, a day, a week, a year— while you are shopping or at a matinee; or overnight, while you are at dinner and the theater. Never a moment's justified worry for the most devoted mother. Rates are reasonable, and may be had on application. American plan, with bath at the hands of experienced nurse.

THE CHILDREN'S INN

John Henry Jackson, Manager

YOU HAVE THE BABY- WE DO THE REST!

"It's a little long," apologized John Henry as he perceived the popping eyes of Mr. Camby reading the last line, "but I lad so much to say. Once I've established ;he idea I can make 'em more snappy."

"My boy," said Mr. Camby, staring at iim, "you're crazy — as crazy as a loon!"

"That's your first reaction, of course," miled John Henry. "I'm a pioneer. I'm opening a new field. Men who do that nust expect to be called insane. But think it over! Haven't I a real basis for this thing? Aren't the women more restless today than ever before in history? Don't hey suffer more acutely from that tied-down feeling?"

"They seem to," sighed Mr. Camby. "My son's wife— er— my own wife, for that matter "

"There you are!" cried John Henry. Mr. Camby, once this idea gets started it'll be a riot. That's why I'm hoping to patent the name, along with a little drawing for a trade-mark. Before I get through I'll have a Children's Inn in every city in the Middle West. I'll go East—"

Mr. Camby shook his head.

"Somehow," he said, "I feel you're going about it the wrong way. Now that one, 'Better care than at home.' Women will resent it."

"I'll cut it out," said John Henry, drawing his pencil through it.

"And— er— oh, well, the whole tone of it— I don't know. I can't make up my mind whether you're a smart boy or a doggone fool."

"I hope I'm a smart boy," said John Henry feelingly. "If I'm not, poof go the savings of a young life! You've no idea the expense! Three hundred a month I'm paying for the old Judge Carter house, and coal! It chills me to think of it! The cook is an expert all right— an expert at high finance. And I have to pay Miss Books fifty a week. She's the trained nurse— used to have charge of a children's ospital. That space at the top is reserved for her picture. It'll give people confidence. She looks mighty competent in her uniform."

Again Mr. Camby shook his head.

"You need a woman's opinion on this," he said. "Have you showed it to Miss Dalton? There's a fine womanly little girl."

"I'm going out and show it to her now," ohn Henry replied.

"Yes, you'd better. And tell me what she says."

It was after hours and, except for Myra Dalton, the office was deserted. John Henry sat down beside her.

"Myra," he said, "I've got it!"

"Got what?"

"That idea I promised you I'd have." He laid his advertising proofs before her. "Read that!"

She read. Her cheeks flushed and an angry light came into her eyes.

"Well?" asked John Henry as she finished.

"You're crazy— absolutely crazy!" she informed him.

"Yes, but—"

"This— this is an insult— an insult to all women! Just because the women of to-day have a broader vision than women used to have, because they want to get more out of life than drudgery— slavery to some man— you have the effrontery to call them restless!"

"But— I only want to help them."

"Help them!" She took up her hat and pinned it on. " Do you suppose any mother worthy of the name would trust her precious baby to you— you and some prim, heartless trained nurse? A baby's place is at home."

"Alone?"

"A fine opinion you've got of women! I'm glad to find it out."

"I'm sorry. This is a serious matter for me. Everything I have in the world is at stake."

"I'm sorry, too, because you're going to lose it." She snatched up her coat and, lest he seek to help her with it, she carried it with her out of the room.

John Henry sat down at his desk. Already the clouds were gathering about his great venture. Was he crazy after all? Myra's attitude amazed him— flying off like that. And he had been going to take her with him to a department store in search of toys for the big play room on the third floor of the Children's Inn !

Mr. Camby emerged from the inner room on his way home.

"Ah— er— what did Miss Dalton say?" he inquired.

"She seemed annoyed," John Henry admitted.

"Precisely," said Mr. Camby. "My boy, it's not too late to turn back. Stay on with us. You seem to have ideas, but you need a balance wheel."

"Thank you, Mr. Camby," said John Henry. "But I'm going to show Miss Dalton. I'm going to show you too."

"All right, my boy," agreed Mr. Camby with amazing friendliness. "But if anything happens your job will still be here."

"Mighty good of you," murmured John Henry.

"Not at all. You've got ideas." And Mr. Camby went out.

John Henry gloomily donned his overcoat and sought the department store, where he was astounded by the price of toys.

The next morning, his last but one with the Phoenix people, he arrived early at the office. Myra Dalton was already there, clearing her desk in happy anticipation of a day's action. When she saw John Henry she came to him at once.

"Good morning," he said stiffly.

"Good morning." She smiled, and it was impossible for him to remain haughty and aloof. "I want to apologize for what I said yesterday," she went on. "I can't imagine why I flew off like that."

"Doesn't matter," said John Henry.

"Oh, yes, it does!" Her face was seri- ous. "I worried about it nearly all night. I realized everything you have at stake, and what a good sport you are to risk all you have on an idea, and I felt that the least you had a right to expect from your friends was sympathy and understanding. Can you forgive me?"

"Without a struggle," smiled John Henry.

"That's sweet of you. Tell me what I can do to help."

"You might come up with me and look the inn over this evening," John Henry suggested. "Probably I've forgotten a lot of things that a woman would think of at once."

That night at dusk, when he had shown her all over his establishment, they came out and stood together on the veranda of the old Carter mansion. Below them twinkled the lights of the city John Menry hoped to convert to a new idea.

"I think it's darling," Myra said. "I'm sure it will be a big success."

"It's got to be," he told her. "It will be a hard pull at first, but I'll just keep hammering away, and in time I'll put it over. You must know, without my telling you, why I'm so anxious to make good."

"I don't believe I do."

Myra! No, I won't say it— yet. But you wish me luck, don't you?"

"With all my heart!" she said softly.

"Better than a full-page ad," John Henry answered.

iii

JOHN HENRY'S first announcement in the newspapers appeared as scheduled on the following Monday morning. It was greeted by a laugh of derision that ran from one end of the city to the other. Men stopped him on the street with what they considered witty comment. Old friends called him up to jibe at him.

"That's all right," he reflected. "Just hammer away— that's the secret. Tell 'em about it daily. The joke will wear off in time. Then the big moment when some woman, somewhere, simply has to find a place to leave the kids. She remembers the Children's Inn. The ball starts rolling." And he signed contracts for daily space in all the papers.

But it was rather disheartening— the reluctance of the ball to start. A week passed— two weeks. The register at the inn was still untouched by an entry. John Henry sat in his office, a very worried young man. He announced a reception day for mothers on which they might examine the facilities of his establishment. One would have thought there were no mothers in the town. John Henry began to doubt the power of the press— and then the pulling qualities of his advertising copy.

One day he met Tom Cooper on the street. Cooper asked him how the inn was going.

"Well, it's slow starting," admitted John Henry. "By the way, I expected to entertain your offspring long before this. Have you got a nursemaid, or doesn't Mabel feel tied down any more?"

"It's a funny thing," said Cooper. "I thought you'd got hold of a big idea— I really did. Several times I've suggested leaving the kids with you. But somehow— well, old man, I'm afraid your idea doesn't make much of a hit with the women."

John Henry's heart sank.

"Why not?" he asked. "Tom, you're a good advertising man— what's wrong with me?"

"Well, it's just a case of feminine psychology," Cooper answered. "Women may be restless, they may suffer from that tied-down feeling, but it makes 'em furious to have a mere man come along and talk about it. Right there, it seems to me, is the weak point in your armor. The only reaction your advertising has stirred up among the women is one of acute annoyance. They seem to think you're finding fault with them as mothers. And the idea appears to be that any woman who'd trust her children to you would be disgraced for life."

"Then I'm finished!" said John Henry. "I might as well close up shop."

"I'm telling you," Cooper said, "because it's possible you may be able to save yourself yet. I mean by taking an entirely new tack."

"For instance," suggested John Henry.

"Good Lord, I don't know! Who am I to tell you how to win the ladies? They're a mystery to me. Well, good luck."

"Ha, ha! Thanks," replied John Henry, and went sadly on his way.

To Myra Dalton, whom he saw frequently, he never admitted the imminence of his defeat. Things were going as well as he could expect, he said. He did not confess that he was sitting alone in his great house, save for the expert dietitian and the rather stern trained nurse, waiting for a business that declined to begin to commence. If Myra suspected she said nothing.

He had thought that his money would carry him along for two months at least, but the cost of getting started had been beyond his most generous estimates. On November thirtieth, the close of his first month, he sat in his office staring at a bank balance of two hundred and seventy-three dollars. To-morrow three hundred dollars would be due for rent.

Rising, he walked on tiptoe to the door and closed it tight. Then he reached for his telephone, called the Phcenix agency and asked for Mr. Camby. Miss Dalton an- swered. Trying to disguise his voice, John Henry demanded her chief.

"This is Jackson talking," he said, when he heard Mr. Camby, in a snappy, business- like mood, on the other end. "I called up to ask if you don't want to buy a half interest in the Children's Inn. Let you in on the ground floor— twenty-five hundred."

"Twenty-five hundred!" Camby repeated. "What are your profits so far?"

"Profits? Why— er— we're just getting started—"

"I don't want to be unkind, John Henry," said Camby, "but you're never going to get started. Your wild venture is a flivver— everybody knows that. Of course I'm not one to say I told you so."

"Of course not!"

"But you were all wrong from the start. I felt it. I said so, you may remember. Now close up and come back to your job."

"No, thanks. I'll stick it out a little longer."

"You're crazy!" snapped Mr. Camby, and hung up.

Stick it out? How? Again John Henry studied his bank balance. His venture was a failure— everybody knew it. He shut his lips tightly and began to construct an extra-large spread for the next morning's papers.

That advertisement brought his first response. A frivolous-looking woman appeared the next noon with two remarkably unattractive children, whom she desired to leave while she attended a bridge. John Henry was elated. But when, later in the day, she had collected her offspring and left with John Henry a soiled, unpleasant dollar bill, he knew that the ball had begun to roll too late. He was done for, finished !

He sat for a long time in his office facing facts. The rent was due. He couldn't pay it. The Children's Inn was doomed. One last long laugh at his expense and it would be a memory. Why hadn't he been warned by Myra's reception of his big idea? Why hadn't he listened to Camby? Too late now !

Well, he wouldn't go back to the Phoenix office. He would leave the city, strike out for himself somewhere else. Here the joke would stick to him all his life. If he had succeeded — ah, what a difference ! Then he would have been a smart young fellow, a hustler, a man with big ideas. But his world had no use for the failure.

He closed his bank book and walked gloomily into the front hall. His employees must be given their notice of dismissal. Probably they would demand two weeks' pay. That would be pleasant !

Aimlessly he walked to a window and looked out. A plump, smiling little old lady was coming up the walk of the Children's Inn. John Henry met her at the door. She beamed at him genially through her spectacles.

"Can I see Mr. Jackson, the manager?" she said.

"You're looking at him," John Henry answered. In spite of his serious mood, he smiled. "Won't you come in and sit down?"

She perched on the edge of a chair.

"Might as well git acquainted," she said. "I'm Grandma Biddle— live down in Berea. Leastways, I did until a while ago, when I let my children drag me to the city. Ever been in Berea?"

"I'm afraid not."

"It's jest a little town— sort of homey— everybody knows everybody else. But lawsy, so much more friendly than a big city like this! I was born in Berea, and I married there. All my ten children was born there, too, an' the eight that lived I brought up in Berea. Turned out a credit to me, every last one of 'em. But they're married now— married and gone— and I'm lonesome. Of course there's the grand- children, but trained nurses are terrible official."

"I see," smiled John Henry.

"No, I'm afraid you don't. I'm so long getting to it. I guess you understand, though. I love children— I want 'em round me. Seems like I ain't really happy unless I got one of 'em in my lap. An' when I read your advertisement, 'That's the place for me,' I says. 'That Children's Inn— it's a beautiful name.' I just pictured 'em to myself running about this place, getting into mischief— the little darlings! I guess you see what I mean— I want a job here. Scrubbing floors, anything, jest so you let me pet the children. I'd work for almost nothing."

John Henry was touched.

"I'm sorry," he said gently. "You've come to the wrong place. The Children's Inn is a failure. I'm closing up in a day or so. We've had only two guests since we opened."

"You poor child!" said the old lady. She beamed her pity. "You know, I was afraid of it. The advertisement was wrong somehow."

"It must have been," John Henry admitted, and laughed bitterly.

Brilliant young advertising man, he was, when even Grandma Biddle could pick flaws in his copy!

"I'm afraid you jest rubbed the women the wrong way," the old lady continued. "They got the idea you was making fun of them. An' then that picture of a trained nurse— I hope you won't mind my talking this way— that's wrong too."

"It is?" asked John Henry with interest.

"Wrong as wrong," said Grandma Biddle gently. "A woman's reason ought to tell her a trained nurse is the proper person to leave her babies with. But land sakes, we ain't ruled by reason in this world ! It's our emotions does it. An' the picture of that starched, prim, cross-looking woman— why, a mother would jest as soon leave her little one at a hospital for an operation as at your Children's Inn!"

"By Gad, I believe you're right!" John Henry cried.

"Do you think so?" the old lady asked. She fumbled in her voluminous skirt and found a pocket. Her plump little hand came out with a huge roll of bills. She held it out.

"Take this," she said.

"What is it?" asked the astonished John Henry.

"Twenty-five hundred dollars," she replied. "The savings of a lifetime. Take it and let it buy an interest in this place. You and me together — we could make a go of it."

"Say, that's fine of you!" John Henry cried. "I— I appreciate it. But I wouldn't touch your money. No, sir! I've lost mine, but I'm not going .to risk yours and probably lose that too."

"That's all right. My boys will take care of me."

"No, I couldn't. Not that I don't thank you— you're a dear, and no mistake." He stood staring at her. She had the most wonderfurf ace, broad and kind and friendly. She had eyes that twinkled, and capable little hands, and a lap that was meant for climbing into. "I'll bet you make the most delicious cookies!" said John Henry suddenly.

"I used to when I had my own kitchen. My boys was so fond of them! I've got my receipt book— in my trunk," she finished wistfully.

For another long moment John Henry studied her face. And in that moment his brilliant scheme was born. He reached out for the mtoney.

"I'll take it," he said. "It entitles you to a half interest in the inn. We'll put that down on paper later on. I just want to say that if we fail I'll pay it back to you, so much a week. But we won't fail, because you've solved my difficulties, Grandma Biddle— you certainly have!"

"That's fine!" said Grandma Biddle.

"Just wait here till I get my hat and coat."

He went to a closet and put them on. Returning, he seized the old lady by the hand. "Come on, we're going downtown!" he cried.

"What for?" she asked.

"We're going down to have your picture taken," John Henry said.

Two days later John Henry sat in his office staring at his newest advertisement. At the top, in place of the trained nurse, was a portrait of Grandma Biddle, smile and spectacles and all. It was a face that inspired confidence, affection. It carried one back. One could fairly smell cookies baking! Underneath, John Henry followed his new hunch:

THE CHILDREN'S INN

Grandma Biddle, Manager

Grandma Biddle wishes to announce that she has taken over from Mr. John Henry Jackson the management of the Children's Inn, which will continue at the same address. Mr. Jackson may have been all right as a business manager, but land sakes, what should a man know about children! Grandma Biddle knows all about them. She brought up eight of her own, and she loves all children, everywhere. Seems like she isn't happy without a dozen of 'em in her lap.

MOTHERS, ARE YOU ALL TIRED OUT?

Grandma Biddle understands, as no man ever can or will, what hard work it is to keep a home going nowadays. Sometimes you feel completely done up. And no wonder ! If a man had half your worries and responsibilities, he'd curl up and die! Bring your problems to Grandma Biddle. She'll be delighted to take the children off your hands now and then.

They'll get the same love and care they would on a visit to their own grandmother's house. They'll tease to come back.

Fresh Every Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday- Grandma Biddle's Delicious Cookies!

COME AND LEAVE THE CHILDREN

IN GRANDMA BIDDLE'S LAP!

THERE'S ROOM FOR ALL THE TOTS IN TOWN!

John Henry leaped to his feet and feverishly walked the floor.

"By the Lord Harry," he cried, "I think I've hit it new!"

iv

WHERE is the man who can chart and explain the psychology of the mob? In the days that followed John Henry was vouchsafed a faint glimmer of understanding that was to make him a better advertising man thenceforth. He discovered that by completely eliminating himself from public connection with the inn and substituting Grandma Biddle he had performed a master stroke.

From the first women had resented John Henry. They had visualized him as a flippant young man making light of their problems. When he talked about their restlessness, their hunger for freedom, they felt that, intentionally or not, he was ridiculing them.

But Grandma Biddle! Grandma showed daily in the advertisements new understanding of woman's tasks and worries. She was so sympathetic! Most important of all, her picture remained in the reader's mind long after the newspaper was cast aside. She had such a friendly face, filled with a desire to help, eloquent with compassion !

It was that picture did the trick. Grandma Biddle became in the public mind a real personality, the ideal guardian for the children of harassed mothers who simply must have, now and then, the diversion of a shopping tour, a bridge, a matinee or a dance at the country club.

Almost from the appearance of the first advertisement announcing the change of management little guests began to appear at the inn. Grandma received them at the door with a welcoming smile that was balm to an anxious mother's heart. John Henry and the trained nurse remained discreetly in the background. The latter, haughty at being supplanted by an unscientific old lady, had given notice, but John Henry was not worried. He knew it would be easy to replace her. Only Grandma Biddle was essential to success.

During the week preceding Christmas, when frantic women were combing the department stores, the business of the inn touched capacity. Strangely enough, there was no after-the-holidays lull. Tom and Mabel Cooper brought their pair of whirlwind terrors in for a two weeks' stay. They were going to New York, they announced, on what they proposed to make an annual honeymoon.

"Well, John Henry," Cooper said, "you've put it over. I knew you could if you just hit the right note. But where in the world did you find Grandma Biddle?"

"The Lord sent her to me," smiled John Henry.

"Lucky lad!" said Cooper.

When John Henry met Myra Dalton, as he frequently did, she did not need to ask how his venture was going. Its success was written in his face. She grew sweeter with every passing day, he told himself, and eagerly studied his profits, longing for the moment when he should be her equal at the bank and could ask her to give up that weekly pay envelope and accept him in its place.

He never realized so completely his suc- cess as the day he met Mr. Camby at the luncheon hour in the leading hotel. Mr. Camby seized his hand with vigor, and his admiration was not concealed.

"Congratulations!" he cried. "You've made good, and no mistake! But then I always said you would."

"So you did," laughed John Henry. "By the way, we entertained a couple of your grandchildren the other day."

"I know you did, and they've been teasing ever since to come back. My wife is actually jealous of Grandma Biddle. She tried to bake some cookies herself, but they didn't come through very well."

"Really?"

"In a way," said Mr. Camby, im sorry you've put the inn over. I was sort of hoping we'd get you back some day. No hope of that, I suppose?"

"Well, hardly," John Henry told him.

"No, I suppose not." Mr. Camby seemed crestfallen. "Well, all the luck in the world, my boy."

He went on his way. John Henry smiled at his broad back. Camby was a worshiper of success.

If he had failed there would have been none of this warm eagerness to have him return to the Phoenix agency. And how close he had been to failing!

But he was far from it now. The January business at the inn was splendid. John Henry had an opportunity to acquire a secondhand automobile, and he took a step he had been contemplating for some time. It was not always convenient for parents to escort their little ones to the door of the inn.

Then, too, there was the problem of getting the older guests to and from school. So these lines were added to the advertising.

Our Motor Bus Goes Into Commission on Monday

Driven by a Careful, Competent Man

Children Called for and Delivered

On the first of March John Henry sat in his office computing his February profits. He had cleared more than six hundred dollars, and this in the shortest month of the year! Half to Grandma Biddle, half to himself— and what did that mean? It meant that, financially, he was Myra Dalton's equal at last; that he could go to her and ask her to give up her job for John Henry Jackson !

He called her up and invited her to dinner. She graciously accepted. This was the moment of John Henry's triumph, and he was enjoying it to the full. As an afterthought, he wrote a check for half the profits and, hunting up Grandma Biddle, laid it before her.

"What's all this?" she asked, studying it through her spectacles.

"Your profits for last month— that's all it is. Of course we ought to hold 'em to the end of the year, but I thought perhaps you'd feel safer—"

"Stuff and nonsense!" said Grandma Biddle, handing back the check. "I don't want it! The salary you pay me is enough. And besides "

She stopped and looked at him queerly.

"What?"

"I never was much of a fibber," went on the old lady. "But then— it wasn't a fib, as I remember. I said the money was the savings of a lifetime, but I didn't say whose lifetime."

"You mean that twenty-five hundred wasn't yours?"

"Land sakes, of course it wasn't mine!"

"Then whose was it?"

"You got to find that out yourself. I've said too much already. I'm afraid she won't like it."

"She!" John Henry went back to his desk and for a long time sat lost in thought. "She?" Who was his silent partner in this enterprise? For the first time he realized how pat, how opportune, was Grandma Biddle's appearance with twenty-five hundred dollars on the day after he had called up Mr. Camby and offered him a half in- terest in the Children's Inn for precisely that sum.

Camby hadn't sent her. Some mysteri- ous she — John Henry's heart sank. Loving a business woman was a good deal of an undertaking.

He tore up the check made out to Grandma Biddle and wrote another. Fifteen minutes later he strode into the office of the Phoenix Advertising Agency and up to Myra Dalton's desk. He laid the check before her.

"What's this?" she asked innocently.

"That," said John Henry, "represents your profits on the Children's Inn for the month of February. You're half owner, you know— or is it news to you?"

"Then Grandma Biddle's told!"

"Not precisely. She put me on the track, however, and I'm glad she did. It would have been too bad to let me go on thinking that my brains had put this thing over when all the time it was you."

"John Henry, don't be absurd! I did send Grandma Biddle to you— that's true. I used to know her down in Berea, and I thought of her merely as a means of getting my money to you— of helping you. I never dreamed that you could write such wonderful advertising around her, that you could change the whole course of your business from failure to success. It was your man's brains did that, John Henry— real advertising brains. Mr. Camby said so himself." John Henry smiled.

"You're kidding me," he said. "But I sort of like it."

"Oh, no, I'm not!"

"Yes, you are. But it doesn't matter. What matters is that all the time I thought I was getting ahead of you you were pulling along right at my side, and I never knew it. But, by golly, I'm not licked yet!"

It was five o'clock; the office force was leaving.

"Will you wait here till I come back?"

John Henry's partner in the inn smiled and nodded.

"I'll wait," she said.

The door of Camby's office stood open, and John Henry passed on into the great man's room.

Mr. Camby was in the act of putting on his overcoat. He gave it one final shake about his portly form and came forward, all smiles.

"Hello, John Henry, this is an honor! How's the inn? "

"Booming as usual," said John Henry. "Mr. Camby, I'd like to ask your advice about something."

"Certainly, my boy, certainly!"

"The fact is," John Henry went on, " I'm not needed at the inn any more. The staff I have there can more than manage things. A little attention to advertising and accounts— say, an hour's work each evening or a full Saturday afternoon— will take care of my end of it. I feel in the way there during the day— just sit in my office and read newspapers. So I'm looking about for more worlds to conquer. I'm going to start other inns later, but the time isn't propi- tious. So I've been thinking of setting up for myself— an advertising agency, you know."

Mr. Camby came quickly over and laid a hand on John Henry's shoulder. He seemed hurt.

"My boy, why do that? You know we want you here. I'll start you at a hundred a week."

"Yes, but I rather like being my own master."

" Make it five hundred a month. And all the time you need for the inn you can take' off, and welcome. Come, what do you say?"

"All right, I'll try it. When do I start?"

"Next Monday?"

"Suits me," smiled John Henry.

Mr. Camby took down his hat, and the two left the inner office together. John Henry stopped at Myra Dalton's desk. His hour of triumph had come! He waited until the door closed behind Mr. Camby. The two were alone.

"Well, Myra," said John Henry, "I'm coming here to work next Monday— at a big advance. Of course I'll still handle things at the inn. I can do that nights. This is a big moment for me. At last I'm making more money than you are, counting the inn and everything."

"Money!" she said. "What does money matter?"

"It matters a lot these days. Besides, I had my pride. I couldn't come to you and offer you a share in an income smaller than yours; but that's all fixed now, so I want to tell you that I— er— love you. When will you marry me, honey?"

He waited for her to stand up so he could take her in his arms. Instead she leaned over her desk and burst into bitter tears.

"Why, wha— what's the matter?" John Henry asked. Somehow the thing wasn't going right.

"Matter!" she sobbed. "Has any girl ever had such an unsatisfactory courtship? Money, money, money! Is there nothing else in the world any more? What do I care about money? You've never once told me I'm the dearest girl that ever lived. You've never once said you worship the very ground I walk on . My hair— boys have told me I have beautiful hair. Have you ever noticed it? Do you miss me when we're separated? Do you—"

"But, Myra, I thought all that sort of thing had gone out of fashion!" John Henry cried. "You've always seemed so efficient, so businesslike "

"You poor blind thing! Can't you see, I'm really just an old-fashioned woman— and I want to be loved— I want to be loved by a human being— not by a business man."

"All right," said John Henry, "I can love you that way, too, if you prefer it."

"You! Don't be foolish, John Henry! You haven't got a spark of romance in you! Now, please go away!"

"Then you won't marry me?

"Marry you! I'd as soon marry a certified check!"

"Oh!" said John Henry.

He looked so dazed and woebegone that she smiled up at him through her tears.

"On second thought," she said, "I'll give you a trial— a six months' trial. But you'll have to show speed as a lover you've never shown before. You must tell me daily that you can't live without me. You must say it as though you meant it. You must talk about the moon and the poets and my eyes like twin pools of light, and— and if you mention money once in that time I'll run away and you'll never see me again. Is it a go?"

"Anything you say, honey, replied John Henry humbly. "I have been a mighty poor excuse in the Romeo rôle, I know. Please don't put those silly spectacles on again— your eyes are wonderful. I was thinking of them only this afternoon, when I should have been figuring up— I mean, all at once I seemed to be looking into them, and it was thrilling! Now, we're going to dinner, and afterwards we'll walk home together— just you and I and the stars." He got down on his knees on the dusty floor.

"Walk over me," he said. "I deserve it. Darling, I've got to make you understand how much I care. Of all the girls since the world began, you are the sweetest, the most precious."

"Not so bad, for a beginner,' smiled Myra Dalton. "But can you keep it up for six months?"

"Forever!" he cried.

Still on his knees, he seized her hand and kissed it. Mrs. Grogan, the cleaner, who entered at that moment to do the office, said afterwards that it was as good as the movies.

_______________

12: The Shadow of the Vulture

Robert E. Howard

1906-1936

The Magic Carpet, Jan 1934

"ARE the dogs dressed and gorged?"

"Aye, Protector of the Faithful."

"Then let them crawl into the Presence."

So they brought the envoys, pallid from months of imprisonment, before the canopied throne of Suleyman the Magnificent, Sultan of Turkey, and the mightiest monarch in an age of mighty monarchs. Under the great purple dome of the royal chamber gleamed the throne before which the world trembled— gold-paneled, pearl-inlaid. An emperor's wealth in gems was sewn into the silken canopy from which depended a shimmering string of pearls ending a frieze of emeralds which hung like a halo of glory above Suleyman's head. Yet the splendor of the throne was paled by the glitter of the figure upon it, bedecked in jewels, the aigrette feather rising above the diamonded white turban. About the throne stood his nine viziers, in attitudes of humility, and warriors of the imperial bodyguard ranged the dais— Solaks in armor, black and white and scarlet plumes nodding above the gilded helmets.

The envoys from Austria were properly impressed— the more so as they had had nine weary months for reflection in the grim Castle of the Seven Towers that overlooks the Sea of Marmora. The head of the embassy choked down his choler and cloaked his resentment in a semblance of submission— a strange cloak on the shoulders of Habordansky, general of Ferdinand, Archduke of Austria. His rugged head bristled incongruously from the flaming silk robes presented him by the contemptuous Sultan, as he was brought before the throne, his arms gripped fast by stalwart Janizaries. Thus were foreign envoys presented to the sultans, ever since that red day in Kosovo when Milosh Kabilovitch, knight of slaughtered Serbia, had slain the conqueror Murad with a hidden dagger.

The Grand Turk regarded Habordansky with scant favor. Suleyman was a tall, slender man, with a thin down-curving nose and a thin straight mouth, the resolution of which his drooping mustachios did not soften. His narrow outward-curving chin was shaven. The only suggestion of weakness was in the slender, remarkably long neck, but that suggestion was belied by the hard lines of the slender figure, the glitter of the dark eyes. There was more than a suggestion of the Tatar about him— rightly so, since he was no more the son of Selim the Grim, than of Hafsza Khatun, princess of Crimea. Born to the purple, heir to the mightiest military power in the world, he was crested with authority and cloaked in pride that recognized no peer beneath the gods.

Under his eagle gaze old Habordansky bent his head to hide the sullen rage in his eyes. Nine months before, the general had come to Stamboul representing his master, the Archduke, with proposals for truce and the disposition of the iron crown of Hungary, torn from the dead king Louis' head on the bloody field of Mohacz, where the Grand Turk's armies opened the road to Europe. There had been another emissary before him— Jerome Lasczky, the Polish count palatine. Habordansky, with the bluntness of his breed, had claimed the Hungarian crown for his master, rousing Suleyman's ire. Lasczky had, like a suppliant, asked on his bended knees that crown for his countrymen at Mohacz.

To Lasczky had been given honor, gold and promises of patronage, for which he had paid with pledges abhorrent even to his avaricious soul— selling his ally's subjects into slavery, and opening the road through the subject territory to the very heart of Christendom.

All this was made known to Habordansky, frothing with fury in the prison to which the arrogant resentment of the Sultan had assigned him. Now Suleyman looked contemptuously at the staunch old general, and dispensed with the usual formality of speaking through the mouthpiece of the Grand Vizier. A royal Turk would not deign to admit knowledge of any Frankish tongue, but Habordansky understood Turki. The Sultan's remarks were brief and without preamble.

"Say to your master that I now make ready to visit him in his own lands, and that if he fails to meet me at Mohacz or at Pesth, I will meet him beneath the walls of Vienna."

Habordansky bowed, not trusting himself to speak. At a scornful wave of the imperial hand, an officer of the court came forward and bestowed upon the general a small gilded bag containing two hundred ducats. Each member of his retinue, waiting patiently at the other end of the chamber, under the spears of the Janizaries, was likewise so guerdoned. Habordansky mumbled thanks, his knotty hands clenched about the gift with unnecessary vigor. The Sultan grinned thinly, well aware that the ambassador would have hurled the coins into his face, had he dared. He half-lifted his hand, in token of dismissal, then paused, his eyes resting on the group of men who composed the general's suite— or rather, on one of these men. This man was the tallest in the room, strongly built, wearing his Turkish gift-garments clumsily. At a gesture from the Sultan he was brought forward in the grasp of the soldiers.

Suleyman stared at him narrowly. The Turkish vest and voluminous khalat could not conceal the lines of massive strength. His tawny hair was close-cropped, his sweeping yellow mustaches drooping below a stubborn chin. His blue eyes seemed strangely clouded; it was as if the man slept on his feet, with his eyes open.

"Do you speak Turki?" The Sultan did the fellow the stupendous honor of addressing him directly. Through all the pomp of the Ottoman court there remained in the Sultan some of the simplicity of Tatar ancestors.

"Yes, your majesty," answered the Frank.

"Who are you?"

"Men name me Gottfried von Kalmbach."

Suleyman scowled and unconsciously his fingers wandered to his shoulder, where, under his silken robes, he could feel the outlines of an old scar.

"I do not forget faces. Somewhere I have seen yours— under circumstances that etched it into the back of my mind. But I am unable to recall those circumstances."

"I was at Rhodes," offered the German.

"Many men were at Rhodes," snapped Suleyman.

"Aye." agreed von Kalmbach tranquilly. "De l'Isle Adam was there."

Suleyman stiffened and his eyes glittered at the name of the Grand Master of the Knights of Saint John, whose desperate defense of Rhodes had cost the Turk sixty thousand men. He decided, however, that the Frank was not clever enough for the remark to carry any subtle thrust, and dismissed the embassy with a wave. The envoys were backed out of the Presence and the incident was closed. The Franks would be escorted out of Stamboul, and to the nearest boundaries of the empire. The Turk's warning would be carried posthaste to the Archduke, and soon on the heels of that warning would come the armies of the Sublime Porte. Suleyman's officers knew that the Grand Turk had more in mind than merely establishing his puppet Zapolya on the conquered Hungarian throne. Suleyman's ambitions embraced all Europe— that stubborn Frankistan which had for centuries sporadically poured forth hordes chanting and pillaging into the East, whose illogical and wayward peoples had again and again seemed ripe for Moslem conquest, yet who had always emerged, if not victorious, at least unconquered.

IT WAS the evening of the morning on which the Austrian emissaries departed that Suleyman, brooding on his throne, raised his lean head and beckoned his Grand Vizier Ibrahim, who approached with confidence. The Grand Vizier was always sure of his master's approbation; was he not cup-companion and boyhood comrade of the Sultan? Ibrahim had but one rival in his master's favor— the red-haired Russian girl, Khurrem the Joyous, whom Europe knew as Roxelana, whom slavers had dragged from her father's house in Rogatino to be the Sultan's harim favorite.

"I remember the infidel at last," said Suleyman. "Do you recall the first charge of the knights at Mohacz?"

Ibrahim winced slightly at the allusion.

"Oh, Protector of the Pitiful, is it likely that I should forget an occasion on which the divine blood of my master was spilt by an unbeliever?"

"Then you remember that thirty-two knights, the paladins of the Nazarenes, drove headlong into our array, each having pledged his life to cut down our person. By Allah, they rode like men riding to a wedding, their great horses and long lances overthrowing all who opposed them, and their plate-armor turned the finest steel. Yet they fell as the firelocks spoke until only three were left in the saddle— the knight Marczali and two companions. These paladins cut down my Solaks like ripe grain, but Marczali and one of his companions fell— almost at my feet.

"Yet one knight remained, though his vizored helmet had been torn from his head and blood started from every joint in his armor. He rode full at me, swinging his great two-handed sword, and I swear by the beard of the Prophet, death was so nigh me that I felt the burning breath of Azrael on my neck!

"His sword flashed like lightning in the sky, and glancing from my casque, whereby I was half-stunned so that blood gushed from my nose, rent the mail on my shoulder and gave me this wound, which irks me yet when the rains come. The Janizaries who swarmed around him cut the hocks of his horse, which brought him to earth as it went down, and the remnants of my Solaks bore me back out of the melee. Then the Hungarian host came on, and I saw not what became of the knight. But today I saw him again."

Ibrahim started with an exclamation of incredulity.

"Nay, I could not mistake those blue eyes. How it is I know not, but the knight that wounded me at Mohacz was this German, Gottfried von Kalmbach."

"But, Defender of the Faith," protested Ibrahim, "the heads of those dog-knights were heaped before thy royal pavilion—"

"And I counted them and said nothing at the time, lest men think I held thee in blame," answered Suleyman. "There were but thirty-one. Most were so mutilated I could tell little of the features. But somehow the infidel escaped, who gave me this blow. I love brave men, but our blood is not so common that an unbeliever may with impunity spill it on the ground for the dogs to lap up. See ye to it."

Ibrahim salaamed deeply and withdrew. He made his way through broad corridors to a blue-tiled chamber whose gold-arched windows looked out on broad galleries, shaded by cypress and plane-trees, and cooled by the spray of silvery fountains. There at his summons came one Yaruk Khan, a Crim Tatar, a slant-eyed impassive figure in harness of lacquered leather and burnished bronze.

"Dog-brother," said the Vizier, "did thy koumiss-clouded gaze mark the tall German lord who served the emir Habordansky— the lord whose hair is tawny as a lion's mane?"

"Aye, noyon, he who is called Gombuk."

"The same. Take a chambul of thy dog-brothers and go after the Franks. Bring back this man and thou shalt be rewarded. The persons of envoys are sacred, but this matter is not official," he added cynically.

"To hear is to obey!" With a salaam as profound as that accorded to the Sultan himself, Yaruk Khan backed out of the presence of the second man of the empire.

HE RETURNED some days later, dusty, travel-stained, and without his prey. On him Ibrahim bent an eye full of menace, and the Tatar prostrated himself before the silken cushions on which the Grand Vizier sat, in the blue chamber with the gold-arched windows.

"Great khan, let not thine anger consume thy slave. The fault was not mine, by the beard of the Prophet."

"Squat on thy mangy haunches and bay out the tale," ordered Ibrahim considerately.

"Thus it was, my lord," began Yaruk Khan. "I rode swiftly, and though the Franks and their escort had a long start, and pushed on through the night without halting, I came up with them the next midday. But lo, Gombuk was not among them, and when I inquired after him, the paladin Habordansky replied only with many great oaths, like to the roaring of a cannon. So I spoke with various of the escort who understood the speech of these infidels, and learned what had come to pass. Yet I would have my lord remember that I only repeat the words of the Spahis of the escort, who are men without honor and lie like—"

"Like a Tatar," said Ibrahim.

Yaruk Khan acknowledged the compliment with a wide dog-like grin, and continued. "This they told me. At dawn Gombuk drew horse away from the rest, and the emir Habordansky demanded of him the reason. Then Gombuk laughed in the manner of the Franks— huh! huh! huh!— so. And Gombuk said, 'The devil of good your service has done me, so I cool my heels for nine months in a Turkish prison. Suleyman has given us safe conduct over the border and I am not compelled to ride with you.' 'You dog,' said the emir, 'there is war in the wind and the Archduke has need of your sword.' 'Devil eat the Archduke,' answered Gombuk; 'Zapolya is a dog because he stood aside at Mohacz, and let us, his comrades, be cut to pieces, but Ferdinand is a dog too. When I am penniless I sell him my sword. Now I have two hundred ducats and these robes which I can sell to any Jew for a handful of silver, and may the devil bite me if I draw sword for any man while I have a penny left. I'm for the nearest Christian tavern, and you and the Archduke may go to the devil.' Then the emir cursed him with many great curses, and Gombuk rode away laughing, huh! huh! huh!, and singing a song about a cockroach named—"

"Enough!" Ibrahim's features were dark with rage. He plucked savagely at his beard, reflecting that in the allusion to Mohacz, von Kalmbach had practically clinched Suleyman's suspicion. That matter of thirty-one heads when there should have been thirty-two was something no Turkish sultan would be likely to overlook. Officials had lost positions and their own heads over more trivial matters. The manner in which Suleyman had acted showed his almost incredible fondness and consideration for his Grand Vizier, but Ibrahim, vain though he was, was shrewd and wished no slightest shadow to come between him and his sovereign.

"Could you not have tracked him down, dog?" he demanded.

"By Allah," swore the uneasy Tatar, "he must have ridden on the wind. He crossed the border hours ahead of me, and I followed him as far as I dared—"

"Enough of excuses," interrupted Ibrahim. "Send Mikhal Oglu to me."

The Tatar departed thankfully. Ibrahim was not tolerant of failure in any man.

THE Grand Vizier brooded on his silken cushions until the shadow of a pair of vulture wings fell across the marble-tiled floor, and the lean figure he had summoned bowed before him. The man whose very name was a shuddering watchword of horror to all western Asia was soft-spoken and moved with the mincing ease of a cat, but the stark evil of his soul showed in his dark countenance, gleamed in his narrow slit eyes. He was the chief of the Akinji, those wild riders whose raids spread fear and desolation throughout all lands beyond the Grand Turk's borders. He stood in full armor, a jeweled helmet on his narrow head, the wide vulture wings made fast to the shoulders of his gilded chain-mail hauberk. Those wings spread wide in the wind when he rode, and under their pinions lay the shadows of death and destruction. It was Suleyman's scimitar-tip, the most noted slayer of a nation of slayers, who stood before the Grand Vizier.

"Soon you will precede the hosts of our master into the lands of the infidel," said Ibrahim. "It will be your order, as always, to strike and spare not. You will waste the fields and the vineyards of the Caphars, you will burn their villages, you will strike down their men with arrows, and lead away their wenches captive. Lands beyond our line of march will cry out beneath your heel."

"That is good hearing, Favored of Allah," answered Mikhal Oglu in his soft courteous voice.

"Yet there is an order within the order," continued Ibrahim, fixing a piercing eye on the Akinji. "You know the German, von Kalmbach?"

"Aye— Gombuk as the Tatars call him."

"So. This is my command— whoever fights or flees, lives or dies— this man must not live. Search him out wherever he lies, though the hunt carry you to the very banks of the Rhine. When you bring me his head, your reward shall be thrice its weight in gold."

"To hear is to obey, my lord. Men say he is the vagabond son of a noble German family, whose ruin has been wine and women. They say he was once a Knight of Saint John, until cast forth for guzzling and—"

"Yet do not underrate him," answered Ibrahim grimly. "Sot he may be, but if he rode with Marczali, he is not to be despised. See thou to it!"

"There is no den where he can hide from me, oh Favored of Allah," declared Mikhal Oglu, "no night dark enough to conceal him, no forest thick enough. If I bring you not his head, I give him leave to send you mine."

"Enough!" Ibrahim grinned and tugged at his beard, well pleased. "You have my leave to go."

The sinister vulture-winged figure went springily and silently from the blue chamber, nor could Ibrahim guess that he was taking the first steps in a feud which should spread over years and far lands, swirling in dark tides to draw in thrones and kingdoms and red-haired women more beautiful than the flames of hell.

ii

IN A small thatched hut in a village not far from the Danube, lusty snores resounded where a figure reclined in state on a ragged cloak thrown over a heap of straw. It was the paladin Gottfried von Kalmbach who slept the sleep of innocence and ale. The velvet vest, voluminous silken trousers, khalat and shagreen boots, gifts from a contemptuous sultan, were nowhere in evidence. The paladin was clad in worn leather and rusty mail. Hands tugged at him, breaking his sleep, and he swore drowsily.

"Wake up, my lord! Oh, wake, good knight— good pig— good dog-soul— will you wake, then?"

"Fill my flagon, host," mumbled the slumberer. "Who?— what? May the dogs bite you, Ivga! I've not another asper— not a penny. Go off like a good lass and let me sleep."

The girl renewed her tugging and shaking.

"Oh dolt! Rise! Gird on your spit! There are happenings forward!"

"Ivga," muttered Gottfried, pulling away from her attack, "take my burganet to the Jew. He'll give you enough for it to get drunk again."

"Fool!" she cried in despair. "It isn't money I want! The whole east is aflame, and none knows the reason thereof!"

"Has the rain ceased?" asked von Kalmbach, taking some interest in the proceedings at last.

"The rain ceased hours ago. You can only hear the drip from the thatch. Put on your sword and come out into the street. The men of the village are all drunk on your last silver, and the women know not what to think or do. Ah!"

The exclamation was broken from her by the sudden upleaping of a weird illumination which shone through the crevices of the hut. The German got unsteadily to his feet, quickly girt on the great two-handed sword and stuck his dented burganet on his cropped locks. Then he followed the girl into the straggling street. She was a slender young thing, barefooted, clad only in a short tunic-like garment, through the wide rents of which gleamed generous expanses of white flesh.

There seemed no life or movement in the village. Nowhere showed a light. Water dripped steadily from the eaves of the thatched roofs. Puddles in the muddy streets gleamed black. Wind sighed and moaned eerily through the black sodden branches of the trees which pressed in bulwarks of darkness about the little village, and in the southeast, towering higher into the leaden sky, rose the lurid crimson glow that set the dank clouds to smoldering. The girl Ivga cringed close to the tall German, whimpering.

"I'll tell you what it is, my girl," said he, scanning the glow. "It's Suleyman's devils. They've crossed the river and they're burning the villages. Aye, I've seen glares like that in the sky before. I've expected him before now, but these cursed rains we've had for weeks must have held him back. Aye, it's the Akinji, right enough, and they won't stop this side of Vienna. Look you, my girl, go quickly and quietly to the stable behind the hut and bring me my gray stallion. We'll slip out like mice from between the devil's fingers. The stallion will carry us both, easily."

"But the people of the village!" she sobbed, wringing her hands.

"Eh, well," he said, "God rest them; the men have drunk my ale valiantly and the women have been kind— but horns of Satan, girl, the gray nag won't carry a whole village!"

"Go you!" she returned. "I'll stay and die with my people!"

"The Turks won't kill you," he answered. "They'll sell you to a fat old Stamboul merchant who'll beat you. I won't stay to be cut open, and neither shall you—"

A terrible scream from the girl cut him short and he wheeled at the awful terror in her flaring eyes. Even as he did so, a hut at the lower end of the village sprang into flames, the sodden material burning slowly. A medley of screams and maddened yells followed the cry of the girl. In the sluggish light figures danced and capered wildly. Gottfried, straining his eyes in the shadows, saw shapes swarming over the low mud wall which drunkenness and negligence had left unguarded.

"Damnation!" he muttered. "The accursed ones have ridden ahead of their fire. They've stolen on the village in the dark— come on, girl—"

But even as he caught her white wrist to drag her away, and she screamed and fought against him like a wild thing, mad with fear, the mud wall crashed at the point nearest them. It crumpled under the impact of a score of horses, and into the doomed village reined the riders, distinct in the growing light. Huts were flaring up on all hands, screams rising to the dripping clouds as the invaders dragged shrieking women and drunken men from their hovels and cut their throats. Gottfried saw the lean figures of the horsemen, the firelight gleaming on their burnished steel; he saw the vulture wings on the shoulders of the foremost. Even as he recognized Mikhal Oglu, he saw the chief stiffen and point.

"At him, dogs!" yelled the Akinji, his voice no longer soft, but strident as the rasp of a drawn saber. "It is Gombuk! Five hundred aspers to the man who brings me his head!"

With a curse von Kalmbach bounded for the shadows of the nearest hut, dragging the screaming girl with him. Even as he leaped he heard the twang of bowstrings, and the girl sobbed and went limp in his grasp. She sank down at his feet, and in the lurid glare he saw the feathered end of an arrow quivering under her heart. With a low rumble he turned toward his assailants as a fierce bear turns at bay. An instant he stood, head out-thrust truculently, sword gripped in both hands; then, as a bear gives back from the onset of the hunters, he turned and fled about the hut, arrows whistling about him and glancing from the rings of his mail. There were no shots; the ride through that dripping forest had dampened the powder-flasks of the raiders.

Von Kalmbach quartered about the back of the hut, mindful of the fierce yells behind him, and gained the shed behind the hut he had occupied, wherein he stabled his gray stallion. Even as he reached the door, someone snarled like a panther in the semi-dark and cut viciously at him. He parried the stroke with the lifted sword and struck back with all the power of his broad shoulders. The great blade glanced stunningly from the Akinji's polished helmet and rent through the mail links of his hauberk, tearing arm from shoulder. The Muhammadan sank down with a groan, and the German sprang over his prostrate form. The gray stallion, wild with fear and excitement, neighed shrilly and reared as his master sprang on his back. No time for saddle or bridle. Gottfried dug his heels into the quivering flanks and the great steed shot through the door like a thunderbolt, knocking men right and left like tenpins. Across the firelit open space between the burning huts he raced, clearing crumpled corpses in his stride, splashing his rider from heel to head as he thrashed through the puddles.

The Akinji made after the flying rider, loosing their shafts and giving tongue like hounds. Those mounted spurred after him, while those who had entered the village on foot ran through the broken wall for their horses.

Arrows flickered about Gottfried's head as he put his steed at the only point open to him— the unbroken western wall. It was touch and go, for the footing was tricky and treacherous and never had the gray stallion attempted such a leap. Gottfried held his breath as he felt the great body beneath him gathering and tensing in full flight for the desperate effort; then with a volcanic heave of mighty thews the stallion rose in the air and cleared the barrier with scarce an inch to spare. The pursuers yelled in amazement and fury, and reined back. Born horsemen though they were, they dared not attempt that breakneck leap. They lost time seeking gates and breaks in the wall, and when they finally emerged from the village, the black, dank, whispering, dripping forest had swallowed up their prey.

Mikhal Oglu swore like a fiend and leaving his lieutenant Othman in charge with instructions to leave no living human being in the village, he pressed on after the fugitive, following the trail, by torches, in the muddy mold, and swearing to run him down, if the road led under the very walls of Vienna.

iii

ALLAH did not will it that Mikhal Oglu should take Gottfried von Kalmbach's head in the dark, dripping forest. He knew the country better than they, and in spite of their zeal, they lost his trail in the darkness. Dawn found Gottfried riding through terror-stricken farmlands, with the flame of a burning world lighting the east and south. The country was thronged with fugitives, staggering under pitiful loads of household goods, driving bellowing cattle, like people fleeing the end of the world. The torrential rains that had offered false promise of security had not long stayed the march of the Grand Turk.

With a quarter-million followers he was ravaging the eastern marches of Christendom. While Gottfried had loitered in the taverns of isolated villages, drinking up the Sultan's bounty, Pesth and Buda had fallen, the German soldiers of the latter having been slaughtered by the Janizaries, after promises of safety sworn by Suleyman, whom men named the Generous.

While Ferdinand and the nobles and bishops squabbled at the Diet of Spires, the elements alone seemed to war for Christendom. Rain fell in torrents, and through the floods that changed plains and forest-bed to dank morasses, the Turks struggled grimly. They drowned in raging rivers, and lost great stores of ammunition, ordnance and supplies when boats capsized, bridges gave way, and wagons mired. But on they came, driven by the implacable will of Suleyman, and now in September, 1529, over the ruins of Hungary, the Turk swept on Europe, with the Akinji— the Sackmen— ravaging the land like the drift ahead of a storm.

This in part Gottfried learned from the fugitives as he pushed his weary stallion toward the city which was the only sanctuary for the panting thousands. Behind him the skies flamed red and the screams of butchered victims came dimly down the wind to his ears. Sometimes he could even make out the swarming black masses of wild horsemen. The wings of the vulture beat horrifically over that butchered land and the shadows of those great wings fell across all Europe. Again the destroyer was riding out of the blue mysterious East as his brothers had ridden before him— Attila— Subotai— Bayazid— Muhammad the Conqueror. But never before had such a storm risen against the West.

Before the waving vulture wings the road thronged with wailing fugitives; behind them it ran red and silent, strewn with mangled shapes that cried no more. The killers were not a half-hour behind him when Gottfried von Kalmbach rode his reeling stallion through the gates of Vienna. The people on the walls had heard the wailing for hours, rising awfully on the wind, and now afar they saw the sun flicker on the points of lances as the horsemen rode in amongst the masses of fugitives toiling down from the hills into the plain which girdles the city. They saw the play of naked steel like sickles among ripe grain.

Von Kalmbach found the city in turmoil, the people swirling and screaming about Count Nikolas Salm, the seventy-year-old warhorse who commanded Vienna, and his aides, Roggendrof, Count Nikolas Zrinyi and Paul Bakics. Salm was working with frantic haste, leveling houses near the walls and using their material to brace the ramparts, which were old and unstable, nowhere more than six feet thick, and in many places crumbling and falling down. The outer palisade was so frail it bore the name of Stadtzaun— city hedge.

But under the lashing energy of Count Salm, a new wall twenty feet high was thrown up from the Stuben to the Karnthner Gate. Ditches interior to the old moat were dug, and ramparts erected from the drawbridge to the Salz Gate. Roofs were stripped of shingles, to lessen the chances of fire, and paving was ripped up to soften the impact of cannonballs.

The suburbs had been deserted, and now they were fired lest they give shelter to the besiegers. In the process, which was carried out in the very teeth of the oncoming Sackmen, conflagrations broke out in the city and added to the delirium. It was all hell and bedlam turned loose, and in the midst of it, five thousand wretched noncombatants, old men and women, and children, were ruthlessly driven from the gates to shift for themselves, and their screams, as the Akinjis swooped down, maddened the people within the walls. These hellions were arriving by thousands, topping the skylines, and sweeping down on the city in irregular squadrons, like vultures gathering about a dying camel. Within an hour after the first swarm had appeared, not one Christian remained alive outside the gates, except those bound by long ropes to the saddle-peaks of their captors and forced to run at full speed or be dragged to death. The wild riders swirled about the walls, yelling and loosing their shafts. Men on the towers recognized the dread Mikhal Oglu by the wings on his cuirass, and noted that he rode from one heap of dead to another, avidly scanning each corpse in turn, pausing to glare questioningly at the battlements.

Meanwhile, from the west, a band of German and Spanish troops cut their way through a cordon of Sackmen and marched into the streets to the accompaniment of frenzied cheers, Philip the Palgrave at their head.

Gottfried von Kalmbach leaned on his sword and watched them pass in their gleaming breastplates and plumed crested helmets, with long matchlocks on their shoulders and two-handed swords strapped to their steel-clad backs. He was a curious contrast in his rusty chain-mail, old-fashioned harness picked up here and there and slovenly pieced together— he seemed like a figure out of the past, rusty and tarnished, watching a newer, brighter generation go by. Yet Philip saluted him, with a glance of recognition, as the shining column swung past.

VON KALMBACH started toward the walls, where the gunners were firing frugally at the Akinji, who showed some disposition to climb upon the bastions on lariats thrown from their saddles. But on the way he heard that Salm was impressing nobles and soldiers in the task of digging moats and rearing new earthworks, and in great haste he took refuge in a tavern, where he bullied the host, a knock-kneed and apprehensive Wallachian, into giving him credit, and rapidly drank himself into a state where no one would have considered asking him to do work of any kind.

Shots, shouts and screams reached his ears, but he paid scant heed. He knew that the Akinji would strike and pass on, to ravage the country beyond. He learned from the tavern talk that Salm had 20,000 pikemen, 2,000 horsemen and 1,000 volunteer citizens to oppose Suleyman's hordes, together with seventy guns— cannons, demi-cannons and culverins. The news of the Turks' numbers numbed all hearts with dread— all but von Kalmbach's. He was a fatalist in his way. But he discovered a conscience in ale, and was presently brooding over the people the miserable Viennese had driven forth to perish. The more he drank the more melancholy he became, and maudlin tears dripped from the drooping ends of his mustaches.

At last he rose unsteadily and took up his great sword, muzzily intent on challenging Count Salm to a duel because of the matter. He bellowed down the timid importunities of the Wallachian and weaved out on the street. To his groggy sight the towers and spires cavorted crazily; people jostled him, knocking him aside as they ran about aimlessly. Philip the Palgrave strode by clanking in his armor, the keen dark faces of his Spaniards contrasting with the square, florid countenances of the Lanzknechts.

"Shame upon you, von Kalmbach!" said Philip sternly. "The Turk is upon us, and you keep your snout shoved in an ale-pot!"

"Whose snout is in what ale-pot?" demanded Gottfried, weaving in an erratic half-circle as he fumbled at his sword. "Devil bite you, Philip, I'll rap your pate for that—"

The Palgrave was already out of sight, and eventually Gottfried found himself on the Karnthner Tower, only vaguely aware of how he had got there. But what he saw sobered him suddenly. The Turk was indeed upon Vienna. The plain was covered with his tents, thirty thousand, some said, and swore that from the lofty spire of Saint Stephen's cathedral a man could not see their limits. Four hundred of his boats lay on the Danube, and Gottfried heard men cursing the Austrian fleet which lay helpless far upstream, because its sailors, long unpaid, refused to man the ships. He also heard that Salm had made no reply at all to Suleyman's demand to surrender.

Now, partly as a gesture, partly to awe the Caphar dogs, the Grand Turk's array was moving in orderly procession before the ancient walls before settling down to the business of the siege. The sight was enough to awe the stoutest. The low-swinging sun struck fire from polished helmet, jeweled saber-hilt and lance-point. It was as if a river of shining steel flowed leisurely and terribly past the walls of Vienna.

The Akinji, who ordinarily formed the vanguard of the host, had swept on, but in their place rode the Tatars of Crimea, crouching on their high-peaked, short-stirruped saddles, their gnome-like heads guarded by iron helmets, their stocky bodies with bronze breastplates and lacquered leather. Behind them came the Azabs, the irregular infantry, Kurds and Arabs for the most part, a wild, motley horde. Then their brothers, the Delis, the Madcaps, wild men on tough ponies fantastically adorned with fur and feathers. The riders wore caps and mantles of leopard skin; their unshorn hair hung in tangled strands about their high shoulders, and over their matted beards their eyes glared the madness of fanaticism and bhang.

After them came the real body of the army. First the beys and emirs with their retainers— horsemen and footmen from the feudal fiefs of Asia Minor. Then the Spahis, the heavy cavalry, on splendid steeds. And last of all the real strength of the Turkish empire— the most terrible military organization in the world— the Janizaries. On the walls men spat in black fury, recognizing kindred blood. For the Janizaries were not Turks. With a few exceptions, where Turkish parents had smuggled their offspring into the ranks to save them from the grinding life of a peasant, they were sons of Christians— Greeks, Serbs, Hungarians— stolen in infancy and raised in the ranks of Islam, knowing but one master— the Sultan; but one occupation— slaughter.

Their beardless features contrasted with those of their Oriental masters. Many had blue eyes and yellow mustaches. But all their faces were stamped with the wolfish ferocity to which they had been reared. Under their dark blue cloaks glinted fine mail, and many wore steel skull-caps under their curious, high-peaked hats from which depended a white sleeve-like piece of cloth, and through which was thrust a copper spoon. Long bird-of-paradise plumes likewise adorned these strange head-pieces.

Besides scimitars, pistols and daggers, each Janizary bore a matchlock, and their officers carried pots of coals for the lighting of the matches. Up and down the ranks scurried the dervishes, clad only in kalpaks of camel-hair and green aprons fringed with ebony beads, exhorting the Faithful. Military bands, the invention of the Turk, marched with the columns, cymbals clashing, lutes twanging. Over the flowing sea the banners tossed and swayed— the crimson flag of the Spahis, the white banner of the Janizaries with its two-edged sword worked in gold, and the horse-tail standards of the rulers— seven tails for the Sultan, six for the Grand Vizier, three for the Agha of the Janizaries. So Suleyman paraded his power before despairing Caphar eyes.

But von Kalmbach's gaze was centered on the groups that labored to set up the ordnance of the Sultan. And he shook his head in bewilderment.

"Demi-culverins, sakers, and falconets!" he grunted. "Where the devil's all the heavy artillery Suleyman's so proud of?"

"At the bottom of the Danube!" A Hungarian pikeman grinned fiercely and spat as he answered. "Wulf Hagen sank that part of the Soldan's flotilla. The rest of his cannon and cannon royal, they say, were mired because of the rains."

A slow grin bristled Gottfried's mustache.

"What was Suleyman's word to Salm?"

"That he'd eat breakfast in Vienna day after tomorrow— the 29th."

Gottfried shook his head ponderously.

iv

THE siege commenced, with the roaring of cannons, the whistling of arrows, and the blasting crash of matchlocks. The Janizaries took possession of the ruined suburbs, where fragments of walls gave them shelter. Under a screen of irregulars and a volley of arrow-fire, they advanced methodically just after dawn.

On a gun-turret on the threatened wall, leaning on his great sword and meditatively twisting his mustache, Gottfried von Kalmbach watched a Transylvanian gunner being carried off the wall, his brains oozing from a hole in his head; a Turkish matchlock had spoken too near the walls. The field-pieces of the Sultan were barking like deep-toned dogs, knocking chips off the battlements. The Janizaries were advancing, kneeling, firing, reloading as they came on. Bullets glanced from the crenelles and whined off venomously into space. One flattened against Gottfried's hauberk, bringing an outraged grunt from him. Turning toward the abandoned gun, he saw a colorful, incongruous figure bending over the massive breech.

It was a woman, dressed as von Kalmbach had not seen even the dandies of France dressed. She was tall, splendidly shaped, but lithe. From under a steel cap escaped rebellious tresses that rippled red gold in the sun over her compact shoulders. High boots of Cordovan leather came to her mid-thighs, which were cased in baggy breeches. She wore a shirt of fine Turkish mesh-mail tucked into her breeches. Her supple waist was confined by a flowing sash of green silk, into which were thrust a brace of pistols and a dagger, and from which depended a long Hungarian saber. Over all was carelessly thrown a scarlet cloak.

This surprizing figure was bending over the cannon, sighting it in a manner betokening more than a passing familiarity, at a group of Turks who were wheeling a carriage-gun just within range.

"Eh, Red Sonya!" shouted a man-at-arms, waving his pike. "Give 'em hell, my lass!"

"Trust me, dog-brother," she retorted as she applied the glowing match to the vent. "But I wish my mark was Roxelana's—"

A terrific detonation drowned her words and a swirl of smoke blinded every one on the turret, as the terrific recoil of the overcharged cannon knocked the firer flat on her back. She sprang up like a spring rebounding and rushed to the embrasure, peering eagerly through the smoke, which clearing, showed the ruin of the gun crew. The huge ball, bigger than a man's head, had smashed full into the group clustered about the saker, and now they lay on the torn ground, their skulls blasted by the impact, or their bodies mangled by the flying iron splinters from their shattered gun. A cheer went up from the towers, and the woman called Red Sonya yelled with a sincere joy and did the steps of a Cossack dance.

Gottfried approached, eyeing in open admiration the splendid swell of her bosom beneath the pliant mail, the curves of her ample hips and rounded limbs. She stood as a man might stand, booted legs braced wide apart, thumbs hooked into her girdle, but she was all woman. She was laughing as she faced him, and he noted with fascination the dancing sparkling lights and changing colors of her eyes. She raked back her rebellious locks with a powder-stained hand and he wondered at the clear pinky whiteness of her firm flesh where it was unstained.

"Why did you wish for the Sultana Roxelana for a target, my girl?" he asked.

"Because she's my sister, the slut!" answered Sonya.

At that instant a great cry thundered over the walls and the girl started like a wild thing, ripping out her blade in a long flash of silver in the sun.

"I've heard that bellow!" she cried. "The Janizaries— "

Gottfried was already on his way to the embrasures. He too had heard before the terrible soul-shaking shout of the charging Janizaries. Suleyman meant to waste no time on the city that barred him from helpless Europe. He meant to crush its frail walls in one storm. The bashi-bazouki, the irregulars, died like flies to screen the main advance, and over heaps of their dead, the Janizaries thundered against Vienna. In the teeth of cannonade and musket volley they surged on, crossing the moats on scaling-ladders laid across, bridge-like. Whole ranks went down as the Austrian guns roared, but now the attackers were under the walls and the cumbrous balls whirred over their heads, to work havoc in the rear ranks.

The Spanish matchlock men, firing almost straight down, took ghastly toll, but now the ladders gripped the walls, and the chanting madmen surged upward. Arrows whistled, striking down the defenders. Behind them the Turkish field-pieces boomed, careless of injury to friend as well as foe. Gottfried, standing at an embrasure, was overthrown by a sudden terrific impact. A ball had smashed the merlon, braining half a dozen defenders.

Gottfried rose, half-stunned, out of the debris of masonry and huddled corpses. He looked down into an uprushing waste of snarling, impassioned faces, where eyes glared like mad dogs' and blades glittered like sunbeams on water. Bracing his feet wide, he heaved up his great sword and lashed down. His jaw jutted out, his mustache bristled. The five-foot blade caved in steel caps and skulls, lashing through uplifted bucklers and iron shoulder-pieces. Men fell from the ladders, their nerveless fingers slipping from the bloody rungs.

But they swarmed through the breach on either side of him. A terrible cry announced that the Turks had a foothold on the wall. But no man dared leave his post to go to the threatened point. To the dazed defenders it seemed that Vienna was ringed by a glittering, tossing sea that roared higher and higher about the doomed walls.

STEPPING back to avoid being hemmed in, Gottfried grunted and lashed right and left. His eyes were no longer cloudy; they blazed like blue balefire. Three Janizaries were down at his feet; his broadsword clanged in a forest of slashing scimitars. A blade splintered on his basinet, filling his eyes with fire-shot blackness. Staggering, he struck back and felt his great blade crunch home. Blood jetted over his hands and he tore his sword clear. Then with a yell and a rush someone was at his side and he heard the quick splintering of mail beneath the madly flailing strokes of a saber that flashed like silver lightning before his clearing sight.

It was Red Sonya who had come to his aid, and her onslaught was no less terrible than that of a she-panther. Her strokes followed each other too quickly for the eye to follow; her blade was a blur of white fire, and men went down like ripe grain before the reaper. With a deep roar Gottfried strode to her side, bloody and terrible, swinging his great blade. Forced irresistibly back, the Moslems wavered on the edge of the wall, then leaped for the ladders or fell screaming through empty space.

Oaths flowed in a steady stream from Sonya's red lips and she laughed wildly as her saber sang home and blood spurted along the edge. The last Turk on the battlement screamed and parried wildly as she pressed him; then dropping his scimitar, his clutching hands closed desperately on her dripping blade. With a groan he swayed on the edge, blood gushing from his horribly cut fingers.

"Hell to you, dog-soul!" she laughed. "The devil can stir your broth for you!"

With a twist and a wrench she tore away her saber, severing the wretch's fingers; with a moaning cry he pitched backward and fell headlong.

On all sides the Janizaries were falling back. The field-pieces, halted while the fighting went on upon the walls, were booming again, and the Spaniards, kneeling at the embrasures, were returning the fire with their long matchlocks.

Gottfried approached Red Sonya, who was cleansing her blade, swearing softly.

"By God, my girl," said he, extending a huge hand, "had you not come to my aid, I think I'd have supped in Hell this night. I thank—"

"Thank the devil!" retorted Sonya rudely, slapping his hand aside. "The Turks were on the wall. Don't think I risked my hide to save yours, dog-brother!"

And with a scornful flirt of her wide coattails, she swaggered off down the battlements, giving back promptly and profanely the rude sallies of the soldiers. Gottfried scowled after her, and a Lanzknecht slapped him jovially on the shoulder.

"Eh, she's a devil, that one! She drinks the strongest head under the table and outswears a Spaniard. She's no man's light o' love. Cut— slash— death to you, dog-soul! There's her way."

"Who is she, in the devil's name?" growled von Kalmbach.

"Red Sonya from Rogatino— that's all we know. Marches and fights like a man— God knows why. Swears she's sister to Roxelana, the Soldan's favorite. If the Tatars who grabbed Roxelana that night had got Sonya, by Saint Piotr! Suleyman would have had a handful! Let her alone, sir brother; she's a wildcat. Come and have a tankard of ale."

The Janizaries, summoned before the Grand Vizier to explain why the attack failed after the wall had been scaled at one place, swore they had been confronted by a devil in the form of a red-headed woman, aided by a giant in rusty mail. Ibrahim discounted the woman, but the description of the man woke a half-forgotten memory in his mind. After dismissing the soldiers, he summoned the Tatar, Yaruk Khan, and dispatched him up-country to demand of Mikhal Oglu why he had not sent a certain head to the royal tent.

v

SULEYMAN did not eat his breakfast in Vienna on the morning of the 29th. He stood on the height of Semmering, before his rich pavilion with its gold-knobbed pinnacles and its guard of five hundred Solaks, and watched his light batteries pecking away vainly at the frail walls; he saw his irregulars wasting their lives like water, striving to fill the fosse, and he saw his sappers burrowing like moles, driving mines and counter-mines nearer and nearer the bastions.

Within the city there was little ease. Night and day the walls were manned. In their cellars the Viennese watched the faint vibrations of peas on drumheads that betrayed the sounds of digging in the earth. They told of Turkish mines burrowing under the walls, and sank their counter-mines, accordingly. Men fought no less fiercely under the earth than above.

Vienna was the one Christian island in a sea of infidels. Night by night men watched the horizons burning where the Akinji yet scoured the agonized land. Occasionally word came from the outer world— slaves escaping from the camp to slipping into the city. Always their news was fresh horror. In Upper Austria less than a third of the inhabitants were left alive; Mikhal Oglu was outdoing himself. And the people said that it was evident the vulture-winged one was looking for one in particular. His slayers brought men's heads and heaped them high before him; he avidly searched among the grisly relics, then, apparently in fiendish disappointment, drove his devils to new atrocities.

These tales, instead of paralyzing the Austrians with dread, fired them with the mad fury of desperation. Mines exploded, breaches were made and the Turks swarmed in, but always the desperate Christians were there before them, and in the choking, blind, wild-beast madness of hand-to-hand fighting they paid in part the red debt they owed.

SEPTEMBER dwindled into October; the leaves turned brown and yellow on Wiener Wald, and the winds blew cold. The watchers shivered at night on the walls that whitened to the bite of the frost; but still the tents ringed the city; and still Suleyman sat in his magnificent pavilion and glared at the frail barrier that barred his imperial path. None but Ibrahim dared speak to him; his mood was black as the cold nights that crept down from the northern hills. The wind that moaned outside his tent seemed a dirge for his ambitions of conquest.

Ibrahim watched him narrowly, and after a vain onset that lasted from dawn till midday, he called off the Janizaries and bade them retire into the ruined suburbs and rest. And he sent a bowman to shoot a very certain shaft into a very certain part of the city, where certain persons were waiting for just such an event.

No more attacks were made that day. The field-pieces, which had been pounding at the Karnthner Gate for days, were shifted northward, to hammer at the Burg. As an assault on that part of the wall seemed imminent, the bulk of the soldiery was shifted there. But the onslaught did not come, though the batteries kept up a steady fire, hour after hour. Whatever the reason, the soldiers gave thanks for the respite; they were dizzy with fatigue, mad with raw wounds and lack of sleep.

That night the great square, the Am-Hof market, seethed with soldiers, while civilians looked on enviously. A great store of wine had been discovered hidden in the cellars of a rich Jewish merchant, who hoped to reap triple profit when all other liquor in the city was gone. In spite of their officers, the half-crazed men rolled the great hogsheads into the square and broached them. Salm gave up the attempt to control them. Better drunkenness, growled the old warhorse, than for the men to fall in their tracks from exhaustion. He paid the Jew from his own purse. In relays the soldiers came from the walls and drank deep.

In the glare of cressets and torches, to the accompaniment of drunken shouts and songs, to which the occasional rumble of a cannon played a sinister undertone, von Kalmbach dipped his basinet into a barrel and brought it out brimful and dripping. Sinking his mustache into the liquid, he paused as his clouded eyes, over the rim of the steel cap, rested on a strutting figure on the other side of the hogshead. Resentment touched his expression. Red Sonya had already visited more than one barrel. Her burganet was thrust sidewise on her rebellious locks, her swagger was wilder, her eyes more mocking.

"Ha!" she cried scornfully. "It's the Turk-killer, with his nose deep in the keg, as usual! Devil bite all topers!"

She consistently thrust a jeweled goblet into the crimson flood and emptied it at a gulp. Gottfried stiffened resentfully. He had had a tilt with Sonya already, and he still smarted.

"Why should I even look at you, in your ragged harness and empty purse," she had mocked, "when even Paul Bakics is mad for me? Go along, guzzler, beer-keg!"

"Be damned to you," he had retorted. "You needn't be so high, just because your sister is the Soldan's mistress—"

At that she had flown into an awful passion, and they had parted with mutual curses. Now, from the devil in her eyes, he saw that she intended making things further uncomfortable for him.

"Hussy!" he growled. "I'll drown you in this hogshead."

"Nay, you'll drown yourself first, boar-pig!" she shouted amid a roar of rough laughter. "A pity you aren't as valiant against the Turks as you are against the wine-butts!"

"Dogs bite you, slut!" he roared. "How can I break their heads when they stand off and pound us with cannon balls? Shall I throw my dagger at them from the wall?"

"There are thousands just outside," she retorted in the madness induced by drink and her own wild nature, "if any had the guts to go to them."

"By God!" the maddened giant dragged out his great sword. "No baggage can call me coward, sot or not! I'll go out upon them, if never a man follow me!"

Bedlam followed his bellow; the drunken temper of the crowd was fit for such madness. The nearly empty hogsheads were deserted as men tipsily drew sword and reeled toward the outer gates. Wulf Hagen fought his way into the storm, buffeting men right and left, shouting fiercely, "Wait, you drunken fools! Don't surge out in this shape! Wait—" They brushed him aside, sweeping on in a blind senseless torrent.

DAWN was just beginning to tip the eastern hills. Somewhere in the strangely silent Turkish camp a drum began to throb. Turkish sentries stared wildly and loosed their matchlocks in the air to warn the camp, appalled at the sight of the Christian horde pouring over the narrow drawbridge, eight thousand strong, brandishing swords and ale tankards. As they foamed over the moat a terrific explosion rent the din, and a portion of the wall near the Karnthner Gate seemed to detach itself and rise into the air. A great shout rose from the Turkish camp, but the attackers did not pause.

They rushed headlong into the suburbs, and there they saw the Janizaries, not rousing from slumber, but fully clad and armed, being hurriedly drawn up in charging lines. Without pausing, they burst headlong into the half-formed ranks. Far outnumbered, their drunken fury and velocity was yet irresistible. Before the madly thrashing axes and lashing broadswords, the Janizaries reeled back dazed and disordered. The suburbs became a shambles where battling men, slashing and hewing at one another, stumbled on mangled bodies and severed limbs. Suleyman and Ibrahim, on the height of Semmering, saw the invincible Janizaries in full retreat, streaming out toward the hills.

In the city the rest of the defenders were working madly to repair the great breach the mysterious explosion had torn in the wall. Salm gave thanks for that drunken sortie. But for it, the Janizaries would have been pouring through the breach before the dust settled.

All was confusion in the Turkish camp. Suleyman ran to his horse and took charge in person, shouting at the Spahis. They formed ranks and swung down the slopes in orderly squadrons. The Christian warriors, still following their fleeing enemies, suddenly awakened to their danger. Before them the Janizaries were still falling back, but on either flank the horsemen of Asia were galloping to cut them off. Fear replaced drunken recklessness. They began to fall back, and the retreat quickly became a rout. Screaming in blind panic they threw away their weapons and fled for the drawbridge. The Turks rode them down to the water's edge, and tried to follow them across the bridge, into the gates which were opened for them. And there at the bridge Wulf Hagen and his retainers met the pursuers and held them hard. The flood of the fugitives flowed past him to safety; on him the Turkish tide broke like a red wave. He loomed, a steel-clad giant, in a waste of spears.

Gottfried von Kalmbach did not voluntarily quit the field, but the rush of his companions swept him along the tide of flight, blaspheming bitterly. Presently he lost his footing and his panic-stricken comrades stampeded across his prostrate frame. When the frantic heels ceased to drum on his mail, he raised his head and saw that he was near the fosse, and naught but Turks about him. Rising, he ran lumberingly toward the moat, into which he plunged unexpectedly, looking back over his shoulder at a pursuing Moslem.

He came up floundering and spluttering, and made for the opposite bank, splashing water like a buffalo. The blood-mad Muhammadan was close behind him— an Algerian corsair, as much at home in water as out. The stubborn German would not drop his great sword, and burdened by his mail, just managed to reach the other bank, where he clung, utterly exhausted and unable to lift a hand in defense as the Algerian swirled in, dagger gleaming above his naked shoulder. Then someone swore heartily on the bank hard by. A slim hand thrust a long pistol into the Algerian's face; he screamed as it exploded, making a ghastly ruin of his head. Another slim, strong hand gripped the sinking German by the scruff of his mail.

"Grab the bank, fool!" gritted a voice, indicative of great effort. "I can't heave you up alone; you must weigh a ton. Pull, dolt, pull!"

Blowing, gasping and floundering, Gottfried half-clambered, was half lifted, out of the moat. He showed some disposition to lie on his belly and retch, what of the dirty water he had swallowed, but his rescuer urged him to his feet.

"The Turks are crossing the bridge and the lads are closing the gates against them— haste, before we're cut off."

Inside the gate Gottfried stared about, as if waking from a dream.

"Where's Wulf Hagen? I saw him holding the bridge."

"Lying dead among twenty dead Turks," answered Red Sonya.

Gottfried sat down on a piece of fallen wall, and because he was shaken and exhausted, and still mazed with drink and blood-lust, he sank his face in his huge hands and wept. Sonya kicked him disgustedly.

"Name o' Satan, man, don't sit and blubber like a spanked schoolgirl. You drunkards had to play the fool, but that can't be mended. Come— let's go to the Walloon's tavern and drink ale."

"Why did you pull me out of the moat?" he asked.

"Because a great oaf like you never can help himself. I see you need a wise person like me to keep life in that hulking frame."

"But I thought you despised me!"

"Well, a woman can change her mind, can't she?" she snapped.

Along the walls the pikemen were repelling the frothing Moslems, thrusting them off the partly repaired breach. In the royal pavilion Ibrahim was explaining to his master that the devil had undoubtedly inspired that drunken sortie just at the right moment to spoil the Grand Vizier's carefully laid plans. Suleyman, wild with fury, spoke shortly to his friend for the first time.

"Nay, thou hast failed. Have done with thine intrigues. Where craft has failed, sheer force shall prevail. Send a rider for the Akinji; they are needed here to replace the fallen. Bid the hosts to the attack again."

vi

THE preceding onslaughts were naught to the storm that now burst on Vienna's reeling walls. Night and day the cannons flashed and thundered. Bombs burst on roofs and in the streets. When men died on the walls there was none to take their places. Fear of famine stalked the streets and the darker fear of treachery ran black-mantled through the alleys. Investigation showed that the blast that had rent the Karnthner wall had not been fired from without. In a mine tunneled from an unsuspected cellar inside the city, a heavy charge of powder had been exploded beneath the wall. One or two men, working secretly, might have done it. It was now apparent that the bombardment of the Burg had been merely a gesture to draw attention away from the Karnthner wall, to give the traitors an opportunity to work undiscovered.

Count Salm and his aides did the work of giants. The aged commander, fired with superhuman energy, trod the walls, braced the faltering, aided the wounded, fought in the breaches side by side with the common soldiers, while death dealt his blows unsparingly.

But if death supped within the walls, he feasted full without. Suleyman drove his men as relentlessly as if he were their worst foe. Plague stalked among them, and the ravaged countryside yielded no food. The cold winds howled down from the Carpathians and the warriors shivered in their light Oriental garb. In the frosty nights the hands of the sentries froze to their matchlocks. The ground grew hard as flint and the sappers toiled feebly with blunted tools. Rain fell, mingled with sleet, extinguishing matches, wetting powder, turning the plain outside the city to a muddy wallow, where rotting corpses sickened the living.

Suleyman shuddered as with an ague, as he looked out over the camp. He saw his warriors, worn and haggard, toiling in the muddy plain like ghosts under the gloomy leaden skies. The stench of his slaughtered thousands was in his nostrils. In that instant it seemed to the Sultan that he looked on a gray plain of the dead, where corpses dragged their lifeless bodies to an outworn task, animated only by the ruthless will of their master. For an instant the Tatar in his veins rose above the Turk and he shook with fear. Then his lean jaws set. The walls of Vienna staggered drunkenly, patched and repaired in a score of places. How could they stand?

"Sound for the onslaught. Thirty thousand aspers to the first man on the walls!"

The Grand Vizier spread his hands helplessly. "The spirit is gone out of the warriors. They can not endure the miseries of this icy land."

"Drive them to the walls with whips," answered Suleyman, grimly. "This is the gate to Frankistan. It is through it we must ride the road to empire."

Drums thundered through the camp. The weary defenders of Christendom rose up and gripped their weapons, electrified by the instinctive knowledge that the death-grip had come.

In the teeth of roaring matchlocks and swinging broadswords, the officers of the Sultan drove the Moslem hosts. Whips cracked and men cried out blasphemously up and down the lines. Maddened, they hurled themselves at the reeling walls, riddled with great breaches, yet still barriers behind which desperate men could crouch. Charge after charge rolled on over the choked fosse, broke on the staggering walls, and rolled back, leaving its wash of dead. Night fell unheeded, and through the darkness, lighted by blaze of cannon and flare of torches, the battle raged. Driven by Suleyman's terrible will, the attackers fought throughout the night, heedless of all Moslem tradition.

Dawn rose as on Armageddon. Before the walls of Vienna lay a vast carpet of steel-clad dead. Their plumes waved in the wind. And across the corpses staggered the hollow-eyed attackers to grapple with the dazed defenders.

The steel tides rolled and broke, and rolled on again, till the very gods must have stood aghast at the giant capacity of men for suffering and enduring. It was the Armageddon of races— Asia against Europe. About the walls raved a sea of Eastern faces— Turks, Tatars, Kurds, Arabs, Algerians, snarling, screaming, dying before the roaring matchlocks of the Spaniards, the thrust of Austrian pikes, the strokes of the German Lanzknechts, who swung their two-handed swords like reapers mowing ripe grain. Those within the walls were no more heroic than those without, stumbling among fields of their own dead.

To Gottfried von Kalmbach, life had faded to a single meaning— the swinging of his great sword. In the wide breach by the Karnthner Tower he fought until time lost all meaning. For long ages maddened faces rose snarling before him, the faces of devils, and scimitars flashed before his eyes everlastingly. He did not feel his wounds, nor the drain of weariness. Gasping in the choking dust, blind with sweat and blood, he dealt death like a harvest, dimly aware that at his side a slim, pantherish figure swayed and smote— at first with laughter, curses and snatches of song, later in grim silence.

His identity as an individual was lost in that cataclysm of swords. He hardly knew it when Count Salm was death-stricken at his side by a bursting bomb. He was not aware when night crept over the hills, nor did he realize at last that the tide was slackening and ebbing. He was only dimly aware that Nikolas Zrinyi tore him away from the corpse-choked breach, saying, "God's name, man, go and sleep. We've beaten them off— for the time being, at least."

He found himself in a narrow, winding street, all dark and forsaken. He had no idea of how he had got there, but seemed vaguely to remember a hand on his elbow, tugging, guiding. The weight of his mail pulled at his sagging shoulders. He could not tell if the sound he heard were the cannon fitfully roaring, or a throbbing in his own head. It seemed there was someone he should look for— someone who meant a great deal to him. But all was vague. Somewhere, sometime, it seemed long, long ago, a sword-stroke had cleft his basinet. When he tried to think he seemed to feel again the impact of that terrible blow, and his brain swam. He tore off the dented head-piece and cast it into the street.

Again the hand was tugging at his arm. A voice urged, "Wine, my lord— drink!"

Dimly he saw a lean, black-mailed figure extending a tankard. With a gasp he caught at it and thrust his muzzle into the stinging liquor, gulping like a man dying of thirst. Then something burst in his brain. The night filled with a million flashing sparks, as if a powder magazine had exploded in his head. After that, darkness and oblivion.

HE CAME slowly to himself, aware of a raging thirst, an aching head, and an intense weariness that seemed to paralyze his limbs. He was bound hand and foot, and gagged. Twisting his head, he saw that he was in a small bare dusty room, from which a winding stone stair led up. He deduced that he was in the lower part of the tower.

Over a guttering candle on a crude table stooped two men. They were both lean and hook-nosed, clad in plain black garments— Asiatics, past doubt. Gottfried listened to their low-toned conversation. He had picked up many languages in his wanderings. He recognized them— Tshoruk and his son Rhupen, Armenian merchants. He remembered that he had seen Tshoruk often in the last week or so, ever since the domed helmets of the Akinji had appeared in Suleyman's camp. Evidently the merchant had been shadowing him, for some reason. Tshoruk was reading what he had written on a bit of parchment.

"My lord, though I blew up the Karnthner wall in vain, yet I have news to make my lord's heart glad. My son and I have taken the German, von Kalmbach. As he left the wall, dazed with fighting, we followed, guiding him subtly to the ruined tower whereof you know, and giving him drugged wine, bound him fast. Let my lord send the emir Mikhal Oglu to the wall by the tower, and we will give him into thy hands. We will bind him on the old mangonel and cast him over the wall like a tree trunk."

The Armenian took up an arrow and began to bind the parchment about the shaft with light silver wire.

"Take this to the roof, and shoot it toward the mantlet, as usual," he began, when Rhupen exclaimed, "Hark!" and both froze, their eyes glittering like those of trapped vermin— fearful yet vindictive.

Gottfried gnawed at the gag; it slipped. Outside he heard a familiar voice. "Gottfried! Where the devil are you?"

His breath burst from him in a stentorian roar. "Hey, Sonya! Name of the devil! Be careful, girl— "

Tshoruk snarled like a wolf and struck him savagely on the head with a scimitar hilt. Almost instantly, it seemed, the door crashed inward. As in a dream Gottfried saw Red Sonya framed in the doorway, pistol in hand. Her face was drawn and haggard; her eyes burned like coals. Her basinet was gone, and her scarlet cloak. Her mail was hacked and red-clotted, her boots slashed, her silken breeches splashed and spotted with blood.

With a croaking cry Tshoruk ran at her, scimitar lifted. Before he could strike, she crashed down the barrel of the empty pistol on his head, felling him like an ox. From the other side Rhupen slashed at her with a curved Turkish dagger. Dropping the pistol, she closed with the young Oriental. Moving like someone in a dream, she bore him irresistibly backward, one hand gripping his wrist, the other his throat. Throttling him slowly, she inexorably crashed his head again and again against the stones of the wall, until his eyes rolled up and set. Then she threw him from her like a sack of loose salt.

"God!" she muttered thickly, reeling an instant in the center of the room, her hands to her head. Then she went to the captive and sinking stiffly to her knees, cut his bonds with fumbling strokes that sliced his flesh as well as the cords.

"How did you find me?" he asked stupidly, clambering stiffly up.

She reeled to the table and sank down in a chair. A flagon of wine stood at her elbow and she seized it avidly and drank. Then she wiped her mouth on her sleeve and surveyed him wearily but with renewed life.

"I saw you leave the wall and followed. I was so drunk from the fighting I scarce knew what I did. I saw those dogs take your arm and lead you into the alleys, and then I lost sight of you. But I found your burganet lying outside in the street, and began shouting for you. What the hell's the meaning of this?"

She picked up the arrow, and blinked at the parchment fastened to it. Evidently she could read the Turkish characters, but she scanned it half a dozen times before the meaning became apparent to her exhaustion-numbed brain. Then her eyes flickered dangerously to the men on the floor. Tshoruk sat up, dazedly feeling the gash in his scalp; Rhupen lay retching and gurgling on the floor.

"Tie them up, brother," she ordered, and Gottfried obeyed. The victims eyed the woman much more apprehensively than him.

"This missive is addressed to Ibrahim, the Wezir," she said abruptly. "Why does he want Gottfried's head?"

"Because of a wound he gave the Sultan at Mohacz," muttered Tshoruk uneasily.

"And you, you lower-than-a-dog," she smiled mirthlessly, "you fired the mine by the Karnthner! You and your spawn are the traitors among us." She drew and primed a pistol. "When Zrinyi learns of you," she said, "your end will be neither quick nor sweet. But first, you old swine, I'm going to give myself the pleasure of blowing out your cub's brains before your eyes— "

The older Armenian gave a choking cry. "God of my fathers, have mercy! Kill me— torture me— but spare my son!"

At that instant a new sound split the unnatural quiet— a great peal of bells shattered the air.

"What's this?" roared Gottfried, groping wildly at his empty scabbard.

"The bells of Saint Stephen!" cried Sonya. "They peal for victory!"

SHE sprang for the sagging stair and he followed her up the perilous way. They came out on a sagging shattered roof, on a firmer part of which stood an ancient stone-casting machine, relic of an earlier age, and evidently recently repaired. The tower overlooked an angle of the wall, at which there were no watchers. A section of the ancient glacis, and a ditch interior the main moat, coupled with a steep natural pitch of the earth beyond, made the point practically invulnerable. The spies had been able to exchange messages here with little fear of discovery, and it was easy to guess the method used. Down the slope, just within long arrow-shot, stood up a huge mantlet of bullhide stretched on a wooden frame, as if abandoned there by chance. Gottfried knew that message-laden arrows were loosed from the tower roof into this mantlet. But just then he gave little thought to that. His attention was riveted on the Turkish camp. There a leaping glare paled the spreading dawn; above the mad clangor of the bells rose the crackle of flames, mingled with awful screams.

"The Janizaries are burning their prisoners," said Red Sonya.

"Judgment Day in the morning," muttered Gottfried, awed at the sight that met his eyes.

From their eyrie the companions could see almost all of the plain. Under a cold gray leaden sky, tinged a somber crimson with dawn, it lay strewn with Turkish corpses as far as the sight would carry. And the hosts of the living were melting away. From Semmering the great pavilion had vanished. The other tents were now coming down fast. Already the head of the long column was out of sight, moving into the hills through the cold dawn. Snow began falling in light swift flakes.

The Janizaries were glutting their mad disappointment on their helpless captives, hurling men, women and children living into the flames they had kindled under the somber eyes of their master, the monarch men called the Magnificent, the Merciful. All the time the bells of Vienna clanged and thundered as if their bronze throats would burst.

"They shot their bolt last night," said Red Sonya. "I saw their officers lashing them, and heard them cry out in fear beneath our swords. Flesh and blood could stand no more. Look!" She clutched her companion's arm. "The Akinji will form the rear-guard."

Even at that distance they made out a pair of vulture wings moving among the dark masses; the sullen light glimmered on a jeweled helmet. Sonya's powder-stained hands clenched so that the pink, broken nails bit into the white palms, and she spat out a Cossack curse that burned like vitriol.

"There he goes, the bastard that made Austria a desert! How easily the souls of the butchered folk ride on his cursed winged shoulders! Anyway, old warhorse, he didn't get your head."

"While he lives it'll ride loose on my shoulders," rumbled the giant.

Red Sonya's keen eyes narrowed suddenly. Seizing Gottfried's arm, she hurried downstairs. They did not see Nikolas Zrinyi and Paul Bakics ride out of the gates with their tattered retainers, risking their lives in sorties to rescue prisoners. Steel clashed along the line of march, and the Akinji retreated slowly, fighting a good rear-guard action, balking the headlong courage of the attackers by their very numbers. Safe in the depths of his horsemen, Mikhal Oglu grinned sardonically. But Suleyman, riding in the main column, did not grin. His face was like a death-mask.

Back in the ruined tower, Red Sonya propped one booted foot on a chair, and cupping her chin in her hand, stared into the fear-dulled eyes of Tshoruk.

"What will you give for your life?"

The Armenian made no reply.

"What will you give for the life of your whelp?"

The Armenian started as if stung. "Spare my son, princess," he groaned. "Anything— I will pay— I will do anything."

She threw a shapely booted leg across the chair and sat down.

"I want you to bear a message to a man."

"What man?"

"Mikhal Oglu."

He shuddered and moistened his lips with his tongue.

"Instruct me; I obey," he whispered.

"Good. We'll free you and give you a horse. Your son shall remain here as hostage. If you fail us, I'll give the cub to the Viennese to play with— "

Again the old Armenian shuddered.

"But if you play squarely, we'll let you both go free, and my pal and I will forget about this treachery. I want you to ride after Mikhal Oglu and tell him— "

THROUGH the slush and driving snow, the Turkish column plodded slowly. Horses bent their heads to the blast; up and down the straggling lines camels groaned and complained, and oxen bellowed pitifully. Men stumbled through the mud, leaning beneath the weight of their arms and equipment. Night was falling, but no command had been given to halt. All day the retreating host had been harried by the daring Austrian cuirassiers who darted down upon them like wasps, tearing captives from their very hands.

Grimly rode Suleyman among his Solaks. He wished to put as much distance as possible between himself and the scene of his first defeat, where the rotting bodies of thirty thousand Muhammadans reminded him of his crushed ambitions. Lord of western Asia he was; master of Europe he could never be. Those despised walls had saved the Western world from Moslem dominion, and Suleyman knew it. The rolling thunder of the Ottoman power re-echoed around the world, paling the glories of Persia and Mogul India. But in the West the yellow-haired Aryan barbarian stood unshaken. It was not written that the Turk should rule beyond the Danube.

Suleyman had seen this written in blood and fire, as he stood on Semmering and saw his warriors fall back from the ramparts, despite the flailing lashes of their officers. It had been to save his authority that he gave the order to break camp— it burned his tongue like gall, but already his soldiers were burning their tents and preparing to desert him. Now in darkly brooding silence he rode, not even speaking to Ibrahim.

In his own way Mikhal Oglu shared their savage despondency. It was with a ferocious reluctance that he turned his back on the land he had ruined, as a half-glutted panther might be driven from its prey. He recalled with satisfaction the blackened, corpse-littered wastes— the screams of tortured men— the cries of girls writhing in his iron arms; recalled with much the same sensations the death-shrieks of those same girls in the blood-fouled hands of his killers.

But he was stung with the disappointment of a task undone— for which the Grand Vizier had lashed him with stinging word. He was out of favor with Ibrahim. For a lesser man that might have meant a bowstring. For him it meant that he would have to perform some prodigious feat to reinstate himself. In this mood he was dangerous and reckless as a wounded panther.

Snow fell heavily, adding to the miseries of the retreat. Wounded men fell in the mire and lay still, covered by a growing white mantle. Mikhal Oglu rode among his rearmost ranks, straining his eyes into the darkness. No foe had been sighted for hours. The victorious Austrians had ridden back to their city.

The columns were moving slowly through a ruined village, whose charred beams and crumbling fire-seared walls stood blackly in the falling snow. Word came back down the lines that the Sultan would pass on through and camp in a valley which lay a few miles beyond.

The quick drum of hoofs back along the way they had come caused the Akinji to grip their lances and glare slit-eyed into the flickering darkness. They heard but a single horse, and a voice calling the name of Mikhal Oglu. With a word the chief stayed a dozen lifted bows, and shouted in return. A tall, gray stallion loomed out of the flying snow, a black-mantled figure crouched grotesquely atop of it.

"Tshoruk! You Armenian dog! What in the name of Allah—"

The Armenian rode close to Mikhal Oglu and whispered urgently in his ear. The cold bit through the thickest garments. The Akinji noted that Tshoruk was trembling violently. His teeth chattered and he stammered in his speech. But the Turk's eyes blazed at the import of his message.

"Dog, do you lie?"

"May I rot in hell if I lie!" A strong shudder shook Tshoruk and he drew his kaftan close about him. "He fell from his horse, riding with the cuirassiers to attack the rear-guard, and lies with a broken leg in a deserted peasant's hut some three miles back— alone except for his mistress Red Sonya, and three or four Lanzknechts, who are drunk on wine they found in the deserted camp."

Mikhal Oglu wheeled his horse with sudden intent.

"Twenty men to me!" he barked. "The rest ride on with the main column. I go after a head worth its weight in gold. I'll overtake you before you go in camp."

Othman caught his jeweled rein. "Are you mad, to ride back now? The whole country will be on our heels— "

He reeled in his saddle as Mikhal Oglu slashed him across the mouth with his riding whip. The chief wheeled away, followed by the men he had designated. Like ghosts they vanished into the spectral darkness.

Othman sat his horse uncertainly, looking after them. The snow shafted down, the wind sobbed drearily among the bare branches. There was no sound except the receding noises of the trudging column. Presently these ceased. Then Othman started. Back along the way they had come, he heard a distant reverberation, a roar as of forty or fifty matchlocks speaking together. In the utter silence which followed, panic came upon Othman and his warriors. Whirling away they fled through the ruined village after the retreating horde.

vii

NONE noticed when night fell on Constantinople, for the splendor of Suleyman made night no less glorious than day. Through gardens that were riots of blossoms and perfume, cressets twinkled like myriad fireflies. Fireworks turned the city into a realm of shimmering magic, above which the minarets of five hundred mosques rose like towers of fire in an ocean of golden foam. Tribesmen on Asian hills gaped and marveled at the blaze that pulsed and glowed afar, paling the very stars. The streets of Stamboul were thronged with crowds in the attire of holiday and rejoicing. The million lights shone on jeweled turban and striped khalat— on dark eyes sparkling over filmy veils— on shining palanquins borne on the shoulders of huge ebony-skinned slaves.

All that splendor centered in the Hippodrome, where in lavish pageants the horsemen of Turkistan and Tatary competed in breathtaking races with the riders of Egypt and Arabia, where warriors in glittering mail spilled one another's blood on the sands, where swordsmen were matched against wild beasts, and lions were pitted against tigers of Bengal and boars from northern forests. One might have deemed the imperial pageantry of Rome revived in Eastern garb.

On a golden throne, set upon lapis lazuli pillars, Suleyman reclined, gazing on the splendors, as purple-togaed Caesars had gazed before him. About him bowed his viziers and officers, and the ambassadors from foreign courts— Venice, Persia, India, the khanates of Tatary. They came— including the Venetians— to congratulate him on his victory over the Austrians. For this grand fête was in celebration of that victory, as set forth in a manifesto under the Sultan's hand, which stated, in part, that the Austrians having made submission and sued for pardon on their knees, and the German realms being so distant from the Ottoman empire, "the Faithful would not trouble to clean out the fortress (Vienna), or purify, improve, and put it in repair." Therefore the Sultan had accepted the submission of the contemptible Germans, and left them in possession of their paltry "fortress"!

Suleyman was blinding the eyes of the world with the blaze of his wealth and glory, and striving to make himself believe that he had actually accomplished all he had intended. He had not been beaten on the field of open battle; he had set his puppet on the Hungarian throne; he had devastated Austria; the markets of Stamboul and Asia were full of Christian slaves. With this knowledge he soothed his vanity, ignoring the fact that thirty thousand of his subjects rotted before Vienna, and that his dreams of European conquest had been shattered.

Behind the throne shone the spoils of war— silken and velvet pavilions, wrested from the Persians, the Arabs, the Egyptian memluks; costly tapestries, heavy with gold embroidery. At his feet were heaped the gifts and tributes of subject and allied princes. There were vests of Venetian velvet, golden goblets crusted with jewels from the courts of the Grand Moghul, ermine-lined kaftans from Erzeroum, carven jade from Cathay, silver Persian helmets with horse-hair plumes, turban-cloths, cunningly sewn with gems, from Egypt, curved Damascus blades of watered steel, matchlocks from Kabul worked richly in chased silver, breastplates and shields of Indian steel, rare furs from Mongolia. The throne was flanked on either hand by a long rank of youthful slaves, made fast by golden collars to a single, long silver chain. One file was composed of young Greek and Hungarian boys, the other of girls; all clad only in plumed head-pieces and jeweled ornaments intended to emphasize their nudity.

Eunuchs in flowing robes, their rotund bellies banded by cloth-of-gold sashes, knelt and offered the royal guests sherbets in gemmed goblets, cooled with snow from the mountains of Asia Minor. The torches danced and flickered to the roars of the multitudes. Around the courses swept the horses, foam flying from their bits; wooden castles reeled and went up in flames as the Janizaries clashed in mock warfare. Officers passed among the shouting people, tossing showers of copper and silver coins amongst them. None hungered or thirsted in Stamboul that night except the miserable Caphar captives. The minds of the foreign envoys were numbed by the bursting sea of splendor, the thunder of imperial magnificence. About the vast arena stalked trained elephants, almost covered with housings of gold-worked leather, and from the jeweled towers on their backs, fanfares of trumpets vied with the roar of the throngs and the bellowing of lions. The tiers of the Hippodrome were a sea of faces, all turning toward the jeweled figure on the shining throne, while thousands of tongues wildly thundered his acclaim.

As he impressed the Venetian envoys, Suleyman knew he impressed the world. In the blaze of his magnificence, men would forget that a handful of desperate Caphars behind rotting walls had closed his road to empire. Suleyman accepted a goblet of the forbidden wine, and spoke aside to the Grand Vizier, who stepped forth and lifted his arms.

"Oh, guests of my master, the Padishah forgets not the humblest in the hour of rejoicing. To the officers who led his hosts against the infidels, he has made rare gifts. Now he gives two hundred and forty thousand ducats to be distributed among the common soldiers, and likewise to each Janizary he gives a thousand aspers."

In the midst of the roar that went up, a eunuch knelt before the Grand Vizier, holding up a large round package, carefully bound and sealed. A folded piece of parchment, held shut by a red seal, accompanied it. The attention of the Sultan was attracted.

"Oh, friend, what has thou there?"

Ibrahim salaamed. "The rider of the Adrianople post delivered it, oh Lion of Islam. Apparently it is a gift of some sort from the Austrian dogs. Infidel riders, I understand, gave it into the hands of the border guard, with instructions to send it straightway to Stamboul."

"Open it," directed Suleyman, his interest roused. The eunuch salaamed to the floor, then began breaking the seals of the package. A scholarly slave opened the accompanying note and read the contents, written in a bold yet feminine hand:

To the Soldan Suleyman and his Wezir Ibrahim and to the hussy Roxelana we who sign our names below send a gift in token of our immeasurable fondness and kind affection.

Sonya of Rogatino, and Gottfried von Kalmbach

Suleyman, who had started up at the name of his favorite, his features suddenly darkening with wrath, gave a choking cry, which was echoed by Ibrahim. The eunuch had torn the seals of the bale, disclosing what lay within. A pungent scent of herbs and preservative spices filled the air, and the object, slipping from the horrified eunuch's hands, tumbled among the heaps of presents at Suleyman's feet, offering a ghastly contrast to the gems, gold and velvet bales. The Sultan stared down at it and in that instant his shimmering pretense of triumph slipped from him; his glory turned to tinsel and dust. Ibrahim tore at his beard with a gurgling, strangling sound, purple with rage.

At the Sultan's feet, the features frozen in a death-mask of horror, lay the severed head of Mikhal Oglu, Vulture of the Grand Turk.

______________________________

13: Dickie

M. P. Shiel

1865-1947

Telegraph (Brisbane) 27 March 1909

"THEY all say that you can't preach a bit, you know, Mr. Bawn," said Dick, sitting with George Bawn on a bench in the vicarage park.

"I am afraid it is only too true, Dickie," he murmured.

"And the Misses Dene have told Peggie Lady Agnew that your people can't be gentlefolks, your hands are so large."

"Ah, Dickie, you are—"

"They are large," remarked Dick, throwing back her tumble of red hair from a countenance, all one brown of freckles, kicking away gravel with her long legs. "I know that Hope regards them as large, although she likes you so much."

"Ah!"

"Oh, everyone does, because you are so simple-hearted, fond of romping with the kiddies, and in walking along— you'll give a look up into the sky, and laugh with God like a saint, they say. Papa, I know is taken with you, and Hope has something or other in her heart for you that wild horses—"

But he stopped her, blushing, saying "Wouldn't you catch it if your sister were to hear you now!"

Dick nodded. "Shouldn't I just! But you are never likely to tell her; you are too humble, otherwise you might quite aspire to marry Hope some day, if you only got up the steam to ask her; and you should, for this Charles Barclay is awfully impatient to win her, and though I detest the Johnnie myself—"

"Dick, you are not to," said Bawn, pressing her hand; "that sort of talk might pass from a boy. And, by the way, I have to tell you, miss, that on Tuesday you were seen playing cricket on the chase."

"Oh, well one must now sow one's wild oats," said Dick, "and in six years' time, when l am Hope's age, I shall be quite good like her— not in Woolaston, though, for everybody says that I am so much cleverer than everybody— that I shall strike out for myself into the world, by which time Hope will be married, probably to Barclay, since you fear to climb, though Hope, I believe, distrusts him almost as much— do you know what I say he is? An actor."

"Take breath, and don't say such crazy things!"

"Why crazy? We know nothing of him, really, save that he is papa's first wife's nephew, and he has certainly led a fast life. I know that he once borrowed £2 from our butler, and I believe it is he who has stolen the £500."

"That ends it," cried Bawn, starting up. "Oh, shame, Dick, shame "

"Somebody did," murmured Dickie, "and you will soon know that I am right When the detective arrives."

But Bawn was gone, shaking his finger at Dick, though in his heart he bore away a glad tingling and dawn of hope from the girl's prattle.

He went towards the vicarage, and was passing through the old garden when through the gate came Hope Hastings, all roses and a Dolly Varden hat, with her being Barclay; and Bawn's face went guiltily red at his thoughts, as he bid her her good-afternoon, saying: "Aren't you home from your sick earlier than usual?"

"Yes," was Hope's answer; "the detective wires that he will come at six and as I have to be at the Newcomes with the chaise, papa wishes me to take him up."

"Do you go alone?" asked Bawn.

"Yes, since Mr. Barclay, who has been asked to come, declines," said Hope, with a mock hauteur of the chin.

"The fact is," said Barclay, who looked to Bawn years older that day, "I promised Marling to spend an hour with him in his coverts."

"In that case, I—"began Bawn.

"There, Hope," said Barclay rudely, "you have a substitute whose blushes will save you the pains of taking with you a union jack to welcome his Majesty's agent," and there was a moment's awkwardness, till Hope remarked that blushing was an achievement not possible to everyone, and ran up the stairs.

Bawn then walked on to the doctor's study where the doctor stood before the hearthplace, smoothing down and down with a lingering lily finger his little oblong of silver whisker.

After half an hour's talk he was saying to Bawn, "You surprise me, Mr. Bawn; do you mean that you have been so incautious as to let yourself— ah— fall in love with Hope?"

"I'm afraid, sir," said the curate, "that something of the kind has happened."

"But have you any grounds for supposing that such a notion would be at all agreeable to my daughter?"

"No grounds, sir; no— that is— I am no doubt most presumptuous."

"There is no question of presumption;'" said the . vicar, "but you must see that there are other questions."

"Then, sir, let nothing more be said. I must be more modest, sir."

"Well, but that is not what I wanted to say. I am not, you know, usually lavish of my eulogies, but you will permit me to say, Mr. Bawn, that I have observed, and— ah— like you; so, having gone so far, I should, if I were you— ah— speak to her, though I can't conceal from you my sure anticipation that you will find your suit unsuccessful."

The curate, suffused with gratitude, grasped the vicar's hand, and walked away on air.

But he had hardly gone a hundred yards toward his house, when the shouting of a crowd of people reached his ear, and the next instant he saw a sight— a donkey racing across the meadow called Fyfe's Clause, for Netherend Cliffs, and clinging for life on its back, Dick!

At once Bawn knew the donkey— a fiendish little beast called Jemima, which would allow no one to mount on its hack— and he understood that the tomboy, tempted to try where everyone had failed, was now being borne straight to destruction over the cliffs.

In an instant Bawn was gone; gone by diving blindly through some hedge-briars into the field; and now put out his long legs, while the crowd stopped running to gaze in silent suspense, till they gave out a shout on seeing Bawn, not ten yards from the cliff's edge, catch the headstall of old rope, and bring all to a stoppage and confusion of animal and human beings.

When they got down to the scene, they found Dick looking a ghost with freckles, but still on her legs, scarcely injured. Jemima was gone on her way; and at Dick's feet lay Bawn, who had been dragged along the ground, and terribly kicked about the skull and ribs.

As he was borne to the vicarage, Charles Barclay was just leaving it, and. helped to lift him into the house. Hope was out, and Dick, with her long legs, was gone, wild of eye, to sigh "Come, come," to Dr. Thomas, of Woolaston, and fall fainting into his arms.

The midsummer sun had set when Dr. Thomas stood over that great frame on the bed: and when Dr. Hastings said to him, "Tell me the truth, Thomas," he replied, "Frankly, I doubt if he will ever speak again."

Great, then, was Dr. Hastings's amazement when, thirty minutes later, a nurse ran to him with the news that Bawn had asked to see him. He hurried to the room, now shrouded in the evenings dusk, and presently with a quavering voice, said: "Bawn, I am here."

For a minute no answer, then a most frail voice rose from the pillows. "I desire, before I die, to say—" and then stopped.

"Summon all your powers, Bawn; tell me your will, Bawn."

"I desire to say that it was I who stole the five hundred pounds from your safe "

Dick, all awed, was listening outside; and, besides her, three people in the room heard those words. Dr. Hastings looked as if he would faint, and turning to the nurse, sighed: "He is wandering, in mind—"

But once more the silence was broken from the bed. "One hundred pounds of it will be found behind the "Christ at the Column," in the book-room; the rest I have spent."

And now a final silence; till suddenly Dr. Hastings made his escape, casting up his arms with the gasp of "Good heavens!" for, although he had known Bawn only four months, that confession, staggered him like a revelation that all which he had ever taken for granted of man and God was false. In his flight downward he encountered Dr. Thomas, to whom he said, in passing: "He has spoken to me."

"Spoken!" cried Dr. Thomas, unable to believe his ears. But Dr. Hastings was gone— towards tho book-room; for still a thought that Bawn might be delirious mingled with the reel of his other feelings; but when he looked behind the picture, there in truth he found a roll of notes— the hundred pounds. It was just then that Hope returned with the detective, and on learning of the accident, flew to the sick bed, and, bending over that intricacy of bandages there, her face screwed into a look of pain too piercing shrewd for tears, petting his hand, she breathed freely into his car the story of her love, imploring him to live for her ; and as though that greed could reach half-way to the grave, and, call back the departing ghost. Bawn, whom the doctor had quite given over, did at one moment open his eyes, and his lips lisped the word, "Hope."

At the same time, Dr. Hastings below was telling the detective that there was no longer anything to investigate since the lost notes had been found.

But in the weeks that followed it was as it some great sorrow had stricken the vicarage. Dr. Hastings looked aged; Dick, a changed girl, would sit staring over a gate; and Hope, who had soon heard of that confession, after one week's illness, went about her tasks with a white face; while Charles Barclay at. table would take more wine than seemed to be quite meet.

Of all which Bawn knew hardly anything to the hour of his coming downstairs on September day, with a memory in his brain that somewhere in the valley of the shadow, and angel named Hope hail met and spoken to him of love; yet she now seemed to shun him strangely— everyone seemed to shun him— and on the third day he heard this question from Dr. Hastings:

"What are now your plans, Mr. Bawn?"

Bawn started. "Plans, sir?"

Then the doctor drawled his "ah's," and it came out that upon whatever new course of life Bawn might now decide to embark, he would carry with him, on account of his past record, the doctor's hearty wishes.

"Sir," said George Bawn, " 'hearty wishes? 'new course of life,' sir ? Am I— turned away?"

"Well, but, Mr. Bawn, you— ah— surprise me," said the doctor, "Surely after the confession which you have made, you do not contemplate a continuance of our relation?"

"Confession?" said Bawn. "But I thought, sir, that you fully approved of the confession—"

"Certainly, of the confession itself; but let us not prolong this interview, Mr, Bawn, I beg!" Bawn sat all agaze, and when he ran out of the house, clutching something soft in his fist— it was the roll of stolen notes which the doctor had pressed into his hand— he ran with tho feelings of one beneath whose feet the universe has turned turtle.

It had all to do with the confession, that seemed clear— the confession of his love for Hope, Bawn thought. At all events, he was done-for now, outcast in the very dawn of his hopes, without a word of goodbye to her, for the doctor seemed very keep to see the last of his curate.

Nightfall overtook Bawn wandering far from home in a sort of flight over the broken country of those parts, till, still feeble from his illness, he had to throw himself down in a wood, where he remained rain-beaten till daybreak. But he was tough, lived through it, and the very next night left Woolaston. He was going to his train along a lane, a bag in his hand, when he became aware of a sound of mourning following him, and glancing round, saw the long-legged Dick some way behind. When he stopped, she stopped, too ; hut presently, with a rush, was sobbing on his arm, while from Bawn's eyes, too, a tear started, and they grieved together, Dick again and again sobbing: "It was my doing," and "Why did you do it?"

Once Bawn asked; "Do what, Dickie?"

But she only sobbed afresh.

"You shouldn't have done it; but promise to write to me."

And it lasted till Bawn, in his hurry, begged her to go home, and trotted away.

BUT in the time that followed, Dick so moped at home, that it was decided  to send her to pass some three months with her aunt, Lady Bowden; and soon the news came that Dick was the old crazy Dick once more. Hope, meantime was going about her parish cares with the devotion of a nun, and undergoing Charles Barclay's siege of her heart.

This man of the world, with his pert air, his smart turn, his dark hair, now lined with silver, his springy step, gay little figure, and fascinating face and ways, had ingratiated himself with Dr. Hastings, and lately, made the vicarage his home, though for years he had not come near it, and even now would vanish for weeks, no one was at the pains, to inquire where. When at the vicarage he turned good, was regular at church, but gained little headway in Hope's good graces.

"I shan't ever again have much confidence in any human heart, I think," she said to him one gloaming, he standing behind her shoulder in the organ loft; and he answered, "So, Hope, you would punish the world for the sin of one?"

"Which one?" she asked, with a haughty half-turn of the throat. "Pray turn the page, and don't be sibylline!"

But Barclay, a man with the resolution of a mule; renewed his siege the moment it was beaten back.

"I tell you frankly, Hope," he said to her two months afterwards, in the marble pavilion at the far end of the oblong of water in the park, "I believe that I somehow owe my failure with you to this man Bawn."

"You are not, pray, Charles," Hope said, "to mention to me Mr. Bawn's name."

"Well, but that is my belief,'' said he, "and I had better tell you now that I am about to do what is only my duty— have the man arrested for his act here."

Hope started, with a rosy face of wrath, to her feet, crying: "Is this a threat?"

"Why a threat to you?" asked Barclay. "Anyway, I mean to do it, unless you..."

"Oh, ungallant," she said, with disdain. "Do you wish to buy me?"

"Nothing is going to alter me, Hope," answered Barclay, coolly. And now Hope, almost on her knees, near to tears, vowing that Bawn was almost nothing to her, wooed and implored, asking Barclay not to do it— never to reduce to utter ruin one already so unfortunate. But when Barclay was deaf to it all, she suddenly said, with some calm;

"Never again, then, will you address yourself to me."

But the very next day, in order to save Bawn, with an ugly glance, she gave Barclay her promise to marry him. Now, Charles Barclay was hardly the man to let the grass grow under his feet and though this marriage was much against Dr. Hastings's grain, by the beginning of April the date had been fixed, and the 8th decided upon as the day for the signing of the marriage papers.

But 8th April proved a terrible day for the vicarage, for in the afternoon, who should rush into the house but Lady Bowden, a stout dowager, fresh from London, with the news that Dick was dead, run over, stolen, drowned, had vanished two days before, was nowhere to be found! All that afternoon the family sat in a group as at a wake— glum, dumb, dropping only vague guesses, groans.

"I always thought," Charles Barclay said, "that that was a child who should be ruled with a rod of iron."

"But she may be alive— may only have run away!" said Dr. Hastings several times; and at last Lady Bowden admitted that this might be so, since some time before, Dick had had ten pounds in her possession.

"Ten pounds!" exclaimed The doctor. "Where on earth did the girl get. ten pounds?"

"I gave it her," admitted Lady Bowden, "and no doubt did wrong; but the child begged me, assuring me that it was for a good purpose, and, knowing that she was to be depended upon for truthfulness at any rate, in one of my lazy-minded moments I did it. I don't see that that is so much— she was ever such a persuasive little beggar; and as for keeping Dick within bounds that was really out of the question, for in a week she was a Cockney."

In such talk the afternoon passed, evening bringing little, hope, though some little in one of the wires from Scotland Yard; and at about nine the dowry-rite, to which some relatives had been invited, took place in the library. Six candlesticks of smooth old gold stood on the table, whose polish blushed at their sheen; a butler and a footman hung mutely upon the scene.

Charles Barclay smiled his hard smile, and Hope had the smile; of a saint who is being taken to the stake. There came a moment when Mr. Stone, attorney, after droning a great many words, gave the document in his hand to Barclay.

Barclay cast a look over it, took pen in hand, and was just about to dip his pen, when everyone round the table started at a sharp sound, and all eyes turned to Barclay, for they had heard from him, uttered in a high kind of cry, the words:

"I desire to say now that it was I who stole the £500." And the cry was repeated: "Yes, it was I, Charles Barclay!"

Astounding to see, however, this cry seemed to sound from him without any opening of his mouth. He had sprung upright, and the candlelight glaring on his face showed him ghostly in his whiteness, his eyes wide, but with no opening of his lips, till he opened them to blurt the words:

"I beg to say— I am the victim of some trick. I never uttered those words;" but one moment afterwards he was heard to say: "Yes, I did utter them— I know that I did." This time without any opening, of the mouth.

By now they had all bounded out of their chairs to stare at this marvel of Charles Barclay alternately accusing and excusing himself, like two Barclays savagely gnashing at each other.

"I stole the money," he was heard to cry, "and, being in a fright when the detective came that night, that he would see my face— for I am not unknown to the police— I contrived to creep under Mr. Bawn's bed, and called out through his mouth that he was the culprit; for I am a music-hall ventriloquist, as little Dick found out one night in London when she got out of bounds, and recognised me on the boards; and it is no one but little Dick who is now speechifying out of my shut mouth, for she has been taking lessons in it, you see, and she is in the alcove at this moment with one Mr. Bawn and a police-sergeant so perhaps some of us had better be making paces— quick!"

Barclay was a man of action; and quick as thought he was in flight through a doorway, the "sergeant" after him— too late— Dick, always "a good sort," having purposely given him "the tip."

A second afterwards the long-legged girl herself ran in, dragging Bawn after her and was garnered in her father's arms, who groaned at her ear:— "Safe, safe!"

And Hope stood before Bawn with her head bowed, and the words: "Oh forgive my blindness!" in her mouth. '

_________________

14: The Crusader

Charles E. Van Loan

1876-1919

The Saturday Evening Post, 19 Aug 1916

Charles Emmet Van Loan was a popular sports writer and humourist, as well as a short story writer. His work appearing in a variety of magazines. He wrote several stories set in the The Morning Oracle newspaper.

MR. ACHILLES K. MUNN, owner of the Morning Oracle, beamed upon his city editor. It was the old gentleman's habit to beam whenever he felt that he was about to perform a worthy act; and Dave Holland sucked at his short brier pipe and waited uncomfortably. Mr. Munn's conception of a worthy act did not always tally with the conceptions of his hired men, and this time Dave expected the worst. His employer had just finished telling him about an extremely bright young man whose mother's name had been Munn before she married a music teacher named LaTelle.

"Arthur thinks he would like the newspaper business," rumbled Mr. Munn with his fat and oily smile. "'He has always felt the— ah— inspiration to write, to express his thoughts in print. Mrs. Munn has talked with him a great deal and is deeply impressed with his— ah— enthusiasm, his broad views on reform.

"She says he has vision— ah— perspective; high ideals— all that sort of thing. I have, thurfore, directed him to call upon you this afternoon."

Dave Holland suppressed a groan.

"I'm short-handed now," he complained; "'and every reporter I've got is a good one and worth more money than we pay him. If I have to let a trained man go in order to make room for an untrained one it will upset the whole machine, throw extra work on the others, and—well, sir, I'll be frank about it, I don't like the idea a little bit."

Mr. Munn continued to smile.

"You— ah— judge too hastily, young man," said he in a tone of mild reproof. "I have noticed this fault in you several times. I had no idea of working a hardship on the members of the staff.

"Mrs. Munn has given some thought to the matter, and she thinks that Arthur's— ah— talents would be wasted if used at regular reporting. She thinks he would do better at feature work— crusades and the like. This city offers an ample field for— for—"

"Muckraking?" suggested Holland maliciously.

"I do not like the word," said Mr. Munn; "'but— ah— something of the sort. There are abuses that should be corrected; iniquities that should be held up to the light of day; corruption that should be exposed. Arthur has— ah— made a study of all the new movements connected with civic reform, with a view to writing magazine articles. I believe he has written several, but for some reason or other they were— ah— unavailable."'

Dave Holland nodded. He knew that word well, for he, too, had dabbled in the magazine field.

"Our interest in the young man," continued Mr. Munn, "is not entirely due to blood relationship. Arthur's habits are— ah— exemplary, his moral principles are sound, and he has had an excellent education. Mrs. Munn thinks he should be given a roving commission— on a small salary of course— for the sake of the good he might do."

"A sort of local Sir Galahad, eh?"

The quiet sneer was wasted on Mr. Munn, whose reading had not brought him in contact with the chaste son of Sir Lancelot and the fair Elaine. As he did not understand the allusion he thought best to ignore it.

"And so I have directed him to call upon you to-day," repeated the owner of the Oracle. "I did not think it wise to promise him a position— ah— out of hand. What he gets he must get through you. From the first he must understand that he cannot appeal over your head to me. Office discipline must be maintained. I wish him to start where all the others have started—"

"At twelve dollars a week?" demanded the city editor bluntly.

Mr. Munn stroked his jowls and pretended to think.

"Let it be fifteen in this case," said he with the grand air of one bestowing largess— "fifteen dollars. The young man must live. For two weeks he has been visiting with us."

"I see,' remarked Holland with the shadow of a grin. "And he's under my orders? If he fails tomake good—"

"You will afford him every opportunity to make good," ordered Mr. Munn rather sternly, for he had seen that grin. "You will, if necessary, exercise patience. Rome— ah— was not built in a day."'

"No; but it was burned down in a night," was Dave's caustic retort, "and I'd just as soon have a fire bug on my staff as an amateur reformer."

Holland returned to his desk, simmering with righteous indignation. It was hard enough to be the city editor of the Morning Oracle without undertaking the supervision of a vealy crusader, and Dave shuddered at the prospect. Joe McInerney addressed him cheerfully and received a short and ugly answer.

Joe was the sporting editor, and as jovial a soul as ever picked a loser.

"Davy," said the connoisseur of jabs and swings, "you're getting to be an awful crab. Don't you drink enough these days? Or what else ails you?"

"You'd be a crab too," answered Dave with bitterness, "if Munn had wished a muckraking nephew on to you!"

"So? Didn't know that old Leaflard had any relatives. And a muckraker, eh?"

"He ain't a muckraker yet, but he has hopes. Arthur— Arthur LaTelle. Ain't that a bird of a name?"

"Sounds like a stage monniker,"' suggested Joe.

"Not a chance for him to know anything about the stage," said Dave gloomily. ''His habits are exemplary, his moral principles are sound, and he wears the white flower of— ah— a blameless life. It was cheaper to put him to work than to board him, and I'm the goat!"

"But what is dear little Arthur going to muckrake?"' asked Joe.

"Everything in our fair city," was the reply. "Ask me how much of his stuff will get into the paper and I can give you a definite answer. He can rake his head off, but he'll have trouble busting into print."

"Dave," said the sporting editor, "I haven't had a flash at him yet, but I'll bet you that little Arthur can make the bantam-weight limit in a winter overcoat; and if you lay me odds, he wears galoshes, big round spectacles, and carries a cane!"

"Are you looking for a cinch?" demanded Dave.

"I might even throw in a wrist watch and a handkerchief in his cuff."

You took the words out of my mouth,"' said the city editor.

This was the pretty mental picture that was shattered by the arrival of Arthur LaTelle in the flesh—a great deal of flesh, as Dave Holland noted with amazement. Mr. Munn's nephew stood six feet two inches in his white silk stockings, and had the shoulders of a hammer thrower and the trim waist of a second lieutenant. He was a smooth, pink blond, with earnest blue eyes; and Dave Holland, who was prepared to hate him on sight, found himself wavering in the direction of tolerance. The only thing not in Arthur's favor was his calm self-confidence. Plainly the literary life had no terrors for him. He saw no lions in the way. Dave felt that it was necessary to call attention to some of them.

"Your uncle," said he, "wishes you to begin at the bottom; yet he has allowed you to select a very difficult job— one which calls for experience as well as the ability to write."

"The bottom of the pay roll was what my uncle meant," remarked the young man gravely. "I expect to demonstrate my right to advancement—financial advancement, I mean."

"You have the proper spirit," said Dave; ''but newspaper work requires special training."

"Thave no doubt of it," replied Arthur; "but the truth, written plainly, ought to satisfy anyone."

"Yes; and about one man out of a thousand can write the truth plainly."

"Arthur returned the city editor's level stare with interest.

"Perhaps," said the young man in tones soft as silk, "vou will beso good as to suspend judgment in my case until after you have seen my work."

"Cheeky young rascal!" thought Dave Holland; but aloud he said: "And what have you decided to tackle first?"

"Oh, some of the minor evils," replied Arthur lightly. "For instance, I have noticed that during the rush hours half the people who ride on the street cars are forced to stand up. Why not demand adequate service from the railway people?"

"Go ahead and demand it!" chuckled Holland. "Demand it till you're blue in the face. If you can make an impression on our street-car barons you'll be worth a lot more than fifteen dollars a week."

The earnest blue eyes widened a trifle.

"So that's the bottom, is it?'' asked Arthur thoughtfully. "My worthy uncle's figure, I take it."

"It is. Mine would have been twelve. That's what we pay a cub as a general thing."

"Ah! And then one wonders why intelligent young men are so seldom found in newspaper offices!"

With this Parthian shot the amateur crusader took himself off, leaving Dave Holland to swear into his paste pot. Later Dave hunted up Joe McInerney and relieved his feelings somewhat by predicting a speedy finish for Mr. Munn's nephew.

"All chest and cheek!" said he wrathfully. "And we both lose, Joe. He's big enough to be driving a truck."

"Well," remarked the sporting editor, using the words of the eminent and only Fitzsimmons, "the bigger they are, the harder they fall."

THE annoying thing about Arthur LaTelle was that he did not fall. He did not even slip. He examined the street-car system of the city with great care, and at the end of the second day he handed in six typewritten sheets of reasonably clean copy. Dave Holland received the contribution with a noncommittal grunt and crammed it into a pigeonhole, intending to glance over it before consigning it to the wastebasket.

Arthur lingered for a few moments, for he wished a report on the opening gun of his campaign against plutocracy; then he retired. And if he was disappointed at the city editor's lack of interest hemanaged to mask that disappointment.

Later, feeling that he would be the better for a laugh, Dave drew the six sheets from the pigeonhole and skimmed listlessly through the opening paragraph. Something he found there caused him to mutter an unflattering prophecy concerning his future state. He read the paragraph again slowly and critically, after which he lighted his pipe and studied Arthur's effort line by line, his amazement growing upon him. Finally he gathered up the sheets and carried them into the managing editor's office.

"Give a look at this dope, will you?"' said he.

Now Hazzard was more of a business manager than editor; but he was an excellent judge of journalistic style and had a keen nose for circulation and the things that make it. He read Arthur's copy carefully from end to end before he spoke.

"Wow! This is hot stuff, Dave. Who did it?"

"That nephew of Munn's— you remember I was telling you about him the other day."'

"Why, you said he was a total loss, Dave— wouldn't do at all!"

"I talked too soon," admitted the city editor with a shamefaced grin. "I don't like a bone in his head; but I've got to hand it to the big boob— he can write."

"And not only that," agreed Hazzard, "'but look at the way he lines up his facts and sums up his argument! He picks out the point he wants to make and hammers away at it till he drives it home. This attack fairly peels the hide off the traction gang; and the best part of it is that it's every word true. They can't answer it; can't alibi themselves out of it. A couple of articles like this and the whole town'll be on their backs, yelling murder. Better tell the young man to follow it up, good and plenty."

"That's my judgment," sighed Dave. "I've got as many personal prejudices as the next man, but I know a circulation getter when I see one. I suppose Sir Galahad will give me the horselaugh. He told me the other day that I'd better suspend judgment on him till after he came across with a sample of his stuff."

"Cocky, eh?" laughed Hazzard. "Well, I never blame an able man for knowing that he's able. These hypocritically modest boys make me sick. Old Man Munn's nephew has got the punch. Turn him loose."

Accordingly Arthur was turned loose, and even Joe McInerney was forced to admit that he had the punch— so much of a punch that the entire city sat up to watch the Oracle's fight for more street cars; so much of a punch that after the fourth installment Mr. Hazzard received a visit from a distinguished member of the local bar, privately known as the "'fixer'" for the traction interests.

"Cutting out all preliminaries,' said the lawyer, ''we want to know what's bit you all at once. What are you after? What does Old Munn want?"

"More street cars. The straphangers—"

"We know all about the straphangers. They have written us a million letters since this fool campaign started. What do you want?"

"We don't want a thing," said Hazzard; "but the people want more street cars."

"On the level? If we provide more street cars during the rush hours will you let up on us?"

"When the cars are provided, yes."

"You win then. Call off your dog. And, by the way, who is he? Nobody seems to know anything about him. LaBlanche or LaTouche— or something like that. Who is he?"

"LaTelle," corrected Hazzard. "Arthur LaTelle. He's Old Man Munn's nephew."

"The dickens you say! Doesn't take after the old man much. This fellow can say more in one sentence than Munn can in a week. And make it hurt worse! You've got no idea how many people he stirred up. Take his gun away from him, colonel. We'll come down."

When Mr. Achilles K. Munn heard of Arthur's first victory he bloated with pride and sent for Dave Holland, to whom he read a dreary lecture on the sin of snap judgment. This out of his system, he spoke of the inestimable value of youthful enthusiasm, clean hands and a pure heart, and closed with a tribute to good blood and respectable ancestry. But it was the matterof-fact city editor who suggested that a crusader who could really crusade was worth twenty-five dollars a week, at least.

"A—hem!" coughed Mr. Munn. ''Twenty at the outside! Mustn't spoil him, you know; mustn't spoil him. Twenty's enough for any single man."

As for the young man himself, he was not hypocritically modest with such as wished to express admiration for his foray upon the traction barons; and his frank self-appreciation cost him friends.

"No use telling that fellow how good he is!"' growled Jimmy Haley, the news editor. "Paying him a compliment is just like going down to Newcastle with a nickel's worth of anthracite in a paper bag. Says I to him: 'That was good stuff you pulled on the street-car people.' Says he to me: 'Yes; it was perfectly written, and it was a perfectly handled campaign.'

"What could I say after that? He'd seen my bet and raised me all the chips on the table!"

Almost immediately Arthur exhibited a distressing tendency to estimate his value in dollars per week.

"Only twenty?" said he to Dave Holland. "After I've shown what I can do— twenty for a circulation getter? Is this a joke?"

"If it is, your uncle is the comedian,' was the grave response. "I don't mind telling you, my boy, that I'm in favor of giving youmore. I'm in favor of giving everybody more, including myself; but when it comes to salaries, your uncle guesses last— and guesses close."

"But— I'm worth it!" expostulated Arthur.

"I know it,"' said Dave, jerking his thumb in the direction of Mr. Munn's private office; "but he doesn't. Run along and tell him. He's your uncle— not mine."

"Why twit me with something I can't help?" demanded LaTelle. "Sounds ungrateful, eh? Well, I'm going to show you which of us is the ungrateful one. I'll make my uncle owe me more than I can ever owe him— and meantime I'm getting practical experience."

As a matter of unpartial record, let it stand here that young Mr. LaTelle made generously good on his promise. Crusade followed crusade; the enemies of the common people were driven to cover; malefactors of great wealth were pilloried on the first page.

Circulation went up, advertising rates went up, everything went up. Last of all, the salary of the youth who was largely responsible for this era of prosperity went up also.

Mr. Munn, after a struggle with his natural instincts and many conferences with his city editor, finally consented to pay his nephew twenty-five dollars a week.

"He quoted Scripture at me!" complained the owner of the Oracle. "Yes; he went clear back to the Book of Deuteronomy, where it says: 'Thou shalt not muzzle the ox when he treadeth out the corn.' Smart boy! Takes after his mother in some ways. Twenty-five is enough. If I should give him any more the reporters would say I was favoring a relative, and they'd all want a raise too."

"Nepotism,'' agreed Dave Holland with a perfectly straight face, "'is a bad thing for any office."

"Worst evil in the world!" rumbled Mr. Munn, and would have said more had he not remembered that he did not know the meaning of the word; he looked it up afterward in the dictionary.

ii

"I'VE got a regular job for Sir Galahad."

It was Hazzard speaking and Dave Holland pricked up his ears, for the managing editor's suggestions, usually few and far between, were always worth attention.

"Yes," continued Hazzard; "a man's-size job. What's the matter with turning him loose on old Jim Todd?"

"Nothing is the matter with it," replied the city editor, "if the idea is to get little Arthur half killed. A lot of people have gone after Jim Todd— big people; but he's still stealing the city elections, I notice. You remember what happened to J. Herbert Jones, don't you? Herbert was quite a reformer while he lasted, and he lasted until he went out to get Todd. He was in the hospital for three months afterward, and all he could ever remember was that he started a speech of protest outside one of the polling places down in Happy Valley. Todd's savages had orders to get him the first time he opened his mouth, and they got him good and plenty. It ain't healthy to make an open fight on that old rascal."

"It's the only kind of a fight to make,"' argued Hazzard, "and this is the time to make it— with the city election coming on, and all. LaTelle has a following with the public— a big name in the town; and if we turn him loose on Todd and the gang I believe we can lick 'em this time. More than that, we might even get 'em indicted. If we're ever going to smash Todd as a political boss, now's the time. These winning crusades have got the people all stirred up, and I'm for sending LaTelle out for blood. I'd have tried it before, only we didn't have the man to lead the attack and write the stuff."

"Jim Todd wouldn't stop at murder," said Holland; "and though I'm not exactly stuck on Munn's nephew I wouldn't want him laid up with a fractured skull, or something like that."'

"They won't harm a hair of his head," said Hazzard with confidence— "not a hair of his head; and I'll bet you on it."

"'They've harmed better men," persisted Holland.

"But they'll let this one alone— take it from me! Now listen, Dave: You get hold of Arthur and tell him I want to see him at four o'clock this afternoon, on the dot. Leave the rest of it to me."'

After Dave had gone back to the city desk, Hazzard picked up the telephone and called a city number:

"Hello! This Monahan's place?... Jim Todd there? You tell him that Hazzard wants to talk with him. H-a-z-z-a-r-d, of the Oracle... No; he's not too busy. I'll hold the wire."

At three-fifty Mr. Arthur LaTelle entered the city room with the light and easy tread of a conqueror on an accustomed field. His appreciation of his powers had not suffered by a series of spectacular victories, and the greeting which he flung at the city editor was something less than casual,

"You want to see me?" asked Sir Galahad, leaning his elbow on the desk.

"No; but Mr. Hazzard does— at four o'clock."

"Oh, Hazzard, eh? Wonder what he's got on his mind!"

Arthur started for the managing editor's office, but Holland stopped him.

"At four o'clock, he said. There's a visitor with him now— Jim Todd. Ever heard of him?"

"Sure! What's he doing here?"

"Ask me an easy one,"' said Holland. "I know what you're here for, though! The Oracle is going to try to put Todd out of business and clean up Happy Valley. It's your next crusade; and a real one— believe me!"

The young man's nonchalant air deserted him; he became suddenly interested, alert— even anxious.

"Why— why," he stuttered, "you can't even get police protection against Todd and his gang!"

"Of course not! What's the good of being a political boss if you can't control the Police Department? You're out after a tough old bird this time, my son, and whatever happens you'll know you've been in a battle. It won't be any pink tea, but a regular knock-down-and-drag-out, slaughter-house rules. Jim Todd will give you a run for your money."

"Yes," said Arthur; "and maybe a sandbag in the dark."

Dave grinned maliciously. Sir Galahad was "showing a streak." This would be great news for Joe McInerney.

"They've sandbagged a lot of 'em down there in Happy Valley," continued Arthur.

"I see that you are familiar with Mr. Todd's methods," said Holland. "You're not afraid to tackle him, are you?"

"No-o— not that exactly; but when you go after Todd you've got every thug in town at your heels. It's— not a pleasant thought."

"Right you are! Up to date you've had it soft— been fighting people who didn't dare to fight back. Jim Todd and his savages dare to do anything or anybody. When you start in on the old boy the fur will fly all along the line. It'll be a scrap to a finish— and the more credit to you if you win."

"There's something in that," murmured Arthur, but without enthusiasm. "Something— in— that." Thereafter he watched the clock. At the appointed time he walked slowly toward Hazzard's office and, knocking, was bidden to enter.

Jim Todd, political boss of the city and czar of the municipal plague spot known as Happy Valley, was sitting on the extreme edge of a chair, nursing his flat-brimmed derby hat in his hairy hands and glaring at Hazzard. He did not even look up at the newcomer. There was something about his nervous, uncomfortable pose that suggested a great savage animal trapped and resentful.

Todd was a large man and looked all his evil reputation. A tremendous shock of stiff gray hair tumbled almost into his unblinking eyes, which were blue and cold. His beak of a nose was twisted far to the left, a mute tribute to the power behind someone's right fist; and his mouth, edging a close-cropped mustache, was cruel and forbidding. He had fought his way to leadership with his bare hands. Many a foe had marked him; none had stopped him. He was plainly not in a good humor, but Hazzard's manner was pleasant, even slightly jocular.

"Jim," said the managing editor, "this is the boy I've been telling you about. This is Arthur LaTelle."

Todd grunted, but continued to stare at Hazzard as if hypnotized.

"Better take a look at him, Jim. That's right; size him up good. You'll want to tell your friends what he looks like, because you can't afford to make any mistakes in his case—or have any little accidents, either.

Now then, as I told you before, we're going down the line with you and your gang. LaTelle here will write the stuff, and if one of your thugs— listen, Jim, and get this— if one of your savages so much as knocks off his hat, or steps on his toes, or even looks at him cross-eyed, you'll be sorry for it. Happy Valley had better be as safe for this young man as a Sunday-school pienic; and if you know what's good for you it will be."

Todd's stubby fingers tightened on the brim of his hat.

"Ah-h, you gimme a lotta credit!" he snarled thickly. "What if this lad gets gay an' somebody takes a poke at um? It's a tough gang down in the Valley, Hazzard. "You know that. I can't control um— I can't keep um from fightin', can I? Why ain't you reasonable?"

"I'm always reasonable, Jim. I've been reasonable with you for years. I'm reasonable with you now. I know the Valley is tough. I know what makes it tough; and that's why I'm telling you again that it hadn't better be tough for LaTelle. That's about all I want to say to you, and— close the door quietly when you go out, will you, Jim?"

The boss bounced to his feet with an oath:

"You want me to go round dry nursin' this young whelp while he knifes me in the paper, hey?"

"Oh, nothing like that, Jim," replied Hazzard coolly; "nothing like that at all. Just pass the word down the line that he's not to be molested. It's the closed season on crusaders and God help you if anybody breaks the game laws!"

Meantime Joe McInerney was hearing the news and chuckling as he hung over Dave Holland's desk.

"And so Artie showed a stripe of canary, did he? Wasn't lookin' for a match with a rough slugger, I'll bet. All these clever boxers lay off the boy with the wallop, don't they?"

"Well," said the city editor, "the wasn't exactly overjoyed at the prospect. From the looks of Jim Todd's face when he went through here a minute ago, he wasn't pleased either."

"I don't blame Artie, at that," remarked the sporting editor. "Jim Todd is tough game; and he hits below the belt for preference. Any time I go reformin' in Happy Valley, me for brass knucks on both hands and asteel helmet.... Hello! Here comes our noble hero now— full of pep and steppin' high like a horse! Wot cheer, Arthur, old darling?"

Mr. Munn's nephew did not approve of Joe McInerney; he barely glanced at the sporting editor and addressed himself to Holland:

"Everything is all set. Hazzard has given me a lot of dope to start the campaign with— how they've stuffed the ballot boxes all these years; the methods they used, and so on. I'll write that for an opener— that and a red-hot roast for Jim Todd. To-morrow I'll take a trip through Happy Valley and show up the conditions there."

"Suit yourself," said Dave, looking at the young man curiously. "It's your party."

"Yeh," added McInerney dryly; "and unless you're goin' to wear false whiskers on that inspection tour you'd better tread light on that Todd stuff. Put your red-hot roast between the lines, where he can't find it. He reads coarse print fairly well without his glasses, that old boy does; and he's sensitive to harsh criticism— oh, terrible sensitive!"'

"Rats!" was the inelegant response. "I've just met the man, and if I'm any judge of human nature he's a four-flusher and a coward at heart. Why, he let Hazzard bluff him out of his boots— a little chap like Hazzard!"

The crusader went away whistling, and Holland and McInerney looked at each other.

"He may have been scared when he went in there," said the sporting editor, "but he ain't scared now. He ain't got sense enough to be scared. And what's this about Hazzard running a blazer on Jim Todd? Did anybody ever run a blazer on that old rip— and get away with it?"

"Not in my time," answered Holland thoughtfully. "Well, Joe, they say where there's no fear there's no danger."

"And where there's no brain there's no feeling," added the sporting editor; "but nevertheless, albeit and notwithstanding, Sir Galahad had better get out his armor and have the roof of his tin skypiece reinforced with boiler plate. Ignorant courage ain't any protection against a blackjack; and if our beloved Artie rips into Todd the way he's ripped into these other grafters—well, the Press Club Quartet will have to begin warming up on some slow music."

iii

THE opening gun of the campaign against Jim Todd and his machine rocked the city from end to end. LaTelle had written the life history of the boss— written it in short, savage paragraphs, every one of which drew blood. He had stripped the last rag of decency from Jim Todd's fat back and bared it to the lash.

The closing sentence was a promise that the article should also be Todd's political obituary. Nowhere was there greater excitement than in Happy Valley, where elections were stolen, where the cemeteries voted, where Jim Todd was the boss and the law rolled in one.

Todd read the article in the back room at Monahan's place, the field headquarters from which he governed the city— read it with long breaths, indrawn through his teeth. Smiley MacNabb, his lieutenant and adviser, watched Todd's face as his eyes traveled slowly down the double column. When he had finished Todd threw the paper upon the table with a snort of wrath.

"That's a fright, Mac— a fright! I been pecked at before— I ought to be used toit! But this— this kind of lifts the hide in spots, hey?"

"And that ain't all," said MacNabb. "LaTelle says he's going down the line with all of us— says this ain't nothing but the set-up for the meal he'll dish out later— soup, entrée and roast— mostly roast. You know how he licked the traction people and made the waterworks gang hunt their holes. Nowhe's after us. Soon as I got a peek at the paper this morning I sent a couple of strong-arms out to get a line on LaTelle. They'll ring up when they locate him; and then— well, maybe he won't do much writing for a while."'

"Call um off," said Jim Todd quietly.

"Hey? What's that?"

"You heard me!" growled the boss. "I said to call um off."

"And let this guy get away with it?"' cried MacNabb. "Why, Jim, what's biting you? You're crazy! We got to get him or he'll get us."

"Maybe he won't get us as bad as you think," said Todd. "It ain't the first time the papers in this town have panned me. With luck it won't be the last. Now you listen and pay attention to what I say: Nobody is goin' to lay the weight of a finger on this lad; nobody is goin' to make um any trouble. Pass the word down the line and call off the destroyin' angels— ain't that what he called um?"

"But— Jim—"

"Do as I tell you! You got your orders; carry um out."

"But— can't we frame on him? Get him discredited or something? We could frame—"

"You can't do nothing to um, I tell you!" barked Jim Todd with profane emphasis. ''Get that through your nut, Mac. You got to leave um alone no matter what he does. If that ain't plain enough for you I'll sing it: Leave— um— alone!"

"What's the idea?'' demanded the suspicious MacNabb. "Why is this guy different from anybody else?"

"He ain't, Mac. He ain't; but— he's protected; that's all."

"Protected! By who? By what?"

"By the game laws," answered the boss soberly.

"Oh, hell!" snapped MacNabb. "This ain't no time for kidding. This is serious, Jim— damn serious. First thing you know he'll have every longhair in town sniffling at your heels. They read what he writes. They think he's a little tin god. They'll get together behind him—"

"Let um!" snarled Todd. "It wouldn't be the first time they've done it. You pass the word like I told you, and make it strong. Tell um that if anybody so much as bats an eye at this lad he'll wish he never had no eye to bat. That goes; and no more chin music!"

This message, traveling by various underground channels, carried consternation with it. The boss, attacked as he had never been attacked before, was turning the other cheek; and right heartily Sir Galahad smacked it. The heelers and thugs marveled at Jim Todd's forbearance, but finally decided that he must have an ace in the hole.

As for Arthur LaTelle, he walked through Happy Valley as safe as if in a church. Perfect peace walled him round about— even in Monahan's place, where he might have stretched out either hand and touched men who thirsted for his warm young blood. He learned to swagger a bit; rumor had it that he carried a gun and knew how to use it.

Day by day he hung dripping scalps upon the city walls; day by day he went about the wrecking of Jim Todd's political machine; day by day he poured vitriolic broadsides into the boss himself— and still the peace order remained in effect. No man dared disobey the boss, whose hard old face turned gray under the strain.

"You see what he's doing?" cried MacNabb a few days before the election. "He's organizing the long hairs— waking 'em up; telling 'em what to watch and where to watch. This morning he said he was going to print some instructions for his Civic Volunteers. He'll make it awful hard for us to get away with anything— and now he's talking about indictments!"

"I know it, Mac," growled Todd. "I know it; but if he burned down the City Hall I'd have to let um alone."

"I don't get you, Jim," said the lieutenant.

"Sure, you don't! And maybe I ain't wanting you to get me. Did you ever think of that, Mac?"

"WELL, young fellow," remarked Hazzard; tainly rattling the dry bones this time!"

LaTelle had entered the managing editor's office, his hat on the back of his head, his hands rammed deep in his pockets, and a chip on each shoulder. It was late at night, and he had turned in his grist of copy and was free.

"You'll have to do your own rattling from now on."

The curt repayment of the compliment caused Hazzard to look up in some surprise.

"How's that?' he asked.

"Oh, nothing— only I'm going to quit."

The managing editor jumped in spite of himself.

"Going to quit! Oh, no; you're kidding about that, son! You must be kidding!"

"All right, ''m kidding; but my tip to you is to put someone else on this political stuff. I'm through!"

"But what has happened?' demanded Hazzard. "What's come over you all at once?"

"It didn't come all at once," replied LaTelle. "It has been piling up for weeks. You know how much my stuff has been worth to this paper. If you don't know it I do. I'm entitled to a decent salary; I ought to have more money. To-night I put it square up to my uncle, and what do you think he said? He told me that nepotism was the rock on which office discipline went down. Nepotism! Now where did the old skinflint get that, I wonder?"'

"And then?" asked Hazzard.

"Then I got mad and he got mad, and we had it back and forth. I wanted fifty a week. He said I was crazy."

"Fifty a week is a big salary for this town," argued Hazzard —"'a mighty big salary.'

"Even so," was the sulky response, "'I can get it."

"Oho! So that's the bug under the chip! You can get it, eh? When did the Globe make you an offer?"

"How do you know it's the Globe?" demanded Arthur.

"I'm familiar with Globe methods, my son."

"Well, it is the Globe. Morton looked me up this afternoon. He said they'd give me fifty a week to come over there right away. I told that to my uncle and he—he talked nepotism! Darned old billygoat!"'

"There's more than the money involved," said Hazzard quietly. 'Sit down and let's talk it over. I suppose you've considered all the angles? For instance, the Globe is an opposition paper. It has been trying to tail in on this political fight and snatch some of the credit for smashing the Todd machine— if it's going to be smashed. They think that by taking you away from the Oracle they can grab it all. It looks to me, son, as if there might be a question of loyalty involved."

Arthur laughed loudly.

"Loyalty! To a paper that pays a man only half what he's worth?"

"Yes; loyalty. It's the first thing a real newspaper man learns— loyalty to his paper. He wants it to be right; but, right or wrong, it's his paper just the same. That's an old saw, but a good one. A real newspaper man wouldn't pull out and quit in the middle of a fight— not for a few measly dollars anyway. He'd stick it through somehow; and then, if he wanted to go elsewhere—"

"He wouldn't have the chance. No, thank you!"

"Speaking of chances, you owe something to the Oracle for giving you a chance to make good."

"At fifteen dollars a week!" sneered the youth.

"Forget the money for a minute, will you? The Oracle gave you a chance. It advertised you; it stuck your name up there in big type; it made the Globe people think you're worth fifty a week to them."

"Of course,'' said LaTelle with elaborate sarcasm, "the stuff I wrote didn't have anything to do with my making good. It was bad; but people overlooked it because it was in the Oracle. Yes, yes; go on!"

With an effort that turned his face plum color, Hazzard retained a grip on his temper.

"The point I want to make is this: Do you think it's a square shake to quit us in the middle of a fight this way?"'

Sir Galahad leaped to his feet and began to pace up and down the floor.

"Don't talk square shakes to me! Your notion of a square shake is the same as my uncle's— ninety per cent the best of it before you start! You talk loyalty, obligation, ethics, if you please; but you don't talk money! What do you think I'm here for— my health? If I listen to you I pass up a great opportunity. Morton said they wanted a definite answer to-night."

"Of course they do! If they get you away from us before this election they'll claim that they licked Jim Todd."

"Well''— and here Sir Galahad smiled modestly— "I guess there won't be much question as to who really did lick the old scoundrel."

Hazzard paused long enough to draw a thoughtful breath.

"M-m-m— yes. Quite so. And the campaign you've planned out— the instructions to your volunteer watchers at the polls, and so on— will you leave that here or take it with you?"

"It's mine," was the firm reply. "You don't own everything in my head just because you're paying me a beggarly twentyfive dollars a week."

Hazzard swallowed hard; but he was by nature a patient man. He tried again:

"But you'll outline the scheme to Holland, won't you? You've announced that you would print it the day before election— announced it in this paper. We're entitled to some consideration."

"Yes," said LaTelle— "about twenty five dollars' worth. It's no use arguing with you, Hazzard. Whenever my uncle whistles, you bark. That's your job. You'd rather save a few dollars than win a fight any day. Before you'd pay a man a small percentage of what he's worth you'd see him go—and I'm going!"

Hazzard took hold of the edge of his desk and hung on, controlling his voice with an effort. ''To-night?"' he asked.

"To-night! I think they'll want to run an announcement to-morrow morning. They—they said they'd feature me."

"Aha! A box on the first page with your picture in it! Yes; that would be their style. Steal a man from the opposition paper and then brag about it. Regular Globe tactics. Well, I've done my best to keep you from making a mighty big mistake."'

"Ho!" laughed LaTelle. "You're just saying that."

"Yes; I'm just saying that. The funny part is that it's absolutely true. I think you'll be back again, if you ask me."

"Not unless I get a decent salary."

"Oh, I didn't mean you'd come back here to work," explained Hazzard. "Don't think we'd want you. You can come back to ask questions."

"That's awfully decent of you," sneered Sir Galahad. "I'll try to remember it. Good-by, Hazzard."

"You won't have any trouble remembering it," said the managing editor; "and it's good-night instead of good-by. Au revoir! And as you go through the city room will you tell Dave Holland that I want to see him?"

iv

THE next morning, with a great bashing of journalistic cymbals and a beating of newspaper tom-toms, the Globe announced that it had secured the services of the eminent Mr. Arthur LaTelle, whose inspired writings would henceforth appear daily in its columns. The great power and influence of the Globe would be behind Mr. LaTelle in his vigorous campaign against political corruption and boss rule— and so on, and so on.

At noon the new member of the staff conferred with Morton, the managing editor.

"Give us something sensational for your first story," said Morton. "A regular old ringtail peeler; a humdinger! Got any ideas on the subject?"

LaTelle always had ideas; he was full of them.

"How about an interview with Jim Todd? Anything the old rascal might say could be turned against him, and his perverted views would be interesting. Let's find out what he thinks about this sudden wave of reform."

"How would you go about getting the stuff?'' asked Morton.

"Why, I'd tackle the old boy himself. He's always at Monahan's place. It won't be any trouble to find him, andI guess I can get him to talk. The rougher he talks, the better."

"I wouldn't go near Monahan's. You might get hurt."

"Not a chance!"' Sir Galahad laughed and threw out his chest a trifle. "Why, I've been in and out of there every day for a week!"'

"You don't say so! Well, if you think you can land an interview, go ahead. We'll spread it all over the first page— what Jim Todd thinks of the honest people of this town; what the honest people think of Jim Todd. Good stuff! Go get it!"

Morton watched the newly acquired crusader depart and nodded approvingly.

"A lot of nerve, that boy! Talk about bearding the lion in his den! It's not a circumstance to poking up a bear with a sore head— and going into the bear pit to do it!... Yes; he's worth fifty a week, all right."

The day bartender at Monahan's place was not exactly ornamental, but he had his uses and he knew his business. He was polishing a glass when Sir Galahad made his jaunty entry through the swinging doors, and at sight of the visitor the bartender's lower lip protruded and the hand that held the towel was suddenly arrested. Several loungers were sitting at the small tables along the wall. They recognized LaTelle and thereafter watched him furtively, whispering among themselves.

"Where's Todd?" It was more of a demand than a question, put briskly.

"Back there," replied the bartender, jerking his thumb toward the rear of the house.

"Tell him I want to see him, will you?" This plain request seemed to stun the gentleman behind the white apron— bartenders' jackets were not in favor at Monahan's place— and Arthur had to repeat it: "Mr. LaTelle, of the Globe, wants to see him."

"Sure!" said the bartender, putting glass and towel on the bar. "Sure, I'll tell him. Cert'n'y. Wait right here. Don't go away."

He disappeared. Somewhere a door was heard to open and close. In the silence that followed, the loungers stared at LaTelle and forgot their beer. It was fully a minute before the bartender returned; it seemed much longer.

"Gwan right in. Jim'll see you."

LaTelle found the boss alone in the room that had come to have such an evil significance in the political history of the city. It was a small room, dingy and dirty, and furnished simply with an oilcloth-covered table and half a dozen kitchen chairs of the cheapest sort. A few flyspecked lithographs were on the walls, and flat boxes, half full of sand, served as cuspidors.

Todd was sitting at one end of the table, his flat-brimmed derby hat tilted low over his cold blue eyes and the butt of a cigar clinched in one corner of his mouth. Instantly LaTelle decided on his opening paragraph—it was to be something about a fat, ugly spider, a poisonous spider, crouching in the center of a web— a web that stretched over an entire city; a web—

"Well, kid," grunted Jim Todd; "thought you'd come down to see if there was anything left of me, hey? Have a chair—that one over there. Set down."

Arthur seated himself endl tossed his hat carelessly upon the table.

"'I've come to interview you, Mr. Todd," said he. "The Globe wants to know what you think of reform movements—and all that sort of thing."'

There was a long silence, broken at last by a gruff cackle.

"Don't make me laugh,'' wheezed the boss. "You can't print what I think about reformers— all of um." And, to prove it, Todd put a few of his thoughts into brief, burning words of the sort usually represented by stars and dashes. "And besides," he concluded, "I ain't got much time to talk to-day."

LaTelle was conscious of a slight change in Todd's manner—the grim lines faded out of his face; something like a smile appeared below the cropped mustache. The young man began to understand that this evil person had a human side after all.

"I got to hand it to you," said Jim Todd. "They've all had a crack at me now and then; but you— you 're just a fightin' fool, ain't you? It ain't everybody that can get a whole town up on its toes an' yellin' murder. They'll say it's the paper that done it. Don't you believe it. It's the boy that writes the stuff. How come you to quit the Oracle?"

"They wouldn't pay me enough money."

"Uh-huh! Tight, eh? Have any trouble with Hazzard?"

"Oh, no trouble. I simply told him what I thought of his cheap policy—that was all."

Jim Todd seemed to reflect deeply. Then he spat out his cigar butt.

"Money!" he grunted. "Even a newspaper reformer is after the dough, hey?"

He pushed his chair back from the table and his manner changed again. So did his voice; it lifted from the gruff conversational pitch and took on the ring of command:

"It's all right, boys! Come get um!"

A door creaked behind him; and Arthur LaTelle, darting a frightened glance over his shoulder, saw three powerful strangers closing in on him, treading lightly on the balls of their feet.

v

AFTER an election comes peace and calmness; after the votes have been counted a feeling of apathy dulls the feverish beat of the public pulse.

Jim Todd, in the back room at Monahan's place, chuckled over another victory. The margin was narrow, but it was a victory, nevertheless; and Sir Galahad, the dauntless, the inspired— where, oh, where was he? That was the question.

The election. was over; the Globe still howled about the disappearance of its fifty- dollar-a-week crusader, but its howl grew feebler daily. It had shrieked editorially of foul play, but had proved nothing save that Arthur LaTelle had been and now was not. And warrants cannot be sworn out without evidence of some sort.

The general opinion seemed to be that Jim Todd had put another one over on the reform element. A story ran about the city, and nobody knew where it started or could trace its origin. It was to the effect that LaTelle had made a deal with the enemy, had sold out, taken a bundle of money, and gone— and there were times when Morton almost believed this.

Achilles K. Munn did not believe it; Hazzard did not believe it; nobody on the staff of the Oracle believed it; even Joe McInerney took up the cudgel for the vanished knight of reform:

"A fathead, yes; but no crook."

It was the night after election. As Hazzard stepped into the street, on his way home, a tall, dirty scarecrow emerged from a doorway and accosted him.

"LaTelle!"  gasped the managing editor. "Where on earth have you been?"

"You ought to know," was the reply, spoken in bitterness of soul.

"But I don't know. The only thing I felt sure of was that you wouldn't be harmed."

"Harmed!" cried LaTelle. "Look at me— I haven't had a shave in four days! Look at these filthy clothes! Harmed!"

"Suppose you tell me all about it," suggested Hazzard kindly.

"Come into this doorway.... Well, the day after I quit the Oracle I went down to Monahan's place—"

"Ah-h!" breathed Hazzard, making a clicking noise with his tongue. "You should have kept away from there."

"I know it now. I went down there to interview Todd, and three of his thugs kidnapped me—"

"Kidnapped you? Didn't you put up a fight?"

"I told you there were three of em. They kept me locked up all that day, and at night they transferred me to a vacant house down by the river—a kind of a hobo hangout it was."

"Todd's floaters; yes. Go on."

"And the hobos had orders to keep me there—"

"Didn't you try to get out?"

"There must have been thirty of 'em," explained LaTelle spiritlessly. "Some had guns too. So I stayed. To-night they broke camp; but before they went they traded clothes with me—"

"Have you been to the Globe office?"

"Not yet. I've been waiting here to see you. The last thing Jim Todd said to me before the thugs took me away was that it was the open season on reformers now— and you could tell me why."

Hazzard nodded.

"I told you you'd want to ask me a question some day," said he.

"I've asked it, sir."

"Well, my boy," Hazzard began, "there's just one story about Jim Todd that has never been printed; it's the only story he never wants to see printed. Three people in this town know what it is— Jim Todd, a woman, and myself. It's not the sort of story I want to print, understand— even to smash a political boss. But I told Jim Todd that we were going after him along political lines, and that if you were molested in any way— You begin to see it, don't you?

LaTelle took his head in his hands and groaned:

"And I thought it was me he was afraid of!"

''No; it was the story. And while you worked for the man who knew that story you had protection— all the protection that Todd himself could give you. You stepped out from under it— that was all. If you had been a little more decent to me that night— if you hadn't called me your uncle's dog— I would have warned you to keep away from Happy Valley. As it is you've had a hard lesson; and you've found out that in the newspaper business money isn't everything. If I can do anything for you—"

"The only thing you can do for me is not to spread this story round among the boys. And if I had transportation to Chicago—"

Pride can be a curse as well as a blessing, and a crusader shamed is a crusader unarmed. Arthur LaTelle got his transportation to Chicago.

He is still in the newspaper business, but it has been some time since he has lifted a lance to attack the foes of society. As a muckraker he does not amount to much; but as a copy reader he is worth all of forty dollars a week, though he finds thirty in his envelope each Tuesday afternoon.

_________________

15: The Key

Peter Cheyney

1896-1951

From Making Crime Pay, 1944

(courtesy Roy Glashan's Library)

MR. Eustace St. John Maninway stood in front of the mirror and regarded the reflection of his clean-cut and aristocratic profile with eyes that were definitely scared. Eustace realized that he was in a very tight corner.

He walked over to the sideboard and helped himself to a good measure of neat whisky. He felt a little better, a trifle braver.

Then he sat down and read Marella Gallery's letter once more. Eustace, it said:

I've found you out. I realize now that I am just another middle-aged woman with money who's been taken in by a rather clever young man.

You will remember you sent me threcnovels to read two weeks ago. Caught between the pages of one of those books was a piece of very slim platinum pendant chain. I recognized it at once. It was the chain of Veronica's diamond pendant that disappeared so mysteriously at that party she gave three months ago.

When I saw that little piece of metal, it was rather as if I was looking at my own death warrant. I knew that you had stolen Veronica's pendant. That's why I came down here.

When I arrived I got in touch with a firm of private detectives in London. I asked them to find out all about you. They have. It's a pretty sordid story, isn't it, William Stubbings, alias Eustace St. John Maninway?

I am returning to town to-morrow. I shall arrive about five o'clock. I'm going straight to the house, after which I am going round to see Veronica. I shall insist that she prosecutes. I am quite appalled when I think what a fool I've been about you, when I think that only a month ago I altered my will and left you enough to bring you £2,000 a year. This is another thing I shall deal with on my return.

Marella Gallery.

Eustace drank a little more whisky. How the devil was he to have known that when he'd pulled the diamonds off that pendant, a little bit of the chain had fallen between the pages of that book?

After a while he walked to the bureau in the corner and took out a packet— letters he'd received from Marella during the last six months. He began to read through them, his brain vaguely trying to find something that would help.

He found it. It was a letter written by Marella some six months before. She'd been in the country on a round of visits and she'd left him her car to use while she was away. The last paragraph of the letter read:

So you must come down. Do try to be here by lunch, Eustace, because I must have the car. The nearest railway station is seven miles away, and the family car is out of order. So whatever you're doing put it off and come to my rescue, because I can't go on without you.

Love,

Marella.

Eustace saw that Marella's letter was written ontwo pages. The second page contained only the words:

I can't go on without you,

Love,

Marella.

Some devil in his brain began quietly to tell Eustace of a way out of this tight corner. Marella said she was returning to town to-morrow. There were no servants at the St. John's Wood house. They'd been sent off before Marella went away.

He went and stood by the window and read the note again. I can't go on without you, Love, Marella.' Well, Scotland Yard would know that note had been written months before. But if somebody else saw the note before he destroyed it— Veronica, for instance— they would know it existed. They would know that Marella intended to commit suicide.

Eustace grinned evilly. He'd made his mind up. Here was the way out.

THE next afternoon he went round to see Veronica. His expression— Eustace was a very good actor— denoted intense sadness.

'What's the matter, Eustace?' Veronica asked. 'You're looking glum. You ought to be happy. You'll be a bridegroom next month.'

'That's what I've come to see you about, Veronica,' he said. I'm in the devil of a jam about Marella. During the last three or four weeks I've been thinking about this marriage. I knew it wasn't right. I knew that Marella attracted me a great deal but that I didn't truly love her. I wouldn't have minded people saying that I'd married her for her money— that wouldn't have mattered to me if I felt that I'd honestly and sincerely loved her.

'Well, three days ago I came to a conclusion. I rang her up and told her that I couldn't go through with it'.

Veronica was silent for a minute. Then: 'Eustace,' she said. I think you've done the right thing. Of course Marella is upset, that's natural, but she'll get over it.'

'I'm afraid it's not as easy as that, Veronica,' he said. 'Yesterday Marella telephoned me. She sounded half mad. She said she didn't care whether I loved her or not, that we'd just got to get married. She said if I didn't go through with it she'd kill herself.

'This morning I got this.'

He handed the single sheet of notepaper to Veronica. She read it, handed it back to him. He crumpled it into a ball and threw it into the fire.

'When is she coming back?' asked Veronica.

'This afternoon,' said Eustace. 'She said she'd be back by four o'clock. I wonder if I ought to go round and see her?'

He got up—stood for a moment as if undecided.

'I think I'll walk round there, Veronica,' he said, 'and wait for her.'

Eustace took his hat and went.

IT was ten past five when Veronica's telephone jangled. It was Eustace. His voice was quivering.

'Veronica,' he said, 'she's done it!'

'Done what,' asked Veronica, her spine stiffening.

'She killed herself,' said Eustace.

EUSTACE was having tea with Veronica when the Detective-Inspector arrived.

'I just want to know that I've got this quite right, sir,' said the police officer when Eustace finished telling how he had discovered the tragedy.

'You were about a hundred yards from the house when you saw Mrs. Gallery paying off the cab. Then she went up the steps and opened the door. You're certain about that point, aren't you, sir?'

'Quite certain,' said Eustace.

'I'm stressing the point, sir,' the inspector went on, 'because it seems that some six or seven months ago Mrs. Gallery had an extra key cut for the front door. I believe it was sent to you?'

'That's quite correct,' said Maninway glibly. 'Mrs. Gallery did give me a key. I lost it about two months ago.'

The police officer nodded.

'You were about eighty yards from the house when you saw Mrs. Gallery open the door and go in, and the door was open when you arrived?'

'That's right,' said Eustace. 'That's exactly what happened.'

The inspector looked more gloomy than ever.

'I'm afraid I shall have to ask you to come along with me, sir,' he said. 'I've a Squad car outside.

'You see, Mrs. Gallery saw the stationmaster at Waterloo and borrowed her cab fare home from him. She told him she was going to get into the house by the pantry window at the back. She'd left her handbag with her money and keys in it in Hampshire.'

_______________

16: "Not According to Text"

Charles G.Booth

1896-1949

Detective Story Magazine 28 July 1923

British born, American pulp fiction writer and crime novelist

SITTING upon a round rock, "The Preacher" moodily contemplated his fallen state and the limping ruins of a shanty set precariously upon the gravelly slope before him. The sun had gone to sleep beneath a gorgeous canopy, the colors of which were already sombering their tones. Unless The Preacher intended ` to spend the night in the open, he would have to endure it in the shanty he was regarding with such marked disgust,

They were all the same, these deserted California shanties: lizardhaunted, vermin-infested, and reminiscent of the indescribable filth of a generation of tramps. Notwithstanding this disheveled appearance, The Preacher was a fastidious person.

His grievance against mankind was not unfounded. That morning the Los Angeles police had set, him upon the high road and told him to go and to keep on going. His business at the moment was of a delicate nature, and he had deemed it advisable to obey the instructions of the police.

He had been "operating" in the oil fields. For the benefit of his "clients" he invariably strove to produce the effect of reality. When the headquarters man had tapped him on the shoulder and greeted him with "Come on, Joe," he had been "mucking" about in his oldest, most dilapidated clothing. Later, he would have blossomed forth splendidly in evening dress or cutaway or business suit, as the occasion demanded. They were commonplace in his sinister life.

"What d'you want?" he had barked out of the corner of his thin-lipped mouth.

"You got to get, Joe while the getting's good."

"You mean—"

"I mean now!"

He had not even been permitted to draw upon his resources, financial or otherwise, which were not inconsiderable. Nor did he attempt to turn back for that purpose, They would take care of themselves. If the full extent of his scheming was discovered in the meantime, even an hour's delay might cost him his liberty, And he was in no mind to lose that.

San Francisco offered sanctuary. But San Francisco was over six hundred miles to the north, and The Preacher had only ten dollars in his pocket. So he had struck into the interior, slanting toward the mountains, believing, not unreasonably, that the smaller towns were rich in opportunity for one of his peculiar talents. He would acquire a stake; then he would head for San Francisco via Pullman or freight car, as circumstances favored him.

From the foregoing it will be inferred that The Preacher chaplained no congregation— unless that world which hides its brightest lights beneath a multitude of bushels may be so termed,

He was a past master in the art of living by his wits. Step by step he had ascended the ladder of his disreputable craft. Dip, second-story man, con man, and every intervening rung he had trodden cautionsly and forsaken triumphantly.

Just prior to his apprehension that morning he had been selling very offcolor stocks. It was a lucrative employment, and it was more nearly respectable than anything he had ever done. Respectability! How he loved the word! Some day, when he had obtained a substantial competence, he would enjoy the satisfaction it connoted.

He was compact of body, smooth of tongue, invested with a superficial air of culture which he had acquired painstakingly for the benefit of his "clients." He knew when to talk, and he knew when to listen. Intelligent women spoke of him as "that nice Mr. So-and-so," His names were many. Keen-witted men said he was a good fellow.

Some ironist of the underworld, appreciating his talents, in a flash of inspiration had called him "The Preacher." The sobriquet had stuck. His name was Joe Shaefer.

All this was with his clothes on, though, and the smooth feel of a clean shave. As he was now, with the gritty, gray dust of twenty-five miles of blistering road upon him, coating his tongue and his dry lips, and with the stench of a thousand automobile exhaust pipes stinging his nostrils, he was like Samson shorn of his hair.

The bleat of an automobile horn roused Shaefer from his melancholy contemplation of his unhappy plight. A huge touring car, headlights glaring in the thickening dusk, was ascending the grade. At the top of the grade, just beyond where he was sitting, the road turned sharply to the right, then descended again. For this reason, apparently, the horn had been sounded, since no car approached from the opposite direction.

The man drove alone, This fact impressed itself upon Shaefer's plastic brain with biting distinctness, to which at first he attached no particular significance. In a moment the car would gain the top of the grade and pass him.

As it neared him Schaefer observed the costliness of its manufacture, the luxury of its appointments. Undoubtedly the man in the driver's seat would be a person of means, of considerable means.

This conclusion suspended itself in Shaefer's brain. He could not decide whether it was of importance to him or not. It swung this way and that, like a weather vane in a vagrant wind.

Now the touring car was within a hundred feet of him. Its blue body and its metal fittings, polished to the brilliance of a steel mirror, gleamed dully in the fading light.

Shaefer's bitter consciousness of the poverty of his condition deepened, generated an intense resentment that focused itself upon this resplendent monster and its comfortably enthroned pilot. He moved stiffly upon his hard seat, and his hand touched the weapon which he invariably carried with him in his hip pocket.

The contact had the effect of some miraculous inoculation. Shaefer sat up suddenly, his brain fired by the determination that had flashed into it. The man was alone and would have money upon him! What better opportunity of replenishing his fortune could he expect to find?

He stood up, his lips pressed thinly together, and signaled the approaching car with his left hand. It drew abreast of him, glided to a standstill. Shaefer ran swiftly to the running board, his right arm held tensely at his side.

"Want a lift?" the man called out in a deep, cheery voice.

"Yes, I want a lift all right!" sniggered Shaefer, and he thrust his automatic into the man's face. "Hand out what you got!" he snarled. "And be quick about it!"

For perhaps five seconds the two men stared at each other in utter silence. The features of the man in the car were obscured by the gathering darkness. The heavy, shell-rimmed glasses he wore, and his peaked motoring cap pulled well over his eyes, still concealed their precise outline.

Shaefer had caught the impression that he was a man of some force of character, one accustomed to command and not to be trifled with. Such men unconsciously radiate the quality of their personalities in a dozen minute ways,

"Come on!" Schaefer continued in his ugly tones. "Let's see what you got!"

The man's mouth— firm and tightlipped, it seemed to Shaefer— opened slowly. "So you are a stick-up man, are you?" he said in hard, deep, faintly ironical tones. He leaned back in his seat. His hand went to his breast pocket. "Well," he went on, "you seem to have me to rights."

Suddenly, so suddenly that Shaefer had no time to intercept the movement, the man simultaneously flung his head back and struck aside Shaefer's weapon with the back of his hand. The gun exploded, and the man caught Shaefer's wrist in a grip of iron and shook the weapon from his grasp. It clattered into the car.

Recovering himself, Shaefer struck at the other with his left in a withering access of fury, and caught him on the point of the chin. It was a terrific blow, for Shaefer had long since learned how to handle himself in a rough-and tumble. The blow must have staggered the man, for he let go his crushing grasp of Shaefer's wrist.

Shaefer hurled himself at the man's throat. The other was waiting for him, for the blow had been less damaging than Shaefer had supposed. They blindly clawed at each other over the side of the car, half in it and half out of it. The inevitable happened. Shaefer's weight dragged his antagonist over the side of the car, and they toppled onto the road and rolled over and over. Chance brought Shaefer out on top, his wiry fingers still gripping the other's sinewy throat.

In a frenzy of rage at the man's desperate resistance Shaefer beat the back of his head against the hard ground once, twice, three times. Then his rage fled, and he loosed his grip of the man's throat and stared at the face vaguely discernible beneath him. The man's head rolled to one side in a sickly, suggestive fashion and became still.

A quivering horror surged up from the roots of Shaefer's being, dispelled the remnants of his insane rage. He shook the body; it was limp. He knelt beside it, listened at its heart, felt at its wrist. He could distinguish no sound, no movement,

His horror sickened him. "I didn't mean to kill him!" he mouthed in stricken accents. "I didn't! I didn't!"

But The Preacher and death were nodding acquaintances, and the will to live was strong within him. He got to his feet, his unshaven face shedding the terror that had come upon it, and peered along the road in both directions. There was no other car in sight.

Shaefer stared at the body, his brow furrowed with thought. He must dispose of it at once if he would preserve his safety. His eyes fell upon the shanty, the rugged outline of which was softened in the marching darkness, and his face brightened. It was just the place. The body might lie there undisturbed for days; weeks, even.

He caught it by the shoulders, dragged it across the road, and leaned it against the slope where he let it sag down limply,. Turning to the touring car, he steered it off onto a narrow strip of gravelly land that divided the slope from the road. Another car might come along at any moment. It was absurd to court disaster.

This accomplished, Shaefer seized the body again and dragged it up the dusty, gravelly slope, inch by inch, foot by foot. Perspiration pearled upon his brow, streaked his grimy face. But at last, with a supreme effort, he got it into the shanty and dropped it with a dull, dead thud on the rotting floor. He straightened his aching back . and mopped his glistening brow.

For a moment he stood still, indecision upon his countenance. Then he dropped onto his knees, struck a match, and held the flame close to the still face beneath him.

The man's rough-hewn features were fairly discernible, but those peculiar characteristics of a human countenance which make it individual and recognizable were obscured by the gray dust the gravelly slope had sifted upon them. Curiously enough, the heavy-rimmed glasses still retained their place.

The match burned to Shaefer's fingers. He twisted an old envelope, which he found in his pocket, into a taper, and he stuck it in a crack in the floor and lit it. Then he went through the man's pockets and found a bundle of papers and letters and a wallet containing a hundred dollars or so in bills of various denominations.

For a moment or so Shaefer thoughtfully considered the figure before him. His sharp eyes took in the excellent quality of the light-gray suit, gray cap, and substantial shoes, and observed the striking contrast between this attire and his own. When the man was found his clothing might suggest that he was a person of some importance, Shaefer fingered his unshaven chin reflectively. Suddenly the thought that had been hovering at the back of his mind flashed, upon him, took possession of him. He sprang to his feet, a sinister grin on his face, and ran down to the touring car.

In the tonneau he found a suit case and a club bag. The latter, together with an electric torch which he discovered among the car's equipment, he took back to the shanty. Shaving materials and a small mirror were in the club bag.

Working furiously by streaming from the torch, he stripped the man on the floor of his clothing, stripped himself, got into the other's garments, and dressed the man in his own disheveled attire. They were of a similar build, and the stolen clothing fitted him fairly comfortably.

He spread the shaving materials on the floor and stood the mirror against an empty whisky bottle he had found in the shanty. The problem of water bothered him until he discovered a bottle of toilet water in the club bag and made shift with this, shaving himself stickily but effectively.

Presently he studied the effect in the mirror. He was himself again: suave, confident, a man of affairs. Splendid! he told himself. Not only had he revived his confidence in his own powers, he had perhaps concealed the man's identity— an item of no small importance His spirits soared. He was Samson restored to his strength again! In the lapel of the coat he wore was pinned a white rosebud. It was badly crushed, but he did not remove it. Its fragrance stimulated him.

He glanced contemptuously at the forlorn figure on the floor. His thin lips curled in disgust. The transformation in the other was more profound than in himself. So much the better! If the man was left long enough, the disintegrating finger of time would finish what he had begun. His satisfaction with what he had done deepened, and he congratulated himself upon it. In a spirit of mockery he perched the shell-rimmed glasses upon his own nose, nd to complete the transformation he kicked the whisky bottle near one outflung, limp hand of the body on the floor.Shaefer pocketed the money and tossed the shaving materials into the club bag. He was about to thrust the papers and letters into a pocket, intending to destroy them later, when his glance fell upon one of the envelopes. An exclamation of astonishment and dismay broke from his lips. The expression of suave confidence upon his clean-shaven face became one of utter terror. The envelope which had produced this remarkable effect was addressed to Colonel Blessington. In the lower left-hand corner of the envelope appeared the words: "Introducing Mr. Norman Aldeen." The envelope was open; Shaefer took out the sheet within it and read: `

Dear Blessington:

Sorry I can't be with you, My: old sciatica again. I didn't want to disappoint you, so Aldeen, like the good fellow he is, says he will go out alone. Give him a good time. I don't think he knows any of your crowd. Hes chock-full of Mesopotamia, but he's modest and you'll have to crowbar it out of him.

Frederick Northrup.

The note was written on the paper of the Adventurer's Club. Shaefer read the note again, his face gone suddenly haggard. Colonel Blessington and the Blessington emeralds were synonymous terms in crookdom. Shaefer's mouth had watered a hundred times at the mere mention of those marvelous gems and that indomitable figure, their possessor. The Blessington emeralds! One spoke of them reverently, as of some sacred subject, the mere utterance of which was a profanity. They were perfect; they were unequaled; they were worth t least a hundred and fifty thousand to any crook in the land!

But it was not the name of Blessington that had brought the sweat of terror to Shaefer's brow. Blessington was only Blessington, a stout, indomitable figure institutionalized by his famous gems.

But Norman Aldeen! That intrepid, romantic, unassuming figure of the Mesopotamian sands and the Egyptian deserts, the most famous explorer and archeologist of the day! That international figure whose name during the year preceding his recent return to America had become a headline feature! "Aldeen, the Invincible," they had called him.

He had gone out to dig in the sands of Mesopotamia for the institutions that had sent him, he had said in his blunt manner of speech, and all the Arabs in Eastern Asia should not stop him. For months his gallant company, under his capable leadership, had carried on punitive warfare with the nomadic tribes of that region. But he had completed the excavations he had been sent to make, and those brilliant contributions of his upon old Mesopotamian civilizations had flung his name around the world in a night. Then he had brought his little company out of the desert, intact as it went in. The newspapers had played him up. He had become the idol of the hour.

Shaefer recalled all this in one shuddering gasp of terror. He, Joe Shaefer, had killed Norman Aldeen!

His panic shook him. He thrust the letters. and papers into his pockets, jammed Aldeen's hat upon his' head, and snatched up his automatic, the electric torch, and the club bag. Then he dashed down the slope, flung the club bag into the car, and tumbled in after it.

ii

SHAEFER drove furiously into the cool, scented night, his terror-fevered brain dominated by an insupportable desire to fling between himself and that inert figure in the shanty as many hundreds of miles as the great car could cover before dawn.

The night breeze whistled in his ears ; telephone poles whirled by; neat orange groves, geometrically patterned, flashed past in rustling, scented processions. Huge blacknesses to the east and the west were the mountains.

Presently Shaefer's hot brain cooled, and he lessened the car's speed. A lifelong habit of self-control reasserted itself, and he began to consider the implications of his position.

He had killed Norman Aldeen, he reflected, but it did not necessarily follow that his arrest would result. Very carefully he went over each detail of the affair, No, he had left behind him no indication of his identity. They would probably find Aldeen, there would be a tremendous sensation, and that would be the end of it. He would drive the car several hundred miles to the north, abandon it before dawn, and entrain for San Francisco. Once there, he would be safe enough.

His stolen garments disturbed him somewhat, now. Had he known it was Aldeen he had killed, he would not have made the exchange. Now, on second thought, it did not matter, though. Aldeen's suit was a common enough shade of gray. However, he would get rid of it in the morning.

Having settled these matters to his satisfaction, he found that his self-confidence surged back and his thoughts turned again to the Blessington emeralds. Toward the foothills lay Blessington's great ranch. An expression of cupidity crept into his suave countenance, but immediately changed to one of deep regret when he remembered that the famous gems, in view of the situation he was in, were farther away from him than they had ever been.

Suddenly the recalled the phrasing of the letter of introduction in his pocket. His light-colored eyes dilated at the daring thought that flashed into his brain. "I don't think he knows any of your crowd," Northrup's note ran.

Evidently Aldeen did not know Blessington or his friends personally. If he, Shaefer, were to impersonate the dead. Aldeen, could he deceive Blessington long enough to get his hands on the famous emeralds? But the idea cooled under his keen scrutiny, and he shook his head with an impatient gesture. It was absurd. What did he know of Mesopotamia other than the fragmentary details he had read in the newspapers? He bent over the wheel and thrust the thought from his mind.

Shaefer had driven ten miles or so when he perceived in the .distance the twinkling lights of a small village. It occurred to him suddenly that, beyond an orange or two which he had stolen, he had had nothing to eat since early morning. Thus awakened, his hunger gnawed insistently, and he determined to risk purchasing the food he would need so sorely by morning.

Several minutes later he ran along a paved street and drew up before a cement building which housed a restaurant and a hotel. get out of the blue touring car when a gtay-suited, stout man trotted across the sidewalk from the hotel, hand outstretched, a genial smile upon his ruddy countenance.

"Is this Mr. Aldeen?" he called out in a throaty voice. "That's Northrup's Blue Hazzard car, or I'll— yes, sir, I'll eat my boots! But what have you done with Northrup?"

The stout man seized Shaefer's nerveless hand and wrung it enthusiastically. "I'm Blessington, sir, Colonel Blessington. And this, as you may know"—the colonel waved a massive hand in an inclusive gesture—"is the town of Blessington."

"Don't tell me I've made a mistake, sir," he cried jovially in Shaefer's stricken face. "I'm sure I haven't! Those glasses of yours, and that rose you know! The newspapers have given them a classic significance! Classic, Mr. Aldeen! But what have you done with Northrup? Don't tell me it's his sciatica! Terrible the way he suffers! Got it in South America, you know! Now, sir, do tell me what you have done with Northrup!"

Shaefer's heart felt as cold and as dead as the hand which the colonel had seized in the grip of welcome. Only so transparent a person as this could have failed to detect the panic he felt sure was written in his face. Denial of the identity thrust upon him rose to his lips, but he shut it off with a traplike closing of his teeth.

He had come in Northrup's car, he wore Aldeen's glasses and Aldeen's rose, and he had come to Blessington. It would have been strange if the colonel had not pounced upon him. In this heart he cursed the absurd whim that had induced him to wear the rose and the glasses, for he remembered now that both were always striking features of the invariably wretched newspaper portraits of Aldeen.

He forced a grin to his dry lips. "Why, of course I'm Aldeen, colonel!" he exclaimed, injecting into his voice that genial tone he usually could affect soeasily. "And it is Northrup's sciatica." He extracted his cold hand from the other's moist grasp and relaced it with Northrup's letter of introduction. "This will explain the situation, I think."

Shaefer had got himself under control by this. He studied the colonel closely and a little contemptuously. He knew the type well enough: Fat and easy-going, wordy and undiscerning; a fund of jokes at his disposal, mostly of the prohibition order, and a private stock which he would display proudly and share generously; probably reducing the number of his daily cigars and lamenting his waistline and his mounting blood-pressure. But a good fellow and a genial companion for all that—if one did not see too much of him.

And this man was the possessor of the famous Blessington emeralds!

Suddenly this predicament which he had cursed so bitterly but a moment before, assumed a golden tint. The colonel was convinced that he was Aldeen. If he preserved this conviction he might get his hands on the famous emeralds! His heart leaped.

Colonel Blessington pocketed the note. "Too bad!" he ejaculated. "Fine fellow, Northrup. However, we all come to these things. If it's not one it's another. Aren't I right, Aldeen?"

The colonel did not wait for Shaefer's reply to this philosophic observation but rumbled on like a well-oiled machine: "I came down on the off chance of meeting you. Thought something might have gone wrong. These infernal cars, you know! Give me a good horse any day! We'll go back in your car. Mine is across the road." He waved toward a roadster at the opposite curb. "One of the men can bring it."

Shaefer opened the door, and the colonel climbed heavily in beside him. Half a mile or so beyond the village Blessington directed him into a side road which led up to the eastern foothills,

The colonel emitted a continuous stream of conversation, the substance of which was mainly the Blessington orange groves, the Blessington home, the town of Blessington, and Colonel Blessington himself. The latter subject he treated exhaustively.

"I tell you, Mr. Aldeen, when I came here first, the place was as bare as one of your Syrian deserts. Sagebrush and sand and cactus! When I think of what has been done—" The colonel's wordiness had been a source of much satisfaction to Shaefer. At this point he thought it advisable to interject a complimentary remark.

"I suppose you have had much to do with it, colonel?"

The other cleared his throat. His manner suggested that he had been waiting some such question. "Well," he said, "there are people who say if it hadnt been forColonel Blessington—"

Shaefer shut his ears and returned to anticipatory contemplation of the colonel's emeralds and to the plan he was evolving to get them into his possession.

It was in this manner that The Preacher came to the elaborate Blessington mansion in the foothills.

ii

AT THE colonel's direction Shaefer drove the big car into the roomy garage. He would much rather have left it in front of the house, for he intended to make good use of it before the night was over; but he could not very well insist on doing this in face of Blessington's expressed determination that it should be cleaned and polished by his own chauffeur before it went out again. He glanced at the lock of the garage door. It was a good one, but he anticipated no difficulty in picking it with a piece of stout wire which he always carried upon his key ring.

"Now," said: the colonel, when they had installed the car, "take a few minutes to freshen up. Then we'll have a bite to eat. I'm sure you are starving."

When Shaefer had come down from the room that had been prepared for him, he found the cold supper which was set before them quite the best he had ever eaten. Blessington's bottled goods were beyond description.

"Nothing like this in Mesopotamia," gurgled the colonel appreciatively.

He still talked incessantly of nothing in particular, but Shaefer detected in his conversation a tendency toward Mesopotamia and archeology, which he had tried to discourage several times. He realized that the colonel presently would expect him to recount some of Aldeen's experiences. Luckily Blessington was a bachelor, and the friends Shaefer was to meet were not to arrive until the next afternoon. He must make one or two vague references to Mesopotamia and archeology, imply the innate modesty Northrup had attributed to Aldeen, and promise to go into the subject fully the next day. This would hold the colonel's faith in his integrity. Presently they went into the library, smoking the colonels fifty-cent cigars. It was here that Shaefer hoped and rather expected to find the emeralds. His light-colored eyes flashed around the long, book-lined room, but he saw no safe. This did not dismay him, for he had thought it unlikely that the safe which contained the gems would not be concealed.

They settled themselves in overstuffed chairs before a fire of eucalyptus logs. A dreamy warmth permeated the room. Shaefer thought that everything was going as well as could be expected— if not better.

At the colonel's elbow were cocktail materials. He pushed them toward Shaefer. The latter declined regretfully. He did not explain that he wished to keep his head clear.

Colonel Blessington puffed on his cigar. "Glad to be home?" he remarked tentatively.

The inevitable. moment had come. Shaefer pulled himself together and smiled knowingly. "Rather!" He blew a smoke ring lazily toward the ceiling,

"Pretty warm out there, one way or another, eh?" Colonel Blessington seemed in a listening mood.

"It was exciting at times," admitted Shaefer. His calm demeanor gave no indication of the tumult within him. He had no idea that one could know so little as he about Mesopotamia.

The colonel tried another tack.

"That's a good article in the current Eastern Traveler," he observed. Shaefer looked up.

"What that?" he inquired casually.

Blessington seemed surprised.

"Why," he exclaimed, "that article on yourself!"

"Oh, of course!" Shaefer reddened. "Yes, no doubt! no doubt!" He got himself in hand again. If only he could induce the old fool to talk of emeralds instead of Mesopotamia! "Pretty sound man, Tate," the colonel went on.

"Tate?" responded Schaefer cautiously.

The other looked at him in astonishment. "You must know Tate! Henry Tate!"

Shaefer smiled disarmingly. "Oh, Henry Tate! Certainly! Yes, sound, as you say! Sound as a dollar!"

"He writes well, too."

"Yes; he's very clear," ventured Shaefer.

"He says you are a hard man to interview."

"Does he?"

The colonel's cigar, en route to his lips, poised in mid-air. "My dear Aldeen!" he remonstrated. "Of course he does! In this article in the Eastern Traveler."

Shaefer bit deeply into his cigar. "To tell the truth, colonel," he said, forcing a grin to his twitching lips, "I haven't read it. I read so much— about myself—" Shaefer paused; his suave countenance expressed a modest emarrassment.

Blessington flung his headback and roared with laughter. "Northrup was right when he said we'd have to crowbar it out of you! Well, I'm going to let you off until to-morrow. Grimshaw and Morrison are tremendously interested in you. I give you fair warning, sir; they'll not let you off."

Shaefer concealed his vast relief and smiled good-naturedly. "I'Il do my best," he promised. So that was over!

Now if only he could get the colonel onto the subject of emeralds!

"Your modesty reminds me of a story I once heard about a man," the colonel said puffily. "He was in the jewelry trade—"

Shaefer seized upon this golden opportunity. "Pardon me, colonel," he interrupted swiftly, "your allusion to jewelry reminds me that you bear some reputation as a collector of precious stones. I seem to remember hearing of the Blessington diamonds, or the Blessington pearls."

The colonel blew a huge cloud of smoke at the ceiling; 'Emeralds, Aldeen. The Blessington emeralds!"

Shaefer nodded. "Yes, emeralds— now I come to think of it." His eyes rested ever so lightly on the other.

Pride of possession crept into the colonel's ruddy countenance. "Yes," he admitted with praiseworthy modesty. "My collection is esteemed rather highly. You are interested in stones?"

Shaefer nodded with the proper degree of enthusiasm. "Yes, indeed! I saw quite a few of them in the East."

"Did you! Whose were they?"

Shaefer bit his lip. He had not counted on Blessington's connoisseur's enthusiasm. "Oh, er, I met a buyer for one of the London houses in Cairo. I've forgotten his name. He had a lot with him. Rubies mostly."

The other nodded, and  Shaefer thought he had got out of the difficulty rather neatly.

"My great grandfather began collecting emeralds a hundred years ago," the colonel explained. "His descendants have added to the original number. I may tell you, sir, the collection is worth at least three hundred thousand dollars."

Shaefer expressed his astonishment and concealed his delight. This was better than he had expressed!

"You may as well see them now," the colonel went on, easing himself out of his chair and walking toward the door of the library.

Shaefer followed, his manner casual. Actually he was trembling with excitement. His eyes were bright, contracted a little, and riveted upon the slow-moving Blessington., The next minute or two would reveal the success or failure of his scheming. Would he be able to observe the mechanism of the colonel's burglar-alarm devices? Perhaps. Could he get close enough to Blessington to read off the combination of the safe as he turned the dial? It seemed unlikely. Failing these desirable eventualities, he would crack his host on the head with the butt of his automatic, tie him up, and make off with the stones. It was ridiculously simple.

The colonel, unaware of his guest's scrutiny, chatted pleasantly with Shaefer as the latter, having picked up a magazine, followed him into the hall. Blessington crossed the reception hall to one of a number of panels depicting landscapes painted on the wainscoting— it was the fifth from the right and the third from the floor, Shaefer noted— and pressed the two right-hand corners of the panel. The panel slid back, and the colonel, without comment, pulled down an electric switch set in a niche behind it. An alarm connected with the safe, no doubt, Shaefer concluded. He would remember that. When the colonel turned round, Shaefer stood within the library door idly turning the pages of the magazine.

Coming into the library again, Blessington stopped before a section of the bookcases devoted to thick volumes of philosophy which, doubtless, he had never read. He removed Herbert Spencer's "Principles of Psychology," which stood at one end of one of the shelves, and inserted a chubby finger into a boring in the heavy oak end of the shelf and pulled mightily. Some nine square feet of philosophy of various kinds swung outward on hinges.

Behind it stood a heavy iron safe which was bolted to the floor of the room.

Blessington dropped onto his knees, squinted at the dial, and turned it indecisively several times.

Shaefer peered cautiously over his shoulder, still turning the pages of his magazine, but to his intense disappointment he could make nothing of the figures on the dial, the safe being completely in shadow. His fingers clasped the automatic in his pocket. Luckily the library door was shut, and the servants were in bed. His mouth tightened; his compact body tensed for that one swift, downward, stunning blow that should deliver a fortune to him.

The colonel. turned around with a rueful grin, and Shaefer became absorbed in his magazine. "My eyes are not as good as they were, Aldeen. You might hold that reading lamp on the table," he requested, naturally enough, for nothing was further from his undiscerning mind than suspicion of the integrity of the great Aldeen.

The pitch of desperation to which Shaefer had whipped himself momentarily obscured the significance of this request. Then it flashed upon him.

The old fool was playing into his hands! He held the reading lamp over the colonel's shoulder, and the numbers upon the dial sprang into his range of vision.

"To the right twenty-three, left seventeen, right ninety-eight, left one hundred." Guided by the colonel's pudgy fingers, the combination sang itself into Shaefer's receptive brain. His blood tingled in his veins. At last he was to see, to touch, and, later, to possess, the famous Blessington emeralds, those gems of which a hundred fabulous yarns had penetrated the dark and devious paths. of crookdom.

The colonel set two covered, shallow trays upon the table. "You must tell me, Aldeen, if in all your travels you have ever seen a finer collection than this." His tone suggested considerable doubt of such a possibility.

Slowly and ceremoniously, as if he were uncovering some ancient relic, Blessington drew the wooden slides along their grooves, laid them aside, and parted the white satin covers beneath. "There!" he exclaimed to the awed Shaefer.

Arranged in the form. of crescents upon two couches of gleaming white satin lay the Blessington emeralds, like green fires on a lake of ice. They were indescribably beautiful. The light of life lay in their hearts, winked audaciously at the astounded Shaefer. At the apex of each crescent rested a great, gorgeous stone, a king at the head of a realm of princes.

Shaefer stared at them like a man who has come upon a treasure, the magnificence of which trebles his expectations— as indeed he had.

"Superb!" he whispered at last. "Superb!" He touched the two great emeralds with trembling fingers, lifted them, set them in the palm of his hand, caressed them reverently as if they were twin philosopher stones.

"There are seventy-four of them," he heard the colonel rumble complacently as from a great distance. "Great grandfather, Elias P. Blessington, collected twenty of them; grandfather Jonas F., twenty-two; my father, Daniel D., eighteen; and I, the rest."

Shaefer nodded absently. It was their value, not their chronological history that enthralled him. They should bring at least two hundred and fifty thousand if he sold them right. What a haul! His heart pounded at the thought of it.

"Well, sir, what do you think of them?" demanded Blessington in challenging tones.

Shaefer descended to reality. "They are wonderful!" he exclaimed enthusiastically.

The colonel laughed triumphantly and returned the ae the safe.

"I thought you'd say so," he declared puffily when he had closed the safe and returned its philosophic barricade. "I intend to go on collecting them as long as I live," he continued when he had thrown "on" the switch in the hall. Shaefer glanced casually at his watch. It was nearly midnight, A fever of impatience to do what he had to do and to get away, fell upon him. He pretended to conceal a yawn behind the back of his hand. The colonel saw it as Shaefer intended he should and, examining his own watch, suggested that they retire.

iv

WHEN he had come into his room and locked the door quietly behind him, Shaefer unstrapped Aldeen's suit case, the contents of which he had not yet seen. Within it he found a dark blue suit which he determined to put on over the gray one and thus add to the confusion of his pursuers.

Having deftly removed all tailor's identification tags from both suits, he pulled the blue on over the gray. The fit was uncomfortable but bearable. A pair of heavy golfing stockings, which he discovered in the club bag, he drew on over his boots.

This accomplished, Shaefer sat down at a writing desk and in a disguised handwriting wrote:

Dear Colonel:

Awfully sorry to leave you at this early hour, but a forgotten engagement compels me to do so. I shall probably be back before dinner to-night. I have a key which fits the lock of the garage, so it is not necessary for me to rouse you or the chauffeur. I shall explain more fully this evening.

Norman Aldeen.

Shaefer grinned sardonically as he reread the note. He had no hope of it fooling the colonel for very long, but it might delay his pursuit for several hours. He laid the note upon the table and looked at his watch. It was one o'clock. He would wait half an hour.

At precisely one-twenty-nine Shaefer "Not According to Text''

stood up, pocketed his automatic, and picked up his flash light; decisiveness of movement characterized every action, He gave a last look around the room and, finding everything to his satisfaction, snapped out the light and stepped into the corridor, closing the door softly behind him.

The entire first floor of the house was in utter darkness. Having located the secret panel and thrown the switch, he passed into the library and pushed the door to behind him. The shadows within the room fled before the sweeping circle of light thrown by his torch. He flung open the French windows to facilitate his escape, should some unforeseen emergency develop.

This accomplished, he swung aside the barricade of philosophy, dropped onto his knees before the safe, and directed the circle of light upon the combination dial. His long, sensitive fingers trembled as he swung the dial back and forth in the numbered sequence that should open the magic door of fortune. Completing the combination, he seized the handle. It held! He tugged at it madly, the sweat of sudden desperation upon his forehead. It still held! A withering imprecation broke from his dry lips.

But he pulled himself together again, remembering, as he did so, that he might have twirled the dial too rapidly for the drop of the tumblers. He swung it back and forth once more, whispering the talismanic numbers, a warm moisture upon his tingling body.

Again his fingers grasped the handle, but a moment elapsed before he could compel them to obey the urge of his will and attempt to turn it. The bolt shot back with a metallic click that sped a wave of ecstasy through him. He flung open the door, whipped out the jewel trays, and 'thrust his quivering fingers among those shimmering green fires. Their touch, cooler than ice to his hot hands, thrilled him with an unprecedented happiness. He scooped them up, cupped his hands, and drank in their flaming beauty.

Here lay the key to that life of comfort, security, and respectability which he had craved since reaching his years of understanding. Respectability! The word sang in his ears! Not that he cared a rap for the morality of the term. It was only a profound admiration for that quality of solidity, which the term also connoted, that his worthless and dangerous contact with life had so deeply instilled in him.

He let the flaming mass cascade between his parted hands into one of the satin-lined trays beneath. It fell, a shimmering yellow and gold and green waterfall, a minute Milky Way in the room's tiny heaven.

The exigencies of the present recalled him. He stowed the emeralds away in the pockets of his inner suit, returned the trays to the safe, locked the door, and swung the bookcase section back into its place. Then he extinguished his torch and was about to make for the open window when he remembered, with a shiver of apprehension, that he had not yet rethrown the switch in the hall. He turned toward the library door.

At that momentthere came a sharp click, and the room was flooded suddenly with light. Within the open door stood Colonel Blessington, a flushed and very indignant-looking colonel indeed, and a compactly built man with a rugged, haggard face, vaguely familiar to Shaefer, whom he regarded with a peculiar expression of mild amusement.

For perhaps ten seconds this impressive tableau endured in unbroken silence. During this minute span in the spin of the suns an eternity of thought whirled in Joe Shaefer's brain. He saw Aldeen, dead, in the shanty ; he saw himself taken by this compact, haggardfaced man— a cop, no doubt, for he had seen his face somewhere in his troubled past; he saw himself dying the ignominious death the law had decreed to him. And he saw the solitary chance that remained to him.

The window was open, he had a gun in his pocket; Blessington was dressed and probably had the keys of the garage upon the key ring which he knew Blessington carried. The squandering of life that stood between him and his liberty troubled Shaefer not in the least, One hangs as easily for one dead man as for three. It was his only chance, and he took it.

He dropped the electric torch and clatched the automatic in his coat pocket, directed it upon the haggard-faced man, and fired. But he was just one second too late— so thin is the hair that suspends life above death!— and the bullet went wide. The haggard-faced man had fired from his coat pocket, too. Shaefer felt a thud as of a mighty fist upon the middle of his body. A sharp, dreadful agony seized upon him, then a sickening nausea. His legs crumpled like dried reeds; a cold mist swept down upon him, chilled him to the bone. Through it he saw vaguely the haggard-faced man leaping toward him, a wisp of gray smoke coiling up from his right-hand coat pocket.

Then the floor rose to meet him, and he lay on his back, twitching a little. The mists thickened around him, obscured his vision, but he could still distinguish the haggard-faced man who was bending over him now, deep concern upon his white face. Who was this man? Some phantom from his receding past, no doubt.

"I'm sorry! I'm sorry!" said the man in deep, gentle tones. "I didn't mean to kill him!"

The man's deep voice, and those familiar words which Shaefer himself had uttered so recently, touched the strings of his aching memory. Suddenly the knew, and the irony of it twitched his thin lips into a blasphemous curse.

But apparently the haggard-faced man thought The Preacher was asking a question, for he nodded his head as if he were answering one.

"Yes," he said in his deep voice, "I'm the man you didn't quite kill. I'm Norman Aldeen, the explorer."

________________

17: The Sights They Missed

Albert Payson Terhune

1872-1942

Top-Notch Dec 1913

1: On the Front Seat

TIVERTON stepped back just in time to score a clean miss for a whizzing automobile. And in so doing he backed so close to a trolley car that was rounding the Twenty-third Street curve into Broadway that he'began an involuntary forward jump— one that landed him a few feet from the sidewalk, close to a large object that was long and low and wide and pale green. In appearance it was something between an auto truck and a royal barge; a sort of circus float on pneumatic wheels.

Tiverton would not have given the thing a second glance— a sight-seeing bus being no novelty to him, after three hustling years in New York— but for two faces whose gaze he chanced to catch fixed on himself as he looked upward. The observing faces belonged to two people sitting each on the end of one of the bus' five seats— on the end nearest Tiverton.

One of the two watching passengers was a man; the other, in the seat directly in front of him, a woman. The man's face was of a deathly white hue; a long black mustache split it transversely. The woman's cheeks were flushed, radiantly bright by contrast to the man's, and her eyes were still big and startled at what she seemed to consider Tiverton's narrow escape, from injury, or worse. The man, on the contrary, was laughing at the auto dodger's mishap; and the laugh gave Tiverton an acute sense of having made himself ridiculous by his self-preserva-tive jump backward and forward. He was aware of a growing desire to punch the laugher's white face.

But a second look at the girl turned the current of his thoughts from anger to frank admiration. She was still looking at him, neither boldly nor coyly, but with a dawning quiet interest that seemed to appraise and to approve his deep chest and thick shoulders as well as his square-jawed, erect head. It evidently occurred to her that her gaze might be open to misconstruction; for she shifted her glance and, turning half around, said something to the grinning Hnan behind her. The latter answered with a total lack of surprise that argued acquaintance.

Arthur Tiverton was aware once more of a little gust of anger somewhere in the recesses of his brain. It was preposterous that there could be anything in common between so altotgether lovely a girl and that laughing death!s-head of a fellow! And yet—

The seat next to the girl, as Tiverton could see, was vacant. An impulse possessed him. Hurrying around to the ticket seller he laid down a dollar bill and bought a seat for the bus' forthcoming trip. Then he turned back to the vehicle and prepared to take the vacant seat alongside the girl. It was all a matter of impulse. Tiverton had no intention whatever of scraping acquaintanceship. 'It was not his way to pursue unknown women with attentions. But, having an hour or more to kill in as painless a fashion as possible, he had suddenly decided that the time could not be slain in any other way half so pleasantly as in sitting where, unobtrusively, he could look now and then .at the prettiest girl he had ever seen.

His ruse, if unworthy, met with the failure it merited. For, just as he was about to mount the footboard, two men and two women, who had bought tickets a half minute ahead of him, filed solemnly into the four vacant laces in the seat which the girl had itherto occupied alone.

Tiverton thought of taking a place in the seat just behind— the one whose
far end was occupied by the whitefaced man. But alongside the latter sat three other men, all fairly well dressed and with an indescribably "out-oftown" air. And as Tiverton moved toward the fifth place it was preempted by a stout woman in black carrying a bulky umbrella.

He was .half minded to give up his silly scheme of riding on the same bus with the girl, now that he could not sit where he could see her; besides he had learned from the sign that the bus was bound for a tour of the downtown business section— a part of the city where he himself worked every day from nine to five. But he had bought his ticket. He would at least be on the same bus with the girl. And perhaps he might yet maneuver to catch a glimpse or two of her during the journey.

As he stood, uncertain, the bus was fast filling. Nearly every seat was taken. Half ashamed of his folly, Tiverton moved toward what seemed to him the most desirable of the few places still unoccupied— that next to the chauffeur. It was in the seat just in front of where the girl sat. He made his way thither, and as he sat down he glanced back as though merely seeking to size up his fellow passengers on the five rows of seats.

Again his simple ruse failed. The girl was still sitting sideways, her shoulders to him, talking with the whitefaced man. Tiverton could not see her face at all, except for one pink ear and a quarter segment of cheek. But he saw something else that mildly puzzled him. Her position brought into Tiverton's line of vision part of the figure of the man with whom she was chatting; and the man's fingers were absently toying with a bit of paper. At a twist that he gave to it Tiverton could see that the paper appeared to be a ten-dollar bill. No, a slight flourish of the yellow-backed slip showed him that his guess was uot quite correct. It was not a whole bank note that the man was manipulating. It was only half of a ten dollar bill. From the man's handling of it Tiverton could almost fancy he was making signals or trying to attract some unseen person's attention.

2: A Queer Mistake

EVEN as Arthur looked the girl pointed toward the bill and said something. Again the man laughed, made a reply, and stuffed the bisected piece of currency into his vest pocket.

A slight jar and the bus was in motion. The chauffeur piloted it deftly into its proper position iil the sluggish stream of downtown traffic. The announcer— a large, bored-looking functionary— rose from his lounging position against the dashboard and, lifting his short megaphone, faced the passengers.

It was a scene Tiverton had witnessed a hundred times— usually with the smile of amusement that New Yorker? are apt to bestow on the out-of-town visitors who choose this way of getting a comprehensive idea of the city. But it was his first experience as part of the spectacle.

"Great old burg, hey?" remarked the chauffeur gruffly, under cover of the announcer's megaphoned speech.

"Yes," returned Tiverton, amused at the other's apparent belief that this passenger, too, was an out-of-towner who must be entertained.

"Beats Paris or London or Chicago or Denver, folks tell me," pursued the chauffeur. "There's even one or two folks that's so enthoosiastic they declare, right out in meetin', that it beats North Wilbr'm, Mass."

"What's that?" asked Tiverton, all attention. It startled him somewhat that a stranger could have hit upon the name of his home village seemingly by sheer accident. He looked dor the first time at the chauffeur. The latter was leaning in an absorbed manner over his wheel. Under the low-drawn cap Tiverton caught an impression of fiery red hair, freckled skin, and a combative profile.

"What in blazes do you know about North Wilbraham?" he asked.

"Well," drawled the chauffeur, "I remember readin' a lot of stories in the New York papers about three years ago that began something like 'Extry! Latest War News from North Wilbr'm! Arthur Tiverton Starts Today for New York to Make John D. Look Like a Piker!' "

The chauffeur turned a grinning face of welcome toward his passenger as he spoke, and ended his mock, quotation by sticking out a gauntleted hand.

"Hello, Art!" he exclaimed.

"Denny! Good old Denny Cross!" responded Tiverton, meeting the out. stretched hand with a hearty pressure. "What on earth are you doing here?"

"Savin' twenty-five lives,". answered Cross. "If you don't believe me I'll be glad to prove it by letting this Noah's Ark run into a trolley car or climb up the side of a skyscraper."

"But—"

"That's the answer to Foolish Question Seven Hundred and Eleven. What did I look as if I was doing? Pickin'roses along the subway tracks? I'm a rubberneck buggy's pilot. I've been on this job, man and boy, for pretty near two months. And, till you swarmed up onto the quarter-deck a few minutes ago, I hadn't seen an old-home face ih five years. Gee, but it's good to see you, Art! The folks wrote to me, three years back, that you'd come to New York. And I've been looking for you. But in this village there's apt to be quite a lot of faces sauntering along Main Street or at the post office or around the grocery store. So somehow I missed you."

"To think of our running across each other here!" cried Tiverton. "I mustn't lose sight of you again. Drop in at my place some evening. Here's my address." He handed tltechauffeur a card. "Don't forget. We'll have dinner and go to a show and talk over North Wilbraham."

"H'm!" muttered Denny, trying. New Englandlike, to mask gratification under ungraciousness. "You're all togged up like ready money. I guess you'd be ashamed to be seen with a yap like me tagging along after you. "Drop it!" said Tiverton. "I guess you've forgotten how I used to duck you in the Scantic when you got too fresh back in the days when we were kids. Well, you're none too big to be ducked now if you talk that way."

"Why, you big bluff!" bristled Denny. "You never saw the day you could duck me. But we'll let it go at that. I was only thinkin' you'd, be ashamed to be seen with me. I might 'a' known better."

"You certainly might. How has New York used you?"

"It's let me live. For two years as a shbway guard, for three more as a taxi shover. Then came the strike, and— well, I got this job."

"Like it?"

"Sure. I like anything; only some things more'n others. And Sam Tubbs— that's the leather lung-man chap megaphoning— least of all. He's sure a gloom, even at his best. And I've been brought up too careful to tell you what he is at his worst."

"These sight-seeing busses do a pretty good business, don't they?"

Without a pause for breath, or cracking a smile, Denny delivered himself as follows:

"With our specially constructed automobiles of large carrying capacity all interesting parts of New York may actually be seen between sunset and sundown and at a lower rate than would be possible by private vehicle. Passengers are taken whirling through the streets, wonder after wonder piled upon their bewildered gaze, while expert guides and lecturers eloocidate in detail each point under observation. Previously, strangers in New York, lacking knowledge of how to reach points of interest, have had fatiguing and arduous experience. But now, by using our—"

"Help!" cried Tiverton. "For Heaven's sake, Denny, what has happened to your brain?"

"I learned that by heart from one of our booklets," explained the driver. "I know more of it— plenty. Want to hear—"

"No! Leave it to the announcer. What—"

"See that little chap crossing the street over there?" cut in Denny. "Pal of mine. Born and bred in Doyers Street. In the heart of Chinatown. Lived there till he was forty. Then moved up to Greenwich Village. Next day he planks down a dollar to ride on a 'seeing Chinatown' tour of ours."

"But these seeing New York busses—"

"Don't call, 'em that any more! 'Tisn't the moniker. 'Touring New York automobiles' is the name now. Folks got guyed for riding on 'em under the old name. So it was switched. These little five-seated-cars are too slow for me. I want a job in the pilot house of one of our eight-seaters. Then— What's the matter?"

Tiverton had started in surprise. Denny saw his friend was no longer looking at him, but staring in wonder at Samuel Tubbs, the announcer. That worthy had just pointed out a particularly large and hideous skyscraper, and was intoning loudly:

"The Whitelawn Building! Erected in nineteen hundred and six. Celebrated as containing the palatial suite of offices of Cyrus Q. Buchanan, the mining king."

"That's wrong!" declared Tiverton to the driver.

"No," said Cross, "I'm flattering Tubbs when I say I hate him. But he's the best announcer we've got. He never makes mistakes. And he knows this route with his eyes shut. What gave you the idea he was mixed up?"

"Because," answered Tiverton, "I happen to be Mr. Buchanan's private secretary. And his office isn't in the Whitelawn Building, or anywhere near it. This looks queer to me."

3: Half of a Ten-Dollar Bill.

TO Tiverton's bewilderment, Denny showed no surprise. "I knew there was something phony," said the chauffeur. "I piped 'em for a second, before we started."

As he did not specify who " 'em" might be, Tiverton glanced back over the serried rows of passengers. He was just in time to witness a true case of "rubbernecking." The white-faced man had half risen in his seat and was looking back at the Whitelawn Building, talking and gesticulating. The three rural-looking men at his side were following his words and the direction of his gaze with keen interest; so, Arthur noted, was the girl.

"What's the idea, I wpnder?" said Tiverton, as he turned again to Denny.

"The idea," returned Cross, "is that Sam Tubbs is so crooked he could hide behind a corkscrew. That's the main idea. The other end of it is that a man back yonder made Tubbs a mighty funny present a while ago, just before he took his seat. Tubbs and he were around at the far end of the car, and I suppose they thought no one could see. The starter didn't; but I did. It's a way I've got."

"A present? Cash?"

"No, cash divided by two— one-half of a ten-dollar bill. Can't buy much with that But Tubbs seemed real tickled. I don't see the point; yet I'm wondering if that near-tip had anything to do with Sam's phony announcement just now."

"Why should it? What's the connection ?"

"I've been for weeks on the same bus with Sam, and I never heard him make a slip. I never saw him get a tip, either; touring-bus patrons don't often give 'em. So when I hear the slip and see the tip on the same ride, I put them together. What?"

Tiverton recalled the white-faced man's behavior when the bus was passing the Whitelawn Building; and Denny's mention of the torn bill recalled at once the similar section that had fluttered in the man's fingers.

"The fellow who gave your friend Tubbs the half bill was very pale, wasn't he— with a wild-West black mustache?" queried Tiverton.

"That's the chap! Mind readin', are you ?"

"No; but I'm going to. This whole thing looks funny to me. I mean to find out if I can— wait a second. There's the Cogghall Building just in front. Cyrus Q. Buchanan's offices are there. I want to see if Tubbs will mention him among the Cogghall's tenants."

"He's got to," declared Denny. "He does, every time. Buchanan's the biggest face card in the Cogghall deck. And it's a deck with mighty few two-spots in it, at that. Listen!"

The announcer pointed to the building. Through his horn he droned a list of renowned financiers who had offices there. The list, as Tiverton recognized, was accurate save for one omission— it did not contain Cyrus Q. Buchanan's name. Arthur leaned nearer to Cross and spoke in a voice even lower than the low pitch in which their talk had been conducted.

"I'm going to find out the point of this joke," said he, "if it takes me a. week to do it. A week is all the time, I haVe, for ML Buchanan comes back from his Western trip a week from to-day. And when he's in town there's no loafing for his secretary."

"If he keeps you so busy how do you happen to be eating up the busiest hour in the dtiy on a low-power joy ride like this ?"

"When he goes away he either takes me along or leaves me with only half work while he is gone, so that I may rest up and be ready to put in twentyfour hours on a stretch, if necessary, when he gets back. That's why I find myself with time on my hands, this week. I'm going to use up a lot of that time in digging out a fact or two in this queer puzzle. It's probably a trivial matter— a joke or something; but it brings in my employer's name. And his name has too big a face value.to serve in a joke."

"Likewise," dreamily observed Denny Cross, looking anywhere rather than at his companion, "there was a girl— a mighty pretty girl, at that— who got on the bus with this white-faced chap's party. Not that you'd be at all int'rested in anything so trivial as that; for all you stared so admiring at her before you climbed aboard here. That wouldn't have anything to do with your follerin' up the joke."

"If it's just the same to you, Denny," said Tiverton pleasantly, though he reddened as he spoke, "we won't discuss girls we neither of us know. It isn't—"

"That's right!" solemnly admitted Denny. "It isn't. It says so in a book I read once— a book all about folks who wore di'monds to breakfast and looked on a one-million-power plootocrat as a piker. But I'm not jumping over the bars in speaking, respectful-like, of that lady back there; for she isn't some one 'we neither of us know.' It's a lady I had the pleasure of workin' for more'n once last year. She remembers it. An' she was kind enough to nod to me, real pleasant, when she got aboard. Blest if I don't believe she'd have come over an' said 'Howdy' to me if she'd had a chance. There's nothing stuck up about her; there never is about the real first-class ones. It's only the second-raters that treat their workfolks like dogs."

"You— you say you worked for her?" exclaimed Tiverton.

"Sure— in a way. She stopped for a month at the Idler— a little quiet apartment hotel up on the West'Side— last year. My taxi was in the rank there. She liked my careful driving, she said. So she hired me pretty near every day. Once I got back a pocketbook one of the chauffeurs had swiped from her, and when she went away she slipped me a brace of iron men and thanked me for taking such nice care of her."

"Who—"

"I don't know. I take it she lives -somewhere up State or out West, or maybe in Jersey, and just comes to the big town once a year or so. Seems to have enough cash to keep the wolf in the offing. Her name is Wesley— Miss Florida Wesley."

The car was on its return trip from the Wall Street district; and as Denny spoke he steered it deftly into its harborage. The passengers descended awkwardly to earth. Among the first was Arthur Tiverton. Standing idly to one side, he watched the party of five headed by the white-faced man. As the man stepped down, he brushed past Tubbs, the announcer. The momentary contact was elaborately accidental. But Tiverton, watching from between half-closed eyes, saw a quick, furtive interchange of gestures— a double move that transferred from the passenger's hand to Tubbs' the neatly torn half of a ten-dollar bill.

Denny had come down from his seat at the steering wheel, and was glancing about him as though to find some one. Tiverton stepped up to him.

"Tubbs has the whole bill now," said he.

"Yes," said Denny, "I saw. It's an old trick. Paste the two halves together and the bill's as good as new. It's torn to make sure the job's done and to make sure of fair play on both sides. I saw it fail once, though. A taxi chauffeur that I knew got half of a five-dollar bill beforehand as a tip for driving a farmer all over the city. It was a half-day trip, and the chauffeur sure did his best to earn the rest of that five. At the end of the ride the farmer says to him: 'That 'ere half a bill ain't no use to you as it stands. I'll give ye ten cents and a seegar fer it.' But say. Art, did you catch what our snow-faced friend says to Tubbs as he handed out the second half?"

"No, I was too far away."

"I wasn't. He whispers: 'To-morrow. Same time.' An'—"

"I'm glad to see you again. Cross," said some one at Denny's elbow, in a pleasant voice.

Both men turned. It was Miss Wesley who had made her way to the chauffeur's side.

"You are doing well here?" she went on.

"Yes'm. Thanks. Same to you!" sputtered the embarrassed but delighted Denny. "An'— please, would you think me fresh if I took the liberty to make you acquainted with an old schoolmate of mine? Mr. Arthur Tiverton, Miss Wesley."

4: The Girl

DENNY CROSS confessed later to Tiverton: "I know it was a bonehead play to introduce a side-kicker of mine to a dame of her class; but I was so fazed at her coming up to us, unexpectedlike, that I said the first thing that seemed to fit in."

Though Miss Wesley looked somewhat taken aback at the unexpected introduction, she inclined her pretty head in civil acknowledgment of Tiverton's bow. Then she nodded a good-by to Denny and turned away, just as the white-faced man with his three rurallooking companions bore down upon her.

The man said something to her that Tiverton could not catch. But he heard her reply in a clear voice:

"Thank you, Mr. Devereux; but I think I'll take a street car up to Thirty-fourth Street. I have some shopping to do."

They melted away in the Broadway and crosstown crowd.

"Devereux," repeated Tiverton, half aloud.

"Fancy moniker," said Cross. "Puts it all over a name like Tubbs, no? Well, I've got to hustle. I s'pose you meant what you said 'bout my dropping in on you at your rooms?"

"Of course I did. It'll be good to have an old-time chat with you. By the bye, are you sure it was 'to-morrow' that Devereux whispered to your friend Tubbs?"

"Dead sure. Why?"

"Because," said Tiverton, "I'm going to be here at the same time to-morrow on the chance that some other 'mistake' will be made by the announcer— a mistake possibly like that of to-day. It may be none of my business, but unraveling even a silly little mystery like this is mildly amusing. Save me a seat beside you if you can; in case the 'tomorrow' should mean an appointment like this afternoon's. Good-by."

THE following morning, Tiverton was early at his employer's office in the Cogghall Building, and in a short time he wound up his routine business for the day. He was annoyed at himself for being unable to shake from his mind a hundred buzzing conjectures as to the meaning of the seemingly trifling Devereux-Tubbs mystery. He looked at it from a dozen different angles, but from none could he gain a viewpoint that satisfied him.

That any sane man should pay a touring automobile announcer ten dollars to say that a certain financier had an office in a building half a mile north of that financier's actual Office, seemed an absurdity. But, remembering the giving of the halved bank note and Devereux's odd behavior when Tubbs made the announcement, he could come to no other conclusion than that the incident had some interesting significance.

Between moments of fruitless puzzling, Tiverton found himself indulging in the pleasanter, but equally futile, recreation of bringing back to his mental vision the face and the voice of Florida Wesley. He recalled also what Denny had said of her having stopped a year earlier at the Idler apartment hotel. .He wondered whether she was staying there now. He supposed so, since outof-town people have a way of making some one hotel their invariable headquarters when they are in New York.

Then Tiverton laughed at himself for a sentimental fool, for wasting so much thought on a girl whom he had seen but once, and who, in all human probability, he would never see again.

Whereat, he went right on thinking about her, intermitting his roseate thoughts with further conjectures as to Devereux and Tubbs.

At half past twelve his office work was done; the rest of the day was his. He had planned to run down to Coney Island for an early-season swim and for dinner. But, with a grunt of self-contempt at his own folly, he found himself walking northward, in the direction of the Whitelawn Building.

Arrived at the garish front of that particularly aggressive skyscraper, he hesitated again; then turned in at the doorway. In the big entrance hall he glanced about till his eye felk on a square black slab in the wall with raised white letters. "Office Directory" was printed at the top of the slab, and beneath, in much smaller type, were the narnes and room numbers of the Whitelawn's several hundred tenants.

Tiverton glanced along the list headed "B." He knew perfectly well that Cyrus Q. Buchanan had no office in this building. But it occurred to him that some other man named Buchanan might have one, and that this might account for Tubbs' announcement; either that or some fly-by-night crook might have assumed the name of Cyrus Q. Buchanan for the purpose of fleecing the unwary. This, he realized, would be a dangerous trick and one almost certain of quick detection. No swindler was likely to risk it. Yet it was worth a look; if only to safeguard his employer's interests. But, as he had foreseen, no "Buchanan" appeared on the board. After a second look, Tiverton walked down the hall to where the uniformed elevator starter was standing.

"I'm looking," exjilained Arthur, "for Mr. Buchanan's office—Cyrus Q. Buchanan's. I can't find it on the directory list, and-"

"And you can't find it in the building," snapped the starter, with scant courtesy. "Cyrus Q. Buchanan's got no office in the Whitelawn Building. I tell 'em all that. And some of 'em want to argue it out and prove to me I don't know who our own tenants are."

"So I'm not the only one to bother you with such a fool question?" queried Arthur, the joy of the hunt quickening his pulses.

"No; two others in the last three days. But they looked like dressed-up rubes, and you don't. When I told one of 'em there was no Buchanan here he asked for Mr. Devereux's office."

"Devereux ?"

"Yes. Twelfth floor— twelve hundred and four to twelve hundred and seven. The rube went up there, and when he came back he gave me a wink and said he 'guessed I knew how to keep a secret,' whatever he may have meant by that."

Tiverton drifted away from the loquacious starter and back to the directory. There, under the heading of "D" he read:

"Devereux, R. T. 1204-7."

Arthur went across to an elevator labeled "Express to nth Floor" and was shot upward. At the twelfth floor he alighted and made his way along the corridor until he faced a ground-glass door on which was lettered in gilt:

1204

R. T. DEVEREUX & CO.

Mining Properties.

Entrance 1205.

To Room 1205 Tiverton went, and, opening the door, walked into a small and rather overfurnished waiting room. The only occupant there was an office boy who nodded drowsily over a corner desk.

"It must have been a great night," remarked Tiverton cheerily. "Will you wake up long enough to tell me if the boss is in?"

The boy rose, blinking. "Friend of his?" he queried, visibly impressed by the intentional familiarity of Tiverton's manner.

"No," Tiverton answered, laughing, "an enemy. Is he in?"

"He's out to lunch," was the reply; "and he's got a date uptown in the afternoon, but-"

"I know," said Tiverton, "but he isn't due uptown till two. So—"

“Oh, maybe he’ll be back then before he goes up there.” The boy yawned. “If you’re one of his crowd you can wait in the reception room in there, if you want to.”

“Thanks, I will,” said Arthur. “Pleasant dreams.”

He passed on into a large inner room, and the spring door swung shut behind him. He found himself in a showy apartment—half office, half lounging room—with doors opening out on either side. It was not Tiverton's first glimpse of such places, and he wasted no time in idle staring, but walked straight over to the flat-topped desk that stood between two windows.

The desk top's only contents were a dozen loose sheets of paper, a rack of envelopes, a silver inkstand, and some pens. It was the paper that interested Tiverton. He picked up the nearest sheet of it, and at the top read the strong black letter heading:

DEVEREUX & CO.,

Mining Properties.

R. T. Devereux. — Cyrus Q. Buchanan.

Tiverton was not surprised. He understood the game now. It was not new in the financial district, and several of its former players were even then enjoying the State's hospitality at Sing Sing, Auburn, and Clinton.

He had often heard of the old scheme, on the part of some crook promoter, to pretend that a financier of note was the "company" or the silent partner in his concern; and by the conjuring power of such a name to reap a goodly shearing of wool from the lambs.

The necessary stationery involved merely the aid of a dishonest or ignorant engraver. The use of paper thus engraved, in the United States mails, had often set the government on the track of such crooks. But Tiverton knew that the mere presence of such stationery on a promoter's desk was no violation of law, so that it was safe for the rascals to leave it there for the purpose of impressing their intended victims. Nor was he astonished to see several stamped and postmarked enveloped flung with elaborate carelessness at one end of the desk, and all addressed "Cyrus Q. Buchanan, care of Devereux & Co., Whitdawn Building."

It was a very pretty little booby trap as it stood— the whole place. Yet Tiverton marveled at the daring use of a name so high in the financial world as Buchanan's.

"A case of quick touch-and-go work," Arthur decided; "a scheme with a sudden punch in it, and then a getaway. But what, in the name of all that's wonderful, has the rubberneck coach to do with it?"

He had seen all he needed to show him the misuse to which his employer's name had been put. It remained only to apprise Buchanan by telegraph, and to await the latter's action. Action, with Cyrus Q. Buchanan, was seldom long delayed, nor was it apt to be overgentle.

Tiverton turned from the desk between the two windows, and took a step toward the door. Then he halted, for the door opened and some one entered. The newcomer was Florida Wesley, the girl of the touring automobile. She came into the room a little way, caught sight of Tiverton silhouetted against the sunshine of the window, and paused. It was clear that with the strong light at his back she did not recognize him.

"Pardon me," she said, "but Mr. Devereux is out, and probably won't be back before four o'clock at the earliest. If you are a client—"

She checked herself, for, as she spoke, Tiverton moved forward. She saw his face, and recognition dawned in her own— recognition, and something that seemed to him akin to panic.

Nor was Tiverton as calm and nerve steady as was his wont. He was saying to himself in a sort of daze:

"She came in here as if she belonged; and she spoke to me as though she were one of the firm. A crook company for fleecing silly sheep. And oh, a girl with eyes like those!"

5: The Second Ride

"MR. TIVERTON?" said the girl, hesitating, as if undecided whether to say more.

"It's good of you to remember me," he said. "Are you waiting for Mr. Devereux, too?"

"Yes," she answered uneasily. "The boy in the anteroom was asleep, so I came in. I thought he might be—"

She stopped, perhaps remembering, as did Arthur, that she had just said Devereux was not likely to return until late afternoon. They looked uncom¬ fortably at each other. Then Arthur, offering her a chair, said: “Do you mind if I wait with you?”

“Not at all,” she assured him, still apparently ill at ease. And she took the proffered chair.

“You are a friend of Mr. Devereux?” she asked suddenly.

“A friend of one of your far humbler admirers,” he answered evasively; “of Denny Cross.”

She stopped, perhaps remembering, as did Arthur, that she had just said Devereux was not likely to return until late afternoon. They looked uncomfortably at each other. Then Arthur, offering her a chair, said: "Do you mind if I wait with you?"

"Not at all," she assured him, still apparently ill at ease. And she took the proffered chair.

"You are a friend of Mr. Devereux?" she asked suddenly.

"A friend of one of your far humbler admirers," he answered evasively; "of Denny Cross."

"He is a character, isn't he?" She laughed. "He was the best chauffeur at the hotel where I stopped last year, and he restored a stolen pocketbook to me."

"He was the son of our farmer up at North Wilbraham," said Tiverton, "and he and I played together as boys. I had lost track of him till yesterday."

They drifted into pleasant talk on indifferent topics, and for half an hour or more they chatted, while the 'office boy snored softly at the anteroom desk outside. Tiverton found Miss Wesley altogether delightful. For the moment he quite forgot his suspicions of her. The two found each other wonderfully congenial. At the end of a half hour they felt almost like old acquaintances. It was with real regret that Arthur noted the passing of time, by the wall clock, and recalled his plan to be at the corner of Broadway and Twenty-third Street for the seeing New York bus' two-o'clock trip.

He rose, with something like a sigh on his lips, and held out his hand.

"It has been good to meet you," he said simply. "I wonder if you will think I am impertinent if I ask leave to call. You see," he blundered on, "I know so few people in New York, and you—"

He stopped. She was looking at him— not in wonder or displeasure, but with an expression he could not quite fathom. It seemed to him almost one of sorrow.

"Yes," she said at last. "Please come. I shall be very glad to see you."

"Oh, thank you!" he exclaimed impulsively. "And when am I likely to find you home ? May I call to-morrow evening— early? Is that too soon? Or have you an engagement?"

"No, I have no engagements for tomorrow evening. I shall be at home. I am stopping at—"

"The Idler?" he asked.

His repetition of what Denny Cross had told him of her former New York headquarters produced a remarkable effect on the girl. The soft lights in her big eyes grew hard. And her full lips compressed, then parted as if for hasty speech. But she closed them again, and, after a long look of scrutiny, said coldly:

"Yes. I am at the Idlet. Good afternoon."

"To-morrow evening, then?" he rejoined, as he started for the door, marveling at the odd change in her manner.

"Yes," said Miss Wesley, in a tired voice; "to-morrow evening."

"Now," mused Tiverton, as he rattled uptown on the subway, "what the deuce could I have said or done to make her look at me like that? It was almost as if I'd sworn at her. And— and w'hy did she wait at Devereux's office after I left? She had said he probably wouldn't be back. Does she belong there? Did Providence bestow such eyes upon a girl who is the accomplice of a crook?"

At Twenty-third Street he left the subway, and went to the nearest telegraph office, where he wrote out a long message in cipher, which he dispatched to Buchanan. It explained the whole Devereux affair as far as he himself understood it, and asked for instructions. Then Tiverton made his way westward to the starting point of the sight-seeing automobiles. The telegrams had talcen somewhat longer to write than he had expected, and on his arrival he found the "downtown-trip" bus almost full.

A single glance showed him R. T. Devereux at the extreme end of the third seat, as before— on the side that would be nearest to the Whitelawn uilding on the southward journey. Next to Devereux and in conversation with him were three men. They were not the three he had talked with on the preceding day, but they bore the same general air of prosperity and of a rural tailor's handiwork.

Devereux, as he talked, was glancing furtively to left and right, as though in search of something or some oneii As he caught sight of Tiverton it was plain from his expression that he had discovered the object of his covert search. His ashy face went a trifle ashier, his eyes narrowed to slits, and he followed every motion of the new arrival.

Tiverton affected to notice nothing of this, but went forward to the front seat, where Denny hailed him with a grin of welcome, and made room for him in the place next to the wheel.

"I was afraid you wouldn't make it," said Cross. "Listen quick, now, before Sam Tubbs gets aboard; there won't be any time afterward for a private chin. We talked pretty soft yesterday, you and me. But Tubbs' ears are so sharp he could use 'em to shave with. He caught a word or two between megaphone spiels, and some time between yesterday and now he must 'a' got to thinking. For the minute Devereux shows up to-day Tubbs runs up to him with a line of whispered talk, and then they both rubbers at me. Keep the soft pedal on to-day. Cheese it! Here's Tubbs."

The announcer climbed on, off went the bus, and Tubbs, megaphone to lips, began his "lecture." Neither Tiverton nor Cross spoke, but they could note the announcer's occasional glance at them.

As the bus neared the Whitelawn Building Tiverton riveted his gaze on the announcer. The latter looked at him, then at Devereux, and, in a voice that shook, he repeated his speech of the previous day, naming among the well-known tenants of the building Cyrus Q. Buchanan.

Tiverton looked back over his shoulder at Devereux. The white-faced man was pointing out the building as before, and his three companions were evincing great interest in it. Devereux's eyes shifted from the skyscraper and met Arthur's. In them Tiverton could read both fear and hatred.

"He looks at me as if I were a melodrama hero, and he the heavy villain," remarked Arthur to Denny, under cover of the badly rattled Tubbs' next announcement. "Why, I wonder?"

"Same reason Sam Tubbs is leery of you," decided Cross. "They're up to something, and they're wise that you're tabbing their game. Tubbs is afraid you'll report him and get him fired, and maybe prosecuted, too! The other chap's game may be so crooked that it spells jail. So both of 'em have cause to shy at you."

"I know what one of Devereux's games is," said Arthur. "But he doesn't know I know that. This much is plain: He bribes Tubbs every day to tell a lie about the tenancy list of the Whitelawn Building. It remains to be seen exactly what use he makes of a sightseeing bus man's misstatement. Whatever the scheme is, it's serious enough to scare them both to know I'm watching it."

"And it's plainer still that you'd better look out for yourself," said Cross. "It's dangerous enough to have such men sore on you; but when they're scared of you besides— well, they're apt to do things."

6: A Puzzling Experience

AT an unpardonably early hour next evening Tiverton called at the little Idler Hotel on the upper West Side. He had not realized how early it was until, after sending up his name to Miss Wesley, and going into a little feception room off the foyer, he saw that the mantel clock registered ten minutes to eight.

Tiverton was still framing an apology for his unseasonable call, and comforting himself with the possibility that a girl from the country might be used to receiving visits so soon after dinner, when some one came into the room.

Tiverton turned, and beheld not Florida Wesley, but a tall man in evening dress. And the man was R. T. Devereux. If that white-faced person of mystery had looked like a melodrama villain in the prosaic surroundings of a seeing New York bus, he looked now like a stage Russian prince in his severely faultless evening attire. Tiverton was forced into reluctant admiration of the man's aspect and bearing.

Becoming aware of Tiverton's presence in the room, Devereux drew himself up stiffly. Into his white face came again that look of fear, mingled with sharp malice. But, with rare self-control, he recovered his composure; so quickly, indeed, that a casual observer could not have noted on his face any expression save of bored indifference.

He glanced carelessly at Tiverton, then moved toward a chair at the far end of the reception room. But Arthur was not content to let the chance slip by.

"Mr. Devereux?" he said civilly.

Devereux rose from the chair in which he was just seating himself, and faced about. His features were unmoved. But Tiverton, thanks to long training in the school of Cyrus Q. Buchanan, was too shrewd to judge any trained man's emotions from the expression— or lack of expression— of the face. His glanee went at once to the white-gloved hands that hung inert at Devereux's sides. He saw that the fists were clenched in nervous tension.

"Mr. Devereux," he repeated. "May I introduce myself ? I am—"

"Mr. Arthur Tiverton," interrupted Devereux, with cool and purposed insolence, "of nine-ninety-nine West Eighty-fifth Street. I know. So you can spare yourself the trouble of inventing an alias for my benefit."

"I don't indulge in the luxury of an alias," retorted Arthur, in perfect good humor, marveling none the less at the other's knowledge of his name and address; "any more than I can afford to claim as my partner a man who does not even know me by sight. Both those little extravagances cost too much for a poor chap like myself. Criminal trials are so expensive— as perhaps experience has taught you?"

The tone of the daring query was quite civil, and Devereux met it without flinching.

"There is probably a point in what you say," said he, "if only I could understand. I am not good at jokes."

"Oh!" Arthur laughed. "All jokes have points. Even ten-dollar witticisms at the expense of sight-seeing auto passengers who are told that Cyrus Q. Buchanan occupies an office he has never even heard of."

Devereux raised his eyebrows noncommittally.

"Does it cost more, Mr. Devereux," went on Arthur, in the same tone of pleasant impersonality, "to have a fake letterhead engraved than a genuine one? I mean, does one have to tear a bill in two before the stationer will consent—"

A swish of skirts at the door interrupted him. Florida Wesley came in. Arthur advanced, hand outstretched, toward her. It had occurred to him from the moment of Devereux's appearance on the scene that the man, like himself, was at the Idler to call on Miss Wesley. And, with a glow of battle in his veins, Tiverton resolved to "cut him out." If it were to be a contest of assurance, of wit, of power to entertain, he was determined to monc^olize the girl's attention.

She replied graciously, even cordially, to Tiverton's greeting. Then she turned to Devereux, who was bowing before her.

"I tried to get you on the phone," said Devereux, "but you hadn't come in yet. I have a box for 'Robin Hood' at the Casino to-night— the revival you said yesterday you wanted to hear before you leave town. I wonder if you would care to go there with me?"

She hesitated. Before she could make answer, Tiverton said, with ready ease:

"It's too bad, Mr. Devereux. Miss Wesley was kind enough to say I might call this evening, and to stay at home for me. I was hoping. Miss Wesley, on the way here, that you might like to go with me to the Olympic Roof Garden. It opens to-night. And they say the show is better than most of its sort So I came early to ask—"

"I'm so sorry," said Devereux. "I planned such a jolly evening for you, Miss Wesley. Perhaps another time,I may be luckier."

The man's graceful withdrawal from the competiton made Tiverton half ashamed of his own aggressiveness. He felt instinctively that he was not shining by comparison with this wellmannered enemy of his. And he sought to make ameeds.

"If you'd care to see the show at the Casino, Miss Wesley," said he, "I don't want for a minute to stand in the way of your having a good time. I can call another evening, and—"

"If you really don't mind," she said timidly.

It was the first time she had spoken, or had a chance to speak, since she had entered the room. Tiverton could not believe his ears. He had made the renunciatory offer out of the merest courtesy, and with not the faintest idea that she would accept it.

"If you are quite sure you don't mind, Mr. Tiverton," she went on, in sweet apology, "I think I'll take you at your word. I do so much want to hear 'Robin Hood.' And this may be my last chance. I hear it is to be taken off in a day or two."

"Why, of course. I—"

"And since Mr. Devereux has gone to the trouble of getting a box for it," she hurried on, still apologetically, "it would be a shame not to—"

"Naturally," agreed Tiverton, with the best grace he could summon up.

"And you will call again ?"

"Thank you!" he answered noncommittally. "It is good of you to ask me. I hope you'll enjoy the opera very much. Good night, Miss Wesley— Mr. Devereux."

"Good night, Mr. Tiverton," the latter called after the departing Arthur.

As he passed out Tiverton fancied that he heard a man's laugh— pleasant and well modulated, full of genuine amusement; and he made his way to the street in a white rage. He could not understand Florida Wesley's uncivil action in dismissing him for the sake of a much later invitation. She had not seemed to him the sort of girl to do so rude a thing, and her behavior puzzled him almost as keenly as it hurt him.

His brain hot with angry mortification, and his heart heavy with disillusion, Tiverton walked aimlessly from street tostreet for hours, rehearsing the scene at the Idler, and nursing his wrath and heartache. At last he steadied down to his normal state, and realized that the hour was late, and he was a mile or two from home. Quickening his pace, he trudged down West End Avenue to Eighty-fifth Street. Then he turned into the latter street— his footsteps echoing through its deserted width— and made for the house where he had his bachelor quarters.

A few doors away from his destination a man rose from behind an area railing, and, with some dimly seen weapon, struck heavily at Tiverton's head.

7: "In The Day Of Battle"

THE man had risen noiselessly from his hiding place; nor, in springing forward, had he made any sound. Like a dim-seen specter of the night he sprang and struck. So swift and silent were his advent and attack that they had taken Tiverton wholly by surprise; he had been walking rapidly, and had almost passed the area way when his assailant appeared. Yet instinctively he ducked to one side just as the blow fell. This half-unconscious shift, coupled with the uncertain light and the speed at which his victim had been walking, served to mar the thug's aim.

The blackjack struck glancingly. It caught and smashed Tiverton's stiff hat crown in its passage, but barely grazed his head. Arthur whirled, before the other could raise his arm for a second blow, and grappled him. But even as he did so two men who, unobserved by him, had walked close behind ever since he turned in from West End Avenue, threw themselves on him. None of the trio spoke. Nor did Tiverton cry for help. Thus, the voiceless struggle of the four, there on that half-lit pavement of the deserted side street, failed to attract, at first, any attention from the slumbering inmates of the adjoining houses or from such few people as chanced still to be abroad on either of the block's intersecting avenues.

If the first man had bungled through nervousness or miscalculation of distance, his two allies showed more precision. As Tiverton closed with the blackjack wielder, one of the other two caught him deftly by either arm, jerking him sharply backward. The first man, freed, swung his weapon once more in air, poising it for a second and more accurate blow.

Tiverton, the primal fight lust springing to life in every fiber, did not think of shouting for assistance; nor did he so much as realize that before such a cry could bring help, the trio might finish him and make good their escape. Instead, he flung himself with all his force forward and downward in one swift move of his whole muscular body. The maneuver was so quick, diametrically opposite in direction from that against which his two captors had braced themselves, that he broke momentarily free from their double grip, leaving part of a coat sleeve in the hands of one of them. And the blackjack blow whizzed harmless above him. At the same moment Tiverton caught the striker about the knees, drawing inward and putting all his force into a jerking upward heave. It was a simple "rough-house" trick he had learned as a boy at school. And it served.

Up went the tough's feet, and down came the rest of his body. He struck the pavement square on his shoulders and the back of his head. The impact knocked the breath out of him, and half stunned him. The blackjack flew from his hand. But before Tiverton could regain his feet the two others were upon him, bearing him down by sheer weight, cramping his movements— kicking, striking, gouging, employing every trick of the underworld street fighter. Their victim's activity and the uncertainty of the light prevented them from working with the wonted swift, deadly effect of their class. Moreover, in the scrimmage, Tiverton had become so "mixed up" with the fallen thug, who was trying to scramble to his feet, that they were hampered.

Tiverton dodged one blow, countered another, and hurled himself to one side just in time to avoid a heavy boot's swinging kick— which found sonorous lodgment in the ribs of his half-prostrate first assailant. He struck out, in intervals between blocking the showering blows, with fierce precision and with all the speed he could muster. Sometimes his fists encountered empty air. Oftener they thudded against clothing or flesh, with a numbing smash that gave him vague delight.

For less than thirty seconds this rough-and-tumble endured. Then, bruised and battered, Tiverton managed to stagger to his feet. He grappled with the nearer of his two upright antagonists, driving his left forearm under the latter's chin and at the same time hammering short-arm blows to his face. Both men now set upon him, showering blows with greater force than science at every part of his anatomy within reach. Hard pressed to counter and to duck, he yet was able to return with interest more than one of these blows. But at this juncture the tough whom Tiverton had first thrown feet upward, and whom his accomplice's ill-directed kick had further incapacitated, recovered his wits and his strength sufficiently at the same instant to reach forward from his semi recumbent posture and catch Tiverton's ankles.

Down came the man who was making such a brave fight against hopeless odds. Then one of his assailants stooped down, seized the blackjack, and, taking lightning aim, struck. As he did so, two things happened— a white-clad woman in an upper window of a house across the way began to scream "Murder!" to the accompaniment of upflinging windows and sleepy questions. And the blackjack wielder found himself caught around the neck from behind and jerked backward off his feet.

Tiverton, at the same time freeing his ankles from their imprisonment, jumped up. He was just in time to see his two fallen assailants getting shakily to their feet; while the third, in the tight grip of a new hand in the fray, was feeing carelessly and hastily deposited in a heap in the gutter.

From West End Avenue came running footsteps, punctuated by the recurrent beat of a police club on the pavement. And that sound was the elixir of life to the three toughs. The two who had regained their feet made off at a shambling run in the opposite direction from the oncoming patrolman. The man in the gutter scuttled along for a yard or so on all fours like a lame jack rabbit, then lurched up to a crouching position, and ran for his life in the wake of his fellows.

Tiverton made after the last fugitive, and the newcomer in turn made after him. As they reached the door of the house where Tiverton lived, the other man adroitly caught him by the arm and brought the pursuit to a sudden halt.

"In here!" said he. "Quick's the word!"

8: A Ray of Light

AT the restraining touch on his arm, Tiverton had pulled free, still too inflamed with battle to tell friend from foe, and eagerly ready to try conclusions with this possible fresh antagonist. But at sound of the other's voice his clenched fists relaxed.

"Denny!" he panted. "Denny Cross!"

"In here I" repeated Denny, dragging him forcibly up the short flight of brownstone steps into the vestibule. "Quick!"

"But—"

"Cut out the buts. Do as I say, unless you want more trouble."

He fairly hauled the tired man inside the vestibule, and closed the outer door after them, just as the patrolman trotted past in pursuit of his already vanishing triple quarry.

"Where's your keys?" asked Cross. "We're goin' up to your rooms before that cop stops running and comes back to listen to what the night-gown chorus from the windows has to say."

With fingers that shook from reaction and overstrain, Tiverton drew out his bunch of keys. Denny took them from him, tried two or three in the inner door's keyhole, found the right one, and let them into the hall. Two minutes later they were in Tiverton's sitting room, and Denny had turned the electric key, flooding the place with light.

"Sit down there," he said to his panting host. "I'm going to look you over for a list of the damages. So! Now, work all your joints one after the other. Never mind if some of them hurt. That won't mean much. I want to see if anything's broke. All in working order? Good! Now, draw a long, slow breath, if you can sidetrack the panting long enough. Hurt? Sure it doesn't? Good! That means no ribs smashed. I guess you've got what the hospital reports call 'abrasions and contusions, but no fractures or internal injuries.' That's French for 'paint scratched, but Cylinders all right.' Now, get off what's left of your coat and vest and collar, and I'll wash some of that dust from your face. Gee, man! You sure played in luck! Not a black eye! But you've got a few dandy bruises on your arms and throat."

As he talked, Denny was ministering to his friend with the quick skill of a prize-ring second— manipulating, fanning, sponging. Tiverton was content for a few minutes to submit to the kind ministrations of his friend. Then, with renewed vitality, curiosity came to the fore.

"How did you happen to get in on this holdup, Denny?" he asked.

"Holdup? Say, if you don't know a holdup from a smash-up, it's a pity I didn't give you a minute longer before I butted in. You'd have found out all about it by now. "What do you mean?"

"Lots of folks get held up, in the course of the year, in these quiet side streets, late at night," explained Denny. "And the guys that do the work generally make a get-away a good rPany jumps ahead of the cops. But they don't work it the way these lads did to-night. It's a come-up from behind, an arm around the neck, or a coat over the head, or a leveled gun; then a quick frisk and a fade; while the mark is still wondering what ran over him."

"But—"

"This was a smash-up party. When holdups find a man will fight— and can fight— they don't keep on slugging. They move out— if the street's as civilized as this one. No, son. These fellows were out to get you, not your cash or your ten-dollar watch and chain that you won at the raffle."

"To kill me?" gasped Arthur, unbelieving.

"No; I guess not as bad as that. They'd'a' used a knife or even taken a chance with a gun and an automobile skip if they'd wanted to kill you. But they most likely planned to give you a few days' or weeks' rest at a nice hospital, with a few broken bones or maybe a concussed brain or a cracked skull. Murder's too risky; the other way's a lot safer."

"What object could any one have in—"

"In getting you out of the way for a week or two, so that some game could be run off without your butting in?"

"Do you mean—" cried Tiverton.

"I sure do; and then some."

"Nonsense! We're not living in the Middle Ages."

"Of course we ain't. Rubberneck coaches weren't hatched yet in the Midille Ages."

"What have—"

'What have touring New York autos got to do with your being beaten up? They've got this much to do with it."

Denny pulled from his deep inner coat pocket an object from which the remnants of a wad of grimy cotton waste were' still trailing.

"I picked this up," said he. "I back-heeled the man who was just going to bounce it off your bean. He dropped it when he fell. I picked it up when we all began our little Marathon with the cop as scratch man."

"It's a monkey wrench."

"It was used as a blackjack. But as we came in I unwound most of the cotton from around it. If they'd wanted to croak you outright, they'd never have bundled it up at all. I took a good look at it as we came up the stairs. This wrench is an old acquaintance of mine. See?"

He pointed to a sort of trade-mark branded info the wood of the handle— a circle with several letters around it.

"That mark's on all the tools in our emergency kit on the benzine busies that take folks on seeing New York trips," went on Denny. "It's the company's brand. Some one who has the right to go to one of our kits picked this toy for to-night's merry-making."

"Tubbs!"

"Well, it's more likely Tubbs than the Czar of Ireland or the Mayor of Turkey. That is, unless you've been riding 'round on other cars than mine, giving 'lecturers' reason to be so scared of you that they want to put you out of commission for a while. Have you? If not, we're safe in placing a small bet that it's good old Mister Sam'l Tubbs, esquire. I warned you—"

"Denny," broke in Tiverton, "I haven't thanked you. But I do, from the bottom of my hearti If you hadn't happened to come along just when you did— and I still don't see how you did happen to— I'd have been—"

"Happened, hey? Son, them things don't happen outside of stories and plays. I told you yesterday to look out. I told you it was more dangerous to have folks scared of you than sore on you. You wouldn't listen."

"You were right."

"It's a way I've got. I come around here to see you to-night, after supper— just as you asked me to— to have a North Wilbr'm chat. And—"

"I'm sorry I wasn't home. I—"

"You weren't far from it. As I came up to this house you were just leaving it. And it struck me how dead easy it would be for anybody to knock you in the head from behind. So I trailed along. You went to a hotel. Pretty soon out you came, looking like you'd lost nineteen dollars, and had a toothache to boot. You were so rattled you almost got run over by a dozen taxis. I saw you weren't fit to be left at large. So, just for the fun of it, I kept on trailing."

"But why didn't you come up and speak to me ?"

"Why should I? You looked about as friendly as a convention of hornets. I kept on. And a nice fool walk you led me. I was for giving it up once or twice. But I got curious, so I didn't quit. At last you hit up the pace, and somehow I lost you. But you seemed to be heading for home here. So I took a chance, and came to Eighty-fifth Street. I got to the corner just in time to see you in the middle of that mixup. The whole thing couldn't have lasted two minutes. But I kind of wish I'd been two minutes earlier."

"Denny Cross! You spent a whole evening, after a hard day's work, acting as bodyguard to me, to save me from being hurt?"

"Well, if you like to put it that way You see, we're both from North Wilbr'm, and—"

"Denny, you're white clear down to the ground. I won't try to thank you any more, because I don't know the right words; bqt I think you know how grateful I am."

"Aw, can it!" muttered Denny. "And after this keep out of mischief. Quit butting in on crooked folks' games."

"I can't. I'm going to see this thing to a finish. I've got to. The fight is only just beginning. Tubbs and the others are nothing more than Devereux's tools. He's the man I've got to fight. It's plain enough now. He must have set some one to follow me, the last time I left the sight-seeing car, for he knows my name and where I live. I found that out this evening. And he set these men to get me to-night. They were waiting for me to come home. It's all clear. And to-morrow—I'll have it out with him''

"Artie," drawled Denny Cross, "you're more kinds of a fool than I thought you were; but you're as many kinds of a man, too!"

9: In the House of the Enemy.

WORK claimed Tiverton until nearly three o'clock the next afternoon; then, as he rose from his desk; a telegram was handed to him. It was from Cyrus Buchanan, and said, with characteristic terseness:

Meet me at office, four p. m.

Tiverton had not expected his employer to return from the West for another three days, and on the strength of that belief he had invited Denny Cross to dine with him that evening. Before he and Denny had parted on the precedirig night he had told Denny what he had learned concerning Devereux, omitting only all reference to Miss Wesley, and the chauffeur had been keenly interested.

Now Tiverton would probably have to spend his first evening of Buchanan's return in going over a quantity of piledup correspondence. His first move was^ to call up Danny at the touring New York company's stand in Fifth Avenue. He was lucky enough to catch Denny just returning from the two-o'clock downtown trip.

"Too bad," was Cross' comment on his news. "Better luck another evening. But it'll keep you out of mischief, maybe, to have your boss back. Now maybe you'll have to steer clear of Devereux for a while."

"Not exactly," said Tiverton, with a laugh. "I've nearly an hour on my hands before I'm due back here at four o'clock. And I'm going to run over to the Whitelawn Building."

"What for?"

"To have,a little friendly talk with R. T. Devereux. I've had it on my mind all day, but I've been too busy until now."

"What the blazes are you going there for?" asked Cross in disgust. "Aren't you content with one beating up?"

"No; I'm still hungry. I'm going to have a settlement with R. T. Devereux, and find out what he means by hiring gorillas to attack me."

"If you've got to be a plumb idiot," grunted Cross, his voice rough and blurred across the telephone, "waiit for me. I'm off for the day, and I'll come down and—"

"Thank you, old man. But I haven't time. I'm due back here to meet Mr. Buchanan at four shaip, and he's not the sort to be kept waiting. I've barely time now to get up there in a hurry, and have my settlement with Brother Devereux. Thank you just as much; and good-by."

He forestalled a rising storm of protests from Denny by hanging up the receiver. Ten minutes later he was at the Whitelawn Building. As he walked down the gilt-and-onyx hall of the skyscraper toward the line of elevators, he saw ahead of him a graceful figure in a tailored suit. He recognized Florida Wesley at a glance, even though her back was turned to him. Instinctively he quickened his pace. But before he had lessened by half the distance between them. Miss Wesley had entered an express elevator, and was shot upward in it.

There was no other express ready to start, and Tiverton was forced to take a drearily slow local that stopped at almost every floor between the first and the twelfth; he had ample time to consider the impulse that had prompted him to try to overtake the girl. He remembered her rudeness of the evening before, and his resolve to see no more of her. And at the thought, he was glad he had not caught up with her. He even berated himself for courting the first hurriiliation at her hands.

Then came reaction and a more worthy thought. He had been wrong in suspecting Florida of any connection with Devereux's swindling schemes. Ever since last night he had realized that a man does not treat hjs business partner or his confederate with the formal courtesy shown by Devereux toward Miss Wesley in that brief three-cornered interview at the Idler. Her behavior toward him then, and his toward her, had been that of two people whose acquaintanceship is still in the earlier stage. Therefore, Tiverton concluded, her visits to this office were unquestionably on business. What business? She lived up State somewhere. Presumably, as she stopped at the high-priced Idler during her stays in New York, and made daily use of taxicabs, she was a woman of means. Tiverton knew that on the gullibility of well-todo single women the swindler often thrives.

In a flash the whole matter was clear to Tiverton— Miss Wesley's calls at the office, Devereux's attentions to her, and all. He was "roping" her into one of his swindling schemes; a scheme to rob her of such funds as the crook might cajole her into putting into some wildcat venture or raw fake. At once, on this reflection, Tiverton's mortification and his grievance against Florida Wesley vanished. He forgot the slight she had put upon him. He forgot everything except that an innocent girl whom he cared for was about to become the victim of a cheat; was about to be defrauded perhaps of her livelihood, to fatten the bank account of a thief.

Before his slow-moving car reached the twelfth floor his purpose in going to Devereux's office had shifted. He would leave the settlement of his personal account with Devereux till another time. To-day he would merely demand an interview with Florida, and would tell her of the trap into which she had been lured. To Devereux's face, if need be, he would tell how she was being victimized and defrauded, and what sort of concern "R. T. Devereux & Co." really was. Full of his resolution, he left the elevator, and hastened down the hall, to Suite 1204-1207. Entering the waiting room, he accosted the office boy, who this time chanced to be quite wide awake.

"I want to see Miss Wesley— the lady who just came in here," said he.

The boy eyed him,-perplexed; then slouched into a room to the left of the inner reception room— a room marked "Mr. Devereux, Private."

Tiverton judged that the boy had gone to notify his employer; and as he preferred to see Florida in person before Devereux could interfere, he took a step toward the reception room. As he did so, the boy issued from the private office.

"Miss Wesley's in there," he said, jerking his thumb over his shoulder in the office's direction. He resumed his seat at the desk.

Tiverton crossed to the private office, and, as the boy had left its door ajar, entered without knocking. The room had but one occupant. Devereux was standing in the middle of it, visibly flustered.

"What do you want?" he demanded nervously.

"I want to speak with Miss Wesley," replied Tiverton; "at another time with you, but just now with her. The boy said she was in here."

"I told him to say so," said Devereux, glancing guiltily over his shoulder to the closed door of what was evidently an inner room, and lowering his voice a little. "What do you want of her?"

"That is my affair. Please tell her that—"

"Not so loud!" muttered Devereux, with another scared glance at the door of the inner room. "She— she isn't here."

"She is!" contradicted Tiverton, advancing. "She is in that room behind you. Let me go in there, or—"

"This is my office," weakly blustered Devereux, hurriedly backing against the door of the room toward which his guilty, furtive glances had been straying. "Get out of here! Miss Wesley is not—"

Tiverton did not let him finish the sentence. His own time was short. He was not minded to waste any of it in arguing with a man who, he was convinced, was lying to him.

"She is in that room behind you!" he declared. "Move aside and let me get in there."

"No!" expostulated Devereux, still guarding the door with his body. "I tell you there's no one in that room. You'll enter it at your peril. I—"

He got no further. Arthur's outflung hand caught him by the chest, gripping both lapels of his coat at their juncture, and, with one swift wrench, threw him aside, clearing the door of the living obstacle that had stood trembling before it. Without waiting to see if Devereux would retaliate or even defend himself, Tiverton, in almost the same move, snatched open the heavy wooden door and sprang into the room. Before he could turn the door was slammed shut behind him. He heard the rattle of a lock, then the click of a bolt. At the same instant he realized that there was no one in the room but himself. He was locked in; as neatly caught as was ever hare in a poacher's trap.

10: A Call For Nerve

TlVERTON stood stock-still a moment, staring about him, taking stock of his position and his surroundings. He was in one of those "inside rooms" common to many office suites— rooms usually devoted to storage or to files. There was but one window— about two feet square, and at a height of five feet from the concrete floor.

The only door was that through which he had passed. It had no ground-glass upper half; it was massive, thick-paneled, of a type that probably would withstand the assault of two or three men.

Tiverton understood on the instant the simple trick that had been played on him; and he was philosopher enough to smile grimly at thought of the ease wherewith he had succumbed to Devereux's ruse. Had his mind not been full of Florida Wesley and of his plans to save her from being swindled, he knew he must have detected at once the false note in the man's manner, and have known that so cool and practiced a sharper would not cringe and betray weak nervousness as Devereux had pretended to. He was trapped, and he felt that nothing was to be gained by fuming or fretting or by useless repining.

The next move was to get out. Wrapping his handkerchief round his right hand's knuckles for protection, he drew back his arm, and, putting his shoulder and every atom of his strength and weight behind the blow, he smote one of the long upper panels of the door. The net result of this move was to numb his right arm to the elbow. Next, taking as careful aim as if on the football field, he swung back his right leg, braced himself, and kicked with all his might at the short bottom panel. The impact of the kick resounded through the little room, but the door held as firm as the eternal hills. He had heard a bolt, as well as a key, when the door was fastened behind him by Devereux. Hence he knew nothing was to be gained through trying to snap the lock by the old device of driving his heel at the keyhole.

He stood moveless, trying to work put the hext step. He was puzzled not only as to how he should get out, but why he had been locked in. He remembered Denny Cross and the attack uptown, and knew that this latest action of Devereux was only another move in that rascal's game.

His eye was attracted to a slip of paper that lay under the door just across the threshold. He had not noticed it thrust there. And he was very certain it had not been there when he came into the room.

"Must have been shoved under while I was too busy hammering the door to notice it,'' he decided.

It was a folded scrap of note paper with a "Devereux & Co." head. On it this was hastily scrawled in pencil:

Don't be fool enough to try knocking the door down. You can't. If you'll behave yourself I'll send in a couple of hours or so to let you out.

There was no signature; the note needed none. But its contents served to increase tenfold Tiverton's bewilderment. But with a shrug of the shoulders, he gave up the riddle, and prepared to wait with what patience he might, since waiting was apparently the one thing left for him to do. Nothing was to be gained by losing his head or going into paroxysms of rage.

It occurred to him to shout, but he dismissed the thought. His voice probably would penetrate to the outer office of the suite, but scarcely to the main corridor beyond; and the man who had locked him in was not likely to permit any subordinate in the suite to let him out.

There was not a stick of furniture of any description in the little cubbyhole of a room. But the window sill was rather deep. The prisoner drew himself up to it, and looked out on the chance of attracting by his gestures somebody in one of the windows of the opposite building. But he found there was no "opposite building"; at least that the building just across the street from the Whitelawn was several stories lower, and that none of its windows commanded a view of his.

He opened the sliding window and looked out. The report of a cannon, much less a human voice, at that height, could not have penetrated the roar of lower Broadway. He dropped back to the floor and stood there.

"It's checkmate," he admitted to himself. "I lose."

He walked back and forth to relieve the tedium of standing. Then he read over the letters in his pockets. After which he went to the door and called:

"Devereux!"

There was no answer. No sound came from the adjoining "private office." He remembered Buchanan's injunction to him to be at the financier's office promptly at four, and looked at his watch. The time now was four five. He recalled Buchanan's intolerance of a tardy employee. There would be a scene. But at the moment this bothered him little. For, if ever man had a legitimate excuse for lateness, he assuredly was the man. He found two more letters in an inner pocket, and destroyed a little more time in their dry perusal.

Then a new reflection came to him. And with it fled his philosophic calm. While he was standing there inert, Florida Wesley was perhaps being cheated of her money. He had come thither, posthaste, to warn her. And he was doing nothing.

He went again to the window, drew himself up into its open casement, and looked out once more. The coping outside was perhaps eighteen inches in width. It was of corrugated stucco, and sloped slightly downward, to shed rain. The sight gave Tiverton a thrill of inspiration. Wriggling his shoulders obliquely through the narrow window until half his body was outside, he looked to right and to left.

The coping apparently ran the whole length of the building. The nearest window to his own was perhaps fifteen feet to the left of him. And that window, he calculated, spelled escape. He crawled wholly put, so that he sat in the open window of his cell, his feet resting on the coping. He looked down. Two hundred feet below Broadway hummed and throbbed. Its scurrying pedestrians, were little black beetles; its automobiles were rushing blurs; its trolley cars small rhomboids of motion. The sense of great height and its accompanying dizziness came over Tiverton. He shook off the feeling.

"I could walk for miles on an eighteen-inch plank laid on the ground," he told himself, "even if the plank sloped a little, as this coping does. I could walk it forever, and not once lose my balance. Any one could. Well, there's not an atom of difference between walking a plank on the ground and a coping two hundred feet in the air. It's all in the imagination. It's a question of nerve and of simjile pluck."

He slowly brought himself to a standing posture on the ledge. Then, shutting out from his mind all thought of the sheer and awful drop to one side, and the two hundred feet of empty air that lay between him and the street below, he began to work toward the window that was his destination.

A stiff breeze was blowing at that height, and it tugged at him as with sentient fingers, seeking to destroy his doggedly maintained balance. With tight lips he choked back the unreasoning dread which so often attacks even the coolest man at such a dizzy elevation. He leaned inward against the wall, and in six steps he was at the window. He fumbled with the lower sash's thin top line.

11: In the Sound-Proof Booth

AS usual, in upper stories of office buildings, the window was unlocked. It yielded to his upward pressure. He raised it an inch; then, stooping, put his fingers under the bottom of the sash and lifted it far enough to admit himself. He worked swiftly, lest any one within should seek to bar him from entering. In ten seconds from the time he reached the window he had stepped down into the room it lighted. It was empty. Also it was totally unfurnished, as had been his temporary prison. This struck Tiverton as strange. That two rooms in a single suite should be allowed to go to waste, where room rents were proverbiially high, was incomprehensible. A smaller suite would have saved Devereux much money, and apparently would have served his purpose quite as well.

The only break in the four walls' blank space—except for a door—was made by a sound-proof telephone booth. This Tiverton supposed was a relic of some broker or bucket shop's occupancy of the suite. But a second glance showed him a telephone directory hanging on a nail outside the booth. The book's date was that of the current month.

"Why does Devereux do his telephoning in an unfurnished room instead of using the phone at his office desk?" wondered Tiverton.

Then a second oddity came to his notice. On the rather dusty floor were several darker squares and oblongs. He had seen newly vacated offices before, and knew the marks left on parts of floors whence desks, tables, and rugs have just been removed, and when the room has not yet been swept since such removal.

"He's planning a getaway!" Tiverton told himself. "He's moving out his furniture room by room. The suite most likely is an empty shell by now, with just an office or two left furnished to fool customers."

He started for the door, tried it, and found it locked. This door, like the one of his cell, was of solid wood instead of having a glass upper half. Tiverton knew by recent experience the folly of trying to force such a structure.

He turned hastily to the telephone booth, whose door stood wide. As he crossed the room he was aware for the first time of the murmur of talking voices. He located the sound as coming through a thin partition wall to the right of the room in which he was now locked. Entering the booth, he closed the door behind him, and reached for the receiver. As he touched it, and before he could lift it from the hook, the telephone bell rang. He hesitated, then lifted the receiver, and said:

"Hello!"

"That you, Rolf?" came a somewhat excited voice from the other end of the line.

Tiverton puzzled for a fraction of a second. Then he recalled that among the decoy envelopes he had seen on the reception-room desk the day of his former visit to the office was one addressed to "Cyrus Q. Buchanan, or Rolf T. Devereux."

"No," he answered, anxious to use the telephone himself. "He's busy. Hang up, please."

"I've got to speak to him," came the excited voice. "Tell him to drop everything and jump to the phone."

"If you want him in such a hurry," said Arthur, resolved not to lose his chance of using the wire, and noting that the number on the instrument did not bear a party letter, "why don't you call him up on his other phone ?"

"He told me not to trust the switchboard for private business; you know that, if you're with him," was the retort. "He keeps this number for such calls."

"I'll tell him you want to speak to him," drawled Tiverton lazily. "Who shall I say?"

"Belden. Henry Belden. Quick!"

Tiverton set down the receiver. It occurred to him that a little delay in arranging his own escape might be used to good purpose. He counted twenty, then lifted the receiver again. With as near an imitation as he could give of the marked rasp in Devereux's voice, and speaking low and hurriedly, as if in perturbation, he called:

"Hello, Harry! What's wrong?"

"You sound as though things weren't oversmooth at your own end," was the answer. "Listen, Rolf! Don't fail on the clean-up this afternoon. And rush it. We're smashed if you don't. Buchanan got back to town half an hour ago— two days ahead of time. Rush things! If he ever gets wind of—"

Tiverton drew in his breath sharply between his teeth, as if in dire consternation—a conservative noise, and one that saved the need of verbal reply.

"I didn't get the tip till a minute ago," went on the speaker, "and I've let you know as soon as I could. I won't keep you. Chase back to the meeting. I suppose it's in full blast now, isn't it? I judge from your voice you're het up over it. Keep cool. It's a sure thing. And rush!"

With a grunt that might have expressed to his hearer almost anything except its utterer's identity, Tiverton hung up the receiver. Then, a few seconds later, giving the wire time to be cleared, he took it down again and called up Cyrus Q. Buchanan's private office. His employer answered him. In a dozen quick sentences Tiverton outlined the situation, and his own plight. To his wonder, the mining king showed no surprise, but said calmly;

"Stay where you are till I come."

Tiverton left the phone booth, closing its door lest some new summons of the bell reach the next room. Then he went to the partition and stood there. For fifteen minutes he stood thus, two-thirds of the speech on its far side plainly audible to him.

Then a faint rattling noise caused him to turn. He looked around in time to see the door swing slowly open. On the threshold stood the burly, rugged figure of Mr. Buchanan. Tiverton was about to speak to his employer, but the latter, with a warning gesture, checked him and beckoned. Marveling, Arthur followed the mining king into the waiting room that opened into the main corridor, and out of the room in which Tiverton had been standing.

At the corner desk sat the office boy, vastly cowed and wide-eyed. Over him, a menacing sentry, stood Denny Cross. Buchanan held a bunch of office keys, with one of which he had evidently just unlocked the door of Tiverton's room. The turned-out pocket of the scared boy hinted how the keys had been obtained.

12: The Booby Trap

"DENNY!" exclaimed Tiverton, scarcely above a whisper, in deference to Buchanan's wordless warning. "Glad to see you. But what the dickens are you doing here?"

"Butting in," cheerily replied the chauffeur. "I got worried about you. Art, so I took a run down to your office. You didn't show up at four, so I got a message in to Mr. Buchanan. Just then you phoned him, and he let me come along. There's others coming, too," he went on, with a delightful air of mystery. "He phoned 'em, too, but he wouldn't wait for 'em. So—"

"Come on, Tiverton," interrupted Buchanan. "From the voices I suppose they're in there?"

He nodded toward the door of the reception room, and added: "Cross, stay here and keep that boy from giving the alarm. Let in the others when they come, and get rid of any chance callers."

"Sure," said Denny, with a grin. "I'm one of your dandiest little door-keepers; but I never thought I'd get a chance to hold down the job even for five minutes under the direct orders of Cyrus Q. Buchanan."

"Come to my office to-morrow," said Mr. Buchanan, with a grim smile at the pleasantry, "and I'll give you a better job. I like your type of man. Come along, Tiverton."

"One moment, sir," said Arthur. "While I was waiting for you I heard enough through the partition to give me the hang of the game, I think. It is the same old trick—using a big man's name to lure a group of rural investors into getting in on the ground floor of a company that doesn't exist, taking up shares, and paying outright for them. Devereux is holding the subscription meeting in there now. He'll cash a dozen big checks to-morrow when the banks open; and an hour later he'll be hard to find."

"I think you're wrong," said Mr. Buchanan. "He'll be one of the easiest men in New York to find. The Tombs' ledger will be the only directory any one will need to consult for his address. Come!"

He walked to the reception-room door, opened it quietly, and walked in, Tiverton at his heels. The spring on the door closed it behind them.

Twelve or fifteen persons were seated in the room facing the desk at which sat Devereux. Among them were Florida Wesley— the only woman present— and the men whom Tiverton had seen as Devereux's fellow passengers on the two trips aboard the sightseeing automobile. The others were of a like type— men whose looks bespoke prosperity, and whose bearing and mode of dress spoke rather of the village than of the city.

Devereux was speaking as the two newcomers entered. For the moment he did not see them, as he was facing obliquely away from the door.

"That, I think, is all," he was saying. "As I said, I am sorry Mr. Buchanan is detained in the West longer than he expected to be, and cannot keep his appointment to attend our meeting. But as his letter, that I've just read, tells us, it is on our business that he is there, and to clinch the consolidation that will nearly treble the value of our stock. And now," producing a packet, a typewritten list, and a fountain pen, "though it is a trifle informal, perhaps, I will receive your checks and issue the shares. Make them out to R. T. Devereux & Co., please. Not to me or to Mr. Buchanan. We—"

"Why not to Mr. Buchanan?" cut in the mine king. "I like to get all the easy money I can."

Every one turned. The up-Staters frowned heavily at the intrusion. Florida Wesley started to her feet. Devereux sat moveless, tense, his eyes riveted on the newcomers. His face did not change a muscle. His self-control was superb.

"My old friend, Rolf Devereux," purred Buchanan. "How are you? Still under your own name, I see? Well, that's one point in your favor, and, I'm afraid, the only one. We haven't met, I think, since I had to discharge you six years ago for taking a more than neighborly interest in our customers' accounts."

Devereux made no reply. The herd of sheep, ripe for the shearing, looked from him to Buchanan, and back again in bewilderment.

"And now, it seems," went on Buchanan genially, "we're partners, you and I, in a mining deal, eh? And I'm just in time to get my share of the profits in a mine commodiously situated on a fake map? Fine! But best of all is that touch of yours in having a sight-seeing auto lecturer announce to your clients that my office is here instead of in the Cogghall Building. That was a real stroke of genius, my friend. Genius! For no out-of-towner would doubt the announcement of a public servant like a seeing New York lecturer. He couldn't possibly be in on the plot. You couldn't safely put my name on your door or on the directory board; but a rubberneck-coach announcer served quite as well. And it clinched these people's belief in you. So you gave them free rides, and the lecturer gave them false information— and in return they were going to give you good money. Well played!"

"Who is this man ?" angrily demanded a fat country banker with a short, gray chin beard. "What is he driving at?"

"He's trying to explain," said Buchanan, laughing, "that Mr. Devereux is going to start in a few minutes for jail."

"You are mistaken," said Devereux coolly. "I must be caught before I can be jailed; and I've a fair start. Clear a way there, please." He drew from a desk drawer a blue-barreled revolver, and, swinging to his feet, raised it. "Clear the way to the door!" he commanded.

Two investors dived under chairs. A third yelled "Police!"

"Drop that just where you are, Mr. Devereux," said Florida Wesley, who stood a little to one side of the swindler. "Drop it, and don't shift your aim this way. If you do I'll get you first."

Her voice was sweet and low-pitched. Yet as Devereux involuntarily shifted his gaze in her direction he let the weapon fall from his hand. Miss Wesley had taken unobtrusively from a hand bag at her wrist a small but very businesslike automatic pistol; and its muzzle was in an uncomfortably direct line with Devereux's head;

In her big eyes there was a quiet intensity of meaning that no one could mistake. Wherefore Devereux, whose own revolver muzzle was not leveled in her direction, but on those who had stood between him and the door, thought it wise to obey her modest request. He stood disarmed, helpless, staring at her.

"Miss Wesley!" he gasped, his monumental calm for once utterly deserting him.

"Yes," she said, lowering her weapon, but still keeping him covered. "Miss Wesley— the girl from Cazenovia, Madison County, who came into her property last month, when she was twenty-one, and wrote a letter of inquiry about one of your circulars she chanced to see. Stand still, please, Mr. Devereux. Mr. Tiverton, may I trouble you to telephone for me to—"

"Miss Wesley!" again gasped Devereux incredulously.

"Of the United States secret service— and incidentally at your own," acknowledged the girl. "We have been at work over your doubtful use of the mails for some months, Mr. Devereux. And I think at last I have made the case complete. You would have been arrested by my associates anyway, as you left the building. But as they weren't to arrive for half an hour yet, I'll ask Mr. Tiverton to telephone to—"

"It isn't necessary," put in Mr. Buchanan, indicating two men that Denny Cross was ushering into the room. "Here are a couple of men I've had on this case. I phoned for them to come here just before I started. It is odd we both planned to make the arrest to-day. Miss Wesley, for to-morrow would have been too late. I judge so from the fact that Devereux locked up this secretary of mine, whom he seems to have taken for a secret-service man, and whom he wanted to keep from bringing down the law on him until he could get clear with the checks. There's your man, officers."

"YES," said Miss Wesley to Tiverton, on their way uptown, "I did think you were one of his confederates, when I found you knew where I lived; and I tested the belief by seeing what you'd do when I broke an appointment with you and went to the theater with him. But your face when I accepted his invitation told me how wretchedly mistaken I'd been. And, oh, I was so sorry!"

"But this evening I may call?" said Tiverton.

"This evening," she assented.

"And other evenings?"

"It is quite likely," said Miss Wesley, and they both laughed.

______________

Table of Contents

- 1: The Priestess of the Purple Petunia / Margaret Busbee Shipp

- 2: The Flaming Chariot / Guy Gilpatric
- 3: The Seringapatam Medal / T. C. Bridges
- 4: The Slatter Case / T. C. Bridges
- 5: Lost: A Millionaire / Anonymous
- 6: Dixon's Theories / Val Jameson
- 7: The Witness / Thomas Cobb

- 8: A Matter of Interest / Robert W. Chambers

- 9: The Hunter's Moon / Frederick Irving Anderson

- 10: Ponsonby and the Pantheress / Richard Dehan

- 11: Henry and the Restless Sex / Earl Derr Biggers

- 12: The Shadow of the Vulture / Robert E. Howard

- 13: Dickie / M. P. Shiel
- 14: The Crusader / Charles E. Van Loan
- 15: The Key / Peter Cheyney

- 16: "Not according to Text" /  Charles G Booth

- 17: The Sights They Missed / Albert Payson Terhune