PAST MASTERS 112

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.

11 January 2023

Contents

1: The Talking-Out of Tarrington / "Saki"

2: A Midnight Burlesque / James Francis Dwyer

3: The Woman With The Wolves / Bertram Atkey

4: Time Works Wonders / E. M. Delafield

5: Patricia Jackson's Pearl Necklace / Gilbert Frankau

6: Strictly Private / Frederick Ames Coates

7: The Doctor's Luck / Reginald Bacchus

8: The Story of a Long Watch / Ernest Favenc

9: Mirrors / Roy W Hinds

10: Ragan in Ruins / Bertram Atkey

11: Lady of Lyons, N. Y. / H. C. Witwer

12: The Bandaged Foot / James Francis Dwyer

13: Lady Clanbevan's Baby / Richard Dehan

14: The House by the River / George Arthur Walstab

15: Florence Flannery / Marjorie Bowen

16: A Steam-Room Fracas / Hartridge D. Tyler

17: The Murdered Ships / James Francis Dwyer

18: Never Hire a Killer Laurence Donovan

19: The Rose-Colored Rug / J. U. Giesy

_______________

1: The Talking-Out Of Tarrington

"Saki"

(H. H. Munro, 1870-1916)

The Westminster Gazette, 26 August 1911,

Collected in: The Chronicles of Clovis, 1911

"HEAVENS!" exclaimed the aunt of Clovis, "here's some one I know bearing down on us. I can't remember his name, but he lunched with us once in Town. Tarrington— yes, that's it. He's heard of the picnic I'm giving for the Princess, and he'll cling to me like a lifebelt till I give him an invitation; then he'll ask if he may bring all his wives and mothers and sisters with him. That's the worst of these small watering-places; one can't escape from anybody."

"I'll fight a rearguard action for you if you like to do a bolt now," volunteered Clovis; "you've a clear ten yards start if you don't lose time."

The aunt of Clovis responded gamely to the suggestion, and churned away like a Nile steamer, with a long brown ripple of Pekingese spaniel trailing in her wake.

"Pretend you don't know him," was her parting advice, tinged with the reckless courage of the non-combatant.

The next moment the overtures of an affably disposed gentleman were being received by Clovis with a "silent-upon-a-peak-in-Darien" stare which denoted an absence of all previous acquaintance with the object scrutinized.

"I expect you don't know me with my moustache," said the new-comer; "I've only grown it during the last two months."

"On the contrary," said Clovis, "the moustache is the only thing about you that seemed familiar to me. I felt certain that I had met it somewhere before."

"My name is Tarrington," resumed the candidate for recognition.

"A very useful kind of name," said Clovis; "with a name of that sort no one would blame you if you did nothing in particular heroic or remarkable, would they? And yet if you were to raise a troop of light horse in a moment of national emergency, 'Tarrington's Light Horse' would sound quite appropriate and pulse-quickening; whereas if you were called Spoopin, for instance, the thing would be out of the question. No one, even in a moment of national emergency, could possibly belong to Spoopin's Horse."

The new-comer smiled weakly, as one who is not to be put off by mere flippancy, and began again with patient persistence:

"I think you ought to remember my name—"

"I shall," said Clovis, with an air of immense sincerity. "My aunt was asking me only this morning to suggest names for four young owls she's just had sent her as pets. I shall call them all Tarrington; then if one or two of them die or fly away, or leave us in any of the ways that pet owls are prone to, there will be always one or two left to carry on your name. And my aunt won't let me forget it; she will always be asking 'Have the Tarringtons had their mice?' and questions of that sort. She says if you keep wild creatures in captivity you ought to see after their wants, and of course she's quite right there."

"I met you at luncheon at your aunt's house once—" broke in Mr. Tarrington, pale but still resolute.

"My aunt never lunches," said Clovis; "she belongs to the National Anti-Luncheon League, which is doing quite a lot of good work in a quiet, unobtrusive way. A subscription of half a crown per quarter entitles you to go without ninety-two luncheons."

"This must be something new," exclaimed Tarrington.

"It's the same aunt that I've always had," said Clovis coldly.

"I perfectly well remember meeting you at a luncheon-party given by your aunt," persisted Tarrington, who was beginning to flush an unhealthy shade of mottled pink.

"What was there for lunch?" asked Clovis.

"Oh, well, I don't remember that—"

"How nice of you to remember my aunt when you can no longer recall the names of the things you ate. Now my memory works quite differently. I can remember a menu long after I've forgotten the hostess that accompanied it. When I was seven years old I recollect being given a peach at a garden-party by some Duchess or other; I can't remember a thing about her, except that I imagine our acquaintance must have been of the slightest, as she called me a 'nice little boy,' but I have unfading memories of that peach. It was one of those exuberant peaches that meet you halfway, so to speak, and are all over you in a moment. It was a beautiful unspoiled product of a hothouse, and yet it managed quite successfully to give itself the airs of a compote. You had to bite it and imbibe it at the same time. To me there has always been something charming and mystic in the thought of that delicate velvet globe of fruit, slowly ripening and warming to perfection through the long summer days and perfumed nights, and then coming suddenly athwart my life in the supreme moment of its existence. I can never forget it, even if I wished to. And when I had devoured all that was edible of it, there still remained the stone, which a heedless, thoughtless child would doubtless have thrown away; I put it down the neck of a young friend who was wearing a very décolleté sailor suit. I told him it was a scorpion, and from the way he wriggled and screamed he evidently believed it, though where the silly kid imagined I could procure a live scorpion at a garden-party I don't know. Altogether, that peach is for me an unfading and happy memory—"

The defeated Tarrington had by this time retreated out of ear-shot, comforting himself as best he might with the reflection that a picnic which included the presence of Clovis might prove a doubtfully agreeable experience.

"I shall certainly go in for a Parliamentary career," said Clovis to himself as he turned complacently to rejoin his aunt. "As a talker-out of inconvenient bills I should be invaluable."

__________________

2: A Midnight Burlesque

James Francis Dwyer

1874-1952

The Cavalier, Jan 1910

THE north wind fought with the falling snowflakes as it charged down the black gulch between the tall apartment houses. It gathered the feathery atoms into triangular masses on windowsills and door-steps. It stampeded them into the cross-streets, and thrust the terror-laden flakes into the creases of the clothing of Mr. "Rat" Connors and Mr. "Jigger" Malone till the two hoboes cursed the strenuous pursuer. Snow, in itself, was nothing to grumble at, but snow whipped along by a wind that was unleashed at the pole was an annoyance which tried the optimism of the roving pair.

An electric globe at the door of The Perrington threw a wedge of light resembling a white tombstone across the sidewalk, and the two halted for a moment in the illuminated patch. Light and heat were kin, and the desire to stand was unanimous. The darkness seemed to intensify the penetrating power of the wind.

"Rat" lifted his felt hat with a jerk, and banged it against the polished pillar at the entrance of the big apartment house.

"Dis ain't snow," he growled. "Dis is der mudder an' der farder o' snow. Say, can't we inject ourselves inter der hall of one o' dese palashul cribs an' get warm while yer give the floor-walker some dope about yer friends as must have shifted?"

"Jigger" Malone climbed mournfully up the steps and pressed his nose against the glass door. "Jigger's" nose was a snub affair, and one imagined that glass doors were directly responsible for its stunted condition.

"Dere's half a mile of saddyater workin' overtime in dere," he growled, "an' dere's nobody to warm, only a fat colored guy who's dreamin' 'bout watermelons in der ellyvater."

Mr. Connors joined his mate on the top step, and while they surveyed the interior of the hall, the elevator attendant came suddenly to life, and sped upward in his cage. He returned in a few minutes, and an immaculately dressed young man stepped out of the elevator and came hurriedly toward the front door.

"Try a touch,' growled Connors. "Bite him 'fore he buttons his overcoat."

The young man stumbled through the door, muttering softly to himself, but he stopped suddenly when his eyes fell upon the two hoboes. He glanced quickly up and down the deserted street, then turned sharply upon the pair. "Jigger" Malone, who was on the point of expatiating on the unfinancial condition of himself and pal, checked himself suddenly as a question was fired pointblank at him.

"Do you two want a job?"

"Jigger" resented the inquiry. He had prepared a moving story for the ears of the stranger, and disgusted at the way in which the Fates had sidetracked him, he turned appealingly to it "Rat".

"Do we want a job?" he croaked.

Visions of hard work at snow shifting came up before the mental eve of Mr. Connors, and he debated for a minute while the stranger fidgeted uneasily.

"It depends on der job an' der kind of quartz she crushes," said "Rat" tentatively.

"It's a three-minute job," snapped the young man. "I just want you to move a piece of furniture, and I'll pay five dollars for the work."

"Den look on us as fully enlisted," murmured Mr. Connors genially, and next moment the two hoboes were following their employer to the elevator, wondering stupidly on the providential hand of destiny which had stayed their footsteps till the well-paid job was put within their reach.

The elevator attendant regarded the pair with questioning eyes, but the young man muttered a hasty explanation, and the cage whizzed up to the sixth floor. The philanthropic person stepped out quickly.

"Come on," he ordered, and the two outcasts shambled: after him down the corridor. The heat warmed them into life again. They exchanged winks and sundry facial twists to express their surprise at their good fortune, and rolled their eyes in wonder at the costly furnishings.

Their employer fumbled for a moment with the key of a door at the extreme end of the passage, then he passed into a dimly lit hall and beckoned them in, The surroundings were strange to Messrs. Malone and Connors. Magnificent oriental draperies were suspended from the walls, and the number of small art treasures that were immediately within the reach of "Jigger" caused a peculiar twitching in his fingers, and brought to his mind a similar attack in his early childhood when a goodnatured aunt had taken him into a toyshop to make a selection.

ii

HE WAS contemplating the advisability of stowing a small bronze Buddha into his coat-pocket while the young man was busy with the lock of a door leading off the hall, but the opportunity passed before he decided. His employer overcame the fastening, hustled them both into a large bedchamber, and after locking both the doors through which they had passed, turned on the light and gave his orders rapidly.

"Now, this is the job for you fellows," he cried. "See this big wardrobe? I want it moved out from the wall. Steady now! Lift together!"

The wardrobe was a huge mahogany affair, and it took the united efforts of the three to make it budge. " Rat" panted under the unusual efforts he was putting forth, while Malone was urged to extraordinary muscular exertion by the pictures which imagination painted of the pleasure-making possibilities of a five-dollar bill.

The piece of furniture came slowly from the wall, and the young man called a halt. He tried to wedge himself in between the wardrobe and the cedar dado, but the space was not sufficient.

"Just a few more inches," he cried. "Hurry up there! Grip hold!"

He halted them again, and finding that there was now space to spare, he disappeared behind the wardrobe, leaving "Rat" and "Jigger" standing in the center of the room.

The two hoboes glanced at each other and then at the bulky piece of furniture. The one question puzzled the two brains. What was he doing? The red eyes of Connors made the inquiry of Malone, and the shifty blue eyes of Malone asked it of Connors.

For a minute they stood thus, then the two became suddenly alert. The faint tinkle of metal came from behind the wardrobe, "Rat's" head was pushed snakily forward, and the look of curiosity fled. "Jigger" changed from one foot to the other and looked at his mate. An irresistible desire to exchange impressions came over them. They leaned toward each other. Malone whispered a word into Connors's ear, and Connors whispered the same word into the ear of Malone. The word was "tank". The faint tinkle had informed them that their employer was opening one of those wall-embedded safes which the landlords of high-class apartment-houses ingeniously assure their tenants can be hidden from the eyes of a burglar by placing a piece of furniture before them!

"Jigger" took a step forward; "Rat" kept pace with him. Greed lit up their eyes; their fingers twitched nervously. Quick glances carried questions and answers. Within a yard of them was an open safe, and they were two against one. Both remembered, at that moment, that their employer was a very slender person, and they wondered as they crept forward why he was so stupid as to bring them face to face with a temptation of such magnitude.

The head of Connors was within a few inches. of the end of the wardrobe when a noise in the hall through which they had entered the bedroom made him draw back suddenly and stand erect. Malone followed his example. A key had turned in the lock of the outer door, and they heard the voices of two people engaged in a loud conversation.

The sounds immediately brought their employer from his hiding-place. Tiptoeing hurriedly past the two hoboes, he pulled the chain of the electric light, and the room was plunged in darkness. "Rat" and "Jigger" were astounded. All their mental faculties had been concentrated on the one purpose, and the sudden movement of their employer left them helpless. Then a flash of realization came over them, and with parched lips they stared in horror at the situation which the action of the young man revealed. They had been engaged by a burglar!

The stranger verified their suspicions.

Reaching out in the darkness he gripped an arm of each, and drew them together with a whispered caution. For one terrible moment, the three stood in the center of the room expecting the bedroomdoor to fly open; then the burglar gave a little sigh of relief. The door of an adjoining room creaked on its hinges, and the voices died away in a soft buzzing noise as the speakers left the hall.

The two hoboes came to a full realization of their position by a joint snort of rage.

"Well, I'm dashed!" muttered Malone, but the hand of the burglar came quickly across his mouth and stifled any further comment.

"Shut up, you fool!" he hissed. "Sing Sing is pretty close to you if you're not careful."

Fierce hate was uppermost in the mind of the two, but the whispered words of the gentlemanly cracksman choked back their rage. They had to find a safe way out, and the nerve of the other so impressed them that they looked to him to provide it. They, of course, were innocent of any criminal intent, but the reputation of Messrs. Connors and Malone was in such a tattered condition that it could not adequately support such a plea in open court. They realized that without much mental labor. Aggrieved innocence was not a cloak that they could wear to advantage. Their only hope lay in the resourcefulness of the scoundrel who had trapped them, and, with the criminal's respect for courage and an inherited respect for the well-dressed man, they followed him cautiously to the window.

The burglar lifted the sash carefully and climbed out into the darkness. An easy retreat by means of a handy fireescape came up before the minds of the hoboes and lessened their fears as they followed him. 'The night was dark, and it was snowing heavily. From far below came the hoot of a nervous steamer feeling her way down the Hudson.

"Jigger" Malone shuffled forward a few inches, and groped nervously for the railing of the fire-escape which he thought was near, but the younger man thrust him roughly back.

"You darned fool!" he growled. "Where do you think you are? This is a stone coping about three feet wide, and there's nothing between you and eternity!"

iii

"JIGGER'S" knees weakened as he literally glued himself to the wet wall. They had come up six stories! An unprotected ledge three feet wide was between him and the horrible gulf of gloom where the air seemed to bulge and billow like waves made out of cotton batting dipped in ink! A fierce desire to tip the cause of the trouble into the chasm came over him, but he lacked the physical courage to support the hate.

The burglar stood for a moment reconnoitering. To the left the light from two different windows, the blinds of which were raised, fell across the coping, and made retreat in that direction decidedly dangerous. To the right everything was dark, and with a muttered order to Malone and Connors, the welldressed housebreaker started to work his way carefully along the slippery ledge.

"Rat" followed with a grow! of fury. "Jigger" turned for a moment to the window, and then, recognizing how hopeless it would be to escape through the hall, he crouched low and, with shoulder pressed close to the unsympathetic bricks, followed slowly.

A thousand forms of torture for the man who had betrayed himself and pal came up in his mind, while the fear of the abyss sickened him. The black depths seemed to reach up and grasp at him. His imagination painted the probable ending of the adventure, and he grasped Connors's leg in abject terror as the picture of his body hurtling through the air came up before his mental yision.

"Wot's up?" growled "Rat."

"Nothing,' gasped Malone. "Say, I— I wus jest thinkin' if I— I git out of dis alive, I'll—"

"Stow dat!' muttered the other "Leave dat part of der business till we finish dis akerybatic stunt we're doin'."

A gust of wind tore in from the river and clutched at Malone till he moaned in fear. His fingers groped madly along the wall, but the surface was murderous in its wet smoothness. The wind came between him and the bricks like a wedge that whistled contemptuously as he leaned over to resist its efforts. Imagination reveled in the ending which it saw in sight, and it furnished the eddying gusts with invisible hands which clutched at his worn garments. His boot slipped on a particle of ice, and he lowered himself hurriedly to his stomach.

For two minutes he lay flat, then the fear of being left alone urged him onward. On hands and knees he followed the other two. Once he attempted to rise, but the wind sprang at him. He pictured it waiting till an opportunity arrived to tear him from the ledge. It was alive, vicious, bloodthirsty.

The burglar and Connors had halted. They were conferring together in low tones, and Malone butted into them. in his hurry to make up for the time he had lost. Recovering himself with a little yelp of terror, he clutched " Rat's" leg and drew himself erect.

"Wot's up now?" he gurgled.

"Dere's a break in der flamin' copin', an' der fire-ladder is on der udder side of it," growled Connors. "It's too big to step over, an' it's risky work doin' long jumps up dis height."

Malone's lower jaw battered the upper one pitilessly. His knees weakened, and once more he sank to a sitting position upon the wet ledge. he possibility of a jump appalled him. To leave the coping for the briefest moment would give the wind the opportunity he knew it waited for. He swooned when he contemplated such a happening. He poured out blasphemy upon the head of the burglar till his dry lips refused to obey his wishes.

The burglar laughed softly as he listened to the tirade. With his keen eyes he had noted the position of the two hoboes when he darted round the wardrobe on the occasion of the alarm; and, although he had been prepared for such a contingency, the grim humor of the thing tickled him. The precious pair of rascals, who were ready to pounce upon him, were now being called upon to suffer the same anxiety for a contemplated crime as that which he was paying for the actual theft. The terror of Malone amused him immensely, but he tried to hide his enjoyment.

Standing on his tiptoes, the burglar reached up his hands and felt along the  wet wall. It was impossible to see anything twelve inches away.

"Say," he murmured, "I think we could get onto the roof from here. One of us would have to climb up on the other's shoulders. Once on the roof, we could easily get to the fire-escape."

"Yes," growled Connors, and there was suspicion in the muttered assent,

"Oh, I don't care which one of us goes up first," laughed the burglar; "but it's our only hope of getting out of this fix. On all of these tar roofs there are wooden gratings to walk on, and if we got one down here we could use it as a ladder to get up by."

"But s'pose der are none?" questioned Connors.

"Go down the fire-escape and find a rope,' answered the cracksman. " Here, you climb up on my shoulders and try it."

He turned his face to the wall and braced his legs apart Connors cursed quietly. His nerves were not in a nice state, now that he was standing on the ledge; but the thought of climbing up the young man's back into the darkness sent a thrill up his spine. He remembered that he was a heavy man compared to the burglar, whose slimness had attracted his attention: when he was engaged to shift the wardrobe. Connors turned to Malone to suggest that he act as the human ladder, but Malone gibbered fear-stricken protests.

"Took here," cried Connors, turning to the burglar, "will you do der fair thing if I let you climb up?"

The other laughed carelessly as he listened to "Jigger's" condemnation of his mate's proposal. "Of course I will," he answered. "Do you think I'd leave you two poor devils here? If there is nothing up there, I'll go down the escape and get a rope."

Connors meditated a moment. If two climbed up on the shoulders of the third, something was necessary to pull up the man left on the ledge, and the burglar's proposition seemed to be their only hope.

"Come on," he growled, and, turning his face to the wall, he leaned inward and braced his legs.

The cracksman was evidently free from nerve troubles. Using the crouching Malone as a footstool, he climbed onto Connors's shoulders and reached up into the darkness. His fingers clutched the coping, and he gave a little gurgle of relief.

"Straighten yourself easy," he called down softly, and, in obedience to the order, Connors shuffled his feet slowly forward till he stood upright. The weight of the burglar rested solidly-on his shoulders for a minute; then the muscles stiffened, and the legs went up into the black void.

iv

"RAT" stepped cautiously aside. If the climber failed to drag his body up, there was no hope: for him. If -he dropped back onto the coping, the inevitable stagger would precipitate him into the gulf. es

Malone's teeth beat out a jig tune as he listened to the boots of the burglar scratching the wall far up above him. The suspense was agony. He hurt his shoulders by pressing them against the bricks.

"He's doin' it,' muttered Connors. "He'll get there—"  He stopped with an oath and clutched at the wall. A small packet clattered down from above and fell with a metallic ring on the coping. Connors stooped down and, groping forward in the snow, clutched a small steel box about nine inches square. It had fallen from the clothes of the climber when he was struggling to get his legs over the ridge of the roof. Connors gave a little gasp of joy. The vision of the safe behind the heavy wardrobe came into his mind, and he gurgled like a child. He held the jewel-case that the burglar had stolen.

"Say!" The voice came down from the roof, and the hobo noted the anxiety in the tone.

"Well?" growled Connors.

"Did you get that box?"

"Wot box?"

"The box I dropped."

"No."

There was silence on the roof for the space of a minute, then the angry voice of the burglar broke the silence.

"You liar!" he cried. " Own up that you have it, or I'll knock you off the ledge with a lump of wood."

Malone stuttered in terror. The new danger horrified him.

"I haven't got yer box!" screamed Connors. "It went into the yard."

The burglar cursed deeply. He had heard the box strike the coping, and felt certain that one of the hoboes had possessed himself of it when it fell.

Connors dropped on his knees by the side of Malone, and, catching hold of his mate's hand, guided it over the surface of the box.

"Outer der tank," he whispered.  "Dere's diamonds in dis! "

"Are you going to give that up?" cried the cracksman. "Answer quick, or I'm throw a plank down on the pair of you."

"We haven't got it," growled Connors. "Go an' do wot yer promised to do."

'The burglar rushed away in search of a missile to throw at the defiant. hobo, and Connors lost no time in trying to get himself out of the danger zone. Connors without the jewel-box might have hesitated to jump the gap, but Connors with the jewel-box was a different person.

He grabbed Malone by the shoulder 'and shook him fiercely.

"Quick!" he cried. "Git up, you fool! We'll jump the hole an' dodge him down der fire-stairs. Git up!"

Malone chattered obscenely, but Connors felt his way to the edge of the gap. He knew the man on the roof was positive that he had the box, and he knew well the terms on which he would be rescued, even if the burglar's better judgment stopped him from fulfilling his threat.

He struck a match and held it out over the gulf. The gap was only six feet wide, but the snow on the ledge rendered the leap a difficult one. Connors shrank back from it, yet the jewel-case, clasped to his breast,nerved him to the effort.

He scrambled back to Malone, and cursed him so vigorously that his nerve partly returned to him. It was a case of do or die. If they didn't take the leap, the probability was that the angry burglar would throw something down upon their heads in revenge. Help from him was: now out of the question, and safety lay in the leap.

Standing on the edge of the gulf, Connors walked backward four paces, took a long breath, and then, with a wild rush, sprang into the darkness.

He landed on his heels, skated madly along the wet stone, and miraculously clutched the ladder of the fire-escape when on the very edge of the narrow platform. His escape was a marvelous one.

For a moment he sat up and wiped his brow, and in that second he wondered why he had thought it cold when he pulled up in front of The Perrington. He was perspiring. Cautiously he went back over the toboggan-slide to the edge of the gap and called softly across it to his mate. Malone answered with a little whine of terror.

"Come on!" cried Connors. "If he don't murder yer he'll git yer fifteen years in the pen when he starts to throw things at yer. Say when yer comin', an' I'll be ready to grab yer.'

He moved back from the edge, threw himself flat on his stomach and, with his head turned to the gulf, waited for his mate to jump.

A minute passed—two, three. Connors was annoyed. Out of the darkness above him he thought he heard sounds, and fears of his own safety came uppermost in his mind.

"I'll give yer another minute," cried. "Look out! The tank-buster is coming!"

A shrill cry of fear came to Connors out of the black void, then Malone's boots slipped along the coping and struck him in the face as he gripped his legs to save him from falling off the ledge.

"You're right," he muttered. "H-s-h— he's speaking! Don't make a sound. Catch hold of me coat an' follow me down der ladder."

IT WAS nearly sunrise next morning when the two hoboes halted in a little clump of trees near Spuyten Duyvil. One must travel with much circumspection in the early hours, and the precious box carried by Connors made the two extra careful not to attract attention in their flight from The Perrington.

Connors laid the box down on the grass, while he hammered at a piece of iron in an endeavor to convert it into a makeshift jimmy with which to open the treasure-case.

In their wild tramp their imaginations had pictured it as the repository of great wealth.

"Diamonds for sure," muttered Connors, inserting the sharp end of the piece of iron.

"An' pearls an' things like dat," murmured Malone.

The lock groaned as the lever bit. The muscles of the two became taut, and their eyes bulged. The lid twisted, and then, with a sudden jerk, it flew wide open.

The heads of the two hobocs were thrust down to within a few inches of the plush-covered interior. They stared at it in blind astonishment, and then, to make sure that their eyes were not playing any tricks with them, they allowed their dirty fingers to grope over the emptiness of it.

Connors shook the box, knocked it on the ground, then, with a curse, flung it down the hill.

"Say," he growled, " wasn't it a pity we didn't ask der guy for der five-spot he promised us after we had lifted der heavyweight rag-box in der room?"

But "Jigger" Malone was too ill to answer the inquiry.

___________________

3: The Woman With The Wolves

Bertram Atkey

1880-1952

Adventure, October 1911

1: Missing

IF YOU go through the glades and green tree-tunnels round about that triangular iron monument erected to commemorate the spot in the New Forest where the Red King was killed by an arrow glancing from a tree, and from that place proceed westerly—leaning perhaps a little south—you will open up a region of wide bleak spaces, where there are no oak and beech and elm, but only sparse heather and fir, with patches of plcntifully- spined gorse. It is desolate in that place and you may go many miles without encountering anything living other than forest ponies, a few yellowhammers, an occasional hurrying pigeon, here and there a lonely lark fleeing from under your feet, and, not infrequently, vipers in and about the marshy places.

In mid-Winter, when a black frost has glazed the snow, this part of the forest has something remotely Russian about it in a small but effective way.

It was in that neighborhood, then, that the affair I have made it my business to relate took place. My friend Torrance, who is an extremely out-door man, has a rather elaborate bungalow there and it was the third time I had come down to pass the beginning of a New Year with him.

He had not come personally to the little country station, just outside the Hampshire boundary of the forest, to meet me. His man—old Gregg—had driven in for me and, unemotional though Gregg knows how to be, I think that he was more than usually pleased to see me.

"Mr. Charles' cough is bad to-day," said Gregg, reaching for my bag. "It's the frost nips his chest."

I believe I heard a resentful mutter of "Cigarettes" as the huge old man turned, handling the big bag as though it were no more than a fan. Under the flickering oil lamps of the wayside station I fancied Gregg's face-looked hard and a little anxious.

We climbed into the little slipper-shaped car.

"I've got to get a few things in the village," said Gregg, as we dropped like a toboggan down the hill that leads sharply from the station. "Owbridge's lung tonic, cigarette-papers, ink, and salt butter," I heard him say to himself as we pulled up at the narrow-windowed, lamp-flickering general shop of the village.

Gregg never writes down a message or list of requirements—and never forgets them. But he forgets nothing—and, I sincerely believe, knows everything—worth knowing. Just as he can do everything—worth doing. Old Gregg is about the only man-servant of my acquaintance that I find myself able to like and respect at the same time.

A man with a piece of bacon under his arm came out of the shop as we slid to a standstill. He was talking over his shoulder and paused a second on the threshold.

"Heard tell of bloodhounds cornin' over from Sal'sb'ry Plain to-morra," he said to some one inside the shop.

Old Gregg suddenly stiffened, half-turning his head to catch the reply. His face looked white and worried in the wavy, uncertain lamplight.

"Ah, be 'em, now," droned some one from behind the piled counter. "Take a main host of bloodhounds to find Major Stark, I'd reckon. Nivver heard much good of they things."

The man with the bacon guffawed, came noisily out of the shop, and swung off down the windy street.

"Only keep you a minute, sir," said old Gregg, and passed in under the jangling doorbell.

"Good evenin', Must' Gregg," came the drawl of the shopkeeper, again. " Main cold out to th' Forest, I reckon."

Gregg nodded and spoke quietly.

"And so you'm havin' the bloodhounds out your way to-morra,—they tell me," continued the other garrulously, reaching about his shelves. "Not that they'll do a lot of good. Reckon the Major knows the forest too well to lose his way out there— sober."

The shopkeeper—a little, bald, beady-eyed wisp of a man—shot a look of rustic cunning at tall hard-bitten old Gregg.

"We folk—butcher, baker, tinker and tailor—'ud do as well as bloodhounds to find 'im, I'd reckon, Mr. Gregg, and good cause most of 'em got." He leaned forward across his counter. "I've heard tell the Major owes a matter of three to four hundred pound in the village alone. Now he's gone. Take a main of bloodhounds to find he, Mr. Gregg."

The shopkeeper cackled cunningly as he passed over Gregg's change. I took it that a resident in the district was missing—some, apparently, believing that it was a case for bloodhounds, others that it was a case for creditors. I asked Gregg, as the. little car began her climb up to the Forest level.

"It's a Major John Stark, sir," said Gregg, staring straight in front of him. "He disappeared a few days' ago. His horse was found on the road near Stony Cross Hotel—without a rider. They think he intended riding out to No-Man's Court. He was the owner. It is let now to a Russian lady—a Princess, I think. From what she has told the police, it looks as though Major Stark never reached the house that day. He had been there before, but not that day— she said."

Old Gregg turned, and I had an instinct that he had given a little, tight-lipped smile.

"It's a mystery, sir. Mr. Charles will know more about it than I do."

We had topped the long hill and the little car set her droning nose to the Forest. It was bitterly cold and now we seemed to be traveling along an illimitable white road flung across unfathomable canyons of darkness.

I sank down among the heavy furs Torrance had sent for me—although he is a dreamer, Torrance can be very practical— and listened to the strident wind. Our lights ate into the darkness like a white-hot graving-tool eating into soft black stuff; twice I saw little shadowy dark things flicker across the road—rabbits, I supposed they were; occasionally I caught, or imagined I caught, the smell of the busy motor in front, hot and oily; and once we passed a wee spot of light with a shadow behind it—  a belated cyclist hurrying out from the desolation of the wind-haunted flats that we were now traversing.

The rush of keen, clean air was making me drowsy when a few yellow lights lifted suddenly away to the right, dodging, darting and flickering behind trees.

"No-Man's Court already?" I said. We had been coming quicker than I had known.

Gregg did not answer for a minute, for just then the little car seemed to falter, to hang in her stride, and Gregg's hand slipped from the wheel to a lever. The car stopped and the wind seemed to hush for a moment, holding its breath, as though to say "What's this?"

"Nothing much," said Gregg, and got out. He opened the bonnet of the car and put his hand into the nest of cylinders and things.

I turned to the lights of No-Man's Court. Even as I looked there came quavering up to me, riding uncertainly on the wind, as it were, a curiously startling sound. There was a sort of remote melody in it, but also there was pain, and desire, and hopelessness, and something very evil. It came again and quite suddenly my blood ran cold.

"Good Heavens! What's that, Gregg?" And I recognized a sort of entreaty for reassurance in my voice.

Gregg looked up. His face was as white in the lamp-glare as I knew mine to be. But before he replied, the sound floated up again —louder this time—and I knew.

It was the howling of wolves.

Wolves—in the New Forest! There was an explanation somewhere. Gregg climbed in again and I demanded that explanation.

It was quite simple—the Russian lady at No-Man's Court kept a dozen of them— pets, just as other women keep little dogs, or birds, monkeys or even lizards. Gregg professed to be quite used to hearing their eery serenades—which made it increasingly difficult to understand his sudden pallor.

Then away to the left the lights of Torrance's bungalow burned friendly through the dark and swung steadily toward us.

2: The Man At The Casement

OLD Gregg had been pale and his hard face drawn, but his eyes had been cool and steady. Torrance, too, was pale, but his eyes were restless and bright—haunted. He was good-looking as ever, in his thin, aquiline, dark style, but he was changed in some vague, intangible way. All the old humor was gone. Perhaps that is what I missed.

Almost the first thing he told me was that he had not worked for months. I must explain that he is a poet and essayist—he is rich enough to afford the luxury of writing verse for its own sake; that he spends a little of each year in London, moving among people of all kinds from leader-writers to stevedores, cabinet ministers to Punch-and-Judy proprietors, Rabbis to racing-tipsters; that from London he drifts lazily abroad, perhaps to some corner of the Continent, perhaps farther afield; but always the late Autumn brings him, not less surely than it brings the first few woodcock and snipe, to his bungalow on the western moors of the New Forest.

There, with old Gregg, who served his father before him (in one of the Dragoon regiments), Torrance sorted, classified and, I suppose, pondered upon his experiences of the year, wrote, read and dreamed.

Women had never seemed to attract him. Like many dreamers, he had, I think, set up a quite impossible ideal and was content to await her coming.

He lost nothing but the streets and the people by wintering in the forest, for Gregg was a wonderful cook, and thanks to a huge, humming and immensely business-like oil engine. carefully housed at the back of the bungalow, there were such aids to comfort as electric lights, hot water, perfect water supply and so forth.

Torrance was thirty, in perfect health, save for a trifling cigarette cough, tall as old Gregg—that is, a fraction over six feet—but shapelier, and until this New Year I had always considered him languidly happy. But now he sat at supper with me, eating nothing, smoking a great deal, and obviously nervous and uneasy to the point of irritability. Three times I looked up to find his eyes fixed in a sort of uncomfortable reverie upon a photograph on the mantel. The third time this happened I got up deliberately—  I have known Torrance intimately for many  years—crossed over and studied the picture.  It was that of a woman. She looked to be about thirty years old, and was extraordinarily beautiful, a kind of keen, wild beauty thatstung one into interest. The photograph  had been taken in Petersburg, but there was nothing Russian in the woman's beauty.

I sat down again, saying nothing. There was a queer little smile on Torrance's lips, and he began to tell me of a strange custom he had discovered in the Spring of the Old Year among the French charcoal burners. (I believe it was the French charcoal burners, but I am not sure.) I was not listening. I was wondering whether the woman in the picture were the woman with the wolves and what she had to do with Torrance.

He saw that almost at once, for he drained his glass suddenly, drew in his breath, and spoke in quite a different voice.

"I'll tell you the story—part of it—after supper," he said, and his voice trembled. "I must tell some one." I heard the note of desperate impatience and finished my supper then and there.

"Come on, then," I said, took a cigar, and lay back in a chair before the big fire.

I heard old Gregg come silently in behind me and begin to clear the table. Torrance looked into the fire for a long time, thinking. He seemed to be seeking, the proper beginning of the story he was going to tell. Presently he laughed a little bitterly.

"I can only tell you about the affair from my own point of view," he said. " I am in it— in a sort of uninvited, superfluous way. But, really, I am little more than an onlooker."

He waited again. Old Gregg put a couple of decanters, cigarettes and a cigar-box on the table, and spoke quietly. It occurred to me that a tremor lay under his voice.

"Excuse me, Mr. Charles," he said.

Torrance turned.

"From what I heard in the village to night, they are bringing out some of Colonel Shafto's bloodhounds from Salisbury Plain to-morrow," said old Gregg, watching his master's face.

Torrance winced a little, and a slow flush crept up over his cheeks. He looked steadily at old Gregg and there was a queer silence for a few seconds. Then Torrance took a cigarette.

"Thank you, Gregg," he said, and turned to me. "Have you ever seen bloodhounds at work? If not, you'll be interested. There's a―"

Suddenly some one tapped at the casement door behind the heavy

curtains—rattled would be a better word to describe the panic-stricken scrabble on the glass—and a quavering voice called from the darkness outside.

Gregg was at the casement in an instant. He shot back the bolts, turned the catch, and a man, panting like a hunted thing, fell into the room.

"They nearly got me—hairy, rank  things—great eyes and teeth!" he sobbed. "Look at my coat!"

He stood in the lamp-light, his face gray with fear and exhaustion, his eyes wide with terror. I remember that his mouth hung half-open like that of a frightened child. His face was veiled, as it were, with a network of tiny red scratches—as though he had fallen again and again into gorse. One shoulder of his coat was ripped to ribbons —the fragments hung down over his shaking arm.

Torrance gave him half a tumbler of cognac, and the stark fear slowly faded out of his eyes. Then, all suddenly, he straightened himself and looked round the room with a quick, curiously official glance. I guessed then what he was. Detective-Inspector was stamped all over him—the hard, capable but blunt, rough-cut face, the close-clipped mustache, the short hair, the square shoulders, the quiet blue Melton overcoat.

Quite recovered from his panic, he gave a hard-lipped smile as Torrance laughed.

"I warned you, Inspector," said Torrance.

"And I wish I'd taken your warning, Mr. Torrance! That was the nearest squeak I've ever had."

"The wolves, I suppose?" asked Torrance casually. "You were a fool to risk it. I told you they might be loose."

The Inspector looked at Torrance rather queerly, I thought.

"I believe they were only loosed for my special benefit," he said dryly.

"Oh, that's impossible," said Torrance. "Tell me about it. Take another drink and sit down."

Before he sat down the Inspector went to the casement windows, pulling the curtains to behind him, and stared out for many minutes into the night. Then he came slowly back, shaking his head slightly.

"It's a queer place to get lost in—this New Forest is," he said.

Then he took something silver from his pocket and handed it to Torrance. It looked like a cigar-case. It had been flattened and was terribly dented—as though it had been stamped upon with heavy hobnailed boots.

"Why, what's this, Waynill?" asked Torrance in a tone of surprise.

The detective smiled.

"Major Stark's cigar-case," he said. "I found it out in the forest to-day."

Torrance laughed again, and, looking very steadily at the detective, shook his head in turn.

"I'm sorry to spoil your effect, Inspector," he said. " But it happens to be mine. I lost it a week or more ago. Some one seems to have trodden on it."

He noted the sudden doubt on the Inspector's face, and turned to Gregg, who had been hovering about the sideboard.

"Gregg—what cigar-case is this?"

The old man took it, looked well at it and handed it back.

"Yours, sir—the one you lost ten days ago." He looked at the Inspector, his old face grim and hard in the lamplight. "If there were any cigars in it when you found it, sir, they would be the same brand as these." He pushed the open box on the table to the Inspector, who took one out and looked carefully at the narrow green, red and gold band. He shrugged his broad shoulders with an air of good-humored resignation and took from an inside pocket an envelope containing four cigars, crushed almost to shreds. There were four bands on them—three ragged and one intact. He handed them over to Torrance—who lazily compared the bands with those on the cigars in the box.

"Yes, the same cigars of course,"

"Try one—out of the box, Inspector. We'll call it a reward, if you like."

The Inspector grinned ruefully.

"I'll take the reward," he said, reaching

for it, "but you've spoiled a very good clue

—between you. Can't you throw a wash in

with the reward, Mr. Torrance? " he added.

"Why, of course. Gregg will show you the bathroom."

The Inspector followed the old man out.

I had remained very silent—knowing what I knew. For instance, I

was aware that Torrance had always resolutely refused to carry a cigar-case. He objected to take them on account of their size. He rarely smoked cigars at all. But evidently the Inspector did not share my knowledge.

I leaned over to him. "Is that your cigar-case? " I whispered.

He shook his head furtively.

"Whose, then?" I insisted, impatient with curiosity.

Torrance put his lips to my ear.

"Stark's," he breathed, his eyes glittering through half-closed lids.

"But the cigars—did he smoke the same brand as yours? "

Torrance shook his head.

" No. The cigars Inspector Waynill found in the case were from my box. I gave them to him the morning he disappeared. No body seems to have seen him alive after he left here. At least nobody has come for ward yet."

"And he did leave here alive— you'll never persuade me otherwise, Torrance," I said uncomfortably. "Did he say where he was going?"

Torrance glanced at the photograph of the woman on the mantelpiece. If possible, he had become paler than ever.

"He was going to her—to No-Man's Court," he whispered dryly. There was horror in his eyes.

Then we heard the Inspector coming down the passage and Torrance began to describe the ingenuities of his willing domestic slave at the back—the oil-engine.

The Inspector was quite himself again now—stolid, heavily humorous, tenacious, but, I thought, not too intelligent. He lighted his postponed cigar, mixed himself a drink and told us the story of his day's work.

3: Mary

THERE'S something queer about this disappearance," said the Inspector. "It might be anything from an ordinary 'flit' from a crowd of creditors to"—he hesitated for the fraction of a second— "murder. I'm not sure that I ought to be talking about it even to you, Mr. Torrance."

He chuckled rather heavily. "If I hadn't known you and your man in town for the last ten years, I'm not sure that I shouldn't ask you a lot of questions that would sound a bit suggestive."

Torrance laughed very naturally.

"My dear man, ask 'em now. I've always wanted to see how the police work," he said.

The detective's chuckle deepened.

"Well, to tell the truth, I've asked 'em already. What I haven't asked, you've volunteered one way or another," he answered.

"Oh!" Torrance looked a little blank.

And, privately, I withdrew a good deal of my opinion that this burly Scotland Yarder was not too intelligent. And I did so with some relief, for it was clear, in that case, that the detective did not associate Torrance with the disappearance of Major Stark. If he did, then I was very certain that he would not be sitting there telling us of his day's work.

"I don't know whether bloodhounds are much good at tracking a man on horseback," began the Inspector again, "but if they are, we might see something interesting to-morrow. There are one or two very queer things out there." He jerked his head, indicating the forest; then paused, staring with somber, thoughtful eyes into the fire as old Gregg entered, carefully bearing a wineglass filled with a brown, heavy-looking liquid.

"Your Owbridge's, Mr. Charles," he said gravely, handing the mixture to Torrance.

Gregg was a firm believer in the medicine and, I have no doubt, insisted on Torrance's taking a dose every time he dared to cough. And I am not sure that Gregg was very far wrong.

"What I want to find out," said Inspector Waynill, half to himself, "is the person who has been cutting turf out there at this time of the year and why he did it."

To this day I marvel that the Inspector did not notice the sudden start of old Gregg at these words. He was too rapt in thought, I suppose. For a second the old man be came flaccid. The wineglass slid out of his hand and cracked softly on the thick carpet. He recovered himself instantly, muttered an apology to Torrance's "Gregg! Gregg! You weren't looking, you know!" and went quietly out. But I saw the keen old eyes flash doubtfully at the broad back of the Inspector as Gregg left the room.

"That's it—whose been cutting turf and why? It's rotten bad turf, anyhow," repeated Waynill, looking up.

"The first thing I did this morning was to follow the tracks of Major Stark's horse from your gate, Mr. Torrance. It was comparatively soft weather four days ago— the day he disappeared, but it's been freezing ever since and in some places the horse tracks arc as clear as if they had been molded in plaster of Paris. It's a pity the ground was too hard that day to take boot-marks. Well, the hoofs led me straight to a spot about midway between here and that big house—No-Man's Court—over there. At this spot there's been a lot of turf cut and removed. The Major seems to have ridden up to the edge of the cut turf and then altered his mind and instead of going on turned off to the left at right angles.

The Inspector took out a small note-book and showed us a rough plan.

"You'll see what I mean if you can follow that," he continued. " 'B '—the shaded part —is the place from which the turf was cut— it's just a patch of peaty mold. 'A ' is where the Major's horse came to it, and 'C' is where the horse left it. Now that turf was removed after the Major rode away from the place, because there are no hoof-marks on the mold."

"Perhaps the Major jumped over the mold patch," suggested Torrance.

The Inspector shook his head.

"No—I thought of that. If he had, the hoof-marks would have been deeper at 'C ' where the horse would have landed, and for a few strides, at any rate, the direction of the hoof-marks would have been straight on—  in the same line as at 'A'. But they aren't —they go off at 'C' from the edge of the cut turf at right angles. So, unless the horse turned in the air—which is unlikely—Major Stark did not jump the patch. And if he didn't jump it, the patch wasn't there. You follow that."

We nodded.

"Now at 'A' the horse was cantering. At 'C' he was galloping like the―!"

"What!" I think we spoke together.

The detective smiled and wagged his head.

"Any farmer's boy could see that from the hoof-marks. And that's another thing I want to know. Why did Major Stark canter up to Mark 'A,' turn suddenly at 'B,' and gallop off hell-for-leather at 'C'? And did any time elapse between the change from cantering to galloping? That's it, gentlemen—What happened at 'B'? Was anything spilt on the turf that made it necessary to remove it—blood, for in stance? Or was anything buried at that spot and the turf cut to hide the traces of digging?"

Waynill paused again, brooding. Mentally, I unreservedly withdrew the whole of my opinion as to the Inspector's intelligence.

"Well," he roused himself once more, "whatever happened, the horse galloped away either with or without his rider. So I followed his tracks—they were the only fresh tracks about the place—I had a thorough look round for them. But I only found your cigar-case, Mr. Torrance."

"Yes, it would be somewhere about there that I lost it," said Torrance com

posedly.

" Oh, it was a good three hundred yards farther on," corrected Waynill. "It was quite tarnished and discolored. Lying in the middle of a kind of rough cattle-track. Considering that we've had no rain for the last week you must have lost it at least ten days ago for it to have become so discolored."

There was a queer dryness in his tone and Torrance stared.

"I see," he said. "If it had been less tarnished and nearer the patch of cut turf, you would have―"

"Asked you a question or two which are not necessary now."

Torrance shrugged. "See how nearly I have approached a new experience, Herapath," he said, smiling across at me.

The detective slowly helped himself to another whisky and soda.

"The cigar-case was not the only thing I found before I followed up the tracks of the horse," he said, and dipped two fing ers into a waistcoat pocket and brought out a tiny gold locket. We craned forward.

"It was under a little clump of heather near the edge of the cut turf," he said. "And it has not tarnished at all. That is another thing I want to know. Who is the owner of this locket? " He touched a spring and the little ornament opened. "And," he continued, his heavy face suddenly grim, "and just who these two young people are. You don't happen to know them, Mr. Torrance, I suppose?"

Torrance took the locket and looked at tentively at the two people. Then he shook his head and passed it to me.

"I'm afraid I can't help you, Waynill," he said. "They look very young—but you have probably noticed that for yourself," half satirically. "I haven't the remotest idea as to who they may be."

I looked at the two faces. They were those of a young man of about twenty-five —handsome enough but arrogant looking, and of a girl, thin, dark-eyed, with wild hair. She looked to be about eighteen years old. The photographs were somewhat faded and seemed to have been cut from a rough snapshot and fitted to the locket. Curiously enough, there was something vaguely familiar to me in the face of the girl. It was as though I had seen a picture of her, in one of the illustrated weeklies, for instance, a week or so before. But I could not reproduce that picture quite perfectly in my mind.

"It is rather a queer thing," I said, "but I seem to know that girl's face. I haven't the least notion where or when or under what circumstances. It is more than likely that she remotely resembles some one I have interviewed, or whose picture I have seen in a periodical."

Waynill turned to me with a quick interest.

"That is exactly how I feel about it," he said.

I turned the locket over. There was no monogram, but round the upper rim was engraved, "To Mary from Jack." I read it aloud and returned the locket to the detective. Torrance had risen and was playing with the things on the mantelpiece. I chanced to look at the mantel, when presently he sat down— and the photo of the woman that was taken in Petersburg was gone.

"Of course, Major Stark's name is John. That would be 'Jack' to his girl," said the detective. "I thought of that this morning, out there. If this boy is Stark, it is Stark as he was ten years ago, judging from the latest photo of him. It struck me that I might do worse than hunt for 'Mary'— grown ten years or so older. Now this locket belonged to 'Mary' anyhow—men don't carry lockets much and it's inscribed to her, and it's not altogether crazy to assume that 'Mary' dropped the locket. At any rate there's a chance of it. Now, this isn't London where there's a hundred Marys to the acre. This is the New Forest, where there's about one to the square mile, and I fancy that one of these Marys could tell us a good bit about Major John Stark if we can find her.

"That's the conclusion I had come to by the time I had finished tracking that horse's hoofs from the patch of cut turf. It was easy enough to follow where he went, al though it twisted and turned in the most aimless fashion. No horse with a rider on its back would have twisted about like it.

"I followed the track for about seven hours to-day and it brought me out to the highroad near the Stony Cross Hotel. It was the hostler of that hotel who found the horse without a rider. I went into the hotel and had something to eat and thought it over. Then I saw the hostler. Now, listen a moment, gentlemen!" The tone of the detective had taken on an edge, a keenness. He was speaking now quickly, tensely, as a man hot on the trail of another speaks. Torrance was watching him intently.

"Major Stark left here at eleven in the morning. He cantered straight toward the spot where the turf has been cut. He got there say at eleven-twenty. Then there's a blank— so much time unaccounted for. Presently his horse gallops away from the spot—gallops say three miles, and then drifts about, feeding here and there, just wandering; and eventually strikes the hard road. He drifts up to the hotel at about four o'clock, just as it was getting dark, the groom said. Nothing much seems to have been done to find out what became of the Major until next morning. Then the groom, starting at nine, followed up the tracks of the horse from his end and arrived at the cut patch of turf at about two o'clock, and from there came to this house.

"He didn't seem to learn much from the cut turf, but it helped me. For I had examined it, as you know, and, after my talk with the hostler to-day, I know that the turf was cut between eleven-thirty last Monday and two o'clock on Tuesday. Allowing four hours for cutting—it's a fair-sized patch— we find that the Major vanished between eleven-thirty Monday and ten o'clock Tuesday. It's not much to know, perhaps, but it's something. Particularly if 'Mary,' whenever we find her or any of her men folk has such a thing as a recently used turf spade."

The detective shook his head

" I wish I'd arrived at Stony Cross Hotel on Monday instead of Wednesday," he said. "If only I'd decided to see Rufus' Stone before Stonehenge, it would have made a difference."

I gathered that Waynill had been taking a bleak holiday seeing the sights of Wiltshire and Hampshire, when, arriving at Stony Cross Hotel (the hostelry nearRufus' Stone), he had chanced upon the mysterious disappearance of Major Stark.

"Well, the next thing was to see if I could find 'Mary,' or at any rate, the owner of the locket, and it seemed to me that I couldn't go far wrong if I started among the maids at the only house with women in it near the spot—No-Man's Court. As there's been enough time wasted in this case as it is, although it was nearly dark when I started, I set off to have a look at the household at No-Man's Court."

4: The Man At The Wolf-Dens

"I HAD been told about the wolves that the Princess keeps— queer pets, but I've heard of queerer," he continued, "and I don't mind admitting that if I'd brought a revolver I should have dropped it in my pocket before I started from the hotel. I'm not one of the brave ones where wild animals are concerned. I'm not ashamed to admit that bad-tempered big dogs worry me if I'm unarmed, and the fear of the wolf seems to me to be thoroughly implanted into every kiddie before he gets away from his mother's apron-strings. Red Riding Hood and all that stuff—I suppose it's something that's come down generation by generation from the time when mothers really did have to warn their youngsters against real wolves. Anyhow, they make me nervous. Still, I understood from the people at the hotel that they were tame enough and that the Princess always had 'em kept well under control, so I started off.

"It was pretty gloomy by the time I got there and an occasional howl—sort of sorrowful—that I heard as I approached the house along the private road didn't cheer me up. I remember I hoped I should get on well with the Princess. I felt that I wanted friends—you know how these great black spaces make a townman feel, and the night, where there are no trees, is like a great black mouth and you're walking into it.

"Then you come to a lot of stark naked firs and, if there's any wind, they moan at you and the heather and bracken hisses and chuckles under your feet. It gives me the hump. I prefer a murder investigation in and about streets and houses to one in a forest round about a dark old haunted-looking mansion ten miles from anywhere and with a dozen wolves singing mournful lullabies to themselves round the back.

"I sent in my card, marked 'urgent,' and a string of reasonably humble verbal apologies. I don't know whether the butler offered up the apologies or not but he came back regretting that the Princess was  'indisposed and unable to see me.' I could see Madame Dolgourki however. I gathered that Madame was a kind of lady secretary to the Princess and I saw her. She was very amiable. She had known Major Stark, she said, and was very upset about his disappearance. I believe she was sincere. The Princess was very anxious that I should be given every assistance, she explained, and— what could she do for me?

"Well, I ran through a list of the maid servants, and Madame had them paraded before me one by one. I had the 'Mary' locket before me on the table. I saw them all, from a splendid old white-haired house keeper (she was like an elderly clergyman's wife) down to a strapping, big under housemaid. Not one of them could have been ' Mary.' You know there's a touch of blood about the girl in the locket. At least she looks different from the ordinary run of girls.

"Well, that finished my business at No-Man's Court. I wasn't badly disappointed, for I had not expected to find my lady of the locket right away, and, anyway, I couldn't quite see why I should connect Major Stark with one of the staff of a Russian princess who is visiting England for a year or so. It struck me as curious that with the exception of Madame Dolgourki and the Princess every woman in the house should be English. But, after all, that's their affair. I had noticed a big colored photograph on a table, and when we had finished the servant's parade I took a look at it, with Madame's permission. It was a portrait of the Princess,in all her glory, trown or tiara, robes, ermine, jewels. She's wonderful. In my business we come across some beautiful women, but the Princess Komorzekovna, if that photo spoke the truth, is the most beautiful woman I ever remember seeing.

"I ventured to say as much to Madame. But, after all, the Princess wasn't 'Mary.' That child is unusual enough in her way, but she couldn't have grown into such a woman. So I thanked Madame and prepared to get out. My back was to the window and Madame was facing me. Just as she rose her face changed, the way a woman's face changes when she sees some one behind you she recognizes. I turned pretty quickly, just in time to see a whitish blue disappear from the window.

" 'The man Lovell!' said Madame. 'Oh, but I recognized him. He was peering in.'

"It struck me as funny and I asked a few questions. Who was Lovell and why was he so anxious to see me? I knew, of course, that the servant's hall would be humming with gossip, but it did not strike me that any ordinary servant would be so keen to look at me as to climb a veranda and peer in through the window.

" Lovell, it seems, is the kennel-man and wolf-keeper at No-Man's Court. Madame does not like him. Once or twice, it appears, she has noticed him staring too familiarly at the Princess. She told me he was always quiet, willing, deferential, and very capable in his line. But Madame dislikes him. She thinks he's a Gipsy. Well, there wasn't much in that—women are curious about men staring; sometimes it's right, some times it's wrong—but I thought I'd take a look at Mr. Lovell on my way home.,.

"I bowed myself out and asked the butler where I could find Lovell. He told me to go to the kennel-house, and pointed to a light at the back of the house (we had come out of a side door) and left me to find my own way. I think his dignity was hurt at the idea of a detective running his eye over the maids.

"I went along down the dark side of the house to where the wolves are kept, and, passing through a shrubbery, came out all at once to a biggish building that had a wire run stretching away from it like a very long fowl-run. The wire seemed to me to be very little thicker than a telegraph wire. Half a dozen big, dark shapes—with eyes—were trotting up and down this run. Every now and then one or other of them would stop and stare at me and let out a little howl.

"There was a light in a doorway at the side and I went in. A man—Lovell—was sitting there in a sort of kennel-kitchen reading a paper by the light of a hurricane lamp. He was smoking and had his feet cocked up one each side of the fireplace. He stood up civilly enough when I came in. I noticed that he had a pair of heavy hobnailed country boots on. He was better dressed than the ordinary Gipsy, but any one could see at a glance that he was Gipsy to his finger-tips.

" 'Sir?' says he, very quiet, putting down his pipe and paper.

" 'Are you Lovell?' I asked.

" 'Yes, sir.' For a Gipsy he had very steady eyes. He kept 'em fixed on me all the time, quite respectfully, you understand, but not the least bit nervous or afraid.

" 'Why climb on the balcony, Lovell?' I said. 'It's not nice—Madame Dolgourki thinks it's impertinent. And, anyway, it's irregular.'

" 'I beg pardon,sir,climb on the balconies, sir?' he asked. And he did it well— he's over intelligent for a kennel-man. His eyes led mine, in the most innocent way, to his heavy boots.

" 'Quite so, Lovell,' I said. 'You don't understand what I mean, I know. You don't climb balconies— in hobnail boots. That's all right. Where have you put the rubber-soled shoes you used? Oh, it doesn't matter. Call it my joke.'

"His face hardened a bit at that.

"'Excuse me, sir,' he said. 'Have you had permission to come here? ' He gave a sort of little click with his tongue when he said this. I didn't like his tone.

" 'I have, my friend,' I said.

" 'From Her Highness?' he clicked his tongue again.

" 'From Madame Dolgourki, representing Her Highness..' I was mild enough, for I wanted to see how far he would go.

" 'Where is your pass, sir? We have had accidents at the kennels'—'dens' was the word he used—'before, and it is a rule now that visitors have to get a pass.'

" 'Pass, my man? ' I said. ' My name and business is my pass, if necessary.' I think I was getting angry. He gave a sort of grim smile.

" 'Scotland Yard, or Y. M. C. A—it's all one to the wolves,' says he and something in his eyes suggested to me that I should turn round. I did so quickly—and I'm bound to confess that a chill fluttered along my spine. Four great wolves were sitting quietly in a row against the wall behind me. They had, I suppose, come out of their 'dens' when he clicked his tongue. They sat there, quietly enough, like four big, grayish dogs, their eyes half-closed and their tongues hang ing out.

" 'It's all one to the wolves,' says Lovell. 'I'll tell them you're from Scotland Yard, sir, if you like.' He let out a gleam at me from his eyes.

" 'I see that you are a wag, my Romeo,' I said, ' only take my advice and don't over do the wit. It's a bit of a boomerang some times.' It occurred to me that the reception he had given me spoke ill for his conscience and I decided to make a long shot.

"'Lovell,' I said, one eye on him and one on the four fiends by the wall, 'you're a Gipsy—and a man can't disappear in the forest under your very nose, so to speak, without your eyes and instincts showing you something about it. You've seen the spot where that turf is cut. What do you make of it? What do you know about it?'

"He signed to the wolves and they cleared off through an open hatchway in the wall. Then he looked at me.

" 'I've seen nothing—and I know nothing,' he says. 'What do I care about Major Stark?' He moved across to the stove where he seemed to be boiling food for the Princess's pets.

"I got up.

"'Lovell, I believe you're lying,' I told him. 'If you are, look out! Do you think because you have a few circus friends there behind the wall you can play with the law? Listen to me, my man, if I don't learn a little more about the disappearance in a couple of days, I'll arrest you on suspicion. See?'

"It was a bit high-handed, I suppose, but the covert insolence of the man had riled me. I doubt really if he had anything to do with it at all, but he'll probably bolt. He's a Gipsy and no Gipsy will wait to face a thing, innocent or not, if there's a chance to bolt. It's in their blood—practically every time one of his race shifts camp he's bolting from some thing trifling, as a rule, but serious some times. I'm going to have him watched by some one in the house and if he gives one little sign "of flitting I'll arrest him and chance it.

" Well, I left him with that. You needn't tell me I tackled the man the wrong way. I know it. But there's something superior about the fellow. Intelligent. He's not the sort of man to be deceived by the ordinary offhand, round-about-the-bush inquiries.

"I came back again past the house and struck the carriage-drive. You know, the drive there, a wide, gloomy place. No hedges—just a strip of turf each side with firs running up close to the edge. I came fairly quickly, thinking that I had not got a tremendous lot out of my day's work after all, when, about half-way down the drive I got a cold, beastly idea that I was being followed. It was brutally dark, and you can believe I turned round pretty smartly. Nothing there.

" 'Wolves on the brain,' I told myself, and stepped out again. But I'd started looking behind. It's a rotten trick that. I went the next hundred yards with the skin of my back crawling. I nearly ran. I began to sweat and then all at once my fear took me by the throat and twisted me round. In the dark ness behind, about two to three feet off the ground and twenty yards away, there were eight spots of light. They hung there, perfectly still.

"I went clammy. I've read about that sort of thing—but it was the first time I've experienced it and I'll see to it that it's the last.

"I hesitated and then moved on again, looking back. The spots of light moved on too, swinging up and down a little. I knew then they were eyes, all right. It occurred to me that Lovell was probably there with the wolves, too, but his eyes didn't show and it was just guesswork. I came on, sideways, like a crab, and the eyes came too. Only they seemed to me to come quicker—to be gaining. Well, I comon't stand that. I knew I was very near the end of the drive and I ran. There are no gates, you remember—the drive turns in off the road; and even as I set foot on the highway one of the wolves jumped for me and ' chopped '—that's the only word, I swear—at my throat from behind.

" It missed, but I felt it rip the cloth of my coat. I heard a sort of angry shout

behind that was Lovell, I suppose, and then the light from your window beamed up across the flat. I headed for it in a bee-line. Scared cold I was. I fell a dozen times. I remember thinking vaguely that the wolves weren't following me beyond the road, but I didn't want to stop. I wanted to keep running, and I did, but I couldn't have gone another yard when I struck your casement―"

Waynill ceased, breathing rather quickly. That sudden wolf-leap and the slash of those long jaws were too vivid in his memory to allow him, as yet, to tell his tale without emotion. Then he looked at us with a pale glare in his eyes.

" I'll arrest Lovell to-morrow if I have to shoot every wolf the Princess owns!" he swore.

There was a momentary pause.

" But perhaps Lovell was not responsible," said Torrance, "I believe the wolves are as tame as dogs. It may have been an accident."

The Inspector smiled, rather grimly.

"Yes—the sort of accident men get penal servitude for not preventing!" he said, rising. "I must strike out for the hotel— it's getting late."

"I think you'd better spend the night here— there is plenty of room. Gregg will see to you," said Torrance cordially.

Waynill hesitated, and even as he considered the invitation, a long, low howl, inexpressibly eery, floated across the forest, filtering through the casement into the room.

"Yes," said Waynill, all the color suddenly stricken from his face, "I think I'd better stay—and I'll get to bed now. It's just possible that the bloodhounds will provide us a long day's work to-morrow."

Torrance agreed, rang for Gregg, and the Inspector said ' Good-night.'

5: Morant, A New Forest Snake-Catcher

T ORRANCE closed the door carefully behind his guest and took a chair by my side.

" There you have the affair from the official standpoint," he said softly. "I have known Waynill for a long time or he would not have spoken so freely. He has told us something of what I intended to tell you, but his attitude toward the business is very different from mine."

He paused for a moment, thinking. Then, "I wonder what he would do if I told him exactly what happened at the place from which the turf was removed when Stark reached it on Monday morning; if I told him why Stark's horse galloped away, why the turf was cut and by whom; if I told him what happened to Stark, and where I suspect his body lies at this moment. And I could, I know. I saw all that took place at that spot which has interested the Inspector so much." His voice had dropped to an agitated whisper, and he stared before him like a man who sees some fearful vision.

"Herapath, you are my friend," he whispered, and then I realized what an effort of will he must have made to remain so calm, so carelessly interested, so undisturbed, during Waynill's story. "Herapath, you are my friend, but, as yet, I do not even dare to tell you the whole of the thing I saw that morning. It is incredible— unbelievable!" He looked at me with eyes that had become suddenly haggard and almost tragic.

"If I told you what I saw I might come to believe things which, for the sake of my whole happiness and peace I dare not believe."

He stared again into the fire, clenching his hands on the arms of his chair.

"Let the bloodhounds find what they can! Let Waynill find 'Mary' if he can! How can a man find a woman from the portrait of a child? And Lovell? Lovell will be at the other side of the Forest to-morrow."

Then he turned to me suddenly and took yet another photograph from his pocket, a common picture-postcard of the earlier kind.

"Do you observe anything worthy of comment about that picture, Herapath?" His voice was tense with anxiety.

I looked very carefully at the photograph. It portrayed a man past middle age, who stood holding out a handful of small snakes—dangling, distorted things— as though to exhibit them to an onlooker. Over one shoulder I saw slung a small canvas bag, over the other was a square tin box. In the left hand he held a long forked stick. His dress was rough, such as foresters wear. At the bottom of the card was an underline, "Morant, a New Forest Snake-catcher."

But it was the face of the snake-catcher that held my attention after the first com prehensive glance. The face— for vaguely, vaguely, behind, as it were, the keen, clear-cut, wild, aquiline features of the man lay a likeness. It may have been some little chance similarity of one line, one feature merely, or it may have been a resemblance of general effect, but, whatever it was, I knew I had seen quite recently a person or a picture of a person who resembled this snake-catcher. Then suddenly a name rose to my lips.

"Why, it's like 'Mary!'" I said.

"Her father. Anything more?" The anxiety had not gone from Torrance's voice.

I had felt that the resemblance of the old man to " Mary" was less than his resemblance to some one whom I could not name. I thought for a moment and my mind turned to the photograph Torrance had looked at so often during supper. I turned to the mantelpiece, but the photograph had gone. I felt myself entering a maze.

"What have you done with that photograph of the Princess that was on the mantel piece, Torrance?" I asked. "I'd like to see it for a moment."

He took it from behind a queer-shaped barbaric looking clock. "I slid it there when Waynill was wondering where he had seen some one resembling the girl of the locket," he said, and handed it to me.

Then I saw. The Princess resembled the old snake-catcher far more, in that vague, uncertain way, than she resembled " Mary." But now —now I saw how like she was to "Mary," also. I looked at Torrance.

"Then the Princess is the snake-catcher's daughter—and 'Mary' grown ten years older?" I asked.

"Yes," he said, and took the photographs again.

"In that case it was the Princess who dropped the locket —her locket?" I suggested.

Torrance hesitated.

"I do not say that," he answered curtly. I saw that he was overstrung. Plainly, he knew far more of the affair than he had told Waynill or me. It was obvious at any rate that he was shielding, or trying to shield, the Princess. From what? And equally plainly, he feared to tell what he knew until he knew all. I did not press him.

"Tell me what you know when you like— if you want to tell at all, Torrance. Or tell me nothing," I said. "I only stipulate that you use me if I can be useful."

Torrance's grip was very friendly when we said good-night.

"I hope to tell everything to-morrow " he said at my door. "I am only waiting for a certain letter."

6:  The End Of The Trail

TORRANCE and I breakfasted by electric light at half-past seven on the following morning. Early as we were, Waynill was earlier. He had left the bungalow at six o'clock, said old Gregg uneasily, as he brought coffee. He had asked Gregg where his master kept his revolver and had borrowed it.

Torrance looked over at me and smiled.

"He's gone after Lovell," he said, "but he might as well go after a hare or a grass-snake with a revolver and handcuffs. Lovell knows the Forest to an inch, and Waynill's a townman."

He had no more than finished speaking when Waynill came in.

"He's gone of course," said Torrance. The detective nodded.

"Yes, gone from No-Man's Court. But he's still inside our wire fence," he replied. "Wire fence?"

"Telegraph wires— oh, I shall get him all right. It's 'Mary' of the locket I want to find." He drank off a cup of scalding hot coffee and became more human.

"It's beastly cold out here," he said. "I don't think Colonel Shafto's bloodhounds will do any good at all. It's frozen again and the ground's like iron. I hate the New Forest; it's the bleakest place in England." But, nevertheless, he began to eat expensively procured red mullet with an appetite that was a compliment to the forest air.

"You know, Waynill," said Torrance composedly, "speaking as a student of logic, or say a theoretical detective, in this case, it seems to me you are starting on the wrong side of the locket. You have two photos, one of which you have identified, one of which is entirely unknown. Surely the simple way would be to follow up the clue you have instead of hunting for the clue you merely suspect. Why don't you shelve the 'Mary' picture for a time and work back along Stark's history and among his friends, hunting for a reason why he should be killed or caused to disappear?"

To me, after the discovery of the previous night, Torrance's idea was obvious enough. He wanted to distract the detective's attention from the "Mary" picture at all costs. Sooner or later, he argued, the detective would see the Princess, dressed simply as a country lady, and might observe in her then the faint likeness to "Mary" that he could not see when looking at the Princess in her court dress.

Waynill nodded, rather eagerly.

"I believe you're right, Mr. Torrance," he said. "It struck me that way, just now. I'll think it over from that point of view— after breakfast. I wonder what time the hounds will be here."

WE HAD no more than lighted cigarettes after breakfast when old Gregg, coming in to switch off the electric light, announced that a motor had just turned in off the main road and was on the way to the bungalow.

Waynill stood up.

"Well, the Colonel evidently believes in an early start," he said, and began to study a little plan of the place where the turf had been cut.

But it was not Colonel Shafto and his bloodhounds that stepped out of the motor. It was another kind of bloodhound—a reprerentative of the Daily Post, a lean, self-possessed, youngish individual, with quick eyes and a thin, clever face.

He knew Torrance, for he asked for a cup of coffee almost before he was in the room.

"The first of the vultures," he said, pleasantly enough for a "vulture." "Dropped down from town this morning; hired a car at Salisbury and came across these New Forest tundras to Stoney Cross Hotel, looking for you, Inspector." He seemed to know Waynill also.

He drank the coffee Gregg brought him, lighted a cigarette and produced a damp, smeary copy of the Daily Post for that day.

"There's a column about Major Stark on the fifth page," he said, handing it to the detective. "Column seven. I only got the stuff late last night. Perhaps it will be news to you?"

Waynill looked through the column and passed the paper on to Torrance.

"Is this right?" he asked the pressman.

"Quite; I got the story myself." There was a little pause before he added: "It's plain sailing, Waynill, after that, isn't it?"

Waynill did not reply. He was thinking now, I imagine, how his own clues could be explained away.

It was Torrance who spoke, handing me the paper.

"It is quite obvious to me that Major Stark has either committed suicide or quietly left the country," he said, with an extraordinary certainty in his voice.

The journalist nodded. "Perfectly," he said.

Waynill remained silent. I read the column. Concisely enough it explained that a representative of the Daily Post had learned from reliable sources that, less than a week before, Major Stark had been requested quietly, but very unmistakably, to resign from the two prominent clubs of which he had been a member. With the skillful veiling which decency and the English libel law, demanded, the writer of the column gave "financial affairs" as one of the reasons for the forced resignation. "Card troubles," apparently, constituted another reason.

The representative of the paper had also discovered that Major Stark was so heavily in debt to most of the big bookmakers that the best enclosures on any race-course were practically shut to him until he had settled his accounts. Next came a statement which had an even more ugly look about it— a point-blank paragraph to the effect that the disappearance of the Major coincided remarkably with certain steps which two money-lenders were taking in the matter of money lent to Major Stark on the strength of securities alleged to be forged.

Truly there were grounds for believing that the missing man had either committed suicide or absconded. The column concluded with a paragraph stating that, despite the lapse of time since the actual disappearance, Colonel Shafto's bloodhounds would be employed on the scene that day.

But Waynill looked unconvinced.

"Come, Waynill, who on earth would murder a man on the edge of ruin— and worse?" said the pressman lightly, his in quisitive eye on the detective's face. "I believe you've found a clue or two you hate to part with."

Waynill nodded, as another big motor drove up. It was a man from the Morning Herald. And from then on reporters dropped down thick and fast "precisely like vultures over an ox that the army has left behind."

They interviewed Waynill, they interviewed Torrance, they interviewed me, they interviewed old Gregg, they interviewed one another, some dashed off to interview the Princess, her household and her wolves, they interviewed Torrance's whisky and cigrettes, and one enterprising gentleman who broke into the scullery, for reasons known only to himself, I discovered wandering about the back interviewing (I verily believe) the oil-engine. Finally, Colonel Shafto, his brother, two helpers and three magnificent bloodhounds arrived and were interviewed before they set foot on the threshold.

BUT at about eleven a start was made. Two shoes had been taken from the horse Stark had ridden and sent over, together with a number of articles of clothing and a favorite pair of boots be longing to the missing man, from a relative's house at which he had been staying. Then Colonel Shafto, a gray, grim little man, very quick and erect, explained, not too politely, the rules necessary to be observed when working bloodhounds. Chiefly, the crowd was requested to keep well away behind the hounds and to be reasonably quiet.

I saw that the tense look had come again into Torrance's eyes as, just before the start was made, he watched Colonel Shafto and Waynill talking earnestly together over by the hounds. The detective appeared to be pressing some point, and presently the Colonel seemed to agree. He nodded and turned to his brother, the very counterpart of himself, who stood fondling a grand tawny brute nearly three feet high with a grave face, deep-set eyes and ears so long that one looking at the hound was reminded of a bewigged and aged judge. The Colonel mounted his horse and, riding some yards behind the hound which his brother held in leash, set out across the heather and gorse- patched turf.

We followed at a discreet distance.

"They're going to start at the place where the turf is cut," said Torrance softly in my ear, as we went. We were walking alone together; the pressmen had formed a little crowd of their own.

I felt a sudden surge of curiosity.

"Who cut the turf,Torrance?" I asked on the impulse.

"Gregg," he answered in no more than a whisper. "Gregg and I!"

I think he saw my bewilderment, for he smiled faintly.

"No more questions, Herapath, yet," he said. "You shall know what I know— when I know everything."

And we followed the big hound and his attendants in silence. Presently Colonel Shafto's arm went up and we all halted. They had arrived at the spot that mystified Waynill. The Colonel dismounted, a piece of clothing in his hand.

What followed then was strange and a little sinister. I think most of us then expected the hound to fail. The scent was four days old, at least, and the bloodhound is a very much more disappointing worker than those who have only read of the wonderful brutes in romances would imagine.

Certainly no one, the Colonel least of all, expected the hound to do his work with the extraordinary quickness and precision that he actually did. He nuzzled the boots and odd articles of clothing that Colonel Shafto offered him, put down his intelligent head, made a short eager cast round the patch of cut turf, hesitated for a second, and then, running perfectly mute, nose to the ground, padded swiftly away through the heather. Furiously waving us all back, the Colonel gave the hound some fifty yards start and then followed him at a canter.

For some distance the bloodhound traveled over level ground. He seemed to be going along a rough cattle-path and I felt a queer little kick of the heart as I remem bered Waynill's remark that he had found the cigar-case at the edge of a cattle-track. Then the ground tilted, sloping down, and the bloodhound disappeared over the slope. Colonel Shafto followed, quickening his pace.

We had come nearly half a mile, running at the best pace most of us were capable of, and when we reached the beginning of the slope most of us stayed there, panting. Indeed, there was little to be gained by running farther, for the slope continued for nearly a quarter of a mile, dropping gently down to the floor of a wide, shallow valley, then tilted up again and, continuing up for another furlong, reached the level. It was like a very shallow, dry river-bed magnified several times over.

Those who waited where we were standing could see practically everything that occurred within a distance of nearly half a mile—if anything was going to occur. Not one of us, except Torrance, who stood there staring out across the forest, would have been astonished, I think, had the bloodhound suddenly come upon the dead body of Major Stark lying among the heather. All were tense with expectancy. But Colonel Shafto rode steadily on down the slope without a check.

THEN presently a small dark speck sped out from the heather at the bot tom of the slope, nose to the ground, and ran silently straight across the bottom of the valley. It was the bloodhound, wonderfully following the four-day trail, and excited little murmurs broke from the knot of pressmen. Torrance was staring through a pair of binoculars and suddenly I heard him draw in his breath with a hiss. Almost at the same second the bloodhound stopped dead at the edge of an expanse of smooth level turf and, throwing up its head, uttered a series of short choky cries, very different from the deep bay my romance-readings had taught me to expect.

And there was no reason why the hound should stop that I could see. It stood at the beginning of about a half-acre of turf so smooth and clear of heather growth as to look lawn-like at that distance. There was a volley of quick questions and ejaculations from the journalists. Then Colonel Shafto rode out from the heather toward that level half-acre. But he also stopped suddenly, some eight yards behind the bloodhound, He slipped from his horse and, turning, began to beckon excitedly. I saw him turn again to the bloodhound, whose cries now had changed to a frenzied howl—a long agonized yell of terror. Colonel Shafto frantically tore off his riding coat, but even as his white sleeves flickered like a waved flag, the hound vanished.

"Good heavens!" I said. "Where's the bloodhound?" Only Torrance remained with me—the rest were running down the slope, shouting.

Torrance took the binoculars from his eyes and, white as paper, faced me.

"Where?" he said, in a sort of whispered scream. "Three feet deep in No-Man's Bog; the quickest and most dangerous quag mire in the forest! Although the bloodhound does not know it, he is following the trail of Major Stark to the very floors of the morass!" His eyes burned like jewels. "And if ever No-Man's Bog bursts and gives up its dead, the bloodhound will arise not far from the body of that card-cheat, roue, swindler and fortune-hunter, Major Stark— food for the bog this four days past!"

I stared, dazed and cold, at the string of reporters running, running eagerly down to that smooth, tempting, lawn-like death-trap at the foot of the hill.

"The end of the trail, indeed!" I said weakly, over and over again; "the end of the trail, indeed"—with a vapid and foolish laugh that I was helpless to check.

Presently they all turned, plodding up the slope toward us. Waynill's face was hard with disappointment, for the bogs hold their secrets inviolate from Scotland Yard as from the rest of the world. And the gray little brother of Colonel Shafto had tears in his eyes, for he had reared the big bloodhound from puppyhood; he had taught it almost all it had known; he had come to love the beautiful brute and at the end of it all he had laid it on the trail to its own death.

7: The Woman With The Wolves

I THINK that day's happenings left no doubt in the minds of those who wit nessed them that Stark had been engulfed in the quagmire by accident—save only Waynill, Torrance and myself.

Torrance put forward a plausible theory that Stark's horse had shied at the black patch of mold where the turf was cut, leaped over the patch, twisting as he landed —probably owing to a sudden jerk of the bridle—thrown Stark and bolted. Stark may have lain stunned for a time, and then, recovering consciousness, and, perhaps gravely injured, crawled away in the direction of No-Man's Court for help. Missing the way in his dazed state, he had blundered into the bog, not realizing where he was until the treacherous mire had gripped him fast. Colonel Shafto was very warm in support of the theory. Had Stark walked into the bog, it was in the highest degree improbable that the scent would have lain for over four days. But if he had crawled, the scent might have been heavy enough to justify the extreme certainty and confidence the bloodhound had exhibited.

The reporters, also, accepted the theory. It was certainly plausible and, further, lent itself to effective "writing-up" for next morning's paper. Only Waynill, walking restlessly round the room with a puzzled scowl on his face, ignored the theory. He was the last to go.

"Well, Mr. Torrance, I'll accept your theory when I've found 'Mary' and Lovell —if they do not provide me with a better one," he said, on parting. Torrance watched him from the window as he strode away toward Stony Cross.

"HE HATES the forest. It is strange country to him. He did well at the patch of cut turf for a town-bred man, but he will not get much farther. It would be child's play to a black tracker, but to any ordinary detective the secrets of the forest are not easily learned from the trails. And daily the signs that the black tracker would look for are disappearing. Every blade of grass, dead leaf or twisted heather sprig is gradually slipping back into its place. In two days' time any clue which the ground may offer now at that spot will be gone as though it had never existed. And Waynill must look elsewhere for clues."

Torrance came away from the window.

" Well, the letter I am waiting for has not arrived," he continued in a different tone, "and you must be content to wait for the truth until I get it."

I thought of the flamboyant and impulsive promise I had made to ask nothing on the previous evening and frankly regretted it. The ominous disappearance of Lovell, the unquieted suspicions of Waynill, reach ing tentatively in all directions, the sinister-seeming descent of the "vultures" of the press, the evil fate of the bloodhound, and, not least of all, Torrance's obvious and desperate sheltering of the Princess, stirred my curiosity to an extremity.

"At least, Torrance, tell me, if you can, whom you are sheltering—and why," I blurted. "You know that I would do any thing possible to help."

Rather to my surprise Torrance smiled a little.

" Very well," said he. " If you will understand that I endeavor to shelter her not from the result of any ill-doing—of which she is incapable—but from official suspicion of ill-doing."

"That is understood, of course," I said.

"Then, unasked, I shelter from that suspicion the Princess Komorzekovna. Because I love her. Listen to me. Before Stark came I had almost won her. But with his coming she changed, withdrew, as it were, into an armor of reserve. She was never less cordial to me after Stark's appearance, but nevertheless she changed. We had been good comrades before; then, suddenly, the sense of comradeship, the camaraderie vanished like a quenched candle-flame. We had been accustomed to take together, with the wolves following, quite long explorations across the forest. The walks ceased. Stark came like a blight to flowers.

"She leased No-Man's Court from him, or rather, from those to whom it was mortgaged. She loves the forest and pays heavily for the house. The rent must have been enough to pay interest on other more doubt ful loans than that on No-Man's Court. Stark was attracted to her by the heavy sum his agents had extorted from her for rent, I am sure of that, and he called ostensibly as landlord, enquiring as to her comfort in the place.

"He saw her, and, more important to Stark, he recognized the obvious signs of wealth with which she is surrounded. It was plain to me that, from the first, Stark laid siege not to her but to her wealth. To him, she was no more than an appanage to her wealth. He reversed the lover's order of attraction. He came as a fortune-hunter, nothing more.

"But she seemed not to observe it. She appeared to like the man, to welcome him. Against my will, and bitterly protesting in my spirit, I found myself in the background —more and more and more—until finally I kept away from the place. She seemed content to let me go—heaven knows there was never an overture to indicate that she missed or regretted the old days! And Stark came almost daily. They rode to gether, walked together, where once I had walked and ridden with her. Oh, yes, I had dropped out!

"Stark and I remained on terms. There was a pretense of friendship. I think Stark considered me too rich to lose touch with. That was all, up to last Monday. And now Stark is dead, and I have new hope." He paused. "Oh, not because he is dead—his death could not alter her feelings to me— but because of the manner of his dying. Herapath, I saw him die—and before he had ceased to breathe I knew that I could hope. Some day you will know why—soon, perhaps."

He picked up his stick. "Come for a walk," he said, in a new, restless tone. "We've got an hour of daylight yet."

HE PASSED out through the casement and I turned to get a cap and, incidentally, my automatic pistol. I had carried it all the morning; indeed, I usually carry it. One of my few hobbies is revolver-shooting, and I think I am entitled to say that it is one of the very few things I can do really well.

It was certain that the wolves of the Princess were given considerable freedom and, although they seemed to be unusually tame, nevertheless one of them at least had attacked Waynill. In any case, the pistol was not inconvenient to carry and there was a remote possibility that it might be useful. As things fell out, I can never be sufficiently grateful I took the weapon.

Torrance was waiting and we set off in silence. Our direction lay toward No-Man's Court. It seemed to me that Torrance's suggestion that we still had an hour of daylight was exaggerated. The light was failing even as we started. There was a somberncss about the landscape, a graying pall that darkened slowly. The air was bleak and icy. One could not feel any breath of wind but nevertheless the sense of intense cold lapped about one. It was such an evening as ushers in a bitter black frost.

The rusty heather lay still and silent, there was no motion nor sound from the lonely clump of naked, bark-flaking firs, and the hardening turf rang under our boot-heels like iron.

"The forest in Winter," I said, "is uninteresting until one gets accustomed to it."

Torrance did not answer at first. He was staring intently at a small fir clump before us but slightly to our right. He swung round a little, heading for the trees.

"Yes," he said presently, in an absent voice, "but it has its charm also." He had quickened his pace.

"Gently, man," I said, as we came up to the edge of the firs. "Why are we racing?"

But I knew before I had finished.

A woman in furs was standing among the tree-trunks, gazing out toward No-Man's Bog. She turned suddenly as we came up, a pale, pale face, set with dark, splendid eyes that, against the cold ivory complexion, seemed huge.

But it was not by that white face I knew her, nor by the wonderful eyes. Her attendants introduced her to me as they rose with pricked ears from where they lay about her feet—four great, gray wolves, yawning elaborately, observing us with oblique, half-closed eyes, without fear as without dislike. A turn of her hand sent them padding a few paces behind her—one, the biggest, it seemed to me, jealously reluctant. But he went, looking sideways at us with eyes that for a moment I saw wide and lambent.

8: The Princess Explains

SHE gave Torrance her hand and there was a gladness in her voice as she greeted him.

"To meet you wandering again," she said, "is like opening a long-closed book."

"I had not dared to hope it would ever again be open for me," said Torrance, agitated. "The flowers we put among its pages I thought were dead."

She smiled—a little, tender smile—and looked at me. Torrance presented me and, with one eye for the wolves, I fear, I endeavored to express my sense of her amiability. I found it not easy under the slant ing eyes of her gentlemen in waiting.

Torrance spoke again and I fell back a little, affecting—it was no true affectation— absorbing interest in the wolves. One rose suddenly, and its coarse, dark, mane-like neck- and shoulder-bristles stirred as though lifted a little by a puff of wind. The others turned their big heads, looking steadily at him. I gave them all my attention. The brutes fascinated me, and I think they knew it. Against my will I felt my forefinger stealthily pick back the safety-catch of the automatic pistol in my pocket.

It occurred to me that the Princess was talking more and more quickly with Torrance, more and more in earnest. I glanced at them. Their eyes clung to each other's; Torrance's lips were open slightly like those of a man on tiptoe to ask a question. They had forgotten my presence, I believe.

"Oh, men are blind—blind! " she was saying. I suppose Torrance had taken courage to reproach her. "They have no faith, no trust. ' Explain the smile for that man—the look for that,' they say. Ah, jealous! How jealous they are! It is cruel, because of the unhappiness for us. I know—do I not know if any woman ever knew! Have I not paid for my knowledge in the last few months?

" Why did you not wait—and trust, too? I prayed that you would not think ill, that you would be kind and patient. Why, it has been to me as if the sun had never shone since that man came!" Her arm swept out toward the valley of No-Man's Bog. "I can tell you now—now that it is too late. Years and years ago, so long it seems, when I was only Mary Morant, a little wild forest creature, I met another of the forest—a Gipsy, a boy. To me he was beautiful, wonderful, a companion sent me by the forest. And his people roamed the South of England, but I remained with my father always in the forest.

"My father was a snake-catcher. My companion was called Boy Lovell. He would not tell me his Romany name, for he said that as I was not Romany he would leave the tents for my sake when the time came. We were young; young and so happy. We planned our future. What did we know of the future? We loved each other, and we had the forest. I will not tell you of all that, so soon after that man—" again she pointed to the bog. "I could not bear it.

"I DO not know now whether I really loved my Gipsy companion. I remember him as always kind and tender and gay—so gay. And we were just two wild things of the forest. I believed I loved him. He would leave the tents, suddenly, at times, and hurry back to me and the forest from as far as Cornwall—alone, impulsive, hungry to see me, to surprise me:

"And then Stark came home to No-Man's Court—the Starks were richer then and lived there—and saw me. He was always wicked. He was wicked then although he was little more than a boy. He had just left the military college. He wanted to be my companion. I laughed at him. But I sometimes allowed him to walk across the heather with me. He had a camera and took my picture, and showed me how to take his. He put the two pictures into a little locket and gave it to me.

"But in the end—one day—he was in sulting and my true companion came out from behind a heather clump like a swift snake and beat him. I had not known Boy Lovell to be in the forest at all. I thought him to be with the tents in Gloucester. He beat Stark terribly—as he deserved—when two foresters saw and came up. They held Boy Lovell and Stark looked at him like an animal before he spoke. Then he pointed to a pheasant which Boy Lovell had flung down when he came out from the heather and swore that, because he had discovered him taking a pheasant from a snare and had remonstrated, Boy Lovell had tried to murder him.

"They found snares on Boy Lovell, of course—a Gipsy must live—and took him to prison. Ah, but how Stark lied! His people were important and powerful in the forest then and Boy Lovell was only a Gipsy. They sent him to prison for five years, and because I and my father tried to help him, to speak well for him, my father was dismissed and a new snake-catcher came.

"So we left the forest and went into a town. I welcomed that, for to be in the forest when my boy was in prison hurt me so. He died soon. He loved the forest—he had never slept under a roof—he loved the forest and he loved me. But they did not understand his spirit. One week in prison was to him more than five years would be to many men. They kept him there inside the walls. He could not come to the forest and to me, and so he died—my boy, my companion of the forest, who had been so kind to me—who had been so gay!"

The Princess paused for a moment. The forest was all gray now, and under the firs it was full of shadow. The lights in the eyes of the wolves were plainer and all the brutes were standing up, their heads hung low. The Princess had forgotten them, I think.

"In the town we nearly starved until the snake-woman of a traveling menagerie was killed by a cobra from which the fangs had not been removed. I heard two men talking of it and I hurried to the menagerie, hungry, eager, poor little wretch that I must have been, and begged them to let me be snake- woman instead. I did not fear the snakes —a snake-catcher's daugher who had handled vipers. They listened, and so I be came the snake-girl, and wandered with the caravans.

"But I despised the snakes and learned to understand the animals—the wolves, the leopards, the lions, and presently became a 'Lion Queen.' Oh, but what a 'Queen'! And after a few years I grew famous in my way. It was because I was not afraid. I was never afraid after I knew my companion was dead.

"So I drifted to the Continent, in time to Vienna, performing with leopards and lions and my wolves. I kept the locket with the picture of the man who had killed Boy Lovell with lies. In Vienna Prince Komorzekovna saw me and fell in love with me. I do not think I loved him, but he was so kind and urged me so, and I married him. It made the Prince happy and I was not unhappy.

"At the end of three years he died, and I came home. I heard that the Starks had become poor, and I took No-Man's Court. I had never forgotten to hate Stark—he was a Major now—and I wanted to avenge Boy Lovell. My heart was quite empty then. I thought that if I could meet Stark again I could make him suffer. I hoped to lure him. I was rich and he was poor and greedy. Oh, I had agents who found out many things about him. I had grown beautiful, and he always pursued a beautiful woman. So I took his house—he did not know me, of course—and waited to see what would happen. Then you, my neighbor, came to see me―" her voice faltered and the wolves stirred uneasily "—and—and my heart was no longer empty."

I heard a muffled inarticulate cry from Torrance and he stepped forward to her. The wolves rumbled softly in their throats. The Princess signed to him to stand still and listen.

"I was happy with you in the forest. Then Stark came, and he loved me, he said. I think he be lieved he spoke the truth. At least he loved my money. He did not remember Mary orant. I lured him—lured him—until he was certain that I would marry him. It was not easy for me— you did not understand; but I remembered poor Boy Lovell and I was firm.

"Last Monday came—last Monday— when I had promised to give him an answer. Oh, but he was very confident, he was very sure of me, sure of himself! I did not wait for him to come to the house. I walked out and met him—with my wolves. I had not taken them out for several days. Besides, I knew that Stark was cruel—perhaps he would try to be cruel when I had given him his answer. But he would not be violent— my wolves would see to that!"

I swear the brutes knew she was talking of them. They watched her like jealous dogs.

"He came riding up, confident, assured, certain. He slipped from his horse, putting his arm through the bridle, smiling. ' I have come to learn my fate, Princess,' he said, and suddenly the smile left his lips. He was looking at my eyes and his confidence was all gone—in that one short second.

"Then I told him who I was, and I told him what he was. I spoke of poor Boy

Lovell, and told him how he had died. He saw that it was hopeless for him, and sneered. I became angry then—that was wrong, for my wolves were getting angry, too. I did not notice. All the unhappiness of the past ten years came back to me then—I was thinking of Boy Lovell, of my father, banished from his hut in the forest, of our life in the airless, dreadful town, the squalor of the caravans. To this hour I remember the smell of the snakes I used to perform with. All, all, all came back to me in anger, in bitterness, and I charged him with all I— we—had suffered.

"What I said I can not say again to you or to any one. And he stood at his horse's head with a pale, wicked smile on his lips, repenting nothing, grieving for nothing, regretting nothing but the rich marriage he had lost. When I spoke of my agents and showed him that I had known him to be a ruined fortune-hunter from the first call he had paid me, he only laughed. Ah, but he was without heart and without honor! So in the end I gave him his answer. I had the locket in my hands.

" ' You ask me for myself,' I cried; 'I give you this!' and threw the locket in his cold, bitter face. And my wolves were at him— ah, I had not meant that! " The Princess shuddered. "I had forgotten them. They thought when I threw out my hand with the locket I set them at him. But I meant no more than to humiliate him, to reject him so contemptuously as to make him suffer. In spite of all that he had done, I could not do more than that. The rest was for God.

"The wolves were mad with rage—I had cried, I think, and they understood—and before I could do anything he was dead. The horse had galloped away wild with fear. I flogged the wolves off with his riding-whip. But he was dead,—torn, and the wolves kept edging in and in.

" I was stunned for a few minutes. Then I saw Lovell across the heather and beckoned to him. He is a brother of Boy Lovell. I met him by chance in the forest when I first came here and I saw how like he was. I told him the story of his brother and Stark. He wanted to serve me and I made him keeper of my wolves. It was what he asked.

"I beckoned Lovell and he came. He saw the body at my feet—and I told him. He was not sorry.

"'Take the wolves home,' he said, 'and I will bury the body. The bog will take him —and keep its secret!'

"AND that is how it ended. I returned to the house and Lovell— took Stark. Next morning he came to me, puzzled and uneasy and told me that he had gone to the spot early, very early, that morning and he had found the turf newly removed from the spot where Stark had been killed.

" He did not know who had done it. But I guessed. I remembered you had told me that from your window the view extends for miles in that direction and it came to me that you had seen. That night Lovell came to your house and searched. He found a turf-spade in Gregg's room— Gregg slept soundly and Lovell moves like a cat. And I knew who had cut the turf, because it was torn and blood-stained, and I feared, as I fear now, that you had believed I―"

Torrance spoke suddenly.

"Yes, I saw it all, from my window,

Princess. I saw your hand go up, and how the wolves followed it. But I did not see the locket thrown—how could I at such distance? I hated having seen—and I would not believe what I thought I had seen. Any man might have believed that you urged your wolves to attack him—any man but me. But I could not understand. I, too, was stunned, I think. I turned to leave the room just as Gregg came in to ask about some things. I talked with Gregg—I had decided nothing as yet, and I dared not let Gregg suspect. When I turned again to the window you were gone—nobody was in sight. I came out and saw the turf all torn and stained. I found nothing but a tuft of wolf-hair here and there on a patch of gorse near by. Those I removed.

"I went back to my house, not daring to think. Remember what I was mad enough to fear I had seen. That night Gregg and I cut the turf. Took it and dropped it in the bog. I could trust Gregg. I did not come to No-Man's Court, but I hoped you might send for me. Then Waynill, the detective, chanced along, and since then I have never lost sight of him. I watched him come near the truth—for he found the locket but did not recognize you from it—but I think he will learn no more.

"For my own peace I made inquiries, too. I had heard the story of Boy Lovell once, vaguely. It was when I bought pictures of your father. And I had inquired as to what had become of Mary Morant. I am expecting a final letter from Vienna even yet, but that will tell me nothing that I do not now know."

"Then you believe?" There was hope and a sort of glad wonder in her voice.

"Believe! Ah, you shame me—I came so near to doubting―"

She moved blindly toward him, reaching. "Thank God! Thank God!" she sobbed, and Torrance's arms were round her at last.

I heard a snarl and whirled round. The big wolf was half in the air, springing at Torrance. The brute was not two yards from me. I pressed my trigger not an instant too soon. He dropped, snarling, biting at the ground. Believe that I blessed my pistol practise then. The remaining three crouched back, glaring up with blazing eyes. I heard the Princess say something sharply—it all happened quick as light—and I picked them off one by one.

"Quite time they were dead," I heard myself say, in a small, scared voice. "They're not safe, you know. First Stark, then Waynill, then you―" One was kicking a bit still and I put another bullet through him. I hated the brutes so that I could have  riddled them. Then my fear suddenly left me and I turned. The disgraceful taste of the thing I had said struck me then,— 'First Stark'—and I turned, very humbly, to the Princess. But she smiled wanly through the twilight. Her hand was in Torrance's.

"Pardon, Princess―" I mumbled.

"Please say nothing, my friend," her voice sounded sweet with gratitude. "The folly was mine—to bring them. And you have given me his life!"

Torrance gripped my hand hard over the little pistol. So we stood for a moment. Queerly, it was only then I realized that the jealous brutes might have killed Torrance—hitherto it had been quite a personal matter between me and the wolves. I feared them for my own sake—all the time I had been yearning to shoot the devils. Well, now they were dead, and the Princess and Torrance had come together again. So I left them, holding hands like happy children.

THERE it ended. Waynill came near to the truth— but he could come no nearer. The Princess went to Italy a few days later, and Torrance followed her. The cigar-case that Torrance had claimed is now in my possession. It had fallen from Stark's clothing as Lovell took him down the cattle-track to the bog.

Waynill drifted discontentedly about that part of the forest for a fortnight, learning nothing more, it seems, and then suddenly gave it up and returned to town. He went in the morning, and in the afternoon Lovell, the Gipsy, appeared at No-Man's Court— apparently from nowhere— and fell unconcernedly to work, straightening up the empty wolf-den. That was some months ago.

And now it is Summer and the forest is glorious in cloth-of-gold of the gorse, royal purple of heather, emerald fern and cool green of pine.

And Torrance and his wife return from Italy to-morrow. They will not live at No-Man's Court but at a place with gentler memories which Torrance has bought in the forest. And if ever they ride out toward the bungalow and the old Court they will not encounter that grim, turfless patch to awaken in their minds that which is better forgotten. Gray old Gregg has seen to that— he has returfed it so carefully that it is impossible to tell the new from the old.

_____________________

4: Time Works Wonders

E. M. Delafield

Edmée Elizabeth Monica Dashwood, 1890-1943

Hutchinson's Magazine Oct 1921

"YOU funny little thing!" he said patronisingly.

Adela resented the term violently, but because he was the only man who had ever attempted to talk personalities with her, she accepted it smilingly.

"I must read some of those books of yours. Tell me what the names are."

"Oh, it doesn't matter! Never mind about my books," she said hurriedly.

Adela could not imagine Willoughby reading anybody's books, unless definitely of that class which deals with a fictitious Secret Service or the intrigues of an imaginary kingdom.

Her own books were small masterpieces of psychology, subtly ironical. A shudder, half-humorous, half-despairing, came over her at the idea of Hal Willoughby, bored and mystified, ploughing his way through one of her books.

"Never mind about my books," she repeated. "I'd rather you thought of me as a girl than as a writer."

She felt wildly daring in so speaking, partly because she had called herself a girl, although she was thirty, and partly because it was the first time that she had ever attempted what she supposed to be a flirtation.

Her reputation for cleverness had always been so great and so terrible that young men had never dared to approach her.

She supposed that must be the reason for their aloofness, since she had always been passably pretty; and even now, by artificial light, she looked five years younger than she was.

Her hair and her colouring were charming in a subdued and unvivid way, her features straight and very clean-cut. She hardly realised how much too thin were the lips of her tiny mouth, how intense and over-prominent her large hazel eyes.

"I never can imagine how anybody can write a book," said Willoughby.

Adela moved uneasily. She could tell what was coming.

"Do you think of a plot first, or do you just make it up as you go along?"

"It all depends."

She made the meaningless reply that had so often served her before.

"I should never know what to make the people say next. Aren't conversations awfully difficult?"

"Sometimes."

"I suppose you are always on the look-out for people to put into your books— under invented names, of course."

"I don't think I am."

"Oh, but I expect you are! I expect really you sit there, taking it all in, you know."

Why did people always think it necessary to talk to her like this?

"You ought to write a play. They say it pays like fun."

"But, you see, I'm not a dramatist."

"Oh, rubbish! If you're clever enough to write books, of course you could write a play. I should, if I were you— really I should." His voice was charged with encouragement.

"No, I couldn't. Don't let's talk about that."

"Why not? I want to hear about these books of yours. I've never met a literary lady before."

It was of no use. He would not talk to her as she was almost sure that he would have talked to any other woman in the room, given those distant sounds of music from the ballroom, that hazy moonlight above the bench beneath the syringa-bushes.

Adela grimly sacrificed her art, perjuring her soul away. "I expect you think it's very funny of me to write books," she said, desperately adapting her vocabulary to his own. "I really do it mostly— a good deal— because it brings in money." She tried to laugh, and hated herself for the artificiality of the sound.

"I suppose girls are always glad of extra pocket-money," he assented indifferently.

A girl— that was how he thought of her.

She was pleased at that, but she struggled for a more serious recognition of her capabilities, too. "It's not only pocket-money. I can really get a living from my writing, though I'm always at home with my mother. But I could be independent to-morrow if I liked."

"Oh, come now!" The words might have expressed remonstrance, incredulity, astonishment.

"The advance royalty— that's the money the publishers give me in advance— on my last book was two hundred pounds," she said calmly.

She had never gone away to work, never had to pay for her food or for a roof over her head, never tried her strength or the strength of her resources in the struggle for livelihood amongst unsupported women.

Two hundred pounds for her year's work was a large sum, with no calls upon it.

Willoughby repeated after her: "Two hundred pounds! I say! You don't expect me to believe you get that just for writing a story?"

"Yes." She was uncertain of the reason for his disbelief, and even whether he really did disbelieve her.

"But was it a serious book, or just a novel?" He really sounded perplexed.

"Oh, 'just a novel'!" she said bitterly.

"Good Lord! How many do you write in a year?"

"That last one took me over a year. My first one I worked at, on and off, for five years."

"I suppose it doesn't matter to you, taking your time, but it would be quite worth scribbling them off one after the other, if you can get money like that without working for it, so to speak," said Hal Willoughby.

He fingered his thick, fair moustache, and Adela looked up at him furtively in the moonlight.

He was very big and good-looking; and when she danced with him, and met his full, bold gaze, Adela could almost forget about such conversations between them as the present one.

Besides, he had not always talked like this. Once he had pretended not to know what colour her eyes were, and once he had told her about his life in India. She wished intensely that the conversation now would shift to some such topic.

The moonlight and the heavy scent of the syringa seemed to mock her.

"And what are your books about?" said Willoughby laboriously. "Love, I suppose?" He broke into a roar of laughter. "Does the heroine fall fainting into the hero's arms in the last chapter, eh? That's the style, isn't it?"

Adela stood up, trembling. "I think I want to go in now, please. The— the dance must be finished now."

He stood up also. "But I say! What's the matter? You're not ratty, are you?" He pulled unceremoniously at the prim velvet ribbons that hung from her waist. "Sit down again. Don't you know I'm going away to-morrow? You might be a little bit nice to me, I do think."

"I didn't know you wanted me to be," she said swiftly.

He laughed, and pulled her on to the bench again.

Adela's mother, with whom she always lived, had told her very often that men never really respected a woman who let them "take liberties." Adela, never before put to the test, recklessly determined to disregard the parental axiom.

When Willoughby caught hold of her chilly little ringless hand, she made no movement of withdrawal.

He looked down at her and laughed again. "What an odd little thing you are! I don't believe you've ever been kissed, have you?"

She was silent.

"Has anybody ever made love to you, now?"

"Yes," she said defiantly and untruly.

He laughed quite openly, and declared, "I don't believe it!"

Still laughing, he put his hand under her chin, tilting up her face, and kissed her.

ii

HAL Willoughby's careless parting kiss remained the only one that Adela was destined to receive.

For ten years more she lived with her mother, and heard her say proudly to other mothers, coming with the news of Mollie's engagement, or Dolly's beautiful new baby:

"Ah, I still keep my Adela, I'm glad to say. She's almost too fastidious, I sometimes think. She's never made herself cheap with anyone. And then there's her writing, too."

Adela had slowly been making a name for herself, but her great success only came after her mother's death. A long novel, at which she had been working for several years, made her reputation in the world of letters.

She had inherited money from her mother, and her books brought her in more.

Adela was able to indulge in artistic necessities.

It became imperative that she should retire, whenever she wanted to write, to a Yorkshire moor with an atmosphere of ruggedness and strength, and very few trees.

So many journalists, so many fellow-writers, such a number of the new-born coterie that "followed the Adela Alston method" had inquired so earnestly in what peculiar setting Adela found it necessary to enshrine her inspiration, that the need of the Yorkshire moor had suddenly sprung, full-grown, into being.

She built a two-roomed cottage, engaged a caretaker, and wrote in a small summer-house, wearing knickerbockers and sandals, and smoking violently. This was in the summer. In the winter, inspiration was obliged to content itself with Hampstead, and Adela had to wear shoes and stockings and a skirt.

At forty she had gained greatly in assurance, and knew herself for the leading spirit in a small group of intensely modern women writers, by whom she was devoutly worshipped.

Adela became accustomed to being the person who was listened to, in the society of her fellows.

They were not only interested in her work, but deeply, intensely interested in herself.

"You know almost too much of human nature, Adela. It's not decent."

Adela enjoyed being told that.

"I've seen all sorts in my time," she said musingly.

It would no longer have pleased her to be thought younger than she was. On the contrary, she was apt to emphasise in herself the aspect of a full maturity.

"That last study of yours is simply magnificent. Dear, I don't wonder you've never chosen to marry. No man's vanity could survive your insight."

A newcomer to the group leant forward eagerly. Her characteristic was lack of self-restraint, which she acclaimed in herself as fearlessness.

"But you've known the great realities— you've known passion," she urged foolishly. "You could never write as you do, otherwise."

Adela gazed at her new disciple from under drooping eyelids. "I am not ashamed of it," she said quietly. "I am proud of it."

The girl nodded with grotesque, unconscious vehemence.

The two other women-friends of Adela who were present, exchanged a meaning look with one another. Each had heard Adela's story before, had shown loyal pride and understanding. There was no need of further demonstration from them. Adela was looking at the girl.

"There was one man in my life," she said low and deeply. "There is never more than one— that counts. And a woman who has never loved, never been loved, never met her mate— has never lived."

The room was tensely silent.

"It was more than ten years ago, and I have outlived the poignancy of it. I have never seen him since— I never shall. But I make no secret of having known fulfilment."

Her voice was low and rich with intense enjoyment of her own effect.

"Even now, though, when all the storm and stress is long, long past— it's odd, but the scent of a syringa in bloom can still hurt me. You see— I was swept right off my feet."

She paused before concluding with the words that she had unconsciously learnt by heart, so significantly did they always round off her retrospect.

"I had waited for him all my life. He asked everything, and I gave— everything."

"Ah!"

"You splendid woman!"

Adela leant back again, her large eyes gazing abstractedly into the past, full of a brooding satisfaction. Her lips exhaled a sound that was barely audible.

"Hal Willoughby!"

TIME works wonders.

___________________

5: Patricia Jackson's Pearl Necklace

Gilbert Frankau

1884-1952

The Royal Magazine Dec 1920

One of several "Peter Jackson" stories

THIS is a story of our Mr. Peter Jackson, sometime "senior" partner in P. Jackson & Co., Cigar Importers, of Lime Street, London, E.C. (you remember him, perhaps: a dour, stocky, dark-haired youngster, with a tooth-brush moustache and curious eyes which used to change colour, from grey to darkest black, when he lost his temper); and the incident it relates happened ever such a while ago, years before he bought the Nirvana cigarette factory, years before he dreamed of being a soldier in the Great War, years before he came home wounded from France to console himself for the loss of both businesses by falling in love with his own wife.

They were just good pals at the time, Peter and his young "Mrs.", the tall, blonde, dignified, rather unsentimental Patricia. Just good pals— though their first daughter, Evelyn, had been born six months.

Evelyn's arrival— one may as well be frank about the matter — had not improved the palship. Knowing that Peter had wanted a son, Patricia realized— -and rather resented— his obvious disappointment. If Evelyn had been a son, Peter would have "done something for the lad," something Peterish — invested a thousand at compound interest till the boy was twenty-one, laid down a cellar of port, or (most probably) taken out a fresh life insurance. Evelyn being a girl— he did nothing.

And Patricia thought that something ought to be done. Nothing lavish, of course— they couldn't afford to take a lot of capital out of Jacksons, where it earned fifteen per cent, and put it into Consols at three. Still, some tangible commemoration did seem indicated.

ii

PATRICIA broached the idea of that commemoration very tentatively, one night early in a January of the far-away nineteen-hundreds. Smith, the efficient parlourmaid, had cleared away dessert from the big mahogany dining-table of their house in Lowndes Square. Peter was clipping a cigar preparatory to coffee and liqueurs.

Patricia said: "Don't you think we ought to do something for the kiddie?"

"Do something?" He looked at her through the first haze of his smoke. "It's got a nurse, hasn't it? And a perambulator?  And a nursery?  What more do you imagine we ought to do for it, old thing?"

She never could get used to that "it "; and her blue eyes held no smile as she answered, "Francis " (Peter's idle-rich cousin Francis Gordon was Evelyn's casual godfather) "gave her silver brushes for a christening present."

"Francis always was an extravagant ass," remarked our Mr. Jackson. "What's the use of hair-brushes to a thing that hasn't got any hair?"

Nevertheless, even Peter's obtuseness realized that the golden-tressed girl in the black charmeuse frock was annoyed about something. She refused a liqueur; and sat silent— "fractious " he phrased it to himself— over her coffee. "No good having a row," thought our Mr. Jackson.

"Look here, old thing," he began. She looked— annoyed.

"You know I don't approve of making a fuss about the kid. That's waste of money. But I'll tell you what I will do." He paused, scrutinizing the ash of his cigar. "I'll buy you a bit of jewellery. Ring, if you like— diamonds. Or a brooch— a sapphire brooch. Jolly stones, sapphires."

"I don't want anything for myself," retorted Pat: but her heart softened, as it always did soften when he displayed interest in her personal adornment. He was so very— immature, this twenty-five-year-old husband of hers. One couldn't be angry with him for long.

"But that's all rot," he said. "I'd like to give you something. All I object to is wasting money on the kiddie. It'll want plenty of money when it grows up. Why, dash it, Pat I do you realize that we may be talking about its marriage portion in a few years from now?"

And at that, it seemed to the mother-heart of Patricia as though she saw a vision: Evelyn grown up; Evelyn in white satin, a lace veil over her brown hair (she had got hair, whatever Peter might say!); Evelyn being married to an entirely eligible young man at St. Jude's, Kensington. Moreover, round Evelyn's young throat hung a necklace, a necklace of pearls, her mother's gift.

"All right," said she. "You shall give me some jewellery. Only it mustn't be a ring, or a brooch. It's got to be something really worth while." She hesitated. "I want a necklace, Peter. A pearl necklace."

"The devil!" thought our Mr. Jackson. "That can't be done decently a penny under seven hundred and fifty." (Even pearls, you will notice, were cheaper in those blessed far-off days!)

"Pearls are a good investment, aren't they?" went on the woman who knew her husband.

"Oh, quite... I say, you're not pulling my leg, are you, Pat?... We're not millionaires, you know."

"Pulling your leg," she smiled back at him. "Rather not. It's a pearl necklace or nothing. But I shan't be a bit vexed if you don't give it to me...."

Whereupon, Patricia changed the subject; and neither that night nor for many a long day thereafter was it again alluded to between those reticent animals, our Mr. Jackson and his "Mrs."

iii

BREAKFASTING in his wife's company on the morning after their discussion, our hero preserved his usual silence. He anticipated an interview of more than ordinary importance in the City that afternoon; and, like most good business men, was busy turning over the details of it in his mind while that mind still felt fresh.... But, somehow, the idea of the pearl necklace disturbed thought. Had he actually promised?  If not, could he— with any decency— refuse?  If so, how the devil was he going to get hold of the money?

Kissing his wife good-bye, he thought, "Good old Pat. She's a ripper. No sentimental nonsense about my Mrs.... But seven hundred and fifty quid is seven hundred and fifty quid."

On his way to the office, he dropped into the Army and Navy Stores; and succeeded in selling them six cabinets of Corona Coronas— at a price which left about enough profit to pay his taxi. "Curse these Trust goods," ruminated our Mr. Jackson; "one could sell them all day and all night without making expenses. Might just as well take one's money out of one pocket and put it into the other."

It may here be mentioned that "The Trust " was the billion dollar corporation domiciled at 111 Fifth Avenue, New York, which had just butted into the Havana cigar business— much to the chagrin of Peter and various other merchants whose interests, both financial and sentimental, lay with the "Independents"; and that the interview which had busied our Mr. Jackson's mind over breakfast was with the new— and by no means "easy"— representative of that octopus-like entity.

"You can say what you please," said our Mr. Jackson's elderly partner, Tom Simpson, when, arrived at the office, he started in to discuss the forthcoming appointment, "you can say what you please— but I don't like these Yankee monopolies. In your father's time, we wouldn't have anything to do with them at all. Cheek, I call it— coming to us now. They only do it because they're losing business."

"Possibly," remarked Peter.

Tom Simpson wagged his brown beard doubtfully, took his top-hat from behind the door, and went out to lunch at "The George and Vulture ". On his return, he perceived the "back office" to be fuller even than usual of blue cigar-smoke; and entering, found his partner already deep in converse with Thomas B. Edgar, "Vice-President of the Havana Cigar & Tobacco Factories, Inc."

Edgar, a clean-shaven, heavy-jowled, blue-eyed Virginian of nearly fifty, was holding forth at some length. He rose to shake hands with Simpson (whom he knew, though senior in age, to be Peter's junior in capital holding of Jacksons) and continued his harangue.

"So you may just as well admit," concluded Edgar, "that— as you've got to handle a certain percentage of our goods— it would be wise for you to make at least as much money on them as the other fellow."

"Precisely," said Peter. "Point is— how much does the other fellow make?"

"That," retorted Edgar, "depends on how many cases he buys."

At which point Simpson, chipping in with a heavy, "I never did approve of differential terms between shippers; it seems to me against commercial morality," was met with Peter's aphorism, "My dear Tom, commercial morality's the other fellow's point of view"; and subsided into silence.

"Look here, Edgar," went on our Mr. Jackson, fixing his weed at the comer of his mouth'in a manner slightly reminiscent of Captain Kettle, "do I understand that we're not on rock-bottom terms for your goods, because if so—"

"My dear sir," countered the American blandly, "can you tell me any reason why you should be on rock-bottom terms?  You don't push our cigars, you only sell them when you're obliged to. All your effort goes on the Independents."

"Naturally," admitted Peter. "We don't make any money on your stuff."

They eyed each other for a moment or so; then Edgar said: "But supposing I put up a proposition by which you could make money, big money, on your brands?"

"Meaning an inside rebate?"

"Well"— the American's cigar had gone out; he threw it in the grate; took a fresh one from his pocket, and lit up with irritating slowness— "well— not exactly a rebate."

There intervened a considerable silence; during which— for the first time in his business career— our Mr. Jackson allowed home thoughts to obsess him during office hours. Here, perhaps, might be a chance of making that seven hundred and fifty quid!

"You see," went on the shrewd voice of 111 Fifth Avenue, "rebates, in our country, have rather a nasty name. Our Interstate Commerce Legislation-" Edgar waved a deprecatory hand. "So I wouldn't like to call it exactly a rebate. No, sir. Mr. J. B. Duke does not approve of rebates. But he does approve of payment by results. That, after all, is only common fairness to our importers."

"You can call it anything you like," decided our Mr. Jackson. "Provided we can make a thousand or two out of it."

"There's no limit to this proposition," said Thomas B. Edgar. "How much did you spend with us last year?"

"Fifty-seven thousand five hundred dollars and twenty- four cents," replied our Mr. Jackson, who rather prided himself on accuracy in money matters.

"You could have done double that if you'd wanted to."

"Possibly. Possibly not."

The seller hesitated; then he made his proposition. "Well, if you're prepared to double your business this year, I'll give you back ten dollars on every hundred you spend with us. On the whole year's business."

"Goods ordered, or goods shipped?"

"Shipped, of course. We don't want you putting in orders to make up your quantity on the thirty-first of December."

"But supposing we give the orders in time and you don't ship 'em."

"We'll ship 'em all right."

"Is this to be a verbal arrangement?" put in Simpson.

"No, sir. I'm prepared to give any undertaking your lawyers and our legal department can fix up between them."

... For the purposes of our story it suffices that, after various other discussions, Mr. Thomas B. Edgar's offer— an offer which, briefly recapitulated, meant that if our Mr. Jackson could sell one hundred and fifteen thousand dollars' worth of Edgar's goods he would pouch the satisfactory rebate of ten per cent on the lot— was accepted.

iv

NOW the whole jest of the English Havana cigar business is, or was, this: That you cannot, even by taking thought, increase the number of smokes for which the consumer is prepared to pay. Resultantly, if Jackson & Co.— in order to pouch that satisfactory rebate— wanted to expand their trade in Trust goods, only two ways of doing so lay open to them. They must either displace their own sales of Independent cigars, or— take Trust trade away from their competitors.

Our Mr. Jackson being, at that period of his career, a purely predatory animal, chose the latter method; and a very pretty struggle subsequently ensued between his firm and what Maurice Beresford of Beresford & Beresford called "the other thieves in the cigar trade." So that, for some months to come, the telephone operator at Lime Street overheard various conversations on the following formula:

"Hello, is that Mr. Jackson?"

"It is."

"We're so and so's. Have you got any Corona Coronas?" (Or "Marias sixpenny" or "Bosk Perfectos")

"Yes. We can do you two thousand in hundreds." (Or a "case," or "half a case," or "five thousand.")

"What's your price?"

"Eight five and six in bond."

"I can do better than that."

"Make it eighty-five— to you."

"Eighty-four, Mr. Jackson. I can buy them at that from Schornsteins."

"All right. But you must take the lot."

Also by the time that July, and with it the necessity for making out their "Christmas orders " came round, one new feature in the game was abundantly evident: to wit, that Thomas B. Edgar's liberality had not been exclusively confined to Jackson & Co.

"We're being done in the eye," said Simpson gloomily. "What's the use of a concession if he gives it to eyerybody?"

"He's acting up to your standard of commercial morality," grinned Peter. "I rather like old Edgar. There's no sentiment about him, anyhow. By the way, we've still got a longish w^y to go if we want to double our business with him."

"We have," grunted Simpson. "And my advice is to chuck up the whole thing. They've only shipped us fifty thousand dollars' worth so far. And we haven't made pocket money on them."

For a moment Pat's pearl necklace trembled in the balance. Then our Mr. Jackson said:

"Damn it, Tom, I'm not going to be beaten. Let's give Edgar an order to make up our hundred and fifteen thousand dollars right off the bat. They're bound to be shipped by Christmas."

"We'll never sell 'em," prognosticated Simpson.

"Rats! I'll sell 'em somehow or other, if I have to cut the price of Corona Coronas to eighty bob."

"We shan't get very fat at that rate."

"It's all extra business," said Peter— and in the end, as usual, got his own way.

Meanwhile the vice-president of "The Havana Cigar & Tobacco Factories Inc.," being informed by Isaac Schornstein that "dat tarn fellow Peter Jackson vill ruin your business— he's gutting de profit to ribbons," consulted his legal department; retailers of the succulent weed rejoiced; and Patricia alternately decided that Peter was mean not to have given her the necklace, and that she had been avaricious in asking for it.

v

IT MUST not be imagined that the peculiar connubial relationship of the Jacksons excluded— on the husband's part at any rate— a very strong possessive instinct. To Peter, his wife's gold hair, blue eyes, smooth cheeks and smoother shoulders represented very nearly the most attractive thing in the world— the most attractive, of course, being a business deal in which he got the better of the Schornsteins, the Beresfords, the Elkinses or some other denizens of that centre of Havana cigardom, St. Mary Axe.

Whether Patricia then realized this possessive instinct or not is a point open to doubt, up to the age of thirty, she was a a cold " woman, who thought "that sort of thing " rather— troublesome. Still, his admiration pleased her; and during the summer holidays of what they afterwards came to call "the necklace year," she had no reason to complain of inattention.

They spent those holidays at the Grand Hotel, Folkestone— an ordinary middle-class couple, white-attired by day, evening-dressed at night: nurse, baby and perambulator attached for sign of utter respectability.

But our Mr. Jackson, for all his outward ordinariness, was worried. Every evening, as they walked their dignified way down the dining-room, he used to survey the wives and daughters of the other business-men. Every evening, as he ordered their wine, he used to think to himself: "Damn scraggy females— Pat's neck and shoulders make them look like skeletons. What's the use of hanging jewellery on skeletons?  Now, if Pat had that woman's pearls—" And the over-fat, who usually possessed the most costly adornments, annoyed him even more than the over-thin!

A letter from Simpson did not improve the situation.

"The Trust," wrote Simpson, "are shipping any amount of goods to Schornstein. We got practically nothing in from them this week.... I wonder if you could run up for the day on Tuesday. There are one or two things I'd like to talk to you about."

Peter "ran up " to town for a day— and stayed two nights. The trade, always a hot-bed of intrigue, was positively seething. Simpson had heard rumours of a counter-Trust— an amalgamation of the Independent factories and their shippers. The Independent factories intended to take a strong line; would refuse shipments to anyone who handled Trust goods.

"Rats!" snapped Peter, when he heard the plan. "They can't bluff me with that sort of tale."

"You may be right," opined Simpson. "But, either way, it can't make much difference to us. We can't sell Trust goods if they won't ship 'em."

Before going back to Folkestone, our Mr. Jackson interviewed Edgar, who promised larger supplies; but did not divulge the contents of a certain paper in his desk which read: "Jackson contract does not apparently contain any obligation on our part to fill orders."

That evening over dinner, Pat's neck looked ominously bare!

vi

BY THE fifteenth of October— what with the incipient annoyances of "Christmas trade," a batch of letters from the Independent factories (all full of vague promises and still vaguer threats), Simpson's gloom about the unfilled Trust orders, and a casual remark of Isaac Schornstein's: "My poy, two can play at de game of gutting prices "— our Mr. Jackson was in a thoroughly bad temper.

"Putrid business! " he fulminated to his partner. "Wish to goodness I were out of it. What the devil are we going to do about these Trust goods?"

"What I'd like to know," said Simpson blandly, "is: what are we going to do about the Independents?  Maurice Beresford's off to Havana next month— you can bet he'll stir up all the trouble he can. We shall look pretty if both sides turn us down."

Said Peter: "Curse Maurice Beresford. I wish I could go to Havana."

"Why don't you?" retorted Simpson. "It'd be the very thing. Your father always went once a year."

"And who'd look after the Christmas trade. I'd like to know?"

Simpson laughed: "I think I might be able to manage that." Sotto voce, he added: "You seem to forget, my lad, that I was in this business before you were born."

But it was not until the middle of November that Peter made up his mind to the journey; and even then his conscious mind refused to admit its reason. "You're going to Havana," said his conscious mind, "because it's part of your job to know the manufacturers personally. You're going via New York, because that's the quickest way. You'll be back early in January, because it would be a waste of time and money to stay any longer."

Whether the subconscious mind of our Mr. Jackson— if that curious compound of predatory and possessive male could have made itself audible— would have said: "You're going after those pearls, because you hate seeing Pat's neck unadorned," remains a question for some psychological novelist with four hundred pages (and three hundred readers) to satisfy. All the writer of this tale knows is that they said "Good-bye " to each other in the hall of their Lowndes Square house about as passionately as two icicles— "Telephone Simpson if you get hard up," being the exact phrase which separated them.

vii

BARRING a trip or so to the Continent, the voyage to the States on the Mauretania was Peter's first out-of-England experience; and he thoroughly enjoyed it. The atmosphere of luxurious ship-board— particularly of the over-decorated smoking-room— appealed to him. Essentially a travelling- man— with a good stomach for the sea, an even better head for wine and spirits, and a knowledge of poker which he flattered himself to be fairly complete— our Mr. Jackson made various acquaintances, both more and less desirable; was respected by his cabin-steward, ignored by the women-folk, and generally as average a passenger as any six-day company can desire. Only on the last evening aboard did he revert to his cigar-broking self.

The wind, against which they had been buffeting their three-hundred-and-sixty-knot day, died down by midnight to the faintest of off-shore breezes, as Peter, cigar in mouth, fur coat over smoking-jacket, tramped the abandoned spar-deck. His brain, curiously acute after a week's exeat from the City, perpended many problems. He said to himself: "To-morrow, I'll telephone in Fifth Avenue. Monday, I'll call on them. Shall have to go rather gently. These Independents are suspicious blokes. If they think I'm intriguing with the Trust, there'll be trouble. Confound 111 Fifth Avenue— I'm still thirty-four thousand dollars short of doubling my business— and only a month to go till the end of the year. There's no doubt that fellow Edgar's keeping us short on purpose."

Turning in, he thought vaguely of his wife, still more vaguely of his daughter. Somehow, the two seemed a long way away.... And yet, just before he fell into an easy sleep (it may even have been a dream, though one hesitates to connect such a practical youth with dreaming) it seemed to our Mr. Jackson as if, between Lowndes Square and Fifth Avenue, there stretched a long and iridescent rope which very much resembled a rope of pearls.

Morning, however, dissipated dreamery. It is got given to most Englishmen to appreciate New York; but Peter proved the exception. He loved that raucous city from the first crisp speech of the Custom House official, who said: "Britisher. That's all right," and passed his cabin-trunk out of the lettered sheds into the hubbub of the avenues.

"This," said our Mr. Jackson, as a taxi (whose dial showed the most preposterous figures) whisked him under the clanging "Elevated," through the little streets plastered with "Chop Suey" signs, into the stately centre of Manhattan Island, "this is IT."

And his hotel, the old Knickerbocker, did not dispel illusion. There was a "snap" ("pep," as an expression, had not yet been invented) about the Knickerbocker, which vastly delighted our Mr. Jackson. He told the proprietor so — being quite unaware that Mr. Regan could have bought out Jackson and Co. twice over— in his most patronizing Etonian manner, before he had been in the place two hours.

The week-end passed in a flash of electric trippery. Peter, already vastly more American than the barber who applied hot towels to his face, or the floor-clerk who answered his telephone, saw everything— the Flat-iron Building, Rector's, four department stores, a brace of theatres, a music-hall (which he learned to call a vaudeville), Broadway by night, Riverside Drive by day, the "Peacock Alley" at the Waldorf Astoria... and so many attractive young women that, faithful though he remained to her, even the American system of keeping cigars in plate-glass-and-porcelain humidors seemed scarcely worthy of mention in his first letter to Patricia.

By Monday midday our traveller was sufficiently wise about the place to find his way without inquiry to 111 Fifth Avenue. "And that "— as he himself phrased it— "put the lid on things."

Something about this vast commercial building, with its marble entrance, its speeding elevators, its huge open floor- spaces wherein clerks innumerable bent to polished desks under the flickering blue tubes of a just-invented lighting- system, fairly fascinated our Mr. Jackson. This, he felt, was the Home of Tobacco Business, with so big a "B" that the top semi-circle of that letter represented one world-hemisphere, and the bottom the other. Which is not to imply that a non- imaginative Englishman of the middle-classes condescended to display any open admiration, when he finally found himself face to face with the Treasurer of "Havana Cigar and Tobacco Factories, Inc."

"Glad to know you. Hope you had a good trip," said that worthy— a clean-shaven young man with gold eyeglasses and a winning smile. "How did you leave Thomas B.?  He writes that you English importers are the very devil."

"Does he?" Peter, shifting his chair so that the window light should not fall on his face, glanced round the bare shining room. "That's what we say about him, you know."

They chipped each other, after the fashion of cigar men the world over, for a full two minutes. Then Peter said: "By the way, you seem to be very slow in shipping."

"I know." The treasurer's face fell sympathetically. "We're way behind on our European orders. Mr. Duke was saying so only yesterday. You're going on to Havana, aren't you?  I wish you'd tell the fellows down there how you feel about things. It may do them good; put a bit of snap into them. You see," he went on, "this is only an accounting office. The real business is done down there."

"Not much change to be got out of this merchant," speculated the Englishman; who knew quite enough about the methods of No. in to realize that the reference to "Mr. Duke " must be purest fiction; and he went back to the Knickerbocker with his tail ever so slightly between his stocky legs.

THREE more days in New York (on the last of which Maurice Beresford, homeward bound, took him to lunch at "Martin's" and advised him "not to desert the Independent frying-pan for the Trust fire") did not raise our Englishman's tail to any appreciable extent.

Various gentlemen at No. m were suavity, hospitality itself; they wined him at their clubs, sent him more free cigars than even he could consume, dined him in a private room at the Holland House, where he discovered— to the tune of some eight hundred dollars— that his knowledge of poker had hitherto been based on entirely false premises; but resolutely declined to be drawn into any discussions on the "English situation," the which they declared to be entirely "up to" Thomas B. Edgar. One of the poker- players even went so far as to state: "Of course, we're mighty glad to make your acquaintance," here he added a small bunch from Peter's bank-roll to his own, "but if I were in your position, I wouldn't waste much time in New York. We believe in decentralization of effort. Edgar makes the running in England. Havana ships his importers the goods they want. We — just keep tab of what's happening."

Keeping tab on his own expenses, P. J. decided to quit Manhattan Island forthwith. From it he took only one scrap of comfort— a red book entitled: The Science of Draw Poker, by David A. Curtis, Poker Expert of the New York Sun.

To one chapter of that book, entitled "Personality in Poker," our Mr. Jackson devoted considerable attention during his three days' journey on the Ward Line's Morro Castle to Havana.

viii

FOR your tourist, Havana City is a hot-bed of romance. He, or she, adores the tropical warmth, the busy harbour, the curving sea-front, the palmy countrysides, the narrow street of "Obispo" where mantillaed señoritas stroll (and the unwary tourist is duly robbed by velvet-eyed storekeepers), the wheeled parades at sundown, and the mule-bells at midday. But to your cigar-man, Havana is a place in which to get busy.

And busy, from the very moment of his arrival, when friendly Cubans bore him off to a vast "breakfast" at the "Reguladora," Peter got. Here, there, everywhere— in "sorting-rooms," in bare tessellated offices, at private houses where one tilted till midnight in the hospitable rocking-chairs of Don Pancho or Señora Panchita (one eye on one's manners and the other on the morrow's deal), in motor-cars or coches, at the "Paisaje " or the "Miramar "— you saw our Mr. Jackson, a "green" Cazadores mast-like between his teeth, his order-book in his pocket.... But only very rarely did you see him in the company of Cyrus P. Norman and his brother trustifies of the industry at "Zulueta Uno."

For the situation, even as hinted by Maurice Beresford, required an infinity of tact. The smooth-voiced, smallhanded Cubans who owned the Independent Factories distrusted not only "El Yanqui," but whosoever did too much business with "Los Yanquis ": and it took a fortnight of lavish promises, backed by even more lavish orders, to restore their confidence; at the end of which fortnight arrived a cypher cablegram from Simpson: "If possible cancel Trust orders."

Peter, contenting himself with the laconic answer: "Why?" was met with: "Schornstein cutting prices to ribbons. Cannot compete unless we get rebate."

"Tom's a fool," thought Peter, considering that cable over his early coffee and the inevitable cigar. "One can't cancel orders here. And yet, in a way, Tom's right. It's the tenth of December; and we're still thirty thousand dollars short of doubling our Trust business. Blast the Trust! They've got me by the short hairs. They've done me out of — what's double fifty-seven thousand five hundred— a hundred and fifteen thousand dollars— what's ten per cent on a hundred and fifteen?  They've done me out of eleven thousand five hundred dollars— two thousand three hundred quid."

"And," added a sudden memory, "they've done Pat out of her pearl necklace!"

At that the boy's grey eyes darkled. He had been done, done brown. And by his own fault. He ought to have made a better contract; he ought to have kicked up hell with Edgar, hell in New York, hell with Cyrus P. Norman, the man on the spot. Instead— both in New York and in Havana— he had behaved as though the contract were not in existence.

"Always finessing,", he decided. "That's me all over. Too much reticence. Those chaps at 111 knew exactly what I was after; I might just as well have been open with them. I'll tackle Norman about the thing to-day. If I can't get their money— at least I'll tell 'em what I think about them."

But the hatchet-faced Norman, when asked point-blank, "I say, have you had any advice from New York or London about a special arrangement with my firm?" professed the blandest ignorance. "My job," said Norman, "is to ship goods, not to sell 'em. What's your special arrangement anyway? And before I forget it— are you on for a poker session to-night?"

By some especial providence, the telephone-bell gave Peter a second's respite; and in that second he made up his mind that Norman was speaking the truth.

The rest of the happening, apparently, including the acceptance of the "poker session," was also in the hands of some especial providence— possibly of that particular providence which provides pretty women with pearl nectyaces....

ix

"THOSE fellows in New York," said Cyrus P. Norman, "don't know the first thing about the game. You wait till we've got busy on you, Jackson."

They had just finished dinner at Norman's house in the Vedado, and were sitting down— six of them; Sol Lewis, a Chicago importer; Peter; Norman; Jake Garcia, a swashbuckling, black-moustached Cuban-American who ran, under Norman's guidance, three of the Trust cigar-factories; Norman's brother, hatchet-faced too, and brown-eyed under a thatch of unruly hair; and fat, prosperous Henry Stetson, who did the Trust's leaf-buying— to the accepted poker- session.

"Table-stakes," opined Henry Stetson. "A two hundred dollar table-stake. That's my limit."

"Does that mean," asked our Mr. Jackson, "that you can bet two hundred every hand?"

"Sure. If you've got it in front of you. Otherwise, you can buy another stack. You can buy ten stacks if you like. But you can't buy stacks in the middle of a deal. And you needn't buy more than one at a time. See!"

"Promises to be a nice cheap evening," decided Peter; and for two hours, holding on to Curtis as a drowning man to a life-buoy, he played so far under the odds of his hands that Sol Lewis, "seen" by a "full house" after one raise on threes, ejaculated:

"Say, Norman, you fellows don't seem to treat your English importers as good as us. You ought to make 'em raise your rebates, Mr. Jackson. Then you could raise me proper on three aces full of Lilies and Kates."

"He isn't one of our importers," laughed Norman senior. "Wish he were! He wouldn't play so tight then."

Both remarks irritated; nevertheless P. J. kept his temper— and that "self-control " which Curtis considers so essential to the game. But luck, and the whisky-decanter, coming his way, he began to open up.

The night was stifling. Outside, in the dusty garden, no breeze blew. Within, coats had been laid aside, collars taken off, shirt-sleeves rolled up. Already, the heavy Mexican dollars and the American V's of the party, had almost disappeared from the table. They played on credit now: Norman junior pencilling the scores.

And suddenly, luck began to veer; Peter's credits to dwindle. Sol Lewis took four hundred off him on a pat flush; Garcia annexed three— and a good deal of P. J.'s nerve— with a tiny full. The Norman brothers bluffed him out, once each, on nothing.

By the time they came to the last round, his winnings had entirely vanished, and a good hundred pounds of English money with them. He "bought " three stacks "for luck."

"Seems, after all, as though we might get enough British money to pay for our Christmas dinner," grinned Stetson, flicking round the cards.

Peter, picking up his hand, saw a pair of twos; threw them in; and repeated a similar self-control til! the final deal. Then, on a pair of sevens, he made up his mind for a flutter if anyone opened the pot. After all— one might draw a third seven. Sevens had always been his lucky number. And anyway, he was bored stiff with doing nothing.

"She's loose. Fifty bucks," said Sol Lewis.

Stetson, left of the opener, dropped out. Young Norman, Garcia, and Norman senior came in. "Only one thing to be done here," thought P. J.; and after a pretended sorting of his cards, raised a hundred. The opener dropped out at once; Garcia, thinking things over, did likewise; but the two Normans stayed in and took a brace of cards each.

"How many for you, Mr. Jackson?" asked Garcia.

"Two," said Peter to his pair of sevens.

He did not look at the cards dealt him; but laid all five face down on the table.

"Smudge the bet," announced both Normans; and the elder added: "These English cigar-men are too tight for us poor fellows. How much does P. Jackson & Company propose betting?"

"Go all I've got on these three aces," smiled P. J.

Norman junior consulted the tally-sheet; and said: "You're good for three stacks including what you bought just now." Then, laughing, he went on: "I've not got such a bad-looking lot myself. You wouldn't care to take off the limit, I suppose."

Peter's eyes darkled. "Damn these Trust merchants," he thought. "First they rook me of an eleven thousand five hundred dollar rebate; and now they're trying to bluff me out of this last pot. Wonder if, by any miracle, I improved."

But he dared not look at the hand which was supposed to hold three aces. It lay winking at him— five polished cardboards on the bare green wood of the poker-table.

"Take off the limit?" prevaricated our Mr. Jackson. "That's not according to the rules, is it?"

"Sure. It's the last hand of the evening. Never is a limit for the last hand, is there, Cy?"

Cyrus P. Norman winked at his brother, and threw his hand in. Mart Norman and Peter eyed each other for fifteen full seconds. "Your bet," said Mart.

"If only he'd dropped out," thought Peter, "I'd have been quits on the evening!" Then, without the flicker of an eyelash, and in his usual voice, he challenged: "Take off the limit if you like— but, if you do, it'll cost you two thousand dollars to look at these five cards."

"Cheap at the price," snapped the American; and, without waiting for his right to see, laid four twos face-up on the table.

For the fraction of a second Peter's heart went stone cold, to lose five hundred pounds, in one evening, had been the act of a lunatic. Five hundred quid— why, that was very nearly enough to buy... a pearl necklace!

"Turn 'em over, Mr. Jackson," said Sol Lewis. "You might have bought that fourth ace."

"Ace," laughed Peter (the laugh cost a bit of an effort, but he managed it somehow). "I came in on a pair of sevens. Here they are." And one by one, very slowly, he turned over his cards; the ace he had held up, the seven of diamonds, the seven of clubs....

As he lifted the fourth card and saw the seven of spades, even our Mr. Jackson's fingers trembled. Was the fifth card, by some miracle, also a...

"Go on," said a voice— Stetson's, "turn it up "; but already, Jake Garcia, quite unable to contain himself, had exposed the fifth card.

And the fifth card was the seven of hearts!

"Well"— Mart, as a good loser, had few equals and no superiors— "it looks to me as though I hadn't won." He turned away, and busied himself with the score sheet. As he did so, his face, in the shadow of the lampshade, showed a little pale.

But the rest of the Americans were not looking at Mart. They were looking at Peter, patting him on the back, offering him drinks, cigars.

"Gee!" said Cyrus P. Norman. "You've got some nerve. If only you ordered cigars from us, same way as you buy cards, we'd pay off our seven per cent Gold Bonds a year before they fell due."

"But I do order cigars from you." For once in a way, our Mr. Jackson felt strangely above himself. "If only you'd ship 'em to me."

"Ship 'em to you?" Mart, his calculations finished, his face nearly composed, turned back to the table "We ship goods as fast as anyone in this island."

"Sure," asseverated Garcia. "We can ship a hundred thousand dollars' worth of goods a week, easy."

Stetson chimed in. "It's a real pity you're not on our side, Mr. Jackson. We could do with a man of your snap in the English market."

It was then, quite suddenly, that the especial providence showed P. J. his "Mrs." She was sitting, all by herself, in the rather prim drawing-room of Lowndes Square. A décolleté gown revealed the glimmer of her white skin. Her lips, parted to a smile, seemed trying to frame a word....

But whether that word was his own name or some other single syllable beginning with pe— , our Mr. Jackson had no time to determine: for the providential vision vanished abruptly as it had appeared, leaving only an idea, the craziest, most startling of ideas, behind it.

"Why, last week," went on Garcia, "I filled the old Morro Castle so full of our goods that they had to raise her Plimsoll mark three feet," and he laughed, twirling his black moustachios.

"That's the way we do business," confirmed Norman. "Hustle. That's the rule at Zulueta Uno."

The idea grew; till it appeared to the five as though the Englishman had lost all interest in the cigar-business. His eyes held a far-away look, as though he were trying to remember something. Peter Jackson was trying to remember something: and the something, as written by Curtis, reads thus: "The necessity for an understanding of human nature... is what raises poker above the level of other card games... it is a very high-class training... for the man of the world."

"Hustle!" he said at last. "Hustle! Why, there isn't an Independent on this island who can't ship quicker than your people."

Cyrus P. Norman's brown eyes lit. "You try us with a fifty thousand dollar order, and see," he snapped— obviously stung.

"Get the goods by the year after next, wouldn't I?" grinned Peter. "No, sir!" (This was a flagrant Americanism.) "We give our orders where we get served quickest. I told Edgar that, months ago."

"Edgar's got nothing to do with the shipping," barked Mart, losing interest in the score-sheet. "Cy. and I look after that end."

"Is that so?" drawled Peter. "Is that really so?  How very interesting. Then perhaps you can tell me why "— he hesitated, took his risk— "you've got thirty thousand dollars' worth of goods pending for my account since last July."

Mart, cornered (for his instructions had been the definite: "All orders for Schornsteins take precedence English market "), made a bluff.

"An order for thirty thousand dollars is only chicken-food to Zulueta Uno," said Mart.

"That's a good one," remarked Peter.

"Good one! How do you mean?"

"What I say."

"You don't believe me?"

"Of course I believe you. I believe you so much that "— Sol Lewis, watching closely, could have sworn that the Englishman's laugh was genuine— "that I'll lay you everything I've won to-night you can't ship those thirty-thousand dollars' worth of goods by the end of the month."

"And the Schornstein orders went off last week," thought Mart. "I've got him! Gee, but I've got him!" He looked at Cy., who winked; at Jake, who knew nothing about Edgar's cable; at Stetson; at Sol, who— as a loyal Trust man— must be properly impressed before returning to Chicago.

"Dollar for dollar, Jackson," said Mart, "I'll go you that bet. And what's more, if your orders are for stock sizes I'll guarantee to ship them this Friday."

Peter's heart gave a great thump as he answered:

"Very well, then. That's a bet. If you ship the goods, we're quits on to-night. If you don't— you'll owe me four thousand dollars."

Some three-quarters of an hour later, listening to the purr of the tropic sea below his windows at the "Miramar," our Mr. Jackson wrote the following cryptic figures in the last page of his order-book:

$4,000 at 4.80 £str. 830 about.

$11,500 ""  £str. 2,300 about.

Mem: Cable Simpson have not cancelled orders.

Query: How dear are pearls in New York?"

x

ON THE twenty-seventh morning of a foggy December in the far-away nineteen-hundreds, a tall, blue-eyed, goldenhaired girl watched the Lusitania's high bow spire up through the rain-drizzle of Liverpool harbour and swing slow to land.... On the afternoon-of that same twenty-seventh December day, she sat alone with a rather distrait husband in their reserved compartment on the boat-train.... "Naturally," thought Patricia, "I didn't expect him to kiss me in public; but here — well once— I think he ought to.

"Enjoyed your lunch, old thing?" asked the rather distrait husband.

"Yes, dear. Very much."

"Mind if I light a cigar?"

"Of course not. Are you glad to be home?"

"Rather." Peter clipped his cigar; lit up; and gazed at his wife through the smoke-clouds.

"And you're pleased with your trip?"

"Quite. Though I don't know what Simpson will say about my buying." The grey eyes twinkled. "Do you know, we had thirty thousand dollars' worth of goods on the Lusitania. All Trust stuff, too. I made the purser show me the Bills of lading when I went to his office this morning to fetch— "

Patricia noticed the stop in his voice; and asked— in the perfunctory manner of the dutiful wife: "What did you go to the purser's office to fetch, Peter?"

"Oh, nothing," said Mr. Jackson. "Only this."

He fumbled among the folds of his fur coat; extracted a sealed parcel; took a knife from his waistcoat pocket; slit the sealed string; and handed her a flat red-leather case, about eight inches long, stamped "Tiffany."

"Open it yourself," said our Mr. Jackson.

Patricia sat an appreciable while— her eyes very happy— before she pressed the catch of that case. But when at last she did press it, when she saw the white velvet, and that which glittered on the white velvet, her mind— her average English middle-class mind— knew the worst foreboding of its married years.

"Peter!" she gasped. "Peter I You— you haven't been unfaithful to me?..."

Peter's answer, and the rest of their journey, in the interests of commercial moiality, are left unrecorded.

_________________

6: Strictly Private

Frederick Ames Coates

fl 1919-1936

Detective Story Magazine 15 Oct 1921

A prolific writer, mainly for "Detective Story Magazine", throughout the 1920s. The Newberry Library in Boston now has his papers. While it isn't confirmed, it appears he died c. 1943 or 1944.

TO Job Wedgerly, as he alighted from the train at the little station, the place was thrillingly familiar.

The ten years, which had elapsed since he had visited it, had brought no apparent changes to the sleepy little college town and few to his own memory of it. Even though his eye, roving about the station platform, could dis- cern among the white-flanneled  students and their friends no one whom he recognized, it was good to be back.

Some young fellow, noting his hesi- tation, broke away from a chatting group and approached him. "No one to meet you, sir? Perhaps I can help out. You're—"

"Wedgerly, nineteen eleven," said  the older man smilingly.

"Oh, yes— nineteen eleven! Say, your class is having quite a reunion I understand— your tenth anniversary, isn't it? Better let me lug your suit case up to the hotel for you— in case you've forgotten the way. Come to think, your crowd are having their class dinner there to-night— maybe they've begun already."

"Thanks," replied Wedgerly, yielding his baggage to the willing hand of the young athlete by his side. "I couldn't make connections any earlier. I just arrived from the other side— from Europe— this morning, and I got the first train could in Boston to come back here."

"Europe!" The young fellow whistled. "Then it's more than just a reunion for you; it's a home-coming, isn't it?"

"It surely is," agreed Wedgerly, and then lapsed into a musing silence for the remainder of the short walk.

A home-coming! What place, for that matter, was more truly home to him than this little co-educational college where he had spent four hilarious, yet earnest, years in acquiring a rosy-tinted picture of the great world? The picture, to be sure, had been far rosier than the reality; his profession had shown him the world as a rather drab sort of place, a place of mistaken hopes, of heartaches, and tragedies, where things never went quite right and often went quite wrong. His work, the work which had but recently sent him on a month's trip into foreign lands—

But enough of that! For now, his profession was a thing discarded, hidden in the suit case which his volunteer guide was carrying, along with the black, automatic pistol for which he found occasional use, and with the credentials from the Wallis Detective Agency. While he was here, he was no longer the star man of the agency, the detective of many successes; he was only old Job Wedgerly, known by the almost natural nickwame formed by pronouncing his first name as if it rhymed with "Bob." Was it not for this that he had come— to forget the present and renew the romantic past?

At the hotel— which had seemed the last word in luxury to him during his dormitory days— he thanked his student guide and bent over the regis- ter at the desk. A group of family names stared up at him.

"By George!" he muttered, "there is a crowd of them back— of us, I mean." He took up the pen and added his own signature. ''Where's the class of nineteen eleven holding out?" he asked the clerk.

"Private dining room. I don't think they've gone in yet, though. You'll find them in the small parlor— all but a few, maybe, that might be out on the porch."

He passed the door of the parlor, through which he could hear the sound of voices and laughter, and made his way to the porch— as a child gingerly nibbles at a bonbon before crunching the whole of it in a delicious mouthful. He would enjoy the preliminary pleas- ure of meeting whom he could out here before joining the larger group within.

The broad veranda seemed in the twilight to be quite deserted, save for the glowing cigar ends and dimly visible portly forms of two traveling men, who must have felt strangely out of place at being, as they were, in a college town at commencement time.

Wedgerly turned a corner of the building and paused. There, outlined against one of the pillars, was a slim figure in white, a figure that looked vaguely familiar. Even as he was assuring himself that the familiarity existed only in his own stimulated imagination, the girl turned and faced him. He took a step forward, peering at her in a manner that under other circumstances would have been nothing short of rude.

"Job Wedgerly!" She recognized him first and held out a hand.

"Clara— it's Clara Keane!" he exclaimed, and as she smiled at him he realized that she was lovelier than ever, in spite of the almost mournful wist- fulness of her face, the wistfulness which this meeting between them did nothing to dissipate. He suddenly found himself wishing that it were otherwise; wishing that the sight of him could transform her face into the happy, carefree countenance which he had known in the old days.

There came to him now, too, a realization which he had successfully stifled for weeks, ever since he had received the much-forwarded letter from the class secretary announcing the plans for the reunion. He knew now that his ready determination to attend, if he possibly could, had been based to no small degree on the hope of seeing Clara Keane again. And now that he was face to face with her once more, he realized the utter futility of it all. It was not for him that she had been waiting; not he whom she had come here to meet. He meant no more to her than a friend, a friend of her and of—

As if to prove his conclusion, she turned now toward the door.

"I'm going in." She shivered slightly. "I find this mountain air quite chilly after— after being away from it so long."

He did not attempt to follow; she seemed not to expect it. Instead, he paused to light a cigar and to take one more turn around the porch. Just about as he had made up his mind to join the group inside, a man's figure confronted him, and a hand was thrust out to grasp his own.

"Skillet? Swift!" he exclaimed with real pleasure. "I'd know your stiff up-brushed hair and that infectious grin of yours anywhere."

"The same," chuckled the other. "How's old Job? They tell me you've become a regular hound of the law, Job."

"Hush!" Wedgerly placed a finger to his lips with an air of exaggerated mystery. "I'm forgetting that while I'm here. Business is all right in its place, but this isn't the place. How's the world been using you, Skillet?"

"Oh, fine— and otherwise. About fifty-fifty. Say, did you see Clara Keane out here just now? Too bad about her and Stan, isn't it?"

"Too bad? What do you mean? I hadn't heard."

"Oh, nothing— only the same old story. Let's see— you roomed with Jim Stanwood, didn't you? Sure you did! You ought to know, then, better than I, about the crush he had on her and she on him, too. They were engaged, weren't they, when they were here?"

Wedgerly nodded. The subject was too tender for him to make it a topic of converastion; and he would have abruptly changed the trend of idle talk had he not been anxious to learn if Swift really had any new information.

"You weren't back here five years ago, Job— but I was. And so was Clara. It wasn't hard to see— in fact, it was pretty common talk—that she thought as much of Stan as ever, though she admitted she hadn't heard from him in a dog's age. And just now—"

"Curse Stanwood!" interjected Wedgerly savagely. "He was always like that; everything came to him without his deserving or even seeking it; and he seemed to have no more compunction about tossing away such a priceless thing "

"Whoa, there!" The other patted him on the shoulder. "You didn't come here to get all worked up like this and spoil a perfectly fine night. Anyhow, you roomed with him; you liked him, didn't you?"

"Yes; and I like him yet. That's the worst of it; you can't help but like him however irresponsible or callous he shows himself to be. If Clara Keane had been able to see anybody else but Jim Stanwood, she— she'd be better off now."

"Right you are! I was just going to tell you about my speaking to her to- night. I opened up by asking her if she was still Clara Keane— usually a safe question with a girl that you haven't seen for years. And besides, I had a sort of an idea that I'd heard. something, three or four years ago, about her being married, or going to be— to somebody by the name of Baker, I think it was. Well, sir, she looked at me pale as anything and hadn't a word to offer. So then I asks her if she's heard from Jim Stanwood lately— Oh, it was a pretty bad break, I guess, though I didn't mean it that way. I seem to live up to the reputation I used to have for making 'em. And I honestly thought the girl was going to faint. She just turned her back on me and walked around the corner. That was a couple of minutes before you came around here. You must have seen her, didn't you?"

Job Wedgerly gave him a mirthless smile. "Skillet, if we didn't all know you so well, you— you'd be a mighty unpopular man around here, I can tell you that! Come on; let's go in and see the crowd."

In the excited meetings and recognitions of the next few minutes, Job Wedgerly almost succeeded in forgetting Clara Keane and Jim Stanwood. There were so many old recollections brought to the fore, so much to talk about, such a general rejuvenation of minds that had begun to be rutted with the routine of narrowed work, that the pleasantest and the easiest thing to do was to enter whole-heartedly into the spirit of the affair. Moreover, it was not until they had adjourned to the dining room that he so much as saw Clara again; and then he found her seated directly across the wide table from him. He felt thankful that the distance was too great for conversation, especially in the midst of the gay chatter in which every one was indulging.

Before the meal had progressed much beyond the soup course, the class secretary rose and rapped for atten- tion.

"We're not going to have any speak- ers or any program," he announced, "If you people feel as I do, you're about fed up with long-winded dis- courses full of strained wit, invented purposely to rob eating of its pleasure. That sort of thing may be all right for people who have no better way of pass- ing the time; but we have.

"Every one of us here is very much interested in every other one—in what he or she is doing, and how, and why. So what I'm going to do is to call the roll of the class. Every person pres- ent will answer to his name by giving an account of himself. In the case of any member who is not present, the one who has seen or heard from him last or who is in closest touch with him will answer and tell all that he can. Since many of us must get away early to attend other functions this evening, we won't have any too much time. I'll begin the roll now, and we'll continue without interrupting our meal. The Abou Ben Adhem of our list, I find, happens to be Junius Abbott. All right, June, needn't stand up. Just hand us a little information about yourself, please."

As name after name was called and as one person after another responded for himself or for a missing classmate, Job Wedgerly found himself as much interested as any one present. But un- derlying the avidity with which he lis- tened to the news of his old-time friends and associates was a restless and growing' uneasiness, a sort of dread that increased as the names went on down the alphabet. He had in- tended, when his turn came, to keep in the background as far as possible his own work; but it was not that which bothered him.

Some time before he himself was reached, he knew that Jim Stanwood's name would be called. He doubted if

Private 127 any of these others had seen Stanwood in years; in fact, he was quite certain that none of them was familiar with his present whereabouts. But all of them knew that Job Wedgerly and Jim Stanwood had at one time been close friends as well as roommates; that the two of them had gone, within a few months of each other, to the same mid- Western city to begin their business careers. Without any intention of vol- unteering, Wedgerly foresaw that he might be called upon, in the absence of any other informant, to tell what he knew about James Stanwood. And what he knew

No; anything was better than that. He must keep his silence at all costs. If necessary, he might even feign ill- ness and escape from the room before the name was reached. It was not as if he could look upon Stanwood with any degree of detachment—their former intimacy, the fact that they had been rivals for the affections of Clara Keane—above all his own more recent contact with Stanwood precluded that. No; silence at all costs was the only course.

In the consideration of his problem, Job Wedgerly had unconsciously allowed his attention to lapse, and had not been listening to the proceedings. From his reverie he was suddenly awakened by the sound of the secretary's slow, drawling voice: "James Bassett Stanwood."

Silence hung about the table and questioning glances were darted here and there. Wedgerly, looking as innocent and as inconspicuous as possible, noted with relief that no face showed any indication of the knowledge which he himself purposed to conceal if possible—though it was too late now for flight.

The secretary spoke again, "Most of us seem to have lost track of Jim Stanwood pretty thoroughly. Even his address is unknown to me; and the notice of our reunion which I sent to him was returned unclaimed a couple of days ago. Going West as he did, he got rather out of the beaten 'track, most of us having remained in or near New England. But it would be too bad if that were to mean that we must remain out of touch with him. If anybody knows anything at all about Jim Stanwood, since he left college, we'd all take it as a favor if that person would speak up."

Job Wedgerly scarcely dared raise his eyes from his plate, so fearful was he that some one should call on him. And-then a voice broke the expectant silence— the familiar, high-pitched voice of Skillet Swift, which threw the detective from dread into consternation. Didn't the fellow have any sense whatever?

"I think I'm right," he was saying, "when I assume that in this room to- night there is at least one person who knows or ought to know—"

Job darted a glance at Clara Keane. In her deathly pale face was a look which spoke of absolute terror. Could it be that the irresponsible Swift, in spite of his warning on the porch earlier in the evening, was about to inflict on her the refined torture of naming her as one who could tell of the missing classmate? Rapping with a knife on his glass to divert attention, Job Wedgerly sprang to his feet. If it must come, it must; better than to let her suffer that way.

"You all know," he interrupted softly, so as to drown out any possible continuance of Skillet's sentence, "that Stan and I were pretty thick when we were here in college. Also, after graduation, we both drifted to the same place; and so I perhaps have seen him more recently than any of you."

These preliminary words took far less than half his attention; his mind was busy trying to frame a way to tell the real news which he could no longer evade. "In the line of my duties as a detective, I had the painful duty of arresting—" No! Emphitically that would not do. If he must tell, he would at least keep his own part out of it and make the recital more impersonal. "I have learned that Jim Stanwood was arrested as an embezzler and is now serving a sentence of from—" he thought.

Already his pause had reached an uncomfortable length, and he felt the eyes of all at the table fixed upon him. A desperate glance about him seemed instinctively to seek out the white face of Clara Keane— the girl whose faith in Jim Stanwood had lasted for ten years, the girl who was still waiting and hoping for him. It would be a favor, a service to her, to destroy the illusions which she had so long cherished concerning the man she loved, to free her from the thing which was making her life empty and vain— but what a cruel favor! The eagerly strained look of her face where hope and dread mingled, seemed to plead with him. If only he could trust his own motives! If, for example, he had not been Jim Stanwood's rival; if only he did not, even now, feel a warmth that was more than simple friendship toward the girl across the table!

Yet with quick discernment he read that her affections, her whole life, belonged irrevocably to another, to the man who was in prison. Any disclosure of the truth which he might make could bring her pain only, plenty of it, but not release. With final decision, he gulped at the glass of water with which he had been dallying in a clumsy attempt to cover his prolonged silence. Avoiding Clara's eyes, he spoke again.

"Stanwood started in brilliantly to fulfill the promise which all of us saw in him when he was a student among us. He studied for the bar, passed his examinations, and became one of the juniors in a large and prominent firm of corporation lawyers. Every indication for his future was as bright as his friends hoped for until— until his health quite suddenly and completely gave out. He had always seemed strong, and sturdy— in fact, we all know how athletic he was while here; yet inside of a few months he was com- pletely stricken down.

"Of course he had to give up his position and his fine prospects; and I'm afraid that hit Stan pretty hard, for his finances depended almost entirely on his own efforts. However, he took the wise view, and, I may say, the brave one, He resolved to drop everything; to fight his illness and down it. The doctors had advised a change of scene and of climate, and he took their advice. I corresponded with him in a desultory way and learned that he had finally settled in southern France, that being the place where he improved most rapidly.

"Just recently I was called on a business trip to Europe, and while there I— Stan— that is, took a run up to Paris to see me. He's looking better and is full of the hope that in a year or so he will be himself again and can return and pick up the threads of his career where he dropped them. He spoke longingly of the reunion here, and I think he would have taken the trip over, to be present at it, if expense had permitted. Poor Stan must have had a pretty hard struggle to support himself since he's been ill. He asked about every one of you; and I can assure you that Jim Stanwood, in spirit, is over here to-night as he will be continually until the happy time when, in his bodily presence, he can rejoin his old friends and renew old associations."

Pure fiction it all was; but it was listened to with the rapt attention which not even truth always deserves. Especially to Clara Keane was it acceptable; the lines of her face had relaxed while Job had been talking, and a look of tenderness had overspread her countenance which thrilled him almost as much as if it had been meant for himself.

But when, in taking his seat, he looked across at her, he found that her eyes were not on him, or her thoughts either, judging from the look of amazement which he discerned in her face. One of the waiters was beside her, telling her something that was meant for her ears alone. Before he had time to speculate on what it might be, Skillet Swift solved the prob- lem with a shout.

"Here's Stan now—out in the hall! Don't duck behind that door, Stan! We want you right in here, you old rascal!"

All eyes were turned at once to the doorway, where James Stanwood, pal- lid and nervous, sensing the futility of any further attempt at concealment, was making as graceful an entrance as possible. To no one but Job Wedgerly did the unwilling appearance of Stanwood mean anything more than a jest or an expression of diffidence; and no one but Job caught the look of pure joy on Clara Keane's face. It brought to him a feeling that was far from joyful. It was his own falsehood of a moment before that had forever blasted his own hopes and had raised Stanwood to a pinnacle in the girl's no longer doubting mind. But it was one thing to revive her faith in a man whom she would probably never see or hear from again and quite another to abet in her such a serious misapprehension with regard to this jailbird, this escaped convict, whom even now his duty told him he ought to denounce and rearrest.

The irrepressible Swift was on his feet, waving his arms. "All together, now! The old class yellefor Stan, and lots of pep in it!"

Even Job Wedgerly, hypocritical as he felt, found himself joining in the ringing rhythm:

"Rig jig a bah! Rig jig a bah!

Hit up with a rah rah rah!

Hoo rah reven! Hoo rah reven!

Hit it up for nineteen 'leven!

Ah! Bah! 'Leven! 'Leven! 'Leven!

Stanwood! Stanwood! Stanwood!"

The class secretary made himself heard as the echoes died. "We'll have a place set for you, Stan. You're just in time— even if you have missed some of the eats. I'm reading the roll, and we'd just got to your name."

"Yes," cried Swift, "Job, here, has just been telling us about meeting you in Paris and your telling him that you couldn't possibly get back here, you old deceiver! Wanted to surprise us, eh?"

James Stanwood had not, at any rate, lost all of his old-time assurance, though the prison had done its best to break him.

"When Job Wedgerly undertakes a thing," he remarked lightly, 'the always does it up brown. If he's been giving an account of me, then I'm sure that any words of my own are quite superfluous." It was apparent to him that Job— the man who had arrested him— had shielded him with some pleasant fiction. He was wise enough not to spoil it by blunderingly trying to elaborate upon a story which was totally unfamiliar to him. "I'm here, and glad to be here," he said with fervor. "I'm living in the present tonight, and that's enough." He perhaps could not have begged off so easily had not some one recollected that their time was limited, and that a number of names remained to be read.

Job Wedgerly's own name closed the list, and he responded even more briefly to it than he had to James Stanwood's. He had thought to come here and forget the cares of his profession; and now he found them more pressing than ever, and, worse still, inextricably twined with his personal affairs and interests. It was quite idle to assure himself that he cared nothing for Clara Keane; and as for Jim Stanwood—

Stanwood had never properly appreciated the devotion which Clara had given him in the old days. Was there any assurance that he had changed, that he appreciated if now? And if he did, so much the worse! A convict, a hunted man— a man for whose sake the detective was even now neglecting his plain duty. To arrest him in the pres- ence of his classmates, at such a time as this, would be to inflict upon him the very depth of humiliation; but not to do so meant giving him a chance to slip away and escape— a chance which he would no doubt seize. Why had Stanwood come here at all? That he had not intended to make a public appearance was abvious; he had sent word secretly to Clara. Job Wedgerly was none too well disposed toward his former chum; yet he had no heart for sending him back to prison, especially since he could not now do so without Clara Keane's knowledge. Why had Stanwood crossed his path here? Why couldn't he have had the sense to keep away?

Doubly cruel though it would now be to the girl, he must follow Jim Stan- wood. He would get him alone, if possible, or more probably with her, and expose him. He owed it to her as well as to his duty. Stanwood had no right to deceive her, to spoil her life by linking it with his own. Assuredly he must not lose sight of Jim Stanwood.

But the arrangement of the matter was no easier than the formulation of the decision. The party broke up into small groups or pairs, and among the latter Wedgerly saw Jim and Clara start from the hotel together. He, himself, had to dodge about from room to room to escape the importunities of well-meaning friends and thus gain the privilege of slipping off alone after them. The very darkness which helped him also hindered him, making him lose sight of his quarry before he had really started pursuit.

Avoiding any meetings with other strollers by crossing and recrossing the street, Job Wedgerly hurried on along the familiar road leading to the campus, upbraiding himself for his negligence. If he had not seen Jim Stanwood, had not been so near to him during the evening, he might have been able to stifle any feelings of duty in the matter, might even have rejoiced in the man's escape. But to have let him slip from under his very hands— that was indeed a different matter.

Yet there was a good chance that he would encounter him again. Surely Stanwood had not risked exposing himself in public for the sake of seeing Clara Keane unless he had something to say to her; and as yet he could have had no opportunity to speak to her alone. Perhaps on some one of the familiar tree-shaded walks about the college he would come upon Jim Stanwood and Clara Keane strolling  together as they had so often strolled in the past. And then— duty must have its way.

The hope with which he had combated his sense of dereliction was destined to quick fulfillment. As he noiselessly scouted about under the trees, Wedgerly heard a gay laugh that directed his eyes to a dimly discernible couple who were walking slowly along at some distance ahead of him. The laugh was not at all furtive or subdued; but more important, it was the characteristic, unmistakable laugh of Jim Stanwood— of the gay, irrepressible Jim. It was incongruous that he should disclose his presence so brazenly ; as incongruous as that, under the painful circumstances, he should be in a mood for gayety. He did not act like a fugitive from justice.

With a face of unnatural sternness that concealed the conflicting emotions within him, Job Wedgerly coughed to announce his presence and hurried for- ward to confront the two. As they turned toward him, his eyes surprised a look of joyful content in the face of Clara Keane, such as he had never ex- pected to see there again— certainly such as he himself never could have brought to it.

Turning quickly from her, Wedgerly spoke. "I'm tremendously sorry, Jim, but— you'll have to go back."

"Go back?" Stanwood tilted his head and laughed with real merriment. "Job, you don't seem to—"

The detective's rising anger was stilled by the soft voice of the girl.

"Job"— first names had been the order of the day at the reunion, yet her use of his own thrilled him now. "Job, it was grand of you to speak as you did about Jim at the dinner to-night! You were the only one who knew, and by keeping it to yourself as you did— well, if you'd spoken out, even then it couldn't have spoiled things, but—"

"You know!" cried Wedgerly. "Then you must know that Jim Stanwood is a— a jailbird! That his term has not half expired yet!"

The revelation brought no pain or surprise to her face as he had expected. Instead, she only smiled, while Jim explained.

"Job, you can't have been reading the papers lately, can you?"

"No; I have just got back from a trip—"

"That's it, then. And the others didn't see the mid-Western papers of course. My little case wasn't important enough to get into news out East here. Job, I was pardoned— a full pardon— day before yesterday!"

Mechanically Job thrust out his hand and grasped that of his former room-mate. But his eyes were on Clara. The seal of complete happiness was on her face, and the detective realized, though not without a pang, that he was glad it was so. These two— they were made for each other. As for himself, he sensed, in the midst of the dashing of his hopes, that they perhaps were not real hopes. His own feeling for Clara Keane was largely the glamour of other days, a sentimentality induced by his return to his native land and to the scenes of his youth.

"I'm glad," he said simply.

"But you don't know Jim," said Clara proudly, "He never was guilty at all. It was another— a man I met on his vacation at an Atlantic coast summer resort, Sidney Baker. He was from the same city where you and Jim had settled. And I cultivated his acquaintance, at first, in the hope of hearing about Jim. I learned that they even worked for the same firm. But at last I— I thought— well, I became engaged to him."

"I'd been such a brute!" exclaimed Stanwood. "Clara had not heard from me in months and was wisely trying to forget me. It was only when I learned of their engagement, after Baker came back to the office, that I began to realize what I'd thrown away."

"And then—" the girl took up the story— "a shortage, an embezzlement was discovered. Jim knew, or suspected, that Sidney Baker was the guilty one; and so— rather than have this supposed happines of mine dashed—"

"I'd already caused you too much misery," interrupted Stanwood.

"So Jim took the blame, fixed things so he himself would be suspected and convicted, to save me! Went to prison to shield his rival, for my sake! Even though I thought Jim really guilty, as I continued to think until to- night—when I thought of him there in prison, alone and friendless, somehow it made me realize that nobody else could ever mean to me what Jim Stanwood meant! Even if he was a criminal, I knew that he was the only man for me. Of course I broke the engagement—"

"Baker died the other day," finished Stanwood. "He left a full confession; and of course my pardon followed as a matter of course. He did me a good turn there; but not half so good a one as he did when he made me realize what a treasure—"

"Jim!" The girl placed her fingers on his lips, and her cheeks were red.

Wedgerly looked away. He knew that the pang which now assailed him would be the last. When he faced them again he was smiling, really re- joicing at their happiness.

"I judge, then, that I've come back here to more than a mere reunion."

"Yes," agreed Jim Stanwood. "The wedding is to-morrow; strictly private, of course. But it— it simply wouldn't be complete without you, old-timer!"

_________________

7: The Doctor's Luck

Reginald Bacchus

fl 1890s-1900s

Lachlander and Condobolin and Western Districts Recorder  21 Feb 1906

THAT the colour of the tea-gown was exactly suited to the general midday tint of the room was a fact that the most flinty-hearted observer could not fail to notice. That the little face that laughed from the midst of a cloud of lace was one of those things that men should say a prayer of thanksgiving for the sight of, was also a fact that more than one would write down on the tablets of his memory. In the man, however, who glared angrily out of the window into the fog that sat upon London without, the dainty picture framed in the yielding arm-chair excited an interest that was certainly not sentimental.

"My dear Miss Lambert"— and he bit his lips to repress the things that a man must think but may not say— "I have been here half-an-hour; you have neither coughed nor sneezed; your skin is as clear as a child's, and your eyes as bright as the diamonds in your ring; yet you say you have a bronchial catarrh or whatever you may please to call it, and you are too ill to leave the house. It is absurd; positively too absurd."

"But my dear Mr. Lyston," answered the divinity in the tea-gown, daintily throwing one leg across the other and protruding a jewel-buckled slipper from the midst of an avalanche of lingerie; "it is not absurd. I've got a most horrid bronchial catarrh, and what's more, I will not go to the theatre; and that's my final, definite answer."

"I warn you, you'll get your notice."

"Oh, shall I get my notice?" The little fist came down with a bang on the oak writing table, at her elbow, the diamonds seeming to strike fire from the dark wood, "then let Mr. Morris give me my notice, and all London shall know that he tried to force a delicate girl to risk her life, and gave her the sack because she refused. Besides— there are lots of other managers in town who'd be only too glad to get me, so there !"

The stage manager sighed as he drew the sleeve of his coat across an over glossy silk hat.

"Well, Miss Lambert, there's no habeas corpus act for the benefit of ill-used managers. I don't want to quarrel with you, my life's too full of quarrels with testy young women as it is; but you're not ill, I can't swallow that, and for some reason, best known to yourself you are deliberately purposing to ruin the first night of one of the most important productions in town. I shall take your answer to Mr. Morris; that you say you've got a cold!"

"Bronchial catarrh, if you please."

"Oh! angina pectoris if you like, or small-pox; it's all the same, I shall say you're quite well; and Morris will send the theatre doctor to make a report."

"Dr. Lushton is a gentleman. He won't want to risk lives for the sake of a little wretched money."

"Dr. Lushton is a straightforward, sensible man, as you'll very soon find out; and if you disobey, him and give way to your tantrums, you'll get your notice; and every manager in London will very soon know, that Miss Kitty Lambert is not to be depended upon. Now, I've warned you for your own good. Good-bye, Miss Lambert,  and speedy recovery from your 'bronchial catarrh.' "

He walked towards the door, that seemed to preen its gorgeous decorations in the light of the fire, a weary man with a tired curve in his shoulders and a face a decade too old for his years.

They say that the mistresses of schools die prematurely aged, and are borne straight away to an especial Valhalla which is more peaceful than all the other Valhallas; surely there must be some eternal compensation for those luckless mortals whom Fate, or the sham glamour of the thing, has summoned to present stage plays, in theatres. For fifteen years Mr. Murray Lyston had struggled with the airs and graces of countless reacting ladies, had drummed the very elements, of their art into a thousand chorus girls, and had borne the vulgar slings and arrows of disappointed comedians with an equable temper, only too glad to swallow a well-deserved drink while author and composer and impresario were smirking their thanks to an enthusiastic mob, who little kenned to whom the chiefest honour was due. Glory comes not to the stage manager; his are the many kicks and the scanty ha'pence.

He was gone, and hardly had the filigreed lock clicked to behind him before Miss Kitty Lambert had executed a veritable "saute de joie" in the middle of her admirable boudoir furniture.

"Felicie," she called, " Felicie, quick! Quick! I must get quickly to bed, and I must look so ill, and yet so interesting. Bring my make-up box, Felicie;  this is a make-up worth forty of those that I worry over for Mr. Morris's three hundred pounds' worth of stupid audience."

The maid, a saucy apparition in a frock as nearly compatible with the then ordinances of comic-opera as the pseudo-domestic atmosphere of a flat in Shaftesbury Avenue might allow, rushed through a  doorway, and stood aghast at the sprightliness of madame.

"Madame desires?"

"Don't talk, but get me quickly to bed; and when Dr. Lushton comes— you know, the theatre doctor with the lovely face— you must tell him your mistress is extremely ill before you show him in."

"But Madame is not ill; surely Madame will go to the theatre, and not suffer the beautiful play to be spoiled? And does not Madame remember the beautiful dresses that, will be worn by another? They will never fit Madame again."

Miss Kitty Lambert was standing before a cheval glass, about which the chubbiest little cupids sported in a ring of gold. This gorgeous effort of decorative art did not exactly harmonise with the sombre oak furniture, but a correct appreciation of the harmony of rooms is not always given to the queens of burlesque, and the precise canons of Mr. William Morris were not at all to the taste of Kitty Lambert; besides, the mirror had been a present, and who on earth was going to see it if it was not hung in the little boudoir drawing room.

It was a delightful face that the cupids appropriately framed, and the star of the Tiara Theatre appeared fully satisfied as she waxed an errant curl into position.

"You really are dense, Felicie," she said, as the dainty fingers struggled with the blue how that surged like a wave of the deep sea about the ivory column of her throat. "Of course I'm not ill; and can't you see that I've got exactly what I want? I love the doctor there; and if you'd been anything like the four inquiry agents rolled into; one that La Ronda called you when she sent you to me, you'd have seen it."

"Oh, madame, but you never speak to him."

"And whose fault's that, stupid? The poor young man's as shy as a wax doll; I may threw a whole herd of sheep's eyes at him, and he only looks, the other way and blushes. But I'm sure he's fond of me, and once let me get him in here, and he doesn't go till he's told me so. It's that horrid public theatre that makes him backward, I know it. Now get me to bed."

"If madame will allow my suggestion, she will be content to lie on the sofa. Remember, Mr. Lyston has seen that you are dressed, and if you are really going to the theatre, there will be little time for another toilette. Besides"— Felicie became elaborately demure— "the ankles of madame are very beautiful, and the little bronze slippers— Doctors are mortal, madame."

"Oh, very well, pull the sofa up to the fire, and change all the yellow shades for pink; bring me a book— I don't care what it is, and I'm at home to no one but the doctor."

Miss Lambert arranged herself in the pose that had made the tableau in  the "Gypsy Girl" so great a success, placed smelling salts and the book on the table at her side; and awaited events. She laughed at the thought of the pleadings of Lyston, and the consternation that her supposed illness would cause in the theatre; that she was likely to give up her part in "The Rajah's Daughter" was too absurd. Why, she would have played if she had had to be carried to the theatre on a stretcher.

The best figure in town and an expert's knowledge of how to put on a Paris frock, combined with the accident of an extraordinarily successful adaptation from the French, had placed her in the very front rank of burlesque actresses. For five years she had been Mr. Morris's star at the Tiara Theatre, and it wasn't likely that she was going to give up her part in the most expensive production that that worthy son of Israel had persuaded his syndicate to back, and let her clever little understudy get the eye and ear of the horribly fickle public.

She shuddered as she thought of that ravissante frock for the Channel Fleet hall scene on the back of that dowdy little Ada Carstairs. A sober heart may beat under the finery of a comic opera favourite, despite the hysterical imaginings of royalty-seeking fictionists, and Kitty Lambert traced her pedigree back to a stern-jawed Protestant who had flung a Biblical curse at the Stuart Court as the Mayflower buffeted the Atlantic swell en route for a freer land.

The blood of the Pilgrim Fathers is not easily watered down, and not a few young pillars of le monde ou l'on s'amuse had reeled aghast at the hauteur with which their money-bags and their doubtful offers had been refused by the little person who looked like the incarnation of devilry in a Worth gown. It was said that young Persira de Sykesheimer had thrown his fortunes into the breach of Sternley Castle and saved an old estate, and a very ugly bride, from rum, for no other reason than the passionate "How dare you?" of Kitty Lambert,

It was now twelve months since Johnny Lushton had left Guy's, and a football reputation that reached from Edinburgh to Dublin and back via Cardiff to the Rectory field at Blackheath, to become permanent medical adviser to Mr. Morris's staff. A very shy giant, with a face like an Apollo in marble, he nevertheless brought an exact knowledge of whether ankles were really sprained or throats relaxed that was proof against the coyest pleading of the lazy coryphee.

Miss Lambert had fallen into very sudden and real love with the young Hercules, who bade her a bashful good-morning as they occasionally met in the "coulisses" of the. theatre. She divined that he deemed her an occupant of a world very much apart from the modest rooms that formed his castle in Guildford Street, and she had spared none of her. arts in order to let him see that his presence was a pleasure to her; but all in vain.

Lushton, on his part, adored the little prima-donna with a passion that he kept a secret from his nearest friends; but the possibility of his being, the accepted admirer of a celebrated actress never crossed his honest brain; he was content to worship in silence and apart.

The idea of an illness that should bring the doctor within her own doors had occurred to Miss Lamberts some weeks ago, and she had decided on the day of the new production as a time worthy the importance of her attempt. That her action was at all unmaidenly did not occur to her. She was positive that the doctor was fond of her, and if he would not speak, well then it was clearly her duty to do so.

An hour had nearly ticked out from the ormulu extravagance on the mantelpiece when the door opened to admit Dr. Lushton, six feet two of good bone and muscle, with a clean-shaven face also that blushed like a school girl's.

"I am very sorry, Miss Lambert," he began, with exaggerated gravity, "very sorry indeed to hear such grave accounts of your health; poor Mr. Morris is beside himself with anxiety."

"Oh, never mind Mr. Morris, I'm so glad you've come, doctor; I feel sure you can cure me, you're just in time for some tea."

She pressed a button that peeped from the midst of a carved bunch of roses.

"Really Miss Lambert I must make my examination first. I promised an immediate report ; I will not disguise from you that Lyston had said that there is nothing the matter, and Morris is cad enough to suggest that you have been bribed to spoil the production."

"The mean beast! Well, do your duty, here's my pulse."

The big man trembled as the dainty fingers lay in his great palm.

"It is perfectly normal," he said, when the second hand had accomplished its round; "now will you show me your tongue please?" She did so with a little "moue" of annoyance.

The doctor stood up.

"It is also perfectly normal," he said. "Now please, Miss Lambert, what is your idea in making a pretence of illness? I assure you that you have never been better in your life; and that is the report I must take back to the theatre. Now why not be sensible and come down to the rehearsal with me? It  is no business of mine to point out the serious nature of your refusal; besides, I expect Lyston has done that."

"Do you really want to know, Doctor, why I am so ill? Sit down here, and I'll tell you." She dragged a low chair to the side of the couch.

"Now look in my eyes; can't you see anything wrong?"

"No I—"

"Oh, you silly boy, however much cheaper have I got to make myself? Can't you see that I'm sick with love? They tell me you're very clever, Dr. Lushton. Aren't you clever enough to see that it's you who have made me sick? Oh now, I've said dreadful things and I know you'll despise me. Oh, why— why are men so thick-headed?"

She stretched her hands up to his shoulders, and her whole fragile body shaking with a passion of hysterical sobs, buried her wealth of curls on his breast. Dr. Lushton sat upright in manifest consternation; the golden head trembled dangerously near his lips . A few clumsy protests struggled in his mind before humanity asserted itself, and lifting the tear-stained face to his, he sent all the pent-up frenzy of his love into a passionate kiss that locked their lips together in rapturous communion.

"Kitty," he faltered, "Kitty! dear, how could I ever dare suppose you thought of me like this! I love you madly! Your image has haunted me day and night, Kitty, I love you. so."

The girl disengaged herself gently, and sat back on the sofa, a glad brightness shining through the tear mists.

"You dear old boy," she said. "I knew you loved me, and I have had to upset the whole Tiara Theatre to make you tell me. How very happy we will be— won't we?"

With the ending of the embrace reason had come with a painful shock to Lushton.

"Now what have you done; Kitty?"  he said. "We have had a moment's heaven, and now come the hard facts of life. I am in no place to marry, dear."

"Don't talk like that," the bronzed slipper tapped imperiously on the floor. "I know all about you, Mr. Morris and everything else tells me you're going to make a great name for yourself, so I'm going to take you on trust. Really, of course, I'm marrying for money. For, the present I make three times what I want, and I want you more than anything else, and you're going to marry me. I won't hear another word."

"What can I say, Kitty? You've silenced me. I'll try very hard to be a good husband."

"Of course you will. And now I'll go to the theatre and establish your reputation as having wrought a miraculous cure. Ring the bell, dear, please."

Felicie appeared with a suspicious suddenness.

"Tea is quite ready, madame."

"Very well, Felicie, and get my things ready. I am going to the theatre."

"And I," said Felicie to herself in the passage. "I shall earn the sovereign that Mr. Lyston promised me for making Madame change her mind."

Mr. Morris made so much money over "The Rajah's Daughter" that he presented £20,000 to a widely-advertised charity and became straightway a baronet.

_______________________

8: The Story of a Long Watch

Ernest Favenc

1845-1908

The Bulletin, 14 Dec 1895

IT WAS a matter of much wonder why Mrs. Prendergast should have settled down to live in so sleepy a little township as Nanarjin. True, it was a seaport, visited once a week by a coastal steamer, and once a month by an ocean-liner, but for all that there was no life in the place. Trade passed on to other centres, and the small population simply vegetated. Nevertheless, social jealousy and feminine curiosity were as rife in Nanarjin as in London or Paris,

Why had Mrs. Prendergast come to Nanarjin?

Mrs. Prendergast was a widow, young and good-looking. It need hardly be said that, with regard to the male sex, a young and iteresting widow can give any single girl 50 points out of a hundred and a bad beating; hence the girls' objection to her unexplained presence in their midst. So far as it went, however, Mrs. Prendergast's explanation was simple enough. The climate of Nanarjin agreed with her ; she was anxious to live quietly, and, as her income was not large, the place suited her. She had an old retainer with her, half-servant, half companion; not a breath of scandal could be raised against her; but, for all that, the universal opinion amongst Nanarjin femininity was, that Mrs. Prendergast was too good-looking, too well-dressed, and " too nice altogether, my dear," to have come to live in such an out-of-the-way region without a reason.

Masculine Nanarjin did not share this opinion, and was quite willing to unquestioningly accept the widow.

In truth, there was no doubt about it. Those who had friends in the metropolis had at once written for information, and the answers were perfectly definite. Prendergast, of the firm of Prendergast and Silcott, stock and station agents, had departed this life in an absolutely conventional and proper manner. He was twenty years older than his wife, and had not left her as well off as had been expected. That was all. Still, "why had she come here?"

That there must be "something behind" remained the unanimous opinion of the women. But months passed, and still their curiosity was unappeased. Beyond doffing her mourning at the conventional time, the widow did nothing worthy of comment or notice.

Nearly two hundred miles from Nanarjin, on a patch of good country, surrounded by unavailable land, was Binjoomba, a small cattle-station. It was far off the main road, seldom visited by anyone who had not business there, and the owner led the life of a recluse, save for a periodical spree in Nanarjin every 12 months. Why he selected Nanarjin for his annual outburst it would be hard to say, seeing that there was a far larger and livelier town within the same distance. But it had become a matter of habit with him to paint Nanarjin red once a year, so he continued to do so, and, as he paid ready-money for everything, nobody ever objected.

His name was Yates, and, for 11 months in the year, he was a rather reticent, somewhat abrupt- mannered gentleman, given to much reading. For one month, he was the exact opposite, and he was the exact opposite when he first caught sight of Mrs. Prendergast from the verandah of the Royal Hotel, where he was entertaining some of his numerous friends with the then popular drink .of dark brandy. Yates seemed suddenly struck .dumb until the widow had passed, then he arose, unceremoniously left his friends, went up to his bedroom and gave instructions that the doctor was to be sent for. The doctor came, and after a long Interview with his patient, in his turn gave orders that Mr. Yates was not to be disturbed for 24 hours.

There was much perplexity and also disappointment amongst a certain section at the cutting short of what promised to be a cheap and glorious spree; but to repine was useless. Yates kept his room for three days, and when he descended he was the sober and proper Yates. The afternoon of that day found him knocking at the door of the cottage where lived Mrs. Prendergast. He was shown into the modest sitting-room, and presently the widow appeared. There was not a word of greeting interchanged between them, and, after a short silence, Yates made the abrupt remark: "So you married old Prendergast."

"Yes," she repeated, "I married old Prendergast."

"Is he up here?"

"No."

"In Sydney?"

"Yes." There was the suspicion of a smile on the woman's face as she replied, but Yates was looking down and did not see it.

"Is it impertinent of me to ask why you are residing up here?"

"The climate suits me."

Yates arose and prepared to take his leave almost as unceremoniously as he had parted from his boon companions. There was a quick look of anxiety on Mrs. Prendergast's face as if she would detain him, but it passed, and they parted formally and coolly. Yates returned to the hotel, ordered his horses, and packed his valise. Mrs. Prendergast shed a few tears and then sat down and wrote a letter which seemed difficult to compose. Finishing it at last, she sent it by her old Servant to the Royal ; but when the woman reached there, Yates was five miles on his road, so it came back unanswered.

By that time, however, every local woman with a tongue had related to any other woman who would listen, the astounding story of how that dreadful man Yates, of Binjoomba, who avowedly hated the sight of a petticoat, had called on Mrs. Prendergast and immediately afterwards left the township.

ii

A SMALL goldfield had broken out within easy distance of Binjoomba; a speculative butcher had invested in all the fat cattle Yates could muster, and he was then on his way to deliver them. It was the second night out ; the cattle were tired and wore camped on a soft, comfortable sand ridge. Yates, who felt disinclined for sleep, was keeping watch.

The night was moonless but clear, warm but not sultry— the sort of night when sleeping in the open air is a luxury. Yates lit his pipe and thought of his lost sweetheart. With his customary reticence, he had not interchanged half-a-dozen words with anybody in Nanarjin while he was sober, and when he was drunk all he usually said was: "What will you have to drink?"

He was, therefore, quite unaware that Mrs. Prendergast was a widow, for she had relinquished her weeds some time before he saw her. The hours of darkness wore on. One after another the bright constellations so familiar to bushmen passed overhead and sloped westward, but Yates still kept a tireless watch and reasoned out a scheme born in a brain moody with a long-time solitary life. This was nothing less than killing a dead man. He had made up his mind to put Prendergast out of the way.

The idea had grown upon him irresistibly— fascinated him. He thought of the silly quarrel which parted him from his love in the long ago; of the wasted years spent by one in self-exile, by the other in a joyless wedlock. Now they had met once more, and the one obstacle was Prendergast. When the cold grey light of dawn piled the stars lying low on the horizon, and Yates called the men who had, much to their own satisfaction, been snugly coiled in their blankets all night, he had fully convinced himself that the removal of Prendergast was simply a matter of distasteful but stern necessity. He had not reasoned out any details; he had simply determined to go to Sydney and then hit on some plan to carry out his fell purpose. Yates was a man of action when once aroused. The cattle delivered, he returned to Binjoomba, and soon afterwards left for Sydney, via the seaport lying north of Nanarjin.

Meanwhile, Mrs. Prendergast remained in a state of perplexity. The abrupt departure of her old flame had aroused her pride and prevented her from forwarding her letter after him to the station. She began to get tired of Nanarjin and the petty interests of the place, and decided to leave it— for a time, at any rate.

Arrived in Sydney, Yates, as soon as possible, went round to the office of Prendergast and Silcott. The old name of the firm had been retained, after a not uncommon custom, so that he still remained in his error. For three days he resolutely kept watch, but no sign of the man he wanted was visible ; then he entered the office and asked for his intended victim. In due course a young fellow of some three or four-and-twenty came to see him. Yates had to explain that it was an elder Mr. Prendergast he was anxious to interview.

"l am afraid you will be disappointed," commenced the young man. "Mr. Prendergast is—"

"Out of town?" interrupted Yates, in his usual abrupt fashion.

"Well, yes," the other was commencing.

Yates waited to hear no more, but, with a gruff "Good morning," departed.

He had suddenly come to the conclusion that he had made a mistake : it must be this young Prendergast, some relation of the old man, to whom she was married. If so, in all probability he would not gain much by putting him out of the way. To rid a woman of an old husband was one thing, but to part her from a young one, of whom she was probably fond, was quite another pair of sleeves. He reluctantly relinquished the murder notion, but, having still a lurking doubt as to whether it might not be the old man after all to whom she was wed, he determined to make the acquaintance of yonng Prendergast and find out all about it. This was not hard to manage simply as a matter of business, and Yates made himself so agreeable that they soon became familiar enough for him to mention the fact that he had lately had the pleasure of seeing Mrs. Prendergast up North.

Now, the young fellow was married, and his wife had been on a visit to the North, so matters at once grew still more complicated ; and when Yates, in as indifferent a tone as he could command, stated that he and Mrs. Prendergast were very old friends indeed, his new acquaintance naturally asked him out to dinner.

When Prendergast, junior, went home, he jokingly told his wife that he had met an old sweetheart of hers, who was coming out to dinner the next day. It so happened that when Mrs. Prendergast, junior, was away on her visit she had met an old sweetheart of hers, but of this she had naturally said nothing to her husband. Therefore, she first grew very red, then very angry, and made some derogatory remarks about men in general which her husband appropriated to himself, and a small tiff ensued.

iii

YATES went out to dinner full of a lofty spirit of magnanimity. He would see her once more, make sure that she was happy, and then bury himself again for good in the solitude of Binjoomba. He stood in the drawing-room of his host, gazing sulkily out of the window, nerving himself for the coming ordeal, when there was a light tread behind him and a woman's voice said in petulant accents: "What did you mean by telling Dick that you were an old sweetheart of mine, you goose?"

Yates turned in amazement, and the lady, a perfect stranger to him, started back with a little cry of surprise. Before either had regained countenance, young Prendergast came in. Noting his wife's red cheeks and Yates' confused manner, the demon of jealousy at once entered his heart; but, like the villain of the drama, be dissembled. "No need to introduce you two," he said, with mock cheerfulness, and then, as there was no time for explanations, Yates took his hostess in to dinner, and they sat down, all feeling mighty uncomfortable.

Mrs. Prendergast could not explain that Yates was not the man she expected, without relating the fact of that other meeting concerning which she had been silent; Yates was utterly confused and afraid of putting his foot in it whatever he said; and young Prendergast was considering the safest method of killing his guest without being found out.

The dinner dragged wearily. It was summer time, and the twilight still lingered. Mrs. Prendergast, from where she sat, could see through the open French window.

"Here is somebody coming in a cab, with luggage," she remarked. "Why, Dick, it is— yes! it's the dowager, your mother!"

Young Prendergast arose and looked out of the window. "It is the mater," he said, and left the room to meet the visitor.

Yates, too, looked out of the window. He saw is old sweetheart coming up the garden. He saw young Prendergast meet and greet her affectionately, and then he rose up with a hollow groan that made his hostess exclaim, "Good gracious! whatever is the matter!"

"Let me go," he said, wildly, "these complications are too much for me. How can he be her son? Tell me before I lose my wits?"

"Of course Dick is only her stepson," she replied, in a somewhat scared voice, for she thought he was a lunatic; "but we are all so fond of her that, as a sort of joke, we call her 'mother' and 'the dowager.' "

"Then she married..." he demanded, breathlessly.

"Dick's father."

"And where is he?"

"Dead and buried these two years."

"O, bless you!" he cried, to her intense dismay, seizing her hand and kissing it rapturously.

"Here! I say!" cried the indignant voice of her husband, who had just entered; but Yates paid no attention to him, for there stood his old love, and he rushed up to her and commenced a wild explanation, which, however, seemed satisfactory enough to the listener; although the bewildered Mrs. Prendergast, junior, kept entreating her husband to send for the police and have the madman removed. In due time explanations ensued, although the elder Mrs. Prendergast strenuously denied that she went up to Nanarjin in order to accidentally meet Yates once more.

"Do you know, old fellow," said Prendergast, pushing the whisky over to his new friend as they smoked a parting cigar, "that I was seriously thinking of poisoning your grog to-night?"

"And," returned Yates, as he helped himself, "I came to Sydney with the firm resolve to put an end to Mrs. Prendergast's husband."

__________________

9: Mirrors

Roy W. Hinds

1887-1930

Argosy 10 Jul 1920

THE POOL lay crystal-like at the base of a rocky shelf and Roper's parched lips had almost dipped into the cool water when he drew back with a gasp of horror. A terrible face, gaunt of lines and scraggly of beard, was thrown back to his fevered eyes from the limpid depths.

For a moment he thought he had seen the face of another man staring up at him, like some wild beast about to spring. He had not reckoned on this great change.

The murder had been done five days ago and this was the first time he had drunk in daytime. At night the pools and creeks had not been mirrors to him—and the change of five days burst upon him with a crash. There had been no gradual preparation. Thinking of himself as he looked a week ago, he hardly knew himself after five days as a fugitive in the wooded hills.

But neither the gaunt face nor the knurly beard, nor yet the fevered eyes, gave him such a pang of horror. It was none of these things which caused him, kneeling on the brink of that pool-mirror, to tremble as though each nerve were a twanging harp string, and to clasp his hands to his eyes as though to shut all the world from vision. It was none of these things which cracked his dry throat with a wrenching sob, and made of his breathing a mere fluttering in the breast.

Across his broad forehead was a smear of blood, its scarlet undimmed by the soils of the forest— a smear as red as a flaming sunset.

About him the hills towered, seeming to hem him in. Spearing upward from the shoulder of a near-by crag loomed the gaunt shaft of a dead tree, gnarled and stripped of all foliage— up-pointed like an accusing finger. The floor of the little valley was level and bush-clumps spotted its verdure. It was not unlike a great chamber of justice, with the silent hills sitting round about in judgment. Roper knelt at the pool as though in supplication at the feet of Doom.

Impulsively, he shut tight his eyes and plunged hands into the pool, swiping his forehead again and again with the water. He rubbed furiously and then, when the ripples had quieted, he gazed into the limpid depths.

Mirrored back to him yet was the livid stain, lessened neither in outline nor in glare.

He gave a rasping cry of despair and fell backward on the grass— eyes shut tightly, as though fearing to gaze even into the sky. He lay until burning thirst again drove him to the water, and when he drank it was with eyes still, closed. When he had finished drinking, he slowly opened his eyes. Yes, it was still there— a red daub against his skin.

He lay back on the grass, a strong man from whose breast hope had fled. He lay thus for an hour, not caring how near was pursuit and with the panorama of his crime reeling across the screen of his fancy in endless procession.

HE SAW the cabin thirty miles back in the hills. He saw the object of his revenge sitting in the doorway just as evening was coming on. He saw himself peering from the forest, years of hatred in his eyes and the twitching of blood-lust in his fingers.

Occasionally he saw the woman pass across the doorway of the cabin, with the man in the doorway ever between them.

Curse him! He had come between Roper and this woman five years before, and even in the solitude of these woods, he still unconsciously sat between them. He sat like some eternal sentinel, forever to keep Roper from the woman who once was his by love and by law.

In vision, Roper again saw the woman come up behind the man in the doorway. He saw her hand lying upon his shoulder, and he saw in her eyes the light— the light which once had shone for himself, but which now made of his blood a molten current of wrath. He remembered how he had to grip himself and set his teeth to keep from shooting both of them down from where he crouched in the forest. He had not been ready to slay them yet. Years of thirsting hatred would not be slaked by so merciful a climax.

He looked again— and saw the woman's cheek bend to the man's. He saw them thus for a minute, and then she sat beside the man—one arm about his neck, his arms about her body, their faces merged seemingly into one. It would be fine to kill them thus— when they were so happy— but it would be far sweeter to kill them in the fashion he had planned.

He saw them sitting thus until full darkness had come on—and, though he could not see them, still he knew they were sitting there, close together, always close together.

And then, as the man and the woman still sat in the doorway, Roper saw himself creeping from the forest— creeping like a reptile from the swamps up onto the white beach of happiness.

And then Roper wondered if he had not been crazy— if he were not so still. For the sweetness of his revenge had grown bitter. Lying on the brink of that pool, he flogged it again and again from his thoughts—but always it returned, like a mangy dog slinking back to a forbidden door-step.

Though he tried not to see, yet he did see himself coming upon the man and woman out of the darkness. He saw them rise as he, a pistol in each hand, bade them rise. He saw them step from the cabin and he saw them back against its walls, hands stretched high. He saw the woman, at his bidding, get a clothes-line and bind it round and round the body of the man— bind him helpless.

Then he had cursed them. Over and over he cursed them. He told them, there in the darkness, that he was going to kill them. He was going to torture the man before the eyes of the woman— and then he was going to shoot the woman. He heard her plead for a quick death for both. He talked to them of former times and gloated over the thing he was about to do.

As the man lay bound upon the ground, he saw himself struggling with the woman— finally he saw her, also bound, lying near the man.

It was then that he had conceived the hideous idea.

He had remembered the woman falling in love with the man's eyes. He had heard her, in sleep, speak of the man's eyes— just a mere word, but enough to set his heart aflame with jealous rage. For five years he had planned to make of their death a terrible thing, but not until he had them at his mercy did he think of destroying the man's eyes— his hated eyes— before the eyes of the woman. In all his fury, and it had been five years of fury, the thoughts of this man's eyes had been uppermost— and now he got sweetness out of the idea which would make his triumph happy beyond measure.

And in all this time of preparation, the man on the ground spoke but once.

" If you're going to kill us," said he, "kill her first—quick; and then torture, or do whatever you want, with me."

But the plea of the doomed man had fallen on unheeding ears.

The man at the pool wondered again if he had not been crazy. He couldn't conceive, now that his revenge was complete—or as complete as he could wish— just why his hatred had been so deep. Even though the woman lived, it were far better for her if she had died, too. She was suffering more, living, than he could have made her suffer in dying.

Why had he been so fiendish when he had them at his mercy? Ah! He had it. It was the light in the woman's eyes. Had he not seen that light, glowing for another man, maybe he would have been more merciful. That was it—the light in her eyes. He could see it now, burning steadily, resolutely, in the doorway of the cabin— a light which would burn before him forever.

And then, as the crime came surging over him again, he saw himself entering the cabin and lighting a kerosene-lamp. He saw their bed. He saw the table at which they ate. He saw the clothing of the woman and the clothing of the man lying and hanging about— close together, always close together.

He saw the kitchen stove, the supper coals of which had still been glowing. He saw the huge poker hanging in a rack against the chimney. And now he saw its tip thrust among the coals. He saw the tip taking on a faint glow, the redness of it slowly melting into the redness of the coals. He saw himself, armed with the singeing poker, stepping out of doors. He saw again the stars gazing down upon the hideous scene— not one of them brighter than the iron brand he clutched.

Then he saw the man, who somehow had worked his arms loose, trying to rise. He had let him get to his feet. He saw him totter, his ankles bound, against the side of the cabin. He heard the woman scream— and then he remembered that the man had cheated him of his design.

The man had clutched his throat, and for the life of him he had not been able to lay the poker against his face. The fellow was a giant in strength, and even though his legs were bound, his free arms had been powerful enough to keep him off. He had been agile beyond belief. The poker had singed his clothing and his hands, but not once did it touch his face.

He remembered the poker waving about in the air— thrusting, parrying, to carry out its fiendish mission. And again he heard the woman scream— heard her cry as the man again clutched his throat.

"Kill him, Jim!" she cried. "Hang onto him, Jim— kill him! "

And then he remembered the rage which had come over him— with this woman whom he madly loved crying for his death. He recalled shooting the man down— shooting him again and again. He heard the shots echoing back from the ringing hills. He saw the poker, hot, but its redness faded, lying across the dead man's arm. He sniffed again the odor of burning cloth and flesh. He saw the face turned up in the starlight.

Then he remembered dragging the body into the cabin. He had an insane desire to see them both dead in the place where they had been so happy. He had seen blood on his hands— and he had stopped to wash them. The woman was in a swoon when he stepped again outside.

He did not shoot. Her white face had awed him. Had she been unbound and fighting, undoubtedly he would have slain her. But he couldn't bring himself to the task as she lay helpless. The longer he looked upon the white face, the farther had his resolution slumped. A rush of terror had seized him. The white face of this living woman had been more ghastly than the dead.

He had bent over her. She lived. He had unbound her, and left her lying there in the starlight. He had fled into the forest— crazed by his deed. The lust for revenge had faded and the horror of fresh murder was upon him. He would gladly have undone it if he could.

The days which had intervened were hazy. He remembered wandering, wandering— and that was all. From time to time he fed from the pack he lugged over his shoulder. He remembered these things, but mostly he remembered the blood that had been upon his hands— and he remembered the stain that even yet was on his forehead.

And then he wondered if he had not been crazy— if he were not still crazy.

He would see. If he still saw the stain upon his forehead, he was crazy— for surely no stain could linger that long. He crept to the pool and shut his eyes. Then he washed and washed at his forehead— furiously. With dripping hands, he rubbed until the flesh nearly left the bone.

Then for some time he knelt quietly over the pool— eyes still shut; fearful of what he would see when he dared open diem.

He saw what he had seen before— the red splash on his forehead.

He did not cry out nor fall backward this time, for he grimly told himself he was insane and that he must be calm if he wished to coax back his reason. He even took time to study the outline of the imaginary stain, aiming himself over and over again that it was not there, yet with his eyes he saw it.

It was uneven of outline— three inches long and perhaps a half-inch wide at one point. It was just such stain as he might have made by drawing a bloody hand across his brow. He didn't remember whether he had done this. That was no matter, anyway— the stain was not a stain at ail; it was a figment of his tortured fancy, no more real than the mirages he had often seen in the desert.

Then, with freshening horror, he saw what it resembled. It was in outline like a blood-stain he had seen on the cheek of the man he slew.

He remembered it now. He had seen it on the face turned up in the starlight, and again as the body lay under the yellow glow of the lamp inside the cabin. There was no doubt about it. It was that very stain transferred to his own face. It had been the only stain on the face of the dead man. Most of his shots had gone into the man's breast. One had crashed into the side of his head, but the blood from that had not flowed onto the face. He didn't know how it had got there. Possibly when he had dragged the body into the cabin.

But enough it was that he saw— or thought he saw— the stain on his own face. Surely he must rest He must deep. He must ease his nerves. He scarcely remembered anything since he left the cabin, but he did remember that he had slept but little.

That was the trouble. That was why he saw this stain. Why, surely— he could close his eyes and still see the stain. He could still see the face of the man and the woman. He could still bear their voices. And they weren't there— any more than this stain was there.

It was all imagination— a trick of his fancy. A sound sleep would banish all these fantasms. And then he would be himself again. He could make good his escape with some sort of system, instead of roaming like a wild man in these desolate hills.

He lay down on the grass and wondered if this would be a safe place to sleep for the night. Mechanically he drew the back of his hand— more sensitive of touch than his palms— across his forehead.

He could feel that stain!

It felt dry and rough. With staring eyes, he slowly brought his hand down and gazed at the spot which had brushed the stain. There was no mark upon the hand. A long time he stared at it— fearful even of moving, lest some new and horrible apparition confront him.

A long time he stared. He did not raise his hand to his forehead again; nor did he again gaze into the pool— nor did he think further of resting there. Instead, he shouldered his pack and plunged into the forest— walking, stumbling, running, staggering, until darkness found him exhausted in a hillside cave.

He slept that night, because he was worn down to the point where nothing mattered. He slept just where he had sunk down. He did not eat. He did not even take off his boots. He slept the long night through— without a dream. And he awakened wondering if the stain were still there.

He wondered, but he dared not take pains to find out. He assured himself that the best way to get back his reason was to forget that fanciful stain— and he could forget It only by ignoring it. He would cheat his fancy. He would not even feel for the stain, nor look for it again in water-mirrors.

He ate heartily from his pack. He was greatly refreshed, and left the cave feeling quite cheerful. He drank, with eyes shut tightly, from a creek— and even started off with a humming song. Surely, sleep was a wonderful thing.

Continuing his journey, more leisurely now, he realized he must make for a settlement he reckoned to be twenty miles away. He had seen that his food was scant— he must have another stock to last him to the railroad thirty miles beyond the settlement.

This settlement was isolated from all the world. They would not look for him there, because it was the longest way to the railroad— and they would assume that he had taken the shortest cut. Had he gone south from the cabin instead of west, he could have shortened the trip to the railroad by forty miles.

But he had had, even in insane frenzy after the murder, judgment enough to follow out a plan conceived in calmer moments. Yes, he would make for that settlement. He could reach it easily by nightfall.

Then he took to studying his clothing for blood-stains. He brushed the dust off as best he could and looked every garment over carefully. There was not a mark. He was thankful for that. There was not a thing about him to suggest the crime— unless—

A great idea came to him. He would meet people in the settlement. He would watch them closely to see whether they found anything strange about his forehead. He could tell by their eyes. If they gazed curiously at his brow, there was a stain there— a stain put upon him as a curse by an unseen hand. He wondered if such things really happened— and then he chuckled at the utter foolishness of the idea.

But still he could not wholly convince himself that there was no stain on his forehead. Oh, well, he wouldn't worry about it now. He would leave it to the people in the settlement. If they saw nothing there, it had been, as he thought, a delusion— and he need worry no more.

As the day went on he took to studying the woods, and the hills, and the birds that flitted like a chirping escort beside his path. In these diversions he banished his crime— and the stain. At midday he ate again, and flung crumbs to a squirrel that boldly came almost to his feet. He had a mind to shoot the animal and spit the flesh for food, but the little thing was so trustful that he let it live. He went on his way, humming, whistling— and arrived at the settlement just as night swept into the hills.

He came, first, to a cabin which set apart from the grouped houses of the settlement. A bearded man sat in the doorway, smoking. He could see him even in the darkness, for there was a light within— and he " helloed " when he was still some distance away; the friendly call of an intruder meant to show he came not for evil. The man in the doorway got to his feet and peered into the darkness.

"Hello-o! " he called, and came forward.

"I've traveled far— and need food and sleep," Roper said. "Can you accommodate me?"

The man hesitated. "I've got money to pay," Roper added.

"It ain't that," the man said. "We ain't got no room here— but there's a store in the settlement where you can get grub; and maybe there's folks there that can bed you better."

"But I want a hot supper," Roper persisted. He wanted, more than anything else, to get into the light of the cabin and find what the man would see on his forehead.

"We can give you supper," the settler agreed. "Come on in."

Roper stepped into the interior of the cabin and found a woman and two small children there. Evidently the family had eaten, for the stove was cold and the dishes had been cleared away.

"Em," said the host, and Roper started, for the woman at the other cabin was named Emma. "Em, here's a trav'ler that's needin' a hot supper. Can you fix him up?"

"I guess so," said the woman— and she smiled.

Roper unshouldered his pack and set it in a corner, while the children, a boy and girl, stood hand-in-hand and stared in the manner of children to whom strangers were a novelty. Slowly Roper pulled off his slouched hat, the brim of which cast a shadow on his forehead. The forehead lay bare, but he stood some distance from the light— and he noticed nothing unusual in the eyes of the man and the children as they gazed upon him. The woman's back was turned as she stirred the fire.

"Hello, there," said Roper cheerily, seeking to make himself agreeable by coddling the children. He stepped toward them, but they shrank into the comer. As he continued to move toward them, they ran to their mother and clung to her skirts.

"They don't see much of strangers," the father explained, "and I reckon they're a bit skeery."

"Say ' howdy-do ' to the man," the mother urged the little ones, but still they kept aloof.

Roper took two pennies from his wallet and sought to make friends by bribery, but still the children clung to their mother— and he could not coax a smile from them.

"They don't see many pennies, neither," said the father, " and I reckon they don't know what they be." And the fugitive abandoned his attempts to make friends of the children.

He followed the settler outside and washed his hands and face in a basin on a bench. The man asked him neither whence he came nor where he was going. Roper volunteered the information that he was bound for Atlas, and the settler told him it was forty miles away through the woods

"But you can go to Goodale," he added. "That's only twenty-five miles from here, and it's on the railroad. You can ride the last fifteen miles if you get tuckered."

That's exactly where Roper was going— to Goodale, but he said: " I might as well hoof it clear to Atlas, I guess— 'cross country."

The lamp sat on the table at which Roper ate—and he was in the full glare of it. The woman stood by the stove and the man sat in a chair. The children stood one upon each side of the mother— close beside her. All were facing him as he ate and talked.

He studied, guardedly, the eyes of the woman first. Occasionally he saw her gaze curiously on a line with his forehead.

He ate nervously— and did not look into the eyes of the woman again. Yet he knew she was watching him. But he did see the man also gazing curiously on a line with his forehead— and he saw the children staring at his brow!

He hastened through the meal, keeping his head bowed over the plate now. As quickly as he could, he pulled his hat on fling a dollar upon the table and, with pack slung up, made off toward the grouped houses of the settlement.

He came to the little store and bought a stock of provisions, which the storekeeper helped him put away in his pack. On the porch of the store was a group of loungers, but it was dark there. Only the tradesman was inside with Roper. When he was ready to depart, the fugitive, with an effort at carelessness pulled off his hat and looked squarely into the face of the storekeeper. The man was giving him directions. Roper saw his eyes gazing into his own. Then he noticed that the man's words came slower— a slight stammer in his voice— as in surprise.

Then he saw that the man's gaze was fastened upon his forehead.

There was a moment of confusion between both men. Roper paid his bill and hastened away. As he plunged again into the forest, he fell to wondering if he had not been crazy— if he were not still crazy.

For a few minutes he wandered this way and that. Then a craving for the word of a friend came over him. He had a friend at Hackett, on the railroad off to the south— only twenty miles away, where the track bent up toward Goodale and Atlas. He knew this man would shelter him against all danger.

But what he craved above all things else was a friend to whom he could talk about the damnable stain on his forehead. He still doubted there was any stain there— he assured himself that he had only imagined the people in the settlement had gazed at his brow curiously. He still laid it all to a bad case of nerves, but he wanted the word of a friend.

"There's nothing the matter with your forehead, Dan," he wanted to hear the friend say. "There's nothing the matter— it's as smooth as mine. You're all unstrung, and need a rest."

That's what he wanted— the word of a friend. If he had that, the stain would fade from his imagination and he would be content. He craved counsel and cheer. So, in the night, he set off toward Hackett.

He miscalculated, and came to the railroad five miles above Hackett. All night and part of the forenoon he had tramped, stopping only occasionally for a bite to eat or to drink at wild streams. Again he was in a fearful state of mind, torn of body and frayed of nerves. He stood on the railroad, doubtful as to which way Hackett lay and with the hot sun burning down upon his weary head.

He guessed right and started off down the trade toward Hackett, too reckless now even to seek the shade of the forest on either hand.

There were telegraph lines into Hackett and before he came to the town's edge he roused from his stumbling lethargy sufficiently to make plans to avoid the houses. He would circle the town and come to his friend's cabin on the other side. He would lurk in the near-by woods until nightfall.

He arrived almost at the town and then swung off into the woods. But he had been seen.

MARSHAL Freeland was a very suspicious marshal. Had Roper gone straight into town maybe the official, who was driving a horse and buggy on a near-by road, would have given him but scant attention. But Freeland saw him skulking into the woods, and he tied his horse and followed.

He trailed Roper through the woods and clear around the town, and saw the fugitive fling off his pack and his hat, and sink to the ground. In a moment Roper lay flat on his back, with a grassy hummock for a pillow, His face—and forehead— were in full view.

Then Martial Freeland dropped his gun on the man and bade him rise. Roper listlessly obeyed, stretching his hands upward. The marshal came close and intently scrutinized the fugitive's forehead. The gaze shot a fresh rush of terror through Roper.

"You're Dan Roper," Freeland announced, positively.

"Yes," said Roper,

"I thought so. They said to look out for a man with a scar on his forehead."

"A scar?"

"Sure, a scar," said the marshal. "You don't expect to swipe a red-hot poker across your face and get away without a scar, do you? "

" A red-hot poker— a scar," breathed the bewildered Roper.

"Come now— don't try to crawl out of it! The woman told the whole story. I know how that poker scraped your face when you was tryin' to burn his eyes out."

"I don't remember— don't see—"

"I guess you're still looney," interjected Marshal Freeland, "She said you looked like a crazy man when was leanin' over her— and her makin' out as if she'd fainted. She saw that burn on your forehead— and said you didn't seem to pay no attention to it. I guess you had too much on your mind to think about a burn. It's a nice red blister now, all right.  Come on."

_________________

10: Ragan in Ruins

Bertram Atkey

Saturday Journal (Adelaide) 8 Sep 1928

The Strand Magazine, Jan 1913

"CIGAR, please, Belton."

Ragan bent over the box his man brought him.

"The last of the dandies, eh, Belton?" he said, looking up at the valet. "Let's hope it's a case of the survival—until now—of the fittest." His lips twitched as he noted the uncomfortable look on Belton's impassive face.

"You instructed me to order no more, sir," said the man, a faint protest in his voice.

"Yes." Ragan nodded, pensively surveying the solitary Havana that remained in the box. "Belton, the loneliest, most stranded, down-and-out-looking thing in the whole world is the last cigar of the box. Make a note of that for your book."

"My book, sir?" Belton looked puzzled.

"Yes. Aren't you writing a book?"

"Book, sir? Certainly not, sir," remonstrated the valet, apparently shocked.

"Oh, I thought perhaps you were. You ought to— I could provide you with some material."

Ragan looked again at the cigar and shook his head. "I won't smoke it— that poor little, lonely survivor, Belton. I'll have a cigarette. So you are not writing a book? Do you do any journalism?"

"Journalism, sir? No, never, sir"— very emphatically, as though resenting the accusation.

"Ah, that's a pity. How about the market? Ever do anything with stock—  shares, you know?"

Belton shook his head, a puzzled look in his eyes. "No, sir— of course not, sir."

Ragan sighed.

"Well, you are going to lose an opportunity of making a haul to-day."

Belton looked sorry. He was not the only man in the world, by some thousands, who believed what Ragan said when Ragan spoke about money. "The fact is, Belton," said Ragan, slowly, as though relishing every word— "the fact is, I'm ruined."

Belton deftly concealed a sudden smile.

"Indeed, sir!" he said, politely, manifestly believing that his master was joking. Ragan looked at him curiously.

"You don't believe it, Belton?" he asked.

The valet hesitated for a second only.

"Well, sir," he said, "it does seem a little bit far-fetched, sir." His smile refused to be concealed— it became almost a grin. The idea of Ragan being ruined was really amusing. Ragan, the multi-millionaire, the Petrol Potentate! No wonder Belton grinned.

"Far-fetched, hey?" said Ragan, a new, grim reflection in his voice. "You'll see. If I pay twenty shillings in the pound when my affairs are straightened out, Belton, there are men in the City of London— yes, and New York and Paris and Berlin, too— who will weep tears of joy!"

Belton's face changed suddenly. He knew when Ragan was serious. He turned very white and sat down suddenly.

"Beg pardon, Mr. Charles," he apologized. "My knees went queer— seemed to give out, kind of. This is a great shock to me, sir." The man was literally trembling. "I— I can't quite imagine it. Ruined! What are you going to do about it, sir?"

"Do about it, Belton? Oh, I've got thousands of friends—thousands. I'm going to rely on them to lend me a hand, to start me afresh. One isn't too old at thirty-five. It will be all right."

Uneasiness settled on the valet's face.

"Yes, sir," he said. But it was a question rather than a concurrence.

"Don't you think so, Belton? Don't you think my friends— lots of 'em are men I made—dragged 'em out of naked poverty, Belton— you don't mean that you think they won't help me, do you?"

Belton was silent, his eyes on the white cloth on the breakfast-table. Ragan was smiling— rather tensely.

"You don't think they'll help, eh, Belton? What's the matter with you? Say what you think."

"Very good, sir." The valet raised his head suddenly, and looked his master squarely in the eyes. "You ask me a plain question and give me leave to give a plain answer, sir. Well, then, I don't believe that out of the hundreds of money-grabbing time-servers and spongers and lying flatterers that have lived on you for years you'll find six real friends now that you need 'em. That's my opinion, sir. And, Mr. Charles, I know what I'm talking about."

Ragan's face was very serious.

"I say, Belton, aren't you exaggerating a bit? There are plenty of people who have come to this flat and cried— cried like children— about money, and have begged for a chance to do something to show their gratitude when I've helped them. Why, man, you've seen a lot of it for yourself. You've grown cynical, that's what's wrong."

Belton stood up.

"Very good, Mr. Charles," he said. "I hope you're right." He began mechanically to clear up the breakfast-table, then stopped suddenly.

"Mr. Charles," he said, flushing, "if things have gone kind of rocky in the City, I know you well enough to know that you'll soon master 'em again, without much help from any friends. If— what I mean to say— well, sir— it sounds ridiculous— I've—" He stopped.

Ragan looked at him almost hungrily. "Come on, Belton," he said. "Out with it."

"Well, sir, I've managed to put by a few hundred quid— pounds, sir. About seven hundred. If you'd like to take that as a loan, sir, I would be proud. I— I— believe in you, sir," stammered the man. It was the first time Ragan had ever seen Belton perturbed. "I know what you can do, sir— and I've had a good deal from you above my wages."

Ragan smiled. There was relief in his eyes—relief and something very friendly. He held out his hand.

"Shake hands, Belton," he said. "I've got one friend, anyhow. Leave that money where it is for a time, though. There are a lot of people in this town who owe me more than you do. I'll give them a chance first. But you're a white man, and I'm hoping to find some more of the same colour. Are the newspapers here?"

Belton brought them in, and Ragan opened one— a morning paper with a mighty circulation.

"Ah! They are on to it!" he snapped, sharply, and pointed to a flaring headline.

FAILURE

Of

Mr. Charles Ragan,

The Petrol Prince.

John D. Rockefeller's

European Rival

In Liquidation.

Belton craned over his shoulder, staring with horrified eyes at the announcement.

Then an electric bell somewhere outside the room purred long and insistently.

Ragan put down the paper.

"That's the first of the crowd who'll want me to settle out of hand, Belton. You'll get scores to-day. Stave 'em off— stave 'em off! Refer them to Mr. Griffiths, my solicitor," he said, a remote excitement in his voice.

Belton's face hardened as he went out.

Left alone, Ragan laughed softly.

"Now we shall see— just what sort of friends I've got," he murmured. A momentary cloud shadowed his keen, clean-shaven, good-looking face.

"If Belton's right," he said, then shrugged. "Impossible," he added. "Why, he gave himself away." He smiled as he thought of Belton's savings— but there was no mockery in the smile. He felt very friendly towards the valet, who had taken the news so hard.

And that was good for Belton— better than Belton dreamed.

For Ragan stood there worth a clear two and a half millions if he was worth a penny— and never a soul in the world but Ragan and one lawyer knew it.

IT had been the work of a year— delicate, tortuous, very skilful manipulation— this quiet "getting out" with two and a half millions. And the cost had been vast. There is no more sensitive organization in the world than the money market, and, at his zenith, no financier was more carefully watched than Charles Ragan. But for all that he had successfully effected the withdrawal from the money whirlpool of the huge, cumbrous amount and its quiet investment in steady national— of many nations—securities, without the knowledge of his financial foes and allies, and, cleverer still, without seriously harming anyone's interests. This done, there remained a long labour of bringing himself to the verge of ruin— in the public eye— so that he could fall alone, leaving safe all his associates, from the noble chairmen of the companies he had built up and dominated to the office-boys thereof.

And now that, too, was done. And nobody but his lawyer and himself knew the colossal ingenuity the doing had involved.

That he had been successful the headlines of the morning newspapers screamed at him.

He stood there, staring absently at the heavy type, wondering if he had been wise. The sound of Belton at issue with many callers fell upon his ears, and he smiled doubtfully. He wondered at the sudden loss of confidence. He had not felt like this when the idea had first come to him a year ago. Then it had seemed to him that there was no doubt at all that many people were his friends, because they liked him, and not merely because the cords of simple, unselfish friendship were, in many cases, supplemented— or should be— by the chains of gratitude.

He had said so the Griffiths, his lawyer, and Griffiths had laughed and dryly told him that no man but a bankrupt was really qualified to be a judge of gratitude.

He had thought that over. One man, even, he had asked— a man whom he had just lifted out of the slough of ruin and put in train to light his way to prosperity. "You say you are grateful. What would you do if I went right to the other end— smashed— and came to you for help?"

Folding his cheque, the man had said:—

"You would see, Mr. Ragan," and his voice had trembled. "I'm not one of the talkers— but you would see. All I had would be yours, at least."

And the man had believed he was speaking the truth.

THIS was to be Ragan's holiday and voyage of discovery. He had had enough of money-making, anyway— he wanted to retire— and so he had arranged it. He intended to retire, not as a raider retiring full-flushed with spoil from some stronghold of Mammon, but as a failure—a seeker for help, a searcher for material gratitude.

Griffiths, when the plan was explained, had said: "All you will discover is that the world is governed by self-interest. Don't do it, Ragan. You stand to lose more than you can gain. You think you have hosts of friends. Keep on thinking it. But, for Heaven's sake, don't test them."

Well— now Ragan would see for himself.

First, however, he must call at the Lee-Knightons. There, at any rate, he was sure of his reception. It would put him in good heart for the disappointments that—according to Griffiths and Belton— awaited him. Sir John— another who owed all his present prosperity to Ragan— he knew, would help him. Lady Lee-Knighton's liking for him, he believed, was proof against adversity, and Clare— was Clare? The only reason Clare and he were not yet formally betrothed, it was tacitly understood, was because she was a month or so too young. In two months she would be nineteen, when, her mother had encouraged Ragan to believe, everything could be formally arranged. Yes, Ragan was sure of his friends in that house.

So he went there— not in his big limousine, nor his electric runabout, nor his silver-grey Rolls-Royce touring-car, for all these were now held up by the liquidators, acting for yesterday's first flurried meeting of creditors. He went on foot.

At the end of the street he came face to face with Fitzlough— Major Fitzlough.

The Major was hurrying but at sight of Ragan he stopped abruptly, his fat, red face becoming radiant and a curious glitter flashing into his pale, quick, rather cruel-looking eyes.

"Charles Ragan on foot!" he said, playfully, in his metallic voice. "The man of many motors! Wonderful!" He laughed a jolly laugh. "I was hurrying to catch you before you went to the City, Charlie, my boy."

The Major was one of those bluff, breezy, "old uncle" men who "my boy'd" everybody. An adventurer, if ever there was one, whose happy hunting-ground was the fringe of good society. A bear— or rather cub-leader, a tuft-hunter. "I like a lord, and I'm not ashamed of it, my boy—why should I be, hey?" An extraordinarily fine bridge-player, equally good at billiards, habitué of all the best paddocks and grandstands, he knew more than a little of the City. But, apparently, he had not read his paper yet that morning. He shook hands.

"Charles, my boy, I need two ponies for two days precisely," he began— as he had often begun before, but Ragan interrupted him. A newsboy came racing past, hoarsely hawking the early sporting edition of an "evening" paper, and Ragan beckoned him. The Major watched.

Ragan bought and opened a paper and directed Fitzlough's attention to a column dealing with himself.

The breezy old soldier gasped, turned purple, and then the colour faded, leaving his cheeks unwholesomely mottled.

"Great Scot, Ragan!" he said. He owed Ragan between two and three hundred pounds— loans snatched deftly at the right instant. All the bluff heartiness was gone— the man's eyes had hardened and the remotely predatory gleam in them had died out. They reflected nothing but the spirit of defence, of wariness, now. The Major was on guard— this looked as though he might be called upon to refund those airy loans!

"What does this mean, Ragan?" he asked. Ragan shrugged his shoulders.

"Smash," he said, curtly, reading the man like print.

Major Fitzlough gave him back the paper.

"I'm sorry— upset. This is a great shock. I'm upset— it is terrible!"

He fixed his glossy silk hat more firmly on his head, glancing round sharply. He was not sure that it was going to do him any good to be seen chatting with this ruined stock-gambler.

"I sympathize deeply— deeply, Ragan. Is it irretrievable?"

"Quite." Ragan's skin crawled with contempt.

The Major made as though to move on.

"Terrible— terrible!" he said, and took a step forward. "See you at the club later."

Ragan let him go without answering. He knew that the man was thanking his gods that he had never given any written acknowledgment of those loans, which he would never repay— had never intended to repay.

Ragan shrugged and resumed his walk. He had known, what the Major was long enough ago; he had never expected the money back. The man was little more than a jackal with a careful air of bluff breeziness. London is stiff with them.

Ragan had not even paid him the compliment of marking him off as one of those whom he should "test." He had merely pitied him before; now he just despised him.

"What can you expect from a wolf but a bite?" said Ragan, gaily, and continued his way to the Lee-Knightons.

A MOTOR-CAR was standing outside the house when he arrived—a long, low, yellow car, which he recognized at once. It belonged to young Hugo Wallhurst, son of Wallhurst, the coal baron.

Something stirred slowly in his heart as he recognized the car. Nine o'clock in the morning is a very unusual hour at which to call upon anyone. But Ragan had a reason for calling. What reason had young Wallhurst? He knew that the boy was a worshipper of Clare Lee-Knighton.

Then he laughed again. It was too fanciful to imagine that Wallhurst had called for any reason connected with him. And yet he was too quick to fail to see that if Wallhurst were desperate for Clare, and if the newspapers were right, now was his chance, if ever.

But it was a slender chance, for it was Ragan's intention to explain to the Lee-Knightons his real position and his scheme of "exploration" for the next few months. That was why he was calling so early— to allay the effect of the newspapers. It was due to them, at least. He had decided that on the previous evening. With a certain uneasiness it had occurred to him that perhaps it would have been in better taste to have taken them into his confidence before.

That the news had spread throughout the house he saw in the first glance at the man who opened the door in response to his ring.

But he had little opportunity of observing the manservant, for as the door closed Lady Lee-Knighton came into the hall.

She started at sight of Ragan, and it seemed to him her rather florid face paled a little. For a fraction of time— so minute as to be barely perceptible— she hesitated. Then she came to him smiling. But her eyes were strange. They were cold and hard and wary. So changed were they from the ordinary that it seemed to Ragan almost as though she were some other woman— a stranger. Then she shook hands, and began to talk swiftly.

"Good morning," she said. "You are our second early caller. Mr. Wallhurst came a little while ago. There must be something in the air this morning; no one wants to go to the City. Sir John refused point-blank to go; it was too fine for work. We are going motoring. I haven't even had energy enough to look at the papers this morning. It is too hot to read, or even pretend to."

Ragan was turning cold. The insincerity of the woman was too obvious. It was blatant— in her fixed smile, her cold eyes, her high, hurried voice, the abrupt, nervous movements of her hands. She hastened on.

"Besides, we have had something more to think about, Mr. Ragan." She nodded with a horrible archness. "A surprise. Clare and Hugo Wallhurst. It seems that they have had an understanding— between themselves— for months past. Clare hinted at something of the kind last night, and this morning Hugo called and they came to us together. It was pretty; not, perhaps, quite what her father and I had planned for Clare. But what were we to do? They adore each other. So— it is arranged."

She stopped with almost a gasp of relief; she had got it out before Ragan explained. There was fear in her eyes— both fear and relief. She stared at Ragan, palpitating.

Very calm, diamond hard, Ragan spoke.

"Ah, I see," he said. "You have not yet looked at this morning's papers, Lady Lee-Knighton?"

"No." Her hands trembled faintly. "Why do you ask?"

Ragan smiled. He knew she lied, and he guessed at the frenzied secret haste with which she must have made her plans for Clare and Wallhurst before he (Ragan) arrived. Something in his heart was icy-cold, but he remained self-possessed.

"This is the art of— diplomacy, is it not?" he said.

The bitter contempt in his eyes stung her suddenly. She could have screamed at him. But she controlled herself, and, tensely low-voiced, gave him the truth.

"It is," she said. "Will you combat it?"

She glanced round. No one was within hearing, and quite suddenly she gave herself up to the luxury of anger and the vicious frankness of anger.

"It is," she repeated. "You have been a millionaire so long that you have become arrogant, contemptuous of appearances. But we are not. The world is looking on always, and only millionaires can afford to forget it— millionaires and paupers. Since you insist, I will tell you that I did see the papers very early this morning, and I saw that you were ruined. Well, was I to throw my daughter into the morass with you? You expect a great deal too much if you expect that. What reason was there? Perhaps you think that because you helped my husband when he needed help you are entitled to claim Clare. You are wrong, Mr. Ragan. Financial matters are for the City. See my husband there and adjust your claims on his gratitude there. Clare's future is in my province. I will deal with it according to my own judgment. You affect contempt because I try to arrange that people should know that Clare and Hugo were affianced before we knew of your failure, but I do not agree that it is contemptible. And you will find few people who will."

She half turned away.

"And Clare? Is she content?" inquired Ragan.

"Perfectly. Clare is very sensible."

"Then— being— er— ruined, and therefore ineligible— I am dismissed?" demanded Ragan, very quietly.

A stare of hatred and disdain was his only reply for a moment. Then:—

"You are unreasonable and unjust," she said. "I will not discuss it."

"You do not deny that solely by my help your husband has climbed from the verge of ruin to comparative wealth?" he asked. "Why do you hate me so?"

She shook her head, like one suddenly spent.

"I will tell you. You hate me now because you are treating me badly."

"If it affords you any satisfaction to think that, do so," she said, and left him. Ragan stared round, a little dazed, for a second.

"Why, I thought she liked me— she and Sir John and that Clare loved me!" he said, weakly, he recovered himself immediately and the butler let him out. He walked back slowly to his flat, thinking desperately.

He saw now, with extraordinary clearness, that either he was completely out of touch with the ordinary, everyday outlook of the world, or that the Lee-Knightons were unusually worthless people. Why, they had acted as he had read of people acting with a leper— they fled at sight.

He was still thinking vaguely when he arrived at his flat.

On the stairs Griffiths, the lawyer, pale and worried, was standing. He was a young man and faithful to Ragan.

They went in together.

"What is it?" asked Ragan.

The eyes of the other man looked keenly at the millionaire.

"Why, they've started on you already!" he said, rather shrilly. "Heavens! isn't there any decency left in the world?" He recovered himself, sat down close to Ragan, and began to speak very earnestly.

"I hope they have hit you hard," he said, and his tone was bitter. "Hard enough for you to see the folly of this thing— and to stop it. Man, you must. They've been at me, too— vultures! Ragan, I've heard men— small men, little men— say things this morning that would make you ill. For the sake of the money— quite small sums, some of them— you owe them. You don't know— can't guess. Some of them are like wolves— fighting, almost, over priority of claims. Afraid, too. I've seen things before— queer, shady things— but I've never seen such absolute frank greediness— inconsideration— in my life as some 'friends' of yours have shown this morning. You see, they all thought you were as safe as the Bank of England. They relied on your accounts— and the idea of any chance of losing them simply scares them cold— sets them on edge. They were too nervous to believe me when I told em you'd pay twenty shillings in the pound."

He paused a moment. Then he continued, flatly: "Ragan, you'll have to give up your idea. It stirs things up too much— horrible things. The world is— what we've made it. Call it a pool with clear water on top, and the poisonous bad things sunk to the bottom. Agitate the pool, and all those bad things come to the top. See what I mean? The driving force is Self-Interest— all the rest is the nickel and the shiny part of the life machine. It's all right— good enough for people who haven't been intelligent enough to build a better machine— all right as long as you don't touch the source of the power— the driving force. That disturbs the machine. Heavens, what a world we've made of it!"

The phrase seemed wrung out of him. He pointed to Ragan with a shaking forefinger.

"And you— what do you stand to get out of it all? Let me tell you. A broken heart, a shattered faith, a soured outlook. You want to go out to discover sincerity, gratitude. But you will only discover greed!"

He shook his head nervously as Ragan opened his lips.

"I know— I know; there are cases here and there— here and there— of sincere kindness, sympathy, little friendly things—lots of them, if you like; but you won't find them in the places where you propose to look. Man, in one hour this morning I've heard a dozen men who I thought were your friends talk as though they hated you, for fear of their little money; and many of them have practically lived on you— your business— for years. You must let the thing go— end it. You have all you can expect, even one or two real friends. The rest are nothing— acquaintances— friends until you test them."

Ragan thought for a long time, very still, very white.

"I believe you've had enough of it already," said Griffiths.

"Enough? Enough?" Ragan rose suddenly, his face hard and twisted. "They've broken me already. Enough?"

A light of understanding rose in the solicitor's eyes.

"You don't mean the Lee-Knightons— already?" he said.

Ragan nodded.

"Certainly the parents, but I can't believe yet that Clare would—"

He hesitated. Before he could finish the door opened and a girl came in.

"Miss Lee-Knighton," announced Belton, tensely.

She came straight to Ragan, arms out, eyes wide, unfaltering. Never had he seen her so beautiful, nor loved her more.

"They told me a thousand things— terrible," she said. "Mother sent for Hugo Wallhurst. I tried to do what they said, but I couldn't— I couldn't! How could I—"

Ragan took her, hungrily, his eyes victorious. She was crying, and clung to him like a child, a little tired child.

Petting her, Ragan understood. They had done all they could to dissuade her— the pitiless-eyed mother, the suave and skilful father, the elders. And they had failed to keep her. She had won to him— just. For she was young, and she loved him; and so she had conquered the world— the world as her parents focused it for her.

Ragan's problem was solved.

It was youth— fearless, careless, unconstrained— that kept the world sweet; youth and love, the key of youth. He had wondered what was wrong with the world. Now he knew. Nothing was wrong except that men and women grow old— old and hard and bitter.

Over the bowed head of the girl Ragan nodded to Griffiths.

"End it," he said.

Griffiths smiled and went. The great experiment was over before it had well begun.

Ragan lifted the girl's face.

"Listen, dear," he said. "You have done nothing wrong. You have done everything right for you and for me, and nothing wrong for your people."

And he told her of the millions he had kept, and they went together to tell the mother and the father, who, at middle age, nevertheless were grown so old, so old, that they thought the millions were all that mattered.

_________________

11: Lady of Lyons, N. Y.

H. C. Witwer

1890-1929

Collier’s July 18 1925

SHE'LL NEVER look more beautiful than she did that wild night when she stood beside me in Fairfax's deadfall and told me to make good! I'll never be as brainless again as I was that same evening when I let her go with a paltry handshake. A fool and his money is soon parted! Imagine a chilly good-by to the best looker since Venus the Milo, when I might of cinched matters then and there. I could of kissed her and she wouldn't of shrieked, but it took me many a day to find that part of it out. Well, when she told me to leave Fairfax Falls flat on its collar bone and put myself over, she started something! Who was she? Wait —I'm going to haul off and broadcast the low-down on the whole business. This may not be as pungent as Romeo & Juliet, but at least it's shorter.

Speaking af truffles, the first thing everybody usually asks me is how did I ever manage to climb out of the ash can and get to the top of the heap. I read the other day where a great man was asked that same question. "To what do you attribute your success?" was the way it was put to him. They thought he was going to say it was the influence of his mother, the love of the little woman he was wed to, his early religious training, working twenty-four hours a day, or something like that. Well, he crossed 'em! "To what do I attribute my success?" he says. "Why— to my ability, of course!"

There's a guy after my own heart— he had the courage not to be modest!

Altho I've yet to experience the sensations of being called anything else but Bill, not counting oaths, my rightful name is William R. Grimm, Esq. I graduated with high honors from the University of Experience and I'm entitled to place T. D. after my name if the mood should hit me. T. D. is a ten-letter vertical word meaning "Taxi Driver," and don't curl your lip— we can't all start life in Buckingham Palace. I guess you figure me hard-boiled. Well, if you'd been in hot Water as much as I have, you'd be hard-boiled too!

That initial R in my name stands for the word Reginald and was a big concession on the part of my man-mountain father to my sainted and romantical mother, who, I understand, fondly wished to baptize me Percy. Dad was a roaring-voiced building contractor of the old two-fisted school— a handsome giant, from his pictures. Mother was his exact opposite— frail, dainty, refined. Their entirely different compositions has staged many a clash in me!

From my father I got my brawn and from my mother my ambition. Both parents was lost at sea when I was a kid, and the pennies which should of come to me was quickly dissipated by a equally dissipated uncle. It's certainly a crime that the only relations we can pick out for ourselves is our wives, ain't it?

Well, being thrown on my own at a age when I should of been a pupil in somebody's high school, my intentions has always been much better than my grammar. If they wasn't, I could be hung! I guess I've about covered the situation with regards to myself, except I might add that I never pick a fight and I never duck one. My motto is, "If hit on one cheek, turn the other— and if hit on the other, knock 'em cold!" Otherwise I'm polite to one and all, know my groceries, can wear a dress suit without somebody asking me to show them their table, read a lot to give myself a synthetic education and watch my speech like Puss watches a mouse. It ain't half as hard to come up from the gutter as it is to keep from bringing the gutter up with you. That last one's a real feat!

At the winsome age of twenty, which is where I'm going to begin giving you this load of my adventures, I was foiling the poorhouse by operating the only taxi in Fairfax Falls, N. Y. Husky, healthy, and not exactly resembling a gorilla, I didn't have a worry or a dime in the world. As I was still young enough to have dreams in the daytime, I firmly intended to check out of the taxi racket and win fame and fortune at something, but I hadn't located my trick as yet. Nevertheless, I'd made up my mind that some day a glass" paneled door was going to have on it in gold letters. W. Reginald Grimm and underneath. President. Whether that would be followed by "Of the United States" or "Of the United Garbage Company," I didn't know or care!

I WASN'T very fluent with money while I was bounding around at the wheel of a taxi, but I was certainly seeing a lot of life. What I missed in jack I made up in laughs! I also learned a lot of things which didn't do me no harm in later years—few people has as good a chance to view human nature as a taxi driver has. Experience is a hard school— no Yale or Harvard— but or the pupils which will pay attention to Teacher it's a great one!

My mock taxi, built by myself personally from junked parts of a flock of different cars, was something to think about. It cost me less than $150, and at that price it was a steal. There was room enough for Congress to meet in the thing and it had three speeds: hither, thither, and yon. It would go anywheres— by freight. Around Fairfax Falls they called it the Leaping Tuna, but my name for it was the Gambler Six, as it was nearly always broke. There was a garage in this slab run by Skip Mullen who ground a mean valve, but I done all my own repair work after one interview with that baby. I asked him what I could do to stop my motor from smoking, and he says to keep my tobacco where the motor can't get at it! Skip writes vaudeville acts for a living now. . , .

Left-Hook O'Brien and Butch Ford was my two best pals in Fairfax Falls. In spite of the fact that we've known each other for a dozen years now, by a strange coincidence they're still my friends. O'Brien was a classy lightweight box fighter and Butch was his trainer and second— no drawing-room wows, but two of the squarest shooters which ever put on a collar! Left-Hook O'Brien was born Izzy Rabinowitz, but took that Irish name for business purposes. He was nobody's fool. Once when I kidded him about being a Jewish Sinn Feiner, he grinned and answered me this:

"I like to have the crowd with me when I go in there! Well, you listen to 'em the next time you see a box fight. You'll hear 'Kill the Wop!' 'Knock the Jew stiff!' 'Smack 'at Swede silly!' 'Flatten the big Limey!' But —did you ever hear a fight crowd yell, 'Kill the Irishman!'?"

A pay-off, what?

O'Brien's one and only ambition was to cop the lightweight title, and Butch Ford's was to wake up every morning of his life with five bucks in his kick.

THE FIRST big turning point in my life arrived when Butch got me to drive him and Left-FIook O'Brien to Rochester, where O'Brien was to box Knockout Burns before going on to New York City for some more important quarrels. I'd seen O'Brien go a half dozen times before and I knew he was good, and so did the lightweight champion, which didn't wish no part of my boy friend. On paper, O'Brien figured to stop Knockout Burns in a couple of frames, and it looked like a great chance for me to win a few nickels for myself. Likewise, I'd see the brawl from a ring-side seat which Butch staked me to. As if that wasn't enough, busmess comes along and combines itself with the pleasure I looked forward to having. Just before I pulled out of town I got a call to stop at Lyons the day after the fight, pick up a school-teacher named Miss Baxter and haul her back to Fairfax Falls, where she was carded to do her stuff at our new schoolhouse.

Like everybody else, Left-Hook O'Brien rated Knockout Burns a push-over, and he trained for the battle by getting his nails manicured. At that, he give Burns a fearful pasting— made a chopping block of him— but he couldn't put him away. As game as a punching bag and as tough as a life sentence. Burns was in there to stay the limit. That's what he managed to do, tho in every round O'Brien done everything to this gil but run away with his wife! Burns being a local idol, the fair-minded referee called it a draw. If that scrimmage was a draw, so was the war! However, I bet that my buddy would slap Burns for a loop, and that rotten decision cost me my lifetime savings— thirty-four iron men. I had to borrow money for gas to get home on. Not so good!

CAME THE dawn, as they say on the screen, and right after a two-bit breakfast I shoved off for Lyons to get this school-teacher I was due to bring back to Fairfax Falls. On the way out of Rochester a female voice suddenly calls my name when I'm stopped by a traffic signal, and I immediately pull over to the curb, as the voice happens to belong to Pansy Pilkington. Don't laugh— Pansy's made many a wiser boy than me stop, look and listen! It was less than a year later that this palatable young lady was to stand New York on its head from the front row of the Follies. I know you never heard of no Pansy Pilkington in the Follies. Neither did nobody else. However, I ain't going to tip   you the name she used there, as it's a hobby of mine to be a gentleman and Pansy was supposed to of hit Broadway direct from Vassar.

But at this time she was just a lowly biscuit shooter at the Commercial House in Fairfax Falls and probably S thought Flo Ziegfeld was a ball player. The super-flapper of the burg and as soothing to the eye as green goggles. Pansy had that schoolgirl complexion without, the bother of going to school. She was a disturbance" of the first water, there's no question about that; still, she never made me feverish. I guess I was Pansy-, proof. For one thing, I figured it would take too much Jack to step out with this Jill!

Her arms was full of bundles, and she dumped some on the front seat of my taxi beside me with a sigh of relief.

"Hello, Pansy," I says. "You look keen. How come you're in Rochester?"

"Well, Bill, I got sick of being a Mail-Order Mary!" she smiles. "You know— 'send us only two dollars and get this beautiful Paris creation!' and 'Simply sign the coupon and the postman will toss this almost-fur in your door!' I've left that stuff to the Dumb Doras. I've been on a shopping carouse!"

"You wouldn't fool me, would you?" I grins back. "What did you use for money?"

"I love that!" says Pansy indignantly. "Suppose I told you I drew a month's salary in advance?"

"Be your age, Pansy," I says. "If you told me that, I'd get hysterical! That guy you work for ain't putting nothing out. He's too stingy to harbor a suspicion! Why—"

"Oh, that reminds me," butts in Pansy, opening her handbag excitedly, "to-day's the boss's birthday. Say— listen. Bill. Run over to that gents' furnishing store and pick out a nice tie for him— one you'd wear yourself. Here, this is all I have left!"

With that she hands me half a dollar.

"I can get him a collar for this, but not no tie," I says.

"But I have no more money," says Pansy, trying out some eye work on me. "Maybe you— er—"

"There ain't a chance of putting the bee on me either," I told her. "I'm as flat as a ballroom floor!"

And I explained to her what that Left-Hook O'Brien - Knockout Burns shambles done to me. Pansy looks vexed.

"Well, run over, anyways, and see what you can get for a man for fifty cents," she says. "I'll watch your taxi."

I prowled into tliis swell haberdashery, and they immediately suspected I wasn't by no means Vincent Astor, so they treated me accordingly.

"I want to get a tasty tie, and I got half a buck to squander," I tell a haughty clerk. "What would you suggest?"

The clerk gives me the up and down and yawns in my face. "I'd suggest another shop," he says and walks away.

A few doors above this drum there was a five- and- ten-cent store. I blowed in there and bought Pansy's boss five ties!

"I wish I could think of a little speech to make when I give him these," says Pansy.

"Just say, 'Here's some ties for your birthday— try and wear 'em!' " I says. "C'mon, hop in and I'll take you back home with me!"

I'd begun to think of the long voyage to Fairfax Falls with nothing for company but that school-teacher I had to get at Lyons—probably a comic valentine.

"I'd love to go back with you, Bill," says Pansy, "but— well, I have my return ticket and—"

"Here's a chance to play a mean trick on the railroad by not using it," I interrupts. "I got to pick up another lady at Lyons— she's going to teach at our new school— so you needn't be afraid to go with me."

"Afraid of you?" says Pansy, giving me a killing look. "Why, I'd never be afraid of you, Bill. I think you're a dear."

"I wouldn't be surprized," I says. "My father was a Elk!"

As a matter of fact, it was me which was afraid of Pansy.

"As for this school-teacher," continues Pansy, climbing into the seat beside me and dumping her bundles into the back of the cab, "let her walk to Fairfax Falls or buy herself a pair of roller skates or something!"

But tho a long ride with just Pansy looked plenty appetizing, I needed the sugar there was in it for me if I took his school-teacher back, so I rolled into Lyons, pulled up at the address I'd been given— and got the shock of my young life!

Somehow I'd got the idea that this Miss Baxter would be a hatchet-faced old maid as thin as a dime and just as thrilling. I looked for horn-rimmed glasses, hair plastered back flat, with a voice and costume about like a man's. That's the way Miss Tice, our other school-teacher, checked up— a girl which would be safe anywheres, and I don't mean maybe!

Instead of that. Miss Baxter was simply a panic! Around my own age, garbed in what Fairfax Falls would be wearing about five years later, the latest bob, the most recent everything else, a unbeatable argument for short skirts— well, a breath taker! She just outclassed Pansy, which was anything but a eyesore herself.

Pansy looked three or four times as surprized as I was, and she presented the Lady of Lyons with a peeved stare. Pansy could of been in Finland as far as Miss Baxter was concerned.

"I've been waiting an hour for you," this remarkable and highly annoyed school-teacher says to me.

"Listen!" I says, somewhat dazed. "Don't get mad over that hour's wait— I  been waiting twenty years for you!"

Pansy's scornful snort didn't stop us looking at each other for maybe half a minute, during which Miss Baxter executed a blush which ruined me. Then with a quick frown she discouraged any further efforts on my part, but as I hopped out and swung open the door of the cab for her, her eyes was smiling if her lips wasn't. With a murderous glance at me, Pansy got off the front seat and stepped in the back too. She was what you might call fuming. I introduced her to Miss Baxter and explained how I happened to go out on a call carrying a girl with me. Inwardly I was wishing Pansy was in Portugal, not that I disliked her, but... However, Miss Baxter seemed satisfied with my explanation and made room for Pansy beside her.

Then begun a ride to Fairfax Falls, which to me was a riot, no kidding! Here I am with two beautiful girls and a twenty-five-mile drive staring me in the face and the fact that they're both there makes it out of the question for me to click with one or the other. It was a typical case of how happy I could be with either, was the other dear charmer away!

In the back of the cab the girls is breaking their necks to be polite to each other, but conversation died a natural death after a few minutes and they didn't even attempt to fake it. However, I was goaled by Miss Baxter— Barbara Baxter, as I managed to eavesdrop— and I took a noble try at promoting myself. I managed to exchange some careless words with her which soon steamed Pansy and caused that young lady to high-hat me. This seemed to give Barbara much secret amusement, and I guess that's the only reason she talked to me at all. She must of thought I was a fearful Patsy, then.

I GOT so interested in Barbara that I made a wrong turn on a detour and lost the state road. So I stopped outside a garage.

"What's the best way for us to get to Fairfax Falls from here?" I asked the near-mechanic which come out in answer to the horn.

This clown walks all around my home-made taxi, looking at it like it was the first one he ever seen in his born days.

"You wish to go to Fairfax Falls in that boiler?" he inquires, like he can't believe his ears.

"Absolutely," I says. "How will I get there?"

"Well, if it was me, I'd pray for a miracle!" he answers, curling his lip. With that he walks into the garage and both them girls laughed their heads off.

But I found the road, and no further noteworthy events happened till we're within a few miles of Fairfax Falls. Then it was different. The old boat is rattling off a noble twenty-five miles a hour when the sudden, hair-raising wail of a siren makes the girls jump. Through the rear-view mirror I peg a big, costly speed wagon, cut along racing lines, roaring over the road behind me. I recognized the car and I likewise knew that the proprietor of same had no right to use that siren, as he was neither a police car, a fire engine or a ambulance. I started to tell the nervous girls that, when this bozo, doing fifty mile a hour if he was moving at all, crowds me on a turn and we go crashing into a ditch with Pansy yelling murder. I still remember there wasn't a single squawk come from Barbara Baxter— she was a thoroughbred, that's positive!

However, we landed right side up and there was nobody hurt but my mudguards and temper. While I'm taking stock of the grief, our opponent drives slowly back around the turn, stops beside us, and gets out of his car. He was no stranger to me, being no less than Jack Fairfax, the sheik of Fairfax Falls and the first villain I ever met with a name like a hero.

Roughly about the same age, me and Fairfax has been first-class enemies of years standing, our private war starting long before when I knocked this tomato stiff for deliberately running his car over my dog.

That's the tip-off on the kind of a guy he was— one of these babies with a chin you love to touch!

Jack Fairfax was something of a mystery in our town, where, in spite of the fact that it was named after his family, he was as popular as typhoid fever. His people had lived in Europe for years, and Fairfax bimself aced around mostly in Rochester and New York City, tho nearly all Fairfax Falls was owned by his parents. He simply drove in every now and then to burn the natives up by Ritzing 'em, while showing some of his rich, sarcastical, cake-eating friends the village named after him.

Amongst the Fairfax properties was a crumbling old mansion on the outskirts of the town which some time before had been spread all over the Sunday magazine sections of the newspapers as a haunted house. It was still looked on that way by most of Fairfax Falls, and the citizens give it a wide berth in passing by. You couldn't get a kid within a mile of it! Strange noises, clanking chains, unearthly lights and weird groans was just a few of the "spirit signs" which half the town swore to and the other half laughed off. Personally, I was what you might call neutral, but through the fact that Jack Fairfax constantly visited the place and bragged about doing it, I figured the haunted-house thing was applesauce.

Well, when Fairfax come back that day after running me into the ditch I was naturally fit to be tied but on account of Barbara Baxter being there I didn't smack him down. Regarding the subject of girls going wild over cave men— well, some do and some don't! I was taking no reckless chances. Dressed like a fashion plate, with a cigaret sticking out of his mouth from a long gold holder, this proper Humpty Dumpty stood there sneering at me, and, of course, alongside of him I looked like a tramp.

'I'm going to complain to the authorities about that remarkable conveyance of yours, Grimm," he says, with a nasty grin. "It's a menace to navigation!"

Pansy laughed, but Barbara didn't. I seen her coldly sizing him up.

"You should be heartily ashamed of yourself!" bursts out Barbara warmly. "We might have been killed!"

It was then Fairfax lamped her for the first time. One amazed look at her floored him— you could see that in his very readable face. Off comes his swagger cap. It hadn't come off for Pansy.

"Don't think because you're still on your feet that I'll forget this, Fairfax!" I says. "If we was alone, I'd lay you like linoleum, you big false alarm!"

But he pays me not the faintest attention. He's all eyes for Barbara Baxter.

"I— why— I— I gave you the horn and I tried to avoid crowding you, but I— I was going too fast!" he stammers, talking directly to her. "I'm terribly sorry! Won't you let me take you the rest of the way into town?"

At that I dropped the jack I was getting ready to raise the front wheels vrith and stared from him to Barbara. I noticed Pansy staring at me, and her face was good and angry. Fairfax had everything I didn't have— clothes, class, money, a swell car, a great line of chatter. Regardless of the miles there was between 'em in every other way, Fairfax and Barbara belonged in the same drawing-rooms, that was a cinch. I was just a taxi driver— where did I rate any favors from her?

Barbara hesitated and looked thoughtfully at me, while Fairfax's hungry eyes never left her face. He was hanging on her answer like it was a matter of life or death. I felt pretty low. To me it was— a matter of life or death to my hopes!

''How long will it take you to make repairs?" Barbara asks me.

"Five minutes!" I says before the words was hardly out of her pretty mouth.

"You're crazy!" snorts Fairfax, and he pulls open the door of my taxi. "If you'll step out. Miss—"

"I shall wait— you needn't bother!" interrupts Barbara, with icicles on every word, and my heart tries to climb out through my ribs.

"Get away from that cab, and make it snappy!" I bawls at Fairfax, taking a step toward him.

He moved slowly away and I could swear there was a touch of contempt in Barbara's glance at him. He seen it too, but the ignored and enraged Pansy give him a out— enabled him to take the air without choosing me.

"You can ride me into town, Mr. Fairfax," says Pansy, and hopping out of my taxi she flounces into the front seat of Fairfax's bus.

Fairfax hadn't invited her and this boy scout wasn't particularly overjoyed at the idea of rolling into Fairfax Falls with the Commercial House waitress by his side, beautiful or not. However, he had no choice and he shot away with a grinding of gears and probably a grinding of teeth too. The last I got was a poisonous glare from Pansy.

"I'm sorry I ain't got some magazines or something in the car to amuse you," I said calmly to Barbara, when they'd gone in a cloud of dust, "because it's going to take me a good hour and lots of equally good luck to get this mechanical toy where it'll roll!"

A flash of alarm in her lovely face is quickly chased by anger.

"What do you mean?" she demands. "Why did you tell me you could repair it in five minutes?"

"I wouldn't fool you— it was because I wanted you to stay!" I says truthfully, opening up the hood and gazing at the motor. "You're having a romantical adventure— don't scream!"

WAM— what a furious stare I got for a minute! Then I grinned cheerfully at her and darned if she didn't grin back.

"Why didn't you go into town with Fairfax— that other fellow?" I asked her, while I'm puttering around.

She opens a little beauty bag she's carrying and powders the end of the most bewitching nose since Helen from Troy.

"I do not like his type," she says. "You seemed to know him well— who is he?"

Well, that was just the beginning of four hundred and eighty-six questions asked me by this toothsome young lady while I'm trying to get Mr. Motor to mote. She wanted to know all about Fairfax Falls, the natives, the Fairfax family history, etc., etc., and even etc. The haunted house particularly aroused her attention and she made me promise to show her the place at my earliest convenience. Then she dreamily begins brushing the sleeve of her dress with her lily-white hand.

"And— Pansy?" she asks me, without looking up. "Your sweetheart?"

"By no means," I grins. "I ain't got no sweethearts— I'm just a boy which girls forget!"

That extracted a laugh from Barbara, a delightful sound as she handled it.

"You're a most unusual— er— taxi driver!" she says. "Tell me something about yourself."

Well, at last we'd struck a subject on which I was well posted, and I certainly done it justice! During the course of the next half hour I broadcasted.

Barbara Baxter didn't pitch right into her job as school-teacher, but Jack Fairfax stayed in town and pitched right into trying to put over a fast one. He fairly swamped Barbara with flowers, candy, books, auto-ride invitations or what have you? Then, to my great astonishment and rage, this scissorbill begin to get results. Twice she went out riding with him, which got me red-headed and tickled Pansy silly.

After giving matters plenty of due consideration, I decided to interview Barbara on the subject of Jack Fairfax. I seen her trip into Yackley's drug store one morning and stopping my comedy taxi outside I strolled in after her. We sat down at the fountain and I plied her with a chocolate soda.

"Where have you been keeping yourself?" she asks me, watching my face in the mirror behind the counter. "Long time no see!"

"That don't seem to of ruined your health," I says gloomily. "If I was you, I wouldn't give this Fairfax too much leeway. Fun's fun, but that bird's forever looking for the best of it and—"

"Just a moment!" she cuts me off, colder by fifty-four degrees than the ice cream in her glass. "I think you forget that you and I are but chance acquaintances. Bill. You're not my father, my brother, my guardian or my fiance. I'm quite able to take care of myself— in any commany."

Surprized and hurt, I leaped up off the stool.

"Good-by and excuse me!" I says.

Dam it, I could feel my face flaming as red as all the tomatoes in the world. She had gave me the razzberry, cold turkey! I started for the door, positive that there ain't no Santy Claus, but she called me back— in a far different tone of voice.

"Is your taxi engaged?" she smiled— and I'm in love all over again.

"No," I says. "And I ain't engaged either. I ain't even going with nobody."

"Then take me out and show me that haunted house you told me about," she commands. "And take that sullen look off your face. You know, you're really handsome when you smile, Bill."

"When you smile, the rest of 'em is just girls," I says and told the truth.

Well, I drove her out to Fairfax's alleged haunted house and once we got there I had a hard time getting her to leave. Altho she'd asked me a raft of questions about this trap before, that didn't stop her from asking me all about it again. I never seen nobody so curious! Did anybody else besides Fairfax ever visit the haunted house? When and how often is the ghostly noises heard? Had the place ever been offered for sale? Did Fairfax himself tell people it was haunted?

Tliat's just a few of the things Barbara wanted to know and I give her as many details as I had in stock.

Fairfax heard about this trip we took— probably from Pansy Pilkington which saw us coming back— and he gnashed his teeth. The very next day he walks up to my stand outside the hotel and says his car's in the repair shop and he wants to engage my taxi for the afternoon. He acted so friendly I should of been suspicious, but instead I was thrown off my guard. So I met him at two o'clock as arranged, and he orders me to drive him to the Commercial House. Still I don't tumble. But when he comes outside with Barbara Baxter on his arm I like to fell off my seat!

"Just drive us around for a couple of hours," says Fairfax, grinning from ear to ear. "I'll tell you when to come back!"

Barbara looked amazed when she seen me— staring first at Fairfax and then back at me. I thought she was in on this attempt to humiliate me and I give her a frigid glare. Up goes her head with a toss.

"You don't mind driving us?" she asks me.

"Why should I?" I shot at her. "This is my business, ain't it?"

BUT WITHIN a hour I was three feet past infuriation at the cracks Fairfax was making about me from the back of the cab. I suddenly whirled my taxi off the road, shot through a gap in a fence and drove 'em madly across a newly plowed field, stepping on the gas and nearly bumping my passengers and my seagoing taxi apart! When later I come to a halt outside the Commercial House, I'm satisfied I'd of dropped dead if a look from Fairfax could of killed me.

"How much do I owe you, you infernal idiot?" he pants, crazy mad.

"Twenty-five bucks, you inveterate sap!" I says, and taking off my coat I begin to roll up my sleeves.

Barbara tried hard to keep a straight face and glare at me, but she must of thought of something funny because all at once she bust out laughing, winked at me behind Fairfax's back and skipped into the hotel. Fairfax gazed after her, glowered at me for a minute, muttered a baffled oath and practically hurled the twenty-five fish at me. In a way, that was a disappointment. I was hoping he'd want to battle— if he had, he'd of sure got service!

ABOUT a week after Barbara Baxter descended on Fairfax Falls, a couple of more strangers got off 84, the dilapidated spur-line train, and stepped into my cab. Right off the bat I got a kick when they asked to be hauled to the haunted house. They're a pair of mysterious-looking eggs, and one of 'em must of spoke out of turn somewheres, because he had a broken nose. While I'm trying to figure 'em out, the other guy says they're newspaper reporters from New York City and they're going to write up something new and startling about the haunted house, but they don't wish nobody in Fairfax Falls to know of 'em being there. The fellow with the bum smeller then shows me a twenty- dollar note, tears it across and gives me half of it, telling me I'll get the other half if I drive to the haunted house as fast as my bus can go and by some route which won't take 'em through the town. I left 'em outside, looking at the house.

When I get back to my stand, I go to brush out the cab and I find one of them jazzbos has forgot to take a portfolio with him. So once again I drive to the haunted house, but there's no sign of nobody around, and tho I thump and thump on the front door I can't get no answer. Going around to the rear of this old ruin, I get a attack of dumfoundment. Cuddled up against a window is no less than Barbara Baxter, plainly getting a earful of what's going on inside the house!

"Well, for weeping in public!" I gasps, "what are you doing here?"

You should of saw her jump.

"I— why— I— well—er—spiritualism is a hobby of mine, Bill," she says, recovering her wits and coming over to me. "I've been studying the haunted house— listening for the— er— ghosts and that sort of thing, you know!"

She winds up with a little laugh which sounded to me like it was forced. I must say she seemed anything but at ease.

"Well, there ain't no ghosts in there now!" I says. "There's a couple of guys—"

"Yes— who are they?" she butts in excitedly.

"I promised I wouldn't tell," I says, after a minute. I was thinking of something else. "Say, listen— when are you going to begin teaching school here?" I ask her.

That innocent question didn't seem to add nothing to her peace of mind. She give me a long, odd look.

"Very soon, now," she says. "I'll wait in your taxi and you can drive me back to town. I— I walked out here, you know. And— Bill, don't say a word to those men in there, or to any one, about my being here!"

While Barbara sat in the cab around in front I pounded on the back door of the house till the fellow with the caved-in beak answered, asking who I was through the door before he opened it. I gave him the portfolio and he's highly delighted, calling to his pal to bee what they nearly lost. This little act of honesty on my part wins me ten bucks more and a order to call for 'em at eight the following night. It wasn't till I'd left Barbara at the hotel that the thought struck me, "How did them two guys get in that house when it's always locked?"

Driving to the haunted house a little before 8 p. m. the following day, as per my engagement, who should call to me from the sidewalk but Barbara Baxter. No sooner does she find out where I'm bound for than she' insists on going with me. Well, I was in a fine predicament. She wanted to go, she was sure she'd see the "ghosts" at night, and if you ever witnessed this girl you'd get a idea of how hard it was to refuse her anything! So I took her with me on the front seat, just to see what would happen. I seen what would happen, I'll howl to the wide, wide world!

I parked a little distance from the haunted house at Barbara's request and left her there while I walked up, knocked, and was let inside. The first thing I noticed is that the hall is full of wooden boxes, piled high on top of each other. One of the reporters says to back my taxi around to the rear, as they wish to load the boxes in it. I asks him where are they going, and he says to Rochester.

"Nothing stirring!" I says firmly. "I wouldn't wheel that old bus of mine to Rochester at night on a bet. Besides, it would fall apart with all them boxes in it. What's in 'em?"

"Never mind what's in 'em!" says the guy with the broken nose shortly, "but there's seventy-five bucks in this for you if you tend to your knittin'!"

But I had a sudden, queer feeling that something was wreong. I thought of Barbara sitting outside alone to my taxi, and I commenced to back out the hall, when a door's flung open and Jack Fairfax stumbles headlong into the house! He ain't got no hat on, and his face is as white as a sheet. Personally I'm commencing to get a bit dizzy.

"What the—" begins one of the reporters.

"The state troopers are on their way here— we're sunk!" bawls Fairfax and then he catches sight of me., "What did you let that fellow in here for?" he howls. "He's the one who tipped them off!"

Fairfax stood in the background, panting and swearing at me, but the two reporters rushed me together. We are wrestling all over the place when the doors crash in and the house is swarming with state troopers. I never seen so many guns before in all my life, and the next thing we're all pinched, including your boy friend Bill Grimm.

One of the troopers caved in the lid of a box in the hall, and it turns out to be full of bottles. The bottles is full of booze. Good night! Things had indeed come to a pretty pass, and I seen the hoosegow staring me right in the face, when Barbara Baxter saunters in the now open door. Fairfax, held by a couple of husky troopers the same as I was, give a gasp and looked thoughtful when he seen her, but I was too dazed to gasp— the whole thing smacked of a nightmare to me!

The troopers seemed to know Barbara and give her respectful attention, while she gives me a pleasant and unanswered smile. Then she tells 'em to take their hands off me, as I'm as innocent as a very young baby. Not only that, she goes on, but I've helped her get the evidence that Jack Fairfax and the other two scofflaws is the master minds of a state-wide gang of common, ordinary bootleggers. They was no more newspapei reporters than I'm a Siamese duke!

While the troopers is loading their cursing prey and the boxes of hooch into the cars outside, Barbara leads the way into the deserted front room of the house and tells me things. There was spirits in that haunted house all right, but they was "spiritus frumenti" I It seems State Prohibition Enforcement Headquarters had been tipped that whisky was being brought to Fairfax Falls from Canada, taken to the alleged haunted house, and "cut" before being sold throughout the state. Barbara Baxter, a special revenue agent, was sent to our town as a school-teacher to get Fairfax and his pals with the goods.

"Hasn't it all been thrilling, Bill?" she asks me, with her hand on my arm. But I'm half sore— half disappointed.

"You've made me look like a squealer!" I says, "I ain't infatuated with Jack Fairfax by no means, but that ain't the way I'd of boxed him. I fight in the open, myself!"

"But you've done a splendid thing!" says Barbara, tho she did blush. "They were vicious lawbreakers. Bill, and—"

"Why did you give me a run-around about being a school-teacher?" I shut her off. "I told you the truth about myself!"

"Bill— I— I had to feel my way carefully," she says. "I had to know I could trust you!"

"Well, do you trust me now?" I asked her.

"Indeed I do!" she whispers. Again her hand touches my arm, and them Alice blue eyes look deep into mine. Standing as close to her as that in the pitch-dark room, I got more kick than there was in all of Fairfax's booze. I had to put on the brakes— hard!

"Being a copper is no job for a girl!" I busts out. I had to say something!

"Oh, isn't it?" says Barbara. "Well, I made good, didn't I? Bill— bootleg whisky ruined my home! It killed my father and cost my brother a high executive position. I wish I could put every one of those murderers in jail for life! I— why are you so— so quiet?"

"I'm thinking that the only reason you were so nice to me at all was to get the dope on them guys!" I told her.

"Then you're thinking wrong!" she says softly. "I— I like you, Bill!"

That's where we should of went into a clinch, but she was alone in that dark room with me, and she trusted me. I didn't know how she'd take it, and I refused to (gamble! I figured it would keep, so I just said 'Thanks!" and shook her hand.

"Bill," says Barbara, "are you going to be a taxi chauffeur all your life?"

"What's the difference?" I says. "It's a honest trade, and there's good money in it! I—"

"Nonsense!" she butts in. "Why don't you get out of Fairfax Falls, get rid of that absurd automobile, and start doing something big? Get into something worth while and lay the foundation for your future before it's too late. Why, there must be dozens of things you can do that offer more possibilities than driving a taxicab in a small town."

I said nothing at all— I was busy thinking. Then I realized I still had hold of her hand, and I let it go. We went out to my taxi, and I drove her back to town, the trip being made mostly in silence, tho she sit beside me on the front seat. When we got to the Commercial House she says she was going to New York City to stay with her aunt for a while, and when I merely give her a gloomy "Good-by!" she seemed peeved, for some reason. Then she give me her aunt's address and phone number, again telling me to leave Fairfax Falls, which was cramping my style, for bigger fields and bigger opportunities. I took it for granted she was walking right out of my life when she walked up the stairs of that hotel. I'll never take nothing for granted again!

Well, I followed Barbara Baxter's advice, and I did get out of Fairfax Falls for a bigger playgrounds. I went to New York City, and I drove a taxi there!

Now you tell one.

___________________

12: The Bandaged Foot

James Francis Dwyer

Sydney Sportsman, 11 May 1910

THE JUDGE limped slowly from his room and took his seat. A thousand eyes, restlessly searching the courtroom for interesting food for morbid minds, concentrated on him. The judge felt the many-eyed stare like a thousand shafts of light playing over his face, and he tapped nervously on his desk.

The attorney for the people, obsequiously polite, leaned forward and informed the judge that a slight accident had delayed the arrival of the prisoner and the most important section of the great machine of justice that was piecing itself slowly together was visibly annoyed. Till the trial started, he would be the focussing point for the thousand hungry eyes, and he was afraid— afraid lest his face might twitch under the fusillade of pain shafts that came from his right foot. The judge had a bad attack of gout.

The silence was impressive, and the pain in the judge's foot, as if annoyed at the fixed judicial frown, that steadfastly refused to allow the face to acknowledge the agony, increased. Hot, piercing thrills raced up his leg, and his brow oozed moisture under the attack. The foot throbbed; he pictured it swelling. Then followed a procession of pain spasms. His teeth gritted, while three great welts between the small eyes, like marks left by a blunt axe, grew more noticeable.

The thousand eyes studied the judge. Their gaze crept over the brutal face, noting the lower jaw that protruded like a bulldog's; the flattened nose pressed against the face as if it would give the mouth an opportunity to snap at anything that came near; the low-set ears; the shifty eyes, and the curious half-circles of smooth, white skin that ballooned up beneath the eyes and carried a livery message to sharp observers.

Three newspaper artists took the lower jaw as a base and built up an acute-angled profile upon it, and the judge noticed the straying pencils. His eyes, sensitized by pain, photographed a thousand details.

The prisoner arrived at last. He was a small, nervous man with a weak face. The sheriff pushed him roughly forward, by that means indicating him as the cause of the delay. The prisoner stumbled into a seat and blinked at Justice with the bandaged foot.

The judge was relieved. He heard the shuffling of the five hundred as they turned their eyes on the new attraction, and he allowed a procession of pain spasms to flit across his face in acknowledgment of the extreme agony in his foot. At that moment the prisoner was the only person watching the judge, and the prisoner thought that the pain ripples passing over the face of the great one were caused by disgust stirred up by his (the prisoner's) appearance. But the nervous wretch, whose doings the machine intended to analyse, knew nothing of the bandaged foot resting uneasily on its cushion beneath the desk.

The interest became more evenly distributed over the different parts of the machine. The attorney for the people and the attorney for the defence shuffled great bundles of papers. The sheriff coughed loudly. The jury whispered, and the great instrument of justice got under way. But the pain in the judge's foot increased. Patches of ashen-gray rushed across his face, smothering the usual ruddy tint that returned when the pain abated.

The prisoner was charged with burglary. A house in the suburbs had been entered, and circumstantial evidence swirled like a ghostly rope around the man before the court. The attorney for the people moved to the attack with a languid, confident air that induced the more vivid imaginations in court to dash forward and fix the penalty. The tired listless voice as he cross-examined carried a message to the court. It said: 'It is immaterial all this talk; we know that he is guilty, but we must give him a fair trial. The greatest scoundrel in the land can demand a trial before a jury of his countrymen.'

And while the prisoner listened to the languid questions, his eyes watched the judge's face and he wondered. For the judge's foot was in a bath of molten lead that made him deaf and blind and heartless.

'And you were awakened by a sound?'

The attorney for the people was examining the occupant of the house that had been entered.

'Not by a sound,' smiled the witness. The questioner turned hastily to his papers, the smile of the questioned one informing him that he had strayed from the text. Not finding the information he required, he straightened up with a well-it-doesn't-matter air and propounded an-other question.

'What awakened you then?'

'Somebody grasped me by the foot,' replied the witness.

The judge started. The ruddiness faded away for half a minute. When it returned he addressed the witness.

'What did you say?' he snapped.

'I was awakened by someone grasping my foot,' answered the householder.

The protruding underjaw tucked itself back till the half-circle of short teeth gritted under the top row. Usually the lower teeth came up in front of the upper set.

'By— the— foot?' gasped the judge.

'By the foot,' repeated the witness, smiling easily at the astonishment visible on the broad face. The smile annoyed the gouty one.

'What is there to smile at?' he cried angrily. 'Why did he grip— never mind, that's enough.'

The attorney for the people, too polite to exhibit any surprise, stood waiting, but the judge motioned him to continue the examination. The startled witness had little to tell. He pursued the figure that sprang through the window, but the night swallowed the shadow, and he returned to his couch. He could not identify the prisoner before the court. He had never seen him before. The man he pursued appeared to be taller than the prisoner.

The attorney for the people sat down, and the attorney for the defence arose in his place. The witness was really favourably disposed to the prisoner, and there was no necessity to cross-examine, but the interest displayed by the judge in the leg-gripping incident led the attorney to think that a little probing round that particular spot would impress the court.

'You are sure your foot was gripped by someone?' he asked, a humorous smile drifting over his fat face. The gray clouds of agony swept over the features of the judge. The pain in the right foot was intense.

'Certainly,' replied the witness.

'You were not dreaming?' questioned the attorney. He had no definite idea as to how this line of questioning would benefit his client, but he knew that it would keep him before the eyes of the spectators. It enabled him to liven up the proceedings. He was twisting a bright thread into the drab web the machine was spinning. He knew that the humorous part of the cross-examination and the name of the person who extracted the humour would be remembered by the listeners when everything else connected with the case was forgotten. He was a cute advertiser, this attorney. He considered that a joke in court was worth two outside.

'No, I was not dreaming,' answered the witness.

'Did you wake suddenly?' asked the attorney. The foot of the judge and the mind of the judge compared notes. The foot wanted to know if the judge would wake suddenly if a night-prowler gripped the gouty limb in a great, hairy hand, and the judge, sweated in agony. The mind pictured the sensation, and the stubby hands of the judge snapped the handle of his pencil.

'Well, no,' drawled the witness, 'I did not wake suddenly.'

He had previously informed the court that the person who had so rudely disturbed him had sprung through the window before he left the bed, and he recognised that a slow awakening would be the supporting pillar beneath that detail.

A point showed up on the attorney's mental horizon. He straightened up and took a large breath of the hot air. He covered the witness with a fat forefinger and the witness looked startled as the fleshy Colt threatened him.

'Now,' if anyone gripped your leg,' thundered the questioner, 'gripped it hard— wouldn't the effect be immediate?'

The judge's face rippled with pain waves. The possibility of such a happening provoked the right foot to its extreme agony-producing limit. The prisoner was hypnotised by the expression on the broad face, but the others were watching the jester. The witness hesitated a moment before answering the question put to him, and the attorney, thinking he had him corralled, repeated it with pantomimic action so that all might see how cunningly he could throw a verbal lasso.

'If anyone,' he said, slowly reaching out a strong hand towards the witness stand, 'gripped your leg like that, would you jump?'

The judge watched the hand coming slowly in his direction. When it closed on a handful of hot air with a snap that proved the attorney's muscles were stronger than his line of cross-examination, the judge jumped. The movement made him set his teeth quickly to strangle the shout of agony. The foot had touched a little projection beneath the desk. He swallowed hard.

The five hundred spectators co-operated in a gurgle of approval. The reporters and the jurymen smiled. Even the attorney for the people, who was gazing at the ceiling and spinning a mesh for the leading actor in a murder case that would follow the case then before the machine, allowed his lips to move back from the white teeth and then spring together again in a way that suggested an elastic band running around the mouth. Only the judge and the prisoner missed the humour.

The attorney for the defence felt that he had scored. The suppressed gurgle put an inch on his stature, and three inches on his chest expansion. The witness did not answer the inquiry, and he ventured to repeat the act. The attorney was a fool. It is only the wise who know when to leave off. Again the muscular hand crept forward with the fingers bent to a nice leg-embracing curve. Again the judge watched it. The veins on his forehead swelled up and mopped the red brow into irregular sections till it resembled a land map. The foot flamed.

'If a man— a strong man,' roared the attorney, 'gripped—'

'Stop! Don't!" The two words shrieked by the judge rushed through the courtroom, found the door, and fled down the street chased by a thousand echoes. The attorneys, jury and spectators sat in an air of weird expectancy. What was wrong?

The judge swallowed convulsively. The lower jaw moved up and down, waiting for the words choked back by pain. He glared at the attorney— a fixed, fierce glare that pushed that person back into his seat. At last he spoke.

'What do you mean by this nonsense?' he screamed. 'What do you mean by annoying the court— yes, sir, annoying the court with this buffoonery?'

The attorney gripped the table and attempted to pull himself into an upright position against the influence of the judge's fierce look.

'I only—' he stammered.

'Silence!' roared the judge. The foot was swelling. Flashes of pain spurted up the leg. The pencil of an imaginative cartoonist moved rapidly, and he muttered to himself. 'They won't believe this is like him,' he said, as he dashed in a few strong lines. 'Gee! I'm glad I can get a living out of this. I might be tempted to do a bit of burglary.'

The pain eased for a moment, and the judge spoke.

'Are there any more questions to be put to this witness?'

The obsequious attorney for the people answered in the negative, but the attorney for the defence did not reply. He pushed the case from his mind, and started to overhaul the injuries done to his pride. In the pain of his own martyrdom he forgot his client. It was unlucky for the prisoner. The polite attorney for the people, who did not indulge in buffoonery, made the ghastly rope that swirled round the prisoner more tangible in the eyes of the jury. He put questions to witnesses that he should not have put, but no one objected. The attorney for the defence had the corpse of pride within his mind; the judge was thinking of the flaming foot.

Conviction was sure. One felt it. Strangers who had not heard a word of the evidence put their heads in at the door, and immediately became aware that the law had its victim in a corner. And the prisoner sat staring at Justice with the bandaged foot. Young reporters winked at each other and made guesses.

'Two years,' whispered one sitting near the cartoonist who had snapped the judge's passion face.

'Three!' breathed the cartoonist. 'Did you see the guy's face when he dressed Peterson?' But the other scribbled 'Bosh' in caps, on a sheet of paper. Two years was about the average expected by the 500 spectators.

The two attorneys made brief addresses. The attorney for the people used short cold sentences. He was thrifty of words. He had just returned from a hunting trip in the North-west, and again he felt the fierce joy that comes to the successful thrower of the lasso. The attorney for the defence slobbered. His sentences sprawled. He was on slippery ground. He missed many good points. He remembered that the householder said the man he pursued appeared to be taller than the prisoner, but he did not mention it to the jury. His voice sounded like a dirge.

The judge summed up with a perfect storm of pain arrows shooting up his leg. His sentences were verbal bombs that smashed the defence to atoms. The imaginative cartoonist watched him closely, and put in a few more strokes to his unfinished sketch as the jury re-tired to their deliberations. They returned in eight minutes. The mind of each had been seared with the one word— Guilty— long before they left the court. The foreman handed up the verdict with a sigh, and dropped back in his place as the prisoner moistened his lips to make a plea of mercy to the Gouty One sitting above him.

'I'm the man, judge,' he gurgled, piteously. 'I'm the man who was in the house, I was starving, judge. I went through an open window, but I took, nothing. That's truth. As sure as God is in heaven I took nothing. Don't be hard on me, judge— don't go hard on me.'

The judge's foot used up a little bunch of red-hot arrows with the speed of a Gatling. He wondered how he could limp out of court.

'Why did you grip the man's foot?' he roared.

'I stumbled, judge, whined the prisoner. 'I stumbled, and I put out me hand. I did, that's a fact.'

The judge paused. The agony of the foot turned him sick. The prisoner remembered the little incident of the cross-examination, and attempted to put in a few more words of explanation.

'I stumbled over the carpet an' grabbed him by the foot—"

'Silence!' screamed the judge. An ashen patch held the usual ruddy tint at bay. Beads of perspiration glistened on the bushy eyebrows.

'Prisoner,' he thundered, 'I sentence you to ten years' imprisonment.' The prisoner fell back on his seat, the spectators gasped, and Justice with the bandaged foot limped painfully to his room.

________________

13: Lady Clanbevan's Baby

Richard Dehan

Clotilde Graves, 1863-1932

From Off Sandy Hook and other stories, 1915

THERE WAS a gray, woolly October fog over Hyde Park. The railings wept grimy tears, and the damp yellow leaves dropped soddenly from the soaked trees. Pedestrians looked chilled and sulky; camphor chests and cedar-presses had yielded up their treasures of sables and sealskin, chinchilla and silver fox. A double stream of fashionable traffic rolled west and east, and the rich clarets and vivid crimsons of the automobiles burned through the fog like genial, warming fires.

A Baby-Bunting six horse-power petrol-car, in color a chrysanthemum yellow, came jiggeting by. The driver stopped. He was a technical chemist and biologist of note and standing, and I had last heard him speak from the platform of the Royal Institution.

"I haven't seen you," said the Professor, "for years."

"That must be because you haven't looked," said I, "for I have both seen and heard you quite recently. Only you were upon the platform and I was on the ground-floor."

"You are too much upon the ground-floor now," said the Professor, with a shudder of a Southern European at the dampness around and under foot, "and I advise you to accept a seat in my car."

And the Baby-Bunting, trembling with excitement at being in the company of so many highly-varnished electric victorias and forty horse-power auto-cars, joined the steadily-flowing stream going west.

"I wonder that you stoop to petrol, Professor," I said, as the thin, skillful hand in the baggy chamois glove manipulated the driving-wheel, and the little car snaked in and out like a torpedo-boat picking her way between the giant warships of a Channel Squadron.

The Professor's black brows unbent under the cap-peak, and his thin, tightly-gripped lips relaxed into a mirthless smile.

"Ah, yes; you think that I should drive my car by radio-activity, is it not? And so I could— and would, if the pure radium chloride were not three thousand times the price of gold. From eight tons of uranium ore residues about one gramme— that is fifteen grains— can be extracted by fusing the residue with carbonates of soda, dissolving in hydrochloric acid, precipitating the lead and other metals in solution by the aid of hydrogen-sulphide, and separating from the chlorides that remain— polonium, actinium, barium, and so forth— the chloride of radium. With a single pound of this I could not only drive an auto-car, my friend"— his olive cheek warmed, and his melancholy dark eyes grew oddly lustrous— "I could stop the world!"

"And supposing it was necessary to make it go on again?" I suggested.

"When I speak of the world," exclaimed the Professor, "I do not refer to the planet upon which we revolve; I speak of the human race which inhabits it."

"Would the human race be obliged to you, Professor?" I queried.

The Professor turned upon me with so sudden a verbal riposte that the Baby-Bunting swerved violently.

"You are not as young as you were when I met you first. To be plain, you are getting middle-aged. Do you like it?"

"I hate it!" I answered, with beautiful sincerity.

"Would you thank the man who should arrest, not the beneficent passage of Time, which means progress, but the wear and tear of nerve and muscle, tissue, and bone, the slow deterioration of the blood by the microbes of old age, for Metchnikoff has shown that there is no difference between the atrophy of senility and the atrophy caused by microbe poison? Would you thank him— the man who should do that for you? Tell me, my friend."

I replied, briefly and succinctly: "Wouldn't I?"

"Ha!" exclaimed the Professor, "I thought so!"

"But I should have liked him to have begun earlier," I said. "Twenty-nine is a nice age, now.... It is the age we all try to stop at, and can't, however much we try. Look there!"

A landau limousine, dark blue, beautifully varnished, nickel-plated, and upholstered in cream-white leather, came gliding gracefully through the press of vehicles. From the crest upon the panel to the sober workmanlike livery of the chauffeur, the turn-out was perfection. The pearl it contained was worthy of the setting.

"Look there?" I repeated, as the rose-cheeked, sapphire-eyed, smiling vision passed, wrapped in a voluminous coat of chinchilla and silver fox, with a toque of Parma violets under the shimmer of the silken veil that could only temper the burning glory of her wonderful Renaissance hair.

"There's the exception to the rule.... There's a woman who doesn't need the aid of science or of Art to keep her at nine and twenty. There's a woman in whom 'the wear and tear of nerve and muscle, tissue and bone' goes on— if it does go on— imperceptibly. Her blood doesn't seem to be much deteriorated by the microbe of old age, Professor, does it? And she's forty-three! The alchemistical forty-three, that turns the gold of life back into lead! The gold remains gold in her case, for that hair, that complexion, that figure, are," I solemnly declared, "her own."

At that moment Lady Clanbevan gave a smiling gracious nod to the Professor, and he responded with a cold, grave bow. The glow of her gorgeous hair, the liquid sapphire of her eyes, were wasted on this stony man of science. She passed, going home to Stanhope Gate, I suppose, in which neighborhood she has a house; I had barely a moment to notice the white-bonneted, blue-cloaked nurse on the front of the landau, holding a bundle of laces and cashmeres, and to reflect that I have never yet seen Lady Clanbevan taking the air out of the society of a baby, when the Professor spoke:

"So Lady Clanbevan is the one woman who has no need of the aid of Art or science to preserve her beauty and maintain her appearance of youth? Supposing I could prove to you otherwise, my friend, what then?"

"I should say," I returned, "that you had proved what everybody else denies. Even the enemies of that modern Ninon de l'Enclos, who has just passed—"

"With the nurse and the baby?" interpolated the Professor.

"With the nurse and the baby," said I. "Even her enemies— and they are legion— admit the genuineness of the charms they detest. Mentioning the baby, do you know that for twenty years I have never seen Lady Clanbevan out without a baby? She must have quite a regiment of children— children of all ages, sizes, and sexes."

"Upon the contrary," said the Professor, "she has only one!"

"The others have all died young, then?" I asked sympathetically, and was rendered breathless by the rejoinder:

"Lady Clanbevan is a widow."

"One never asks questions about the husband of a professional beauty," I said. "His individuality is merged in hers from the day upon which her latest photograph assumes a marketable value. Are you sure there isn't a Lord Clanbevan alive somewhere?"

"There is a Lord Clanbevan alive," said the Professor coldly. "You have just seen him, in his nurse's arms. He is the only child of his mother, and she has been a widow for nearly twenty years! You do not credit what I assert, my friend?"

"How can I, Professor?" I asked, turning to meet his full face, and noticed that his dark, somewhat opaque brown irises had lights and gleams of carbuncle-crimson in them. "I have had Lady Clanbevan and her progeny under my occasional observation for years. The world grows older, if she doesn't, and she has invariably a baby— toujours a new baby— to add to the charming illusion of young motherhood which she sustains so well. And now you tell me that she is a twenty-years' widow with one child, who must be nearly of age— or it isn't proper. You puzzle me painfully!"

"Would you care," asked the Professor after a moment's pause, "to drive back to Harley Street with me? I am, as you know, a vegetarian, so I will not tax your politeness by inviting you to lunch. But I have something in my laboratory I should wish to show you."

"Of all things, I should like to come," I said. "How many times haven't I fished fruitlessly for an invitation to visit the famous laboratory where nearly twenty years ago—"

"I traced," said the Professor, "the source of phenomena which heralded the evolution of the Röntgen Ray and the ultimate discovery of the radio-active salt they have christened radium. I called it protium twenty years ago, because of its various and protean qualities. Why did I not push on— perfect the discovery and anticipate Sir William C—— and the X——'s? There was a reason. You will understand it before you leave my laboratory."

The Baby-Bunting stopped at the unfashionable end of Harley Street, in front of the dingy yellow house with the black front door, flanked by dusty boxes of mildewed dwarf evergreens, and the Professor, relieved of his fur-lined coat and cap, led the way upstairs as lightly as a boy. Two garret-rooms had been knocked together for a laboratory. There was a tiled furnace at the darker end of the long skylighted room thus made, and solid wooden tables much stained with spilt chemicals, were covered with scales, glasses, jars, and retorts— all the tools of chemistry. From one of the many shelves running round the walls, the Professor took down a circular glass flask and placed it in my hands. The flask contained a handful of decayed and moldy-looking wheat, and a number of peculiarly offensive-looking little beetles with tapir-like proboscides.

"The perfectly developed beetle of the Calandria granaria," said the Professor, as I cheerfully resigned the flask, "a common British weevil, whose larvæ feed upon stored grain. Now look at this." He reached down and handed me a precisely similar flask, containing another handful of grain, cleaner and sounder in appearance, and a number of grubs, sharp-ended chrysalis-like things buried in the grain, inert and inactive.

"The larvæ of Calandria granaria," said the Professor, in his drawling monotone. "How long does it take to hatch the beetle from the grub? you ask. Less than a month. The perfect weevils that I have just shown you I placed in their flask a little more than three weeks back. The grubs you see in the flask you are holding, and which, as you will observe by their anxiety to bury themselves in the grain so as to avoid contact with the light, are still immature, I placed in the glass receptacle twenty years ago. Don't drop the flask— I value it."

"Professor!" I gasped.

"Twenty years ago," repeated the Professor, delicately handling the venerable grubs, "I enclosed these grubs in this flask, with sufficient grain to fully nourish them and bring them to the perfect state. In another flask I placed a similar number of grubs in exactly the same quantity of wheat. Then for twenty-four hours I exposed flask number one to the rays emanating from what is now called radium. And as the electrons discharged from radium are obstructed by collision with air-atoms, I exhausted the air contained in the flask." He paused.

"Then, when the grubs in flask number two hatched out," I anticipated, "and the larvæ in flask number one remained stationary, you realized—"

"I realized that the rays from the salt arrested growth, and at the same time prolonged to an almost incalculable extent," said the Professor—"for you will understand that the grubs in flask number one had lived as grubs half a dozen times as long as grubs usually do.... And I said to myself that the discovery presented an immense, a tremendous field for future development. Suppose a young woman of, say, twenty-nine were enclosed in a glass receptacle of sufficient bulk to contain her, and exposed for a few hours to my protium rays, she would retain for many years to come— until she was a great-grandmother of ninety!— the same charming, youthful appearance—"

"As Lady Clanbevan!" I cried, as the truth rushed upon me and I grasped the meaning this astonishing man had intended to convey.

"As Lady Clanbevan presents to-day," said the Professor, "thanks to the discovery of a—"

"Of a great man," said I, looking admiringly at the lean worn figure in the closely-buttoned black frock-coat.

"I loved her.... It was a delight to her to drag a disciple of Science at her chariot-wheels. People talked of me as a coming man. Perhaps I was.... But I did not thirst for distinction, honors, fame.... I thirsted for that woman's love.... I told her of my discovery— as I told her everything. Bah!" His lean nostrils worked. "You know the game that is played when one is in earnest and the other at play. She promised nothing, she walked delicately among the passions she sowed and fostered in the souls of men, as a beautiful tigress walks among the poison-plants of the jungle. She saw that rightly used, or wrongly used, my great discovery might save her beauty, her angelic, dazzling beauty that had as yet but felt the first touch of Time. She planned the whole thing, and when she said, 'You do not love me if you will not do this,' I did it. I was mad when I acceded to her wish, perhaps; but she is a woman to drive men frenzied. You have seen how coldly, how slightingly she looked at me when we encountered her in the Row? I tell you— you have guessed already— I went there to see her. I always go where she is to be encountered, when she is in town. And she bows, always; but her eyes are those of a stranger. Yet I have had her on her knees to me. She cried and begged and kissed my hands."

He knotted his thin hands, their fingers brown-tipped with the stains of acids, and wrung and twisted them ferociously.

"And so I granted what she asked, carried out the experiment, and paid what you English call the piper. The giant glass bulb with the rubber-valve door was blown and finished in France. It involved an expense of three hundred pounds. The salt I used— of protium (christened radium now)— cost me all my savings— over two thousand pounds— for I had been a struggling man—"

"But the experiment?" I broke in. "Good Heavens, Professor! How could a living being remain for any time in an exhausted receiver? Agony unspeakable, convulsions, syncope, death! One knows what the result would be. The merest common sense—"

"The merest common sense is not what one employs to make discoveries or carry out great experiments," said the Professor. "I will not disclose my method; I will only admit to you that the subject— the subjects were insensible; that I induced anæsthesia by the ordinary ether-pump apparatus, and that the strength of the ray obtained was concentrated to such a degree that the exposure was complete in three hours." He looked about him haggardly. "The experiment took place here nineteen years ago—nineteen years ago, and it seems to me as though it were yesterday."

"And it must seem like yesterday to Lady Clanbevan— whenever she looks in the glass," I said. "But you have pricked my curiosity, Professor, by the use of the plural. Who was the other subject?"

"Is it possible you don't guess?" The sad, hollow eyes questioned my face in surprise. Then they turned haggardly away. "My friend, the other subject associated with Lady Clanbevan in my great experiment was— Her Baby!"

I could not speak. The dowdy little grubs in the flask became for me creatures imbued with dreadful potentialities.... The tragedy and the sublime absurdity of the thing I realized caught at my throat, and my brain grew dizzy with its horror.

"Oh! Professor!" I gurgled, "how—how grimly, awfully, tragically ridiculous! To carry about with one wherever one goes a baby that never grows older— a baby—"

"A baby nearly twenty years old? Yes, it is as you say, ridiculous and horrible," the Professor agreed.

"What could have induced the woman!" burst from me.

The Professor smiled bitterly.

"She is greedy of money. It is the only thing she loves— except her beauty and her power over men; and during the boy's infancy— that word is used in the Will— she has full enjoyment of the estate. After he 'attains to manhood'— I quote the Will again— hers is but a life-interest. Now you understand?"

I did understand, and the daring of the woman dazzled me. She had made the Professor doubly her tool.

"And so," I gurgled between tears and laughter, "Lord Clanbevan, who ought to be leaving Eton this year to commence his first Oxford term, is being carried about in the arms of a nurse, arrayed in the flowing garments of a six-months' baby! What an astonishing conspiracy!"

"His mother," continued the Professor calmly, "allows no one to approach him but the nurse. The family are only too glad to ignore what they consider a deplorable case of atavistic growth-arrest, and the boy himself—" He broke off. "I have detained you," he said, after a pause. "I will not do so longer. Nor will I offer you my hand. I am as conscious as you are— that it has committed a crime." And he bowed me out with his hands sternly held behind him. There were few more words between us, only I remember turning on the threshold of the laboratory, where I left him, to ask whether protium— radium, as it is now christened— checks the growth of every organic substance? The answer I received was curious:

"Certainly, with the exception of the nails and the hair!"

A week later the Professor was found dead in his laboratory.... There were reports of suicide— hushed up. People said he had been more eccentric than ever of late, and theorized about brain-mischief; only I located the trouble in the heart. A year went by, and I had almost forgotten Lady Clanbevan—for she went abroad after the Professor's death— when at a little watering-place on the Dorset coast, I saw that lovely thing, as lovely as ever— she who was fifty if a day! With her were the blue-cloaked elderly nurse and Lord Clanbevan, borne, as usual, in the arms of his attendant, or wheeled in a luxurious perambulator. Day after day I encountered them— the lovely mother, the middle-aged nurse, and the mysterious child— until the sight began to get on my nerves. Had the Professor selected me as the recipient of a secret unrivaled in the records of biological discovery, or had he been the victim of some maniacal delusion that cold October day when we met in Rotten Row? One peep under the thick white lace veil with which the baby's face was invariably covered would clear everything up! Oh! for a chance to allay the pangs of curiosity!

The chance came. It was a hot, waspy August forenoon. Everybody was indoors with all the doors and windows open, lunching upon the innutritive viands alone procurable at health resorts— everybody but myself, Lord Clanbevan, and his nurse. She had fallen asleep upon a green-painted esplanade seat, gratuitously shielded by a striped awning. Lord Clanbevan's C-springed, white-hooded, cane-built perambulator stood close beside her. He was, as usual, a mass of embroidered cambric and cashmere, and, as always, thickly veiled, his regular breathing heaved his infant breast; the thick white lace drapery attached to his beribboned bonnet obscured the features upon which I so ardently longed to gaze! It was the chance, as I have said; and as the head of the blue-cloaked nurse dropped reassuringly upon her breast, as she emitted the snore that gave assurance of the soundness of her slumbers, I stepped silently on the gravel towards the baby's perambulator. Three seconds, and I stood over its apparently sleeping inmate; another, and I had lifted the veil from the face of the mystery— and dropped it with a stifled cry of horror!

The child had a moustache!

_______________

14: The House by the River

George Arthur Walstab

1834-1909

Australian Journal, June 1883

British born Australian: soldier, mounted policeman, and journalist.

I GIVE THE TALE exactly as it was written to me, without any comments whatever upon the extraordinary nature of the appearances mentioned in it. Some may laugh, some may sneer, and many may disbelieve. I can only say that the man who writes what he saw, or thought he saw— as different opinions may elect to accept the story— served as a cavalry officer through the Indian Mutiny, and that I never heard his courage or veracity called into question. Here is the mystery, for mystery even I can only call it:

MY dear George,—

At your request I give you as circumstantial an account as I can of the occurrences of two of the most extraordinary, or rather terrible, nights I ever passed in the course of a tolerably eventful life. Even to you, as an old friend, they may appear incredible, but I am sure that you will not doubt for one moment that I write what I firmly believe to have happened to me. It is easy enough for me to recall the circumstances; I wish, indeed, it were not so easy. But it is with great disinclination that I recall what I am almost ashamed to say I would far rather forget.

You are aware that, after the mutiny was over, I left the service, took to a literary life, and earned some repute as a writer of fiction. It is no fiction, however, that I am writing of now; I should be glad if it were, for even after the lapse of years the memory of those two nights comes back to me in my dreams too often to be pleasant.

You know also that, though a novelist, and therefore, it may be presumed, to some extent imaginative, I was never, in the good old days, a believer in the supernatural, but that, on the contrary, I was rather inclined to be sceptical on those subjects connected with the night side of nature, in which you and others took a deep interest.

You will remember even that, like Ingoldsby’s Black Mousquetaire, I was nicknamed “Sans Foi” in the regiment by those who were in the habit of hearing me sneer at the mysteries some were inclined to believe in. I don’t believe in many of them now. I doubt sometimes even my own remembrances. But I never sneer.

It was nearly three years after I left the service that I was attached to the staff of one of the papers in Calcutta. The wet season of the year I refer to had been a more than usually unhealthy one. King Cholera had been very exacting in his payment of tribute, and the small-pox, of which you in Melbourne have such a terror, had almost decimated the native quarter of the town, not halting even at the more healthy portion of the city.

You remember where I lived at the time, and you know also that, though close to Government House, it was not by any means the healthiest part of Calcutta. I was not, therefore, surprised when, in the midst of the sickness around us, the family doctor advised me to send away my wife and children, if only a short distance.

He was a believer in these changes, and as I remembered how young F—, of the  —th N. I., had absolutely marched his detachment out of cholera range, I was the more inclined to agree with a man in whom I had in all respects the utmost confidence.

“Of course, old man,” he said to me, “you must stick here; but the sooner the wife and bairns clear out the better.”

I cleared them out accordingly, but not far. A friend of mine—poor Br—t; he is dead now— hearing that I wished to send my family out of town, told me that he had rented a house at Agrapurrah— about nine miles out of Barrackpore-road— but that his wife not liking it, he had moved into town again.

“It’s a lonely place,” he said, “on the river, but the house is large and roomy, and I believe healthy.”

The doctor and I went out to look at it the next day, and his opinion was decidedly in favour of my accepting B—’s offer.

Not having to pay rent was, of course, an object to a man with scarcely captain’s pay; but in the clear daylight the house and its situation were not unattractive.

It had been one of the Portuguese missions in the days when the memory of Sarajah Dowlah was yet fresh in men’s minds. It stood close to the banks of the Hooghly, with a terrace and steps leading down to the river. The compound, or garden, was large. In the rear was a court-yard, on the other side of which was an unused building, formerly the nuns’ dormitory, but now turned into a quarters for the native servants, and on one side was a chapel and a small cemetery. The first was closed, except on the occasional visits of the padre, and the latter was closed entirely.

All the rooms in the house had been furnished by my friend, but I determined to occupy only the upper story for sleeping purposes. The accommodation consisted of six rooms, three of which fronted to a long verandah looking out on the river. The largest of these I selected as a nursery for the children. On the one side were my wife’s rooms, and on the other a dressing-room for myself, whenever I could manage to get out of town.

The communication with the dining-room and drawing-room below was by a long staircase, and attached to the bathrooms were the usual back staircases for the use of the sweepers.

Through a roofed-in passage you could pass to the dormitories, but this was only used by the servants.

I give you these details to show how difficult of explanation is what occurred afterwards. There are no Europeans within five miles, and the whole place was as retired as well could be.

Thinking, however, that my wife might be lonely in my absence, I arranged with a European professional nurse in Calcutta, the widow of a soldier who had been a corporal in my own troop, to stay with the family while they were at Agrapurrah. She was a practical, common-sense Scotch woman, had made two voyages home and back in charge of children, and was in all respects reliable.

In addition to this, I also sent my own bearer, or personal servant, who had been with me during the campaign, and who had evinced his more than Hindoo courage by, on one occasion, bringing me a drink of Mangofool under a decidedly unpleasant fire. Two ayas, were, of course, indispensable, so that, what with the Khansamah and the Khitmutgars, the house was full enough.

It was a wet day when I drove the party out, and the whole place wore by no means so cheerful an aspect as it had on the occasion of my first visit. Even my wife— by no means a nervous woman— was impressed by the gloominess of the surroundings, and spoke of the half-ruined dormitories and chapel in decidedly disparaging terms. The nurse, Mrs. H—, with the usual composure of a soldier’s wife, said nothing. She had been in decidedly worse quarters often, and was proportionately philosophical. Certainly the idea of the supernatural was not present to any of us. I did notice that as Punchoo, the bearer, and the other servants took possession of their quarters, some of the people from a little village close by stood looking at them curiously, but the circumstance conveyed no meaning to me then, and I drove back to town highly satisfied with the whole arrangement.

That night, however, I could not sleep even in my own comfortable quarters, and when I did, I had wretched dreams. All through the next day, too, I was uneasy and low-spirited, and found buckling to my work a task of some difficulty.

I dined at my club in the hope of shaking off this feeling, which I attributed at first to the weather, which was simply beastly; but, even after the excitement of a game of billiards, the next night was as bad as the first, and as soon as day broke I ordered out my horse and rode to my “country seat”.

It was about six in the morning when I reached the home. The ayas and the children were in the garden, and I was somewhat surprised at the embarrassed manner in which the nurse, who was with them, replied to my, “Well, Mrs. H—, how are you all?”

I said nothing, however, but went to my wife’s dressing-room, where I found her in a decidedly bad temper. She was not nervous, but annoyed, and, on my asking the reason, she said that the English nurse has refused to remain in the place any more. She had asked her why, and after some hesitation she had said that the place was haunted.

“I won’t tell you what I saw, ma’am,” had been her answer; “but I saw something, and I won’t stop any more. If the master’s wise, ma’am, he won’t let you or the dear children stop either.”

“And it’s very annoying, dear,” continued my wife, “for the place agrees with the children.”

“Haunted! Nonsense!” I replied. “The woman’s gammoning you. She wants to get back, I expect, and is pretending this as an excuse, but I didn’t think she would do it. I’ll see her myself.”

So I went down to the garden and interviewed her myself. At first she was very reticent, repeating only her determination to go; but on my looking into her eyes steadily and saying with some heat, that she ought to be ashamed of herself for trying to frighten her mistress, she replied very earnestly:

“I wouldn’t frighten the mistress for the world, sir, and that’s why I have told her nothing. But, as I am a Christian woman, I saw it, sir, and for God’s sake, sir, take them all away before harm comes to them.”

“Nonsense, Mrs. H—,” I answered. “Saw it! What the deuce do you mean? You must have been dreaming.”

“No, sir, it was no dreaming. I saw it distinctly. I am a soldier’s widow, captain; my poor dead husband carried you out when you were shot, sir, and I wouldn’t tell you a lie, sir, not to be made Queen of England. Don’t ask any more questions, sir; take them away.”

“Well, Mrs. H—,” I replied, “I believe you think you saw it— whatever you mean by it— but I can’t move them for such fancies as this, you know. If you won’t stop, you must go, and I will send someone else out to-morrow. Of course you must stay to-night.”

“God help me, sir, if I do;” and to my utter surprise, she burst into a fit of hysterical weeping. I soothed her as well as I could, but I could not quite get rid of the idea that she was pretending. I insisted upon a further explanation.

“Tell me all, Mrs. H—. I must know it before your mistress comes down. I won’t have her alarmed by your whims.”

“Indeed, sir, it’s no whim, and I’ll tell you all. If you let the mistress and children stop here then, it’s your own fault. It happened at about one this morning, sir. I had been sitting with the mistress till past twelve— for she was very wakeful— but at last she fell asleep, and I went into the nursery. It was moonlight, though raining, and the light shone clear through the jelmils. The ayahs were asleep on the floor, but standing between the children’s cots was a tall woman, dressed in a long grey robe. As God is my judge, captain, she was there. I could see no face, but she was weeping and moaning, sir, as if in pain. I tried to speak or move, but couldn’t. As it says in the good book, the hair of my head stood on end. It was a spirit passed before me, and I can only pray that no harm comes to the little ones. I am a Christian woman, sir, and you know I wouldn’t say anything that wasn’t true to my husband’s old officer.”

“Come, come, Mrs. H—,” I replied, considerably and disagreeably impressed by her manner, though still incredulous. “You must be dreaming, or, perhaps, some of the servants were playing you a trick.”

“It was no trick, sir.”

“Well, perhaps it wasn’t. But you stop here to-night, and I’ll come out before midnight and sleep here, and see what it has got to say to an old trooper. Was she pretty, Mrs. H—?”

“Oh, sir, I know you’re brave enough, but don’t joke. I didn’t see her face.”

“Well, don’t say anything to your mistress, and I’ll come out.”

She agreed to remain after some hesitation, but when, after leaving me to rejoin the children, she took one of them in her arms and pressed it closely to her heart, as if to protect it, I was ashamed of doubting her.

Still, a ghost in the nineteenth century turning up to worry the children of an ex-dragoon was too much for my credulity.

I said nothing to my wife, except that Mrs. H— had altered her mind about leaving, and that I was coming out again at night; but just before I mounted my horse before starting I called Punchoo, and questioned him closely as to whether he had seen anyone loitering about the compound the previous evening.

I will not trouble you with his answer. Native servants have a habit of giving answers not exactly straight. But he gave me to understand that, though he had seen no one, there was something about the place and the “gup”— “gossip”— of the village that he didn’t like. I was now more convinced than ever that some native trickery was at work. It was a lonely place; robberies were by no means unknown in the outlying suburbs, and the low quarters of Cossipore were certainly not too distant for a budmash raid, if it was known that there was no Sahib in the house.

So I rode back to Calcutta with the firm determination to come back in the evening, and make it unpleasantly warm for anyone I could find unlawfully on the premises.

But, with all my determination, I could not shake off the depression of the previous day. I fought against it with a feeling something like shame, but it was of no avail. I was pursued by a haunting idea that something was going to happen, and though I dined merrily, with some old comrades in the Fort, I did not succeed in getting rid of it.

At last, about eleven o’clock, I ordered my buggy, and before starting placed on the seat my loaded revolver and my sabre, with which a few natives had already made an acquaintance. I was going to be my own shokeydar on this occasion, and ready to act accordingly.

It was not raining this night, and the moon was riding high and bright in, for a wonder, a clear sky. We passed nothing on the road except a solitary elephant, at whom my mare shied so violently as to spill the syce, who was clinging on behind, to the wild delight of the animal’s driver. The little village near the house was as still as the grave, and Punchoo, who was waiting for me, informed me that no one had been near the place. My wife had some supper waiting for me in the dining-room, and after a hearty meal, a bottle of Baas, and a stiff glass of No. 1 Exshaw, we went to bed. Passing through the nursery, I noticed that Mrs. H— and the children were fast asleep, the ayahs being curled up on the ground, one at the foot of each cot.

I smoked a cigar for about half an hour after my wife had fallen asleep, and then placing my sabre and revolver on the table where the night light stood, I got into bed, dropped the mosquito curtains, and in a few moments was in a deep slumber.

How long I slept I didn’t know, but I found out afterwards that it must have been one o’clock when I was awoke suddenly by a loud scream from my wife.

“Harry, look!” she cried, tightly clutching my arm as she sat up in the bed. “See the woman going through the door.”

I looked as she spoke, and saw that the purdah, or door-curtain— ordinary doors are rarely seen in India— was shaking, as if some one had just passed through.

In far less time than it takes me to tell you, I jumped out of bed, seized my revolver, and rushed into the nursery.

The bright moonlight was streaming through the open Venetians, and the whole room was clearly visible. On the bed lay Mrs. H— in strong convulsions, the two ayahs were starting in wild terror to their feet, and the two children were screaming loudly. But there was no one else.

Calling to my wife to come to the children, I ran into my own dressing-room to get some water, intending, in my excitement— half anger, half fear— to treat Mrs. H— to a good sound douche of cold water.

But my purpose was changed when I returned to the nursery. My wife was leaning over the nurse, the ayahs were endeavouring to quiet the children, and near the foot of the beds, in the centre of a halo of bluish mist, stood a tall woman in a grey robe.

I am no coward, but for a moment my blood ran cold, and the water jug fell from my hand; while the figure turned and walked slowly toward my wife’s room.

I was sure now that it was a trick, and, without pausing to think, I fired my revolver point blank at the figure’s back, and dashed after it into the bedroom. The night-light was still burning, and the room was empty.

The shot awoke the servants, and the whole tribe, headed by Punchoo, crowded into the room.

I searched it thoroughly, and found nothing; I searched the bathroom, and there was nothing, while the back staircase door was locked. I searched the lower rooms, and found nothing, but on reaching the court-yard leading to the old dormitories Punchoo suddenly yelled out—

“See, Sahib; see the woman,” and then stopped short, pallidly green with terror, and apparently unable to move.

I raised my eyes at once to the verandah of the dormitories, and there, pacing up and down, wringing its hands, and uttering from time to time a low moan, was the figure in grey I had seen in the nursery.

“Give me the lantern, you infernal idiot!” I shouted to Punchoo, who was shaking with fear, but still stuck to me, and, snatching it from his hand, I ran up the steps of the verandah. The figure had vanished.

Not one of the servants would answer my calls but Punchoo, and, with him carrying the lantern— I think he was more afraid of me than the figure— I thoroughly searched the cells and vaults of the dormitory and found nothing. I even knocked up an old native Christian in the village and made him hand over the keys of the chapel and cemetery, and searched them, too, with the same result.

I then returned to the house, leaving Punchoo with strict orders to keep watch in the court-yard till daylight. Whether he did so, or whether he retired to his mat and slept off his terror, I don’t know, but he reported the next morning that he had seen nothing.

Mrs. H—, on emerging from her fit, only told her former story— which I could not now refuse to believe— but my wife admitted that she had only seen what she thought was the skirt of a woman’s dress passing through the doorway, and nothing more. She had not seen the figure that I saw, and added, with more coolness than I had expected, that she was not a bit frightened after she saw me awake and armed.

Still I was not surprised at her objecting to remain alone in the home, as Mrs. H— would not, and that very day I removed the whole family back to town, highly disgusted with the result of my arrangements, but determined to say nothing to my friend B— until I had thoroughly investigated what I believed to be a trick of some of the villagers, who must have had some reasons of their own for wishing to keep the house empty. That I had seen a figure was certain, but I was still puzzled to find that my bullet— fired point blank at it— had lodged directly in the wainscot on the opposite side of the room, and yet not touched the object it was aimed at. This fact dispelled the idea that my pistol might have been tampered with while I was at supper, which had at first occurred to me. Still, I was determined to return some night and get to the bottom of the mystery. I did so. I will now tell you the result.

CONVINCED as I was that I had been the victim of a trick of some sort, I could not shake off the feeling of uneasiness I had before experienced, and it grew on me to such an extent that, at last, while dining one evening, about a week afterwards, with the  —th Punjaubees, I told the whole story to Doctor K— of that regiment, a man whose professional attainments were known throughout India, a man of high literary ability, and a notorious sceptic.

As a matter of course he laughed at me.

“They called your fellows the ‘Sheltan-ka-pultan’ (the devil’s regiment), my boy, and I suppose Sheltan came to look after one of his own.”

But we talked the matter over in the ante-room after dinner, and eventually he and two subalterns— they are colonels now— agreed to drive down with me the next night, and ‘draw the ghost’, as the doctor put it.

“We’ll have a rattling good supper, Harry,” he said at parting, “and a bottle or so of simpkin (champagne), and then, in the words of Mark Twain, ‘fetch round your ghost.’”

We drove down the next night accordingly, taking a well-filled hamper with me, and at midnight sat down to supper. I had placed a regular cordon of servants, under the direction of Punchoo, round the house, and the feeling of uneasiness had quite left me.

Supper over, we told stories and sang songs, until, just as the clock struck one, one of the subalterns said:

“Come on, Harry, the ghost won’t turn up. She’s afraid, poor thing. Give us the ‘Marseillaise’”.

Elated with champagne, I sprang to my feet, and the next minute the chorus of that most spirited of national songs rang through the lonely house. The last notes had just died away when, from the direction of the room my wife had occupied, came the sound of a low moan of the most despairing agony.

We all started to our feet, and turning round I saw standing in the doorway— but visible, as I heard afterwards, only to me— the same figure I had seen before, enveloped in the same bluish bright halo of mist.

Our revolvers and my sabre were lying on the sideboard. I seized the latter, and, with a loud cry to my companions to follow me, I sprang across the room and aimed a blow at the head of the figure, which brought the curtain rod, severed in two, to the ground. But the figure neither fell nor turned. On the contrary, it slowly lifted the hood that covered the head and showed me its face.

Never shall I, till my dying day, forget that face, or the lineaments that in my dreams have so frequently appeared to me since. A face worn and emaciated almost to the bone— a face covered with the livid greenish hue of corruption, but with eyes fixed on me, and an expression of unutterable woe, agony and despair.

My blood ran cold as ice, a low groan of horror burst from my lips, and then, as the sabre fell from my hand with a clash to the floor, I felt myself clutched by the throat.

I cannot tell what followed, but I heard afterwards that I drew back my hand as if to strike, and then fell heavily to the ground. I was insensible for two hours, and when they had taken me back to my home, I lay raving in delirium for some days. My own medical man and K— attended me through the illness that followed, and when I recovered they unwillingly discussed the matter with me at my own most earnest request.

I was the only one of the party who had seen anything, though all had heard the moan that followed my song, and seen the room filled with a bluish bright mist, which they attributed to a fog from the river, while the moan might have been uttered by one of the servants asleep on the verandah.

I disputed neither assumption. Neither did I dispute with the doctors when they advanced the theory that I must have been suffering from some mental or optical hallucination, brought on by overwork and literary excitement, encouraged by what I confirmed was a near approach to fast living. I was only too anxious to adopt the theory, and to be medically treated accordingly.

But what they could not account for, and what Dr. K— was especially puzzled at, was that for days after the event there remained on my neck the marks of four female finger nails.

“Perhaps some of you did it in opening my necktie,” I suggested.

“No,” said Dr. K—, hesitatingly; “they are women’s nails, I’m sure.”

“Perhaps,” I added, “I did it myself in a sort of hysterical paroxysm.”

And then, as they exchanged glances, and I looked down at my hands, I remembered that I had the bad habit of biting my nails, and could not therefore have done it myself.

It was no human fingers that had seized me, and, in the words of Job, “a spirit had passed.”

I know well now that what I had seen was no human visitant or trick. I know, too, that none of those who were with me would ever afterwards allude to the subject in my presence. I know that my friend B— subsequently confessed to me that neither he nor his wife had lived in the home after a supposed dream of hers, and I know also that, on the vaults being searched by him again, an irregularity in the masonry attracted his attention, and that enclosed in a niche was found a female skeleton and the mouldering remnants of a robe, the victim, probably, of some monasterial discipline.

I know, moreover, that no one has lived in the house since, and that it is now ruinous and deserted.

I expect no one to share my belief as to what I saw, but I know as well that the two children, over whom that “perturbed spirit” moaned and wailed, are now in the land where such secrets are revealed, and I feel sure that once in my life there was lifted for me the veil between the Seen and the Unseen, for what reason is known only to the Great Spirit who holds the curtain-rings in His all-powerful hand.

I repeat, and with all humility, that I am no coward. I have served my Queen through a period when men rode daily with their lives in their hands into the valley of the shadow. I was one of a regiment which earned for itself a high reputation for dashing bravery, and I can say conscientiously that I never shrank from any peril in the path of my duty. But did the attainment of the Viceroyalty of India depend upon my passing another night in that house, I would not do it; and were the winning of that still higher honour, the Victoria Cross, made conditional on my doing so, I should decline the contest. I have told you the story now, and I wish I had never had it to tell.

Yours,

Harry

SUCH is one of the few authenticated ghost stories ever told to me. The man who told it was a good soldier as ever buckled on a sabre or mounted a charger, and I have no doubt of his veracity.

____________________

15: Florence Flannery

Marjorie Bowen

Gabrielle M. V. Long, 1885-1952

The Regent Magazine, December 1924

SHE who had been Florence Flannery noted with a careless eye the stains of wet on the dusty stairs, and with a glance ill used to observance of domesticities looked up for damp or dripping ceilings. The dim-walled staircase revealed nothing but more dust, yet this would serve as a peg for ill-humour to hang on, so Florence pouted.

'An ill, muddy place,' said she, who loved gilding and gimcracks and mirrors reflecting velvet chairs, and flounced away to the upper chamber, lifting frilled skirts contemptuously high.

Her husband followed; they had been married a week and there had never been any happiness in their wilful passion. Daniel Shute did not now look for any; in the disgust of this draggled homecoming he wondered what had induced him to marry the woman and how soon he would come to hate her.

As she stood in the big bedroom he watched her with dislike; her tawdry charms of vulgar prettiness had once been delightful to his dazed senses and muddled wits, but here, in his old home, washed by the fine Devon air, his sight was clearer and she appeared coarse as a poppy at the far end of August.

'Of course you hate it,' he said cynically, lounging with his big shoulders against one of the bedposts, his big hands in the pockets of his tight nankeen trousers, and his fair hair, tousled from the journey, hanging over his mottled face.

'It is not the place you boasted to have,' replied Florence, but idly, for she stood by the window and looked at the tiny leaded panes; the autumn sun gleaming sideways on this glass, picked out a name scratched there:

Florence Flannerye. Born 1500.

'Look here,' cried the woman, excited, 'this should be my ancestress!'

She slipped off a huge diamond ring she wore and scratched underneath the writing the present year, '1800.'

Daniel Shute came and looked over her shoulder.

'That reads strange— "Born 1500"— as if you would say died 1800,' he remarked. 'Well, I don't suppose she had anything to do with you, my charmer, yet she brought you luck, for it was remembering this name here made me notice you when I heard what you were called.'

He spoke uncivilly, and she responded in the same tone.

'Undervalue what is your own, Mr Shute. There was enough for me to choose from, I can swear!'

'Enough likely gallants,' he grinned, 'not so many likely husbands, eh?'

He slouched away, for, fallen as he was, it stung him that he had married a corybante of the opera, an unplaced, homeless, nameless creature for all he knew, for he could never quite believe that 'Florence Flannery' was her real name.

Yet that name had always attracted him; it was so queer that he should meet a real woman called Florence Flannery when one of the earliest of his recollections was tracing that name over with a curious finger in the old diamond pane.

'You have never told me who she was,' said Mrs Shute.

'Who knows? Three hundred years ago, m'dear. There are some old wives' tales, of course.'

He left the great bedroom and she followed him doggedly downstairs.

'Is this your fine manor, Mr Shute? And these your noble grounds? And how am I to live here, Mr Shute, who left the gaieties of London for you?'

Her voice, shrill and edged, followed him down the stairs and into the vast dismantled drawing-room where they paused, facing each other like things caught in a trap, which is what they were.

For he had married her because he was a ruined man, driven from London by duns, and a drunken man who dreaded lonely hours and needed a boon companion to pledge him glass for glass, and a man of coarse desires who had bought with marriage what he was not rich enough to buy with money, and she had married him because she was past her meridian and saw no more conquests ahead and also was in love with the idea of being a gentlewoman and ruling in the great grand house by the sea— which was how she had thought of Shute Manor.

And a great grand house it had been, but for twenty years it had been abandoned by Daniel Shute, and stripped and mortgaged to pay for his vices, so that now it stood barren and desolate, empty and tarnished, and only a woman with love in her heart could have made a home of it; never had there been love in Florence Flannery's heart, only greed and meanness.

Thus these two faced each other in the gaunt room with the monstrous chandelier hanging above them wrapped in a dusty brown holland bag, the walls festooned with cobwebs, the pale wintry sunshine showing the thick dust on the unpolished boards.

'I can never live here!' cried Mrs Shute. There was a touch of panic in her voice and she lifted her hands to her heart with a womanly gesture of grief.

The man was touched by a throb of pity; he did not himself expect the place to be so dilapidated. Some kind of a rascally agent had been looking after it for him, and he supposed some effort would have been made for his reception.

Florence saw his look of half-sullen shame and urged her point.

'We can go back, cannot we?' she said, with the rich drop in her voice, so useful for coaxing; 'back to London and the house in Baker Street? All the old friends and old pleasures, Mr Shute, and a dashing little cabriolet to go round the park?'

'Curse it!' he answered, chagrined. 'I haven't the money, Flo; I haven't the damned money!' She heard the ring of bitter truth in his voice and the atrocious nature of the deception he had practiced on her overwhelmed her shallow understanding.

'You mean you've got no money, Mr Shute?' she screamed.

'Not enough for London, m'dear.'

'And I've to live in this filthy barn?'

'It has been good enough for my people, Mrs Shute,' he answered grimly. 'For all the women of my family, gentlewomen, all of 'em with quarterings, and it will be good enough for you, m'dear, so none of your Bartholomew Fair⁷ airs and graces.'

She was cornered, and a little afraid of him; he had been drinking at the last place where they stopped to water the horses and she knew how he could be when he was drunk; she remembered that she was alone with him and what a huge man he was.

So she crept away and went down into the vast kitchens where an old woman and a girl were preparing a meal.

The sight of this a little heartened Mrs Shute; in her frilled taffetas and long ringlets she sat down by the great open hearth, moving her hands to show the firelight flashing in her rings and shifting her petticoats so that the girl might admire her kid shoes.

'I'll take a cordial to stay my strength,' she said, 'for I've come a long way and find a sour welcome at the end of it, and that'll turn any woman's blood.'

The old dame smiled, knowing her type well enough; for even in a village you may find women like this.

So she brought Mrs Shute some damson wine and a plate of biscuits, and the two women became friendly enough and gossiped in the dim candle-lit kitchen while Daniel Shute wandered about his old home, even his corrupt heart feeling many a pang to see the places of his childhood desolate, the walks overgrown, the trees felled, the arbours closed, the fountains dried, and all the spreading fields about fenced by strangers.

The November moon was high in a misted space of open heaven by the time he reached the old carp pond.

Dead weeds tangled over the crumbling, moss-grown stone, trumpery and slime coated the dark waters.

'I suppose the carp are all dead?' said Mr Shute.

He had not been aware that he spoke aloud, and was surprised to hear himself answered.

'I believe there are some left, esquire.'

Mr Shute turned sharply and could faintly discern the figure of a man sitting on the edge of the pond so that it seemed as if his legs half dangled in the black water.

'Who are you?' asked Daniel Shute quickly.

'I'm Paley, sir, who looks after the grounds.'

'You do your work damned badly,' replied the other, irritated.

'It is a big place, esquire, for one man to work.'

He seemed to stoop lower and lower as if at any moment he would slip into the pond; indeed, in the half dark, it seemed to Mr Shute as if he was already half in the water; yet, on this speech, he moved and showed that he was but bending over the sombre depths of the carp pond.

The moonlight displayed him as a drab man of middling proportions with slow movements and a large languid eye which glittered feebly in the pale light; Mr Shute had an impression that this eye looked at him sideways as if it was set at the side of the man's head, but soon saw that this was an illusion.

'Who engaged you?' he asked acidly, hating the creature.

'Mr Tregaskis, the agent,' replied the man in what appeared to be a thick foreign accent or with some defect of speech, and walked away into the wintry undergrowth.

Mr Shute returned home grumbling; in the grim parlour Mr Tregaskis was waiting for him— a red Cornishman, who grinned at his employer's railings. He knew the vices of Mr Shute, and the difficulties of Mr Shute, and he had seen Mrs Shute in the kitchen deep in maudlin gossip with old Dame Chase and the idiot-faced girl, drinking the alcoholic country wine till it spilled from her shaking fingers on to her taffeta skirt.

So he assumed a tone of noisy familiarity that Mr Shute was too sunken to resent; the last of the old squire's Oporto was sent for and the men drank themselves on to terms of easy good-fellowship.

At the last, when the candles were guttering, the bottles empty, and the last log's ashes on the hearth, Mr Shute asked who was the creature Paley he had found hanging over the carp pond.

Mr Tregaskis told him, but the next morning Mr Shute could not recollect what he had said; the whole evening had, in his recollection, an atmosphere of phantasmagoria; but he thought that the agent had said that Paley was a deserted sailor who had wandered up from Plymouth and taken the work without pay, a peculiar individual who lived in a wattled hut that he had made himself, and on food he caught with his own hands.

His sole explanation of himself was that he had waited for something a long time and was still waiting for it; useful he was, Mr Tregaskis had said, and it was better to leave him alone.

All this Mr Shute remembered vaguely, lying in the great bed staring at the pale sun glittering on the name 'Florence Flannery' scratched on the window with the two dates.

It was late in the autumnal morning, but his wife still lay beside him, heavily asleep, with her thick heavy chestnut hair tossed over the pillow and her full bosom panting, the carnation of her rounded face flushed and stained, the coarse diamonds glowing on her plump hands, the false pearls slipping round her curved throat.

Daniel Shute sat up in bed and looked down at her prone sleep.

'Who is she? And where does she come from?' he wondered. He had never cared to find out, but now his ignorance of all appertaining to his wife annoyed him.

He shook her bare shoulder till she yawned out of her heavy sleep.

'Who are you, Flo?' he asked. 'You must know something about yourself.'

The woman blinked up at him, drawing her satin bedgown round her breast.

'I was in the opera, wasn't I?' she answered lazily. 'I never knew my people.'

'Came out of an orphanage or the gutter, I suppose?' he returned bitterly.

'Maybe.'

'But your name?' he insisted. 'That is never your name, "Florence Flannery"?'

'I've never known another,' she responded indifferently.

'You're not Irish.'

'I don't know, Mr Shute. I've been in many countries and seen many strange things.'

He laughed; he had heard some of her experiences.

'You've seen so much and been in so many places I don't know how you've ever got it all into one life.'

'I don't know myself. It's all rather like a dream and the most dreamlike of all is to be lying here looking at my own name written three hundred years ago.'

She moved restlessly and slipped from the bed, a handsome woman with troubled eyes.

''Tis the drink brings the dreams, m'dear,' said Mr Shute. 'I had some dreams last night of a fellow named Paley I met by the carp pond.'

'You were drinking in the parlour,' she retorted scornfully.

'And you in the kitchen, m'dear.'

Mrs Shute flung a fringed silk shawl, the gift of an Indian nabob¹⁵⁵, round her warm body and dropped, shivering and yawning, into one of the warm tapestry chairs.

'Who was this Florence Flannery?' she asked idly.

'I told you no one knows. An Irish girl born in Florence, they said, when I was a child and listened to beldam's gossip. Her mother a Medici, m'dear, and he a groom! And she came here, the trollop, with some young Shute who had been travelling in Italy— picked her up and brought her home, like I've brought you!'

'He didn't marry her?' asked Mrs Shute indifferently.

'More sense,' said her husband coarsely. 'I'm the first fool of me family. She was a proper vixen. John Shute took her on his voyages; he'd a ship and went discovering. They talk yet at Plymouth of how she would sit among the parrots and the spices and the silks when the ship came into Plymouth Hoe.'

'Ah, the good times!' sighed Mrs Shute, 'when men were men and paid a good price for their pleasures!'

'You've fetched your full market value, Mrs Shute,' he answered, yawning in the big bed.

'I'd rather be John Shute's woman than your wife,' she returned.

'What do you know of him?'

'I saw his portrait on the back stairs last night. Goody Chase showed me. A noble man with a clear eye and great arms to fight and love with.'

'He used 'em to push Florence Flannery out with,' grinned Mr Shute, 'if half the tales are true. On one of their voyages they picked up a young Portuguese who took the lady's fancy and she brought him back to Shute Court.'

'And what was the end of it?'

'I know no more, save that she was flung out, as I'd like to fling you out, my beauty!' foamed Mr Shute with gusty violence.

His wife laughed and got up discordantly.

'I'll tell the rest of the tale. She got tired of her new love, and he wasn't a Portuguese, but an Indian, or partly, and his name was D'Ailey, Daly the people called it here. On one voyage she told John Shute about him, and he was marooned on a lonely island in the South Seas— tied up to a great, great stone image of a god, burning hot in the tropic sun. He must have been a god of fishes for there was nothing else near that island but monstrous fish.'

'Who told you this?' demanded Mr Shute. 'Old Dame Chase, with her lies? I never heard of this before.'

''Tis the story,' resumed his wife. 'The last she saw of him was his bound figure tied tight, tight, to the gaping, grinning idol while she sat on the poop as the ship— the Phoenix— sailed away. He cursed her and called on the idol to let her live till he was avenged on her— he was of the breed, or partly of the breed, that these gods love, and Florence Flannery was afraid, afraid, as she sailed away— '

'Goody Chase in her cups!' sneered Mr Shute. 'And what's the end of your story?'

'There's no end,' said the woman sullenly. 'John Shute cast her off, for the bad luck that dogged him, and what became of her I don't know.'

'It's an ugly tale and a stupid tale,' grumbled Daniel Shute with a groan as he surveyed the bleak chill weather beyond the lattice panes. 'Get down and see what's to eat in the house and what's to drink in the cellar, and if that rogue Tregaskis is there send him up to me.'

Mrs Shute rose and pulled fiercely at the long wool-embroidered bell-rope so that the rusty bell jangled violently.

'What'll you do when the wine is all drunk and the boon companions have cleared out your pockets?' she asked wildly. 'Do your own errands, Mr Shute.'

He flung out of bed with a pretty London oath, and she remained huddled in the chair while he dressed and after he had left her, wringing her hands now and then and wailing under her breath, till Dame Chase came up with a posset and helped her to dress. The sight of her dishevelled trunks restored some of Mrs Shute's spirits; she pulled out with relish her furbelows and flounces, displaying to Goody Chase's amazed admiration the last fashions of Paris and London, mingling her display with fond reminiscences of gilded triumphs.

'Maybe you'd be surprised to learn that Mr Shute isn't my first husband,' she said, tossing her head.

The fat old woman winked.

'I'd be more surprised, m'lady, to learn he was your last.'

Mrs Shute laughed grossly, but her spirits soon fell; kneeling on the floor with her tumbled finery in her lap, she stared out through the window on which her name was written at the tossing bare boughs, the chill sky, the dry flutter of the last leaves.

'I'll never get away,' she said mournfully, 'the place bodes me no good. I've had the malaria in me time, Mrs Chase, in one of those cursed Italian swamps and it affected me memory; there's much I can't place together and much I recall brokenly— dreams and fevers, Mrs Chase.'

'The drink, m'lady.'

'No,' returned the kneeling woman fiercely. 'Wasn't the drink taken to drown those dreams and fevers? I wish I could tell you half I know— there's many a fine tale in me head, but when I begin to speak it goes!'

She began to rock to and fro, lamenting.

'To think of the fine times I've had with likely young men drinking me health in me slipper and the little cabriolet in Paris and the walks in the Prater outside Vienna. So pleasant you would hardly believe!'

'You'll settle down, m'lady, like women do.'

Indeed, Mrs Shute seemed to make some attempt at 'settling down'; there was something piteous in the despairing energy with which she set to work to make her life tolerable; there was a suite of rooms lined with faded watered green silk that she took for her own and had cleaned and furnished with what she could gather from the rest of the house— old gilt commodes and rococo chairs and threadbare panels of tapestries and chipped vases of Saxe or Lunéville, one or two pastel portraits that the damp had stained, together with some tawdry trifles she had brought in her own baggage.

She employed Mr Tregaskis to sell her big diamond in Plymouth and bought pale blue satin hangings for her bedroom and spotted muslin for her bed, a carpet wreathed with roses, a gaudy dressing-table and phials of perfume, opopanax, frangipane, musk, potent, searing, to dissipate, she said, the odours of must and mildew.

Arranging these crude splendours was her sole occupation. There were no neighbours in the lonely valley and Mr Shute fell into melancholy and solitary drinking; he hung on to his existence as just more tolerable than a debtor's prison, but the fury with which he met his fate expressed itself in curses awful to hear. Such part of the estate as still belonged to him he treated with complex contempt; Mr Tregaskis continued to supervise some rough farming and the man Paley worked in the garden; taciturn, solitary and sullen, he made an ill impression on Mr Shute, yet he cost nothing and did some labour, as carrying up the firewood to the house and clearing away some of the thickets and dying weeds and vast clumps of nettles and docks.

Mrs Shute met him for the first time by the carp pond; she was tricked out in a white satin pelisse edged with fur and a big bonnet, and wandered forlornly in the neglected paths. Paley was sitting on the edge of the carp pond, looking intently into the murky depths.

'I'm the new mistress,' said Mrs Shute, 'and I'll thank you to keep better order in the place.'

Paley looked up at her with his pale eyes.

'Shute Court isn't what it was,' he said, 'there is a lot of work to do.'

'You seem to spend a power of time by the pond,' she replied. 'What are you here for?'

'I'm waiting for something,' he said. 'I'm putting in time, Mrs Shute.'

'A sailor, I hear?' she said curiously, for the draggled nondescript man in his greenish-black clothes was difficult to place; he had a peculiar look of being boneless, without shoulders or hips, one slope slipping into another as if there was no framework under his flabby flesh.

'I've been at sea,' he answered, 'like yourself, Mrs Shute.'

She laughed coarsely.

'I would I were at sea again,' she replied; 'this is horror to me.'

'Why do you stay?'

'I'm wondering. It seems that I can't get away, the same as I couldn't help coming,' a wail came into her voice. 'Must I wait till Mr Shute has drunk himself to death?'

The wind blew sharp across the pond, cutting little waves in the placid surface, and she who had been Florence Flannery shuddered in the bite of it and turned away and went muttering up the path to the desolate house.

Her husband was in the dirty parlour playing at bezique with Mr Tregaskis and she flared in upon them.

'Why don't you get rid of that man Paley? I hate him. He does no work— Mrs Chase told me that he always sits by the carp pond and to-day I saw him— ugh!'

'Paley's all right, Mrs Shute,' replied Tregaskis, 'he does more work than you think.'

'Why does he stay?'

'He's waiting for a ship that's soon due in Plymouth.'

'Send him off,' insisted Mrs Shute. 'Isn't the place melancholic enough without you having that sitting about?'

Her distaste and disgust of the man seemed to amount to a panic, and her husband, whose courage was snapped by the drink, was infected by her fear.

'When did this fellow come?' he demanded.

'About a week before you did. He'd tramped up from Plymouth.'

'We've only his word for that,' replied Mr Shute with drunken cunning; 'maybe he's a Bow Street runner sent by one of those damned creditors! You're right, Flo, I don't like the wretch— he's watching me, split him! I'll send him off.'

Mr Tregaskis shrugged as Daniel Shute staggered from his chair.

'The man's harmless, sir; half-witted if you like, but useful.'

Still Mr Shute dragged on his greatcoat with the capes and followed his wife out into the grey garden.

The carp pond was not near the house, and by the time that they had reached it a dull twilight had fallen in the cold and heavy air.

The great trees were quite bare now and flung a black tracing of forlorn branches against the bleak evening sky; patches and clumps of dead weeds obstructed every path and alley; by the carp pond showed the faint outline of a blind statue crumbling beneath the weight of dead mosses.

Paley was not there.

'He'll be in his hut,' said Mr Shute, 'sleeping or spying— the ugly old devil. I'll send him off.'

The dead oyster white of Mrs Shute's pelisse gleamed oddly as she followed her husband through the crackling undergrowth.

There, in the thickening twilight, they found the hut, a queer arrangement of wattles cunningly interwoven in which there was no furniture whatever, nothing but a bare protection from the wind and weather.

Paley was not there.

'I'll find him,' muttered Mr Shute, 'if I have to stay out all night.'

For his half-intoxicated mind had fixed on this stranger as the symbol of all his misfortunes and perhaps the avenger of all his vices.

His wife turned back, for her pelisse was being caught on the undergrowth; she went moodily towards the carp pond.

A moment later a sharp shriek from her brought Mr Shute plunging back to her side. She was standing in a queer bent attitude, pointing with a shaking plump hand to the murky depths of the pond.

'The wretch! He's drowned himself!' she screamed.

Mr Shute's worn-out nerves reacted to her ignoble panic; he clutched her arm as he gazed in the direction of her finger; there was something dark in the shallower side of the pond, something large and dark, with pale flat eyes that glittered malevolently.

'Paley!' gasped Mr Shute.

He bent closer in amazed horror, then broke into tremulous laughter.

''Tis a fish,' he declared; 'one of the old carp.'

Mrs Shute indeed now perceived that the monstrous creature in the water was a fish; she could make out the wide gaping jaw, tall spines shadowing in the murk, and a mottled skin of deadly yellow and dingy white.

'It's looking at me,' she gasped. 'Kill it, kill it, the loathsome wretch!'

'It's— it's— too big,' stammered Mr Shute, but he picked up a stone to hurl; the huge fish, as if aware of his intentions, slipped away into the murky depths of the pond, leaving a sluggish ripple on the surface.

Daniel Shute now found his courage.

'Nothing but an old carp,' he repeated. 'I'll have the thing caught.'

Mrs Shute began to weep and wring her hands. Her husband dragged her roughly towards the house, left her there, took a lantern, and accompanied now by Mr Tregaskis returned in search of Paley.

This time they found him sitting in his usual place by the side of the pond. Mr Shute had now changed his mind about sending him away; he had a muddled idea that he would like the pond watched, and who was to do this if not Paley?

'Look here, my man,' he said, 'there's a great carp in this pond— a very big, black old carp.'

'They live for hundreds of years,' said Paley. 'But this isn't a carp.'

'You know about it, then?' demanded Mr Shute.

'I know about it.'

'Well, I want you to catch it— kill it. Watch till you do. I loathe it— ugh!'

'Watch the pond?' protested Mr Tregaskis, who held the lantern and was chilled and irritable. 'Damme, esquire, what can the thing do? It can't leave the water.'

'I wouldn't,' muttered Mr Shute, 'promise you that.'

'You're drunk,' said the other coarsely.

But Mr Shute insisted on his point.

'Watch the pond, Paley, watch it day and night till you get that fish.'

'I'll watch,' answered Paley, never moving from his huddled position.

The two men went back to the desolate house. When Mr Shute at last staggered upstairs he found his wife with half a dozen candles lit, crouching under the tawdry muslin curtains with which she had disfigured the big bed.

She clutched a rosary that she was constantly raising to her lips as she muttered ejaculations.

Mr Shute lurched to the bedside.

'I didn't know that you were a Papist, Flo,' he sneered.

She looked up at him.

'That story's got me,' she whispered, 'the man tied up to the fish god— the curse— and he following her— tracking her down for three hundred years, till she was hounded back to the old place where they'd loved.'

Daniel Shute perceived that she had been drinking, and sank into a chair.

'Goody Chase's gossip,' he answered, yawning, 'and that damned ugly fish. I've set Paley to catch him— to watch the pond till he does.'

She looked at him sharply, and appeared relieved.

'Anyhow, what's it to do with you?' he continued. 'You ain't the jade who left the man on the island!' He laughed crudely.

Mrs Shute sank down on her pillows.

'As long as the pond is watched,' she murmured, 'I don't mind.'

But during the night she tossed and panted in a delirium, talking of great ships with strange merchandise, of lonely islands amid blazing seas, of mighty stone gods rearing up to the heavens, of a man in torture and a curse following a woman who sailed away, till her husband shook her and left her alone, sleeping on a couch in the dreary parlour.

The next day he spoke to Mrs Chase.

'Between your news and your lies you've turned your mistress's head. Good God! she is like a maniac with your parcel of follies!'

But Goody Chase protested that she had told her nothing.

'She told me that story, esquire, and said she had found it in an old book. What did I know of Florence Flannery? Many a time you've asked me about her when you were a child and I've had no answer to give you— what did I know save she was a hussy who disgraced Shute Court?'

At this Daniel Shute vehemently demanded of his wife where she had got the tales which she babbled about, but the woman was sullen and heavy and would tell him nothing; all the day she remained thus, but when the few hours of wintry light were over she fell again into unbridled terror, gibbering like a creature deprived of reason, beating her breast, kissing the rosary, and muttering, 'Mea culpâ, mea culpâ, mea maximâ culpâ!'

Mr Shute was not himself in any state to endure this; he left his wife to herself and made Tregaskis sleep with him for company in another room.

Winter froze the bleak countryside; Paley kept guard by the pond and the Shutes somehow dragged on an intolerable existence in the deserted house.

In the daytime Mrs Shute revived a little and would even prink herself out in her finery and gossip with Mrs Chase over the vast log fire, but the nights always found her smitten with terror, shivering with cowardly apprehension; and the object of all her nightmare dread was the fish she had seen in the pond.

'It can't leave the water,' they told her, and she always answered:

'The first night I was here I saw wet on the stairs.'

'My God, my God!' Daniel Shute would say, 'this is like living with someone sentenced to death.'

'Get a doctor over from Plymouth,' suggested Mr Tregaskis.

But Mr Shute would not, for fear of being betrayed to his creditors.

'Better rot here than in the Fleet,' he swore.

'Then take her away— and keep her from the bottle.'

The wretched husband could do neither of these things; he had no money and no influence over Mrs Shute. He was indeed indifferent to her sufferings save in so far as they reacted on him and ever accustomed him to the spectacle of her breakdown; he knew it was not really strange that a woman such as she was should collapse under conditions such as these, and his life was already so wretched that he cared little for added horrors.

He began to find a strange comfort in the man Paley, who, taciturn, slow and queer, yet did his work and watched the pond with an admirable diligence.

One night in the blackest time of the year, the bitter dark nights before Christmas, the shrieks of Mrs Shute brought her husband cursing up the stairs.

Her door was unbolted and she sat up in bed, displaying, in the light of his snatched-up taper, some red marks on her arm.

'Let him kill me and done with it,' she jabbered.

Mr Tregaskis came pushing in and caught rudely hold of her arm.

'She's done it herself,' he cried; 'those are the marks of her own teeth.'

But Mrs Shute cried piteously:

'He came flopping up the stairs, he broke the bolts; he jumped on the bed! Oh! oh! oh! Isn't this the bed, the very bed I slept in then— and didn't he used to creep into this room when John Shute was away?'

'Still thinking of that damned fish,' said Mr Tregaskis, 'and it's my belief you neither of you saw it at all, esquire— that man Paley has been watching, and he's seen nothing.'

Mr Shute bit his fingernails, looking down on the writhing figure of his wife.

'Light all the candles, can't you?' he said. 'I'll stay with the poor fool to-night.'

While Mr Tregaskis obeyed he went to the door and looked out, holding his taper high.

There were pools of wet and a long trail of slime down the dusty, neglected stairs.

He called Mr Tregaskis.

'Ugh!' cried the Cornishman, then, 'It's from Goody Chase's water crock.'

On the following windy morning Mr Shute went out, shivering in the nipping air, to the carp pond.

'I don't want another night like last,' he said. 'You'll sleep across my wife's door— she thinks that cursed carp is after her—'

Then, at the gross absurdity of what he said, he laughed miserably.

'This is a pretty pantomime I'm playing,' he muttered.

A horrid curiosity drove him up to look at his wife.

She sat between the draggled muslin curtains hugging her knees in the tumbled bed; a wretched fire flickered wanly in the chill depths of the vast room; a wind blew swift and remote round the window on which was scratched the name of Florence Flannery.

Mr Shute shivered.

'I must get you away,' he said, stirred above his fears for himself; 'this is a damned place— the Fleet would be better, after all.'

She turned lustreless eyes on him.

'I can't get away,' she said dully. 'I've come here to die— don't you see it on that window— "Died 1800"?'

He crossed the floor and peered at the scratching on the glass. Someone had indeed added the word 'died' before the last date.

'These are the tricks of a Bedlamite,' he said nervously. 'Do you think there was only one Florence Flannery?'

'And do you think,' she returned harshly, 'that there were two?'

She looked so awful crouched up in bed with her hanging hair, her once plump face fallen in the cheeks, her soiled satin gown open over her labouring breast, her whole air and expression so agonized, so malevolent, so dreadful, that Daniel Shute passed his hand over his eyes as if to brush away a vision of unsubstantial horror.

He was shaken by an hallucination of light-headedness; he appeared to enter another world, in which many queer things were possible.

'What are you?' he asked uneasily. 'He's been after you for nearly three hundred years? Aren't you punished enough?'

'Oh, oh!' moaned the woman. 'Keep him out! Keep him out!'

'I'll put Paley at the door to-night,' muttered Mr Shute.

He crept out of the horrible chamber; he now detested his wife beyond all reason, yet somehow he felt impelled to save her from the invincible furies who were pursuing her in so gruesome a fashion.

'She's a lunatic,' said Mr Tregaskis brusquely. 'You'll have to keep her shut in that room— it's not difficult to account for— with the life she's led and this place and the coincidence of the names.'

The first snow of the year began to fall that night, sullen flakes struggling in the coils of the leaping wind that circled round Shute Court.

In the last glimmer of daylight Paley came to take up his post.

Drab, silent, with his sloping shoulders and nondescript clothes, he went slowly upstairs and sat down outside Mrs Shute's door.

'He seems to know the way,' remarked Daniel Shute.

'Don't you know he works in the house?' retorted Mr Tregaskis.

The two men slept, as usual, in the parlour, on stiff horsehair couches bundled up with pillows and blankets; the litter of their supper was left on the table and they piled the fire up with logs before going to sleep. Mr Shute's nerves were in no state to permit him to risk waking up in the dark.

The wind dropped and the steady downdrift of the soft snow filled the blackness of the bitter night.

As the grandfather clock struck three Daniel Shute sat up and called to his companion.

'I've been thinking in my dreams,' he said, with chattering teeth. 'Is it Paley, or Daley? You know the name was D'Ailey.'

'Shut up, you fool,' returned the agent fiercely; but he then raised himself on his elbow, for a hoarse, bitter scream, followed by some yelled words in a foreign language tore through the stillness.

'The mad woman,' said Mr Tregaskis; but Daniel Shute dragged the clothes up to his chattering teeth.

'I'm not going up,' he muttered. 'I'm not going up!'

Mr Tregaskis dragged on his trousers and flung a blanket over his shoulders and so, lighting a taper at the big fire, went up the gaunt stairs to Mrs Shute's room. The glimmering beams of the rushlight showed him tracks of wet again on the dirty boards.

'Goody Chase with her crocks and possets,' he murmured; then louder, 'Paley! Paley!'

There was no one outside Mrs Shute's door, which hung open. Mr Tregaskis entered.

She who had been Florence Flannery lay prone on her tawdry couch; the deep wounds that had slain her appeared to have been torn by savage teeth; she looked infinitely old, shrivelled and detestable.

Mr Tregaskis backed on to the stairs, the light lurching round him from the shaking of his taper, when Mr Shute came bustling up out of the darkness.

'Paley's gone,' whispered Mr Tregaskis dully.

'I saw him go,' gibbered Mr Shute, 'as I ventured to the door— by the firelight; a great fish slithering away with blood on his jaws.'

________________

16: A Steam-Room Fracas

Hartridge D. Tyler

fl 1910-1912

The Argosy, Christmas Issue, 1912

"BY Jove! such preoccupation, Keller. What have you there— a glowworm or a bit of radium? "

Sardonis Tillinghast, stopping beside a big leather chair in the Van Rensselaer Club lounge, gazing down at the slump-shouldered youth in it, who held something half under one palm and was looking at it covertly. Keller flushed and glanced up, dropping the object into an outside coat-pocket. His face cooled in an instant, he smiled, and replied languidly:

"What would you say to it being an engagement ring?"

"Of all things, Keller! You! you of the tender heart and callous conscience, a benedict! Benedicts must leave off Benedictine, you know— and absinth!"

"Oh, but she has me by the pledge—"

"Like holding a squirming boy by the ear, eh?"

"No, really, I don't mind it so much, you know; one can still get brandy sauce on pudding, and there's' coffee, and those drugged soft drinks at the soda-fountains."

"To be sure. Good for you! So you're really engaged! "

Tillinghast was leaning forward with a warm smile and a congratulatory hand thrust out, as though to extend his deepest sympathy. "Oh, I didn't say that, you know," the other corrected hastily. "I said what if it were an engagement ring? But have you a cigarette? This thinking of serious things has quite fagged me."

Tillinghast slipped a smooth, shapely little cigarette-case from his outside pocket and tossed it to Keller.

"Look! Isn't it an extra that newsboy is shouting!" cried the latter, pointing through the bay window, "I wonder what's happened!"

Tillinghast, who doted on "Extras" and fairly lived on the "Personal" columns, sent a page out to buy the copy; but it proved an unexciting political expose and Tillinghast threw the paper down in disgust.

Keller picked it up and became apparently absorbed.

Tillinghast stood silent a moment, a slow smile glowing on his lips and finally flaring from his eyes. Keller frowned interestedly over the article and appeared to have wholly forgotten the other's presence. Sardonis Tillinghast broke into a full smile, glanced around the room quickly to assure himself nobody was watching, and then gently plucked Keller's sleeve. Keller did not look up; he seemed utterly absorbed in his reading.

"I say!" exclaimed Tillinghast, jerking his friend's arm again. "I say, old man, do you know, you forgot to return my cigarette-case."

Keller glanced up bewilderedly and listened blankly to Tillinghast's repetition of the remark. Then he broke into a smile, felt in an inside pocket, brought out with a nervous gesture the little gold cigarette-box and dropped it into Tillinghast's palm with a laugh.

"I'm as absent-minded as though I were rich. Really, I never noticed it was yours at all; it's so like my own."

He seemed more serious than Tillinghast's laughing eyes demanded, even launching upon further explanation.

"Oh, that's all right, Kell. I'd rather have what you've got than the chronic D. T.'s," Tillinghast broke in upon him. "But, I say, Till. I swear I thought the thing was my own."

"That's what the fellow over in Jefferson Market Court said the other day when the judge asked him why on earth he had picked up that lady's sealskin sack in a department store; but the judge wasn't as trusting as your friends, Kell—and even your enemies."

"Oh, confound you! " cried the other, jumping up irritably. "I didn't want your silly cigarette-case. I got a better one this morning; old Scroggins left it in the library."

Keller flashed the trinket before Tillinghast's amused eyes, flung the newspaper at him, and left the room. Tillinghast, with a strange, forced laugh, stood looking after the fellow.

"Somebody ought to cure that boy; he'll be crunching along on the crust of crime— if he isn't already. Some of the chaps think it's funny. 'I suppose— oh, well, he's harmless— and so was the club dog till he went mad and bit three bell-hops."

Dropping down in the vacated chair he picked up the spreading leaves of newspaper, turning mechanically to the column marked "Personal." There was nothing of interest until he reached the "Business Personal " heading and there noted the announcement of a new Turkish bath.

Taking out a neat little note-book Tillinghast scrawled the address, mentally determining to try the place. He followed down through the "Lost and Found " column with his usual precision. One prominent advertisement arrested his attention and he considered it thoughtfully for fully a minute. The notice read:

LOST.—Probably in street on Fifth Avenue, between Thirty-Fourth and Seventy-Second, a five carat diamond, rondelle cut; unique alexanderite tablebase. Engraved "A.K.K. to M.C. H. 9-14-10." Lost Saturday afternoon, September 14. Reward $250.00. Return through Sterling, jeweler. Fifth Avenue.

"And it doesn't say ' no questions asked,' " mused Tillinghast. "Well, maybe I'm wrong; but those initials!"

He looked up quickly as Keller passed through the room on his way to the street. Tillinghast half rose, as if to stop him with a question. Then he squared his shoulders, gave a little toss to his head, thrust fists deep into his afternoon trousers, and stood staring out of the window as Kellar walked down the club steps and hurried up the street, fumbling something with nervous fingers in his coat-pocket. Going to a telephone booth, Tillinghast, secured a number and asked for Miss Hartworth.

"Hello, is this you, Miss Hartworth?" he asked. Being assured that it was, he continued: "Are you advertising through Sterling, the jeweler, for the return of a diamond ring?"

"Yes," was the low reply. "But it is confidential, Mr. Tillinghast. I have reasons for not wanting by name connected with the ring."

"I understand. You lost it from a taxi on Fifth Avenue, didn't you? Were you riding alone? "

"No, Mr. Keller was with me. Do you think you know something about it? Oh, I'm so anxious to recover it as soon— oh, as soon as possible. Every minute counts."

"I may be able to get hold of it. But if I do you'll understand there's no question of reward and you're not to ask anything about the affair. You're to struggle with woman's fatal curiosity, you know— or is it fatal woman's—"

"All I want is the ring," she declared tensely.

"I'll do my best. Good-by, Miss Hartworth," and Tillinghast, bowing profoundly to the mouthpiece, hung up the receiver.

By chance in the billiard- room he ran across a cousin of Keller's, an older man, a club bachelor and quite a pompous person.

"Do you know," said Tillinghast, in course of conversation, "I think young Keller ought to be jacked up by somebody. He'll be getting into trouble with that eccentricity of his."

"What splendid nonsense!" laughed the cousin. "It's delicious! Why, my boy, nobody knows it outside of the club, and he furnishes such a lot of amusement. Old Scroggins was just telling of how he missed his cigarettecase this morning and immediately went to hunt up the boy. Found him just now; he returned the cigarette-case gladly, saying he had already tired of it."

"What's the point to that? "

"Deliciously funny. Why, my dear fellow, deliciously droll."

Kenwood's words rolled out richly, and his undeniable, wholesome embonpoint asserted itself in a serious of convulsive chuckles— like a toad choking to death.

"Well"— Tillinghast's voice cut in keenly across the overlapping chuckles— "mild kleptomania isn't so bad; but I'm afraid he'll get in deeper. They laugh about it here because they know he has all the money he wants and would never think of keeping a thing permanently; but I tell you it's serious."

"It's just a phase. He'll outgrow it," replied the chuckley cousin, controlling a spasm of misplaced humor. "Look what a splendid father he has?"

"And what if that splendid father knew of this weird development in his otherwise lovable son?"

"Oh, but why should he? It's only in sport Howard does those things. Nobody would dare speak to him about it; besides, what would be the good? "

"Suit yourself," said Tillinghast curtly, "but if I had the influence over the boy that you have I'd give him a jolt— a jar, you know. He might make off with something valuable some day and lose it, and if the story ever got out, it would be a pretty scandal. Nice for his family and all that sort of thing. Give the reporters a picnic for a while, too. Help everybody."

"Well—the other sobered up a bit, having a horror of the press—"maybe he should be cautioned; but I really don't see the good of it. That would stop it all. As soon as his attention is called to the serious side of the thing he'll give it up and then we'll have no more naive little excuses and explanations from him. They do so break the monotony here. Oh, bosh, Tillinghast, you're making sticky fly-paper out of a postage stamp; the thing'll never get outside the club."

"I wouldn't be too sure of that. Kleptomania's a dangerous disease— he might get quarantined for it, you know— people do."

"Such a solemn Tillinghast we have this afternoon," mocked the other. "Young Keller's all right. I'll wager you he'll never bump his nose against any thing worse than a bottle. Why, he'll be falling in love one of these days and the girl'll pull him away from these boyish tricks."

"I hope you're right," and Tillinghast moved on to the coat-room. "I do hope so— but you so seldom are, you know."

A wholesome chuckle greeted this retort and the care-free clubman clapped Tillinghast on the back, administering the advice that he make tracks for the bar and purchase a charm to exorcise the imaginary hobgoblins from his cobwebby mind. In a strangely preoccupied manner, oppressed by what he had seen and imagined, Tillinghast walked down the steps of the clubhouse probably an hour after Keller had left, and followed in the direction taken by the young fellow. He walked across to Broadway and down almost to Fortieth Street.

There Tillinghast turned into a fashionable little cafe, much frequented by men of his class, and sauntered down the wandering aisle between the tables, nodding often to acquaintances and stopping to shake hands with several and chat a moment. At a table in a dim far corner, alone, sulky and evidently miserable, he found Keller. Going over, Tillinghast, without a word, pulled back a chair and seated himself opposite.

"Well?" said Keller, looking up at Tillinghast as though he resented his intrusion. "I thought you were pledged not to drink—or was it only not to drown?" asked Tillinghast languidly, holding his stick tightly as he gave a sharp glance into the startlingly luminous eyes of his vis-a-vis and noted his despairdrooped lips, and caught the reek of strong liquor.

"I am pledged; I haven't had a drop to drink," was the annoyed reply.

"Oh, I see— rum omelet!"— smiled Tillinghast, glancing at a plate the waiter was hastily removing. "Yes, three of 'em, two helpings of plum-pudding with brandy sauce, a pint of wine-jelly, and five claret lemonades," Keller slumped back in his chair vaingloriously, as though he had just received the freedom of the city for some meritorious act or other.

"Whew-w-w!" whistled Tillinghast. "Now if you'd have a pot of coffee and smoke two pure perique cigarettes you could finish up handsomely in the police station after pulling a cabby's hat over his ears—or snatching the wheel away from a bicycle-cop and trying to run down the Horace Greeley statue."

"Pot of coffee, yes!" said Keller thickly, his flaming eyes drooping heavily and his chin sneaking in as though it feared somebody should see it. "Just ordered a demi tasse. Join me?"

"You'd better come out of this. Didn't you say the girl— you know, the one you're in love with— made you promise not to drink? "

"I don't drink, not a dropsh." The other lurched ' forward in the heavy eagerness of argument.

"It's all right if I do: she doesn't care now, not any more, old chap. She hasn't spoken to me— understand— three merry days now."

"What did you do? "

"Not a thing, offisher, not a thing," Keller leered up ludicrously, evidently appreciating his own facetiousness as he assumed the role of a prisoner. "That's the worst of it." He swayed for a moment and then tried to stiffen up; finally he leveled his gaze and cried: "But I'm desperate, Till. Everything seems going wrong."

"I want you to come over and take a Turkish bath now," Tillinghast told him. "Get this stuff out of your system, and then go up and see the girl to-night and straighten everything out. You're beginning to slip, old man— somebody's greased the incline, or you've done it yourself, and you're on your way down. Pull up! "

"Honest," rejoined the other, with heavy earnestness, "I haven't had a drink for three months, not since I told her I wouldn't."

"But these claret lemonades and rum omelets?"

"Only the last three days, Till; on the square. You see it's hurt me a good deal— here," he hazily indicated his heart.

"Yes, and it'll hurt you a good deal more— here!" and Tillinghast touched his forehead significantly, "if you don't cut it out. Come on over to the Turkish bath. I'll take one with you. We'll get fixed up proper and then square things with the girl."

"Wish I could. Where's this Turkish bath place? "

"Not two blocks away; come along! "

Tillinghast pressed the other's arm firmly and looked at him steadily.

Finally persuaded, Keller rose and drifted out of the cafe, guided by Tillinghast, on whom he leaned inertly. They walked to the Turkish bath and secured two adjoining private rooms. In five minutes' time Tillinghast, garbed in a huge rough towel, with his room-key attached to a thick rubberband which he slipped over his wrist, according to the custom of key-carrying in a pocketless costume— knocked on Keller's door and waited a minute until his friend came out, the towel twisted fantastically about him, and a silly smile on his face.

noticed the glitter of something more than a room-key on the. rubber-band about Keller's wrist. He looked away thoughtfully, and holding his companion by the arm, guided him to the elevator, which they entered, barefooted and cautious. Three floors below they left the car and entered the oven-room, where an extremely high temperature was maintained to force perspiration. It was a quiet hour for the place, and the young fellows had the room entirely to. themselves.

"Ouch! " wailed Keller, as he dropped weakly into one of the steamer-chairs. "Burned my wrist! " he exclaimed, rubbing the spot where his skin has come in contact with the roasting wood of the blanketed chair. On pretense of examining the burn, Tillinghast caught the wrist and held it for a moment. But he did not look at the red spot; his attention was fixed on the thing that glittered beside the key on the thick rubber-band furnished by the management.

As he expected, it was the ring Keller had been fooling with at the club, and from Miss Hartworth's advertisement he knew it to be hers. Evidently Keller had feared somebody would steal it, and in his befuddled condition had fastened the ring through his rubber wrist-band instead of trusting to the locker in his room, or the clerk's safe.

Tillinghast seated himself cautiously in a creaking, bone-dry chair next to Keller, threw the blanket over him, and lay back, assisting Keller to wrap up. Both were moist all over. The heat of the room was more than oppressive; it felt heavy, like a blight.

"I say," called Keller, two suffocating minutes later, "it's, too darned hot for me in here. I'm going."

His voice sounded thin and flat in the heat surcharged atmosphere; his chair creaked and squeaked like a cricket as he lurched forward to rise.

But Tillinghast caught his shoulder and pushed him back.

"Keller!" he exclaimed, talking louder than his wont, because his voice sounded so strange in the room, "you're getting to be a first-class mollycoddle. Can't you stand anything? Why don't you get a hold on yourself ? You'll be drifting into gout or something if you keep on pampering your body."

Keller struggled to get out of the blistering chair and broke into violent perspiration with the effort. His fear of the heat was so evident that Tillinghast finally let him up and hurried after him through the door.

"If you're too hot, suppose you take a dip in the tank before we get our steaming— like the clams," advised Tillinghast.

"No!" cried Keller, grabbing the knob to the steam-room. "I don't like water."

"So you don't like water?" queried Tillinghast a minute later after he had groped his way through the steamroom and had dropped down on a dripping cement bench beside the indistinct form of Keller.

"No, I hate it," answered Keller.

"Then a Turkish bath's no place for you— you'd like a desert better."

"Oh, the steam-room's all right, and I like an alcohol rub-down— it's next thing to a drink. I can stand a little shower, too. But deliver me from getting into the tank. Why, I wouldn't get in if it were filled with champagne."

"There's no chance of that," laughed Tillinghast. At the same time his dripping face drew into a calculating expression, he paused a moment, then reached out through the thick steam, and before Keller knew what was going on, grasped the rubber-band to which the diamond ring was attached and jerked it over Keller's hand, quickly slippirig it on his own wrist.

"Here! What the mischief! Till, give me that!"

"I'll give it to the owner," answered Tillinghast firmly.

"Why on earth did you take that ring from Miss Hartworth?"

"What do you know about it?" demanded Keller, reaching over and feverishly grappling with Tillinghast's indistinct arms in an effort to locate the band.

"I know that you cleverly got it from her last Saturday when you were riding in a taxi with her on Fifth Avenue. Don't you realize she's all wrought up over it and is offering a reward of two hundred and fifty through Sterling, for its return— dead or alive?"

"The deuce you say!" exclaimed Keller. Then a sullen tone replaced his excited exclamation and he demanded: "Well, what business is it of yours, anyway?"

"Only this, Kell," and Tillinghast gripped the arms of the younger man; "you've got to cut out these little practical jokes of yours. Nobody's ever had the nerve to say a word to you about it before. Your pride ought to come to your rescue. You've got to understand that it's not funny to go around picking up other people's things and then returning them mysteriously after you've satisfied your abnormal craving for excitement, or whatever it is that prompts you to this foolishness."

"What's the matter with you, Tillinghast?" cried the other in an alarmed tone. "I never took a thing. You're almost calling me a thief. Do be a bit careful!"

His fingers were nervously playing about, in an effort to break Tillinghast's hold.

"It's for your own good, Kell. The fellows at the club think it's funny because you're young and come from such a good family; because they like you, and all that, but one of these days they'll realize their mistake— and yours."

"Don't be an ass!" cried Keller. "Give me that ring. If you don't I'll get an attendant here in a second and explain the whole thing and you'll find yourself in a pretty pickle. If this is a practical joke, all right; I can stand any kind of a joke, even when the humor becomes so subtle that it disappears. Give me that ring!"

"Hold on to yourself, Kell," urged Tillinghast, realizing that the effect of rum omelets and claret lemonade gave the young fellow a spirit of bravado that went ridiculously with his puny frame and retiring manner. "If you called an attendant I'd have to explain a thing or so, too. This ring is unique, and it exactly answers the description of the one for which Miss Hartworth is advertising. The thing could be proved against you in a minute, and then how would you feel?"

"You're wrong this time, and I'll prove it. I say, let go of me or I'll call somebody, and we'll settle this thing."

"You mean if I do let go of you, you'll call one. No, Kell, for your own good I won't do that."

"You'd get in trouble if you did. You cad! Can't you be decent?"

A sudden flush of anger controlled Tillinghast. Subconsciously he tightened his grip on the slippery young fellow and twisted his wrist, causing a sharp cry of pain.

"Now, we're going to get to the bottom of this thing," declared Tillinghast. "I don't like to talk to you in this way, and it tires me to hold you, with all your petulant twistings; but I want you to sober up, Kell, and realize what you're coming to. Right now you're crunching along on the crust of crime, as I told your cousin at the club to-day, after you'd returned Scroggins's cigarette-case. You've got to take a brace— a brace of braces."

Keller splashed his feet nervously on the sloppy floor and tried to wriggle from Tillinghast's grasp.

"You're a perfect rotter!" he blurted out like an angry boy. "And yet they call you a prince of good fellows, and all that rot. You're as unsportsmanlike as a bank clerk, and, furthermore, you're a bully."

"I know the four years' disparity in our ages makes me look like a bully, Kell," replied Tillinghast. "But, to tell the truth, you seem like a boy to me, and my drastic action is only urged on by a sort of parental necessity. You've got to come to your senses, and somebody's got to lead you there. Now, I'm going to take it upon myself to return this ring to Miss Hartworth, and what would you think if I told her all about how it came into my possession?"

"I'd think you were a very courteous gentleman, naturally," sneered the other; it was evident the jolt he had received had somewhat shaken the hold of the rum omelets.

"Well, that's what I'm going to do, unless you promise to give over this little business of picking up things that don't belong to you."

"I tell you that ring is mine!" cried Keller, now really frightened.

"Then why do you squirm at my showing it to Miss Hartworth? If it's really yours, you can explain it easily enough; but the engraving inside will argue against any false stories, you know."

"The ring's mine! Give it to me!" cried Keller desperately. Making a frantic effort to break Tillinghast's hold, he suddenly slid along the seat toward a bell in the wall.

"None of that! " exclaimed the other, catching his intention. "I tell you I'm in earnest. You've gone far enough. You need a good scare."

"The governor'll have a thing or two to say to you when we get out of this." Keller was now savagely sullen.

"And I'll have something to say to him. I'll tell him what you're coming to and recite a few of your little tricks at the club. Do you think they'll amuse him, make hint smile as the fellows do?"

There was silence except for Keller's hard, fast breathing, and the rippling of the tank in the middle of the steamroom. Then, on a sudden, the younger fellow doubled up quickly and butted his head into Tillinghast's chest, jolting him from the narrow bench to the slippery floor. They rolled together, Tillinghast struggling to regain his hold and Keller fighting to evade it, to the edge of the cold-water tank in the middle.

Keller managed to squirm across Tillinghast and catch two tense fingers inside the rubber band, holding the ring at Tillinghast's wrist. With a wrench the band snapped, and Tillinghast made one effort to grab the smaller man as his form slipped away in the enveloping mist. He managed to catch a heel, Keller having got nimbly to his feet. With a quick jerk, Tillinghast threw the other foot off balance, the vague form swayed above him for a moment, toppled, and then splashed head first into the cold-water tank.

Quick as thought, Tillinghast was in after him, diving for the fellow, who had screamed and sent up a multitude of big bubbles on going down. He had him up in a moment, gasping, spluttering, and screaming inarticulately. Tillinghast remembered Keller's fear of the water, and cautiously clung to the slippery ladder with one hand while he held his companion, floundering and splashing, spluttering and cursing, out in the middle of the tank.

"Give me that ring!" Tillinghast demanded.

"Go to the deuce! " spluttered Keller, now dreadfully sober, his teeth chattering miserably.

For answer Sardonis Tillinghast released his left hand from the ladder, placed it gently on Keller's head, and bobbed it under the surface, holding it there a second. Then he jerked him, neck and shoulders, above the water, teeth chattering, and pale. Tillinghast stared into the fear-fixed face and slowly repeated his command:

"Give me that ring!"

For answer a trembling hand wavered toward him through the lighter mist of steam nearer the surface, and Tillinghast took from its tightly clenched fingers, reluctantly loosening, the broken rubber band with the ring and key. Reaching up to the cement floor, he dropped the thing in safety, and then turned to the quivering head in the middle of the pool.

"Give me your promise never to pick up another thing that doesn't belong to you," he said in an even tone.

A spasm of fear shot over the face of Keller, and he glanced down at the rippling surface of the black water. Then Tillinghast's hand slipped, and Keller sank beneath the surface of the pool, sending up a series of bubbles. In a second Tillinghast had plunged in and was diving for his friend. In half a minute he had Keller's head out of the water, and with frantic haste lifted him bodily to the floor of the steam-room, where he lay unconscious. Then Tillinghast shouted for help. Two attendants sprang to his assistance, and Tillinghast looked around for a barrel or something on which to roll Keller. His eyes were frantic with fear.

"What's the matter?" cried one of the attendants.

"Drowned, I guess," answered Tillinghast.

For ten minutes they worked over the fellow frantically, and at last all the water seemed to be removed from Keller's lungs; he spluttered, and his eyes flickered open. Seeing Tillinghast, he asked weakly:

"Where's the ring?"

"I'll get it," and, darting back into the steam-room, Tillinghast returned to press the ring into the weak palm of the man he had almost drowned. They carried him to a cot, and in ten minutes he had revived sufficiently so that Tillinghast could tell him how sorry he was to have so nearly caused a tragedy.

"That's all right, Till," said the young fellow weakly. "I've got to give over this foolish business of picking up things and keeping them a while."

"Then you admit you took the ring?"

"No. You're wrong this time. I am engaged to Miss Hartworth. This is the engagement-ring I gave her when we were riding Saturday in the taxi. She lost it and was afraid to tell me, but I saw her advertisement. Then I went to the taxi stand and hunted up the chauffeur who had driven us on Saturday. Just this morning I found him, and by paying him a reward managed to get the ring back; he had found it in the bottom of the taxi, where Miss Hartworth had dropped it, as I expected. I am going to take it back to her as soon as I can get out of here."

"Great Heavens, man! " cried Tillinghast. "You don't mean that ring is yours— really yours— and that you have tried for three days to get it back for Miss Hartworth?"

"That's it," grinned Keller.

"Well, I am a fool. How can you ever forgive me?"

"Oh, that's all right. Till! I'm so glad to get out of that water I could forgive you anything. Besides, those practical jokes of mine gave you some right to consider I might be playing another this time. But never again for me. I don't like this business of parading as a sheep in wolf's clothing."

Tillinghast, greatly confused by his horrible blunder, was asking a thousand pardons. Finally he looked up and remarked:

"But I thought you said Miss Hartworth hadn't spoken to you for days?"

"Three days it's been," answered Keller with a smile. "But I understand her silence now. She wouldn't let me call for fear I'd notice she had lost my ring. She didn't have any idea I knew it all the time. Everything will be all right now."

"Kell," said Tillinghast, reaching out his hand, "I'm awfully sorry I've made a fool of myself. Can you ever forgive me?"

"Well," smiled the other, "it's taught me a lesson. I'm going to cut out these little practical jokes in the future, and then nobody will have cause to suspect me."

"Good idea," answered Tillinghast; "but I swear I never thought you had the slightest claim to that ring, and here it was yours all the time."

_______________

17: The Murdered Ships

James Francis Dwyer

The Premier Magazine, June 1918

WE were watching for submarines. A scared-looking moon hung over Ireland, a moon that seemed to wonder whether her watery light was helping decent ships or helping the sea sharks that waited for them.

The man standing beside me was a lean, sun-tanned Australian— "Austrileyon" he pronounced it, and he spoke in a whisper.

"You can't murder ships and get away with it," he said. "By gum, you can't!"

The word "murder" applied to the destruction of a ship interested me; besides, the Australian uttered the assertion in a manner that told me that he was willing to prop it up with the stays of logic. I tried to think of some remark which would act as a bait for the story which I felt he possessed, but the Australian needed no bait. He had picked me as his audience, and he went right ahead with his tale without any encouragement whatsoever.

"When I was a kid," he began, "I shipped on a pearl schooner out of Broome, Western Australia. If you're trying to keep an optimistic view of the job the Lord did in making this world don't go near Broome; I'm a religious man, but I'm inclined to think the Almighty had something that interested him a lot more on the day he was building up that stretch of territory. It's a mixture of sand, camel-thorn, and mosquitoes, the 'skeeters' preponderating.

"It was the 'skeeters' that made me ship on the Ibid. That was the schooner's name. The captain had found a poem that he liked a lot, and the name at the bottom of the poem was Ibid, so he gave it to the schooner. The Broome folk called those 'skeeters' the Death Hussars, and they were just about as mean and cowardly and poisonous as these chaps in Germany that are named after them.

"There were six men on the Ibid besides the skipper and myself, and my work was to do the work that the six could leave undone without getting into trouble with the skipper. It was most near all the work that was to be done except when we ran into a gale. In between I looked after the skipper, brought him his coffee, made his berth and stood quiet while he talked about the Ibid. He was a great conversationalist was Skipper McGee. The moment anyone else spoke he knocked them down."

Someone up near the bows, where the American gunners stood beside their gun, cried out, "Less talking, back there!" And the Australian halted. For a few minutes he remained perfectly quiet, then he continued:

"Old McGee never talked about anything but the Ibid. He might have had other themes when he was young, but the schooner had clouded his whole mental area when I shipped with him.

" 'Bill,' he would say, 'she's the greatest boat that ever took a bath in the Indian Ocean. She's alive! I've laid awake in this berth on rough nights, and I've listened to her speaking to me with her timbers. She has a song she sings to me, Billy. It goes:

" 'Don't you worry, Cap McGee,

Keep your big heart light and free,

When we go we'll go together,

But, hell, 'twill be in stormy weather.'

"And I'd nod my head lest he'd think I didn't believe the Ibid was a Melba who sang her own compositions. If he'd told me that the Ibid had once walked down the coast to Fremantle because it was too rough to sail down, I wouldn't have contradicted him. No fear! There are some born with authority, some get it given to them, and some earn it for themselves. Cap McGee had earned a chunk of it bigger'n the Peak of Teneriffe, and he was careless as a distributor.

"I'd tell the six loafers what the skipper said about the Ibid being alive, and they'd grin. They christened the schooner Nelly, because of Nelly Melba, and when the skipper wasn't near they'd sit, with their eyes rolling with delight, pretending that they heard songs coming out of her boards.

" 'Don't you hear them, you young fool?' Big Bill Laff, the toughest of the six, would say to me.

" 'No, I don't!' I'd snap; and Big Bill would knock me down and keep on pounding my head on the deck till I'd admit that I did hear them.

" 'What was she singing?' he'd say. 'Quick, tell me!'

" 'I don't know,' I'd snarl.

" 'It was the "Swanny River," ' Big Bill would roar. 'Now say it!'

" 'The "Swanny River," ' I'd say; and the other five would roll off their berths laughing at me.

"It's a queer thing that the worst people in the world are on the water, where it's so easy for the Almighty to hand them a—"

"Silence!" came an order from the bows. "Silence, there!"

"It's not me he's shooting his orders at," remarked the Australian. "He's aiming at that honeymooning couple under the stairway. Say, don't you think they got disillusioned about each other when they took a dangerous trip on this boat?"

"He likes her," I answered. "They sit at my table, and he's very attentive to her."

"I wonder what is her opinion about him?" mused the man from Kangarooland. "Of course, if we get one of William's tin fish under our stomach it's 'Ladies first,' so she'd have a chance to shake him off for good."

I discouraged the Australian's speculations, and urged him to proceed with his story of the Ibid and Skipper McGee. The yarn, I thought, would keep my mind off submarines.

"Skip McGee sort of prowled around looking for jobs that were a bit risky and where the pay was good. Understand? He had as much respect for the law as a milk snake had for a nice fat frog, and the Ibid poked around amongst the islands of the Malay picking up cargoes that other boats didn't like to handle and charging double prices for doing it. No one alive could make Skip McGee mistake a shell game for an orphan's benefit. He'd close one eye and look at the lines on the face of the fellow that was trying to bluff him, then he'd ask a price that would jar the crook's back teeth.

" 'This is a straight game,' they'd say; unloosing the kind of talk the Kaiser pulls. 'It's all above-board.'

" 'Sure,' Skip McGee would say; 'I know it, lad, I know it. But I've got an agreement with the Ibid not to put opium into her unless I got my own price.'

" 'It's not opium!' they'd yell.

" 'Well, p'r'aps it ain't,' old Skip McGee would say, 'but there's other things that Ibid hates as bad as opium. Scores of things, lad. Scores of things. And hemp is that cheap now that they hanged six men at Banjermassin the other day and gave everyone of them a new rope.'

"Fellows that were that smooth you could polish a pearl on their skins would come up against old Skip McGee, and go away sorer than a snake in a shop window.

"We toddled round a bit on that cruise. Karang Buta Lulu, Sumbawa, Pinnunko, Bool, Kuching, Samalanga, and a thousand little Nipa-palm villages that lay between. And we carried most everything— spices, wax, opium, rubber, indigo, cinchona, plumbago, and trepang. And once we carried pearls. Pearls! Understand? The little shiny things the oyster sleeps with.

"It was a fellow we met at Palembang who owned the pearls. He wanted to get away from that place in such a hurry that it was good betting to think he didn't get them honestly, and old Skip McGee, who saw he was in a hurry, but who didn't know about the pearls, multiplied his highest rate for a passage by seven, and got it without an argument. The fellow wanted to go to Batavia, and he hustled Skip McGee so hard that we were out of the Musi River an hour after taking him aboard.

"Big Bill Laff and the five other loafers gave that fellow their undivided attention. The chap ate with the skipper, me acting as steward, and the six expected me to bring them back the whole of the conversation— full-points, exclamation-marks, and commas included.

"And then the fellow surprised everybody by catching a fever and dying. The skipper was fool enough to search his body while Big Bill Laff was in the offing. Skip McGee dragged out a canvas bag from inside of his shirt, and he pushed his paw into the bag. There were pearls in that bag. Pearls! Understand? I didn't see them then, but I saw them afterwards."

"Silence, back there!" growled a voice.

"Little Willie under the stairs kissed her, and they heard him," whispered the Australian. "He's a fool to tease sailors in that way. All those chaps are miles and miles away from their sweethearts, and—"

"But the pearls?" I interrupted. "Go on and tell me about the pearls."

"Ay, ay, shy," he responded. "Now, you've seen pearls in jewellers' windows and on ladies' throats, haven't you? You've heard people say, 'What wonderful pearls!' haven't you? And you thought they were, too. I bet. Well, friend, if all the pearls you ever saw, or any other man on this boat ever saw, were put down on the deck 'longside that bagful of beauties that Skip McGee took off the dead man you wouldn't see the other pile. It would just lose itself in the glory of the heap we had on the Ibid. They were from oysters who really understood how to make pearls, cunning old oysters who made it a life hobby to shine them and tint them red and crimson and smoky grey and salmon pink. Talk about art! Why, there was more art shown in the making of one of those pearls than you'd find in the Tate Gallery or the Melbourne Art Museum. We look at the oyster as an uncivilized insect, but let me tell you he's got more art in him than Jimmy Whistler ever had.

"Big Bill Laff looked at Skip McGee when the skipper took a handful of those things out of the bag, and the skipper tore his eyes from the pearls and swung them on to Bill. 'Get on deck!' he yelled. 'On deck at once!'

"Big Bill didn't move, because he couldn't move. At ordinary times he didn't have enough brains to cover a threepenny-piece, and the sight of those pearls stopped that little piece of grey matter from registering news from the outside world, so to speak. William was doing nothing but stare, but he was doing that well.

"Skip McGee didn't like a sailor to stand around and masticate any order he gave him. No fear! He sprang across the cabin and hit Big Bill where his nose humped, and William went through the door. When he found out that it wasn't the mainmast that had hit him, he picked himself up and went up on deck. Twenty minutes later I went on to the deck, and found Big Bill gripping the first joint of his right thumb with the fingers of his left hand, and showing it to three of the crew. He was a liar, because not one of the pearls was as big as that, but it made the others wiggle their eyes a bit.

" 'Where's the skip, Snotty?' said one of them to me.

" 'In his cabin,' I said.

" 'Give him our compliments, Snotty,' he said, 'and tell him that we're just busting for a sight of some oyster buttons.'

" 'Tell him yourself,' I said; and the brute caught me by the leg and brought me down flat on the deck, nearly breaking my back.

Skip McGee came up just then, and he asked me what was wrong.

" 'I slipped.' I said.

" 'Didn't someone throw you down?' he roared.

" 'No, sir,' I said; 'I slipped on a piece of fat.'

"It was a mighty good job that I didn't squeak on that fellow. He remembered my action because he was a pretty big coward, and he'd stopped one or two of Skip McGee's punches before.

"That night, just about eight hells, someone gave my leg a jerk, and I sat up to find Big Bill and the others all around me. Big Bill was the leader of the party.

" 'We're leaving the schooner, Snotty,' he said. 'She's sinking. To be quite truthful, we were going to let you go down with her, but this big fool Coddy wants to take you along.' Coddy was the fellow who had thrown me down on the deck.

" 'And the skipper?' I said. 'Where's the skipper?'

" 'Why,' said Big Bill, 'he's elected to stand by the ship. It's his privilege. There's a song written about it. It goes, 'I'll stick to the ship, lads, you save your lives.' Ever heard it? Well, that's his special little hymn.'

" 'Where is he?' I yelped. 'I'll see him.'

" 'You'll just come along if you want to come right now!' growled Bill. 'You've got two minutes to change your lodgings.'

"Of course, I guessed it was the product of the artistic oysters that had caused trouble, and I guessed about right. We hadn't pulled thirty yards from the Ibid before she slipped down into the Java Sea as if she was glad of a rest, and, as I couldn't help Skip McGee by fighting that bunch, I picked up the oar that Big Bill pointed to, and started to pull with three of the others. Big Bill turned the boat towards the coast of Java, which, be thought, was not more than fifty miles away.

"Next morning Big Bill divided the pearls. There were ninety-four of them, and Bill gave each of the five fifteen pearls, while he kept nineteen. And his nineteen weren't the shabbiest of that exhibit.

"That night we saw the lights following us. At least Bill Laff, Coddy, and the form others saw them, but I couldn't. They said they were the riding lights of a ship, and we stopped rowing, and waited for her to overhaul us. Mind you, I didn't see those lights. Couldn't see the glimmer of a red or green on the whole horizon, but they did. I was that prickly with gooseflesh that I was scratching holes in my underwear.

"When we stopped rowing, the ship stopped. That's what they said.

" 'How far off is she?' I stammered, turning to Coddy.

" 'Why, look at her, you fool! She's not more than half-a-mile astern!'

"Big Bill Laff turned the boat around, and we started to pull back to the lights that those fellows saw, and then the lights started to walk away from us, walk away into the Java Sea. When we'd stop, they'd stop; when we'd go ahead they'd throw in the clutch and come after us; when we started back to them they reversed and kept their distance. The language that went up from our boat was real artistic profanity. Pretty stuff, friend. If there was one thing on which that six could grab ninety-nine points out of a possible one hundred it was language, and that night they were hitting on every cylinder. Every time that ship played the coy lady with us, and that was about two score tunes before the dawn came, their joint vocabulary would have melted an iceberg. They could really swear, I will say that for them. There wasn't a curse word known between Pulo Laut and Tao Shoals that they couldn't handle in the fashion laid down by its inventor."

A sailor came softly down the deck, and the Australian paused.

"Someone's talkin' down here," said the Jacky. "Lieutenant says it's gotter stop."

The Australian took the tar by the arm and pointed to the dark shadows beneath the stairs.

"It comes from there," he whispered. "I'm afraid they're having a row with each other."

The Jacky sprang across the deck, and we heard the indignant whispers of the lovers; then the sailor repeated his injunction and hurried back to the bows. The Australian continued:

"Just before dawn, when I was that tired I couldn't hold an oar, we crept so close to the schooner that some of them saw her name. Coddy was the one to yell it out; then a red-headed fellow who was named Thursday because he worked as a pearler on Thursday Island, also saw it, and yelled it out, too. Do you know what name they yelled out? You don't? They roared out, 'The Ibid! The Ibid!' And I could see from the look on the faces of the others that they could read it, too. Mind you, I hadn't seen the boat. Hadn't seen her lights even. Funny, wasn't it?

"Coddy and Thursday and a thin, sickly chap named Pannikin wanted to row away from her; but Big Bill Laff, who wasn't afraid of anything, wanted to board her. He knocked Thursday down with an oar, and the rest of them started to pull for the schooner that they had seen sink the night before. I was that scared that my teeth were doing an imitation of a ukulele, and the old Sahara wasn't dryer than my tongue and throat. They were that dry that it would take a camel to carry a yell over them. And I wanted to yell, friend. I did.

"The schooner started to back off, and Big Bill Laff ordered us to stop rowing. From what I could learn they were only fifty yards from her just then. When we stopped, the Ibid stopped; at least, I gathered she did, because Big Bill kicked himself out of his shirt and trousers and said: 'I'm going to swim to her! Wait till I get aboard, then I'll yell.'

" 'I'm goin' with you,' said a little Englishman named Porky. 'Wait for me.'

"Bill and Porky went overboard together, and we waited. Coddy was near me, and, as I couldn't see her, he kept me posted.

" 'She's not moving,' he said. 'Oh, cripes! What a joke! The fellows on her can't see Bill and Porky in the water. I bet they get aboard her.'

" 'But she sunk, Coddy!' I stammered. 'She sunk!'

" 'She didn't, you fool!' he said. 'She's here right in front of us, furled topsail, and all just as we left her.'

"What do you think of a fellow talking like that, friend? All that bunch of murderous thieves thought the Ibid was in front of them, although they had seen her slop right under the waves the night before.

"After a few minutes there came a yell, and Thursday told us to lay into it. We did, but I guess the Ibid laid into it, too. We pulled after her till daylight, and when daylight came there wasn't a thing to be seen. I couldn't see anything, neither could those four others. But we had pulled an awful long way out into the Java sea, and we had lost Big Bill and Porky.

"The four divided up the nineteen pearls that were in Big Bill's pocket and the fifteen that Porky left behind him, then we started to pull towards the west. That business put our nerves on the jump. I was more scared of the Ibid than I was of a shark, and the four others weren't happy. They tried to sing, but it wasn't what you'd really call singing. Their voices were that shaky that they dropped notes by the hundred, and the loneliness of the Java Sea had any other kind of loneliness beat by eight sighs a minute. It was the kind of loneliness that makes you think of the little dog you had as a boy, of the latch on the back-gate that you could never open when the gander chased you, or the farm paper your father read, and all sorts of things like that. The whole crowd of us were thinking that the Ibid was lying just behind the horizon waiting for the dark to pop up and play peek-a-boo with us again.

"And when the night came up she slipped. Played the same game as the night before, at least that's what Coddy told me. Went ahead when we went ahead, stood at neutral when we stopped, and went astern when we came after her. And she with sails only, and not a breath of wind blowing.

" 'But how can she do it?' I screamed to Coddy. 'You say she's getting away from us with her headlights showing. That's impossible!'

" 'Well, she's doing it, son,' said Coddy. 'If your optic nerves weren't so badly diseased you could see her.'

"Thursday had taken command of the boat, and Thursday had an idea that Big Bill Laff and Porky were on the Ibid. It was hot in that open boat, so you must make a little allowance for Thursday. Under ordinary circumstances he didn't have enough brains to fill a walnut-shell, but I guess you could have packed them carelessly into a child's thimble the night he had us playing tag with the Ibid. We hadn't much water on that boat, either, and Thursday said it would be sensible to get on to the schooner if we could. So we played the game of gentle seducer to the Ibid; but the Ibid wouldn't be seduced.

"That was a worse night than the one before it. Thursday said he heard Big Bill Laff hailing us, and he made us pull like madmen trying to overtake the lights. 'Listen to them!' he'd yell. 'They're aboard her! I bet they've found old McGee's whisky that we went away and forgot. They're yelling again!'

"Did you ever try to catch a care-free calf or a gambolling goat, or any other creature that had acrobatic and wandering tendencies? The Ibid was that calf and that goat, and any other animal that you might have tried to put a halter on. Thursday had us larruping the Java Sea into foam all that night, and the Ibid didn't seem a whit tired. From what those fools told me about the way she acted, I took it that she thought it the end of a perfect night, but I had blisters on my hands as big as marbles.

"Then just before dawn the Ibid let us creep up to her as she did the night before. Thursday kept hailing her, and those four were that crazed that they thought they could hear Big Bill answering them, and telling them to come aboard.

"And over they went! At least, three of them went over, leaving Coddy and me on the boat. We heard them yelling and screaming as they swam towards the place where they thought the Ibid was waiting, then after a long while the ocean became silent, the sun came up, and there was nothing on it, no Ibid, no swimmers, no nothing!

"Coddy and I were a little dazed. We just sat and stared at the ocean and stared at each other. We were too tired to pull, so we did nothing.

"About midday I picked up a pearl that Thursday had dropped, a beautiful red pearl. Coddy wanted it, so we agreed to gamble, Coddy to take out a handful of his pearls, and I guess odd or even.

"Coddy didn't get the red pearl. We played that game for five hours, and I had nine pearls then, the red one, and eight of Coddy's. It began to get dark, so we stopped playing, and waited for the Ibid to come prancing along to keep us company. It was awful lonely there.

" 'There she is!' cried Coddy, pointing to the west; and I turned quick. Then I gave a yell. I saw her, saw her for the first time. At least I saw her red and green lights, which I had never been able to see before. Curious, wasn't it?

" 'Do you see her?' cried Coddy.

" 'Of course I do,' I answered.

" 'We'll get to her, Snotty,' he said. 'Get out your sticks and pull.'

"It was the same old game we played the night before, and the night before that. The Ibid was just as tricky and some more. We'd paddle softly, paddle madly, and paddle mildly, but it was all the same. She kept her distance like a well-brought-up young lady, and at last Coddy and I gave up.

" 'Come on, Snotty, we've got to swim to her like the others did,' he said. 'Come on.'

"Now, I didn't like to hop overboard, and I didn't seem to have the fixed belief that I'd get aboard her like those others had. I wondered why I hadn't seen her on the first two nights, and all of a sudden I knew. I had no pearls then, not a pearl!

" 'Coddy!' I yelled. 'Coddy, I want to give you back the pearls! I don't want them. They're not mine, and I don't want anything to do with them!'

"I pushed them into Coddy's hand, and he took them.

" 'Ain't you coming, Snotty?' he said.

" 'No!' I snapped; and then I turned and looked at where I had seen the lights. They were gone!

" 'Do you still see her, Coddy?' I cried.

" 'Sure I do,' he shouted. 'Look, we're only a ship's length off her.' And with that he dived overboard. But I couldn't see a light, although I watched till dawn. I saw nothing, and when dawn came I sort of understood. The Ibid had come after that crowd, and had sort of fixed them in her own little way. She wanted to go down in a big storm, fighting, and that bunch had scuttled her on a still, quiet night, and she was mad. Clean mad! I was picked up that afternoon and carried up to Batavia."

The Australian finished and turned to the rail.

"You can't get away with ship murder," he said. "These liners and tramps that Kaiser Bill has sunk are all mighty mad about it. They're angry— say, do you see anything over there to port?"

"No, I don't," I answered. "What did you think you saw?"

"Funny," said the Australian. "I suppose it was telling you that story that made me see it, but just for an instant I thought I saw a big liner all white as snow— all white as snow! Just for an instant I saw her. A liner as big as the Lusitania."

He thrust his head forward and watched the spot where he thought he had seen the ghost ship, then, with a quick cry, he leaped along the deck and gripped the officer in charge of the gun crew by the arm.

"Look!" he shouted. "See! Quick, for the love of heaven! Let him have it!"

According to the statement issued by the lieutenant, the first shot carried the periscope of the submarine clean away, while the second struck her black hull squarely. He was a very delighted lieutenant, and when the fuss had died away, he found the Australian and shook hands with him.

"You've got splendid eyesight," he said. "I looked at that spot a moment before and saw nothing. And I had glasses."

"Something else attracted my attention," said the Australian, "then I saw the periscope come up."

"What attracted you first?" asked the officer, a little curious.

The Australian shifted the weight of his body from one leg to the other, looked at me, and then stammered out:

"Oh, I don't know. It was just something— just something on that spot, and when I watched it the sub popped up its head. We were lucky, weren't we?"

"We were," cried the lieutenant. "It was just about this spot that the brutes got the Lusitania."

"Is that so?" cried the Australian.

The officer nodded and turned away. For a full minute the Australian stood staring out over the black water, then, with a curious sigh, he turned and made off down the deck.

________________

18: Never Hire a Killer

Laurence Donovan

1885-1948

Private Detective Stories, Sep 1942

BRADY relaxed. This was not a propitious spot for murder. The long, snooty car snored softly through the winding highways of Old Westbury. Brady guessed murder here would be discreet and quiet. There would be no violence. The swanky, pioneer families inhabiting Old Westbury would conduct any killings on hand with secrecy and circumspection.

Brady would have dozed. His bare, rusty head nodded under the sleepiness of the drowsy twilight. But his eyes were too full of the dainty doll snuggled to Judd Worthin's big shoulder in the seat ahead.

Hell! Brady felt cheated. A single G wasn't enough to make sure Miss Dela Deming's creamy white skin escaped being punctured by a slug or two intended for Judd Worthin. Since he had seen her, Brady was sure that, if he had it, he would have put up twenty-five G's at least. Worthin ought to have raised the ante, was Brady's conclusion.

Brady sighed and lighted a cigarette. Perhaps if he came up with the killer or killers who were out to blast Judd Worthin, another G might be added. Anyway, Brady had been as flat as a single G note in folding money when Worthin had called him to guard his body. You didn't find her kind of innocent, blue- eyed pretty once ina blue moon. At least you didn't find it in the sporty cafe society Judd Worthin had the marks of frequenting.

Her hair was like finely spun gold against the sunset filtering through the Old Westbury trees. Her bare, white shoulders started Brady's thick fingers twitching. He would like to get his hands on the dog who would endanger that kind of armful even by accident.

Judd Worthin drove fast but smoothly. Despite fine lines of dis- sipation around his eyes, Brady had seen that Worthin had everything that it takes to attract a swell dish like Dela Deming.

"I'll be late, Brady, and you'll have to stay a day or so to plan all of the system," said Worthin's mellow, pleasing voice over his shoulder. "In fact it might be a week or two before you change all the contacts."

"Sure, Mr. Worthin," grunted Brady. "A lot of old wiring may have to be altered."

That was their prearranged fiction. Brady was being brought out to the Judd Worthin estate to go over the obsolete lighting system of the very "early American" residence Worthin had recently leased. Or so Miss Dela Deming had been informed.

Brady tried to ignore the pretty's way of snuggling close to Worthin's wide, polo-playing, big-game hunting shoulder. He judged Worthin could well have been her father as ages compared.

That the delightfully lovely Dela Deming was to pass the week-end at Judd Worthin's estate was not ex- traordinary. Brady reflected that engaged couples in these troubled times may see a lot of each other.

That wasn't any of his business. Judd Worthin had reported to police two attempts to rub him out. Slugs had left marks in his car two days before. The day after that a truck had climbed onto a sidewalk and nar- rowly missed removing Worthin.

"All because I only did my duty as a citizen," Worthin had informed the police and Brady, today, when he had hired him. "I am sure I saw two men I've known as diamond smugglers, coming off a fishing boat. I reported it. The customs, boys missed finding anything, but they've had an eye on the fishing fleet."

Worthin had displayed one crudely printed warning that had been mailed. He had received two telephone calls demanding he give up his waterfront office where he had owned a spice importing business for two years before the war had hit him hard.

So here was Brady. For Judd Worthin had received a third warn- ing that he might expect a visit at home at any time.

"I don't give a damn, for I can take care of myself," was Worthin's appeal to Brady. "But Miss Deming, she's my fiancee, was with me both times the killers almost got me. I don't want to stay away from her or have her alarmed too much, but I'm afraid she may get hurt. So I want the killers."

That being one of Tom Brady's specialties, Worthin's fee of a grand, with a promise of more if he succeeded, was manna, even if it might come from a hotter place than heaven.

So they were in Old Westbury.

They would reach Judd Worthin's very early American domicile shortly after dark, Brady was informed.

oes

THIS moment, Brady was collecting a little more than his fee. Just watching the curvaceous doll and the milky whiteness of her throat, half turned toward him, was a kind of payoff. Then it became evident that the "great lover" Judd Worthin might be just a bit more than the waiting and hopeful fianoe of dainty Miss Deming.

Brady hitched his big shoulders higher to. watch a striped ground squirrel dart behind a tree. Thus, entirely by accident, he noticed Worthin's free hand resting companionably upon the rounded, silken knee of the Deming pretty. And the very desirable little lady was doing everything but purr like a contented kitten.

Such a maddening pair of gams had seldom ever come under Brady's keen and experienced eye. He whispered an oath under his breath as the Deming preitty's white shoulder seemed to ripple with pleasure, and she pressed still closer to Judd Worthin.

Well, what the hell business was it of his if the Mrs. Worthin-to-be was willing to have her moments in advance? That's what week-ends were for, wasn't it, even in sacrosanct Old Westbury?

Brady compelled himself to attend strictly to possibly lurking places of murderous ambushers, and to occasional passing cars. Especially he kept an eye upon occupants of each auto approaching.

As he had judged, nothing violent happened in Old Westbury. Only as the sun disappeared and the inside of the big car darkened, Judd Worthin and the Deming doll appeared to become even more companionable. Worthin was now approaching his rented estate.

Dammit! If that was the way it was, why didn't Worthin turn the wheel over to him and take advantage of the roomy rear seat of the car? At least Brady could keep his mind much clearer by watching the road.

This vagrant thought, entirely alien to his purpose in being here, was annoying Brady when Worthin sent the big car into a black tunnel under light excluding elm trees. There it was that the bluish fire of an automatic rifle started up from the side of the road, its explosions racketing, and its slugs rat-a- tatting on the fender and then the door of the limousine.

Worthin might have made a mistake of judgment in failing to shoot the car ahead. Or his instinctive swerving of the car off the narrow highway might have been the best possible move.

Brady, dragging his .38, threw his weight forward. It was no time for courtesy or thought of gentleness. One big hand went between the Deming girl's shoulders, pushing her roughly ahead and downward.

Even then, Brady was sure that automatic rifle had the force to drill a steel jacketed bullet through the car's door. However, Worthin's quick wit or his automatic reaction swung the rear of the car toward the unseen gunman.

Having made sure the Deming lovely was unwounded, Brady twisted open the rear door. He was smart enough to choose the door farthest from the hidden marksman, intending to get into the darkness and try a circling movement.

"I'll get the damn', yellow killer this time!"

That was Judd Worthin's suddenly heavy, raging voice.

"You, Brady, stick by Miss Deming! The ——"

It was Brady's idea that his was the assignment to go after the attempting murderer, and Worthin's duty to stick by his girl friend. He said so with angry protest, and landed outside the car, now stalled cross-wise in the narrow road.

To his amazement, Judd Worthin appeared to have more temper than good sense. For Worthin, a heavy automatic swinging in his hand, jumped squarely into the light beams of the car, crossing toward the spot where the rifle had been fired.

NOW Judd Worthin might be a client worth a quick grand, but Brady had his job in his own mind.

"Get back, or down out of the light, Worthin!" he shouted, as he slid around the rear of the car, and tried to locate the exact spot where he might place a few .38 slugs with the most hope of results.  "Mr. Brady! Please! Wait! My leg!"

The Deming pretty had a husky contralto that went oddly with her delicately fashioned daintiness. Brady hoped she had not been seriously wounded. The reckless Judd Worthin vanished from the car lights as the rifle flamed again, and went crashing into some bushes where it was entirely black.

Brady jolted three fast shots at the blaze of the rifle, but heard nothing to indicate he had hit the ambusher. Then he detected running feet of a man going away, and the crazy and careless Judd Worthin was making plenty of noise following.

"Worthin!" Brady yelled it. "Come back! Miss Deming's hurt! That's my job!"

His sense of sound told him the rifleman was circling among the trees. It occurred to him that his flight might be a trick. There might be more than one gunman. Usually that brand of killer avoided playing a lone hand, especially in the darkness of the country.

Worthin was still moving away. Brady called to the Deming girl.

"You badly hit? If not," and he spoke more softly, "get out of the car and off to one side of the bushes."

"Yes, Mr. Brady, yes," the girl replied. "It's not so bad. I'll do that. But please, find Judd! He'll be hurt! I've been so afraid!"

It was a matter for split second decision now. Brady could still hear the moving gunman, veering away, but apparently still circling in a direction that could bring him back to the car. And Judd Worthin's pursuit had become quiet.

Brady had to take a chance the Deming girl would be all right for a few minutes. He was a big man, stripping at nearly two hundred, but he had enough woods training to push noiselessly and swiftly among the trees, still hearing the movement of the circling killer.

He was perhaps fifty yards from the car, trying to keep its lights in sight, and at the same time cut across to head off the rifleman. Suddenly the killer's steps died out. Brady listened, halting, but he could not hear Worthin moving either.

He swore under his breath at the poor showing Worthin had caused him to make. He had to admit that in the utter darkness of the trees, it was impossible to guess the position of another man unless he made some sound.

He caught sound then, but from two directions at once. He was convinced he heard muttering voices. That meant the ambusher had a companion or had met someone. And he was crouched, starting toward the voices when the Deming girl screamed over by the car.

Brady went crashing back into the highway. He was just in time to see

Dela Deming appear between him and the headlights, trying to run, but limping. And he saw a shadowy bulk close to the car, with the abrupt, dull shine of a gun's metal.

Brady's aim was never surer. A man screamed hoarsely and a gun ex- ploded. The bulky shadow dropped and feet kicked around for two sec- onds, then were still.

BRADY reached Dela Deming just as she stumbled and fell. He had one awe-inspiring glimpse of nicely sculptured legs, wonderfully smooth, white. One thigh was marred by a small furrow where a slug had penetrated the flesh.

Blood was welling from the wound. Brady paused long enough to staunch the flow with a clean strip torn from his white handkerchief. His big fingers fumbled because they tingled.

It might have been pain, or it might have been something else. The Deming pretty's body trembled. Her thin waist was torn and that didn't add a bit to Brady's peace of mind.

He heard someone coming back through the bushes. He got back to the man beside the car as Judd Worthin came into view, swearing lustily. Worthin's face was scratched.

"I damn' near got the so-and-so!" Worthin's language ignored the presence of Dela Deming. Brady noted that she stared at Worthin as if he were a new person. "But he ducked me and I dived into a muck-hole," added Worthin.

Worthin's muddy clothes bore out his claim. Then Worthin gave a whistle.

"What— who's this, Brady?"

"A guy with a yen for turning the heater on your fiance, seeing you weren't here, Worthin. Ever see him before? Know him?"  Brady flicked a light over a flat-nosed face with curdled, pugilistic ears.

"Nope, never did," said Worthin. "What happened, Brady?"

"He had a rod aimed at Miss Deming, and we had a contest to see who would shoot first. I won. He's Nick Ladoni, gun for hire, and cheap. Pal'ed around with Dopey Meggs, who'd peddle murder for a pinch of stuff."

"Great glory!" exclaimed Worthin. "You mean to say he was set to kill Miss Deming? That means they'll get at me any way they can. You've got your G, Brady. It's another G for the fellow who got away."

"You heard only one, Worthin?" demanded Brady.

"Yeah, why? I lost him, then got lost myself."

Brady nodded. "G or no G, I'll get the other killer in this game," he said. Something about Worthin's words failed to ring true.

Worthin was staring at Dela Deming. She was sitting on the running board of the car. Her skirt was carefully hiked up above the fringe of her silk panties. Brady's handkerchief was bound around her thigh.

"Darling!"' exclaimed Worthin. "Does it hurt?"

"It's feeling so much better, since Mr. Brady doctored it," the girl said huskily, her eyes glowing.

"Brady, he bound that up? There?"

"He was nice about it, very nice, Judd," the girl said.

Brady saw her small, shapely hands running along an emerald necklace of exquisite design. He heard Worthin bite off an oath. He did not like Worthin's tone and he set him straight.

"The name's Brady, Worthin, not Casanova!"' He chopped out the words. Then he added. "Will you phone the police, or will I do it, about this guy Ladoni?"

Worthin was dark-skinned. His eyes were darker than his face. Brady could see them narrow, even in that faint light.

"Neither one, Brady," said Worthin. "We'll put this Ladoni into the trunk of the car. I've an idea that may trap his partner."

Brady started to say," Count me out," but changed his mind. He kept thinking of hearing two men talking out there in the woods. Yet it appeared Judd Worthin believed there was but one gunman.

A queer idea formed in Brady's mind. The Deming girl was still staring at him. She appeared to be wanting to tell him something; but unable to make up her mind.

BRADY was averse to riding the dead Ladoni in the trunk of the car. But Judd Worthin was his client and the boss.

Brady had thumbed his nose at the law before, and he could see the possibility of trapping the other killer or killers.

The Deming girl's wound did not appear to be serious. But for the remainder of the ride to the old Castle- on-the-Rhine residence misnamed "early American," the little lady had ceased to cuddle up to Judd Worthin.

Brady trapped her shining eyes watching him several times. He had his own way with pretties, but it hadn't ever been his custom to break in by literally binding up their wounds.

"Needless to say, Brady, we will keep what has happened a secret from my house guests," suggested Worthin, as he sent the big car along a winding driveway among a number of guest cottages.

"Sure— sure, you're the boss," growled Brady. "Only Miss Deming's injury should have attention."

"I'll see to that," grunted Worthin. "For the present, Brady, you'll have a room directly over mine. It has been occupied by the butler. But you are directly over my window and a porch roof."

Brady was noticing guests appearing in the doorways of some of the cottages. A slim, dark girl was out-lined in one door by the light behind her. Her figure showed in a gauze-like garment.

The girl's hand waved. Brady would have sworn that Worthin's left hand, outside the car door, make a peremptory signal. He was also convinced that Dela Deming's pretty face flashed around and that her red lips were compressed angrily.

Brady had the thought that Judd Worthin was a man who looked out for himself quite well.

But it was when Judd Worthin stopped the car by the main entrance that Brady was suddenly on guard. A little man with a lot of surplus hair and a hooked nose started from a nearby cottage toward the car.

"Horter?" said Brady under his breath. "Now what would that double dealer in diamonds be doing out here?"

For he had identified the hooked-nose little man. At almost the same second Horter saw Brady's impressive bulk climbing from Worthin's car. And as Brady showed, Horter was turned, hotfooting it back through the door of his cottage.

Brady heard Worthin start to speak, to call out, as if to halt Horter, then he had glanced at Brady and changed his mind.

JOE BRADY turned out his lights as he looked from the third floor window out over Judd Worthin's big estate. His broad mouth wore a smile as he noticed the house wires of what Worthin had informed him was the house-to-cottages telephone system of the Worthin place, which operated automatically.

With his room lights out, Brady had a fairly clear view of the broad, treeless space around which a dozen cottages of the guests were circled. He could see a light burning in the cottage from which he had seen Lafe Horter, the hot jewel expert, come and go. The roof of a porch slanted a few feet below his window.

Brady was wondering what idea Judd Worthin had in connection with keeping the body of Nick Ladoni in the trunk of his car?

Brady heard the door of his room open softly. He was on guard instantly, hand touching the automatic on his table.

"Mr. Brady— please—"

It was the husky, low whisper of Dela Deming. She was like a white shadow crossing the room. Then her cool hands were upon his face and she was cautioning him to be quiet.

"Listen, lady!" Brady was growling. "I don't know what you have in mind, but I don't play—"

"Please — wait— don't misjudge me too quickly—"

It would have required a better man than Joe Brady to have resisted the soft, warm pressure of her hand upon his lips.

"I'm not playing— please, understand that—it's something else, Mr. Brady— do you know about jewels, good and bad?"

"Joe's the name, to keep it short," he grunted. "A'right. You aren't playin', so then it's some kind of a beef? Sure. I know ice."

She was very close. And she was very cuddly. So he crooked a big arm and held her there.

"That's it— all right, Joe, my emeralds, and a bracelet, and some rings— do you know about things like that?"

Brady expelled his breath sharply. What might have followed was interrupted. Judd Worthin called from the floor below. Worthin should be occupying the same room.

Brady had rather expected it, from the general layout of the Worthin estate, with its convenient cottages.

But what had Dela Deming meant to convey to him about her jewels. He had noticed her emerald necklace when he had attended her wounded thigh, Now he knew what it had been that had drawn his attention. Why the appearance of Horter fitted in.

The Dela Deming emeralds were beautiful—imitations.

The windows being open, Brady was getting more of an earful than he wanted from the Judd Worthin room below. Then he heard Worthin's window close softly. A door opened and shut and he was sure the Deming girl had left Worthin alone.

Brady acted quickly. The ground telephone wires crossed directly under his windows. A minute later Brady had suspended a plastic cylinder of the size of a electrical cell battery close to the phone wires.

The contrivance was an X-ray ear. It was made up of 80,000 turns of fine wire around an alloy core of aluminum, copper and nickel. Attached ear-phones brought Brady both ends of any phone conversation by induction, without the X-ray ear contacting the phone wire.

He caught but part of a conversation, the unpleasant words of Horter—

"But dammit man, it may be impossible to restore all of them—"

Judd Worthin was talking—

"Every damn' stone has to be replaced, Horter, and I don't care what it costs— something new has come up— she's worth a hundred times the rocks, understand? I'll cut you in, see! But she must never find out we took the stuff and her money—"

Horter replied with an expressive string of oaths.

Brady put aside the ear-phones. Connecting this conversation with the Dela Deming reference to her jewelry, Brady had the picture. The Deming girl had been robbed of jewelry by substitution.

But something had come up that made Dela Deming more valuable than the theft of either jewels or money. Judd Worthin had represented that he intended marrying the Deming girl.

Brady was confronted by a puzzle that suddenly appeared to go far be- yond the mere threats to kill Judd Worthin.

Suddenly all of the Judd Worthin establishment seemed stirring. Brady could hear merriment of a wild party from one of the terraces. Splashes and laughter came from a swimming pool.

Brady was watching the cottage into which he had seen Horter disappear. Strings of colored lights showed the wraith-like figure of Dela Deming hurry across a lawn.

A moment later Judd Worthin came into the light. He moved almost furtively. He was in the shadows a moment. But he reappeared just before the door of Horter's cottage opened and closed.

Brady eased out and down to the floor below.

Judd Worthin's wall safe was a pushover for Brady. The duplicate of Dela Deming's emerald necklace, a bracelet of diamonds and rubies and an odd ring with dia- monds surrounding a sapphire were the net result of Brady's nefarious investigation.

Just for luck, Brady removed the jewels. He slipped them casually behind some books on a shelf. That was when the house phones buzzed. Brady hesitated, then pronged it open.

"Yes?" he whispered huskily.

"Judd, dearest! I'm waiting? You promised—"

That was not Dela Deming's voice. It was not anyone Brady had ever heard before. He made his own voice as vague as a hoarse whisper could accomplish.

"I know— something came up— right away—" .

He could not risk a darling, dearest, honey or what-not. You never knew what pet names a guy like Judd Worthin would employ.

"Judd, dearest—" The whisper was a little frantic. "You must get rid of her—you understand! I was watching—and who was that other mug— was that the one who's to take the rap?— If he is— where's Nick— he hasn't showed up—"

Brady had a tightness across his throat. Now he was beginning to add two and two, and he was getting more than four. He took a chance. He kept his voice hoarsely whisper- ing.

"Cut it out— Nick's on his way— can't talk— someone came in— be right over—"

He closed the connection. Only one woman had been watching as they had arrived. The dark, sweet little person outlined in the light of a cabin door. And she was expecting Nick—?

That would be Nick Ladoni? That's why Nick Ladoni had come visiting in the trunk of Judd Worthin's car. It added up.

Brady tagged the top of his own dumb skull with his forefinger. So he had been hired to protect Judd Worthin from being bumped off?

Dela Deming had tried to tell him something about her jewels. Worthin had talked with Horter about replacing jewelry that had already been substituted for the real thing. And yet he had just found stones very much like the real thing in Judd Worthin's own safe.

Brady recalled that he had just promised a cute, little lady to be right over to her cabin. Providing he had guessed correctly and that was the proper cabin.

JOE BRADY approached the log cabin in the darkness. He never eavesdropped without a purpose. There seemed a purpose here. Indeed, the little lady in the cabin apeared to be expecting company, of the kind she could trust utterly.

Brady rapped discreetly. The door opened quickly. Almost before he could draw deep breath he was in. The soft, winding arms were warming and welcoming. The luscious, parted lips were assurance that some angles of a private dick's job were not to be passed up lightly.

Brady was also aware that the little lady evidently had not been in the arms of whoever she believed him to be for some time past. And he also was instantly informed that he was not the party she had been expecting "Judd, dearest—"

The whisper and a heady perfume were blended as Brady's cheek rested in the soft and wonderful V of a welcoming throat. With but the log fire for light, the mistake was to be expected, only Brady had not quite expected it.

Nevertheless, the quivering softness of a slimly desirable body was not exactly to be cast aside by Joe Brady. His hostess became a little storm of welcome that no man could resist.

Without speaking. Brady picked her up in his arms and carried her to the wide divan near the fire. For the moment he had the sense of believing her to be Dela Deming. And then—

The firelight struck across her black, lustrous hair.

Brady was fast. But he realized too late that a trap had been set for both the woman and him. The automatic chopped from a corner inside the cabin, proving the killer had been planted. Brady took the cut of a slug across his chin. He threw the woman from him violently. But the hidden killer had been too well planted. The woman gurgled out a scream and her dark head snapped backward.

Brady failed to prevent the woman from falling, because he was diving toward the blazing gun. Both sides of his head took the sting and burn of slugs and powder. But his weight crumpled the gunman into the wall.

Brady smashed rights and lefts, feeling flesh and bone yielding to his knuckles. But there was a crashing blow that put out all the lights behind his eyes.

JOE BRADY heard feet clumping out of the cabin. He opened his eyes against sharp pain. The firelight showed that the dark-haired lovely woman before the fireplace was crumpled and still.

The gunman he had crushed into the wall was lying quiet, but he was groaning, then whispering. Brady knew he had cracked the gunman's skull when he had slammed him into the logs.

"That's you, Nick ?"

The dying killer had the hoarseness of death in his throat.

"Sure— sure," said Brady in a ioe tone, realizing he was being mistaken for Nick Ladoni. "What the hell— you turned the heat on me— you—"

Brady waited. The other man drew a painful breath.

"You didn't— Worthin—"

"Yeah?" Brady got it out. "We didn't get Worthin. You thought I was Worthin—?"

The dying gunman had a sudden spurt of consciousness.

"Worthin— hell! He said to get that Deming dame, so I—!"

Brady was sure the dying man was Dopey Meggs. And Meggs had but few words left to speak.

"Nick— Worthin crossed us all around— told me to bump off that black-haired doll he was married to— 'cause he found out the Deming dame was coming into big dough— see? You an' me would-a been sit- tin' in on that dough, Nick, so he steered you here— an' Worthin got you— an' had you turn the heat on me— Nick— his wife's dead an' we're— finished—"

With that, Brady knew Dopey Meggs was finished. Then he heard men shouting and women chattering outside the cabin. Over the push of guests crowding toward the place, Judd Worthin's commanding voice rang out.

"Keep back, everybody! Maybe one of the killers is waiting in there! He might have got Miss Randall an' be lyin' low! I'll go ahead! Horter! Take this gun an' cover the back! If I only knew where he went, I had a Detective Brady out here lookin' for the killers! Maybe he's in there too!"

Brady was crawling slowly across the cabin floor. He cursed under his breath. Sure! Judd Worthin knew damn' well he was in there! Worth- in's only mistake was that he probably believed he had either killed Brady or laid him out so cold he could not possibly have learned any of the truth.

That Miss Randall stuff? It covered the dark, little lady. And Dopey Meggs had said that she was Worthin's wife, and had been ordered rubbed out after Worthin had discovered Dela Deming had a fortune coming.

But Dopey Meggs was dead. How could Brady prove the truth?

Brady heard Judd Worthin opening the cabin door slowly. Brady had reached the inert figure of the murdered woman. She was as dead as she could ever be. A slug had split her heart. Virtually all of her blood had drained out.

The low burning log in the fireplace cast a vague light. Brady was crouched, tense, when Worthin's broad shoulders filled the space of the cabin doorway.

In Brady's mind was proof enough of the killer. But suddenly he wanted for himself that killer who hired other killers, double crossed them, employed a private detective to make everything look good, double crossed his wife, and was doubtless also crossing up Lafe Horter on jewels' already stolen from Dela Deming.

That was some score to settle. And Brady's proof was slight, if the dead, little woman had been living here as a "Miss Randall."

The firelight flickered a little. And then Brady saw the automatic in Judd Worthin's hand. That was merely a pose, thought Brady. Worthin expected no resistance, no life inside the cabin.

Least of all did Judd Worthin expect to see the little woman who had been his wife sit up suddenly in the firelight, reaching out her white hands, as if imploring him to help her. And with that movement of the woman's body, there was a low, husky whisper, just as Brady had heard this woman speak over the phone.

"Judd— darling— you've come in time—"

Judd Worthin's low curse, the instinctive action were exactly as Brady had judged they would be. On his oath, Worthin shouted, to cover his wife's supposed voice, and he cut loose with the automatic. Brady could almost feel the thudding of two slugs into the woman's corpse. Then Brady was on his feet. He lunged on silent feet through the darkness at the side of the room. His .38 smashed down upon Worthin's wrist and snapped it. His ripping left landed upon Worthin's big chin, driving him to his heels.

Then Brady pivoted, slashing the .38 across Worthin's face. They went to the floor together.

Even then, Judd Worthin was quick-witted, smart. He gasped out a few words as he fell.

"Good God! I shot— Miss Randall— by mistake! I—"

Brady made a good job of rough dental work on Worthin's nice, even teeth then, stopping his speech.

SOME guests were fleeing. Women screamed. Judd Worthin was out. Those who imagined Joe Brady must be the killer let him go. That way, Brady reached the rear of the cabin.

He pinned the ratty Lafe Horter to the log wall, pinching his throat. In a few words he gave the slick jewel fence no choice.

"In about half an hour you'll be spilling your story," said Brady. "If you change one comma from what I've told you, that'll make just one more job for the fellow who juices the hot seat."

A few minutes later they were in the room of Judd Worthin. A Sergeant Carter of the state police had charge. Worthin repeated his story the second time.

"It was dark inside the cabin, and Miss Randall, who has been my secretary for two years, was in the darkness," said Worthin. "I think Detective Brady was confused and fired by mistake. I thought he was the killer, and I'm afraid I hit Miss Randall's body shooting at him."

It sounded reasonable. Brady was watching the white face of Dela Deming. The girl's breasts heaved with her sharp breathing.

Brady spoke suddenly.

"Miss Deming, you will find your stolen jewels behind the books over there where Judd Worthin hid them," he said. "And Sergeant Carter, the woman known as Miss Randall was really Mrs. Judd Worthin. She was alive, and pleading with Worthin to help her when he shot her twice. That's why—"

Judd Worthin shouted a wild oath. But Lafe Horter's little eyes looked at the Deming jewels. Then Horter spoke up.

"So help me, I was hired by Worthin to substitute some stones belonging to Miss Deming, but I can't stick with him in murder!" screeched Horter. "He didn't say he intended to have his wife killed so he could marry Miss Deming! I just learned tonight he had hired two killers to rub out Miss Deming after he had all of her money and a hundred grand in rocks, but then he found out about her other fortune—"

Brady's left exploded in Worthin's face as he jumped for Horter.

"An' the hired killers didn't kill Worthin's wife!" whined Horter.  "He blasted her himself, for I saw her standing up, holding out her hands in the cabin. I wouldn't work with any murderer, so help me!"

"I'm sure at least two slugs from Worthin' gun are in his wife's body," said Brady. "In fact, I know they are, for he shot her while I was holding her in my arms. It seems that Worthin hired killers first to kill Miss Deming, but when he found out about her fortune and wanted to switch the deal, he couldn't get hold of the killers in time to call them off. They almost got Miss Deming, but Nick Ladoni, out in the trunk of Worthin's car, happened to be in the way of my .38.

"That spoiled Worthin's program. He was merely hiring me as a cover-up to try and prove later that either Miss Deming or his wife was killed by gunmen who were trying to get him. It was a nice build-up, but it never pays to hire killers. They sometimes take pride in their work."

DELA DEMING touched Brady's arm lightly. The last of the house guests were leaving the early American estate.

They were alone now in the room from which Judd Worthin and Lafe Horter had been removed.

"Joe, darling," said the Deming pretty. "I think I'll need a guard for my jewels when I get them back. Would you—?"

"I'm not looking for an heiress, sweetheart," said Brady gruffly. "If you weren't coming into a fortune, we might get better acquainted. But as it is—"

"Joe, honey, then it's a deal," she said softly. "You see, Joe, I had that letter about a supposed fortune written and mailed to me, making sure Judd Worthin would find it. I knew he had stolen my mother's jewelry, and I wanted to see what he would do if he thought I was worth a lot more money. So you see—"

"I see— and so Judd Worthin's wife is dead, he goes up for murder, and you want me—"

He turned and walked away abruptly. Otherwise, he was sure he would have slapped her teeth in.

___________________

19: The Rose-Colored Rug

J. U. Giesy

1877-1947

Munsey's Magazine, Nov  1925

THERE is a Spanish saying which runs— "Tomavo la por rosa, mas devenia cardo"— or, in English, "I took her for a rose, but she proved to be a thorn."

Janie Garns knew nothing at all of Spanish, and little enough of roses, save an occasional flower shop bunch; yet the quotation is not inapt as applying to her mental condition on the evening when she came back to her lodging house room and found the note from her roommate, Helen Long. After reading that cruel missive, she went over to her cedar chest, opened it, and knelt beside it, now and then dropping a slow tear on what it contained— things gradually gathered together and laid within it by Janie's own hands.

For a long time the cedar chest had been no more or less than Janie Garns's hope chest. Until the last month there had been no indication that it would not eventually fulfill the hope that had inspired its possessor; but now—a fresh tear trickled from Janie's dark eye and dropped unstayed from Janie's chin.

Until a month ago, not taking into account the chest and its contents, Janie had been possessed of several valuable things. She had youth. She was just past nineteen. She had a darkly piquant beauty of face and a figure not to be overlooked, since it was so well worth looking over. She had a good position, and the expectation of presently getting married—which was where the hope chest came in.

Getting married is not a difficult accomplishment, provided one has both the inclination and— the man; and it happened that Janie had been possessed of both those things.

The first was natural enough in a perfectly normal young woman. The second was Reginald Harding— Reggie, to the set with which he played about. He was a slenderly graceful young man, with the usual complement of eyes and nose and mouth, a not too masculine chin, and hands and feet. These last he used in a skillful manner when dancing, as well as for the purpose of transporting himself about. He was employed in the sales department of a large wholesale concern with offices a scant block from the building in which Janie herself was employed.

Before she met young Harding, Janie had had several matrimonial chances, but none of her suitors had suited her well enough to arouse more than a passing interest. Reggie, however, was a careful dresser with a careless manner that rather lifted Janie out of herself. In the evenings he took her to movies and dances, declaring himself extremely fond of music— by which he meant the type of music customarily denominated as jazz.

That is, he took her to such places of amusement at first. Later— well, later it was Janie who suggested that they ought to save. It was Janie who inaugurated the fifty-fifty lunches, where each paid his own check, which from then on became the routine of their lives. They still went occasionally to a place of amusement. Being young, of course they did; but they sort of soft-pedaled on expenses, after they became engaged.

Besides everything else that she had, Janie had a head, and she figured that the way to get ahead was to use it. That was about the time when she bought the cedar chest and began to fill it. She and Reggie began to do window shopping. They would pause before some display behind heavy plate glass to indulge in some such conversation as—

"Oh, Reggie, isn't that the swellest rug? The rose-colored one, I mean."

"Sure!" Mr. Harding would assent, eying the article in question.

"Still, rose does fade awfully," Janie would consider. "Maybe we'd better get a green one."

That was where the streak of thriftiness in Janie's make-up came in; and that streak of thriftiness, as we shall see, was to blame for everything.

The trouble began when she invited Helen Long to share her room. Helen worked in the same office as Janie, and she appeared a very rose of young womanhood. Where Janie was dark, Helen was blond. As opposed to Janie's somewhat quietly reserved disposition, Helen prattled and sang and sparkled like a rippling, sun-kissed stream.

Janie didn't really want a roommate; but she wanted to fill the cedar chest as quickly as possible, and by dividing room rent that object could be furthered. She had heard Helen announce that she was going to change her room; so she asked her, and Helen assented. Janie mentioned the fact to Reggie at their fifty-fifty noontide lunch.

"Oh, for weepin' in public!" Reggie exclaimed. "Now you've spilled the beans, I guess. Where are you goin' to park this jane when we want to go out and play around?"

"Why, I suppose she will attend to that herself," Janie said, a little slowly— for, until Reggie voiced his question, it had not occurred to her that she had erected the third angle of a triangle by inviting Helen to share her room.

"And if we drag her around with us, where are we goin' to save anything on the proposition?" Reggie went on.

"We won't drag her," Janie declared, with a conviction which events were to prove unjustified; for while Janie fully expected Helen to look after her own entertainment, she did not expect her to do it in quite the fashion that Miss Long employed. Helen proved an interested roommate from the first. The very next day after she moved in, she met Janie as they were leaving the office at noon.

"Oh, hello!" she smiled and dimpled. "Goin' to lunch? If you are, I'll go along."

"Why, yes, but I'm going with— some one," Janie said slowly, thinking of Reggie and knowing that her cheeks turned pink.

"Your B.F.?" Miss Long inquired— by which Janie knew she meant "boy friend."

She nodded.

"We always have lunch together," she explained.

"Me and my boy friend— my boy friend and me," Helen giggled, and gave Janie's arm a squeeze. "Well, that's fine! Every girl ought to have one. I won't mind. Take me along, and we can talk him over to-night. How long you had him?"

"Long enough to become engaged. We're going to be married soon," Janie said, a little stiffly, since she was none too well pleased by the turn of events.

She took her roommate with her, however, because she couldn't very well help it. Helen prattled gayly through the course of the meal, at the end of which Reggie, abandoning his thrifty custom, paid the three-fold check.

"Fine way to save money!" he jeered that evening, when he and Janie were attending a movie.

"I'm sorry, I just couldn't shake her," Janie returned. "She seemed to want to meet you."

"Oh, I ain't kickin'. It was you suggested the fifty-fifty lunch arrangement in the first place," Reggie pointed out, in a way to show that he was taking their engagement seriously, since he was already adopting a matrimonial style of recrimination. "Personally, I don't mind spendin' a dollar now and then, and— she seems a nice little thing."

"It isn't that I mind spending money, either, Reggie. It's just that I want to save so that we can have our own home," Janie protested, as the picture faded out with the heroine in the hero's arms.

"Well, yes," Mr. Harding assented dubiously, rising.

A few nights later, when they planned another excursion, it was Reggie who suggested taking Helen along. Miss Long accepted the invitation. She had a way of accepting— everything.

They went to dance; and if there was anything Helen could do it was that. She shook a dainty and wicked little foot, and had a way of yielding a lithesome figure to her partner's arms.

Janie did not enjoy the evening as greatly as she had enjoyed similar evenings in the past; and on the way back to their lodgings a further episode occurred to mar her happiness.

They were passing a window in which was displayed a rose-colored rug—the shade that nagged at Janie's inclination, as against her sense of practicality, in planning her prospective home.

"Look, Reggie! Isn't that a beautiful rug?" she exclaimed.

"Swell," said Mr. Harding, as they paused to inspect it; "but I thought you said rose faded."

"Well, it does," Janie admitted. "I s'pose it would be better to get a blue or green one."

"I like rose better. It matches my complexion," Helen giggled. "That would be swell in a room with a brass bed and white or walnut furniture, and the walls done in cream."

"I'll say it would!"

Reggie gave her a glance which might have indicated even to a casual observer that he was adding her blondness and pink-and-whiteness to the suggested color scheme.

"S'pose it does fade," Miss Long added, shrugging graceful shoulders. "You'd get the fun out of it while it was doin' it, and we only live once. I believe in havin' a good time as you go along!"

"Me, too," averred Mr. Harding, with a positiveness which displeased Janie, and which ought to have warned her.

But to Janie their engagement was such a definite fact— she had accepted it so fully, and had schemed toward its final fruition with such absolute concentration— that she never dreamed of the disaster that was coming. Not even on the night at the movies when the orchestra was playing "Roses of Picardy," and Reggie, in what seemed an absent-minded fashion, picked up Helen's hand instead of her own, did Janie foresee the imminent future.

Instead, she showed Helen her hope chest, displayed its contents, and discussed her plans. Miss Long giggled, as usual.

"Squirrelin' things away already! You're a great one! Say, listen—anybody can get married and furnish a flat nowadays without waitin'. There's always the installment plan."

"Not for me, thank you," Janie objected. "I like to pay for things as I go along."

"Well, you would that way, too," Helen snickered; "but I get what you mean. At that I can see you're goin' to be the Shylock of the family. Reggie would show a lot more speed if you'd let him. His tastes are more like mine."

By this time she was calling Mr. Harding "Reggie"— which, even if not wholly to Janie's liking, was natural enough, since wherever he and Janie went Helen made one of the party. If Reggie was less demonstrative in his manner toward Janie than in the past, that, too, seemed natural, considering the fact that Helen was with them.

So that Janie really did not mentally visualize the actual situation until the day when Helen, pleading a headache, stayed home from the office, and Janie, returning at her usual hour, found the note telling her, in carelessly written phrases, that no matter how much like a rose Helen had appeared, she, like other roses, was possessed of thorns, and that Janie had been— stung.

DEAR JANIE:

Me and Reggie have talked it over and decided that we are better suited to each other than you and him. That being the case, he and you getting married would be all wrong; so we're being married this afternoon. I guess you'll think this a pretty low-down trick, but Reggie feels I'm his sort of girl, just as I know he's my sort of man; and you've got to look out for yourself in this world, and grab what you want when you get the chance. After all, we only live once. Tell the boss I'm all through with him.

HELEN.

That was the missive Helen left. As has already been recorded, Janie read it and went over and opened the cedar chest and knelt beside it, staring into it as one stares into a casket. Truly it seemed to her that it held, not the things she had placed within it, but rather the broken shapes of dreams.

ii

HOW long she knelt in such fashion she never afterward knew; but after a time she closed the lid and rose.

"Tell the boss," Helen had written.

Janie's lips set into a straight line. She was glad, now, that she had not told her employer of her own intended marriage, as she had more than once been on the point of doing. This way there would be no need of explanations. She had been tricked and betrayed. She had lost Reggie; but she still had her job.

And because of that more serious element in her nature, so different from Helen's, she continued to keep it in the days that followed. She simply lived on and worked on.

The cedar chest no longer held her interest. Like the episode that had inspired its purchase and filling, it remained a closed thing.

She changed the scene of her noonday meals from the little café where Reggie and she had formerly met for their fifty-fifty lunch. She found another place in quite the opposite direction from her office building; and if for any reason she had to pass the store in which it was located, she kept her eyes away from the window in which she had seen the rose-colored rug.

Janie was human, and there were times when she questioned the poet's assertion that it is better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all— even as there were other times when she surprised herself by realizing that, now that everything was over, she really didn't miss Reggie so very much. From this last fact an older and wiser head than Janie's might have deduced that she had been in love with love, rather more than with Reggie himself.

And then one day somebody spoke her name as she was consuming a solitary lunch:

"Janie Garns!"

She glanced up into the steady brown eyes of Joe Berry, a boy whom she had known when the two of them were children, but whom she had not seen for a good many years.

"It is Janie Garns, isn't it?" he said, as their glances crossed.

"Yes, Joe." Janie smiled. Joe wasn't as handsome as Reggie. There was a sort of squareness about him— all over, but particularly in the lower part of the face. He wasn't unhandsome, either. There was a dependable look about him, and Janie was glad to see him. "Take the other side of the table, Joe," she urged.

"I mean to, now that I've found you like this," he said. "After all, the world isn't such a big place, is it? You can meet 'most anybody if you'll just stand still in one place long enough."

"You haven't been standing still, have you, Joe?" Janie quizzed.

"Well, no— not exactly."

He drew out a chair, and sat down and grinned at her.

"Let's see!" said Janie, knitting her brows. "You went into the newspaper business, wasn't it?"

"Yes and no," replied Joseph. "I'm a reporter. The city editor says I'm quite a reporter, and I think he means it, because he backed up his opinion with a raise, last week."

"That's splendid!" Janie declared. "I'm awfully glad to hear you're getting along so well!"

"Oh, I'm getting by, all right," said Joseph. "You're looking wonderful yourself," he added.

"Am I?" Janie dimpled before the frank admiration he made no seeming effort to keep out of his words or his eyes. "In just what way do you mean?"

"Every way," Joseph told her, unabashed.

A waitress took his order. They chatted about each other until he was served, and their luncheons were finished, and Joseph had paid his own and Janie's check. She allowed him to do so without protest; and after they were outside, she gave him her address.

That night, for the first time in weeks, Janie opened the cedar chest. It was two-thirds filled— and it had been good to meet Joe Berry. He was going to take her to a show— not a movie, but a real dramatic performance, for which he had passes from his newspaper. Last week he had had a raise. Some of the strained reserve of the last weeks went out of Janie's eyes, leaving room for a softer, more speculative light.

As before mentioned, Janie Garns had a head; and for this reason she changed her technique.

The show to which Joe took her two nights later was the first of a series of dramatic and musical entertainments they attended during the ensuing months. Like Reggie, young Berry was fond of music; but the type he preferred was the sort that Messrs. Wagner, Grieg, Schubert, and Tschaikowsky wrote. Highbrow stuff, Reggie would have called it, and so it was, in a sense; but Janie liked it, and gradually came to feel that she liked it infinitely better than the syncopated concoctions that Reggie had insisted on— especially when she heard it with good-natured, dependable, appreciative Joe Berry at her side.

And she liked the places to which Joe took her afterward— quaint little resorts off the beaten trail of the city's night life, with which he had come in contact in his newspaper work—places where one could sit and talk and watch the other patrons. She came to like such excursions better than the dances of which Reggie had been so fond.

At the same time, Joe and she sometimes danced, or went to a type of show where Reggie's sort of music carried the major theme. Indeed, there was a broadness to Joe's menu of entertainment, as about Joe himself; but it was restful just to sit at a little table and talk to him, or to have him talk to her of his ambitions and aims. For Joe had aims and ambitions, and after a time Janie came to feel that in the end she might become one of them.

The climax came, as such things so often do, in an unexpected fashion, on a night when they were walking back to her room. There was a rose-colored rug in a show window, and, as usual, Janie sighted it, paused, and exclaimed:

"Look, Joe! Isn't that a lovely rug? The rose-colored one, I mean."

"Mighty pretty," Joseph assented, eying the handsome example of the weaver's art.

"Still, rose fades," said Janie. "Blue would wear better— or green."

Joseph eyed her.

"All the same," he declared, "I like rose the best."

Though she didn't admit it, Janie was suddenly happy. What she had been wanting all along was some one to agree with her inclination, rather than with her more practical judgment.

"And," Mr. Berry continued, in amazing fashion, "there's nothing I'd like better than to have you and a rug like that in a home of my own!"

"Joe!" Janie cried in a whisper; for though a whisper isn't very noisy, it can be almost as tense as a scream.

"J-Janie," stammered Joe, as if a little shaken by his sudden outburst, "I—Janie, I mean it. I— I've been— wanting to tell you— for some time!"

"That you wanted a rose-colored rug?"

Janie dimpled. Womanlike, she was more at home in this sort of thing than the man; but Joe stood his ground.

"And you— in my own house. Everything— rosy!"

"Why, Joe," Janie teased, her pulses singing, "I didn't know you were a marrying man!"

"I'm not," said young Mr. Berry. "I don't expect to be married more than once— to you. I'm crazy about you, Janie! Janie, don't you care— a little bit?"

Janie did. As a matter of fact, she had been caring more and more as time went on. This being the case, she frankly admitted to Joe that she cared not only a little bit, but quite a lot, and that a flat and the rose-colored rug and herself were none of them unattainable dreams.

As a result, by the time she kissed Joe good night, she was once more an engaged as well as an engaging young woman, and the cedar chest straightway became a hope chest again.

iii

JANIE at once began to complete the filling of the chest. This proved a fairly easy task, since, regardless of her opinion as to the partnership quality of marriage, she was all through for the present with the fifty-fifty system. She let Joe pay the freight wherever they went, and confined herself to playing the part of the clinging vine.

And she clung to such good advantage that Joseph, asserting himself in masculine fashion, was perfectly happy; while Janie, realizing how much better suited they were to each other than she and Reggie Harding had been, began to feel that she actually owed Helen a debt of gratitude for having taken Reggie off her hands.

In the end the chest was filled to overflowing, through Janie's being able to use the money she had formerly paid out on the fifty-fifty scheme. One day she went to her employer with the announcement that she had more than once in the past considered making; and her employer frowned before he smiled.

Janie considered that frown as great a tribute as she did his following words:

"Well, Janie, I certainly hope you'll be happy, and I'm mighty sorry to lose you. All I can say is that whoever he is, he's a lucky man. When's it going to happen?"

"Next week." Janie blushed. "I— I could go on working, but Joe— he's my fiancé— would rather I didn't."

"Joe's right," her employer declared. "He has the right idea. I congratulate you both."

Janie thanked him, put on her hat, and went home; and right here is where this story might have ended had she not found Reggie Harding sitting in the boarding house parlor when she arrived.

"Reggie!" she cried.

"I— was— waiting for you, Janie," Mr. Harding said, as he rose. He spoke a little wildly. "I— I've got to see you— to talk to you, Janie. Couldn't we— take a walk?"

Janie considered. She was surprised. Besides, there was something she couldn't fathom in Reggie's face and manner.

"Well, if it's strictly private and confidential, we might walk over to the park and watch the squirrels for a while," she decided at last. "That is, if you aren't— afraid."

"Meanin' I'm a nut, eh?" Reggie remarked, with no indication of resentment. Indeed, he somehow seemed mild, washed out. "Well, maybe you're right. I ain't sayin' you ain't. I'm about done in— just about shot. That's why I had to see you."

"Well, come along, then," Janie prompted, and led the way outside. "How's Helen?" she asked.

"Don't!" said Mr. Harding, in a strangled voice.

Janie knit her brows. The tone of the young man's answer filled her with both speculation and additional surprise; but she kept all that to herself until they had seated themselves on a park bench, with Reggie frowning down at his feet.

"Well?" she said then.

"Eh?" Reggie jerked up his head and turned his face toward Janie. "After all, it's pretty much your fault, you know," he declared.

"What is?" she questioned sharply.

"The whole hash." Reggie drew a long and unsteady breath, and elaborated at length. "It was you that asked her to be your roommate, and introduced her to me. Everything would have been all right if you hadn't done that. As it is, it's a wash-out. I'm fed up. Maybe you're sore. You naturally would be, I guess; but you got your revenge, whether you know it or not. You shoved me up against her, tryin' to save on room rent, just like you was tryin' to teach me to save. You know how the old song goes, don't you, Janie? 'You made me what I am to-day— I hope you're satisfied!'"

"I did?" Janie eyed him. She had an inclination to gasp, for, after what had happened, Reggie's accusation was about the most amazing thing to which she had ever listened in her life; but after a time she contented herself with a deep breath. "Well, I don't know," she went on. "If I really did have a hand in makin' you what you look like right now, I'd say it was a rotten bad job!"

"It is." Mr. Harding nodded. Apparently he missed the point. "It is, Janie— just that— just a rotten bad job. That's why I came to you. We— we've got to patch it up."

"We have?" Janie faltered, a little bewildered.

Though it was easy enough to gather from Reggie's statements that the rosy Helen had proved a thorny proposition to him as well as herself, still she couldn't see just what she could do about it, or why she should do anything at all.

Reggie nodded.

"Why, yes. Helen and I have talked it over and decided that the best thing is to quit. We don't hit it off, so we're goin' to get a divorce. There's places where incompatibility and failure to support are considered cause for that. I'll say we're incompatible, and, as for support, nobody could give that kid all she wants. You ain't like that. You're sort of restful, Janie, and you don't want everything in sight. You like to save; so after Helen and I are divorced, why, you and I'll get married, just like—"

"Married!" This time Janie did gasp. She hardly knew whether to be angry or to laugh, so she gasped, and rose, and stood looking down at Mr. Harding. "You mean you hunted me up to tell me— ask me— to marry you— after all that's—"

"Why, sure!" Mr. Harding also stood up. Apparently he failed to interpret the strangled quality of Janie's voice. He smiled. One might say he smirked. Almost it seemed that he preened himself before her. "I always was fond of you, Janie— you know that, even if I did make a mistake; so if you'll just wait—"

"Wait?" Janie repeated the word, but in a way that gave Mr. Harding pause. She paused until he stood eying her in a less self-confident fashion before she went on: "Listen, Reggie! I could wait from now until doomsday, and I wouldn't marry you then— not if you were the last man on earth!"

"But, Janie," Mr. Harding protested, "I thought you'd understand me. I thought—"

Janie cut him short.

"I know you did. I know what you thought. You thought I'd be delighted; but you're all wrong about that, even if you're right about my understanding you. I understand that you're a quitter. You quit with me, and you want to quit with Helen; but I made a lucky escape, and I'm glad of it. You and Helen really did me a favor, and I can't marry you after you're divorced, or ever, because, you see, I'm engaged."

"You mean there's— somebody else?" Mr. Harding stammered.

"Yes. Does it surprise you?"

There was a twinkle of amusement, almost of malice, in Janie's blue eyes; but Mr. Harding sighed. All at once his voice, his expression, his entire bearing, became disconsolate.

"No," he said. "No, nothing surprises me, Janie— not now, I guess. It's just— just another illustration of the inconsistency— the injustice of— your sex. You introduce me to her—fling temptation into my path—and then, when I stumble, you won't give me a chance to— to—"

Janie Garns lost her temper.

"I'll give you just about a minute to take yourself away from here," she interrupted, "and then— I'll call a cop!"

For a moment Reggie studied her face, and then, as one who wakes from a dream to a stern reality, he sighed again and walked off.

Janie watched him fade out of her life, and walked home and telephoned Joe Berry.

"Oh, Joe dear!" she said, when he answered. "I just wanted to tell you that I've decided to buy the rose-colored rug!"

End

Table of Contents

1: The Talking-Out of Tarrington / "Saki"

2: A Midnight Burlesque / James Francis Dwyer

3: The Woman With The Wolves / Bertram Atkey

4: Time Works Wonders / E. M. Delafield

5: Patricia Jackson's Pearl Necklace / Gilbert Frankau

6: Strictly Private / Frederick Ames Coates

7: The Doctor's Luck / Reginald Bacchus

8: The Story of a Long Watch / Ernest Favenc

9: Mirrors / Roy W Hinds

10: Ragan in Ruins / Bertram Atkey

11: Lady of Lyons, N. Y. / H. C. Witwer

12: The Bandaged Foot / James Francis Dwyer

13: Lady Clanbevan's Baby / Richard Dehan

14: The House by the River / George Arthur Walstab

15: Florence Flannery / Marjorie Bowen

16: A Steam-Room Fracas / Hartridge D. Tyler

17: The Murdered Ships / James Francis Dwyer

18: Never Hire a Killer Laurence Donovan

19: The Rose-Colored Rug / J. U. Giesy