Author: Various
Date: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00
Description: Another 100,000 word anthology of short fiction gathered from newspapers, magazines and long out-of-print books, from a variety of authors from unknown to well-known. 1: Jan Verbeeck's Profession / Albert Payson Terhune 2: Mellicent / Richard Dehan 3: The Black Fox Skin / Hesketh Prichard 4: The Quest / P. C. Wren 5: One Born Every Minute / Peter Cheyney 6: The Pearls of Jacob Le Maire / Frank Reid 7: Snapragon and Ghost / Ethel Lina White 8: Kali / Eric Taylor 9: The Mad Detective / John D. Swain 10: The Adventure of the Diamond Necklace / George. F. Forrest 11: The Spectre Lovers / Sheridan

PAST MASTERS 135

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

23 August 2023

Contents

1: Jan Verbeeck's Profession / Albert Payson Terhune

2: Mellicent / Richard Dehan

3: The Black Fox Skin / Hesketh Prichard

4: The Quest / P. C. Wren

5: One Born Every Minute / Peter Cheyney

6: The Pearls of Jacob Le Maire / Frank Reid

7: Snapragon and Ghost / Ethel Lina White

8: Kali / Eric Taylor

9: The Mad Detective / John D. Swain

10: The Adventure of the Diamond Necklace / George. F. Forrest

11: The Spectre Lovers / Sheridan Le Fanu

12: One Year / "Waif Wander"

13: Japanese Sandman / Norbert Davis

14: The Yellow Angel / James Francis Dwyer

15: The Midnight Express / L. McQuaid

16: Kiss of the Flame Blossom / Donald Dale

17: Caterpillars / E. F. Benson

18: Where The Butterflies Come From / William Hay

19: The Woman in the Veil / ‌E. F. Benson

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1: Jan Verbeeck's Profession

Albert Payson Terhune

1872-1942

Queenslander 17 Dec 1904

Albert Payson Terhune

NOW, this is the true version of the Verbeek-Garth affair, told me in an hour of post-prandial confidence by Phil Barrett, the only outsider who had the faintest knowledge of the facts. Here is the story as he told it:

WE WERE at Mrs. Garth's big house party at Asbury Park. Some of us were for the weekend, others for a fortnight. It was a jolly crowd— the kind that the Garths always attract. The centre of attraction being, of course, Phyllis Garth. To my certain knowledge, at least three of the men there were hopelessly in love with Phyllis. She's the sort of girl one falls in love with, you know. The sort of girl with honest, level eyes, and something behind them.

Murchison was fairly maudlin in his devotion. You know Murchison? Old family, lots of money, deadly respectable, Mayflower brand, and all that sort of thing. He'd known Phyllis for years. I'm told he was in the habit of proposing to her every six months. Once when the day came around he was sick in bed, so that he sent his man to do it. I don't vouch for that.

Mrs. Garth favoured him, and between them they'd pretty near got poor Phyllis going, when Verbeeck turned up.

I think you said you'd met him ones or twice? Then you'll remember what a good-looking, well-groomed chap he was, and how naturally he carried that quiet air of breeding. It seemed a part of him.

He was never known to say or do the wrong thing, and his manners and general presence made old Murchison look like a ploughboy. Verbeeck dressed well, lived well, and always had plenty of money. He was a Wall-street man. From his name— Jan Verbeeck— we gathered he was of Dutch birth or descent; but as he never talked about himself, none of us gleaned any very important information on the subject. It was enough that he had somehow won his way into a good set, and that he had breeding. His antecedents were no especial business of ours. We were willing to accept him on his face value.

Whether or not Phyllis Garth had inquired more deeply than the rest of us I don't know. At any rate such information as he had vouchsafed evidently more than satisfied her.

But it didn't satisfy Murchison: He had seen the previous winter how matters were going between Phyllis and Verbeeck; and he had turned apoplectic when he learned that Verbeeck was to be one of the house party at Asbury.

As for myself, I'd gladly have laid at her feet my fair young heart and the princely 25 dollars a week I earn as head clerk for Rkt and Breel's law firm. But I couldn't see that she had placed any unusual premium on my cardiac organ, and my weekly twenty-five would have barely kept her in shoes and gloves. So, as I didn't care to be a mere 'also ran',  or to have my name misspelled as 'among those present,' I dropped out of the race and looked on from a comfortable seat on the grandstand. I regarded her as a poor man might a five-carat diamond— something to admire, even to covet, but as several miles beyond his financial reach.

Well, this isn't a personal reminiscence of the breaking of a law clerk's battered heart, so I'll get back to the main issue. I only threw in that bit of autobiography to show you what a singularly splendid, self-sacrificing nature mine is.

Murchison, Verbeeck and I stayed on at the Garths after most of the other guests had left. We went up to New York every morning to work, coming back in the afternoon. Murchison was a corporation lawyer, and Verbeeck, as I said, was something or other in Wall-street. You see, I was travelling in a high-priced crowd.

ONE EVENING we all went for a stroll along the beach. There was a moon and a wholesale exhibition of marine effects, and an atmosphere of sentimentality. I got paired off with an elderly lady who confided to me that shooting pains in the corns always presage rain. Phyllis Garth and Verbeeck managed to lose the rest of us, and Murchison was forced to walk with a lovely girl who giggled at everything he said, and squealed whenever a wave washed higher up the beach than usual.

We caught up with the two runaways just as we reached the house, and there was enough moonlight left to show me Phyllis' face. Say! I felt as if I were in church. Murchison saw her face, too, and he looked as if he were in a bourn where churches are not in vogue.

I was sitting alone on the veranda that night smoking a good-night pipe, when Verbeeck joined me.

'I don't want to butt in, old man,' I said, 'but I'd like to shake hands with you and tell you what a gold mine of luck you've struck to-night.'

He gripped my hand for all he was worth, and tried to say something. I understood.

Before I could get organised for any further flights of congratulatory rhetoric, Murchison came out on the veranda.

'Miss Garth has just told me, Verbeeck,' he said in a wabbly sort of voice, 'and I may as well let you know I told her she'd made a fool of herself. I told her she knew nothing about you, about your family, or about your finances. I—'

'Very good of you, I'm sure,' answered Verbeeck, rising and preparing to go in. 'I'm glad my affairs interest you so much. Good-night.'

'One minute!' interrupted Murchison, stepping close to him and speaking so low I could hardly hear; 'Miss Garth knows nothing about you, but I do. I tell you this to give you a chance to release that poor girl while there is—'

'Pardon my mentioning it,' interrupted Verbeeck politely, 'but the liquor on your breath is not pleasant to inhale at close quarters. It seems to have gone to your brain, too, if you'll permit me to say so. Good-night, Barrett.'

Murchison stood staring after him for a moment. I expected to near a melodramatic curse at the very least. But in a minute a smile crept over his fat face. It was not a pretty smile to look at. It suggested poison in the tea and all that sort of pleasantry.

I don't remember whether it was the second or the third morning after this that Phyllis and her mother ran up to New York for the day. I knew Verbeeck bad gone to town by the first train, and the rest of us were following on the 9.10, when Murchison sprang the following proposition:—

'Miss Garth, you say you have nothings especial to do until afternoon. Why not let your mother attend to her shopping alone this morning? Neither Mr. Barrett nor I are very busy to-day. Let us take you down to Wall-street and give you a glimpse of the Stock Exchange, and all the rest of the sights there. You know,' he added in a ponderous attempt at pleasantry, 'you really ought to begin to learn a little something about that part of the world.'

Clumsy, as this, witticism was,, it was evidently the clinching argument. Phyllis knew that Verbeeck was on Wall-street; and the chance of seeing his daily surroundings,  of perhaps seeing him in person in the Stock Exchange, was too strong a temptation for a newly-engaged girl to resist.

86 it was agreed that we three were to spend the morning exploiting the intricacies of Wall-street, while Mr. Garth enjoyed a solitary orgy of shopping. We were all to .meet, for luncheon and catch an early afternoon train back to Asbury Park.

It was a hot day, and I groaned in spirit at the prospect of floating about the money-grabbing districts with a girl in tow. I knew it would be a case of 'seeing New York' on foot minus the megaphone. But I was her mother's guest, and, besides, she was the One Best Girl. So I stood for it.

I wasn't bothered with explaining many things. Murchison took charge of the expedition from the start. You ought to have heard that man. If you'd put red covers on him you could never have told him apart from Baedeker. He'd stop in the middle of the sidewalk wherever the crowd was thickest and begin to expatiate on the history of some measly grey building and point out some hurrying person as a prominent Wall-street magnate and give his biography at full length.We tagged along after him up the street. I don't know which of his victims was then worse bored.

As we reached the corner of Broad and Wall streets Murchison paused again. This time I nearly wept, as we were in front of Morgan's bank, and just across the street was the Sub-Treasury. I felt that this double attraction meant at least an hour's lecture. But I was destined to be disappointed.

'There's a Wall-street character you mustn't miss seeing, Miss Garth,' declaimed Murchison, pointing through the interstice in the crowd to a niche beside the Wall-street front of the Drexel Building.  'That old blind sailor man has sat there begging for years. Wall-street has adopted him. The police never molest himn There he sits all day, pretending to sell pencils and exchanging the cleverest line of repartee with any one who'll stop to speak to him. He has his regular patrons— hundreds of them— and many a man who has just made a big coup tosses a fifty or even a hundred dollar bill into his cup. The neighbourhood is a paradise for clever beggars, and the police give him a monopoly. The Wall-street folk are almost superstitious about the luck they think he brings them.'

By this time the crowd parted enough for us to draw nearer. There, in the niche, sat an old man in shabby blue clothes. A fringe of white beard covered his chin and stray white hairs stuck out from under his torn sailor cap. A pair of huge smoked glasses protected his eyes. He was exchanging badinage of some sort with a well-dressed man who had just dropped a dollar in his cup. The donor laughed and passed on. We drew nearer, and Phyllis fumbled in her purse for some money.

'Well, old seadog!' cried Murchison with hectic geniality, 'how goes it this hot day?'

'I don't recall your face, friend,' rejoined the beggar without turning his head, 'but your manner's very familiar.'

As the old sailor spoke he raised his face. We had drawn near as he was speaking, and were standing just in front of him. At that instant Murchison stumbled forward violently, as though some one in the passing crowd-had collided with him. Missing his footing, he threw out both hands, clutching wildly to regain his balance.

One of his outstretched hands caught the beggar by the beard, the other by the cap. In that single wrench, beard, cap, white locks, and glasses all came away.

There before us, in rags, his face daubed with grease paint and stain, but still perfectly recognisable, crouched Jan Verbeeck! I was too busy collecting my own paralysed wits to look at Phyllis Garth. I wouldn't have looked at her, anyway. Verbeeck never moved or looked up

Murchison was talking rapidly, loudly, triumphantly.

'One of the sights of Wall-street!' he declaimed jeeringly. 'They say he makes 8,000 dollars a year here. I learned his identity by chance last week, and arranged this excursion.  You'll thank me one day. I—"

'Wait!' she commanded— and, say! she was great. 'I understand your ruse perfectly, Mr. Murchison, and I apprehend it at its true value. But I want you and Mr. Barrett both to witness what I am, going to say.'

She faced Verbeeck, and her voice softened.

'Jan,' she said gently, 'You did me the honour to ask me to be your wife. I want you to know I stand ready to marry you whenever you wish. I love you.'

That was all. But Jan Verbeeck looked as if every word, was a drop of white-hot lead poured on his face. Twice he tried to speak. Then he said, very quietly:

'Good-bye.'

Phyllis looked at him for a full minute. She seemed to have read the finality of his farewell, for at last she said:

'Mr. Barrett, won't you please take me uptown now?'

A WALL-STREET chum of mine tells me the Blind Sailor (as the famous beggar was always called) was never seen again in that district. Neither was Jan Verbeeck ever seen again by any of his former friends. Phyllis Garth? Why, last spring she married Murchison, of course. What else did you expect, anyhow?

_____________

2: Mellicent

Richard Dehan

Clotilde Graves, 1863-1932

The Cost of Wings and Other Stories, 1914

Clotilde August Inez Mary Graves

"HAPPY is the corpse, they say, that the rain rains on," observed Mr. Popham, "but knowing his rheumatic nature, I could have wished him a drier day. However, we must take what comes, and it's curious that what comes is generally what one would have preferred to be without. Life is very like a switchback railway," continued Mr. Popham. "Now you're up, a-looking down upon other human beings; and now you're down a-looking up at 'em. And similarly your fellow-creatures as regards you. It's a curious reflection that I shan't ever measure out his colchicum again; or soothe the morning twinges in his knees and elbers with a lithia lollipop in a glass of warm water; or hear him swear when I tighten his straps and buckles; or fetch and carry his wigs between this and the hairdresser's in Regent Place. Who do those wigs belong to now? Yesterday his coffin, an extra-sized, double oak casket, metal-lined, with plated handles and silver name-plate, stood in there!" He jerked his head at the double doors leading into the bedroom. "This morning we accompanied him to Woking Cemetery. This afternoon they are a-reading of the Will in Portland Place, and Odlett gave me his solemn word that John Henry shouldn't remove his ear from the library keyhole without finding out whether a little bit on account of faithful services rendered hadn't been left to Frederick T. Popham, valet to the above. For he promised to leave me something all along, and almost with his last breath, 'I haven't forgotten you, Popham,' says he. 'You've been remembered, you'll find, in the Will.' And... Lord! Was that you? What a turn you gave me, Miss Mellicent!"

"Why, you're quite nervous, Mr. Popham, sir," said Miss Mellicent.

Miss Mellicent had bumped at the door with the end of a coal-scuttle, and now apologized, bringing it in. Miss Mellicent was a thin person of some thirty London summers, dressed in a worn black gown with stray threads sticking out where crape had been ripped off. Her hair would have been a nice brown if it had been less dusty, her gray eyes were timid and kind, and her dingy pale face had a look of belated girlhood— was sometimes quite transfigured into prettiness when she smiled.

"I'll own I am a little unlike myself," agreed Mr. Popham. "Perhaps it's his luggage all ready in a pile near the door, as if we were off to a foreign Spa within the next five minutes, or going down to Helsham to stop in his usual rooms in the south wing. Perhaps it's his going off so sudden in quite a mild attack. Perhaps it's the strain of the funeral this morning, perhaps it's sympathy for Sir George and the family, perhaps it's a little anxiety on my own account! I know what he had, and I've my notions as to how he's disposed of it! The likeliest way to bring about a lawsuit and get it into Chancery would be his way, bless you! The embroilingest way; the way to bring about the greatest amount of jealousy and bitterness; the way to cost the most to all concerned and bring about the smallest return in the way of satisfaction and profit to 'em, would be the way he'd give the preference to over all. And if he was a-listening to me at this minute," said Mr. Popham, with a slight uncomfortable glance toward the folding doors that led into the bedroom— "and I'm sure I hope he's better employed!— he'd own I've done him no more than justice!"

"The many years I've known General Bastling," said Miss Mellicent, "and it's going on for twenty that he's lodged with us four months in each twelvemonth— I've never asked or cared to know. Was he a rich gentleman?"

"Why, I should call him pretty snug at that," said Mr. Popham. "Ten thousand in Home Rails; a pretty little nest-egg of five thousand in Government Three per Cents; a matter of sixteen hundred invested in the Chillianmugger Anthracite Mining Company; and a nice little bit of loose cash in the current account at Cox's. That's what I've my eye on, to tell you the truth; and I don't think it's unnatural or greedy."

"I would never believe you selfish or money-seeking," said Miss Mellicent, folding her hard-worked red hands upon her worn stuff apron, "not if an Angel was to come down out of the stained-glass window in church— I sit under it on a Sunday evening sometimes, when I'm not wanted at home— and tell me so!"

"I hope I'm not naturally more of a groveler than other men in my situation— my late situation— would be," returned Mr. Popham. "But forty odd is getting on in years, and I'm reluctant at my time of life to go looking for another middle-aged gentleman to valet. The young ones are too harum-scarum and given to late hours for a man like me; and if they weren't, they'd be unnatural phenomenons. A nice little inn in a country town, with a decentish bar custom and a solid bottle-and-jug department, and a cold lunch in the coffee-room on market-days, would suit me; with Hunt, Harriers, Freemasons, and Friendly Societies' dinners to cater for; and a private understanding with a few gamekeepers anxious to promote their own interests in a quiet, unassuming way— the guards of the late and early Expresses— and one or two West End poulterers and greengrocers as I have met in what I might call the butterfly stage of my existence, when I wore silk stockings and livery, floured my hair regular, wore a bookay on Levée and Drawing-Room days, and would as soon have eaten cold joint or cleaned the carriage as taken up coals. And why I haven't relieved you of the scuttle before this, is a question between me and my conscience. Let me take it and put it down. It won't be the first time, if it is the last, will it?"

"Don't, Mr. Popham, sir!" pleaded Miss Mellicent; "don't speak in that downhearted way." Her red hands plucked at a corner of her dingy stuff apron, her gray eyes were already pink about the rims. Tears rose in them. She coughed and swallowed nervously.

"The Bastling Arms is the name of that there little inn," said Mr. Popham. "The sign is the same as the crest on his notepaper and his seal-ring and the lock of that despatch-box." He pointed to the despatch-box crowning the pile of solid, well-used, much be-labeled portmanteaux and imperials that occupied the corner near the door of the room— a comfortably furnished, rather dingy second-floor apartment in a quiet street above, and running parallel with, Oxford Circus. "The landlord died the day before yesterday— as if to oblige or aggravate me, I don't know which!— and the widow, knowing my ambitions, dropped me a postcard to inform. Three hundred is wanted for the lease, stock, and goodwill, and fifty for the furniture, stable and yard-effects. A bargain, Miss Mellicent, if I only had the money! But as it goes, I'm a hundred and fifty short— unless John Henry's ear is tingling at this moment with tidings of comfort and joy. Now, what do you mean by lighting a fire as if I wanted coddling, when you've a dozen people to look after, if you've one?"

Miss Mellicent was down on her knees at the old-fashioned grate, laying a fire. She struck a match and lighted the kindling, and, though it was mid-June, the bright blaze was welcome in the dingy sitting-room, whose window-panes streamed with torrents of rain.

"The gentlemen are all out but the third-floor front," she said, "and when the rain began, and I thought of you sitting up here in the dim light alone, it seemed as if I might do this much to make things cheerfuller. For you've done so much for me ever since I came here"— her red and blackened knuckles went up to her pink-rimmed eyes— "you always done so much for me!"

"For you, my dear soul!" ejaculated Mr. Popham, with circular eyes. "You make too much of things, Miss Mellicent!"

"That's one of 'em," cried grateful Mellicent, turning upon him a thin, blushing face down which two tears openly trickled. "You've called me 'Miss Mellicent' from the first. From the time I came here to Mr. and Mrs. Davis, an orphan, ten years old, in my cheap black frock, made out of the skirt of poor mother's mourning for poor father, you've always called me 'Miss.' It helped me, somehow; just as your carrying up the heavy cans of hot water and the coals did."

"You was a bright-eyed, grateful little mouse, too," said Mr. Popham retrospectively, "and many's the time I've had it in my mind to speak to Mr. and Mrs. Davis about their driving a little thing like you so hard. They're past driving now, that's one comfort! It's years since I've set eyes on either of 'em, now I come to think of it!"

"It's years!" Mellicent echoed in a slightly bewildered way. "Why of course it would be years!"

"She was a mountain, was the venerable lady, and the old gentleman was a mere lath," said Mr. Popham meditatively. "He used to answer the letters we wrote year by year, season in and season out, from the family seat at Helsham, from the Engadine, Aix, or Ems, Paris, or the Riviera, to say we were coming on such a day. Ten years ago the writing of the letters changed to a feminine hand— and since then I haven't seen him."

"Why— don't you know— he died?" said Mellicent.

"Did he really?" cried Mr. Popham. "Well, it was like him to keep it so quiet, and like the old lady, too. Reminds me— I haven't set eyes on her for a matter of five year and over!"

"Oh dear, Mr. Popham! she's dead too!" gasped Mellicent in distress.

"She'd be pleased to know how little we've missed her, I know," responded Mr. Popham cheerfully. "Now, quite between ourselves, Miss Mellicent, since for the first time since I've known you we're indulging in a confidential conversation— who's carrying on the house?"

"Don't you know? No— you've never asked or thought to ask in all these years," returned Mellicent. "The person who carries on the house is— not quite— but I suppose she would be called so— a lady!"

"And very sensibly she manages," approved Mr. Popham, "in keeping out of the way and letting you do it for her. And a nice income she makes, I'll be bound! Why, the house has never been empty since first I come here. Old gentlemen with ample means on every floor, toddling out to their clubs when their various complaints permit, and dining at home— and dining comfortably, too— when they don't. Such a polish on the boots, such a crispness of the breakfast bacon, such a flavor about the coffee and the curries, such a tenderness about the joints, such a dryness about the daily newspaper, and such an absence of over-statement about the total of the weekly bill as, with all my experience, I've never found elsewhere. And all owing to You! If your modesty allowed you to think over yourself for one moment— which I truly believe you've never done since you were born— you'd admit, Miss Mellicent— that you're a wonder!"

"Oh! do you truly mean it?" she cried, with her heart upon her lips.

"I do," answered Mr. Popham, with warmth. "And if the present proprietor of the lodgings wasn't a lady— and knew what was good for him— he'd—"

"Oh no! No, Mr. Popham, sir, no! He wouldn't. No one could ever think of me in such a way!" Her red and blackened hands went up to the piteous, quivering face, and her lean bosom heaved behind the meager bib of her scorched stuff apron. "Never!"

"Tell me now, upon your honor," Mr. Popham pressed. "Haven't you never looked at nobody in that way yourself?"

Miss Mellicent fairly writhed and shuddered with nervousness. But she laughed, looking away from Mr. Popham and into the old-fashioned but handsome glass over the mantelshelf, in which, within an Early Victorian frame of fly-spotted gilding, the reflection of Mr. Popham's alert, well-featured, respectable profile and her own poor, wistful face appeared together.

"If you won't ask me no more— yes, then! but he never dreamed o' me!"

"More shame for him!" asseverated Mr. Popham stoutly. "Why, what a put-upon young woman you are, Miss Mellicent! Since you were ten years old, I do verily believe you've never had a pleasure, never had a present, never had a friend, never had an outing— no more than you've had a sweetheart."

"Ah, but," she cried, with a happy laugh, "I have had a friend! You've been my friend, haven't you? And I have had pleasure in knowing that. And I've had an outing— twice. Once Uncle Davis took me to the World's Fair— it was my twelfth birthday— and once, two years later, you treated me to the pantomime."

"Did I? And uncommon generous and considerate it was of me, I must say, to have done that much for you, you poor little neglected, lonely creature!" uttered the remorseful Mr. Popham.

"I never forgot it," Mellicent cried, with beaming eyes. "The glory and the splendor, the living roses and the talking animals and the shining fairies, and you to explain it all and be so kind. I never forgot it! Who could?"

"Why, I'm beginning to remember something about it myself!" said Mr. Popham, clearing. "We partook of a dozen oysters and some shandy-gaff at a fish-bar on the way home. According to present views, we ought to have shaken carbolic powder over that shellfish instead of pepper, and washed it down with Condy's Fluid; but, being behind the present times, we enjoyed ourselves."

"Didn't we!" Mellicent clapped her hands. "I have gone back to that beautiful evening in memory hundreds and hundreds of times! It has helped me through such a lot of hard things— for things are hard sometimes. Sometimes, when you aren't here, and there isn't no one to speak to on the stairs, and the gentlemen are over-particular about their boots and changeable about the hours for their meals, things get the better of me to that extent that I scream and run!"

"Scream and run, do you?" said the puzzled Mr. Popham. "And how do you do it? Or do you do it without knowing how, eh?"

"I shriek out loud and hear myself as though my voice came from a long way off," said Mellicent, opening her large eyes, "and then my feet begin to run. I scream, and I run screaming up to the little top attic I slept in when I came here as a child, where my old rag doll is still, and mother's patchwork counterpane covers the truckle-bed. And I hide my head in that, and cry myself quiet and patient again!"

"And Lord have mercy on your lonely little soul!" cried Mr. Popham. "Patient you are, and that's the truth!" He took the knotty red hand and held it in both of his for an instant, looking at the downcast face. "But don't scream and run any more. It isn't good for you!"

"I haven't screamed and runned for quite a long time now," she answered. "But"— her poor lips trembled— "I think I shall when you are gone for good."

"Nonsense, nonsense!" Mr. Popham squeezed the red hand and dropped it gently. "I'll come and see you from time to time."

"And leave your little country inn?" said Mellicent, trying to smile. "You won't be able!"

"I could leave the landlady in charge," suggested Mr. Popham. "Stop, though, a landlady is the kind of article that doesn't go with the furniture and fixtures. I shall have to look out for her myself." His face changed. "Upon my word I shall!"

"I know the kind you'll choose," sighed Miss Mellicent. "And the best won't be good enough for you, Mr. Popham. She must be young and fair and plump and rosy and blue-eyed, with golden curls like the Fairy Queen in that pantomime, or the lovely dolls I see in the shop windows when I'm out buying meat and groceries for the gentlemen. And her hands must be as white and soft as mine are red and hard. And—"

"Don't cry, my dear!" begged Mr. Popham. He stooped over her as she hid her flaming cheeks in the hard-worked hands. "You have pretty hair, Miss Mellicent," he said, with a sensation of surprise at the discovery.

"I've been turning out rooms," she sobbed, "and it's full of dust!"

"And you'd have a pretty figure," said Mr. Popham, now embarked upon a career of discovery, "if you took the trouble to pull 'em in. And you're young— barely thirty— and I'm ten years older. And you're a first-class double extra A1. housekeeper, cook, and manager. See here! Give the lady proprietor a month's notice, and come and be landlady of the Bastling Arms at Helsham!"

"You— you're not in earnest?"

She faced him, quivering, transfigured, panting.

"Ain't I?" remarked Mr. Popham simply. "Say 'Yes,' Miss Mellicent, give me a kiss, and we shall both begin to believe it. Run and change your dress, and we'll call a cab and make another evening of it, and if the Alhambra ballet won't do as well as the pantomime, under the present circumstances, I shall be surprised! There's John Henry's knock at the hall-door. He brings good news, or it wouldn't be such a loud one. It takes the girl ten minutes to get up the kitchen stairs; she's a born crawler, if ever there was one, and I've a fancy I should like you to let the boy in— if you've no objection?"

"Oh, no, no!" she cried gladly, and flashed out of the room.

"She's wonderfully nimble on her feet," mused Mr. Popham; "and though I've never seen 'em to my knowledge, I shouldn't mind putting a bit on the chance of their being pretty ones. Lord! I seem in for discoveries to-day. Come in, John Henry!"

But it was not John Henry, but the butler from Portland Place.

"Odlett! Well, this is kind; and you with such an objection to getting your feet damp!" Mr. Popham shook the large dough-colored hand of Mr. Odlett until the butler secured the member from further assault by putting it into his pocket.

"The boy was wanted to go upon an errand," explained Mr. Odlett, in the voice of the description known as rich. "And as a friend!"— his smile creased his large pale cheeks, and caused the temporary disappearance of his small twinkling eyes— "as a friend, no more port being wanted for the party in the library, I thought I'd come and put you out of your misery!"

"That was uncommon kind of you, Odlett!" breathed the acutely-anxious Mr. Popham. He wiped his brow, and fixed an intense gaze on the particular feature from which intelligence might be expected.

"The boy did his duty faithful from first to last," said Mr. Odlett, selecting a chair and carefully separating his coat-tails as a preliminary to sitting down; "and when he laughed, 'ad the presence of mind to drop his 'ead to the level of the library door mat, consequently it was supposed to be the pug a-sneezing!"

"Well," gasped Mr. Popham. "Well?"

"The Will come up to our fondest expectations," continued Mr. Odlett. "Sir George, who never shoots, 'ave the General's old saloon-pistols and sporting Mantons, and Bell's Life and the Army Gazette for twenty year back. Mr. Roderick is left the Chinese and Indian curiosities on condition of his dusting 'em hisself regularly. My Lady 'ave ten pounds to purchase a mourning-ring, provided she'll undertake to wear it; the young ladies ditto; and the money—"

"The money—" choked Mr. Popham.

"The money, with the exception of several smaller legacies, goes, with the consent of the Mayor and Corporation of Helsham, to purchase and lay out a Public Park for the people in memory of the Testator. There's to be a mausoleum in the middle of it, in which his crematory urn is to be kep', and a bandstand at each end, because he always loved to see people cheerful about him. Also, he bequeaths to Miss Mellicent Davis, at his lodgings in Margaret Place, five guineas and a set of ivory chessmen; and to his old and valued friend, William Odlett, which is me, the sum of two hundred pounds. He adds, he hopes I'll drink myself to death on it, inside of a month; but he always was a playful old gentleman. No— you're not forgotten!"

Mr. Popham wiped his brow with an air of relief.

"You're not forgotten— which ought to be a consolation to you!" repeated Mr. Odlett, creasing all over with a vast, comprehensive smile. "You're to 'ave his walking-sticks, clothes, wigs, the rugs and plaids, and the spare set of teeth, hoping you'll always have something to employ 'em on. I came over a-purpose to tell you; you're so fond of a joke, Popham."

"I don't deny it," said the crushed and disappointed Mr. Popham; "but where the humor of this one is, hang me if I know!"

"You'll see by-and-by," said Mr. Odlett consolingly. "When you've 'ad time to think it over. Meanwhile I'll stand a couple of whiskies hot. A man don't come into two hundred, cool, every day, and this windfall is particularly welcome. You know Madgell, the landlord of the Bastling Arms at Helsham, is gone over to the majority?"

Mr. Popham nodded a pale face.

"The lease, stock, goodwill, and fixtures of that pleasant little 'ouse is to be 'ad for what I call a song. And I'm going— in a week or so, when I've laid my hand secure on this here little legacy— to pop in and settle down. Plummer, the cook, a plump and capable young woman, 'ave expressed her willingness to be the landlady. I did suppose she had had a bit of an understanding with you. But she's quite come round my way since the reading of the will, and I thought you'd like to know it!"

"You're uncommon considerate," said the rasped and tingling Mr. Popham, "but I've made arrangements elsewhere."

"Perhaps the Other One will change her mind when she finds out you're diddled in your expectations!" said the comforting Mr. Odlett, shaking hands heartily. "Good-night. I shan't hear of you coming to the door!"

But Mr. Popham did come, and slammed it behind the departing form of Mr. Odlett with great heartiness.

"Damn his wigs and walking-sticks!" he said in the murky passage, "and his spare teeth as well! A nice Job's comforter, Odlett! 'Perhaps she'll change her mind when she knows you've been diddled in your expectations.' Beg pardon, Miss Mellicent, I didn't see you were there! You're not hurt, are you?"

"Only by your thinking I could change!" said Miss Mellicent, with a sob.

The ground-floor sitting-room door stood ajar; the room was unoccupied. Mr. Popham led Miss Mellicent in, turned up one of the blackened incandescent gas-jets, and stood petrified at the sight its hissing white glare revealed.

"A gray silk gown, trimmed with real lace, and a gold chain!" cried the bewildered Mr. Popham. "A diamond brooch, as I'm a living sinner! and an opera-mantle and kid gloves and a fan! And your pretty brown hair done up quite tastefully, and your eyes a-shining over the roses in your cheeks! What's done it? Who's responsible for it? How did it come about?"

If she had been less shy of him, she would have answered in two words, "Through love!" But she only faltered:

"I'm so glad you think I look a bit nice in them. They— they belonged to poor Aunt Davis, and I've had 'em altered to fit. She— she left them to me when she died!"

"And handed over the lodging-house and furniture to the present lady proprietor," observed Mr. Popham, searching in his trouser pocket for a cab whistle, "whom I don't happen to know by sight."

"Oh, yes, you do!" Miss Mellicent's blush and smile made quite a pretty little face of hers, and Mr. Popham boldly kissed it on the spot. "Oh yes, you do, for she's me! I should say, I am her! Law bless you, dear Mr. Popham, I didn't mean to startle you like that! Who cares about your being left a lot of old clothes and wigs instead of a sum of money— though you deserved it, true and faithful as you was to him that's gone! Haven't I plenty for both? And landlord of the Bastling Arms you shall be to-morrow, if you've set your heart on it! and we shall be late for the beautiful sights at the theater if you don't whistle for a taxicab."

"Life is certainly a switchback!" said Mr. Popham, as he breathed and trilled alternately on the damp doorstep. "Now you're down a-lookin' up at your fellow-mortals, and now you're up, a-lookin' down upon 'em!... We'll have a bit of supper at that very fish-bar, if it's still in existence, on our way home, carefully drawing the line at oysters as risky and uncertain articles of diet for two middle-aged people about to enter upon the duties and privileges of married life!"

__________________

3: The Black Fox Skin

Hesketh Prichard

1876–1922

Pearson’s Magazine Sep 1912

Hesketh Vernon Hesketh-Prichard

The third in a series of eight "November Joe" short stories published in Pearson's in 1912.

YOU MUST UNDERSTAND that from this time on, my association with November Joe was not continuous but fitful, and that after the events I have just written down I went back to Quebec, where I became once more immersed in my business. Of Joe I heard from time to time, generally by means of smudged letters obviously written from camp and usually smelling of wood smoke. It was such a letter, which, in the following year, caused me once more to seek November. It ran as follows:

'Mr Quaritch, Sir, last week I was up to Widdeney Pond and I see a wonderful red deer buck. I guess he come out of the thick Maine woods to take the place o' that fella you shot there last fall. This great fella has had a accident to his horns or something for they come of his head thick and stunted-like and all over little points. Them horns would look fine at the top of the stairs in your house to Quebec, so come and try for them. I'll be down to Mrs Harding's Friday morning so as I can meet you if you can come. There's only three moose using round here, two cows, and a mean little fella of a bull.'

This was the letter which caused me to seek Mrs Harding's, but owing to a slight accident to the rig I was driven up in, I arrived late to find that November had gone up to a neighbouring farm on some business, leaving word that should I arrive I was to start for his shack and that he would catch me up on the way.

I walked forward during the greater part of the afternoon when, in trying a short cut through the woods, I lost my bearings and I was glad enough to hear Joe's hail behind me.

'Struck your trail 'way back,' said he, 'and followed it up as quick as I could.'

'Have you been to Harding's?'

'No. I struck straight across from Simmons's. O' course I guessed it were probably you, but even if I hadn't known you was coming I'd 'a been certain you didn't know the country and was town-bred.'

'How?'

'You paused wherever there were crossroads, and had a look at your compass.'

'How do you know I did that?' I demanded again; for I had consulted my compass several times, though I could not see what had made Joe aware of the fact.

'You stood it on a log once at Smith's Clearing and again on that spruce stump at the Old Lumber Camp. And each time you shifted your direction.'

I laughed. 'Did you know anything else about me?' I asked.

'Knew you carried a gun, and was wonderful fresh from the city.'

In answer to my laugh Joe continued:

'Twice you went off the road after them two deer you saw, your tracks told me that. And you stepped in under that pine when that little drop o' rain fell. There wasn't enough of it to send a man who'd been a day in the woods into shelter. But I have always noticed how wonderful scared the city makes a man o' a drop o' clean rain-water.'

'Anything else?'

'Used five matches to light your pipe. Struck 'em on a wore-out box. Heads come off, too. That don't happen when you have a new scraper to your box.'

'I say, Joe, I shouldn't like to have you on my trail if I'd committed a crime.'

Joe smiled a singularly pleasant smile. 'I guess I'd catch you all right,' said he.

It was long after dark when we reached November's shack that evening. As he opened the door he displaced something white which lay just inside it. He stooped.

'It's a letter,' he said in surprise as he handed it to me. 'What does it say, Mr Quaritch?'

I read it aloud. It ran:

I am in trouble, Joe. Somebody is robbing my traps. When you get home, which I pray will be soon, come right over.

S. Rone

'The skunk!' cried November.

I had never seen him so moved. He had been away hunting for three days and returned to find this message.

'The darned skunk,' he repeated, 'to rob her traps!'

'Her? A woman?'

'S. Rone stands for Sally Rone. You've sure heard of her?'

'No, who is she?'

'I'll tell you,' said Joe. 'Sal's a mighty brave girl – that is, she's a widow. She was married on Rone four years ago last Christmas, and the autumn after he got his back broke to the Red Star Lumber Camp. Didn't hump himself quick enough from under a falling tree. Anyway, he died all right, leaving Sally just enough dollars to carry her over the birth of her son. To make a long story short, there was lots of the boys ready to fill dead man Rone's place when they knew her money must be giving out, and the neighbours were wonderful interested to know which Sal would take. But it soon come out that Sal wasn't taking any of them, but had decided to try what she could do with the trapping herself.'

'Herself?'

'Just that. Rone worked a line o' traps, and Sal was fixed to make her living and the boy's that way. Said a woman was liable to be as successful a trapper as a man. She's at it near three year now, and she's made good. Lives with her boy about four hours' walk nor'west of here, with not another house within five miles of her. She's got a young sister, Ruby, with her on account of the kid, as she has to be out such a lot.'

'A lonely life for a woman.'

'Yes,' agreed November. 'And now some skunk's robbing her and getting her frightened, curse him! How long ago was that paper written?'

I looked again at the letter. 'There's no date.'

'Nothing about who brought it?'

'No.'

November rose, lighted a lantern, and without a word stepped out into the darkness. In five minutes he returned.

'She brought it herself,' he announced. 'Little feet – running – rustling to get home to the little chap. She was here afore Thursday morning's rain, some time Wednesday, not long after I started, I guess.... I'm off soon as ever I can stoke in some grub. You coming?'

'Yes.'

Not much later I was following November's nimbly moving figure upon as hard a woods march as I ever care to try. I was not sorry when a thong of my moccasin gave way and Joe allowed me a minute to tie it up and to get my wind.

'There's Tom Carroll, Phil Gort, and Injin Sylvester,' began November abruptly, 'those three. They're Sally's nearest neighbours, them and Val Black. Val's a good man, but...'

'But what?' said I absently.

'Him and Tom Carroll's cut the top notches for Sally's favour so far.'

'But what's that got to do with...'

'Come on,' snapped November, and hurried forward.

I need say no more about the rest of the journey, it was like a dozen others I had made behind November. Deep in the night I could just make out that we were passing round the lower escarpments of a great wooded mountain, when we saw a light above glimmering through the trees. Soon we reached the lonely cabin in its clearing; the trees closed about it, and the night wind whined overhead through the bareness of the twigs.

Joe knocked at the door, calling at the same time: 'It's me. Are you there, Sally?'

The door opened an inch or two. 'Is it you, Joe?'

November thrust his right hand with its deep scar across the back through the aperture. 'You should know that cut, Sal, you tended it.'

'Come in! Come in!'

I followed Joe into the house, and turned to look at Sally. Already I had made a mental picture of her as a strapping young woman, well equipped to take her place in the race of life, but I saw a slim girl with gentle red-brown eyes that matched the red-brown of her rebellious hair, a small face, pale under its weather-tan, but showing a line of milk-white skin above her brows. She was in fact extremely pretty, with a kind of good looks I had not expected, and ten seconds later, I, too, had fallen under the spell of that charm which was all the more powerful because Sally herself was unconscious of it.

'You've been long in coming, Joe,' she said with a sudden smile. 'You were away, of course?'

'Aye, just got back 'fore we started for here.' He looked round. 'Where's young Dan?'

'I've just got him off to sleep on the bed there'; she pointed to a deerskin curtain in the corner.

'What? They been frightening him?'

Mrs Rone looked oddly at November. 'No, but if he heard us talking he might get scared, for the man who's been robbing me was in this room not six hours ago and Danny saw him.'

November raised his eyebrows. 'Huh! That's fierce!' he said. 'Danny's rising three, ain't he? He could tell.'

'Nothing at all. It was after dark and the man had his face muffled. Danny said he was a real good man, he gave him sugar from the cupboard!' said Sally.

'His hands ... what like was his hands? ... He gave the sugar.'

'I thought of that, but Danny says he had mitts on.'

November drew a chair to the table. 'Tell us all from the first of it... robbing the traps and to-night.'

In a few minutes we were drinking our tea while our hostess told us the story.

'It's more'n three weeks now since I found out the traps were being meddled with. It was done very cunning, but I have my own way of baiting them and the thief, though he's a clever woodsman and knows a heap, never dropped to that. Sometimes he'd set 'em and bait 'em like as if they were never touched at all, and other times he'd just make it appear as if the animal had got itself out. I wouldn't believe it at first, for I thought there was no one hereabouts would want to starve me and Danny, but it happened time after time.'

'He must have left tracks,' said Joe.

'Some, yes. But he mostly worked when snow was falling. He's cunning.'

'Did any one ever see his tracks but you?'

'Sylvester did.'

'How was that?' said Joe with sudden interest.

'I came on Sylvester one evening when I was trailing the robber.'

'Perhaps Sylvester himself was the robber.'

Mrs Rone shook her head.

'It wasn't him, Joe. He couldn't 'a' known I was comin' on him, and his tracks was quite different.'

'Well, but to-night? You say the thief come here to-night? What did he do that for?' said Joe, pushing the tobacco firmly into his pipe-bowl.

'He had a good reason,' replied Sally with bitterness. 'Last Thursday when I was on my way back from putting my letter under your door, I come home around by a line of traps which I have on the far side of the mountain. It wasn't anything like my usual time to visit them, not but what I've varied my hours lately to try and catch the villain. I had gone about halfway to Low's Corner when I heard something rustling through the scrub ahead of me, it might have been a lynx or it might have been a dog, but when I come to the trap I saw the thief had made off that minute, for he'd been trying to force open the trap, and when he heard me he wrenched hard, you bet, but he was bound to take care not to be too rough.'

'Good fur, you mean?'

'Good?' Sally's face flushed a soft crimson. 'Good? Why I've never seen one to match it. It was a black fox, lying dead there, but still warm, for it had but just been killed. The pelt was fair in its prime, long and silky and glossy. You can guess, November, what that meant for Danny and me next winter, that I've been worrying about a lot. The whooping-cough's weakened him down bad, and I thought of the things I could get for him while I was skinning out the pelt.' Sally's voice shook, and her eyes filled with tears. 'Oh, Joe, it's hard, hard!'

November sat with his hands upon the table in front of him, and I saw his knuckles whiten as he gripped it.

'Let's hear the end of it!' he said shortly, man-like showing irritation when his heart was full of pity.

'The skin was worth eight hundred dollars anywhere, and I come home just singing. I fixed it at once, and, then being scared-like, I hid it in the cupboard over there behind those old magazines. I'd have locked it up, but I've nothing that locks. Who has on this section? Once or twice, being kind of proud of it, I looked at the skin, the last time was this morning before I went out. I was proud of it. No one but Ruby knew that I had got it. I left Ruby here, but Mrs Scats had her seventh yesterday morning, and Ruby ran over to help for a while after she put Danny to bed. The thief must have been on the watch and seen her go, and he knew I was due to visit the north line o' traps and I'd be late anyway. He laid his plan good and clever . . . '

She stopped for a moment to pour out another cup for Joe.

'Where's Ruby now?' he inquired.

'She's stopping the night; they sent over to tell me,' replied Sally. 'Well, to go on, I had a lynx in one of my traps which got dragged right down by Deerhom Pond, so I was more than special late. Danny began at once to tell me about the man that came in. I rushed across and looked in the cupboard; the black fox pelt was gone, of course!'

'What did Danny say about the man?'

'Said he had on a big hat and a neckerchief. He didn't speak a word; gave Danny sugar, as I have said. He must 'a been here some time, for he's ransacked the place high and low, and took near every pelt I got this season.'

Joe looked up. 'Those pelts marked?'

'Yes, my mark's on some, seven pricks of a needle.'

'You've looked around the house to see if he left anything?'

'Sure!' Sally put her hand in her pocket.

'What?'

'Only this.' She opened her hand and disclosed a rifle cartridge.

Joe examined it. 'Soft-nosed bullet for one of them fancy English guns. Where did you find it?'

'On the floor by the table.'

'Huh!' said Joe, and, picking up the lamp, he began carefully and methodically to examine every inch of the room.

'Any one but me been using tobacco in here lately?' he asked.

'Not that I know of,' replied Sally.

He made no comment, but continued his search. At last he put down the lamp and resumed his chair, shaking a shred or two of something from his fingers.

'Well?' questioned Mrs Rone.

'A cool hand,' said November. 'When he'd got the skin, he stopped to fill his pipe. It was then he dropped the cartridge; it came out of his pocket with the pipe, I expect. All that I can tell you about him is that he smokes "Gold Nugget" – he pointed to the shreds – 'and carries a small-bore make of English rifle. . . . Hello! where's the old bitch?'

'Old Rizpah? I dunno, less she's gone along to Scats's place. Ruby'd take her if she could, she's that scairt of the woods; but Rizpah's never left Danny before.'

Joe drained his cup. 'We've not found much inside the house,' said he. 'As soon as the sun is up, we'll try our luck outside. Till then I guess we'd best put in a doze.'

Mrs Rone made up a shake-down of skins near the stove, and disappeared behind the deerskin curtain. Before sleep visited me I had time to pass in review the curious circumstances which the last few hours had disclosed. Here was a woman making a noble and plucky struggle to wring a living from Nature. In my fancy I saw her working and toiling early and late in the snow and gloom. And then over the horizon of her life appeared the dastardly thief who was always waiting, always watching to defeat her efforts.

When I woke next morning it was to see, with some astonishment, that a new personage had been drawn into our little drama of the woods. A dark-bearded man in the uniform of a game warden was sitting on the other side of the stove. He was a straightforward-looking chap getting on for middle age, but there was a certain doggedness in his aspect. Mrs Rone, who was preparing breakfast, made haste to introduce him.

'This is Game Warden Evans, Mr Quaritch,' she said. 'He was at Scats's last night. There he heard about me losing fur from the traps, and come right over to see if he couldn't help me.'

Having exchanged the usual salutations, Evans remarked goodhumouredly:

'November's out trailing the robber. Him and me's been talking about the black fox pelt. Joe's wasting his time all right.'

'How's that?' I asked, rather nettled, for wasting his time was about the last accusation I should ever have brought against my comrade.

'Because I can tell him who the thief is.'

'You know!' I exclaimed.

Evans nodded. 'I can find out any time.'

'How?'

'Care to see?' He rose and went to the door.

I followed. It was a clear bright morning, and the snow that had fallen on the previous day was not yet melted. We stepped out into it, but had not left the threshold when Evans touched my shoulder.

'Guess Joe missed it,' he said, pointing with his finger.

I turned in the direction indicated, and saw that upon one of the nails which had been driven into the door of the cabin, doubtless for the purpose of exposing skins to the warmth of the sun, some brightcoloured threads were hanging. Going nearer, I found them to be strands of pink and grey worsted, twisted together.

'What d' you think of that?' asked Evans, with a heavy wink.

Before I could answer, Joe came into sight round a clump of bush on the edge of the clearing.

'Well,' called the game warden, 'any luck?'

November walked up to us, and I waited for his answer with all the eagerness of a partisan. 'Not just exactly,' he said.

'What do you make of that?' asked Evans again, pointing at the fluttering worsted, with a glance of suppressed triumph at Joe.

'Huh!' said November. 'What do you?'

'Pretty clear evidence that, ain't it? The robber caught his necker on those nails as he slipped out. We're getting closer. English rifle, "Gold Nugget" in his pipe, and a pink and grey necker. Find a chap that owns all three. It can't be difficult. Wardens have eyes in their heads as well as you, November.'

'Sure!' agreed Joe politely but with an abstracted look as he examined the door. 'You say you found it here?'

'Yes.'

'Huh!' said Joe again.

'Anything else on the trail?' asked Evans.

November looked at him. 'He shot Rizpah.'

'The old dog? I suppose she attacked him and he shot her.'

'Yes, he shot her first.'

'First? What then?'

'He cut her nigh in pieces with his knife.'

Without more words Joe turned back into the woods and we went after him. Hidden in a low, marshy spot, about half a mile from the house, we came upon the body of the dog. It was evident she had been shot – more than that, the carcass was hacked about in a horrible manner.

'What do you say now, Mr Evans?' inquired Joe.

'What do I say? I say this. When we find the thief we'll likely find the marks of Rizpah's teeth on him. That's what made him mad with rage, and...' Evans waved his hand.

We returned to breakfast at Mrs Rone's cabin. While we were eating, Evans casually brought out a scrap of the worsted he had detached from the nail outside.

'Seen any one with a necker like that, Mrs Rone?' he asked.

The young woman glanced at the bit of wool, then bent over Danny as she fed him. When she raised her head I noticed that she looked very white.

'There's more'n one of that colour hereabouts likely,' she replied, with another glance of studied indifference.

'It's not a common pattern of wool,' said Evans. 'Well, you're all witnesses where I got it. I'm off.'

'Where are you going?' I asked.

'It's my business to find the man with the pink necker.'

Evans nodded and swung off through the door.

November looked at Sally. 'Who is he, Sally?'

Mrs Rone's pretty forehead puckered into a frown. 'Who?'

'Pink and grey necker,' said Joe gently.

A rush of tears filled her red-brown eyes.

'Val Black has one like that. I made it for him myself long ago.'

'And he has a rifle of some English make,' added November.

Mrs Rone started. 'So he has, but I never remembered that till this minute!' She looked back into Joe's grey eyes with indignation. 'And he smokes "Nugget" all right, too. I know it. All the same, it isn't Val!' The last words were more than an appeal; they were a statement of faith.

'It's queer them bits of worsted on the doornails,' observed Joe judicially.

Her colour flamed for a moment. 'Why queer? He's been here to see m' – us more'n once this time back; the nails might have caught his necker any day,' she retorted.

'It's just possible,' agreed November in an unconvinced voice.

'It can't be Val!' repeated Mrs Rone steadily.

We walked away, leaving her standing in the doorway looking after us. When we were out of sight and of earshot I turned to November.

'The evidence against Black is pretty strong. What's your notion?'

'Can't say yet. I think we'd best join Evans; he'll be trailing the thief.'

We made straight through the woods towards the spot where the dog's body lay. As we walked I tried again to find out Joe's opinion.

'But the motive? Haven't Mrs Rone and Black always been on good terms?' I persisted.

Joe allowed that was so, and added: 'Val wanted to marry her years ago, afore Joe Rone came to these parts at all, but Rone was a mighty taking kind of chap, laughing and that, and she married him.'

'But surely Black wouldn't rob her, especially now that he has his chance again.'

'Think not?' said Joe. 'I wonder!' After a pause he went on. 'But it ain't hard to see what'll be Evans's views on that. He'll say Val's scared of her growing too independent, for she's made good so far with her traps, and so he just naturally took a hand to frighten her into marriage. His case ag'in' Val won't break down for want of motive.'

'One question more, Joe. Do you really think Val Black is the guilty man?'

November Joe looked up with his quick, sudden smile. 'It'll be a shock to Evans if he ain't,' said he.

Very soon we struck the robber's trail, and saw from a second line of tracks that Evans was ahead of us following it.

'Here the thief goes,' said Joe. 'See, he's covered his moccasins with deerskin, and here we have Evans's tracks. He's hurrying, Evans is – he's feeling good and sure of the man he's after!'

Twice November pointed out faint signs that meant nothing to me. 'Here's where the robber stopped to light his pipe – see, there's the mark of the butt of his gun between those roots – the snow's thin there. Must 'a' had a match, that chap,' he said after a minute, and standing with his back to the wind, he made a slight movement of his hand.

'What are you doing?' I asked.

'Saving myself trouble,' he turned at right angles and began searching through the trees.

'Here it is. Hung up in a snag.... Seadog match he used.' Then, catching my eye, he went on: 'Unless he was a fool, he'd light his match with his face to the wind, wouldn't he? And most right-handed men 'ud throw the match thereabouts where I hunted for it.'

Well on in the afternoon the trail led out to the banks of a wide and shallow stream, into the waters of which they disappeared. Here we overtook Evans. He was standing by the ashes of a fire almost on the bank.

He looked up as we appeared. 'That you, Joe? Chap's took to the water,' said the game warden, 'but he'll have to do more than that to shake me off.'

'Chap made this too?' inquired November with a glance at the dead fire.

Evans nodded. 'Walked steady till he came here. Dunno what he lit the fire for. Carried grub, I s'pose.'

'No, to cook that partridge,' said Joe.

I glanced at Evans, his face darkened, clearly this did not please him.

'Oh, he shot a partridge?'

'No,' said Joe; 'he noosed it back in the spruces there. The track of the wire noose is plain, and there was some feathers. But look here, Evans, he didn't wear no pink necker.'

Evans's annoyance passed off suddenly. 'That's funny!' said he, 'for he left more than a feather and the scrape of a wire.' The game warden pulled out a pocketbook and showed us wedged between its pages another strand of the pink and grey wool. 'I found it where he passed through those dead spruces. How's that?'

I looked at Joe. To my surprise he threw back his head, and gave one of his rare laughs.

'Well,' cried Evans, 'are you still sure that he didn't wear a pink necker?'

'Surer than ever,' said Joe, and began to poke in the ashes.

Evans eyed him for a moment, transferred his glance to me, and winked. Before long he left us, his last words being that he would have his hands on 'Pink Necker' by night. Joe sat in silence for some ten minutes after he had gone, then he rose and began to lead away southeast.

'Evans'll hear Val Black's the owner of the pink necker at Lavette Village. It's an otter's to a muskrat's pelt that then he'll head straight for Val's. We've got to be there afore him.'

We were. This was the first time I had experience of Joe's activities on behalf of a woman, and, to begin with, I guessed that he himself had a tender feeling for Sally Rone. So he had, but it was not the kind of feeling I had surmised. It was not love, but just an instinct of downright chivalry, such as one sometimes finds deepset in the natures of the men of the woods. Some day later I may tell you what November was like when he fell head over ears in love, but that time is not yet.

The afternoon was yet young when we arrived at Val Black's. At that period he was living in a deserted hut which had once been used by a bygone generation of lumbermen.

It so happened that Val Black was not at home, but Joe entered the hut and searched it thoroughly. I asked him what he was seeking.

'Those skins of Sally's.'

'Then you do think Black . . .'

'I think nothing yet. And here's the man himself anyway.'

He turned to the door as Val Black came swinging up the trail. He was of middle height, strongly built, with quick eyes and dark hair which, though cropped close, still betrayed its tendency to curl. He greeted November warmly; November was, I thought, even more slow-spoken than usual.

'Val,' he said, after some talk, 'have you still got that pinky necker Sally knitted for you?'

'Why d'you ask that?'

'Because I want to be put wise, Val.'

'Yes, I've got her.'

'Where?'

'Right here,' and Black pulled the muffler out of his pocket.

'Huh!' said Joe.

There was a silence, rather a strained silence, between the two.

Then November continued. 'Where was you last night?'

Val looked narrowly at Joe, Joe returned his stare.

'Got any reason fer asking?'

'Sure.'

'Got any reason why I should tell you?'

'Yes to that.'

'Say, November Joe, are you searching for trouble?' asked Black in an ominously quiet voice.

'Seems as if trouble was searching for me,' replied November.

There was another silence, then Val jerked out, 'I call your hand.'

'I show it,' said Joe. 'You're suspected of robbing Sally's traps this month back. And you're suspected of entering Sally's house last evening and stealing pelts . . .'

Val fell back against the doorpost.

'Stealin' pelts... Sally's?' he repeated. 'Is that all I'm suspected of?'

'That's all.'

'Then look out!' With a shout of rage he made at Joe.

November stood quite still under the grip of the other's furious hands.

'You act innocent; don't you, you old coyote!' he grinned ironically. 'I never said I suspected you.'

Black drew off, looking a little foolish, but he flared up again.

'Who is it suspects me?'

'Just Evans. And he's got good evidence. Where was you between six and seven last night?'

'In the woods. I come back and slep' here.'

'Was you alone?'

'Yes.'

'Then you can't prove no alibi.' Joe paused.

It was at this moment that Evans, accompanied by two other forest rangers, appeared upon the scene. He had not followed the track, but had come through a patch of standing wood to the north of the hut. Quick as lightning he covered Black with his shotgun.

'Up with your hands,' he cried, 'or I'll put this load of bird-shot into your face.'

Black scowled, but his hands went up. The man was so mad with rage that, I think, had Evans carried a rifle he would not have submitted, but the thought of the blinding charge in Evans's gun cowed him. He stood panting. At a sign, one of the rangers sidled up, and the click of handcuffs followed.

'What am I charged with?' cried Black.

'Robbery.'

'You'll pay me for this, Simon Evans!'

'It won't be for a while – not till they let you out again,' retorted the warden easily. 'Take him off up the trail, Bill.'

The rangers walked away with their prisoner, and Evans turned to Joe.

'Guess I have the laugh of you, November,' he said.

'Looks that way. Where you takin' him?'

'To Lavette. I've sent word to Mrs Rone to come there to-morrow. And now,' continued Evans, 'I'm going to search Black's shack.'

'What for?'

'The stolen pelts.'

'Got a warrant?'

'I'm a warden – don't need one.'

'You'll not search without it,' said November, moving in front of the door.

'Who'll stop me?' Evans's chin shot out doggedly.

'I might,' said Joe in his most gentle manner.

Evans glared at him. 'You?'

'I'm in the right, for it's ag'in' the law, and you know it, Mr Evans.'

Evans hesitated. 'What's your game?' he asked.

Joe made a slight gesture of disclaimer.

Evans turned on his heel.

'Have it your way, but I'll be back with my warrant before sun up to-morrow, and I'm warden, and maybe you'll find it's better to have me for a friend than... '

'Huh! Say, Mr Quaritch, have you a fill of that light baccy o' yours? I want soothin'.'

As soon as Evans was out of sight, Joe beckoned me to a thick piece of scrub not far from the hut.

'Stay right here till I come back. Everything depends on that,' he whispered.

I lay down at my ease in a sheltered spot, and then Joe also took the road for Lavette.

During the hours through which I waited for his return I must acknowledge I was at my wits' end to understand the situation. Everything appeared to be against Black, the cartridge which fitted his rifle, the strands of the telltale neckerchief, the man's own furious behaviour, his manifest passion for Mrs Rone, and the suggested motive for the thefts – all these things pointed, conclusively it seemed to me, in one direction. And yet I knew that almost from the beginning of the inquiry November had decided that Black was innocent. Frankly, I could make neither head nor tail of it.

The evening turned raw, and the thin snow was softening, and though I was weary of my watch I was still dreaming when I started under a hand that touched my shoulder. Joe was crouching at my side. He warned me to caution, but I could not refrain from a question as to where he had been.

'Down to the store at Lavette,' he whispered. 'I was talking about that search-warrant – pretty high-handed I said it was, and the boys agreed to that.'

Then commenced a second vigil. The sun went down behind the tree roots, and was succeeded by the little cold wind that often blows at that hour. Yet we lay in our ambush as the dusk closed quickly about us, nor did we move until a slight young moon was sending level rays between clouds that were piling swiftly in the sky.

After a while Joe touched me to wakefulness, and I saw something moving on the trail below us. A second or two of moonlight gave me a glimpse of the approaching figure of a man, a humped figure that moved swiftly. If ever I saw craft and caution inform an advance, I saw it then.

The clouds swept over, and when next the glint of light came, the dark figure stood before the hut. A whistle, no answer, and its hand went to the latch. I heard Joe sigh as he covered the man with his rifle. Then came his voice in its quiet tones.

'Guess the game's off, Sylvester. Don't turn! Hands up!'

The man stood still as we came behind him. At a word he faced round. I saw the high cheekbones and gleaming eyes of an Indian, his savage face was contracted with animosity.

'Now, Mr Quaritch,' said November suggestively.

I flatter myself I made a neat job of tying up our prisoner.

'Thank you. What's in that bundle on his back?'

I opened it. Several skins dropped out. Joe examined them. 'All got Sally's mark on,' he said. 'Say, Mr Quaritch, let me introduce you to a pretty mean thief.'

I NOTICED that Joe took our prisoner along at a good pace towards Lavette. After a mile or two, however, he asked me to go ahead, and if I met with Mrs Rone to make her wait his arrival, but he added, in an aside, 'Tell her nothing about Sylvester.'

I reached the village soon after dawn, but already the people were gathered at the store, where every one was discussing the case. Evans sat complacently listening to the opinions of the neighbours. It was clear to me that the public verdict was dead against Black. Some critics gave the rein to venomous comments which made me realize that, good fellow as Val was, his hot temper had had its effect on his popularity.

As I heard nothing of Mrs Rone, I set out towards her house. When I met her I noticed that her gentle face wore a changed expression. I delivered my message.

'I'll never speak to November again as long as I live!' she said with deep vindictiveness.

I feebly attempted remonstrance. She cut me short.

'That's enough. November's played double with me. I'll show him!'

I walked beside her in silence and, just before we came in sight of the houses, we met with Joe alone. He had evidently left Sylvester in safe custody. Joe glanced from Sally to me. I read understanding in his eyes.

'We've got him trapped safe, Sally. Not a hole for him to slip out by.'

Sally's rage broke from her control. 'You're just too cute, November Joe,' she blazed, 'with your tracking and finding out things, and putting Val in jail! What do you say to it that I've been fooling you all the time? I never lost no pelts! I only said it to get the laugh against ye. Ye was beginning to believe ye could hear the muskrats sneezing!'

'Is that so?' inquired Joe gently.

'Yes, and I'm going into Lavette this minute to tell them!'

Joe stepped in front of her. 'Just as you like, Sally. But how'll ye explain these?' He flung open the bundle of skins he carried.

Mrs Rone turned colour. 'Where did you find them?' she gasped.

'On his back!'

She hesitated a moment, then, 'I gave Val that lot,' she said carelessly.

'That's queer, now,' said Joe, ''cos it was on Injin Sylvester I found them.'

Sally stared at Joe, then laughed suddenly, excitedly. 'Oh, Joe! you're sure the cutest man ever made in this world!' And with that she flung her arms round his neck and kissed him.

'I'd best pass that on to Val Black!' said Joe calmly.

And Sally's blushes were prettier than you could believe.

There is no need for me to tell how Black was liberated from the hands of the crest-fallen Evans, who was as nonplussed as I myself had been at the breakdown of the case, which up to the last moment had on the face of it seemed indestructible.

I have never looked forward to any explanation, more than that which November gave to Mrs Rone, Black, and myself the same evening.

'It was the carcass of Rizpah give me the first start,' said Joe. 'As soon as I saw that I knew it weren't Val.'

'Why?' asked Sally.

'You remember it was hacked up? Now here was the case up to that. A thief had robbed Sally and all the sign he left behind was a few threads of his necker and an English-made cartridge. The thief goes out and old Rizpah attacks him. He shoots her. Then he cuts her body nigh to pieces. Why?' We all shook our heads.

'Because he wants to get his bullet out of her. And why does he want to get his bullet? Only one possible reason. Because it's different to the bullet he dropped on purpose in the house.'

'By Jove!' I cried.

'From that it all fits in. It seems funny that the thief should drop a cartridge, funnier still 'at he shouldn't notice he'd left a bit of his necker stuck to the nails on the door. Still, I'd allow them two things might happen. But when it came to his having more bits of his necker torn off by the spruces where Evans found them, it looked like as if the thief was a mighty poor woodsman. Which he wasn't. He hid his tracks good and cunning. After that I guessed I was on the right scent, but I wasn't plumb sure till I come up to the place where he killed the partridge. While he was snaring it he rested his rifle ag'in' a tree. I saw the mark of the butt on the ground, and the scratch from the foresight upon the bark. Then I knew he didn't carry no English rifle.'

'How did you know?' asked Sally.

'I could measure its length ag'in' the tree. It was nigh a foot shorter than an English rifle.'

Val's fist came down on the table. 'Bully for you, Joe!'

'Well, now, there was one more thing. Besides that black fox Sally here missed other marked pelts. They wasn't much value. Why did the thief take them? Again, only one reason. He wanted 'em for making more false evidence ag'in' Val.'

He paused. 'Go on, Joe,' cried Mrs Rone impatiently.

'When Mr Quaritch and I came to Val's shack we searched it. Nothing there. Why? 'Cos Val had been home all night and Sylvester couldn't get in without wakin' him.'

'But,' said I, 'wasn't there a good case against Black without that?'

'Yes, there was a case, but his conviction wasn't an absolute cinch. On the other hand, if the stolen skins was found hid in his shack ... That's why you had to lie in that brush so long, Mr Quaritch, while I went in to Lavette and spread it around that the shack hadn't been searched by Evans. Sylvester was at the store and he fell into the trap right enough. We waited for him and we got him.'

'O' course,' continued Joe, 'revenge on Val weren't Sylvester's only game. He meant robbin' Sally, too, and had his plan laid. He must 'a' first gone to Val's and stole a cartridge and the bits of necker before he robbed Sally's house. Last night he started out to leave a few cheap pelts at Val's, but he had the black fox skin separate in his pack with a bit o' tea and flour and tobacco, so if we hadn't took him he'd have lit out into Maine an' sold the black fox pelt there.'

'But, Joe,' said Sally, 'when I came on Sylvester that evening I told you of when I was trailing the robber, how was it that his tracks and the robber's was quite different?'

'Had Sylvester a pack on his back?'

'Yes. Now I think of it, he had.'

'Then I dare bet that if you'd been able to look in that pack you'd 'a' found a second pair o' moccasins in it. Sylvester'd just took them off, I expect. It was snowing, weren't it?'

'Yes.'

'And he held you in talk?'

'He did.'

'Till the snow covered his tracks?'

'It's wonderful clear, Joe,' said Mrs Rone. 'But why should Sylvester have such a down on Val?'

Joe laughed. 'Ask Val!'

'Ten years ago,' said Val, 'when we was both rising twenty year, I gave Sylvester a thrashing he'd likely remember. He had a dog what weren't no use and he decided to shoot it. So he did, but he didn't kill it. He shot it far back and left it in the woods... and I come along... '

'The brute!' exclaimed Sally.

'He's a dangerous Injin,' said November, 'and he's of a breed that never forgets.'

'When he gets out of prison, you'll have to keep awake, Joe,' said Val.

'When he gets out, I'll have the snow in my hair all right, and you and Sally'll be old married folks,' retorted Joe. 'You'll sure be tired of each other by then.'

Sally looked at Val and Joe caught the look.

'Leastways,' he added, 'you'll pretend you are better'n you do now.' We all laughed.

___________________

4: The Quest

P C Wren

1875-1941

In: Stepsons of France, 1917

Percival Christopher Wren

EX-NO. 32867, SOLDAT PREMIÈRE CLASSE, shuffled out of the main gate of the barracks of the First Battalion of La Légion Étrangère at Sidi-bel-Abbès for the last time, and without a farewell glance at that hideous yellow building. He had once been Geoffry Brabazon-Howard, Esquire, of St. James's Street and the United Service Club, but no one would have thought it of the stooping, decrepit creature in the ill-fitting blue suit of ready-made (and very badly made) mufti, the tam-o'-shanter cap and blue scarf, from the fourrier-sergent's store. He looked more like a Basque bear-leader whose bear has been impounded, or an Italian organ-grinder who has had to pawn his organ— save that the rather vacant eye in the leathern face was grey and the hair, beneath the beret, of a Northern fairness. A careful observer (such as a mother or wife, had he had one to observe him) would have noticed that his hands shook like those of an old man, that his eyes were heavy and blood-shot, as though from sleeplessness, and that his legs did not appear to be completely under control. A casual passer-by might have supposed him to be slightly drunk, or recovering from a drunken bout.

He had that day received his discharge from the Legion, his bonus as holder of the médaille and croix, his papers and travelling-warrant to any place in France, the blessing of his Captain, and the cheery assurance of Médecin-Major Parme that he was suffering from cerebro-spinal sclerosis, and would gradually but surely develop into a paralysed lunatic.

Certainly he felt very ill. He was in no great pain, and he regretted the fact. He would far rather have felt the acutest pain than the strange sensation that there was a semi-opaque veil between himself and his fellow-men, that he lived quite alone and unapproachable in a curious cloud, and that, although he slept but little, he lived in a dream. He was also much distressed by the feeling that his hands were as large and thick as boxing-gloves, that his feet had soles of thick felt, and that he had fourmis (pins-and-needles) in his legs. He would gladly have exchanged the terrible feeling of weakness (and imminent collapse) in the small of his back for any kind of pain. And, above all things, he wanted rest. Not sleep! Heaven forbid. Sleep was the portal of a Hell unnameable and unimaginable, and the worst of it was that insomnia led to the very same place, and one lived on the horns of a dilemma. If one did things to keep oneself awake, they either lost their efficacy and one slept (and fell into Hell) or one got insomnia (and crawled there with racking, bursting head and eyes that burnt the brain).

Rest! That was it. Well— he had done his five years in the Legion and got his discharge. Why shouldn't he rest? He would rest forthwith, before he set out upon his Quest, the last undertaking of his life.

He sat down on the pavé in the shade of the Spahis' barracks and leant against the wall. In five seconds he was asleep.

Later, two gens d'armes passed. One turned back and kicked him. "Get out of this," said he tersely.

Ex-No. 32867 of the Première Légion Étrangère staggered to his feet with what speed he might.

"I beg your pardon," said he in English. "I am afraid...." and then he realized who and what and where he was.

Mechanically he walked back to barracks and made to enter the great main gate. The sentry stopped him, and the Sergeant of the Guard came up.

"By no means, verminous pekin," * quoth Sergeant Legros. "Is this a doss-house for every dirty tramp of a broken-down pèkin that chooses to enter and defile it?" and he ordered the sentry to fling the thing out. "But that a French bayonet must not be used as a stable-fork, I would..." he began again, but Ex-No. 32867 perceived that this was not the place of Rest, and shuffled away again.

________________

* Pèkin = civilian.

Sergeant Legros spat after him. If there was one thing he hated more than a Legionary, it was a time-expired man, a vile dog who had survived his treatment and escaped his clutches....

Ex-No. 32867 passed along the barrack wall, his eyes staring vaguely ahead. If he might not sit on the ground and could not get back to his chambrèe and cot, where could he go for rest? He could not set forth upon his Quest until he had rested. His back was too near the breaking-point, his knees too weak, his feet too uncertain. There were seats in the gardens by the Porte de Tlemçen, if he could get so far. But in the Place Sadi Carnot he suddenly found that he had sat down. Well— he would.... He fell asleep at once....

The gendarme seemed very suspicious, but that is only natural in a gendarme. Yes— the papers were apparently in order, but he would do well to remember that the gendarme had his eye upon him. He could go, this time— so, Marche!— and sit down no more for a siesta in the middle of the road....

Where was it he had been going for a rest? ... A bright idea— Carmelita's! She would let him rest, and, if not too busy, would see that he did not fall asleep and go to Hell....

"Bon jour, mon ami!" cried Carmelita, as he entered the little Café de la Legion. "Che cosa posse offrirve? Seet daown. What you drink?"

Ex-No. 32867 raised his beret, bowed, smiled, and fell asleep across a table. Carmelita raised puzzled brows. Drunk at this time of day? She pulled him backward on to the wooden bench, untied his scarf, and, going to her room behind the bar, returned with an old cushion which she thrust beneath his head. He at once sat up, thanked her politely, and walked out of the café.

"Eh! Madonna! These English," shrugged Carmelita, and resumed her work. If one stopped to notice the eccentricities of every half-witted Légionnaire, one might spend one's life at it....

Ex-No. 32867 strolled slowly along to the railway-station, showed his papers to the Sergeant of the Guard on duty there, sat him down, and went to sleep. Five minutes later he arose, approached the ticket-office, tried hard for a minute to penetrate the half-opaque veil that hung between him and his fellow-men, and then sat down beneath the guichet and went to sleep....

The station-master was doing his best to make it clear that he hated filth, dust, dead leaves, stray pariah dogs, discharged Legionaries, and similar kinds of offal to remain unswept from the clean floor of his station.

The awakened man peered hard through the half-opaque veil that hung between him and the great man, made a mighty effort of concentration, and then said quite distinctly:

"I want a third single to Oran. I am starting on my Quest, after waiting five years."

"Then wait another five hours, Mr. Discharged Legionary," said the functionary, "and come again at 9.20 for your third single to Oran— if you are not too drunk. Meanwhile, you cannot sleep here, unless it is in the permanent-way with your ugly neck across a rail."

The time-expired considered this.

"No, I go on a Quest," said he, and the station-master, with a gesture of a spatulate thumb in the direction of the door, indicated that the sooner the son of a camel commenced it the better for all concerned.

He was an unsympathetic person— but then he was held responsible when unconsidered trifles of Government property were stolen from the station precincts. And it is well known that a Legionary will steal the wall-paper from your wall while your back is turned, cut it up small, and try to sell it back to you as postage-stamps as soon as darkness sets in.

Ex-No. 32867 got to his feet once more, marched mechanically to barracks, was somewhat roughly handled by the guard at the order of Sergeant Legros, and, having staunched the bleeding from his nose, split lip, and cut cheek with the lining of his beret, made his way to the Café de la Legion. Entering, he bowed to Carmelita with a dignified flourish of his pulpy beret, fell at full length on the floor, and went to sleep.

"Queer, how differently drink takes different people," mused Carmelita, as she again applied the cushion to supporting the battered head— and yet she had hitherto known this Guillaume Iyoné or Dhyoni (or William Jones!) of the IIIrd Company, as a soldier of the soberest and quietest. Quite like old Jean Boule of the VIIth. Doubtless he had been "wetting his discharge papers." Apparently he had done it to the point of drowning them.

At l'heure verte, l'heure de l'absinthe, the café began to fill, and for a time the sleeper was undisturbed by the va et vient of Carmelita's customers....

"'Ullo, Cocky!" remarked le Légionnaire 'Erbiggin ("'Erb"), entering with his compatriots Rupert and John Bull, followed by the Grasshopper and the Bucking Bronco. "Gorn to yer pore 'ed, 'as it? Come hup— an' 'ave s'more," and he sought to rouse the sleeper.

"Strike me strange ef it 'ent thet com-patriot o' yourn, John," said the Bucking Bronco. "Willie the Jones, o' the IIIrd Company.... Guess he's got a hard cider jag. Didn't know he ever fell off the water-cart any."

"William Jones" sat up.

"Really, I beg your pardon," he said, "I thought I..." and then peered through the heavy blanketing veil that was daily thickening between him and his fellow-men.

"He's no more drunk than I am," said John Bull.... "I suppose he's just discharged. I thought he was in hospital.... Looks as though he ought to be, anyhow."

"I have rested, and I must begin my Quest," said "William Jones," Ex-No. 32867. "I have a glorious Quest to undertake, and I have little time. I..."

"Yus. Ingkquest's abaht your mark, Cocky," observed 'Erb. "Crowner's ingkquest."

"Help me up," added the sick man. "I must begin my Quest."

"De sot homme, sot songe," murmured La Cigale, shaking his head mournfully. "I too have Quests, but they tangle and jangle in my brain— and folk say I am mad or drunk.... Some will say you are mad, mon ami, and some will say you are drunk."

"Are you going to England?" asked John Bull, as he helped the man to his feet.

"England?... England? ... Oh, yes. I am going to England. Where should I go? She lives in England," was the reply.

"Have you friends?"

"She is my Friend. Of Friendship she is the Soul and the Essence."

"Chacun aime comme il est," remarked the Grasshopper. "This is a gentleman," and added, "Il n'y a guere de femme assez habile pour connaître tout le mal qu'elle fait."

"I allow we oughter take him daown town to the railway deepôt and see him on the cars," put in the Bucking Bronco. "Ef we don't tote him thar an' tell him good-bye, it's the looney-house for his. He'll set down in the bazaar and go as maboul as a kief -smoker."

__________

[maboul:  mad;  kief: hemp.

"I was going to say we'd better see him off," agreed John Bull. "If he gets to England, he'll have more chance than as a discharged Legionary in Algiers— or France either. Wish we could get an address from him. We could tie a label on him."

But they could not, and after the Bucking Bronco had procured him food from Carmelita's "pie-foundry," as he termed her modest table d'hôte, they took him to the station and, under the cold eye of the Sergeant of the Guard at the platform gate, saw him off....

As one in a dream, as one seeing through a glass darkly and beholding men as trees walking, Ex-No. 32867, William Jones, alias Geoffry Brabazon-Howard, Esquire, made his way to London. There is a providence that watches over children and drunken men, and Ex-No. 32867 was as a compound of both. He knew he was exceeding ill and quite abnormal in some directions, such as never being quite certain as to whether he was really doing and experiencing things, or was dreaming; but what he did not realize was that, concurrently with severe insomnia, he was liable at any moment to fall suddenly asleep for a few minutes, wherever he might be, and whatever he might be doing. He was aware that he had brief periods of "abstraction," but was quite unaware that they were periods of profound slumber. Unfortunately they only endured for a few seconds or a few minutes, and, though serving to place him in endless dangerous, ridiculous, and awkward situations, did not amount to anything approaching a "living-wage" of sleep— rarely to more than an hour in the twenty-four and generally to much less.

At times he was, for a few hours perhaps, entirely normal, to all appearances; and could talk, behave, and transact business in such a way that no casual observer would be aware of anything unusual in the man. He himself, however, when at his best, was still aware of the isolating-medium in which he moved and lived and had his being; the slowly thickening cloud, the imponderating veil, that shut him in, and cut him off, with increasing certainty and speed.

What would happen when he could no longer pierce and penetrate this fog, or wall, of cloudy glass; this vast extinguisher of sombre web, and could hold no communication with the outer world?

Was he becoming an idiot before becoming a paralytic, and thus having the gross presumption to reverse the order of things foretold by Médecin-Major Parme?

On arrival at Charing Cross, he had strolled idly through the streets of London, slept on a bench in Leicester Square; had thought he was in the public gardens outside the Porte de Tlemçen at Sidi-bel-Abbès, and hoped that the Legion's famous band would come and play its sad music in that sad place; and, being "moved on," had wandered away, dazed and bewildered, going on and on until he reached Hammersmith. Here he found his way into one of those Poor Man's Hotels, a Rowton House— vaguely under the impression that it was some kind of barrack.

Here he had a glorious time of Rest, broken only by the occasional misfortune of having a night's sleep, or rather a nightmare in the unnameable Hell to keep out of which he exerted all his failing faculties. And at the Hammersmith Rowton House he became an object of the intensest interest to such of his fellow-inhabitants of that abode of semi-starvation and hopeless misery as were not too deeply engulfed in their own struggle with despair and death to notice anything at all.

For "William Jones" began to blossom forth into a "toff," a perfect dook, until it was the generally accepted theory that he was a swell-mobsman just out of gaol, and now working the West End in the correct garb of that locality.

Little by little the man had replaced his old clothes by new, his beret by a correct hat, his scarf by the usual neck-wear of an English gentleman, his fourrier-sergent's suit of mufti by a Conduit Street creation, his rough boots by the most modish of cloth-topped kid; and generally metamorphosed William Jones, late of the Foreign Legion, into Geoffry Brabazon-Howard, Esq., late of St. James's Street and the United Service Club.

In one of his hours of mental clarity and vigour, he had called at his bank and drawn the sum of ninety pounds, left at current-account there when he disappeared into the Legion; and in another such hour (and in his new clothes) had called at his Club, seen the secretary, and arranged for the revival of his lapsed membership.

It had taken both the bank-manager and the secretary some time to recognize him, but they had done so eventually, and had been shocked to think of what the man must have been through to have changed as he had, and to look as he did.

He had been through a good deal. In addition to the very real hardships of campaigning in the Sahara as a private of the Legion, he had had black-water fever and dysentery, had been wounded in the abdomen by an Arab lance, carried away by the Arabs while unconscious from loss of blood from this wound, and kept until he should recover consciousness and be eligible for torture. (It is pointless to torture a practically dead person.) The badness of his wound had saved his life, for by the time he had sufficiently recovered to be interesting to his captors, they were attacked and routed, and "William Jones" had been restored to the bosom of his company only slightly tortured after all. The shock to an enfeebled man, who was also suffering from a hideous wound, had been considerable, however.

Thereafter, enteric had done little to improve his health, and his resultant slowness and stupidity had earned him the special attention of Sergeant-Major Suicide-Maker and Sergeant Legros.

So there is little wonder that his banker and club-secretary were shocked at the change in him, and wondered how many days or weeks he had to live.

And to the secretary, who saw him almost daily, it was clear that the poor chap was sometimes queer in the head too— and no wonder, looking as awfully ill as he did.

For example, one day he would walk into the Club, sit down on the Hall-Porter's stool, and go to sleep immediately!

Another day he would do the same thing on the stairs, or even the front steps.

If he sat down in a smoking-room arm-chair and fell asleep, as is a member's just and proper right, he would spring up if anyone approached, say, "I really beg your pardon. I am afraid I..." and walk straight out of the Club.

What would the worthy secretary have thought had he known that Geoffry Brabazon-Howard, Esquire (once of the Black Lancers), walked daily to the Club from the Hammersmith Rowton House in the morning and back to that same retreat in the evening; and that such food as he ate, was eaten in his cubicle there, or at a coffee-stall? At a Rowton House one has the "use of the fire" in the basement for one's cooking purposes, but Geoffry was a most indifferent cook, and it is difficult to purchase really cookable provisions on a sum of fourpence a day. For this was the amount that he had decided upon as the irreducible minimum to be expended on food if he were to keep up the strength required for the daily journey to the West End and back. After paying for his clothes and setting aside his club fees, he would have enough to live on at this rate, until the London season and through it, if he were very, very careful. He would have to renew some of his clothing, perhaps, later on— boots, linen, ties— and there were always incidental and unavoidable expenses. However, with great care and a little luck, he could last to the end of the season and pursue his Quest. And this great absorbing Quest, which had made him expend his all in fine clothing, club membership, and the appearance of being a "person of quality" and a gentleman of means and leisure?

Merely to come face to face with, to meet on terms of equality, to have just one encounter and conversation with— a woman.

Before he died he must see, and speak to, Peggy once again— to Lady Margaret Hillier— because of whom he had vanished into the French Foreign Legion, and of whom he had thought daily and nightly ever since.

He had had a thin time, he was near the end of his tether, life held nothing for him, and he had no desire to prolong it— but before he lay down for the last time he would see Peggy again, hear her voice, feast his eyes on her beautiful face, and his ears on the sound of her words and laughter, yea, feast his very soul upon the banquet that it had dreamed of— and then he would have no further use for clubs, fine clothes, a penny chair in the Park, nor anything else.

The ass was quite mad, you perceive....

Now one can live on fourpence a day, and for a very long time too. If one starts in robust health and strength, one can maintain an appearance of health and the power to work for a quite surprising period. But if one is really very ill, on the verge of a nervous collapse, and badly in need of a rest-cure with special diet, tonic, and drugs— fourpence a day is not enough.

They give you a surprisingly filling meal at certain coffee-shops and cocoa-houses (like Pearce-and-Plenty or Lockhart's) for fourpence, but one meatless meal per diem is not enough. It is, on the whole, better to have two penny-worth at dawn and two pennyworth at sunset, and a good drink of water at midday. Better still is it, if you are really experienced in the laying-out of money, to have a pennyworth at dawn, two pennyworth at midday and a penny-worth at sunset. (You can go to bed with a full stomach by supping on a quart of water.)

But Geoffry had not complete liberty in the matter. One cannot go for a twopenny mid-day meal in a silk hat, faultless morning coat buttoned over the white waistcoat of a blameless laundress, and in patent cloth-topped boots. Geoffry was, by force of circumstances, debarred this thrice-a-day system of feeding, and was constrained to breakfast (in rags) at an early coffee-stall and to dine at the same, in the same decrepit clothing, late at night. After breakfast he would return to his cubicle, dress for the Club, and creep forth, still in the early hours of the morning. (One attracts attention if, in the broad light of naked day, one issues from a Rowton House in the correct garb of Pall Mall and Piccadilly.) At night he would undress, carefully fold his immaculate clothes, don his rags, and sally forth to dine on twopence. The coffee-stall keeper regarded him as a broken-down torf and eke a balmy, but coffee-stall keepers are a race blasé of freaks, social, moral, and mental.

Between these meals Geoffry Brabazon-Howard pursued his Quest. He went to his Club and listened eagerly for "society" gossip, and read "society" papers (of the kind that inform the public when Lady Diana Blathers dines at the Fritz, and photographs her inhaling the breath of an abortive animal, apparently a bye-product of the dog-industry; announces the glad tidings that Mrs. Bobbie Snobbie has returned to Town; or that the Earl of Spunge was seen scratching his head in Bond Street yesterday). Having sought in vain for news of Lady Margaret Hillier, he slowly paraded the fashionable shopping thoroughfares, and then, utterly weary, turned into the Park, selected an eligible site for seeing the pedestrians, carriage-exercisers, and riders, and sat for hours watching and waiting, hoping against hope— as he thought. In point of fact he spent a great portion of this time in dropping asleep and being awakened by nearly falling off the chair. He was sometimes tempted to expend this chair-penny in food, but restrained the base cravings of his lower nature. He pictured himself arrayed in the correctest of dress, nonchalantly seated on a Park chair, gaily observing the gyrations of the giddy throng of fashionable human ephemeræ— suddenly seeing Peggy, and rising, accosting her with graceful badinage, airy flippancy, and casual interest. Peggy would laugh and talk amusingly and lightly, he would beg her to come and lunch with him at the Club, or take tea if such were the hour; he would feast his eyes and ears and soul as he had promised himself— and then?— then he would lay down his arms and cease to fight this relentless Foe— sickness, disease, and death— that besieged him day and night, and sought to prevent his walk to the Club, sought to thwart the pursuit of his Quest. Having seen Peggy again, heard her laugh and speak, looked into her hopelessly perfect and wonderful eyes, he would surrender the fortress he no longer wished to hold, and would permit the Enemy to enter— trusting that le bon Dieu, Le Bon Général, would see to it that, for a broken old soldier, death was annihilation, peace, and rest....

Daily he grew thinner, as a sick man living on fourpence a day must, and frequently he would finger the sovereign that always lay in his waistcoat pocket— ready for the day when Peggy should lunch at the Club with him. It is not wholly easy to keep a sovereign intact while you slowly starve and every fibre of your being craves for tobacco, for brandy, for food— as you smell choice Havanas in the Club smoking-room, see fat, healthy men drinking their whiskies and brandies, and when you are violently smitten by rich savours of food as you pass the door of the dining-room.

The fragrance of coffee and eggs-and-bacon! The glimpse of noble barons of beef on the sideboard! The sight of tea-and-toast at four in the afternoon when you have had nothing since four in the morning! But the sovereign remained intact. With that he and Peggy could have an excellent lunch— without wine— and Peggy never touched wine....

HE STARTED to his feet.

"I really beg your pardon! I am afraid I..." A stranger had awakened him as he slept in a smoking-room arm-chair.... He did not recollect how he came to do such a thing when he should have been in the Park.... What was the man saying— "Ill?"

"I was afraid you were ill. To tell the truth, I jolly well thought you were dead for the moment. Let me drive you to my doctor's. Splendid chap. Just going that way.... No— don't run away."

"Most awfully kind," replied Geoffry, peering through the veil, "but I'm quite all right. Just a bit tired, you know. I am going to have a real Rest soon.... At present I have a Quest."

The poor devil looked absolutely starved, thought Colonel Doddington. Positively ghastly.

"Come and have some lunch with me," he said, "and let me tell you about this doctor of mine, anyhow."

Geoffry flushed— though it was remarkable that there was sufficient blood in so meagre a body and feeble a heart for the purpose.

Lunch! A four-course lunch in a beautiful room— silver, crystal, fine napery, good service— perhaps wine, certainly alcohol of some sort, and real coffee....

It was a cruel temptation. But he put it from him. After all, one was a gentleman, and a gentleman does not accept hospitality which he cannot return, from a stranger.

"Awfully sorry— but I must go," he replied. "I'm feeding out." He was— late that night, on twopence.

He fled, and outside mopped his brow. It had been a terrible temptation and ordeal. For two pins he would go back and have a brandy-and-soda at the cost of two days' food. No, he dared not risk collapse— and two days' complete starvation would probably mean collapse. Collapse meant expense too, and money was time to him. The expenditure of more than fourpence a day would shorten the time of his Quest. A day lost, was a chance lost. She might pass through London at that very time, if he lay ill in the Hammersmith Rowton House.

That night he had to take a 'bus home or lie down in the street. Next day, dressing took so long and his walk to the Club was so painful and slow, that he had to omit the Bond Street, Regent Street, and Piccadilly walk, and go straight to the Park.

There he had shocking luck. A zealous but clumsy policeman rendered him First Aid to the Fainting with such violence that he spoilt the collar and shirt-front that should have lasted another two days. Why could not the worthy fool have left him to come out of his faint alone? He went into it alone, all right. And there was an accursed, gaping crowd. Nor could he give the policeman two pennies, and so gave him nothing— which was very distressing. A most unlucky day!

Well— the days of his Quest were numbered, and the number was lessened.

Next day he found the Enemy very powerful and the tottering fortress closely beset. He would be hard put to it to walk to the Club— but come!— an old Legionary who had done his fifty kilometres a day under a hundred-weight kit, over loose sand, with the thermometer at 120° in the shade; and who had lived on a handful of rice-flour and a mouthful of selenitic water in the Sahara— surely he was not going to shirk a stroll from Hammersmith Broadway to Pall Mall and round the Town to the Park?

He had got as far as Devonshire House, when a lady, who was driving from the Berkeley Hotel, where she had been lunching, to the Coburg Hotel, where she was to have tea with friends who were taking her on to Ranelagh, suddenly saw him and thought she saw a ghost. As her carriage crawled through the crush into Berkeley Street it brought her within a yard of him.

She turned very pale and lay back on the cushions. Immediately she sat upright again, and then leaned towards him. It could not be! Not this poor wreck, this shattered ruin— her splendid Geoff— the Geoff who had seemed to love her, five years ago, and had suddenly dropped her, and so been the cause of her marrying in haste and repenting in even greater haste, to the day of her widowhood.

"Geoff!" she said.

He raised his hat with a trembling hand and his face was transfigured.... Was he dying on his feet, wondered the woman.

"Get in, Geoff," she said, and the footman half-turned and then jumped down.

Geoffry Brabazon-Howard, with a great and almost final effort, stepped into the victoria.

"Will you come to lunch with me at..." he began, and then burst into tears.

Later, it was the woman who wept, tears of joy and thankfulness, after the agonizing suspense when the great specialist staked his reputation on his plain verdict that the man was not organically diseased. He was in a parlous state, no doubt, practically dying of starvation and nervous exhaustion— but nursing could save him.

Nursing did— the nursing of Lady Peggy Brabazon-Howard.

__________________

5: One Born Every Minute

Peter Cheyney

1896-1951

Illustrated Magazine, April 29 1939

Adelaide Mail  18 Nov 1939

Reginald Evelyn Peter Southouse Cheyney

Before he became enormously successful with his Slim Callaghan, and Lemmy Caution private detective stories, and his "Dark" series of espionage novels,  Cheyney wrote many short stories for the large pulp market of the 1930s. Alonzo Mactavish was one of his popular series characters who first appeared in the 1920s and ran for many years.

THERE are few men who are not affected by feminine beauty, and Mr. Alonzo MacTavish was not one of these few. No matter how hardhearted a man may be, no matter how tough his constitution, it will be admitted, I'm sure, that he is something less than a man if he can stand by and see an extremely beautiful woman continue to lose her money at a roulette table without feeling a pang of something or other.

Also. when with each play and its accompanying less, the face of the beautiful loser becomes more white, more drawn, her hands tremble more obviously, and the light of despair shines more strongly in her eyes, then it would be a poor fish of a man who would not feel it incumbent upon himself to do something about it— more especially when the lady is obviously alone. So it was with Alonzo.

MR. Alonzo MacTavish found the air of Monte Carlo most agreeable, and his contentment was. no doubt, due to the fact that for three days he had been winning steadily. His original capital of 25,000 francs— the result of the sale of some less important plans which he had skilfully extracted from the portfolio of a member of the Andarian Embassy during a railway journey— had now increased to somewhere in the region of 200,000 francs and, as he would himself have said, it is a poor heart that never rejoices One thing had marred his pleasure on this particular night, and that 'was the appalling luck of the charming girl who was playing on the other side of the table. She was sufficiently striking to merit description. She was tall, supple, and willowy. Her hair, of an exquisite Titian red. lent additional whiteness to her superb skin, and — previous to her bad luck — there had shone in her turquoise eyes a light of contentment and happiness. But the happy light had disappeared. Alonzo, doing a quick mental calculation, had come to the conclusion that she must have dropped, during the evening, somewhere in the region of 20,000 francs. It was also quite obvious to him that she could not afford to lose the money. Each time she played and lost, her despair became more obvious. 'Faites, vos jeux, mesdames, messieurs' intoned the croupier, and Alonzo backed rouge, manque, and impair. He was interested to note that the lady staked her remaining plaques on noire and impair. The wheel spun, a number came up. and Alonzo saw that he had won and that she had lost once again.

She gave a little despairing shrug and turned from the table. As she moved, it seemed to MacTavish that her eyes rested on his for a moment: that there was in them a pathetic appeal. As she moved away from the table, he swept his winning into his pocket and went after her. She walked slowly from the room. Walking disinterestedly and discreetly a few yards behind her, Alonzo had ample opportunity of studying a walk which could only be described as patrician. There was a story here, he thought, and one which might even interest him.

By now she had reached the steps and walked slowly down to the casino gardens. Alonzo, standing on the top step, lighting a cigarette, suddenly saw the svelte figure crumple and fall by the side of a clump of rhododendrons. He threw away his cigarette, descended the steps in three jumps, and in a moment was beside her. A few yards away was a pergola and. inside, a garden seat. He stooped over the recumbent figure of the girl, picked her up and. carrying her into the pergola placed her gently on the seat.

After which he proceeded to do those things which are supposed to revive fainting womanhood. He pinched her nostrils gently, fanned her vigorously with his handkerchief and. in a minute, was rewarded by the fluttering of an eyelid and a little gasp which betokened a return to this life. He dashed off and returned with a brandy and soda. She was still there, looking listlessly before her.

'I suggest a spot of this won't hurt,' he said, holding it out. 'Try it.'

She drank a little of the brandy.

'I'm fearfully sorry.' she murmured. 'It was awfully silly of me, but suddenly I felt so ill— life seemed so awful.'

Alonzo smiled in the half darkness.

'It can get that way.' he said. 'especially when one is losing a great deal more money than one can afford. I've been watching you. Supposing you tell me about it.' She looked at him. Then she smiled an unhappy little smile.

'I suppose these gardens I have heard the tale so often,'' she said. 'But in my case, there isn't even an excuse. I'm afraid that I'm just a dyed-in-the-wool gambler, that I'm too fond of the tables, and that I've never had to think sufficiently about money to care. Well — I'm afraid I've learned my lesson this time.'

He nodded sympathetically. 'Perhaps I can help.' he said. 'Really, I'm rather a nice type of man — especially on occasions such as this. 'My name's MacTavish — Alonzo MacTavish.'

'I think you're very sweet. Mr. MacTavish.' she said. 'But I'm afraid that nobody can help me. I've been a fool. And more than that I'm rather inclined to think that I've been a criminal fool.''

'That,'' said Alonzo. 'sounds very interesting. Tell me some more.'

She shrugged her shoulders. 'My name is Carnaway— Helen T. Carnaway. and my father is Cyrus  Carnaway, who owns Consolidated Steel Manufactures in Pittsburgh — you may have heard of him?' Alonzo nodded. He had. Carnaway was a millionaire. 'I came over here in order not to marry a man I disliked,' she went I on. 'I felt rather desperate, spent a great deal of money, and gambled heavily. Two or three days ago I wired my father for some more money.

'I imagined it would come like it always has in the past and, in the meantime. I needed some money to play at the tables.

'Well, I did a very silly thing. I have excellent credit here in Monte Carlo and I went along to Raymondes the jewellers, and selected half a dozen diamond bracelets. I had them sent to my hotel on approval. They were to be returned tomorrow morning.

'I was so certain that my father would wire the money that I did a stupid thing. I felt sure that if I could play tonight I would win back all my losses. I took the diamond bracelets from Raymondes and pawned them. I felt certain that I  should be able to redeem them tomorrow morning and all would be well.

'Instead of which— ' she shrugged her shoulders, 'you saw what happened.' she said miserably. 'And tonight I received a cable from home : saying that my father was away and that the money could not be despatched to me until next week.'

Alonzo nodded. He gave her a cigarette and lit one for himself. As he lit her cigarette he could see her lips trembling.

'Well, why worry?'' he said. 'Explain to the jewellers that you wish to keep the bracelets for a few days longer and wait until your father's draft comes: redeem them, and return them to Raymondes.'

'I wish it was as easy as that.' she murmured. 'Earlier this evening, when I saw that luck was against me, I telephoned the man with whom I pawned the bracelets. His name is Sidonay. He is not a nice man. 'He told me that he had discovered where the bracelets had come from, that they had been lent to me on approval, and that I had committed a criminal act in pawning them.

'He said that tomorrow he was going to the police— unless— unless—'

'Quite,' murmured Alonzo. 'I quite understand. He's legally right, too! Some of these pawnbrokers can be very annoying, can't they?'

He blew a smoke ring across the pergola. 'Tell me, little Helen.' he said softly. 'How much did Sidonay advance you on the bracelets?'

'Twenty thousand francs,' she replied. 'All six of them were worth about 120,000 francs.'

He nodded.

'All right, my dear.' he said. 'Well, I'm going to be Father Christmas. I'm going round to see your friend Mr. Sidonay, pay him his 20,000 francs, get back those bracelets, and then meet you at your hotel for a late night cocktail.'

She caught her breath. 'I can't believe it.' she said. 'It's too generous of you. I don't know hew I can ever thank you?'

'Now where can I find Sidonay?' asked Alonzo. 'And where do I find you?'

'His house is on the rue Vergalles,' she said. 'And I am staying at Les Palmiers. I don't know what to say to you. I think you are wonderful.'

'Say no more.' said Alonzo. 'Just return to Les Palmiers' and wait until you hear from me. All will be well!'

MONSIEUR Sidonay, who was, Alonzo thought, a remarkably unpleasant-looking gentleman, regarded his caller with an ironic smile.

'Monsieur MacTavish.' he said. 'I have no doubt that you consider this business of being a knight errant to ladies in distress will eventually show you a profit— more especially when the lady happens to be the daughter of an American steel king. But I have other plans!'

Alonzo flipped the ash off his cigarette. 'I take it then that you refuse to allow me to redeem the bracelets?'  he demanded.

Sidonay nodded vigorously.

'Exactly.' he said. 'These bracelets were obtained on approval from Raymondes. They are returnable tomorrow morning. If Mademoiselle Carnaway likes to visit me tonight and discuss the matter I might consent to let her have the bracelets back in return for the amount I advanced. Otherwise. I shall esteem it my business to go to the police.'

MacTavish got up. He learned across the table and placed his hand flat against the face of Monsieur Sidonay. Then he pushed very hard. Sidonay did a perfect back fall over the back of his chair and landed in the fireplace. Alonzo followed him there, picked him up with one hand, and threw him on to a settee.

'I shall come and see you tomorrow morning at ten o'clock' he said. 'I shall have your 20,000 francs and you will hand those bracelets over to me. otherwise―'

He put on his hat and made a graceful exit. A perfect moon shone on the terrace at Les Palmiers Hotel, creating an effective halo about the head of charming Miss Carnaway as she walked with MacTavish.

'But, Alonzo,' she said, 'there is nothing you can do now. If Sidonay refuses to allow you to redeem the bracelets and goes to the police tomorrow, they will arrest me. They must arrest me. Heaven only knows what my father will say and do when he hears about this. And whatever are you smiling at?'

'Listen, Helen,' said MacTavish. 'All is not yet lost. Here is my new plan. Tomorrow at nine o'clock— immediately they open, I am going round to Raymondes. I am going to buy all those bracelets. You see. I've been pretty lucky during the last few days and it's a labour of love, anyway!' He fell the pressure of her hand on his arm. 'Then,' he continued. 'I'm I going round to see Sidonay again. I'm going to ask him to allow me to redeem those bracelets. If he refuses, I'm going to send for the police. Now don't argue. You can easily repay me when your draft arrives, and I'd go out of my way to score off that Sidonay bird. So that's settled.'

She gave a sigh of relief. 'You're rather wonderful— Alonzo,' she said. And if that moment her lips were rather close to his and he took advantage of the fact, well— what would you have done?

AT TEN o'clock on the following morning Mr. MacTavish. immaculately garbed, presented himself at the residence of Mr. Sidonay. He informed the maid that he desired to see the moneylender immediately, and that if Sidonay attempted any delay, he. MacTavish. would enter and take him along to the police station by the nose! Within two minutes he was standing in the study regarding the pawnbroker with an expression of extreme contempt. 'Sidonay.'

"Sidonay," he said, "you remind me of a noxious door and I shall be glad to get away from you. Here is your 20,000 francs. Now hand over those bracelets and give me a receipt for the money or I'll take you along to the police station!"

Sidonay sneered. "Very clever," he muttered. "Very clever and heroic. Well — I've been through to Raymondes on the telephone and they tell me that you have bought the six bracelets on behalf of Miss Carnaway." He shrugged his shoulders. "I suppose you're entitled to feel pleased with yourself," he concluded. He unlocked a drawer in his desk and took out the bracelets.

MR. MacTavish, walking on air, made his way towards Les Palmiers Hotel. He felt very pleased with himself. Fortune was being more than kind. He had rescued a very attractive young woman who also happened to be the daughter of a millionaire, and whom it seemed, did not find his company undesirable. Within a few days the money that he had expended would be repaid.  He had also had the pleasure of pulling Sidonay's nose.

Helen was waiting for him in the lounge at the hotel. He dropped the bracelets into her lap.

"And that's that," he said. She gave him a charming smile.

"I do think you're marvellous," she said. "And I've got some good news, too. Father's been through on the telephone from Pittsburgh and my draft will be here tomorrow. Then I can repay all that money you've spent for me, although I shall always owe you a great deal for saving me from that horrible Sidonay."

"Think nothing of it," murmured Alonzo.

"Please wait here for a moment," she said. "I want to put these bracelets in the hotel safe."

He waited. After 10 minutes he wandered out on to the balcony. Women always did take a long time to powder their noses, he ruminated. And then he saw something— something that made him grin very ruefully.

Driving down the promenade in a large touring car with a boot full of luggage, were two people. One was Mr. Sidonay and the other was Miss Helen Carnaway. And with them went Alonzo's 20,000 francs and six diamond bracelets.

All of which goes to show that no matter now clever a man may be, there will always be somebody who is just a little bit more clever. Standing there. Alonzo almost found it in his heart to admire the clever scheme for which he had fallen so heavily. He turned back into the hotel.

"There's one born every minute," murmured MacTavish.

______________________

6: The Pearls of Jacob Le Maire

Frank Reid

1884-1947

Smith's Weekly (Sydney)  7 March 1925

Alexander Vindex Vennard

ON THE COAST of New Britain, off the New Guinea coast, a fortune in pearls lies buried. This treasure-trove was originally the property of a French navigator named Jacob le Maire, who explored New Guinea in 1615. He had been told that gold in immense quantities could be picked up in this then almost unknown land.

Le Maire was the first white man to vjsit the natives of the Baining country of New Britain, and he seeme to have made a favourable impression, for, although they could not supply him with gold, the natives gave him as many pearls as he cared to accept. Afraid that he would fail into the hands of the Nederlands East India Company, who then held the sole concession to make voyages of exploration in the North-Western Pacific, he placed most of the pearls in an iron box, and threw it into a watery cavern, hoping to secure it on another occasion.

Eventually Le Maire was captured by Governor Coen, of Batavia, but when on the way to Holland as a prisoner, he died at sea.

___________

THE crazy door burst open with a crash, and a man half fell, half staggered into the room. The rays of the great moon shone fully on his form. Anderson stood there for several moments, breathing heavily. He did not hear the mighty swell beating impetuously against the coral reef— the father of all hurricanes had almost swept the island bare three days before— nor the frogs croaking.

After a while he rubbed a hand against his eyes in a puzzled, half-furtive manner. The reek of cheap spirits flooded his nostrils, and the sight of Wilkins lying dead drunk across his canvas stretcher made him swear viciously. He staggered across to the prostrate body, and shook and pinched the  recumbent figure. But Wilkins was too far gone to be roused. Finally Anderson gave up the attempt.

It was, he mused, like Wllkins— damn him— to be drunk just when he was wanted. It would servo him right if he— Anderson — never told him of the marvellous discovery he had made in a cave on the eastern side of the island. But he could never lift the I box by himself, much less raise it from its position at the bottom of a 50 foot-deep well, which was washed at I high tide by the sea. Ho would have to take Wilkins into his confidence.

They had been partners for years; at first in a little legitimate pearl-fishery which had failed; then as pearl thieves in New Caledonian waters; and, lastly as traders on this little-known but fertile island. Yes, he would tell him.

Suddenly he felt unutterably weary. Half-sliding from the stool on which heo had been sitting, he rolled on to the earthen floor, and immediately fell fast asIeep. The intense heat of the sun shining full on his face awoke him. In a second he was in full possession of his faculties; then he went to arouse his partner,

Wilkins was an unlovely sight in the intense white light. He cursed and grumbled at Anderson; but the latter, by repeated applications of water already lukewarm, compelled him to leave his bed.

"Shut up, you fool," he cried at last as Wllkins continued his protestations. "I've found Jacob le Maire's pearls, and we'll soon be rich men."

"Where's Tomba?" said Wilkina thickly, "the store ought to be open by now. I feel bad."

"Of course you do, you drunken swine," blazed Anderson at the other's obtuseness. "Didn't you hear, Dan? Let the store go to the devil. I tell you I have found Le Maire's treasure, and once we get the pearls we will be set up for life."

Anderson's fierce eyes and the ring in his voice penetrated Wilkin's senses.

"Where did you find it?" he said, but quite incuriously.

"At the bottom of the. hole in the east cave."

"Rubbish," said Wllkins, his eye shining yellowly in the sun. "I've searched it before."

"I tell you I've seen it," roared his partner. "A brass-bound box full of pearls. The hurricane must have washed away the sand that covered it."

"Suppose I'll have to come," grumbled Wilkins.

"You wouldn't have the chance if I could lift the box by myself!" shouted Anderson in fury.

Wilkins shot him a malignant glance, which the other failed to observe, for in a much quieter tone he continued. "We've been mates for years, Dan. Come, man, bring a crowbar and a rope and we'll get the box. The Dancing Wave is due in a fortnight. Then it's Sydney for us, old chap, dinner at tho Australia, and the finest show at the theatres."

The friendly tone softened Wllkins at once. Pulling his soft hat over his eyes, he fetched a crowbar and a rope from the store, and, within five minutes, they set out, Wilkins grumbling a little at leaving the store unattended, for neither Tomba nor any other native was in sight.

"What's the matter?" laughed Anderson, "let 'em have it all."

An hour's steady walking over rocks and bleached coral boulders brought them to the cave.

The entrance was low, but once inside, there was an air of space and light and noise, for down below this sea was swelling, and, aloft were many crannies through which the light toned down to a uniform grey.. In the centre of the cave was a well, some 50 feet deep, and about ten yards in diameter. How it had been formed was a mystery, unless volcanic action had lifted up the island many feet, and the actual well had once been composed of soft rock.

It was awe-inspiring to watch Anderson. His face was chalky white, but not with nervousness, for without hesitation he swung himself over the verge, and, taking advantage of knobs and crevices, clambered down to the bottom, where he stood ankle deep in water. Then, with a shout of joy, he waded to the box, which lay imbedded in sand near the second entrance, the entrance that gave the sea Ingress.

Wllkins entered the cave in time to see him plunge a hand into the hole his knife had so laboriously made on the preceding day, and bring forth something that resembled milky-coloured peas.

"Better than trading, Dan," he shouted. It was at that moment the devil entered Wilkins.

"Fasten the rope to a Bpur of rock, Dan, and come down."

Wilkins coiled the rope carefully, and clambered down. By the aid of the crowbar and much exertion they knocked off the lid. The sight that met their gaze held them spellbound. A fortune in pearls lay before them.

"We'll share alike, Dan," said Anderson generously. Undoubtedly there was enough for two, and Anderson's offer should have made Dan Wllkins a happy man. Instead, it roused all the devils that drink had engendered. What joy would there be in Sydney when everybody would soon know that he was living on Anderson's bounty? Why should he not have it all?

His drink-soddened brain recoiled from the thought of killing him down there where he would see the body while he abstracted the treasure.

"I'll climb up and see if the rope's secure," he volunteered. "This box seems very heavy. Put the lid on while I'm away."

The task was a strenuous one for a man in Wilkin's condition, but he accomplished it, and bent over the rope.

"Throw the crowbar up, Joe," he shouted, "it'll come in useful to save the strain on the rock."

"Dam it all," he cried a minute later, "I haven't the strength of a woman this morning. This knot's too loose. You'll have to come and tie it, Joe."

Anderson swore at the delay; but with tho agility of an ape he swarmed to the floor of the cave, and bent over the offending knot. Without compunction Wilkins raised the bar and brought it down heavily on his friend's head.

Anderson fell forward and lay still.

"He's dead," muttered Wilkins, gazing at the curiously still face, though he could not force himself to touch the body. With nervous but strong fingers he tightened the rope, and descended again. But even though mingled fury and dread doubled his strength, he could not move the ponderous box a single inch. It was only when he was absolutely exhausted that his mad efforts ceased.

He was in a tight corner. How he wished now that Anderson were alive. It would take him many journeys up and down the well before he could empty the box; and even then he hardly dare leave such wealth lying about for any prying native to discover. But he had no alternative.

Hastily stuffing his' pockets and every other receptacle with pearls, he attempted to climb the rope. It was a heart-rending task, and once or twice he slipped and fell. But after a terrific struggle his eyes reached the cave level, and, as was natural, he looked at Anderson.

The body was gone!

The shock proved too severe for his spent body. His nerveless fingers loosed the rope, and he fell to the bottom of the well with a mighty splash.

After a long interval a man climbed carefully over a protruding ledge of rock, and, stealthily approaching the edge, peered down. Wilkins' body lay washing in two feet of water, for the tide was rising fast. Anderson remained there, his head throbbing like the cylinders of an antiquated car, and thought over the past. Wilkins had tried to murder him. Wilkins was dead. But the treasure which had changed him into a brute beast was left. What should he, Anderson, do with It? Was he to take a native into his confidence, and run the risk of a second attempted murder?

No; rather would he make a single trip, fill his pockets, and leave the cursed spot for ever. His mind fixed, he cast his eyes downward.

What he saw nearly startled him into a headlong dive. With staring eyeballs, and cold, clammy skin, Anderson saw an arm, long as the trunk of an elephant, and well nigh as thick, shoot from a crevice, and coil round Wilkins' body. Another arm followed; then a third, and a fourth. Finally a centre like a small gas-bag, with horrid, staring eyes and beak-like mouth appeared.

It was a giant octopus.

Anderson rose to his feet, and fled from the cave as if all the devils were at his heels.

At the foot of the well, the guardian of the treasure of Jacob le Maire slowly digested his unexpected prey.

_____________

7: Snapragon and Ghost

Ethel Lina White

1879-1944

The Windsor Magazine, Dec 1922

"I'VE brought you a Christmas present, Leslie— a ring which has the power of granting wishes."

The girl eyed the trinket as trustfully as a wild animal regards a trap. It was a half-hoop of diamonds, and much resembled an engagement ring.

The man smiled as she drew it on her index finger.

"I wish— I wish for an old-fashioned Christmas— snow, snapdragon, and ghosts!"

She crossed to the open window.

"Look! Nothing's happened!"

Below them stretched a dun, tideless sea, pricked with lamp-posts, above was a bagging ceiling-cloth of smoke-clogged vapour, and all around were the honey-combed cells of the block of flats.

Then from the invisible street arose a boy's thin treble. He kept the tune, also his accent, which was the canned twang of cities.

"Good King Wenceslas went forth—"

Leslie winced as she slammed down the window. She was a well-grown girl, with crystal-clear eyes and a youthful blur on her cheeks. With the same furious energy she wrenched off the ring.

"Take it back, George! It's very kind of you, but it's not pukka magic. Give it to someone who has the power to make it work."

"Very well. I will take it back— for the present. But you did not try the right finger for the spell."

He spoke with meaning, while he invited her scrutiny, with no fear of the stock-taking. He kept his goods in his hop window, with the approved labels: "Virility," "Pep," "Clean Living," "Open-Air Life," all achieved by Turkish baths, a smile which had paid him better than his education, and a stomach which was still taking its punishment.

But Leslie was not conscious of his presence. She was conscious only of the mass of humanity all around her, below and above her, of air thickened with voices, staled with breath, fouled with footsteps.

It was one of her bad days, which came when she was run down mentally and physically— days when she hungered for wide spaces and panted to climb to the chimney-pots of the world and hurl herself into the blue.

The high rental of the flats was justified solely by locality. Leslie believed that in the beginning an honest architect built an honest house, suitable to the good old Victorian days when families were twelve to a score of years and Providence looked after the future. That mischievous urchin, the architect's son, spoiled the original plan by ruling small squares all over it. When he achieved manhood, he chanced upon his childish drawing and found therein the essentials of good modern architecture.

So he partitioned each room into three, filched odd fragments therefrom, which were kitchen and bathroom, and gave each its own front door. And the rent of the house was the rent of each flat thereof.

Leslie took four wide strides which brought her up flush with the yellow wall.

"George," she said vehemently, "if anyone could look down— down, this city must seem like a black fly-paper, all buzzing with wretched little limed folks!"

He laughed as her voice broke in a croak.

"You've the grandfather of all the colds. Better not talk, old dear. You've got to be fit for Christmas."

"Christmas? There's no such word here. It's just a date on the calendar— December the twenty-fifth."

He whistled softly, for Leslie was usually too vital and tonic to be the victim of nerves. Then he gave a sigh of relief as the door of the bedroom was opened and his sister Beryl came in, armed with a couple of thermos flasks.

She was a beautiful blonde, with a permanent wave in her hair and a fish-bone in the throat of her natural impulses. She kept her emotions in cold storage and her money in the bank, for she lived by virtue of co-operative housekeeping with Leslie, who had no head for applied arithmetic.

She raised her brows imperceptibly. Her brother replied by wireless—

"Stuck!"

"I'm through with my packing, Leslie." Her voice held the clear diction of an occasional actress in straight drama. "What about yours, Leslie?"

"Plenty of time. I'm only taking a grip."

Beryl glanced at her sharply.

"Anything wrong?"

"Nothing. Just Christmas. It makes me think back, and then I get soggy and sentimental... Christmas in the country, with red firelight and decorations, and the smell of cooking, and the family coming home for the holidays. That's inside. Outside is a white world, with the light streaming from the church window, where they are practising the carols. 'Peace on earth'—"

Something more than a relaxed larynx choked Leslie's voice.

Peace on earth? With Caruso on the gramophone at No. 11, a jazz on the pianola at No. 13, and at No. 15 a ladies' tea-party, with a little quiet conversation with ladies just across the way in Mars; a child crying at No. 12, a Pom yapping for the moon at No. 14, and at No. 16 a sick man making the best of it by trying to die.

Beryl, who was sound-proof, began to laugh.

"Snow and holly and tame robins buttoning up their little red waistcoats! Be honest, woman! You lived in the West. Wasn't it a warm wind, and muddy lanes, and charcoal in the turkey to keep it from going?"

"Mostly," admitted Leslie. "But once in a while we did have old-fashioned weather, with skating and frost flowers on your window. I keep thinking of that. Oh, dear heart! I do want it all back again!... Give me those flasks, and I'll heat up the coffee."

She felt that she must escape, if only for a few minutes, from those others. In half an hour the three would be penned in a railway carriage, on their way to the South Coast hydro. There they would follow the Spirit of Mirth through the trail of the programme of festivities, and howl "Auld Lang Syne" with a collection of overfed, sentimental strangers.

Leslie panted anew for the mountain-top. Meantime the Child would be reborn. And there was no manger at the hydro, only a feeding-trough.

The kitchen, like the rest of the flat, had yellow walls, black painted woodwork, and hangings of Chinese blue. It was a dishonest little crook of a room, and uncongenial to Leslie, who was a real homey person.

It had no qualities. No flames roared in the heart of its stove, which displayed the mysteries of its art of creation through a transparent panel. Behind plate-glass shelves were tins of sophisticated food, each with its artistic label, no jars of flour, spice, or plums, no smell of freshly-baked apple dumplings— nothing to regale the appetite, nothing to satisfy the Christmas spirit. It was a kitchen in name only.

At first Leslie had enjoyed the novelty of sharing the flat with Beryl Webb. Clad in wondrous cretonne overalls splashed with peacocks and parrots, and lighting rather more cigarettes than she smoked, she had designed her wallpapers with that youthful zest which made earning her living only another adventure. The flats then were to her only so many stories to the stars, for she was in love with the topmost tenant.

Douglas Burns had a flat among the chimney-pots, with an armchair, a flying-pan, and a varied assortment of pipes. Unlike George Webb, he offered no surface attractions, but presented a problem in raining to discover what went to his making.

A shortish, square-built man, with a rough-hewn face and a quiet voice, yet a fairy, for all that— one of the scientific genus who unite oceans and remove mountains. In other words, an engineer.

When Leslie had inherited her legacy, she had made no difference in her life. Presently, however, she found that life had altered in its attitude to her. Small incidents, trivial yet cumulative, had culminated in Christmas Eve, when she found herself bounded on the north, south, east, and west by George Webb, while Burns had withdrawn to the back of Godspeed.

Leslie shut the kitchen door with a sense of relief. This room contained two of her treasures— relics of the past. One was the dress-cupboard, which she had chosen from the wreck of her old home— a wondrous substantial ark of mahogany lined with cedar-wood. The other was her picture of the highwayman, masked and mounted, in caped coat and three-cornered hat, waiting for the stage coach.

He had waited for it for over a hundred years, there in the triangular patch of pines on the blasted heath, with the thin nail-paring of a moon, which would never swell to the full, riding in the amethyst sky.

The coffee got outside the pan as Leslie brooded over the picture. Within the limits of its frame were frosty space and romance and the spirit of the old-time Christmas, when lawlessness was adventure, and one tied up one's gifts with a true lover's knot.

"Holloa! Still stirring the Christmas pudding in the old home town in the West?"

As Beryl salvaged the coffee, her smile was acid as citron.

"I can see you, Leslie, the stock-coloured supplement of the Christmas number. You are the girl with the curls, in the full evening-dress of serviceable tulle, who's just finished her stunt of wreathing the church pillars with holly.... My grief! That broken-nosed highwayman has a look of Douglas Burns. By the way, he's just blown in."

With a lightning transposition of values, the little yellow mouse-trap was charged with a rich, full-flavoured Dickens atmosphere of roast goose and nut-brown ale, mistletoe and ice, snapdragon and ghosts. Leslie remembered that her highwayman was probably a pock-marked, unfragrant rascal, and that in another hundred years the block of flats and the South Coast hydro would be growing crusted and historic.

Her eyes were bright with anticipation as she followed Beryl into the sitting-room, where the two men were talking in jerks and not looking at each other.

Burns threw her a swift glance, tapped out his pipe, and rose.

"Well, I must be off. Just dropped in to wish you a good time and a merry Christmas, and all that sort of thing."

The glow faded from Leslie's face. It was always like this, the eager throb of welcome ending in the formal handshake of farewell.

"Are you going away for Christmas?" she asked.

"I shall probably pad the hoof. Moors."

"Moors! Fine. I'd love to do that. Just sun and wind and no one to see you but God."

"If you wish to test that theory, just try stealing a sheep. My word, you've a ripe, old-fashioned cold! Don't forget to take a flask of brandy."

"Thanks. That completes my collection of the hundred best remedies. I'm going to follow my granny and tie an old stocking round my throat."

"Well, don't talk, or your voice will go. Cheerio!"

"Time to pack, Leslie!"

They chased her out of the sitting-room as though she were an infectious germ.

She packed mechanically, her thoughts far from tissue-paper, face-foods, and boot-trees. In the same dream she put on her hat and coat and filled her flask with brandy. There was a little thrill of pleasure in following Burns's advice.

Hearing Beryl call, she hastened to fasten her grip. To her annoyance, she had packed too tightly, and the wedged sides refused to meet. Some bulky garment had to be discarded.

"Coming!"

Hurriedly dragging out a thick quilted silk dressing-gown, she rushed into the kitchen, where her summer things were stored away in the press. She stepped inside it, and as she was groping with frantic haste to find a muslin wrapper, she heard Beryl's voice the other side of the door.

"She's in the bedroom. Quick, George! Have you asked her?"

"Began to. Nothing doing— at present."

"George! She never turned you down?"

"She didn't have the chance to turn me down." The splendid George spoke with a certain irritation. "I saw she wasn't in the mood with that rotten cold."

"Well, I'd have snapped her up before she got to the hydro. There's plenty of competition for an heiress. I've had my work cut out keeping others off the grass."

Leslie shrank back into the unresponsive arms of the summer dressing-gown she had just located. In view of the extreme awkwardness of the situation, she had to remain an unwilling audience. She felt grateful that the cupboard door was closed, so that it was outlined by only a mere crack of light.

Beryl's last words had evidently given George food for reflection. He leaned suddenly against the cupboard and took out his pipe.

"Does the strong silent gorilla blow in often?"

"Burns? Not now. He was very keen at one time, but I rubbed it in that Leslie was very awake to fortune-hunters."

"Oh!" gasped the wrapper, thrilled to its very hem.

"That's a nasty knock for me, old dear!" George's laugh was half shamed, half cynical. "Burns doesn't seem a bad sort. A bit keen on him yourself, aren't you?"

"Am I?" Beryl's voice was careless. "He's— rather a lamb. We ought to be starting. Leslie! Leslie!"

Leslie, gasping among the summer finery, was not answering to her name. The circumstances put it out of the question. Moreover, her mind, was a jungle of rioting emotions through which one truth soared triumphant.

Douglas Burns had not changed towards her. Both had been pawns in Beryl's fingers, ambitious of a dowried wife for her brother, and for herself a lover caught on the rebound.

She heard Beryl's voice, now blurred as though by distance. Apparently they had left the kitchen, for the pencil of light had disappeared.

"I can't find Leslie anywhere in the flat. Do you think she has gone out to get a taxi?"

"Probably. Where's her grip?"

Leslie held her breath. She had left it under the kitchen table.

"I don't see it," replied Beryl.

"I should say she's gone on to make the train early and reserve seats. Sherlock's my middle name. We'd better thither, in any case."

Leslie waited until a distant slam told her that the flat was empty and locked for a week. She was trembling with varied emotions, but prudence told her that she must follow them as soon as possible to the station. Although she had to go through with the festivities at the hydro, she would be on guard. The holiday would give her time to think of how she should salve the wounds to Burns's self-respect. Already the future seemed powdered with star-dust.

She pushed the door, but, to her surprise, it did not swing open. She tried again with fingers which suddenly grew hot and ineffective. The door had a spring lock, but she had been careful not to fasten it.

The gramophone in the next flat broke into a band record of carols. The tea-party ladies grew more festive, for no tea was drunk at that party.

Leslie's heart dropped a beat. She put her shoulder against the door and pushed with all her strength. It did not yield.

At that moment the gramophone broke into a wailing chorus, as though heavy with the burden of old sorrows and old sins—

"Oh, the mistletoe bough!

Oh the mistle-to-e bo-ouh!"

The blood left Leslie's heart and rushed to her head. She remembered now how George had pressed against the door, also the dulled voices and the darkness. She was locked in the cupboard, like the little bride of over a century ago who had hidden in the oak chest on her wedding night, in the full tide of her youth and love and life.

And now, in tones of unutterable dolour, the gramophone was telling the end of the years-long search— a mouldered veil, a withered wreath, a handful of— bones.

A careless wish dropped into the dun, stagnant pool had found a fertile breeding-spot. Leslie heard a strange voice croaking—

"You fool! You asked for it— an old-fashioned Christmas!"

She felt her breath beginning to break in little panting half-sobs, like a distressed runner, and she knew that, at all costs, she must stem the rising tide of hysteria. She must feel no pity for that little human mouse caught in a trap baited with moon-cheese.

"I must think— think good and hard."

But every thread she followed led her back to a locked cupboard door.

To-night was Saturday. The hydro party would not be home until the following Tuesday week, for they had booked to stay for the New Year ball, which had to be held upon the Monday. Their daily servant was due back on the day before them, in order to air and clean the flat. All letters would be forwarded by the hall-porter. Consequently the flat would be hermetically sealed for nine days. And much could happen in those nine days.

She swiftly wrenched her thoughts back to George and Beryl. When they found that she was not on the train, they would institute an instant search.

Barely had she drawn her first breath of relief, when the cloud of doubt began to dim her clear picture of rescue. She saw the scene at the station— a chaos of luggage, and passengers fighting for fragments of porters and stray inches of cubic space on the last fast train to the south.

Beryl and George would naturally conclude that Leslie had already taken her seat in some other coach, if they thought of her at all, which was unlikely. George covered his responsibilities with his hat, while Beryl was a limpet who concentrated on finding a rock. Leslie had to rule out the first possibility. No one could miss her at the station.

She bit her lip fiercely as she felt anew the frightened flutter of her heart. She had but to wait for the arrival at the hydro. And then?

And then Leslie— who knew at least the upper strata of Beryl's mind— began to feel curiously cold. She was no spoon-fed babe, but an independent, vigorous young woman, with a temperamental tug, a tongue between her teeth, and money in her purse.

Let that same young woman loose, turn her round three times, take off her blinkers, and it's Lombard Street to a china orange that she will swerve off in a bee-line to anywhere but her appointed destination.

Beryl would conclude that Leslie had yielded to impulse and cut out the hydro to follow her nose.

But, apart from Beryl, there remained George. Leslie, drowning in deep waters, was clutching at straws and feathers. If George wanted her money, he could only possess it through a personal medium. Less than an hour ago he had offered her a ring.

Yet if they plucked the City apart in sections, to discover its secret hiding-places, it could not help her, for the one place which they would not search would be the flat, knowing it empty as a shelled pod.

Leslie went under. It was no use cheating herself. She was doomed to die, like a poisoned rat in a drain, of hunger, thirst, or suffocation. She was a sacrifice to appease the old-fashioned Christmas spirit, which checks the feasting and joust by the lights burning blue to herald the ghost.

Her self-control snapped suddenly. She ran amok like a rogue elephant in a jungle. Pressed as she was within a few inches of space, she rained pitifully futile blows upon the door and sides of the cupboard, as effective as pennies dropping on snowdrifts.

She tried to scream at the top of her voice, but all she could achieve was a broken wheeze, like the dying effort of a cut windpipe. Her hands, fighting the air, got entangled with the sheaves of hanging dresses, flimsy scented summer things, and she tore them down and stamped them under her feet like an infuriated animal, not knowing what she fought.

It was a severe, but brief struggle. Choked and exhausted, she stopped battering, and slid to her knees. Perhaps it was her own attitude which reminded her of those wondrous winged guests who, not so long ago, stood at each corner of her crib. They had faded as she grew older and had flirted with a score of Johns, an occasional Mark and Matthew, and once a unique Luke, all of whom, later on, had stood between her and a Hun bullet.

Although she had grown hazy about her bodyguard, and was generally too tired for more than a prayer done into shorthand, she still felt the protection of something strong and pure. And now her whole soul rushed from her body in appeal to those four guardian angels.

"Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, Bless the bed that I lie on; Four corners to my bed, Four angels guard my head...."

It may be that their memories were longer than hers, for certain it was that at that moment, while the taxi was honking its way through the traffic, George turned to Beryl.

"We've got to buzz back, old child! I must have left my note-case on the mantelpiece when I took out my pipe."

Leslie could hardly credit her ears when the click of the opening door aroused her from her stupor. She heard a familiar voice—

"Strike a match, Berry. I don't know where you keep your switch."

A George to the rescue— George with the noble torso and the virile clean-cut face tanned with the great out-of-doors, George, worthy namesake of a saint who spiked dragons!

Leslie sprang to her feet and hammered with all her force, which was little enough, for her elbows were jammed tightly against the back of the cupboard and allowed no purchase for her blows. Her fists fell dead upon the solid barrier of the two woods. Yet, to her joy, she heard George question—

"What's that? A sort of noise, like— like pecking."

"Someone chopping suet in the next kitchen, of course. Oh, do hurry!"

"Coming!"

Leslie drew an agonised breath. It was her very last chance. She must make them hear.

"Beryl! George! Help!"

To her horror, her lips gaped soundlessly, like those of a goldfish in a bowl. Only the thread of a whisper spluttered out in her throat. In her paroxysm of screaming her voice had petered out completely.

Then she heard her own name mentioned. But this time she did not crouch among the dresses, spilling her laughter down their empty sleeves.

"Berry, suppose Leslie doesn't show up at the station? She's a rum kid. What's the plan?"

"Wash her out and carry on as arranged." Beryl's voice was ruthlessly decisive as she reverted to the special pleading of the oldest criminal in the world: "I'm not responsible for Leslie."

As the door banged to in the adjoining kitchen, someone chopped suet with almost passionate energy.

Leslie only desisted when her hands were sore from bruises. By this time she supposed that George and Beryl would be far away. She did not know how long she had been beating at the door.

All around her people were laughing, in training for the great festival of joy. The gramophone was being very funny over a gorgonzola cheese. The tea-party ladies had reached the top note of hilarity in the compass of their tonic.

Leslie began to laugh, too, noiselessly.

"I asked for it. No, no! Stop!"

She began to grope in the darkness, exploring every inch of the closet for some hidden spring which she knew perfectly well was not there. Presently her finger sank nearly to its tip into a hole bored with a red-hot poker through the two woods. Leslie remembered even now the time it had taken to penetrate the thick mahogany, and the slippering she had received over a paternal knee.

When she crouched, the hole was on a level with her eyes. Although she could see nothing, it brought her some vague comfort, as a link with the outside world of living people.

The gramophone was working overtime, in honour of Christmas Eve. The carols proved a popular record, for once again Leslie heard the sorrowful story of the Mistletoe Bough.

As she listened, she lost all sense of time and place. In a light-headed half-dream she saw pictures which ran parallel to her own plight, just as though she looked in a mirror which flashed back an unfamiliar reflection. She blended into the little bride of the romantic past, in snowy brocade and floating veil, even while she was vividly conscious of herself— Leslie Mason— wearing the smartest of travelling suits under her fur coat.

She chuckled involuntarily as the radiant girl shook back her powdered curls and leaped lightly inside the old oaken chest. An unuttered scream stabbed her throat like a sword as the heavy lid crashed down. She stretched out her arms in a panic of fear. And it was only Leslie Mason, walled up among the summer gowns of the twentieth century, many of them bearing the tag of Rue de la Paix.

The thrill of terror awoke her to wide-eyed despair. She began to wonder how long it would be before Beryl recognised the truth that her disappearance was no impulsive freak. Sooner or later they must grapple with the fact that, within a few ticks of the clock, nine-and-a-half stone of beautiful girlhood, plus some very expensive clothes and a considerable sum of money, had been snuffed out like a blown candle.

There would be paragraphs in the newspapers— Beryl being interviewed, in her best frock, and with a stationary drop on her lashes. Inquiry agents would circulate those descriptions which fit every blonde woman who wears the orthodox clothes. No one would look in the cupboard. It held only Leslie's gowns— last summer's drift of stranded chiffon and lace.

But one day inevitably someone would make the gruesome discovery.

"Oh, the mistletoe bough!"

Even while Leslie wondered how long it took to die of starvation, she knew that she would not go out that way. Her breath was growing shallow, and every expansion of her lungs was an effort. She could feel large drops of sweat starting out on her forehead, while her heart leaped like a wounded bird.

She could not tell how long she had been using up the atmosphere, but it was plain that it was nearly exhausted. It seemed semi-solid, weighing down upon her like a sodden clout.

As she struggled to free herself from her fur coat, her hand pressed something in her pocket. It was the flask of brandy.

"Not much good now. But— it was sweet— of him— to think of me."

She caressed the flask foolishly, childishly. Douglas Burns had passed from her mind in the stress of her anguish. She wondered where he was— whether he had started on his journey; she wondered, too, whether she would still be somewhere in the universe, a vagrant whisper in the wind, free to fan his brow and tell him her love.

Her thoughts, which were growing misty again, suddenly cleared. A spot of light was glowing through the hole in the closet. Someone had entered the room unnoticed.

Automatically she thought of burglars, and, forgetful of her plight, her first feeling was fright. A great throb of surprise and joy shook her when she saw that the intruder was Burns. She remembered that he had once told her that he had a key which fitted their lock.

He was ready dressed for his journey in tweeds and nailed boots. But she did not question what brought him to the flat. A sense of peace and security had fallen like balm upon her tortured spirit. She knew that everything would be well.

Her angels had not cheated her. Since George had failed them, they had sent a worthier champion, who would hear her dumb voice and see through locked doors.

Burns marched directly to the mantel-shelf which held the sole photograph of Leslie— a snap with the sun full upon her nose, making a white blob of it, yet joyous with her own attractive grin and breeze-ruffled hair.

He looked both sheepish and sentimental as he put it inside his breast-pocket. "Going to borrow you for the week-end, little girl. Walk will do you good."

A wave of faintness swept over Leslie. She strove desperately to unscrew the top of her flask, but before she could raise it to her lips, her head fell forward on her breast, and the flask slipped noiselessly down on to the litter of gowns.

But, even as her eyes closed, she knew that it was all right. Burns was there. And the Providence which ordains a safety-door when the proper channel is blocked, and permits eyes to speak and fingers to see, flashed the message through the last receptive faculty. His hand upon the door-knob, Burns stiffened, threw up his head, and sniffed the air.

"Brandy?"

Casting around to locate the odour, he walked to the cupboard and unlocked the door.

________________

8: Kali

Eric Taylor
fl 1920s-30s

All-Star Detective, November 1929.

THE ELABORATE salaams were over. Roy Martin was waved within the house. The grin faded from his cheek and the cold fingers of depression touched him as the windowless doors of solid mahogany swung closed behind his entrance. It was always like that. Once he escaped from the house— and he always considered his departure an escape— the incongruity of this house of Ishan Das Babaji in an American city became absurd. But within the house, the mystical atmosphere, the locked doors, the walls of concealed steel, all gripped him with menace.

His feet dropping soundlessly on the airy ballast of an Oriental rug, Roy crossed the dim reception hall and came to a doorway whose portières were held aside by a second Hindu servant. He entered a luxurious drawing room to wait for Margaret Miller.

While he waited, Roy fell to musing on the strange household. Ishan Das Babaji was a suave, European-educated Bengali of high caste, with a seductive voice and a gift of easy conversation. His body was slender, lithe, and he moved with the grace of a jungle creature. His carriage and general appearance were distinctive, but the attractions of Ishan Das Babaji were offset by lips that were too thick and the bright gleam of madness that glittered always in his dark eyes.

It was difficult for Roy to picture Margaret's statuesque foster aunt as the wife of the Bengali. The widow of a high official of the British Government in India, shortly after the death of her husband she became fascinated by the dashing Bengali and had sacrificed friends, position, and fortune in a marriage that was the season's scandal in Calcutta.

Margaret Miller, twenty-two, a diminutive brunette with short, rolling black hair and cheeks of deep rose was the American of the triumvirate. She was the daughter of an American engineer, who had died in India, and was engaged to Roy Martin.

The drapes at the doorway parted. Roy glanced up. Margaret swept into the room. A cloak was thrown over her arm. A hat was twirling on her fingers.

"Sorry, Roy. My invitation is hereby cancelled. You've got to take me out to dinner. I can't stand this place." Her lips were smiling, but she held Roy's hand in a grip of nervous intensity and her flashing eyes held a tremulous quality Roy had never before seen in them.

"You bet, Marge, this snake charmer's palace always gives me the horrors anyway," Roy laughed.

They strode toward the doorway and the drapes were drawn aside by an unseen servant. The great solid doors swung open. Passing into the outdoors, Roy charged his lungs with air. There was a stifling oppression to the atmosphere of that house.

Margaret glanced into Roy's eyes and laughed softly. "Feels good out here, what? How'd you like to live there?"

"I wouldn't," Roy answered shortly.

They came to Roy's car. Margaret stretched out her tiny body. "And sometimes, Roy, I think that I can't go on with it. Sometimes I feel that I can't stay in there another minute. I want to run screaming from the door. I am haunted with a terrible obsession that.… Oh, Roy, I'm being silly. Why didn't you shut me up? Take me somewhere gay for dinner."

Roy bribed his way to a table on a balcony at the Palm Court. Margaret perversely shook her head at Roy's invitation to dance.

"Marge, I've begged you to leave that house. Come on, say the word, we can be married early in the morning.

She shook her head. "I can't do that, Roy. You know I can't. We must wait until I'm twenty-three. Aunt Elizabeth is my guardian. Under the terms of my father's will I can't get married without her consent until my twenty third birthday.…"

"'Aunt Elizabeth'!" Roy cut in. "Why do you call her that? She isn't your aunt."

"There, there!" Margaret said mockingly. "Mustn't be cross." Her eyes sobered. "My mother died when I was three. My father had been away from America so long that he'd lost touch with what few relatives he had here. He was away in the interior a lot and during those absences he left me in the care of Lord and Lady Lertine. They were his closest friends. Lord Lertine was an official of the British Government. They had no children and became attached to me. Before his death, my father appointed Lord and Lady Lertine my guardians. They were wonderful to me and I always looked on them, and spoke of them, as my uncle and aunt. In deference to my father's wishes, they brought me to an American boarding school when I was fourteen. While I was at school, Lord Lertine lost his life in a hunting accident. After school I returned on a visit to India. Lady Lertine had lost all balance after the death of her husband. She became fascinated by Ishan Das Babaji and was completely dominated by him. Nothing else seemed to matter to her. She gave up everything for his sake. I returned to America to enter college. I wasn't surprised to hear soon after that Lady Lertine had married Ishan Das Babaji. Then Ishan Das Babaji ran afoul of the British Government. Fomenting a native uprising, or something. He fled to America with Aunt Elizabeth.

"If I leave them before twenty-three, it might cost me my fortune. If Aunt Elizabeth were not so completely dominated by the Bengali, I'm sure she would consent to our marrying at once. She won't admit it, but it's he who is raising the objections to our marriage."

"Well, so far as money goes, we don't need that," Roy said. "You're going to stew yourself into a nervous collapse if you stay there another ten months."

"Oh, it's not just that, Roy. In a way, I still love Aunt Elizabeth. I'm frightened for her.

Something is going to happen at that house. I must stay there and try to protect her. She was wonderful to me when I was a youngster. She was a mother to me. If you had known her then you'd feel different. And anyway, I'm an American girl, and we're in America. I don't intend to let any Hindu beat me out of the money my father killed himself to earn for me! And that's what I believe Ishan Das Babaji is trying to do!"

"What makes you think that?" Roy asked quickly.

"Well, already he's trying to influence me through my aunt. She's always talking to me about one of those crazy Hindu religions. She's doing that on the promptings of Ishan Das Babaji. I loathe that man!"

"If you must go back there, promise to let me know every day what goes on there," Roy begged.

Margaret laughed brittlely. "'What goes on there!' That's what I've been trying to find out for the last six months. Sometimes I wake in the night with the feeling that something awful is happening around me. At first I thought it was nightmares, or my imagination. But lately the thing has been growing on me. I have got up in the middle of the night and prowled through the house. But most of the doors are kept locked and I can hear nothing. Roy, why are so many of those rooms walled with steel plate?"

Roy shook his head. He tensed and leaned across the table! "Marge, that place fascinates me. I'm going to look it over tonight!"

"I don't want you to do that," Margaret said quickly. "The instant I find out something definite, I'll tell you. And if ever I feel in danger, I'll get word to you somehow. And now you may escort me to my charming home," she said dryly.

DESPITE Margaret's wishes to the contrary, Roy determined to do some investigating that night. Shortly before midnight he was in the alley that passed
the rear of the Bengali's back yard. He wore a dark flannel shirt, a blue suit and cap, and in his pocket he felt the reassuring bulk of a .38 revolver. Roy moved along the alley until he reached the high brick wall that surrounded the house. He tied a large, black silk handkerchief over his face. Gripping the top of the wall, Roy pulled himself up until he could see over. A careful scrutiny revealed no one about the garden. He climbed the wall and dropped to the ground.

Roy crouched close to the wall and waited. There was no sign of life in the garden and the big brownstone house was totally dark. Warily, avoiding the gravel paths, Roy made his way toward the house. He stood in the shadow of the building while he studied the windows. Either there were no lights in the house, or the windows were so well shaded that no light could escape.

A flight of stairs leading to the door of a semi-basement attracted Roy. He crept stealthily down the stairs and tried the door. It was small, but had the appearance of great weight and strength. Roy saw that the door opened inward. It was locked or bolted. He crouched down and put an ear to the sill.

He heard the soft pad of feet and jumped to an upright position. A blow on the shoulder flung him against the door. Roy staggered. Two men leaped on him. They got inside his reach, but Roy chopped in a few short punches that brought grunts. A thumb gouged into Roy's right eye. He pulled up his knee, thrust it into a soft body and the finger left his eye. Roy shifted from the door. A Hindu shouted in his native tongue. Roy thrust the fellow back a foot, swung a fist and it went to the jaw. The other Hindu was getting up. Roy leaped over him and made the stairs. At the top he almost collided with the tall figure of Ishan Das Babaji.

Roy ran for the wall, but before he reached it a Hindu sprang into his path. Roy pulled his gun, flourished it before the Hindu, and waved him aside. The Hindu's response was a leap at Roy. They both went down. They rolled over and over in a flower bed. Roy spat out a mouthful of dirt that was choking him. The Hindu clutched Roy's gun hand. Roy tried to fling himself loose. The gun cracked and the Hindu went limp.

Roy jerked himself free. He looked down for an instant at the Hindu. The man was dead with a bullet through the head.

Other servants were almost upon him. Roy raced for the wall. He swarmed over and dropped to the safety of the alley. He ran to the first street intersection, then risked a glance back. No one had come beyond the wall. The handkerchief had slipped down to his neck. Roy pulled it away and walked slowly to his club.

He had enjoyed a wild exultation on reaching the alley. But with nerves quieted, he saw little to cause satisfaction. He had failed in the purpose that had led him to the house, and he was responsible for the death of the Hindu.

He decided to wait until morning before surrendering himself to the police. No use talking yourself into jail in the middle of the night, he thought. He bathed and threw himself into the comfort of his soft bed. Would the police believe his version of the shooting?

He was hours getting to sleep, then woke up to find the sun pouring through the open windows. He yawned and grinned. Hellish nightmare. A torn and dirty blue suit lay on a chair. Roy jumped from bed. He drew a revolver from the coat pocket, broke it, and saw an empty shell.

Roy telephoned for coffee and the morning papers. The Hindu's death was not reported.

An hour later Roy visited the morgue. Discreet inquiries revealed that the body of the Hindu had not been brought there. Evidently Ishan Das Babaji disposed of his own dead. Roy changed his mind about going to the police.

He walked away from the morgue wondering why the home of Ishan Das Babaji was so zealously guarded. If there was nothing criminal going on in the house, why the walls of steel? Why the locked rooms? If Ishan Das Babaji were honest, why did he not report the death of his servant? Why had Roy been permitted to escape from the garden when an attempt, at least, might have been made to stop him with gunfire? Was it because the Bengali preferred to allow a prowler to escape rather than risk police investigation by alarming the neighborhood?

At three o'clock that afternoon Roy decided to visit the brownstone house— this time as an innocent caller. He did not know if the astute Bengali had recognized him the previous night. It did not seem likely that in the darkness Ishan Das Babaji could have identified Roy as he flashed past on the run to the garden wall. But Roy did not know at what stage of the struggle the black handkerchief had slipped down from his face.

When he reached the top of the stone steps leading to the house, the windowless doors swung inward. This little circumstance always amused and intrigued Roy. Where was the observation post? There were no windows in the vicinity of the solid doors and yet they were always opened before Roy had time to announce his arrival by ringing the bell.

He passed before a salaaming Hindu and allowed himself to be conducted to the drawing room. Once again he experienced the feeling of depression that always overwhelmed him when he entered the house. He became vaguely uneasy and doubted the wisdom of this visit.

The crimson velvet drapes parted and Ishan Das Babaji entered the room. Roy arose and exchanged conventional greetings with the Bengali.

"Sit down, Mr. Martin, Miss Miller will be here shortly. And in the meantime, I'm going to avail myself of your company. I'm a victim of ennui this afternoon."

They discussed commonplace things for a time and Roy felt himself reacting to the undeniable charm of his discoursive host. Before Roy quite realized it, the Bengali had adroitly turned the conversation on the subject of burglaries. He recounted at length the looting of the home of a mythical friend. He burst into a tirade against the inefficiency of the police and wound up saying: "For myself, I don't depend on the police. I have many valuable art treasures, and I take my own means of protection. My servants are different from yours in that they would deem it an honor to die in my service."

At the words Roy wondered if, after all, he might not be doing the Bengali a great injustice. The steel walls and heavy doors might well be the precautions of an eccentric art collector.

"Yes, Mr. Martin," the Bengali continued softly, "it would probably cost the life of any burglar who attempted to break in here." The words were softly spoken, but held a note of menace. The eyes of the Bengali blazed with fire; his lips twitched, and his long, slender fingers clasped and unclasped. "And it would be a terrible death!" he finished.

So, Roy concluded, he had been recognized after all, and this was a not too subtle warning of what he might expect if he made another attempt to break into the Bengali's house.

Margaret entered the room and the Bengali's manner changed to calm graciousness. The three sat and talked for some time, when the Bengali begged to be excused and left them. Roy did not think the house any place to discuss with safety the things he wished. He suggested a drive and Margaret consented.

Roy decided to tell Margaret nothing of his attempt to enter the house the previous night. Little was said until they reached the suburbs, when Roy asked Margaret what kind of night she had passed, and if anything had disturbed her.

Margaret said she had slept well, except for waking once some time after midnight. She did not know what had awakened her.

"Marge, how many servants are there in that house?" Roy asked abruptly.

"Eight."

"And are they all Hindus'?"

"Yes. When I went there, I wanted to bring a maid, but the suggestion excited Auntie so much that I never repeated it. I make up my own room, except once or twice a week when it gets a thorough cleaning. I don't like the idea of those Hindus prowling about my room."

"Do you think it would be possible for us to get into any of those locked rooms?" Roy asked.

"No, it wouldn't," Margaret replied. "There is never a time when Ishan Das Babaji or some of the servants are not at home. I wish we could, because I think that in those rooms.…"

She stopped abruptly.

"Go ahead," Roy urged. "You're getting interesting."

Margaret smiled. "Oh, I don't know. It's just that if anything is happening in that house, it must be going on in those rooms."

Roy turned the car toward town. Neither spoke much. Margaret had become depressed and after several attempts to lead her into a livelier mood, Roy lapsed into silence.

THE LARGE LADY who presided over the destinies of the Reliable Employment Agency hung up the telephone receiver and addressed a group of applicants.

"An upstairs maid for a place in the country— close in. Gotta be a young girl— good appearance. Gotta be a girl that don't live in town here. They don't want a girl always runnin' into the city, Good place— seventy, all found."

Before the manager of the agency finished speaking, several girls arose an advanced toward the desk. One of the girls, a trifle more aggressive than her fellow applicants, pushed to the front and shouted, "I'll take it!"

She was young and pretty, and showily dressed in cheap finery.

"What experience?" the manager demanded.

"None," the girl answered frankly. "I've always worked in stores. But I can do housework. Lord knows, I've done plenty of it back home."

"Where is your home?"

"Columbus," the girl answered.

"Well, I'll let you go out and talk to them. They said experience wasn't important. They want a girl that's young and of good appearance. And they want a girl from outta town. The fee's five dollars. What's the name?"

"Irma Rollins."

The manager of the agency filled in a form to be given to the employer and gave Irma a receipt for five dollars.

"You go to Wendley station. They'll meet you there with a car. The fare is sixty cents and if they don't hire you, they'll pay your fare both ways. You get a train at two-ten and take your clothes because if they hire you, you got to start right in."

The manager of the agency nodded her head in dismissal and her responsibilities were ended.

Irma hurried to her room to pack. With a little crowding, a suitcase and handbag held her worldly possessions. When the packing was completed, her roommate entered. Irma drew herself up to a statuesque pose and invited her friend to "Pipe the slavey!" Hurried and scant details of the job followed, and Irma prepared to depart. "I'll write to you, dearie, and if I meet some millionaire sheik out there I'll try to make it for two." A farewell kiss and Irma was gone.

At the pretty little station of Wendley, decorated with well-kept lawn and shrubbery, Irma found a large limousine waiting her. She noticed, with a trace of disappointment, that the liveried chauffeur was some sort of colored person. The chauffeur advanced and took her baggage. The door of the limousine opened and a voice of cultured dignity bade her enter.

Irma found the speaker to be a strikingly beautiful woman of early middle age. A mass of orange-gold hair shone beneath her hat, and the woman's eyes were the green of the sea. The lady leaned far back upon the cushions in regal poise, and when she spoke it was in soft, musical tones.

"English," Irma observed inwardly, "or uppitty Bostonian."

"You have come from the agency?" the woman asked.

"Yes, ma'am," Irma replied, and handed her the employment slip.

The lady read it carelessly and asked, "Where is your home?"

"In Columbus, ma'am."

"And you have no relatives in the city?"

"No, ma'am."

"The reason I ask," the lady continued, "is because we find that girls whose homes are in the city want to run in to town too frequently."

"Oh, I don't care about going to town," Irma told her prospective employer. "I have no one there."

"Very well, my child, I think you'll be satisfactory."

"Thank you, ma'am."

Irma's employer signaled the chauffeur and the car started.

During the short interview, Irma had noticed that the lady's questions were asked in a mechanical manner, and that her employer appeared to be vaguely troubled. The face had lost its beauty temporarily, and become lined and haggard. The green eyes were fixed straight ahead and were strangely devoid of expression, while a great struggle appeared to be going on in the mind behind them. Irma jumped to the conclusion, that her employer was a dope fiend. "Sure, wasn't a lot of these society dames hop-heads?"

Her reflections were interrupted by the soft, musical voice: "We are going to the city now. I am to meet my husband at our town house. You may come with me."

Irma replied with another, "Yes, ma'am."

She was on her employer's time now, and it mattered not a whit to her where they went. She would as soon spend the afternoon riding in a purple limousine as doing housework. She settled herself back to enjoy the ride.

The summer afternoon lulled her sensibilities and she gave herself up to day dreams. She would meet some handsome young millionaire who would marry her, and then she would have a limousine like this for her own. A short flight of the imagination brought her to the ownership of this very car. She was oblivious to her employer and gazed out of the window, occasionally nodding to imaginary acquaintances.

If Irma was oblivious of her, that beautiful lady was far from being oblivious of her new employee; and if Irma had given the lady as much attention as the lady was giving her, Irma's thoughts might have been uneasy ones.

Sometimes as the older woman's eyes fell on the young girl beside her, she would survey Irma from head to foot in careful appraisal. The result was apparently satisfying. At other times she looked strangely uneasy and sad.

At last the car came to a stop. "Here we are," the lady said.

They left the car and walked toward a massive brownstone house that stood in the midst of spacious grounds. Before they reached the uppermost of the steps leading to the house, two windowless doors of solid mahogany swung open. They entered the house and, to Irma's surprise passed a deeply-bowing Hindu. The great doors closed and the reception hall in which they stood was in almost total darkness.

A strange feeling of uneasiness stirred Irma. The darkness, the closeness of the incense-filled air, made her apprehensive. Her employer led her to the end of the hall, where a naked oil lamp burned faintly. They came to a doorway whose heavy drapes of crimson velvet were held apart for their passage, then passed into the most magnificent room Irma had ever seen. She was struck with amazement at the strange richness of the furnishings.

Silhouetted against the soft gray walls was mahogany furniture upholstered in dull reds and golds. A wealth of cushions lay recumbent upon the oriental rug. Bronze statues of rare eastern design showed dim outlines in the subdued light of the room.

Advancing toward Irma was a remarkable man. He was tall and slender, and moved with a lithe, sinuous grace. His skin was a dark brown and his features sharply defined. A simple robe of white silk covered his body. Slender hands with long, tapering fingers extended beneath the loose sleeves of the robe. A pair of sandals was his only footwear.

The man advanced until Irma saw his features clearly. His manner was conciliatory, but Irma recoiled in terror from the thick, curling lips and the mad fire of his dark eyes. He surveyed her critically for a moment, paying no heed to her obvious discomfort, then nodded to the lady who had brought Irma to the house.

"Come, my child, we'll wait upstairs," the lady said.

Hesitantly, Irma followed. She felt in peril from these strange people and resolved to flee when they left the house to re-enter the car. Coming to a door on the upper floor, her employer held it open for Irma to enter. Irma found herself in a small, but artistically furnished bedroom. She heard a sharp click behind her and turned to find herself alone and the door closed.

She ran to the door. Her worst fears were realized. The door was locked! Irma screamed in terror, and her cries thundered back derisively from the walls. Exhausted after a time, she threw herself on the bed and sobbed. She began to think more clearly. Surely some hue and cry would be raised at her disappearance that would lead to her rescue.

The hue and cry that was raised for Irma was the casual remark passed in a cheap rooming house some days later from a girl to her roommate: "Before you come in with me, I had a nice little kid here called Irma Rollins. She went out to the country to work. Some millionaire's joint. Funny she don't write.

ON THE THIRD day of her imprisonment Irma Rollins was on the point of complete collapse. She had touched no food since her capture. The stifling air of the room, whose only ventilation was through a small, grill-covered opening in the ceiling, and her sobbing, resulted in continual nausea. Food had been brought her regularly, and had as regularly been sent away.

For the first two days every opening of the room's heavy door marked a furious struggle in which the desperate girl fought to escape. But invariably she was overpowered and thrust back into the room. The tall and beautiful lady who had brought her to the brownstone house Irma had not seen since her imprisonment. She could hear no sounds of life, either from within the house or from the outside. The room was completely sound proof. And yet, not fifty feet away moved the daily life of a great American city. She told herself that it was all a hideous nightmare— that such a thing as her abduction was an impossibility in an American city, but the grim reality of that steel-walled room was too apparent.

The sunshine never found its way into her prison, and terrified of the darkness, Irma had burned the electric lights continually. She never slept for longer than a half hour at a time. Occasionally the tall Hindu, whom she had seen in the white robe, visited her, His visits were terrifying experiences for Irma. His lips smiled in an attempt at reassurance, but his dark eyes blazed while he told her that a "signal honor" was being prepared for her. Sometimes he came in the long robe of white silk; at other times he wore conventional clothes.

By the third day Irma had reached utter despair. She had searched the room for a means of ending her life, found none, and awaited her fate with apathy. The ominous threat that lay behind the blazing eyes of her captor did not escape her, and she felt the chill of death in his words, "a signal honor!"

Irma lost track of time, but she believed it to be late night on the fourth day of her imprisonment when the door opened and the tall Hindu, accompanied by two servants, entered the room and locked the door.

He was dressed in the long robe of white silk and his feet were sandaled. His eyes burned with magnetic fire. Irma shrank from him.

"Come, my child, the hour has arrived!"

The words fell on Irma as a death warrant. She begged and pleaded the inexorable Hindu for mercy. The two servants gripped her arms and struggling futilely she was led to a corner of the room. She freed one arm and turned in a frenzied attack upon the Hindu gripping the other. Kicking, biting, scratching, she fought with the abandon of despair. Her free arm was recovered by the Hindu. She was turned and dragged to the corner. A panel of steel slid along the wall and the opening revealed a narrow, iron staircase leading down. Dragged through the gap in the wall, Irma's strength left her. Her body went limp in the Hindus' arms.

ROY HAD taken Margaret to a matinee that afternoon. Three days had passed since the episode of the Bengali's garden. Roy had read and heard nothing of the dead Hindu. Margaret said nothing unusual had happened at the house.

Roy went to his club after taking Margaret home. Going into the dining room a page stopped him. Roy followed the boy to a phone. Margaret was on the line. She was calling from a drug store and wanted to see him at once.

Ten minutes later Roy stopped his car at the curb in front of the store. Margaret ran to him. "We've got to do something, Roy. When I was dressing for dinner, I heard a muffled cry. Someone is locked up in the house. There was just one cry. It sounded as if a door might have been opened for a second and then closed. There were no other sounds. When I came down to dinner, Ishan Das Babaji looked at me strangely. I pretended not to notice and after a while he relaxed and seemed relieved."

"Want to go to the police?" Roy asked.

"Oh! What would we say?"

"Just what you have said to me."

Margaret shook her head. "No, Roy, it's no good. He'd fool them in some way. Besides, there's Aunt Elizabeth. I just can't bring her into trouble. Maybe I'm wrong, Roy. Maybe I was mistaken. Maybe one of the servants got hurt accidentally. Can't we do anything without going to the police? Think what a fool I'd look if we brought the police and found nothing wrong. If we could only be sure first."

"All right," Roy agreed quickly. "Get me into the house, into your room tonight. I'll find out.…"

"But how, Roy? How can I get you in without their knowing?"

"I'll get you a rope. There's a radiator in your room? Right. Tie the rope to the radiator. At one o'clock, I'll wave you a signal from the street. You lower the rope to the ground."

Half an hour later Roy left Margaret a block from the old brownstone house.

A few minutes before one Roy stood beside the high brick wall. Margaret's windows were open and he saw the curtains stirring gently in the faint breeze.

For ten minutes Roy remained close against the wall watching those fluttering curtains. He glanced at his watch. A minute after one. His eyes strained up to the windows. The room was dark. His eyes saw no sign of movement beyond those curtains. Five minutes, ten, dragged by, still Margaret failed to appear at the window.

Roy made a sudden decision. He'd get close to the house and risk a whistle.

He glanced up and down the street, climbed the wall, and ran to the cover of the house. Roy crept along the wall toward the open windows. The big house was dark, silent. He looked up at the window again and saw a rope that reached to the ground.

Roy ran forward and jerked the rope in a signal. He moved away from the wall and watched. The curtains above fluttered idly. Roy pulled at the rope again. He tested it with his weight, then began the ascent. His hands rested on the windowsill. He drew a knee up and whispered, "Margaret!"

A curtain blew against his face. Roy flung the drape aside. Margaret lay on the bed. Roy called again, then scrambled into the room. He ran to the bedside. "Margaret! Margaret!" His hand clutched her wrist. Her pulse was resolute. Roy jerked the torch from his pocket. He snapped on the switch and turned the light full on her eyes. She lay back silent, deep in a drugged sleep.

Roy turned away from the bed. His torch swept over the room. Pinned to the rope near the radiator Roy saw a white sheet of paper. There was a message on the paper:

"Roy darling: Terribly sleepy. Believe I am drugged. Lowering rope now at eleven-twenty. If it is not discovered and you find this, get police. Margaret."

Roy dropped the note into a pocket. He drew his revolver, left the room and descended the stairs to the ground floor of the house.

The stairs led to the reception hall. So far Roy was on familiar ground. Passing the portières of the drawing room, he continued toward the rear of the house. A chill gripped him as he heard the faint outcries of a girl. The sound came from above and Roy retraced his steps and ran lightly up the stairs. He tried the door of every room on the second floor, but could gain admittance to none except Margaret's.

Roy listened at every door. This part of the house seemed deserted. He returned to the ground floor and stole to the end of the reception hall, where, cautiously pushing aside the heavy drapes, he passed into a room of oriental splendor, lighted by many naked oil lamps. Roy was making his way toward an open door at the far end of the room when he heard the notes of subdued, low-pitched music. The music was weirdly barbaric and was accompanied by muffled drumbeats.

The music stirred something remote and primitive within Roy. He listened for a moment spellbound before continuing toward the open door. The door consisted of a panel of steel that slid up and down, and worked, apparently, by means of a counterweight and inlaid rollers, which, when the door was open, were visible.

From beyond came the sound of chanting voices accompanied by the low-pitched music. Roy could see only a corner of the room from which the notes issued. A thick carpet of rich purple covered the floor and the walls were hung with velvet drapes of the same color. The drapes hung loosely and reached to the floor. They offered a fair chance of concealment. Roy stepped cautiously to the threshold of the door, jumped into the room and behind the end of a drape.

He waited for the cry that meant his discovery, but the chanting and music continued. Working his way along the wall, Roy came to a place where two of the drapes overlapped. Here he paused and drawing the drapes slightly apart, looked out upon a scene that amazed him.

The room was a large and lofty one. Its occupants were grouped at the opposite end. Three of the Hindu servants comprised the primitive orchestra. They played before a huge and hideous idol.

The idol reached to a height of about twelve feet and was the figure of a woman. She was black, with a great outpointed tongue of flaming red that extended to her waistline. Venomous teeth glistened against the black background of her face, and around her neck was a string of skulls. From her shoulders extended four arms of startling size; two were extended in a gesture of welcome; the third held a great and awesome sword, and from the fourth there hung the severed head of a mighty giant.

The awful idol touched on a chord of memory and Roy recalled the circumstances. It was while in Calcutta on a world tour with his father that he had made a pilgrimage to the temple at Kali-Ghat, a short distance from Calcutta. The three-hundred-year-old temple was not, as Roy recalled it, an impressive affair. It was the hideous atrocities perpetrated in the name of worship that left an indelible imprint on his mind, for here was worshipped the terrifying goddess, Kali, "Kali, the Divine Mother!"

Kali, Roy remembered as a savage virago who demanded great quantities of blood from her worshippers under pain of pestilence and famine. Her worship was accompanied by self-inflicted tortures. Her votaries ran sharply-pointed canes through their muscles and tongues, and in excesses of devotion, caused themselves to be swung on high while suspended by iron hooks passed through the muscles of the back.

This hideous monster is worshipped at midnight throughout Bengal as a great warrior, the giver of victory, and the protector and avenger of her people. Bloody sacrifices of animals are made daily at her altar, while, a few generations ago, Roy knew, the sacrifices were human, and as recently as March, 1925, a young girl was sacrificed to the goddess Kali at Mandla, near Jabalapur.

Roy heard the sound of footfalls approaching the door through which he had come. He flattened against the wall, withdrawing his eye from the aperture between the drapes. A small procession passed his hiding place and Roy again peered out.

He saw a group of white-robed people move across the room toward the image of the hideous idol. A convulsion of rage shook his body when he saw that the group consisted of four Hindus dragging the unconscious form of a young white girl followed by Ishan Das Babaji.

In fascinated horror Roy watched the Hindus, including Ishan Das Babaji, remove the long robes of silk, revealing themselves clad in the native dhoti, a loose garment that extended from the waist to their bare feet, and wearing the janeo, or sacred thread, bandoleer-fashion over one shoulder.

The Hindu servants dragged the captive white girl to a concave indentation in the floor. This indentation was oval in shape and about six feet in length. It was lined with porcelain. In the center of the oval stood a wooden block about two feet square.

A long, curved knife, approaching a cutlass in size, was placed in the hands of Ishan Das Babaji by one of the servants. The girl was lifted to the block. Knife in hand, Ishan Das Babaji advanced toward her.

Roy watched the proceedings in a chill of horror. With the full realization that here, in an American city, a young girl was to be offered as a sacrifice to a barbaric goddess, Roy, galvanized with action. He flung caution aside and burst from his hiding place. At the sound of the sudden movement, the Hindus turned and sprang to meet him.

Roy pointed his gun at the foremost Hindu, pressed the trigger, and the Hindu folded up like a jack-knife. The second Hindu closed with Roy. Roy fired as the man seized his gun hand. The grip on his hand relaxed; the Hindu slipped down. But Roy was borne to the floor by the other five Hindu servants. He fired one more shot, which missed, and the gun was wrenched from his hand. The Hindus were engrossed in getting the revolver. When Roy lost the weapon, he squirmed from beneath the Hindus and. jumped up. His feet were pulled from under him and he was down again. This time they held him. His hands and feet were bound with a thin, tough cord. After he was secured, the Hindus lifted Roy to his feet and held him before Ishan Das Babaji.

The tall, distinguished Bengali had stood aside during the struggle. He surveyed the disheveled Roy with mad hate flashing from his burning eyes. His thin lips twitched in ungovernable rage and he was unable to speak. Slowly he settled into a calm, and then, speaking quietly, and outwardly composed, said in impressive solemnity:

"Mr. Martin, you have come to look on at the worship of Mother Kali! Kali, the Divine, the Protector and Avenger of her people! Kali, who, when she has drunk her fill of the blood of whites, will come to the succor of her people and cast aside the yoke of white domination!" The solemnity of the voice changed, and a cynical note was suggested, as he concluded, "A signal honor shall be yours!"

Roy made no answer to the Bengali's words. A heavy depression settled on him at the hopelessness of the situation. He turned to look for the girl and saw her on one of the many piles of cushions that lay against the walls of the room. At a command from Ishan Das Babaji, two of the Hindus arose and walked to a small table on which there stood a number of bowl-like vessels of gold. Each picked up two of the vessels and walked to the Bengali's side. Two others lifted the girl from the piled cushions.

The Bengali took a step forward and stood with arm upraised above the girl's neck.

The horror of the thing he was about to witness turned Roy into a raving madman. He pulled at the cords that tied him until they cut deep into his flesh. He hurled wild, bitter oaths at the Bengali. And in a frenzied attempt to attack the Bengali bound as he was, Roy fell helplessly to the floor.

The Bengali spoke a command in Hindustani to the servants and two of them dragged Roy to a pile of cushions where they left him.

Ishan Das Babaji turned again to the girl who lay unconscious across the block and began a chanting invocation to Kali.

Roy grew calmer and strove desperately to think of some plan of escape. He was bound so tightly that he could not make the slightest movement of hands or feet. A short distance from him there stood on a small stand one of the oil lamps that provided the room with its dim light. Roy saw a chance— a desperately remote one— and seized it.

On a writhing movement he advanced on the lamp. His movements were unnoticed by the worshipping Hindus. He reached the lamp and got to his knees beside it. His back to the lamp, Roy held his wrists above the naked flame. A fearful scream echoed through the long room. The girl had recovered consciousness.

Two of the Hindus jumped forward and held the screaming girl across the block of sacrifice. Ishan Das Babaji ceased his chanting and raised the great knife high above his head.

The cords that bound Roy's wrists snapped. Unmindful of seared flesh, Roy reached to his pocket, secured his knife, and cut the cords that bound his ankles.

He seized the lamp and hurled it at the Bengali. The lamp struck Ishan Das Babaji on the side of the head. The Bengali dropped. The scanty clothing of the mad fiend burst into flame. The Hindu servants rushed about their master endeavoring to extinguish the flames. Roy ran to other lamps and threw them on the drapes and cushions. Oil-soaked, they blazed in a dozen fires.

Before the excited Hindus, intent in their extravagant devotion on extinguishing the flames that enveloped their master, realized what had happened, Roy was in their midst at the block.

The girl stood in a daze. Roy gripped her arm and pointed to the door. She stumbled. Roy gathered her into his arms.

He was halfway across the large room when he heard a shout in Hindustani. He looked back and saw Ishan Das Babaji waving an arm toward him. Two Hindu servants ran across the room. Roy spurted and reached the door. He dropped the girl into the outer room. The foremost Hindu was on Roy. Roy reached forward and gripped the man by the neck. His thumbs bit deep into the fellow's throat. Roy loosened his hold and swung on the man. The man dropped. Roy jumped forward, caught the second Hindu by the shoulders, spun him around and tossed him back into the room. Roy jumped backward into the next room and slammed down the steel panel door.

The girl stood sobbing beside him. Roy gripped the girl's hand. They ran to the reception hall. Roy heard loud hammering on the steel door. Apparently the Hindus were experiencing difficulty in opening it.

There was a delay of a moment at the windowless doors while Roy found the double locks, and they stood outside the house.

"I've got to go back for someone else," Roy said. "Wait here, outside this door. I won't be a minute. If anyone comes, run and yell."

She nodded tearfully. Roy ran to Margaret's room. He wasted no time trying to arouse her. Terrific pounding on the steel door echoed through the house. Roy flung a robe around Margaret and carried her downstairs.

He reached the door and found the girl waiting. They ran to an alley where Roy had left his car. He placed Margaret in the seat, then he and the girl climbed in beside her.

Roy could not take them to a hotel as they were. He decided to invite the hospitality of a married sister.

Margaret still lay in a heavy sleep. Roy turned to the girl.

"My name's Roy Martin. This is my fiancée, Margaret Miller."

"I'm Irma Rollins. And I can't thank.…"

"Then why try," Roy laughed.

"I'm driving first to my sister's, then we can go to the police."

Roy put the two girls in his sister's care. He told her as much as he could in two minutes while his sister bound his burnt wrists with ointment-soaked bandages. Roy moved his hands, decided he could drive in a kind of a way, and ran down to his car.

His route to police headquarters took him close to the brownstone house. A strange fascination tempted him to drive past it.

When a block away he saw flames leaping high in the sky above the house of Ishan Das Babaji. Fire apparatus stood in the street.

Roy drove his car as near to the house as was possible. A small crowd stood in a rough circle near the house. Roy left his car and approached the group. He edged his way to the front rank and saw that the object of their attention was six badly charred bodies.

He turned away from the gruesome spectacle and spoke to an officer on duty there. "Were they caught asleep?"

"No," the officer answered. "Some nut of a Hindu art collector lives there. He's got steel walls to a bunch of the rooms. Scared of burglars. The whole crowd of them was caught in one room where the fire started. A steel door jammed and they were trapped. The fire spread along the floor and gutted the whole place. It had a big start before an alarm was turned in, and the fire department was blocked by the steel walls. They just brought those fellows out now. The floor fell through and the bodies dropped to the basement. There was one woman in another part of the house. She was asleep and went goofy, I guess. She flung open the front door as we got here, put a gun to her head and blew herself off."

Roy moved slowly toward his car. He turned for a last look at the brownstone house. Why say anything to the police? He decided to leave that to Irma Rollins. So far as he felt, it could serve no possible good and would result in much unwelcome publicity for Margaret. It seemed poetic justice for the Bengali to be trapped within his own steel walls. Roy thought of the beautiful wife of the mad Ishan Das Babaji. He wondered how much she knew of it all. Well, she knew enough, or she wouldn't have killed herself at the door, he decided.

Roy returned to his sister's home. Margaret had come out of her heavy sleep. Roy, his sister, Margaret, and Irma Rollins sat in a bedroom and discussed the question of going to the police.

Irma didn't think much of the idea from the start. She decided it would be a lot more fun to be Margaret's companion on a round-the-world cruise.

__________________

9: The Mad Detective

John D. Swain
fl 1900s-1930s

Detective Story Magazine, May 8, 1926.

1: The Vacation

AT THE TOP of a little hill, Jed Hooper shut off the engine and brought his crazy flivver to a full stop. He turned in his seat and spoke to the two passengers, buried under a heap of luggage and parcels.

"Yonder's the camp," he said. "The white one, against the clump of cedars."

Frank Weston and his wife gazed with tired eyes over a country well worth coming hundreds of miles to behold. Though fairly well settled, as the Maine countryside goes, it seems almost a primeval wilderness, with most of the farmhouses hidden by the green forest, and only here and there in a clearing, a glimpse of distant homes, with an occasional white spire piercing the treetops. A mile away Frenchman's Bay glowed blue and gold in the afternoon sun, and in the offing Mt. Desert loomed like a huge purple jewel floating lightly on the breast of the Atlantic.

"Why, there's smoke coming from our chimney!"

Jed Hooper looked through his windshield. "Yes, ma'am. My wife reckoned it'd seem homelike to you. She'll have a pot of tea waiting for you, and mebbe some of her molasses cookies. Thoughtful about such things, Lizzie is."

He slipped in the clutch, and the car started, coasting easily down the slope, crossing a noisy little brook, swinging in from the highway over a grass-grown road which brought them through a ragged orchard to the front door of a well-preserved, story-and-a-half frame house badly in need of paint. Half of an old grindstone formed the doorstep, and as the passengers dismounted stiffly, the door opened and a fat, smiling woman wearing a gingham apron beamed on them, and began to help them unload their bundles before the slower-moving Jed had heaved himself out of the car.

"Land sakes! That a cat you got there in that satchel with a little window in it?"

Annie Weston laughed. "Yes, Mrs. Hooper. We thought it wouldn't be homelike without a cat; so we bought one from the animal shop in New York."

Lizzie Hooper lifted the satchel and peered curiously at the alarmed creature which was faintly meowing within.

"Well," she decided. "It ain't much to look at! Got no tail, for one thing. Never could abide a tailless cat. They look sort of unfinished. If it was your own, one you'd got attached to, I could understand; but why on earth you should go buy one! Up here, we're glad to give 'em away. Why, Jed has got to drown four kittens, right now. Pretty little things they be, too."

"Oh, how dreadful!" Annie Weston cried. "I never could bear to do it!"

"Well, if you had about twelve a year, you'd have to, or the country'd be overrun with wild critters. We got four, right now; and whenever the count runs higher 'n that, there's a drowning has to be tended to."

The city couple entered through the wide doorway, and from its little entry passed into a pleasant, low-ceilinged room in whose far end burned a cheery, open fire. The furniture was simple but effective; little, old, low rockers, with gay chintz covers; a mellow cherry table; a horsehair sofa; a great hooked rug on the floor of wide boards, some samplers and dingy steel engravings on the walls. The table was set out with dishes, cups and saucers; and soon the Westons were devouring fresh molasses cookies, dishes of wild strawberries with cream, cups of strong tea, slices of home-baked bread thickly spread with fresh butter.

After eating, the question of the cat came up. The door was shut, and the animal released, its attention called to a saucer of rich milk. It ignored it and all the inmates with equal impatience and began to circle the room, the fur along its spine raised, whiskers twitching, eager only to find a way out of the room and house.

"That's the way with cats in a strange place," Jed remarked. "They won't settle down till they've learned every nook and hole in the place. You got to butter their paws!"

"You— what?" Mrs. Weston gasped. "Butter their—"

"Yes'm. Never fails; you look and see."

With some difficulty Jed succeeded in capturing the frightened, bobtailed gray creature, which he held despite its scratching and wriggling, while Lizzie, with the skill of long practice, took a spoonful of butter from the dish on the table, and thoroughly rubbed it into each one of the four paws. This done, Jed set the cat down.

Instead of running about as before, the cat looked slightly puzzled. It shook first one, then the other of its paws; seated itself, and carefully licked each one clean. The process took some time; and when done, the cat seemed for the first time to notice its saucer of milk. It sniffed daintily at it, found it good, and lapped up the very last drop, as well as another saucerful which Lizzie poured. Thereafter the city cat sat peacefully down beside the fireplace, blinked its eyes, washed its whiskers clean, and began to purr.

"Well, I'll be darned!" said Weston. "How come?"

Jed chuckled. "Seems like the one thing a cat regards above all else, is to clean itself of anything that gits onto it; 'specially its feet. While it was licking off the butter, it forgot it was in a strange place; and the taste of butter made it remember it was hungry. So, having eaten in a place, why, that makes it seem like home. Same as I hope you folks do after eating ma's molasses cakes and tea!"

Annie Weston laughed. "We certainly do, don't we, Frank? You see, this is really our honeymoon! Yes, when we were married all that Frank could spare was just three days. Of course, we went to Atlantic City! And every year since then, we've promised ourselves a real honeymoon. And this is it; we're going to stay two months, and forget business and everything. Going to wear old clothes, and go to bed with the chickens, and rise with the sun. Why, we haven't even subscribed for a daily paper! We've put New York behind us, stock-market reports, theatrical reviews, divorces, crimes and all. It's quiet we want, and just to be ourselves and get acquainted."

Jed and Lizzie both nodded appreciatively.

"Well, you'll git all the quiet you want! Nothing ever happens here more exciting than a hen stealing her nest, or a school of mackerel reported out in the bay, or the like of that. We ain't even had a funeral for more'n a year. Folks live long, up in these parts, even if they don't live very fast!"

While Jed showed Weston about the yard, and explained how to start the wooden pump if it got obstinate, and pointed out the ruinous chicken run and the bearing trees of what had once been a fine fruit orchard, his wife took Mrs. Weston all about the house, with which she fell in love at once. It was primitive to a degree the city woman had never dreamed of; no running water in the house, a wooden sink, scrubbed clean, great beds with queer contraptions of tauted ropes for springs, shelves of quaint old china and pewter, everything immaculately clean, and nothing lacking save modern plumbing and lighting. The latter consisted of old kerosene lamps, and tallow candles.

"It's plain," Lizzie admitted. "But it served old Miss Jarvis more'n fifty years. She was born and died right in this house, and her father before her. This chinaware and the furniture was hers. It all belongs to a niece, who lives out to Minnesota. We have the leasing of the house. An artist had it last summer. He spattered paint some; I cleaned it off as well as I could."

The Hoopers rattled off in their car, cordially urging their tenants to call on them for any help needed. They could supply milk, butter, eggs, vegetables, salt pork, fresh-killed fowls, advice, and back numbers of a weekly newspaper, the Farmer's Almanac, and the Rural Agriculturist.

Alone, for almost the first time in five years, the Westons looked at one another, laughed happily, took hands and executed an improvised dance about their living room, kitchen, and parlor. The cat, already entirely at home, was out in the yard clumsily attempting to catch grasshoppers, an exciting game which had not, in its brief life passed in a bird-and-animal shop, been called to its attention.

"Are you going to be contented, Frank?" his wife asked a little wistfully.

"Am I? Why, I've left everything in such shape that I don't even want to see a newspaper; and only half a dozen people have my mail address. That's our mail box, by the way; that galvanized tin out on the gate post, with the little red tin flag sticking up in it. I'm going to loaf and grow fat, and make love to you!"

"You may grow thin, on my cooking! It is years since I touched a frying pan; and then I had an electric range, a cookbook, and all sorts of devices to save labor. You're going to suffer indigestion for a few days, old boy!"

"Well, I'll work it off splitting kindling, and digging clams, and tramping through the woods!"

That evening they ate their first meal alone, with no servant to stand at their elbows, no cook to cater to their whims. And for the first time in long years, both were ravenously hungry. There was a cement-floored, stone-walled little cellar, with only narrow slits for ventilation, and a single door leading from the kitchen; a solid plank of oak, fastened by a hand-wrought iron staple. In the cellar were bins of clean white sand, containing vegetables. There was a keg of cider, and a swing shelf loaded with bottles and jars of jellies, pickles, preserves, relishes, fruits. A big ham swung from an iron hook; underneath stood a keg of salt pork, and a pail of salt mackerel. In the kitchen was flour, sugar, a bread and cake tin, a wood stove and a small oil one. Jed Hooper had caught and cleaned a mess of flounders for them, boiled two fat lobsters, and set a pail of clams by the sink.

Red, with a new burn on one white arm, but radiantly happy withal, Annie flitted back and forth from kitchen stove to table. They had decided to eat in the kitchen; it was large, extending the entire width of the house, and it had a fireplace, as had nearly every room in the house. They ate until they were more than satisfied, but no indigestion resulted, even though the fried potatoes were scorched, and the coffee was too strong.

With the setting of the sun, a chill descended; and they were glad to close the door and sit near the fireplace in the living room.

Romeo the cat, groggy from the amount of grasshoppers he had devoured, dozed at their feet. The wood crackled pleasantly; outside all was still save for the distant hooting of an owl, and once or twice a dry, sharp bark which they supposed to be uttered by a dog, but which was really a young fox out hunting in the moonlight. Then, suddenly and startling, a whip-poor-will began its weird song very near them; stealing to the window, they could just make out its body perched on the old wooden pump.

The cat, whose experience had been only with birds in cages, pricked up his ears and licked his chops. The song of the night warbler drowned the steady ticking of the wooden clock with its picture of a square-rigger on a very wooden sea.

"Sounds sort of lonesome, don't you think?" whispered Annie.

Frank Weston laughed happily.

"Sounds good! Haven't heard one since I was a ten-year-old. Don't believe I've ever thought of one for twenty years. They used to say it is a good sign when one of them comes so near a house. They mostly cling to the deep woods. Guess this one is serenading us, welcoming us home!"

Tired from their long journey, and the excitement of arrival, they went early to bed. Upstairs, in a half-finished attic, were three small chambers, each with its big bed and old-fashioned bureau and washstand with bowl and pitcher. Fine linen towels, hemstitched by Jed Hooper's wife, hung on the racks; new cakes of cheap soap were in their china dishes. Annie chose the rear room, which looked out over distant Frenchman's Bay, now shimmering in moonlight, and separated from them by a heavy growth of cedars. Her husband took the front one which connected with it, the door having been removed from its hinges. The lamps were blown out. Romeo settled himself at the foot of Frank's bed, and began a faint bedtime song. The whip-poor-will had ceased its welcome; it was intensely still now, outside. Listening closely, Annie could hear from the sea the deep respiration of the making tide as it flung itself against the rocky shore. Her thoughts drifted out on the tides of sleep.

Suddenly, appallingly loud in the quiet night, there came to her ears the heavy drumming of hard knuckles on wood. Downstairs, the front door vibrated to the sound of a knocking that would not be denied!

2: The Warning

THERE WAS something ominous in that urgent summons, heard in the night. Already the moon was sinking behind the cedar swamp; looking from his window, Frank Weston could make out only masses of shadow relieved by a pallid glimmer that revealed no details. Directly below him, and standing on the old grindstone by the front door, was a dark figure that looked too large to be a man. Who could have any business with them at such an hour, long after the countryside had retired to slumber, the oil lamps blown out in distant windows?

His voice, despite his efforts to control it, quavered a little as he leaned out into the cool night air, and called softly: "Yes? Who is it, and what do you want?"

The man below raised his head to the sound, his face showing as a whitish blur masked in a heavy beard and shaded by an old, floppy, black felt hat.

"Your name Weston? Just got here from the city, ain't ye? Well, I'm Jason Hodge— your nearest neighbor down the road a piece. Come down so's I can talk without hollerin'. Got something important to say, and there's no telling who may be listenin'."

"What is it, Frank? Is anything wrong?"

The anxious voice of his wife came from the adjoining room as Weston hastily slipped into trousers and shoes, not bothering to put on his stockings nor fasten the laces.

"Oh, nothing much, I guess," he answered lightly, though his nerves still jumped a little after being roused so startlingly from profound sleep. "Only a neighbor; says his name is Hodge. Probably wants to borrow something; folks out in the remote country are always running out of matches or flour or something. It's all right; tell you all about it soon as he's got what he wants and gone home."

He took a pocket torch from the bureau, and snapped on its cold, white beam as he stole down the narrow stairway with its carved mahogany railing, which some misguided tenant had long ago painted white. For just an instant he hesitated at the door, before slipping the heavy iron bolt; then with a smile at his timidity, which he realized came solely from the unfamiliar isolation of one accustomed to living packed in among teeming thousands, he threw open the door. It creaked loudly in the silence; and unconsciously he stepped back a pace, his hand tightening on the metal cylinder of the torch.

The strange caller blinked as the beam played about his rugged, homely face. "I won't step in," he said, his voice pitched cautiously low. "And sorry to wake ye up this time o' night. But fact is, there's trouble afoot. I knew you and your wife just got in today; we see ye pass with Jed Hooper. Wanted to warn ye to keep doors and windows locked tight, and it might not be a bad idee to have a gun handy. Have you got one?"

"I have an automatic," Weston admitted a little sheepishly. "Thought I might amuse myself shooting at a mark. Had it a long time, and never got a chance to fire it off in the city."

The bearded figure nodded. "Mebbe you'll have a real mark to shoot at. Hope not, and tain't likely. This neighborhood is very peaceable. Everybody knows everybody else, or at least, we cal'lated we did. But I just got a telephone message; we've all of us got telephones, but you. That's why I came over to warn ye. Didn't seem right, somehow, with you two city folks sleeping like as not with the door unlocked— which nobody down here ever bothers to lock up nights—"

Weston shivered a little. The chill night air was penetrating his thin shirt and ruffling his thin hair. "But what is it all about? What did you come to warn us about, if the village is as peaceable as you say?"

The bewhiskered man coughed. "That's what I was coming to, mister. As I was saying, I got this telephone message from the sheriff over to Allsworth. That's the county seat. Something terrible has happened at the Bronsons', ten miles away on the Cranberry Beach road. A man— don't know who, because he wore a mask— near killed Mrs. Bronson. This was along about sundown; she only managed to get word through to Allworth half an hour ago. Her husband, Elmer Bronson, was down at the beach, a mile away, floating off that big sloop of his. High tide tonight, and he's been putting in some new strakes and painting her up. So the Bronson woman was all alone. Well, this stranger, he knocked on her door and asked for a drink of water. Soon as she opened the door and see he was masked, she tried to shut it in his face, but he was too quick for her. Set his foot in the opening and pushed on through. Then seems as if he struck her with something heavy; she was too upset to remember much of anything about it. Next thing she knew, she was trussed up hand and foot, and gagged with an old towel, and laying in her bathtub.

"The Bronsons had new plumbing put in only last summer. Mighty proud of their bathroom; there's only two others in Fast Harbor! Well, that devil wasn't satisfied with knockin' her senseless, and then going through all her closets and bureaus and stealing what little money and jewelry he could find, but he'd left her helpless in the tub, flat on her back, and turned on the cold water faucet. He'd put in the plug, and when she come to the water had already riz high enough to reach her shoulders. It was only a matter of minutes when it'd reach her mouth and nose and drowned her! Somehow, she herself don't know how she done it, she managed to work herself loose, just in time, and set up. Then she fainted; and when she came to again, the tub was full and runnin' over. She says it's gone through the floor and spoiled the kitchen ceiling," finished Neighbor Hodge, with an anticlimax of which he was unconscious.

"Haven't they any idea who did it?" asked Weston, his teeth chattering a little. "Seems as if she'd recognize something familiar about the assailant. You all must know one another pretty well around here!"

"She's sure he don't belong in these parts," Hodge said. "And so far he hasn't been caught up with. Of course, they're out looking for him. Tomorrow soon as it gits light enough, they'll try to track him. But anyhow, he's got clear away. Bronson come home about an hour after his wife got herself free, and he telephoned right to the sheriff in Allsworth, and it was him notified me. And I dressed myself and come right on over to warn ye folks. It ain't likely he'll trouble you none; but you never can tell. Crazy, I says. No professional burglar would bother to do such a thing, when the woman was already helpless and he'd got all there was lying loose. Took about eleven dollars, and Mrs. Bronson's best silver spoons and forks, and a string of gold beads that belonged to her grandmother. That's all they've missed, so far."

Jason Hodge turned aside, as if to go. Weston recollected himself, and stepped to one side. "Won't you come in, and let my wife make you a cup of tea or something? I'm sure we are very grateful to you, and sorry for your trouble!"

Hodge shook his head. "Nope. Never drink tea late at night, much obliged. And as for the trouble, we folks out in the country always aim to be neighborly. Not like the city, where I've heard it said the dwellers in the same tenements live on for years without even having a bowing acquaintance, nor 'tending one another's funerals! We ain't like that, down here. Only a few of us, and we try to act human."

Weston laughed. "That slam was deserved, I guess, Mr. Hodge! We do get sort of inhuman in the big cities. But that's partly because families are always coming and going; and in emergencies there are always policemen and doctors to be had at a moment's notice. But I certainly do thank you, and I'll sleep with one eye open. If I can help track down the robber tomorrow, call on me! I want to do my share, too."

Hodge was already moving down the path toward the gate. He turned and spoke over his shoulder. "Guess it'll take somebody who can read signs to do that, mister! Somebody that knows the woods. A man could hide out for weeks in these deep cedar swamps. Pretty thinly settled! But we'll root the varmint out, if he's anywheres about. And when we ketch him, he'll be lucky if he ever lives to be tried!"

A moment later the gate clicked in the darkness, and Weston rebolted his door. He also went over the rooms on the lower floor, closed and locked each window. He had bolted his door through sheer habit; all the windows had been left open, for the fresh air. They were screened against mosquitoes, but otherwise unprotected. He turned and mounted the stairs, to find Annie standing shivering on the top landing.

"How perfectly awful!" she exclaimed, "I heard all he said. And we supposed that up here we'd get away from all the lawlessness and assaults and murders and things our city papers are full of! I didn't dream any worse crime was ever heard of up here in this lovely country than the theft of a watermelon, or the bootlegging of a little hard cider by some thrifty farmer! Oh, Frank, I don't believe I'm going to like it here. Let's go to some civilized resort, and give up our rental here!"

Weston put a reassuring arm across her shoulder and gently urged her back to her room.

"Shucks! Wait till tomorrow, and see how different you feel in the bright sunshine. I don't believe there are any dangerous people living within twenty miles of us. This was the act of some tramp crazy with hooch, or dope. They'll catch him; and nothing exciting will happen here again for fifty years more. But isn't it queer that this should occur the very night we arrived to enjoy the simple life!"

Contrary to their expectations, both fell asleep within fifteen minutes, nor were they troubled with bad dreams. They were roused only when Romeo, the bobtailed cat, scandalized at the idea of lying abed after the sun was up, perched on Weston's pillow and patted his face with imperative paws. He opened his eyes, grinned, and called out to Annie that it was a grand morning, and that he could do with a bit of breakfast!

As Weston had prophesied, his wife felt differently about their new home in the bright morning sunshine. Robins and bluebirds were singing, and selecting home sites. Down on the shore, crows were strutting up and down, their sharp beaks attacking periwinkles and mussels. The island of Mt. Desert stood out so clearly that one could make out automobiles crawling up its steep mountain roads. In the lilac bush at the corner of the kitchen, a peabody bird lighted and uttered its joyous song, which our northern cousins insist is a repetition of the word: "Canada."

Annie sang too, as she wrestled with coffee, ham and eggs and toast, all at one time on her stove aflame with seasoned kindling. Frank surveyed his bristly chin in the mirror of his bureau, grinned, and decided not to shave that day. That was one of the petty tyrannies he had come up here to escape! No, and he wouldn't wear any necktie, either. Just a flannel shirt open at the neck, the new corduroy trousers, and on his feet a pair of easy buckskin shoes. Bareheaded, he would wander about and get the lay of the land after breakfast. He too sang, discordantly, but none the less happily.

But before breakfast was fairly over, they had a caller, two of them, in fact; one remained outside, at the wheel of the stanch old touring car. The other, a determined-looking man with a square chin and sea-blue eyes, a man in his vigorous fifties and wearing loose blue serge and a slouch hat, knocked at the door. By daylight, there was nothing ominous about this knocking; it didn't seem nearly as loud as the summons of Jason Hodge in the blackness of night.

He nodded at Frank as he answered the door, a piece of buttered toast in one hand and toast crumbs sprinkling his flannel shirt.

"Mr. Weston? From New York? Thought so. I'm Thomas, Joe Thomas from Allsworth— sheriff. Suppose you've heard about what happened last night?"

"Hodge came over to tell me," Weston said. "He knew we have no telephone. Won't you come in, Mr. Thomas? We can rustle up a cup of hot coffee—"

The sheriff interrupted him with a gesture of one hand.

"Much obliged; but this is my busy day. What time did Jason tell you about what happened at Bronson's place?"

"Why— I don't know exactly; I think I'd just fallen asleep, and we retired about ten o'clock. Couldn't have been much later than ten thirty."

"Then you really don't know what all could have taken place afterward."

"Why, no. We locked up tight, and then went to sleep again; and you're the first one I've seen since I talked with Hodge."

The sheriff nodded. "Just so. Well, there was another outrage along toward three o'clock. Same fellow, apparently; anyhow he was masked, and he had plenty of time to walk over to old man Tucker's cabin. That's beyond Cranberry Beach a few miles; nearest neighbor is a mile away. Tucker has always had the reputation of being a miser. I don't know why; I doubt if he's got ten dollars to his name. But anyhow, this bandit— whoever it was— broke into his shack, woke up the old man and tried to make him tell where his money was hid. Didn't get nothing out of him. Not even when he tied him up and held lighted matches to the soles of his feet and did other devilish things I haven't time to go into now. He left along about half past four, as well as Tucker can figure out. The poor old codger is in a bad way. They took him over to Allsworth, to the hospital. He's hurt, some; but the shock to his nerves is worse, the doctors say. So, you see Hodge's warning isn't one to be taken lightly."

Weston was genuinely shocked. Coming as he had from a city where atrocious crimes were the familiar headlines of his breakfast paper, he had expected to forget such things in the peaceful country of scattered farms, deep woods, and majestic ocean. They seemed worse, somehow, these brutal assaults, than they had back home. They seemed to desecrate the loveliness of nature; to make the bird songs and the fleecy clouds and warm sunshine a mockery.

He was seeking to find some expression of his feelings when Thomas spoke again.

"Just you and your wife here? So I understood. And you got in— when?"

"Yesterday, about four o'clock. Jed Hooper drove us over from Cherryville Junction in his car. We came up on the Down-Easter through train from New York."

"Strangers here, I take it? How'd you come to learn about the place?"

Weston smiled. "I picked out about the location we desired, on a road map. Then I wrote the postmaster at Cherryville, and he sent me a number of names; Hooper's was among them. So then I wrote him, and from his description I engaged the Jarvis house."

He looked the sheriff steadily and a trifle quizzically in the eyes. "I guess you're asking me to establish a sort of alibi, Mr. Thomas?"

The sheriff reddened slightly, then laughed. "There isn't a chance in the world that you had anything to do with these two affairs, Weston. But one of the things I have to do is check up on every man, woman and grown child who lives hereabout and could by any chance, however remote, have been to the Bronson and Tucker places last night. That's dry detail; but it has to be attended to, or I'll get what-for from the district attorney!"

He turned to go; then paused for a final word.

"Don't let this fret you and the missus too much. We're bound to get that murdering dog. I've got men that know every mile of this district like it was their own woodpile. Besides which, the roads will be patrolled. I'm swearing in deputies today. You'll see some of 'em before sundown. And if you hear or see anything suspicious, no matter how trivial it seems to you, be sure to notify one of my men right off. G'bye!"

Weston watched until he swung himself into the waiting car, and was driven rapidly down the sandy road towards Hooper's place.

"That was the sheriff," he explained to Annie when he returned to the kitchen for a final cup of coffee. "There was another holdup last night— an old man miles away up the beach somewhere. Nobody was killed or seriously hurt. And before night there'll be someone on guard along the highway. If they don't catch the fellow, they'll at least make it too dangerous for him to attempt anything further around here."

Annie tried to believe him; her common sense argued that he was right. But somehow, the warmth seemed to have gone from the sunshine. And the birds seemed to have stopped their song, this was natural enough, as their early chorus was over, and they were busy about their affairs. Only Romeo, the bobtailed cat, seemed oblivions of the dark cloud that had descended over the peaceful little hamlet of Fast Harbor. Promptly after he had lapped up his saucer of warm milk, he wandered forth to investigate the life and habits of the field mouse, as found in his dooryard.

When Weston would have imitated his cat to the extent of strolling away from the house, Annie entered a terrified protest.

"Where are you going with that pail, Frank?" she cried. To his reply that he was thinking of going down to the beach which lay just beyond a clump of cedars, to see if he could dig some clams, she objected: "But there's nearly a peck of clams from those Mr. Hooper left here for us!"

He hesitated, glancing longingly at the short iron clam hook in his hand, "Well, I thought it would be rather good fun. And they will keep indefinitely, if I leave a little water in the pail and sprinkle some corn meal over them. I read that in a newspaper."

Annie's voice was a little sharp with terror as she answered him. "Yes, and first thing you know, you'll be reading in a newspaper that Mrs. Frank Weston was found murdered in her summer camp, while her husband was amusing himself on the shore!"

Half vexed and half amused, he yielded. "If I've got to stick around the dooryard all the time, we might as well pull stakes and go to a hotel. One reason for coming up here was to get a lot of exercise and fresh air! If you're worried, and I don't wonder, why not put on your old shoes and come along with me?"

She shook her head, "No; I've got my housework to attend to. Beds to make, dinner to get started. Of course we'll take walks all about the country together; but not right after breakfast. You said there'd be some guards posted nearby, didn't you?"

"So the sheriff promised. All right, then. I'll wait till they show up before I go out of sight of the house."

He reluctantly set down his pail and clam hook, and pottered about the rough dooryard, pulling clumps of weeds, removing loose stones from the driveway, working up an appetite by splitting some kindling, although Jed Hooper had prepared a generous supply of fuel in advance of their coming.

The day dragged monotonously. Weston missed his daily papers and the mail he always looked over before going to his office. He hated to admit it, but he even missed the noise and bustle of the city, the throbbing of industry and pleasure and all that went to make up the ordered confusion of a metropolis. Nobody passed the house; lacking a telephone, he could not call up to inquire what progress, if any, had been made toward capturing the murderous unknown.

But directly after dinner, which they ate in an abstracted silence, big Jason Hodge appeared. He was leading a miserable-looking cur, whose pedigree would have puzzled a dog fancier. He hailed Weston with rough cordiality.

"Brought ye a watchdog! He ain't much to look at, but he sure does make a row if he hears anybody prowling about the house. Thought the missus would feel easier at night with him tied up outside. If you don't hear Tige yellin', you can rest easy there's nobody sneaking up on ye in the dark. Keep him till we've caught the miscreant."

"Mighty good of you," Weston thanked him, eyeing the dog dubiously. "Then I take it nothing has been found yet? No clues?"

"There's a posse out now beating up the woods and swamps. Soon as I learn anything I'll come right over and tell you."

He looked about, selected a juniper bush whose scrubby boughs formed a shelter close to the ground, dragged the slinking mongrel to it and made fast his rope. "He don't need no kennel this warm weather," he explained. "Just feed him twice a day; any scraps left over from the table. Tige ain't particular. And see that he has plenty of water. Soon as we catch our man, I'll come over and fetch him home."

Weston thanked him as cordially as he was able, the dog circled his tree two or three times, winding himself up in his rope, then sniffed resignedly and laid himself down on the sunny side and went to sleep. Hodge strode with long-legged steps back toward his farm, and life at the old Jarvis place went on as before.

The westering sun was sending the long, thin shadows of the cedars and spruces across the yard when two strange men heaved in sight from up the road. There was something grim and businesslike about their look, dressed as they were in rough shooting coats, with breeches tucked into their boots, and rifles under their arms. One of them turned in through the gate and approached Weston, who was feeding the guardian dog.

"Seen any strangers about?" he asked.

Weston shook his head. "You are all strangers to me; all but the sheriff, Hodge and Hooper. But nobody else has been near us; or at least, I have seen no one. You one of the guards Thomas spoke of?"

"That's me. Name of Larkin. I trap, winters, and do a little lobstering summers. Got a string of pots out in the cove now. Thomas told me to take over a mile or two of the road about here. Nights, that means. Don't allow there'll be any daylight assaults."

"Well, that's certainly fine! And if you want anything, don't hesitate to call on us. My wife will be glad to get up in the middle of the night and make you a cup of coffee, or rustle a lunch."

Larkin grinned. "I've tromped the wilderness too long to pamper myself that way, mister! My own wife sees to it I start out with a full stomach, and I've more'n once hit the trail for two days with no more than a handful of crackers and a drink of melted snow. But if you see or hear anything unusual, tip me off, will you? The selectmen have offered a reward for the capture, and I could use it."

Twice that night, Weston rose from his bed and peered out into the darkness; and once he made out the shadowy figure of Larkin as he stole cautiously down the road, making no more noise than an Indian, and keeping to the edge of the road where the cedars cast a protecting gloom.

Neither Frank nor his wife slept well, although greatly eased in their minds by the presence of alert watchers, armed to kill. It was Jason Hodge's dog which was responsible for their insomnia. Every little while he broke into astonishing howls and ululations, sounds that it did not seem as if his wizened body could give voice to. The animal was uneasy in a strange place, irked by being tied up, and doubtless aware of the passing guards. There was less reassurance in his warning bark than there was annoyance to the would-be sleepers, Both were tired and irritable when they sat down for breakfast next morning; and Annie insisted that the dog be led back to its owner that very day.

"Every time he wakes me up I jump a foot!" she declared. "I might as well be murdered, as scared to death!"

Hodge ambled past during the forenoon; and Weston returned the dog with thanks and explanations.

"He keeps my wife awake with his howling. And now that there are guards posted— man named Larkin has this section to cover— we don't really need the dog."

Hodge nodded understandingly.

"Guess that's right. Tige would warn ye if the bandit come near; but he's bound to make just as much fuss over a passing guard, or a rabbit, or a skunk. He means well, but he talks too much. If he wan't such a good coon dog, I'd shoot him. He's spoiled a deal of sleep for me, too!"

3:  A Stranger

BEFORE DUSK fell that afternoon, there was plenty of evidence that the countryside was astir. Where hitherto there had been almost complete isolation, the road was now alive with men on foot, in rackety secondhand cars, and on horseback. Here and there an expensive make of automobile drove past, filled with those whom curiosity had drawn from Allsworth, and even as far away as Bangor. There were reporters and camera men among the rest. The sandy highway began to take on the aspects of a thriving town street.

Weston reflected that almost any one of the men who straggled past, some of them pausing to gape at him as he lounged smoking a pipe in his doorway, might be the murderous bandit who had strangely enough chosen this quiet, law-abiding and by no means wealthy neck of the woods for his assaults and depredations. They were all strangers to him, save the three or four men and one woman he had come to know. But there was comfort in their very numbers; and although toward twilight they thinned out, and finally disappeared save for the solemnly parading sentry, Larkin, Weston and Annie both retired that night without any fears. They were careful to lock everything fast downstairs, and the loaded automatic rested under Frank's pillow. He wished that he might practice with it a little; but the sound of shots would certainly bring a lot of excited and inquisitive men to their little house. He believed that he had mastered the mechanism, and that he wouldn't in an emergency forget to slip the safety catch. But there wouldn't be any emergency; of this he felt sure. With morning, word would probably come that the bandit had been captured.

Instead of which, morning brought Jed Hooper and his wife, Lizzie, with news of a fresh outrage. The masked man, eluding all the trackers, had broken into an unoccupied summer cottage five miles down the shore, ransacking it. The owner had been notified; until he arrived, it was impossible to say just how much had been stolen. Lacking any human victim, the bandit had sated his bad temper on the furnishings. A costly radio set had been wrecked; rugs and pictures were slashed, glass and china broken.

"Course, we don't know for sure that it's the same man," Hooper admitted, "but it's reasonable to s'pose it is. 'Tain't likely there's two sech wild men runnin' loose about Fast Harbor! He's a loony, says I, and cunning as a weasel, like crazy folk is apt to be. A criminal lunatic. Sheriff Thomas has found some faint footprints at two of the places, and measured 'em; but that don't amount to nothing till we find some shoes to fit 'em to— and some feet in the shoes! It looks like he hid out in the cottage a night or two. One of the beds has been slept in, and some tinned grub opened, and water boiled on an oil stove."

"If you folks are nervous," Lizzie invited, "you're more'n welcome to come over and stop with us till they catch him. You'd feel easier where there's four of us, than just you two, being as you're strangers here. There's plenty of room, and folks say they never get up hungry from my table!"

"That is awfully dear of you, Mrs. Hooper; but truly, Frank and I are not alarmed. He has his revolver ready, and we are careful about our doors and windows. Nobody could get in without making a lot of noise, and Frank will give them a warm welcome! Besides, Larkin is on guard near by; and soon as he heard a shot he'd hurry to us with his rifle."

"Well, that's sensible," Lizzie Hooper agreed. "But I didn't know just how you'd feel about it, and wanted you to know we feel sort of responsible for getting you up here, where you expected to have a good rest!"

The good woman stayed for an hour or so and helped Annie with advice about certain details of cooking; and Frank chatted pleasantly enough with Jed, over a couple of mugs of the smooth cider from the keg in the cellar. There was less passing along the road, today; but quite a number had been identified by Jed during his call, and there were others who were strangers to him.

"I reckon I know by sight every man within fifteen mile," he declared. "So there must be some who have come from quite a ways off. Cats ain't all the critters that are pestered by curiosity! Well, we got into the city papers, anyhow; Portland, and even Boston. Your name's mentioned, too. 'Mr. Frank Weston and wife, of Riverside Drive, New York, are summering in Fast Harbor, which is just now the center of an unknown bandit's activities.' That's what it said; I memorized it to tell ye."

Weston laughed. "I don't know as this sort of publicity does any of us much good!"

Hooper pondered over this. "I've heard say that it don't matter so much what they say about ye, if only they say something!"

"That has been the motto of some famous characters," Weston admitted. "Anyhow, the more publicity, the harder it will be for the bandit to escape capture. There must be a hundred men looking for him, right now."

"We're a leetle mite slow getting started," Jed said. "But the whole county will be on his trail before the week's out. The reward will fetch him, I know I could use that five hundred easy! And so could a lot of others. Guess likely you're the only resident that don't need it."

After the Hoopers had left, and with the potatoes boiling for dinner, Annie joined her husband, sitting beside him on the doorstep. There seemed nothing better to do than to watch the passersby. But of these, there seemed only a scattered few. There was nothing to attract them to this particular spot; those who passed were on their way to the Bronson house or old man Tucker's shack, or the looted cottage. And by noon, the road was as deserted as usual. Larkin wouldn't come on till dark.

Suddenly, and without warning, a small gray body hurtled between them, shot out into the yard, and made for a clump of junipers. It was Romeo, his hair erect, whiskers twitching, and spitting as he went. His tail would have been ruffed up had it been anything but the mere stump it was!

Weston's pipe had dropped from his surprised lips. Annie screamed a little, then laughed. "Well, what do you know about that! He was asleep by the kitchen stove when I came out. What do you suppose—"

Her words died away as a slight noise from the rear of the house caught her ear. She rose and turned toward the kitchen.

"Wait! Let me go first," Frank cried; and thrusting her aside almost brusquely, he hurried through the living room and into the kitchen. At the door, he paused uncertainly. A man— a stranger— stood in the middle of the floor, regarding him with a faint grin.

He was a slightly built, pleasant-faced man of about thirty-five, dressed neatly and almost fastidiously in well-fitting clothes, and wearing a pearl-gray felt hat which he removed as he caught sight of Weston's wife standing at his shoulder. He set down a small traveling bag as he spoke.

"I knocked, but I fancy you didn't hear me."

His voice was agreeable and low pitched. "And I seem to have scared your cat into a fit! Sorry."

"What did you do to Romeo?" Annie asked, her courage returning

"Not a thing, I assure you! The truth is, cats sort of have it in for me. I rather like them; but they don't reciprocate. Down at the office they poke a lot of fun at me about it. But let me introduce myself properly."

From an inside breast pocket he look a black leather case, and from it removed a business card which he handed to Weston It read: "Sanford Teller, Detective. Representing the Wallis Detective Agency. Boston."

"I may also add that I have full credentials in this pocket case, and a real, shiny new badge," the stranger added. In proof of the latter assertion he unbuttoned the top of his vest and showed on the under side an oval silver shield, bearing the title of detective and a number.

"Well, I declare!" said Annie. "You don't look one bit like a detective! Of course, I never saw one before, to know him."

Mr. Teller bowed gracefully. "You flatter me, madam! The one man I don't want to look like is a detective. And so, your words are balm to my spirit."

He turned to Weston. "Your name I know. I read of your arrival in a Boston daily; and I already knew more or less of your financial position in New York. Now, Mr. Weston, it is urgent that I have a few words in private with you. Will Mrs. Weston think me too rude, if—"

Annie colored slightly. "Certainly not! But if you two will use one of the front rooms, I'll finish getting dinner ready. For after all, this is my domain, Mr. Teller!"

The urbane sleuth bowed gallantly. "Granted, Mrs. Weston! And I'll explain to your husband how I came to call at the back door, instead of the front. And he has my permission to tell you as much as he chooses, of what I tell him."

He stooped over and picked up his grip, and followed his host to the front of the house, while Annie gingerly stuck a fork into one of the bubbling potatoes, as Lizzie Hooper had told her to do. She wasn't at all sure whether they were done or not; the fork seemed to go in easily enough. She set them farther back on the stove, and began to cut thin slices from a ham.

The two men meanwhile had seated themselves in the parlor, a room the Westons had not had any occasion to use so far. To Weston's suggestion that they sit on the doorstep, the detective objected. Not only that, but he carefully closed the door, and took pains to sit far back in the room, out of range of the window.

"All this seems very mysterious, and stagy," he said. "But it is dictated by strict common sense. I am afraid your well-earned privacy is about to be invaded, sir! Almost overnight your little village has become unhappily notorious. And that is why I am here."

He leaned forward, his quiet voice pitched still lower.

"I have been lurking in the cedar grove behind your house for half an hour," he confessed. "When I was as certain as I could be that the coast was clear, I hustled across the backyard; and when you didn't answer my knock, I didn't waste a moment. It may have been impolite, but I simply came right on in!"

Once more he took out his pocket case, glanced over a number of papers, selected one. "Here is a copy, on our official paper, of a letter received by Mr. Wallis— my employer— from the assistant district attorney, Mr. Frothingham. You will note that he requests that an agent be sent as soon as possible from Boston. The truth is, Mr. Weston, that the district attorney knows as well as I do— and as you probably do— that this case is a little out of the ordinary experience of country constables! While Thomas, the sheriff, is a good man as far as he goes, shrewd and energetic, he has never handled anything more intricate than chasing down an illicit still, or helping the fish warden stop the destruction of short lobsters, or lock up the village cut-up occasionally. Something a little more up-to-date than the hick constable is needed right now, and that is why I am here. Got in this morning, early, and have kept out of sight.

"My experience has been almost entirely with bank men and loft workers in the cities; and the only reason for sending me up here is that I was pretty familiar with the country, because as a boy my father used to rent a summer place at Bar Harbor year after year. I've hunted and fished for miles up and down the coast."

"But just why have you called on me?" Weston asked. "I'm probably the one man within twenty miles who is least fitted to give you the slightest information or advice! We have only just moved in, and were never here before."

Teller smiled, fished in his pockets again, and this time took out a handsome pigskin cigar case. He offered it to Weston, who accepted a panatela. Teller held the match, lighted one himself. When it was drawing, he spoke again.

"You've answered your own question! The one thing I don't want is advice, or alleged information! And I'd be swamped with it if I were to approach anybody else. They're great gossips in these parts; and just now, everybody is bursting with theories and rumors. It is vital for my success, that my presence be not so much as suspected. At my suggestion, Mr. Wallis wrote the district attorney not to notify Sheriff Thomas, or any one else, that our agency is interested in the case. We work alone, sir, and in the dark. And now I come to the gist of the matter. The truth is, and much as I regret to do so, I am obliged to make an awkward request, the decision on which must, of course, rest with you and Mrs. Weston. If I am to work in secret, my presence unsuspected by the local police, and my work unhampered, where am I going to stay? And here is where you come in, if you will!"

Weston looked startled. "You mean, you want to stay here? To eat and sleep in this house?"

Teller nodded and blew a beautiful smoke ring.

"Sounds nervy, doesn't it? Of course I needn't say that you may send the Wallis Agency a bill in full, and you don't need to be too modest about the amount, either! This county is paying all the expenses. But I also realize that is isn't a question of money, but the interruption of what was intended to be a restful, quiet vacation. Well, as to that, let me remind you that this rest and quiet has already been somewhat upset by the events of the past two nights. And furthermore, I shall be here only by day. I must got some sleep and have a place in which to hide out, and make my reports to Wallis. As soon as it is dark, I shall be off on my investigations. I am as good as a cat for seeing in the dark! Maybe that is one reason why cats dislike me. We are rival night prowlers, in the estimation of puss! But joking aside, I should sleep forenoons, require only the plainest of food, and not much of that; work at my reports and the assembling of any clues I may dig up through the afternoon, and be off and away as soon as night falls.

"Forget me; think only of your duty as a citizen. This law-abiding little community is terrorized by a nameless peril. The chances are ten to one against its solution by the local constabulary. The chances are about that in my favor; I have a pretty good record for getting my men! But in order to work unhampered, I must have a hangout. All I need is a shake down and a blanket; I'm used to roughing it. That, and some food."

Weston pondered for some moments, his brow furrowed. Then it cleared, and he spoke up. "Of course, Teller, I can't decide a thing like this without speaking to my wife!"

"By all means! I wouldn't stay here for a moment unless she sanctioned it. Be perfectly frank with her. I trust you both."

Frank went back to the kitchen, where the ham was already sizzling, and a bowl of fresh eggs stood ready to be dropped into the hot fat. Briefly he told Annie the situation as Teller had outlined it. Rather to his relief, she insisted that the detective must be sheltered.

"Aside from it being our plain duty," she said as she turned a slice of ham without spattering too much hot grease, "think what a protection he will be! You can have your walks, and dig clams, and fish or anything, because he will be here all day. Then at night, you will be home. I'll have a big, strong man at hand to protect me twenty-four hours a day! And now, ask him to have dinner with us. It will be ready in a jiffy."

It was a jolly meal, even though Romeo sulked and would not come inside for his food, which had to be set outside the door for him. To both Weston and his wife, it was quite an experience to talk familiarly with a real detective. They had read many mystery stories, but never before had they seen a detective; they might have, of course, but at least they had not recognized him as one. And the Wallis Agency was internationally known. It never handled any dirty cases; and it frequently cooperated with the police of many cities, and even of countries abroad. Wallis, the founder, had at one time been a Boston police chief.

Teller laughingly refused to discuss the present case.

"I only just arrived, and I don't allow myself to do any theorizing until I've looked over the ground. But I promise you this: you are my partners now, and whatever I learn, I'll disclose to you. We will work the case over together. It happens more often than you think, that an outsider, one with no connection whatever with the forces of law and order, furnishes us professionals with a priceless suggestion! You are a sound business man, sir, and I grant Mrs. Weston a full share of woman's intuition!"

Teller slept for quite a while after dinner. His long night journey, taken at such short notice that he had been unable to obtain a sleeping berth, had tired him. Toward dusk, he awakened, and had supper with them; but he seemed preoccupied with the hour drawing near when he must set forth on the hunt for clews.

Annie had fixed up a comfortable cot for him on the sofa in the parlor; at his request, the blinds were drawn, all the windows closed. He placed his grip in a little cupboard, and carefully removed all traces of his presence.

"Not a word to the sheriff, if he calls, nor to anyone else!" he warned, "You won't have to lie, for nobody suspects my presence, and nobody but the district attorney knows that we are in on the case at all. I have made arrangements to communicate with him, and to forward my reports to Boston."

Shortly after darkness had fallen, Sanford Teller, with the furtiveness that delighted Annie as the proper attitude of a sleuth, crept from the house by the kitchen door, and after peering up and down for some moments, darted across the strip of rough ground and was lost to sight in the cedar grove.

"It isn't the simple life we expected, but isn't it just too thrilling?" Annie chattered as they climbed the narrow stairway to their chambers. "Like one of these mystery plays, only lots more real!"

4: Gold Beads

ANNIE was awakened by a sunbeam which found its way in through a chink in the blinds and struck her full in the eye. Her first thought was of their strange guest.

"Good gracious! And he wanted to get into the house unseen. We never thought to leave the kitchen door unlocked, nor to give him the key!"

She hastily threw on a loose robe, and pattered into the front room where her husband still slept. She shook his shoulder impatiently, and as his eyes opened lazily, she cried: "Oh, Frank! That poor Mr. Teller must be hiding out in the cedar grove, waiting for us to let him in!"

But the resourceful Teller was doing nothing of the sort. When Weston had hastily donned some clothes and slipped downstairs, he heard through the parlor door the deep respirations of a sleeping man; and, cautiously peering within, he beheld the detective reposing on his couch, the blanket drawn up to his eyebrows. Leaving him in peace, Weston passed on to the kitchen and tried the door. It was locked; as were all the windows. Returning to the upper floor, he told Annie what he had found.

Both now dressed fully, and Annie set the coffeepot on and got out the eggs and began to toast bread. Weston meanwhile knocked at the parlor door. And at the first tap of his knuckles, Sanford Teller sat abruptly up in his bed, his eyes wide awake and alert. Weston grinned.

"We were afraid we'd locked you out, and overslept! How on earth did you manage to get in?"

Teller laughed cheerily, and rose in a pair of sky-blue pajamas, stretching his arms luxuriously. "Getting into locked houses is the easiest part of my profession, Weston! Truth is, we have a lot of tricks in common with crooks. I forgot to speak about leaving the kitchen key where I could find it when I returned about half past three; but that didn't matter. I judge that I didn't disturb you or Mrs. Weston when I came in and very quietly went to bed?"

"No, but you disturbed her when she awoke and remembered that you wanted to come back here in the dark, before any one passing by could see you! You hurry up and get washed and dressed; breakfast is 'most ready. And while we're eating it you can tell her how you managed to get in."

Teller grinned. "I don't know about that! It don't do to tell too much. Got to hold some things back, or there won't be anything mysterious about me. And that would be fatal to the reputation of a detective, you know!"

But under the mellow influence of hot coffee and fresh-boiled eggs and buttered toast that wasn't burned the least little bit, he yielded, and showed them a long, slim skeleton key, one of a bunch he kept on a ring.

"There are probably some doors and drawers in this county that this collection wouldn't open," he admitted. "But I doubt if there are any in Fast Harbor! Better watch out for your spoons and jewelry, Mrs. Weston!"

"The spoons go with the house, and are guaranteed to be silver plated," Annie assured him. "And as for jewelry, you'll have to go to New York and pick the lock in my safety-deposit box to get that. Unless my wedding ring tempts you.''

Teller bowed gallantly. "Only to the extent of wishing it might have been given to you by me, madam!"

"Why, how perfectly sweet of you! Frank never says such nice things to me."

"No, but Frank bought the wedding ring!" her husband reminded her.

It was a cheerful meal and, after it was finished, Teller insisted that it had waked him up so thoroughly that he didn't feel inclined to finish his nap, which he would postpone until later in the day.

When the dishes were done, they gathered about the table in the parlor, careful to keep the windows shut. Weston himself sat where, through a crack in the blinds, he could observe any one approaching the house.

"Of course, I haven't anything to report as yet," Teller stated. "I devoted last night to looking over the sites where the crimes took place. And let me tell you, the woods were swarming with amateur detectives! Everybody but the bedridden— that is, every man— in this neck of the woods is out for that five hundred dollars' reward! Some carry lanterns, a few have pocket torches, and one or two of the local constables go without any lights at all; they are the only ones that worried me. They really do know a lot about tracking; they don't make much noise as they move about, and most of them can shoot fast and straight. But I managed to get what I wanted without being seen or heard; although once or twice I almost brushed elbows with some silent patrol."

He spread out on the table a large road map of the country. Taking from his vest pocket a soft red pencil, he began to mark certain crosses and arrows and lines upon the map.

"Here, you will note, is the location of the Bronson place; and this, a few miles beyond Cranberry Beach, is old Tucker's cabin. Here is the cottage that was broken into; nobody living there, you remember. It was while scouting about it that I had my narrowest escape. Cautious as I was, some guard must have caught a glimpse of me; anyhow, first thing I knew a gunshot raised the hair on my head! Buckshot, the fellow was using; it pattered onto the cottage wall not a foot above my head. I was scared stiff, but not hurt. Dropped flat, and crawled off to a great lilac bush, and from there gained the road. I never saw the man who shot at me, but could hear him thrashing about hunting for me."

Annie drew her breath sharply. "But you run terrible risks! Wouldn't it be better to let the sheriff know who you are, rather than be killed through an error?"

The little man shook his head vigorously. "That's a risk I've got to take. It's all in the day's work, or rather, the night's work! Once I am known, my usefulness ends. Everybody will be tagging me about, and the criminal will know I am coming a mile before I'm in sight, Might as well hire a brass band to accompany me! No, my only chance of capturing lies in my remaining incognito. But, look!"

He pointed to the map. "By setting down every single site connected with the crimes, we get the first necessary layout of the field of battle. This map, revised from day to day, shows the precise range of the bandit's activities. This is the sort of thing the postal agents work out when there is an epidemic of stolen mail. Every time a loss is reported, a mark is made on the map; and in time, by an intricate system of geometrical cross-lines, we manage to locate the headquarters of the gang. That is something I hope to do with this lone ruffian, if he remains undetected long enough to commit a series of crimes."

He refolded the map, and pocketed it.

"And that is absolutely all I have to tell you," he said. "Can't expect definite results the first night! This sort of chase is likely to prove a long, stern one. But I don't mind telling you this purely theoretical notion of mine: when found, the bandit will prove to me a man known to a good many residents hereabouts. You see, it is always hard for us to believe that anybody we have known well and for a long time, is an actual criminal. We may detest him, admit that he is mean, selfish, unpopular, a tax evader, even a chicken thief, but a murderer? No! Because the very instinct of self-preservation keeps us from admitting that we could possibly live within sight of the home of a murderer!"

"You mean," Weston asked, "that this bandit actually lives within sight of where we are?"

"Not quite that; but I do feel that the perfectly natural instinct of attributing any atrocious crime to a stranger, somebody from far away, is not to be trusted too far. Without hampering myself by any preconceived ideas, I shall, among other things, scrutinize our neighbors pretty closely. Who had the best opportunity to terrorize the Bronson woman, and old Tucker? Who knew that the summer cottage down the shore was unoccupied? Who knows the wilderness about here well enough to so far evade trained guides? Who is able to hide out and obtain food without being detected? Certainly, no stranger, who would be lost within half an hour of the time he entered the great cedar swamp! And more certainly yet, no city-bred man. No, I shall make it one of my first duties to look over the local peasantry! Some queer characters live in lonesome little hamlets like this. The very isolation preys on their minds; they become abnormal. And everything indicates that the man I am after is not normal; he is the victim of some overwhelming homicidal mania. I hope I am wrong; but I never allow sentiment to interfere with my professional duty."

Nothing of further interest occurred that day, save a brief visit from Sheriff Joe Thomas, who alighted from his car and came to the door for a brief word. He looked worn and drawn, and as if he had sacrificed a lot of sleep.

"Heard or seen anything, Mr. Weston? No? Well, I don't expect you will. Did you happen to hear a gunshot last night? Doubt if it would carry this far; wind was in wrong direction. One of my men thought he saw something moving about the Barnard cottage; the one that was broken into. He was taking no chances, so he let a charge of double-b's at it. Heard nothing, and didn't see anything more. But this morning I found some broken twigs and the faintest impression of foot tracks around the cottage. Ground is hard there, and I couldn't get any impressions. Reckon it might have been some curiosity seeker. Don't think the bandit would be fool enough to return, especially since he had time enough to take anything he wanted the first trip. Must be on my way, now. Sorry your vacation is being knocked galley west this way!"

Sanford Teller had listened to the sheriff with quiet amusement. When he had gone, he emerged from the parlor and spoke.

"Your sheriff would be surprised to learn that the man his deputy tried to pot, is about to sit down to dinner with you and your wife, wouldn't he?"

"He'd be more than surprised," Weston mumbled. "He'd certainly give me a fine bawling-out for not telling him!"

"You'll never be really popular with Thomas," Teller decided. "When I nail my man— if I do— the sheriff will be sore as a pup to think that it was done over his head. But such are the dark and devious ways of the Wallis Agency!"

There followed two highly exciting days for the Westons and indeed for the entire countryside. On two successive nights, fresh outrages occurred. Fortunately, there were no deaths; but this was not owing to any clemency on the part of the marauder. In one case, the chance arrival of a visitor interrupted him as he was tying up a crippled fisherman and his wife, after laying the former low with a stout chair swung about his head; in the other instance, he waylaid a motorist who had got lost, and run out of gas in an abandoned wood road. This man, who was young and vigorous though unarmed, did not suspect the friendly-appearing stranger who appeared afoot, and paused to inquire if he could be of assistance. However, the stranger without warning struck him a terrible blow on the head with a stout cudgel he was using as a walking stick. Dazed, and unable to put up a fight, the man's pockets were rifled, and when some time toward dawn one of the sheriff's men found him, these were all the details he was able to give. Yes, the man wore a handkerchief about his neck, but it was not used as a mask. And the sudden blow, which had just failed to cause a fracture of the skull, left him in too confused a state to give any clear description of his assailant.

Both of these incidents were recounted to Weston by Jason Hodge, who got them by telephone. Weston detailed them to the keenly interested Teller, who marked them with red crosses on his gradually developing map. Meanwhile, the detective himself had at last something of his own to relate.

Despite the fact that he could let himself in with his skeleton key, and did so noiselessly, promptly going to bed until breakfast time, neither Weston nor his wife was able to sleep well toward dawn. They were on the alert to hear some slight sound indicating the return of the little sleuth. There was something uncanny in lying upstairs wrapped in profound slumber, while this man entered their supposedly impregnable house, and went to bed, without making any noise about it, There was, too, the constant fear lest he be shot by one of the deputies during his nocturnal prowlings. Were this to happen, it would be Weston's unpleasant duty to explain to the authorities who he was, and that he had been harbored by them. Not to speak of Weston's liking for the pleasant, cheery little investigator, he foresaw himself as the center of most unpleasant inquiry and criticism.

But Sanford Teller seemed to bear a charmed life. He passed unscathed through a country thickly dotted with keen men, some of whom were professional guides, and all of whom had abnormally good eyes and ears. And despite his handicap of working alone, and in the night, he was making progress, He had, so he explained to the Westons, accumulated a number of finger prints in and about the various scenes of the outrages. He had found a crimson-stained handkerchief, with an initial, a mile from the Bronson place, and although this so far only indicated to him the route taken by the bandit, he had hopes of gaining more information from it. And most sensational of all, on the evening of the fourth day, just after supper and while he was waiting for darkness to mask his operations, he showed them something that sent the cold shivers up Annie's spine, and even caused the little hairs to stir on the scalp of the more phlegmatic Frank,

"This is graveyard stuff," whispered Teller when they had huddled about his parlor table. "I am really violating my obligations to Wallis in making this find public at all! Of course, I have written it all out fully in my daily report, which I shall mail as usual tonight. But I promised you that, in return for your kindness and hospitality, I would be frank with you; that we should, in a way, work together. So, once more let me warn you how terribly important it is that not a word of this shall get out."

He dove into an inside pocket, and threw upon the table top something that glittered dully in the faint light that crept in through the shuttered windows. Annie touched it gingerly, picked it up and held it to the light. It was a tarnished string of gold beads.

"Why, this is very old!" she cried. "See the size of the beads, and how thin they are worn!"

Teller spoke softly. "It was a string of gold beads, belonging to her grandmother, that was among the things stolen from Mrs. Bronson, wasn't it?"

Weston's voice was sharp and nervous as he asked: "Where did these come from, Teller? Where did you find them?"

Teller smiled bleakly. "These beads were concealed very cunningly in the false drawer of an old writing desk in friend Hodge's house. I took the liberty of entering it last night, while he and his wife were asleep. Little habit of mine, you know, to come and go unannounced!"

Annie gasped. "Why— but— you don't suspect—"

Teller raised a deprecating hand. "Let us not deal with suspicions, Mrs. Weston, but with facts. That is where the beads were. In good time, I expect to have them identified and to show why they were hidden in Hodge's writing desk. Meanwhile, forget that I showed them to you. All I can say now is, the trail grows warmer!"

5: In The Cellar

ON THE MORNING following, Frank Weston started out on a longer hike than he had as yet undertaken. Ever since Teller had quartered himself at the old Jarvis place, he had been free to wander about and enjoy himself digging clams, or fishing for cunners, swimming in the bracing Atlantic, or simply taking a brisk walk. Annie no longer felt nervous, if his absences were not prolonged. She felt a little natural apprehension lest he meet up with the desperado in some lonesome spot; but so far he had committed all his outrages in the blackness of night.

On his tramps, Weston always carried his automatic; and when down on the beach, he had practiced with it, shooting at bits of driftwood. Teller also had a gun which he carried loose in the side pocket of his coat. There was no part of the twenty-four hours when Annie was not, as she and Weston both felt, adequately protected.

On this bright morning, Frank purposed to pay a visit to the looted cottage. This was several miles down the shore; and owing to the fact that the shore line was not straight, but wound in and out and was broken by many little estuaries, it took him some three hours to arrive.

There wasn't much to see; a caretaker had been installed, the place had been cleaned up, and a list of the things stolen proved to be not very serious. Nothing of much value save the radio outfit and some good rugs and pictures had been left in the cottage over the winter. The caretaker welcomed him, the time dragging somewhat in this remote place; and he went over the house, but found little to interest him. So, after giving the man a handful of cigars, and thanking him, he started back for home, this time taking to the highway in order to save time and arrive for dinner.

He had proceeded less than half a mile when a swiftly driven touring car passed him. Directly after, it slowed down, and the man who was not driving turned and waved a hand at him.

Sheriff Thomas sat in the tonneau; Frank noticed that his face was grim and unshaven. He opened the door, beckoned. "Can I give you a lift? You're a long way from home!"

"Took a notion to run down and look over the Barnard cottage," Weston explained. "I like to get all the exercise I can these fine days."

Thomas nodded gloomily. "I have some serious news which you probably haven't heard," he said as the driver started on again.

"Another assault?"

"Murder, this time. Just found the body early this morning. It was taken over to Allsworth about an hour ago."

Weston paled. "Who was it? The victim, I mean?"

Thomas nervously rolled the unlighted cigar between his lips. "Man named Teller. Sanford Teller, a Wallis operative."

Weston's mouth opened soundlessly. It was a full moment before he could collect himself enough to speak. When he did so, his voice sounded harsh and dry like a gear that needed oiling. "H-how did you know who it was? Did you find identifying papers on him?"

Thomas turned in his seat, and looked at his passenger in surprise. "Why, no. As a matter of fact, his pockets had been turned inside out. There was nothing identifying on him; I knew who it was because Teller was sent up here to help run down the wild man! Matter of fact, outside of the district attorney and his assistant and myself, nobody knew he was up here at all. I hadn't even told my deputy. He was working along his own lines."

"And you say this— Teller was killed this morning?"

"I did not say so. I said his body was found this morning. The medical examiner stated that he had been dead not less than twenty-four hours."

A darkness seemed to have closed in about Weston. In it his mind groped uncertainly. Not yet could he reason clearly; the nameless terror that stole upon him was still undefined, without logic. When he spoke again, his voice was hardly more than a whisper so that the sheriff had to lean toward him to catch what he said.

"Sanford Teller— the Wallis operative— he has been staying in my house four days; and—"

The unlighted cigar dropped from Thomas' lips. "What's that?" he cried sharply. "What are you saying?"

Weston roused himself with an effort, as a drugged man forces himself back to the realities of life. "He said that nobody was to know he had been called in, only the district attorney who sent for him. I was above all not to mention his presence to you. And he had papers, a card and a shield— but this other, the man you knew as Teller, have you really any clue as to who killed—"

Sheriff Thomas took from a pocket a small card bearing the photograph of a man in three sections, a full front, and two profiles. Below were a few lines of coarse print which danced before Weston's groggy eyes. But the face that he gazed upon was that of the man who had been his guest for the past few days, the man who was even now in the same house with Annie, miles away—

He covered his face with his trembling hands, and called upon God to have mercy upon him, to permit him to arrive in time!

"Can't your man drive faster?" he gasped. "My wife— alone there with—"

The sheriff interrupted him harshly. "With the man whose rogue's gallery photograph I just showed you? And you took him in, and hid him, and never told me—"

"But I just said that he explained that it was imperative that his presence remain a secret! That you— the local police—"

"That we were a lot of hick cops, I suppose," put in Thomas. "That we would fall down on the case, and if we knew he was here would crab his game! Was that it? I thought so! Well, Weston, let me tell you something. While you have been sheltering a dangerous maniac, the hick cops went quietly ahead, got fingerprints, sent them on to Boston, and just got this man's full record. A lifer from the Bedford Asylum for the criminally insane; escaped a month ago; lived only a few miles away from Fast Harbor as a lad, but not under the name he has used since. True, we haven't got him yet; but he can't elude us much longer. No wonder he fooled us, with you sheltering him every night!"

"Days," murmured the stricken Weston. "He never went out till after dark. And he told us what progress he was making. Only this morning showed us a necklace of gold beads—"

"Which he himself stole from the Bronson woman! Just as he stole Teller's credentials after murdering him and concealing his body in the swamp where only by the barest chance it would ever have been found!"

"Don't rub it in, now!" begged Weston. "Just hurry! If only God will let me find Annie alive—"

The harsh lines faded a little from Thomas' face. He shook the other's arm with rough kindliness. "Pull yourself together, man! He's far too cunning to touch her. Why, you're the best bet he has! Safe and snug at your place, he can sneak out nights and rob and assault and murder to his heart's content. And we are already driving twice as fast as it's safe to do."

After a moment he added: "I must say, though, that you haven't shown that sound judgment I gave you credit for! I'm a countryman, and there's a lot about crooks that I don't know. But after all, I'm sheriff of this county, and in full charge. Wallis wouldn't dream of sending an operative up here without having him report to me. The fact that he didn't report either to me or to headquarters yesterday, worried me; and my men have been looking for Teller as much as they have for Schmidt. That's what your man calls himself when he is among friends."

Weston had no heart for a reply. What a cursed fool he had been! To swallow the story of a lunatic, and to aid and abet him at the very time he was carrying on his reign of terror! That story about finding the gold beads in Jason Hodge's house; why, anybody with the slightest ability to estimate character would know that Jason was the salt of the earth! While Teller— Schmidt— he was too smooth, too plausible. At that, he seemed more the type who went in for phony stock promotions than for red-handed murder! Probably these spells came on him from time to time; perhaps between his outbreaks he was perfectly normal; didn't even recall them! But Frank was in a state of frenzy meantime; for, suppose one of the attacks of homicidal mania would seize him this very day? Alone there, with Annie!

An exclamation from the sheriff caused him to open anguished eyes, to look up. Thomas was pointing far up the road, where a slim woman's figure could be made out, running stumblingly toward them, waving her hands.

"There she is! That's Annie now!" shouted Weston, and would have leaped from the fast-moving car had the sheriff not clamped an iron hand about his biceps.

"Think you can outrun us? Get a grip on yourself! We'll be up with her in thirty seconds!"

The brakes were applied, and with a screech and a smell of hot rubber, they came to a stop beside the panting woman. She was bareheaded, breathless; but despite the look of terror in her eyes, she was unhurt.

"Where is he? Did he get away?" demanded Thomas, the instinct of the man-hunter uppermost.

"N-no! He's locked up—" Annie had time for nothing more before Frank leaped to the roadside and crushed her in his arms, sobbing like a child.

Almost indignantly she pushed him away. "Frank! Behave yourself! This isn't a petting party, and I'm all right! Let me answer Mr. Thomas!"

It was the big sheriff who pried her loose, lifted her into the tonneau, and almost before Weston had seated himself again, the car jumped forward.

"Now, Mrs. Weston! I begin to have hopes that you have more of a headpiece than your husband. You say Schmidt is locked up? In your house?"

She turned a troubled face to him. "Schmidt?" she repeated. "Is that his name? Well, it doesn't matter. I just knew that he wasn't a detective, and so I locked him up."

"Yes, but how? He's gone by this time, that's a safe bet. But we're right on his trail now, and I swear we'll have the twisters on him before another day."

Mrs. Weston smoothed her rumpled hair, "I don't know just what it was that made me suspicious of him! I guess it was the cat, at first. Cats are psychic; everybody knows that! They sense things that we don't. And Romeo never could endure him! Wouldn't set foot— paw I mean— into the house while he was there, I had always to put its saucer of milk outside—"

The sheriff interrupted. "Never mind the cat, Mrs. Weston. We'll see that it gets a medal, later on. Please proceed!"

"Well, he wasn't one bit like what a real detective ought to be! Oh, I never met one, of course, but I've read heaps of detective and mystery stories in magazines! And this Sanford Teller, as he called himself, didn't have one single trait like them! He didn't wear a thick, glossy black mustache, or chew a big black cigar, nor stamp around in thick-soled, square-toed boots, nor anything. And no detective would talk so freely about his clues as this man did. Of course, I didn't really suspect him at first; if I had, I should have told Frank. It was only that these things were sort of mulling in my mind. And this morning, with Frank going for such a long walk, I got to thinking of everything while I was washing the dishes; and suddenly, I saw that everything he had told us would fit the bandit just as well as it did him! Yes, even better. That gold chain; the bandit would have it, and he might show it and pretend that he found it in Mr. Hodge's writing desk, just to throw us off the track. Besides, I had been in the Hodge house, and they haven't got any old writing desk! And so it was with everything else that he called a clue; if he was the bandit, he'd have all these things on him; and as for the papers and things that seemed to prove he was a detective, why he might easily have forged them!"

Annie paused to draw breath. The car swerved to the right, and onto the road which, a mile ahead, passed the old Jarvis place. Thomas glanced at Weston. "Looks to me," he said, "as if the little woman was the thinking partner in your concern!"

Weston had the grace to blush, but made no answer save to squeeze his wife's hand.

"Well, it was just when I was beginning to work myself up into a real panic, that I heard a little noise behind me; and turning, there stood Teller— or whatever his name is— in the doorway! I thought he was sound asleep in the parlor, but there he stood, in his shirt sleeves, and with the queerest, the most awful look in his eyes as he stared at me! Oh! If I could have moved, I'd have run out of the house; but it seemed as if my legs had petrified, I just stood there and stared back. And then— I don't know how ever I managed it— I smiled at him, as naturally as I could, and said: 'Oh, Mr. Teller! My hands are all soapsuds; and would you mind just going down cellar and bringing up that ham that hangs from an iron hook? I want to parboil it for dinner!'

"Well, for a full minute— and it seemed years and years— he just stood there, staring at me; but little by little that strange light in his eyes died out, and he spoke as politely as could be. You know, Frank, he always was the politest thing? So unlike you, that it was suspicious in itself! And then he turned and went down the cellar stairs, and the minute I heard his feet on the cement floor, I rushed across the room and slammed the door and bolted it! And then I ran into his room, and took his pistol from his coat pocket, and ran and ran as fast as I could, down the road straight toward Jed Hooper's!"

She was wearing a short kitchen apron; and from its wide pocket she removed a squatty .45 gun and handed it to the sheriff.

"Mrs. Weston," he said solemnly, "my hat is off to you! If ever you need a job, you can be my deputy for life. But we certainly won't find that bird in any common ordinary cellar, when we get there!"

"Oh, but you will, Mr. Thomas! Ours isn't an ordinary cellar at all, is it, Frank? It hasn't any windows, only little slits a cat would have to squeeze to get through; and it is all stone and cement, and that kitchen door is just one tremendous oak plank, with a staple that some village blacksmith must have made before the Mexican War! He never could get out without tools or dynamite; and there were neither in the cellar. But I do hope he hasn't broken my lovely jars of pickles and peach plums and quince jelly and things. You know, Mr. Thomas, he is so destructive, that is, if he is the man you are hunting for?"

"He's the man all right," Thomas said, "And if he's still in that cellar, I'll see that the county replaces any pickles and jellies he's wrecked! Far as that goes, the neighbors will swamp you with homemade goodies soon as they hear he's a prisoner."

Their house was already in sight; it looked peaceful in the full flood of noonday sunshine, and to add to the homey appearance, Romeo sat on the doorstep, washing his face.

As the car stopped, and the four piled out almost simultaneously, Annie spoke again. "I don't hear him, and when I left he was yelling like a madman, and hammering on the door!"

Led by the sheriff, they entered the house. Not a sound greeted them save the ticking of the clock, and the friendly song of the teakettle. Peering cautiously around the door jamb, Thomas noted that the stout oak door leading down to the cellar still held. It was not even sprung. He crossed the floor; the iron staple was fast. He turned to speak to Frank, who was at his heels.

"Well, the door held! And unless he's dug himself out, he's still down there."

He leaned his head close against the sturdy plank, and called: "It's all up, Schmidt! Save yourself trouble by giving up quietly. You haven't a chance!"

There was no reply from below.

Again, louder still, Thomas called, placing his lips to the crack by the stout hinges. "I'm opening the door, Schmidt! And you're covered by three guns. The first false move, and we'll drill ye like a sieve!"

Still no answer.

The sheriff turned his head again. There was a little pallor beneath his tan, but his voice was steady, "Take your wife out of the room, Weston! Don't want any stray bullets to get her. And you might as well go, too. Your duty don't call you to horn into this; mine does."

Half reluctantly, but dragged by his wife, Weston stepped back over the line of possible fire, and into the living room. The sheriff's man crossed the kitchen and took his place by his side. Both held heavy service revolvers cocked in their right hands.

"Give me your pocket torch, Jim," Thomas said. "You throw the door wide open, and then cover it from the side."

The man nodded. There was a harsh scrape as the rusty iron staple gave, and suddenly the door stood wide flung. Down the dark stairs flamed the beam from the sheriff's flashlight.

After a moment, he spoke without turning his head.

"Nobody in sight. Well, I'm not exactly looking forward to this, but it's all a part of a sheriff's job!"

His heavy boot was planted on the topmost step. And, swinging his pocket torch in narrow arcs, illuminating every corner of the dark cellar as he advanced, his revolver held at the cock, he slowly; descended to the cement vault in which presumably, a maniac lurked ready to sell his life for the best price he could exact.

There came to those who waited above, their breaths held almost to suffocation, the pulses singing in their arteries, an astonished cry from Joe Thomas. "By thunder! Jim, come down here!"

Not only the deputy, but Frank Weston and his wife piled forward, something in the sheriff's voice telling them that there was nothing more to fear.

Nor was there. In the center of the little, snug, dry cellar, a great shelf of preserves and jellies swung gently to and fro. At one side of the cellar, something else swayed slightly, turning ever so little from side to side. Something suspended from the iron hook to which, a half hour ago, a smoked ham had been made fast.

It was their genial guest of the past four days, who, finding himself a helpless prisoner, had removed his leather belt, and hanged himself!

____________________

10: The Adventure of the Diamond Necklace

George. F. Forrest
fl 1900s

Misfits: A Book of Parodies, 1905.

The Great Detective Warlock Bones and his confidant and biographer Goswell.

AS I PUSHED open the door, I was greeted by the strains of a ravishing melody. Warlock Bones was playing dreamily on the accordion, and his keen, clear-cut face was almost hidden from view by the dense smoke-wreaths, which curled upwards from an exceedingly filthy briar-wood pipe. As soon as he saw me, he drew a final choking sob from the instrument, and rose to his feet with a smile of welcome.

"Ah, good morning, Goswell," he said cheerily. "But why do you press your trousers under the bed?"

It was true— quite true. This extraordinary observer, the terror of every cowering criminal, the greatest thinker that the world has ever known, had ruthlessly laid bare the secret of my life. Ah, it was true.

"But how did you know?" I asked in a stupor of amazement.

He smiled at my discomfiture.

"I have made a special study of trousers," he answered, "And of beds. I am rarely deceived. But, setting that knowledge, for the moment, on one side, have you forgotten the few days I spent with you three months ago? I saw you do it then."

He could never cease to astound me, this lynx-eyed sleuth of crime. I could never master the marvellous simplicity of his methods. I could only wonder and admire— a privilege, for which I can never be sufficiently grateful. I seated myself on the floor, and, embracing his left knee with both my arms in an ecstasy of passionate adoration, gazed up inquiringly into his intellectual countenance.

He rolled up his sleeve, and, exposing his thin nervous arm, injected half a pint of prussic acid with incredible rapidity. This operation finished, he glanced at the clock.

"In twenty-three or twenty-four minutes," he observed, "a man will probably call to see me. He has a wife, two children, and three false teeth, one of which will very shortly have to be renewed. He is a successful stockbroker of about forty-seven, wears Jaegers, and is an enthusiastic patron of Missing Word Competitions."

"How do you know all this?" I interrupted breathlessly, tapping his tibia with fond impatience.

Bones smiled his inscrutable smile.

"He will come," he continued, "to ask my advice about some jewels which were stolen from his house at Richmond last Thursday week. Among them was a diamond necklace of quite exceptional value."

"Explain," I cried in rapturous admiration. "Please explain."

"My dear Goswell," he laughed, "you are really very dense. Will you never learn my methods? The man is a personal friend of mine. I met him yesterday in the City, and he asked to come and talk over his loss with me this morning. Voila tout. Deduction, my good Goswell, mere deduction."

"But the jewels? Are the police on the track?"

"Very much off it. Really our police are the veriest bunglers. They have already arrested twenty-seven perfectly harmless and unoffending persons, including a dowager duchess, who is still prostrate with the shock; and, unless I am very much mistaken, they will arrest my friend's wife this afternoon. She was in Moscow at the time of the robbery, but that, of course, is of little consequence to these amiable dolts."

"And have you any clue as to the whereabouts of the jewels?"

"A fairly good one," he answered. "So good, in fact, that I can at this present moment lay my hands upon them. It is a very simple case, one of the simplest I have ever had to deal with, and yet in its way a strange one, presenting several difficulties to the average observer. The motive of the robbery is a little puzzling. The thief appears to have been actuated not by the ordinary greed of gain so much as by an intense love of self-advertisement."

"I can hardly imagine," I said with some surprise, "a burglar, qua burglar, wishing to advertise his exploits to the world."

"True, Goswell. You show your usual common sense. But you have not the imagination, without which a detective can do nothing. Your position is that of those energetic, if somewhat beef-witted enthusiasts, the police. They are frankly puzzled by the whole affair. To me, personally, the case is as clear as daylight."

"That I can understand," I murmured with a reverent pat of his shin.

"The actual thief," he continued, "for various reasons I am unwilling to produce. But upon the jewels, as I said just now, I can lay my hand at any moment. Look here!"

He disentangled himself from my embrace, and walked to a patent safe in a corner of the room. From this he extracted a large jewel case, and, opening it, disclosed a set of the most superb diamonds. In the midst a magnificent necklace winked and flashed in the wintry sunlight. The sight took my breath away, and for a time I grovelled in speechless admiration before him.

"But— but how"— I stammered at last, and stopped, for he was regarding my confusion with evident amusement.

"I stole them," said Warlock Bones.

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11: The Spectre Lovers

Sheridan Le Fanu

1814-1873

Dublin University Magazine January 1851

Joseph Thomas Sheridan Le Fanu

THERE LIVED some fifteen years since in a small and ruinous house, little better than a hovel, an old woman who was reported to have considerably exceeded her eightieth year, and who rejoiced in the name of Alice, or popularly, Ally Moran. Her society was not much courted, for she was neither rich, nor, as the reader may suppose, beautiful. In addition to a lean cur and a cat she had one human companion, her grandson, Peter Brien, whom, with laudable good-nature, she had supported from the period of his orphanage down to that of my story, which finds him in his twentieth year. Peter was a good-natured slob of a fellow, much more addicted to wrestling, dancing, and love-making, than to hard work, and fonder of whiskey punch than good advice. His grandmother had a high opinion of his accomplishments, which indeed was but natural, and also of his genius, for Peter had of late years begun to apply his mind to politics; and as it was plain that he had a mortal hatred of honest labour, his grandmother predicted, like a true fortune-teller, that he was born to marry an heiress, and Peter himself (who had no mind to forego his freedom even on such terms) that he was destined to find a pot of gold. Upon one point both agreed, that being unfitted by the peculiar bias of his genius for work, he was to acquire the immense fortune to which his merits entitled him by means of a pure run of good luck. This solution of Peter's future had the double effect of reconciling both himself and his grandmother to his idle courses, and also of maintaining that even flow of hilarious spirits which made him everywhere welcome, and which was in truth the natural result of his consciousness of approaching affluence.

It happened one night that Peter had enjoyed himself to a very late hour with two or three choice spirits near Palmerstown. They had talked politics and love, sung songs, and told stories, and, above all, had swallowed, in the chastened disguise of punch, at least a pint of good whiskey, every man.

It was considerably past one o'clock when Peter bid his companions good-bye, with a sigh and a hiccough, and lighting his pipe set forth on his solitary homeward way.

The bridge of Chapelizod was pretty nearly the midway point of his night march, and from one cause or another his progress was rather slow, and it was past two o'clock by the time he found himself leaning over its old battlements, and looking up the river, over whose winding current and wooded banks the soft moonlight was falling.

The cold breeze that blew lightly down the stream was grateful to him. It cooled his throbbing head, and he drank it in at his hot lips. The scene, too, had, without his being well sensible of it, a secret fascination. The village was sunk in the profoundest slumber, not a mortal stirring, not a sound afloat, a soft haze covered it all, and the fairy moonlight hovered over the entire landscape.

In a state between rumination and rapture, Peter continued to lean over the battlements of the old bridge, and as he did so he saw, or fancied he saw, emerging one after another along the river bank in the little gardens and enclosures in the rear of the street of Chapelizod, the queerest little white-washed huts and cabins he had ever seen there before. They had not been there that evening when he passed the bridge on the way to his merry tryst. But the most remarkable thing about it was the odd way in which these quaint little cabins showed themselves. First he saw one or two of them just with the corner of his eye, and when he looked full at them, strange to say, they faded away and disappeared. Then another and another came in view, but all in the same coy way, just appearing and gone again before he could well fix his gaze upon them; in a little while, however, they began to bear a fuller gaze, and he found, as it seemed to himself, that he was able by an effort of attention to fix the vision for a longer and a longer time, and when they waxed faint and nearly vanished, he had the power of recalling them into light and substance, until at last their vacillating indistinctness became less and less, and they assumed a permanent place in the moonlit landscape.

"Be the hokey," said Peter, lost in amazement, and dropping his pipe into the river unconsciously, "them is the quarist bits iv mud cabins I ever seen, growing up like musharoons in the dew of an evening, and poppin' up here and down again there, and up again in another place, like so many white rabbits in a warren; and there they stand at last as firm and fast as if they were there from the Deluge; bedad it's enough to make a man a'most believe in the fairies."

This latter was a large concession from Peter, who was a bit of a free-thinker, and spoke contemptuously in his ordinary conversation of that class of agencies.

Having treated himself to a long last stare at these mysterious fabrics, Peter prepared to pursue his homeward way; having crossed the bridge and passed the mill, he arrived at the corner of the main-street of the little town, and casting a careless look up the Dublin road, his eye was arrested by a most unexpected spectacle.

This was no other than a column of foot-soldiers, marching with perfect regularity towards the village, and headed by an officer on horseback. They were at the far side of the turnpike, which was closed; but much to his perplexity he perceived that they marched on through it without appearing to sustain the least check from that barrier.

On they came at a slow march; and what was most singular in the matter was, that they were drawing several cannons along with them; some held ropes, others spoked the wheels, and others again marched in front of the guns and behind them, with muskets shouldered, giving a stately character of parade and regularity to this, as it seemed to Peter, most unmilitary procedure.

It was owing either to some temporary defect in Peter's vision, or to some illusion attendant upon mist and moonlight, or perhaps to some other cause, that the whole procession had a certain waving and vapoury character which perplexed and tasked his eyes not a little. It was like the pictured pageant of a phantasmagoria reflected upon smoke. It was as if every breath disturbed it; sometimes it was blurred, sometimes obliterated; now here, now there. Sometimes, while the upper part was quite distinct, the legs of the column would nearly fade away or vanish outright, and then again they would come out into clear relief, marching on with measured tread, while the cocked hats and shoulders grew, as it were, transparent, and all but disappeared.

Notwithstanding these strange optical fluctuations, however, the column continued steadily to advance. Peter crossed the street from the corner near the old bridge, running on tiptoe, and with his body stooped to avoid observation, and took up a position upon the raised foot-path in the shadow of the houses, where, as the soldiers kept the middle of the road, he calculated that he might, himself undetected, see them distinctly enough as they passed.

"What the div—, what on airth," he muttered, checking the irreligious ejaculation with which he was about to start, for certain queer misgivings were hovering about his heart, notwithstanding the factitious courage of the whiskey bottle. "What on airth is the manin' of all this? is it the French that's landed at last to give us a hand and help us in airnest to this blessed repale? If it is not them, I simply ask who the div—, I mane who on airth are they, for such sogers as them I never seen before in my born days?"

By this time the foremost of them were quite near, and truth to say they were the queerest soldiers he had ever seen in the course of his life. They wore long gaiters and leather breeches, three-cornered hats, bound with silver lace, long blue coats, with scarlet facings and linings, which latter were shewn by a fastening which held together the two opposite corners of the skirt behind; and in front the breasts were in like manner connected at a single point, where and below which they sloped back, disclosing a long-flapped waistcoat of snowy whiteness; they had very large, long cross-belts, and wore enormous pouches of white leather hung extraordinarily low, and on each of which a little silver star was glittering. But what struck him as most grotesque and outlandish in their costume was their extraordinary display of shirt-frill in front, and of ruffle about their wrists, and the strange manner in which their hair was frizzled out and powdered under their hats, and clubbed up into great rolls behind. But one of the party was mounted. He rode a tall white horse, with high action and arching neck; he had a snow-white feather in his three-cornered hat, and his coat was shimmering all over with a profusion of silver lace. From these circumstances Peter concluded that he must be the commander of the detachment, and examined him as he passed attentively. He was a slight, tall man, whose legs did not half fill his leather breeches, and he appeared to be at the wrong side of sixty. He had a shrunken, weather-beaten, mulberry-coloured face, carried a large black patch over one eye, and turned neither to the right nor to the left, but rode on at the head of his men, with a grim, military inflexibility.

The countenances of these soldiers, officers as well as men, seemed all full of trouble, and, so to speak, scared and wild. He watched in vain for a single contented or comely face. They had, one and all, a melancholy and hang-dog look; and as they passed by, Peter fancied that the air grew cold and thrilling.

He had seated himself upon a stone bench, from which, staring with all his might, he gazed upon the grotesque and noiseless procession as it filed by him. Noiseless it was; he could neither hear the jingle of accoutrements, the tread of feet, nor the rumble of the wheels; and when the old colonel turned his horse a little, and made as though he were giving the word of command, and a trumpeter, with a swollen blue nose and white feather fringe round his hat, who was walking beside him, turned about and put his bugle to his lips, still Peter heard nothing, although it was plain the sound had reached the soldiers, for they instantly changed their front to three abreast.

"Botheration!" muttered Peter, "is it deaf I'm growing?"

But that could not be, for he heard the sighing of the breeze and the rush of the neighbouring Liffey plain enough.

"Well," said he, in the same cautious key, "by the piper, this bangs Banagher fairly! It's either the Frinch army that's in it, come to take the town iv Chapelizod by surprise, an' makin' no noise for feard iv wakenin' the inhabitants; or else it's— it's— what it's— somethin' else. But, tundher-an-ouns, what's gone wid Fitzpatrick's shop across the way?"

The brown, dingy stone building at the opposite side of the street looked newer and cleaner than he had been used to see it; the front door of it stood open, and a sentry, in the same grotesque uniform, with shouldered musket, was pacing noiselessly to and fro before it. At the angle of this building, in like manner, a wide gate (of which Peter had no recollection whatever) stood open, before which, also, a similar sentry was gliding, and into this gateway the whole column gradually passed, and Peter finally lost sight of it.

"I'm not asleep; I'm not dhramin'," said he, rubbing his eyes, and stamping slightly on the pavement, to assure himself that he was wide awake. "It is a quare business, whatever it is; an' it's not alone that, but everything about the town looks strange to me. There's Tresham's house new painted, bedad, an' them flowers in the windies! An' Delany's house, too, that had not a whole pane of glass in it this morning, and scarce a slate on the roof of it! It is not possible it's what it's dhrunk I am. Sure there's the big tree, and not a leaf of it changed since I passed, and the stars overhead, all right. I don't think it is in my eyes it is."

And so looking about him, and every moment finding or fancying new food for wonder, he walked along the pavement, intending, without further delay, to make his way home.

But his adventures for the night were not concluded. He had nearly reached the angle of the short lane that leads up to the church, when for the first time he perceived that an officer, in the uniform he had just seen, was walking before, only a few yards in advance of him.

The officer was walking along at an easy, swinging gait, and carried his sword under his arm, and was looking down on the pavement with an air of reverie.

In the very fact that he seemed unconscious of Peter's presence, and disposed to keep his reflections to himself, there was something reassuring. Besides, the reader must please to remember that our hero had a quantum sufficit of good punch before his adventure commenced, and was thus fortified against those qualms and terrors under which, in a more reasonable state of mind, he might not impossibly have sunk.

The idea of the French invasion revived in full power in Peter's fuddled imagination, as he pursued the nonchalant swagger of the officer.

"Be the powers iv Moll Kelly, I'll ax him what it is," said Peter, with a sudden accession of rashness. "He may tell me or not, as he plases, but he can't be offinded, anyhow."

With this reflection having inspired himself, Peter cleared his voice and began—

"Captain!" said he, "I ax your pardon, captain, an' maybe you'd be so condescindin' to my ignorance as to tell me, if it's plasin' to yer honour, whether your honour is not a Frinchman, if it's plasin' to you."

This he asked, not thinking that, had it been as he suspected, not one word of his question in all probability would have been intelligible to the person he addressed. He was, however, understood, for the officer answered him in English, at the same time slackening his pace and moving a little to the side of the pathway, as if to invite his interrogator to take his place beside him.

"No; I am an Irishman," he answered.

"I humbly thank your honour," said Peter, drawing nearer— for the affability and the nativity of the officer encouraged him— "but maybe your honour is in the sarvice of the King of France?"

"I serve the same King as you do," he answered, with a sorrowful significance which Peter did not comprehend at the time; and, interrogating in turn, he asked, "But what calls you forth at this hour of the day?"

"The day, your honour!—the night, you mane."

"It was always our way to turn night into day, and we keep to it still," remarked the soldier. "But, no matter, come up here to my house; I have a job for you, if you wish to earn some money easily. I live here."

As he said this, he beckoned authoritatively to Peter, who followed almost mechanically at his heels, and they turned up a little lane near the old Roman Catholic chapel, at the end of which stood, in Peter's time, the ruins of a tall, stone-built house.

Like everything else in the town, it had suffered a metamorphosis. The stained and ragged walls were now erect, perfect, and covered with pebble-dash; window-panes glittered coldly in every window; the green hall-door had a bright brass knocker on it. Peter did not know whether to believe his previous or his present impressions; seeing is believing, and Peter could not dispute the reality of the scene. All the records of his memory seemed but the images of a tipsy dream. In a trance of astonishment and perplexity, therefore, he submitted himself to the chances of his adventure.

The door opened, the officer beckoned with a melancholy air of authority to Peter, and entered. Our hero followed him into a sort of hall, which was very dark, but he was guided by the steps of the soldier, and, in silence, they ascended the stairs. The moonlight, which shone in at the lobbies, showed an old, dark wainscoting, and a heavy, oak banister. They passed by closed doors at different landing-places, but all was dark and silent as, indeed, became that late hour of the night.

Now they ascended to the topmost floor. The captain paused for a minute at the nearest door, and, with a heavy groan, pushing it open, entered the room. Peter remained at the threshold. A slight female form in a sort of loose, white robe, and with a great deal of dark hair hanging loosely about her, was standing in the middle of the floor, with her back towards them.

The soldier stopped short before he reached her, and said, in a voice of great anguish, "Still the same, sweet bird— sweet bird! still the same." Whereupon, she turned suddenly, and threw her arms about the neck of the officer, with a gesture of fondness and despair, and her frame was agitated as if by a burst of sobs. He held her close to his breast in silence; and honest Peter felt a strange terror creep over him, as he witnessed these mysterious sorrows and endearments.

"To-night, to-night— and then ten years more— ten long years— another ten years."

The officer and the lady seemed to speak these words together; her voice mingled with his in a musical and fearful wail, like a distant summer wind, in the dead hour of night, wandering through ruins. Then he heard the officer say, alone, in a voice of anguish—

"Upon me be it all, for ever, sweet birdie, upon me."

And again they seemed to mourn together in the same soft and desolate wail, like sounds of grief heard from a great distance.

Peter was thrilled with horror, but he was also under a strange fascination; and an intense and dreadful curiosity held him fast.

The moon was shining obliquely into the room, and through the window Peter saw the familiar slopes of the Park, sleeping mistily under its shimmer. He could also see the furniture of the room with tolerable distinctness—the old balloon-backed chairs, a four-post bed in a sort of recess, and a rack against the wall, from which hung some military clothes and accoutrements; and the sight of all these homely objects reassured him somewhat, and he could not help feeling unspeakably curious to see the face of the girl whose long hair was streaming over the officer's epaulet.

Peter, accordingly, coughed, at first slightly, and afterward more loudly, to recall her from her reverie of grief; and, apparently, he succeeded; for she turned round, as did her companion, and both, standing hand in hand, gazed upon him fixedly. He thought he had never seen such large, strange eyes in all his life; and their gaze seemed to chill the very air around him, and arrest the pulses of his heart. An eternity of misery and remorse was in the shadowy faces that looked upon him.

If Peter had taken less whisky by a single thimbleful, it is probable that he would have lost heart altogether before these figures, which seemed every moment to assume a more marked and fearful, though hardly definable, contrast to ordinary human shapes.

"What is it you want with me?" he stammered.

"To bring my lost treasure to the churchyard," replied the lady, in a silvery voice of more than mortal desolation.

The word "treasure" revived the resolution of Peter, although a cold sweat was covering him, and his hair was bristling with horror; he believed, however, that he was on the brink of fortune, if he could but command nerve to brave the interview to its close.

"And where," he gasped, "is it hid— where will I find it?"

They both pointed to the sill of the window, through which the moon was shining at the far end of the room, and the soldier said—

"Under that stone."

Peter drew a long breath, and wiped the cold dew from his face, preparatory to passing to the window, where he expected to secure the reward of his protracted terrors. But looking steadfastly at the window, he saw the faint image of a new-born child sitting upon the sill in the moonlight, with its little arms stretched toward him, and a smile so heavenly as he never beheld before.

At sight of this, strange to say, his heart entirely failed him, he looked on the figures that stood near, and beheld them gazing on the infantine form with a smile so guilty and distorted, that he felt as if he were entering alive among the scenery of hell, and shuddering, he cried in an irrepressible agony of horror—

"I'll have nothing to say with you, and nothing to do with you; I don't know what yez are or what yez want iv me, but let me go this minute, every one of yez, in the name of God."

With these words there came a strange rumbling and sighing about Peter's ears; he lost sight of everything, and felt that peculiar and not unpleasant sensation of falling softly, that sometimes supervenes in sleep, ending in a dull shock. After that he had neither dream nor consciousness till he wakened, chill and stiff, stretched between two piles of old rubbish, among the black and roofless walls of the ruined house.

We need hardly mention that the village had put on its wonted air of neglect and decay, or that Peter looked around him in vain for traces of those novelties which had so puzzled and distracted him upon the previous night.

"Ay, ay," said his grandmother, removing her pipe, as he ended his description of the view from the bridge, "sure enough I remember myself, when I was a slip of a girl, these little white cabins among the gardens by the river side. The artillery sogers that was married, or had not room in the barracks, used to be in them, but they're all gone long ago."

"The Lord be merciful to us!" she resumed, when he had described the military procession, "it's often I seen the regiment marchin' into the town, jist as you saw it last night, acushla. Oh, voch, but it makes my heart sore to think iv them days; they were pleasant times, sure enough; but is not it terrible, avick, to think it's what it was the ghost of the rigiment you seen? The Lord betune us an' harm, for it was nothing else, as sure as I'm sittin' here."

When he mentioned the peculiar physiognomy and figure of the old officer who rode at the head of the regiment—

"That," said the old crone, dogmatically, "was ould Colonel Grimshaw, the Lord presarve us! he's buried in the churchyard iv Chapelizod, and well I remember him, when I was a young thing, an' a cross ould floggin' fellow he was wid the men, an' a devil's boy among the girls— rest his soul!"

"Amen!" said Peter; "it's often I read his tombstone myself; but he's a long time dead."

"Sure, I tell you he died when I was no more nor a slip iv a girl—the Lord betune us and harm!"

"I'm afeard it is what I'm not long for this world myself, afther seeing such a sight as that," said Peter, fearfully.

"Nonsinse, avourneen," retorted his grandmother, indignantly, though she had herself misgivings on the subject; "sure there was Phil Doolan, the ferryman, that seen black Ann Scanlan in his own boat, and what harm ever kem of it?"

Peter proceeded with his narrative, but when he came to the description of the house, in which his adventure had had so sinister a conclusion, the old woman was at fault.

"I know the house and the ould walls well, an' I can remember the time there was a roof on it, and the doors an' windows in it, but it had a bad name about being haunted, but by who, or for what, I forget intirely."

"Did you ever hear was there goold or silver there?" he inquired.

"No, no, aviek, don't be thinking about the likes; take a fool's advice, and never go next or near them ugly black walls again the longest day you have to live; an' I'd take my davy, it's what it's the same word the priest himself I'd be afther sayin' to you if you wor to ax his raverence consarnin' it, for it's plain to be seen it was nothing good you seen there, and there's neither luck nor grace about it."

Peter's adventure made no little noise in the neighbourhood, as the reader may well suppose; and a few evenings after it, being on an errand to old Major Vandeleur, who lived in a snug old-fashioned house, close by the river, under a perfect bower of ancient trees, he was called on to relate the story in the parlour.

The Major was, as I have said, an old man; he was small, lean, and upright, with a mahogany complexion, and a wooden inflexibility of face; he was a man, besides, of few words, and if he was old, it follows plainly that his mother was older still. Nobody could guess or tell how old, but it was admitted that her own generation had long passed away, and that she had not a competitor left. She had French blood in her veins, and although she did not retain her charms quite so well as Ninon de l'Enclos, she was in full possession of all her mental activity, and talked quite enough for herself and the Major.

"So, Peter," she said, "you have seen the dear, old Royal Irish again in the streets of Chapelizod. Make him a tumbler of punch, Frank; and Peter, sit down, and while you take it let us have the story."

Peter accordingly, seated near the door, with a tumbler of the nectarian stimulant steaming beside him, proceeded with marvellous courage, considering they had no light but the uncertain glare of the fire, to relate with minute particularity his awful adventure. The old lady listened at first with a smile of good-natured incredulity; her cross-examination touching the drinking-bout at Palmerstown had been teazing, but as the narrative proceeded she became attentive, and at length absorbed, and once or twice she uttered ejaculations of pity or awe. When it was over, the old lady looked with a somewhat sad and stern abstraction on the table, patting her cat assiduously meanwhile, and then suddenly looking upon her son, the Major, she said—

"Frank, as sure as I live he has seen the wicked Captain Devereux."

The Major uttered an inarticulate expression of wonder.

"The house was precisely that he has described. I have told you the story often, as I heard it from your dear grandmother, about the poor young lady he ruined, and the dreadful suspicion about the little baby. She, poor thing, died in that house heartbroken, and you know he was shot shortly after in a duel."

This was the only light that Peter ever received respecting his adventure. It was supposed, however, that he still clung to the hope that treasure of some sort was hidden about the old house, for he was often seen lurking about its walls, and at last his fate overtook him, poor fellow, in the pursuit; for climbing near the summit one day, his holding gave way, and he fell upon the hard uneven ground, fracturing a leg and a rib, and after a short interval died, and he, like the other heroes of these true tales, lies buried in the little churchyard of Chapelizod.

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12: One Year

"Waif Wander"

Mary Helena Fortune, 1833-1911

Herald (Melbourne) 24 Dec 1878

"Brewarrina Diggings" in this story, clearly in the Victorian goldfields, shouldn't be confused with Brewarrina, a town in far northern New South Wales which is a river port on the Barwon, and is without gold.

CHRISTMAS EVE on Brewarrina Diggings, and the hot early sun flooding the slopes of the Western Range and the cluster of white diggers' tents that nestled at its foot. There was no movement in the broken "lead" that followed the gully, but every bit of canvas was tucked back at the tent doors, and many-idling or resting forms might be seen moving about, or sitting smoking at the shadiest sides of their primitive and temporary homes.

One of the largest and strongest built of these tents lay by itself close to the rocky foot of the rise, and several tall gum-trees shaded it from the fierce sun. The spot had been heavily timbered at one time, and many stumps and logs lay here and there among the long grass and green undergrowth. At the very door of the tent itself a stump formed a seat, which had been already worn smooth by; frequent occupations; and not far from it lay part of a fallen tree against the brushy trunk of a still living and verdant eucalyptus, and on this log were seated two men.

One was a youth of twenty-one or two, with a handsome, happy-looking face and a laughing blue eye. His was one of those expressions of countenance that win you at first, sight; for one can see at a glance that there is no guile hidden behind the beaming look and the pleasant smile. Little knowledge of the world there may be with such a face as that, and many a pitfall the eager light feet may stumble into. While such believing eyes are wandering pleasantly among all, they meet with the confidence of youth, but there will be no broken trust in the honor of that heart; no hypocritical lie in the grip of the hand belonging to it. This young man was dressed from head to foot in a new suit of tweed, that sat loosely on him, it is true, but could not hide the lithe, well-built frame, or the broad, deep chest.

His companion was an older man, and evidently one of a far different class. He was the working man, pure and simple, and dressed in the plain holiday clothes of the well-to-do digger. A pair of new moleskin trousers, with the uncomfortable stiffness still in them, met a grey-checked Crimean shirt, and stout blucher half boots covered his feet. His hat was of cabbage-tree, with a broad silk ribbon around it, and from under it crisp rings of black hair, among which not a few grey threads shewed themselves, curled up shortly. His closely-cut beard was also dark, as well as the eyebrows that were distinctly marked above the deep-set black eyes. This man was not tall; he was middle-sized and thin. His face was naturally pale and deeply lined, evidently with care rather than years, for he was barely forty. His temples were sunken; his cheeks hollow. Around his lips was an expression of settled melancholy, and his manner was quiet and silent.

"Tom," said the younger man, "I don't like to leave you, and you won't come with with me. But, after all, it's only a year, old mate, and it will fly round like the wind. You won't be very lonely, old Tom, eh?" and the youth's voice trembled as he bent to look under the bowed leaf of the cabbage-tree hat.

"Yes, I'll be lonely, lad," Tom said, with an attempt at a smile ; "but I'll grin and bear it, as I've borne far worse troubles without any hope at the end of one year," he added, in a lower tone. "It will seem strange too, Tom; we've been together, now, the four of us, for three years. I wonder where Chessington is going ?"

"He'll keep that to himself," said Tom, quietly. "He says he's bound for France; but somehow I doubt it. Tom, I never yet fairly understood that fellow. Sometimes I think I like him, and sometimes I think he's a scoundrel."

"I never doubted what he was," Tom said. "I shan't be sorry for his loss any way."

"But he's coming back again, too, Tom."

"I hope he won't."

"There they come round the hill, Denbigh and he. Poor old Denbigh ! I'm so glad we're going home together. He's like another man since everything was settled. He must be very fond of his wife, Tom?"

"It's bad to be very fond of anyone," Tom said, seriously. "Well, old man, I'm very fond of you any how, and now, before the others come, give me a grip of your true hand. I know who's been a fast friend to 'boy Charlie,' who gave him a father's advice when it was badly wanting, and nursed him with a mother's heart when he was sick to death for three long weeks. May God bless you, kind Tom, and keep you well and happy until we meet again !"

The young man's voice broke, but his fingers held on firm grip of Tom's rough hands and the grip was returned with a pressure as that of a vice.

"I can trust you, boy," the man said unsteadily, "for the good stuff's in you, and the year will seem long till I see your bright face again. May the living Lord have you in safe keeping on land and on sea!"

The hands were suddenly loosened as Tom rose and walked sharply round to the back of the tent, while Charlie Gordon hastily wiped his brimming eyes before his approaching mates should see the exhibition of a weakness which was yet the sign of his greatest strength.

Up the grassy rise they came, one a little in and with an off-hand graceful swing of his long limbs, a tall, slight, well-built, and aristocratic young fellow of six or seven and twenty. He was dressed as well and as fashionably as the nearest township could turn him out, and, was he neared the tent, one could remark that he was fully conscious of the personal advantages he most undoubtedly possessed. His features were sharply and clcarly cut ; his pale blue eye cold and firm; his moustache was as delicately attended to as though he had been a bank clerk, instead of a digger; but an expression of cynical self-confidence, with a sneer on his proud lip that was habitual, spoiled a face that would have been otherwise really handsome. This was the Frederick Chessington of whom Charlie and Tom had been speaking.

The man following Chessington was of a totally dissimilar appearance and build. He was over six feet, and of a make and muscle that was almost Herculean. Nearing the age of forty, perhaps, he was yet in his grand prime— a man with a depth of chest and firm step that denoted the perfect vigor of health. Like his frame, his features were massive, and his beard covered half of his face in a thick tangle of hair. His grey eye was quick and sharp ; his action prompt and nervous— a man of fierce hot passions he was, but with a heart as warm, aye, and far warmer, than many a woman's. This was George Denbigh, the fourth of the party, and the one to whom had been conceded from the first the entire arrange ment and management of their affairs.

"Well, mates," he said as he entered the tent, where the others followed him, "I've got it all in gold, and a pretty tidy weight it is. Tom, put the bottle on the table, and when we've squared up we'll have a glass before we part."

As he spoke he drew a canvas bag from each side pocket of his coat and laid them on the hardwood table in the middle of the tent, and then he sat down on one of the rough forms by the side of it. Chessington had lounged in, and, with affected carelessness, flung himself on a seat opposite; while Charlie seated himself by his side.

Tom Price got the bottle and glasses and placed them at one end, and then he, too, quietly placed himself on a block of wood between the table and the big yawning chimney. And then Denbigh began to untie the bags and to arrange the sovereigns in rows, as he counted and divided them into four distinct lots.

"Total, three thousand and nine pounds," he said, "making each man's share seven hundred and fifty-two pounds five shillings. There's yours, Chessington; count it and see that it is correct."

"Oh, it's all right," Chessington said, as he swept the gold towards him with one hand. "I wonder how a fellow is to carry all this until he gets a bill of exchange."

"Your's, Charlie, my lad, and your's, old mate, Tom, and God bless you both with it!"

"You have omitted me in the blessing Denbigh," Chessington said, with a curling lip. "Now, I call that unfair of you."

"I shall have something especial to say to you presently," returned Denbigh, drily.

"What a splendid lot of money!" cried Charlie Gordon. "And what a heap of nice things I shall be able to got my pretty Sis with some of it! But, old Den, I've been thinking something."

"Well, my boy, we'll be glad to have the benefit of yours thoughts."

"Well, I think that if out of this money we each left here one hundred sovereigns until we come hack again, we should never miss it ; and it would, at least be safe, if we lost all the rest."

"And, pray, how do you make it out safe here?" Chessington asked, with his detestable sneer.

"With Tom!" exclaimed Charlie, his bright, honest face looking full of wonder into the dark countenance of his mate.

"Oh, of course, yes, witli Tom! I had certainly forgotten that Tom would be a guarantee of its perfect safety."

"I could trust Tom with millions," the youth cried, impulsively; "and so I know could Denbigh— if you cannot, you need not leave him any chance to cheat you."

"My dear fellow, you are very impulsive, and very young. lt is quite refreshing to see such youth and verdancy at your age. Not that I for one moment doubt tlm probity of our friend Tom, but I do believe that you would put the same unlimited faith in a perfect stranger."

"Yes, he would," Denbigh said, with emphasis, "and may Heaven grant that he never grows older at heart than he is this moment. Charlie, I shall never return to Brewarrina, but there is my hundred guineas, and I may one day send for them to bury me or mine."

As he spoke he folded the sovereigns in the cover of a letter lie got from his pocket, and pushed them to the middle of the table.

"And there is mine," said Charlie, tearing a piece of a newspaper that lay on one of the hunks, and, wrapping the rouleaux of gold in it."

"And there is mine," Chessington lightly nodded, as he carefully rolled up the coins and pushed them to the side of the others.

"And now, may I venture to ask what is to be done with these contributions to the general fund?"

"See, here's an old cigar-box; let us put the money in, and plant it here under the table. Tom will do that after we're gone. But Den, old friend, don't snjr that you will never come back. I have promised Tom faithfully to sit by this hearth this day twelve-months, and I know that Tom will break his honest heart if you are not here too."

"You forget, my boy," returned the elder man; "you are only going home to see your sister happily married, and have no father or mother to claim or love you. You can easily come back, as, indeed, you are certain to do ; while I— I— boy, am going home to a darling young wife, who loves me dearly, and from whom I have been parted for four long years. Thank God! they are over at last," he added fervently, as he bowed his head, and raised his hat slightly. "No, no, my son, I shall never return to Brewarrina."

Ah! how little he guessed, the strong, loving heart, how and why he would return to Brewarrina.

"Well, you may count on me, at all events," cried Chessington. "I shall come hack for more gold when this is spent. So have a good stock of bottles in on next Christmas Eve, Tom; I shall meet you and Charlie here to drink my share of it. And now, as I am to go with Grant, the storekeeper, who has offered mc a lift, I must bid you good-bye until we meet ngain."

He rose as he spoke, but Denbigh lifted his hand and stopped him. "Stay, Chessington, there is a little matter here that your expressed intention of returning renders it even more imperative on me to attend to. Have you any knowledge of that?"

"That" wns a white cambric handkerchief, clay-soiled, and knotted tightly together at the corners over some evidently hard objects in its centre. As Cliessington's eyes met it so unexpectedly, his face grew red up to the light felt hat that rested on his chestnut curls; but he recovered himself instantly, and raised his brows in affected astonishment.

"I?  Certainly not; what is it?"

"It is one of your handkerchiefs, and bears your initials. You were always dainty in these matters, Chessington; it is a pity that in others of far more consequence you have not been as particular. Do you still deny any acquaintanceship with the bit of cambric and its contents?!'

"I, suppose I must own the handkerchief, since you state that it is mine. I am afraid I am a very careless fellow about those little articles; but to whatever may he tied in it I most certainly lay no claim. Where did you find it ?"

"I found it where I saw you hide it, with my own eyes, Frederick Chessington; in the worked-out drive of the old claim, where you sought and missed it. You must have known your dishonesty was discovered, yet you made no sign. Open the knots, Charlie."

With trembling fingers the youth did as he was told, and as the twisted corners of tho muslin were parted, a cluster of handsome nuggets, maybe to the value of fifty pounds, was disclosed.

"I have long guessed your dishonesty, young man, and now I have proved it; you will cheat me no more; and if my old mates allow you to rob them it will be their own faults."

"I distinctly deny your statements, Denbigh," returned Chessington, with the cruel sneer still on his handsome face. "The handkerchief is mine; of the gold I know nothing. But you are quite right to at least try and prevent me from having a chance of robbing you; for as you have given me the credit of doing it already, I will do my best to deserve the character at your hands. Look out, George Denbigh, that I do not yet rob you of something you value more than gold. Tom, old follow, good-bye for one year. Charlie, your hand; you do not believe this of me? This day twelve-months we meet again at Brewarrina."

He turned and walked carelessly from the door of the tent, humming a popular air as he disappeared, and stepping firmly and lightly, as a man whose heart lay comfortably in his breast; and Charlie gave a wondering gasp as the hand Chessington had slightly pressed dropped upon the table.

"It can't be possible, Den?" he asked, as he looked after Chessington and then at the gold on the handkerchief. "He has denied it— I have declared the truth— it lies between the words of two men. Ask Tom what he thinks."

Tom shook his head.

"I never liked him," he answered; "he's bad at bottom. I hope we'll never see his face again."

"Well, mates, as he denies the gold let it go into Charlie's sinking fund," and he tossed the handkerchief and its contents into the cigar-box with the rouleaux already in it. And now Tom, one glass before we part. Steady and honest, and quiet and kind, I never could wish for a beter or a truer mate. May you find one as true to fill my place when I am gone."

The two men clasped rough, hard hands, and then Denbigh rose from his scat.

"We have barely time to walk to Marthyn's and catch the coach, Charlie; say good-bye and let's go."

He walked out hurriedly, for his honest eyes were full, and as his broad shoulders darkened the doorway. Charlie tried to say good-bye, but the words could not make themselves heard. A muttered blessing once again from the quiet man, and another Iast grip of the true hands and then the mates had parted for one year Tom sat down on the log at the door of the tent, and looked after the two well-known figures, until they were out of sight.

Two such perfect models of young and full-aged man-hood it would liavo been difficult to place side by side within many broad miles; one so tall and powerful in frame, with such a manly self-confidence in every firm, proud footstep, and the other so graceful and lithe, and light and happy of gait.

Once, at the bend of the hill, Charlie turned, and paused to look back at lonely, forsaken Tom as he sat on his log and he took off his hat and waved it cheerfully though he felt very sad, poor warm-hearted boy! and then they disappeared out of the quiet man's daily life,

"Who can tell?" Tom thought to himself, "who can tell? it's only for one year; but God only knows what changes it may bring;" and then he went in and tried to begin his solitary life by burying Charlie's cigar-box and its contents in the hard earth beneath the table.

THREE OR FOUR times during the following twelve months' Tom heard from the faithful Charlie. He had not sailed in the same ship as Denbigh after all.  Something or other had prevented that, and he know nothing of his movements, or of those of Chessington; but his darling sister was married, and he was enjoying himself hugely, but would not be sorry for all that when the time came to start once again for Tom's tent at old Brewarrina.

And so, month by month, as years always do, this year paused over Tom Price's steady quiet head, and at Iast Christmas Eve broke once again over green, tented Brewarrina. Tom's honest face was as bright as the day; for he knew that ere the sun set he should once again look upon the face of his young mate. Charlie had written to him before he sailed from England, and as the vessel would be certain to arrive before the Christmas Eve, he stated his intention of remaining in Melbourne until the promised date.

"I said 'one year,' old Tom," he wrote, "and I'll keep my word. Look out for me round the spur after the coach passes."

And so Tomsat on his log as the sun began to droop behind the range, ond watched the path upon which he had last seen his boy's light form going away for one year.

And at last it appeared! Lighter than ever Tom thought the elastic step, and with a glow of such perfect happiness in the handsomo young face as Charlie again took off his hat and waved it triumphantly over his head, that Tom  wondered at its manly beauty. Grown stouter too, and with a soft glossy beard and a dainty moustache— why, Tom felt as proud of the lad as though he had been his own son! And they sat and talked until the sun was hidden behind great cloudbanks that had risen in the west, sitting most of the time on the log where Charlie was never tired of looking at the green range, and the white tents, and the waving branches of the old trees between him and the sky; but when the wind veered round and began to grow strong and chill, while the clouds crept slowly but surely over the Western sky, they burn a fire in the big chimney, and took their yarning inside the tent.

"And you've never heard one word of Denbigh?" Tom repeated, as he sat trying to catch glimpses of the young face through the rolling puffs of smoke from his pipe.

"Not one word, Tom, and think it was cruel of him to forget me entirely in his happiness. I wouldn't have served him so."

"Perhaps he was not happy, lad."

"Not happy! Why Torn, who could doubt it? I've heard him talking to that young wife of his in his sleep, poor old chap; and he carried her likeness in a locket round his neck. All must have been well with her, for he had a letter the very day we left Brewarrina."

"God knows!" Tom said.

"Why, Tom, you've turned a croaker! That's not like you. What have you got into your head about poor old Den?"

"I don't know, lad ; I've some kind of presentiment on me. I wonder what's become of Chessington?"

"And I wonder if he will come as he promised. But what made you think of him just then?"

"I didn't like his face that day when Denbigh accused him of his dishonesty. It has haunted me ever since. If he could work evil to our mate he'd do it; aye, and work evil to himself also to be able to do it."

"Nonsense, Tom! If he was ever so inclined, what could he do? Den had plenty of money, and was going home to the wife he loved. He could defy Chessington."

Tom shook his head, and a loud blast of wind swept down the gully, rustling, with a great "swish," the big, pendant branches of the trees around the tent, and moaning sadly, as it seemed, around the low chimney.

"It's going to be a wild night," said Tom, rising and laying down his pipe on the hob; "I'll better go and fasten the tent."

It was growing dusk now, and as Tom stood at the door he paused a moment to look at the twinkling lights in tho tents below him on the flat, and to note the progress of the driving clouds; and then there was a stronger blast, bringing big rain-drops with it, and flapping the loosened canvas angrily. Even as he was stooping to pass the loops over the fastening nails, a figure came swiftly around the log, and stood at his side. One look was sufficient to assure Tom that Chessington had returned.

"Hallo, Tom! here I am, you see, not one hour past my time; but, by Jove, here's Charlie, too! So you've beat me in the race, young 'un. Glad to see your face again, my boy!"

It was no hypocrisy that lighted up Charlie's eyes. He was really glad to see the old face again now, and he shook Chessington's hand with a forgetfulness of everything save that he was a mate, and that they had been parted for one year.

Tom had fastened the tent, and came forward to look into Chessington's face with his keen, quiet scrutiny. Gay and debonnaire in air and manner, as he appeared to be, Tom easily recognised the well-known cynical sneer still holding its own around the well-cut lips; and he fancied, too, that he was trying to hide an uneasiness that evinced itself in restlessness and anxious watching of Tom's immovable countenance. He tossed his light but stylish valise to his old bunk, and his stylish overcoat after it, and then he sat down near tlie wide chimney, and drank a hot glass of toddy Charlie prepared for him. Until he wns refreshed, and began to prepare a pipe for his smoke, little was said, but then Chnrlie began to ply him with questions.

"And so you've been in France and Italy, and everywhere except England? Did you never hear anything of old Den?"

"Denbigh? No. I was just going to ask you if you left him enjoying connubial bliss to his heart's content."

"Why, I never heard once from him, and Tom and I have been thinking it too bad of Denbigh. I was sadly disappointed at not being able to sail home with him, but there was only one berth vacant, and I couldn't find it in my heart to keep him waiting, so I gave him the passage I had taken for myself."

"Deuced good thing for you, too," said Chessington, as he pressed the swelling tobacco in his pipe with a finger on which a brilliant diamond gleamed.

"Good! Why?"

"Of course yon heard that Denbigh's vessel was cast away? No? How strange! The Alma, was it not ? Yes, she was wrecked, or driven by stress of weather or something, on the west coast of some outlandish place— Brazil, I think."

"How did you come to know that, when I never heard a word of it?"

Even in unsuspicious Charlie's tone there was an expressed doubt, and as for Tom's eyes, that were bent steadily on Chessington's affectedly careless face, they said, almost as plainly as any words could have done, "He lies."

"Come to know it, eh ? Oh, by the merest accident, my dear fellow. Took up Galignani at a café one day in Paris, and happened to see the fact recorded."

"Without any particulars?"

"Without one particular."

Charlie was puzzled and bewildered. Instinctively he doubted Chessington's story, and he looked for inspiration into Tom's face, but Tom cast his eyes to the ground silently.

Meanwhile the storm grew with the darkness, and great sheets of wind-driven rain were lashed against the canvas roof, and big drops chine down the wide chimney and hissed and sputtered among the red logs. The candle burned unsteadily too, as the drafts from the door of the tent crept in and found their way through the flaring blaze up with the hurried smoke, and at this instant a stronger blast than there had yet been tore the tent door from its fastenings, and hurled the light to the floor, leaving the strong fire the only illuminator of the tent and its occupants.

Tom rose hurriedly, and Charlie also sprang to his feet with a loud terrified cry. Standing at the opening, with the torn canvas slapping wetly against him, and the rain running in streams from his old broken hat, was a storm-battered, bowed, and bent man, with a face as white is any the death-shroud had ever encircled. His cheeks were hollowed, and the bones stood out so sharply as to be painful to look upon; and his tangled, wind-blown, and dripping beard was grey and ragged. No wonder that Charlie Gordon almost shrieked, and the  faithful Tom's tongue failed him altogether, for this wreck of one year was George Denbigh!

"In the name of Heaven! is this you, dear old Den?"

"Yes, it is I, my boy."

Tom seized the wet, worn sleeve, and drew him into tlie tout, whore tho light of the fire fell strongly on his awful face; and then, with a gasp that seemed half to choke him, the faithful mate turned to hide by refastening the door a face that was full of emotion as a woman's.

One quick glance Denbigh gave to the shadowed side of the chimney, where gleamed the red bowl of a pipe and scintillated the diamond on a slender linger of the hand that held it, and then he fell into a sitting posture on the well-known seat by the table.

"Oh! Denbigh, what has happened? How ill you look! What has happened, old Den?" and Charlie sat down beside his friend, leaned his head upon the once broad shoulder, and burst into boyish tears.

Denbigh put his arm around the youth with a soft smile, that was yet bitter with sorrowful pain, and he drew him closer to the wet, sunken chest.

"Good, kind lad!" he said. "It is almost worth dying to discover one true heart! Aye, two! Tom, give me your faithful hand."

The hands met once again, and Tom felt the thin weakness of the fingers that had only one short year ago been us those of a giant.

"And now, Charlie, cheer up! See how tired I am and how ill— I know you will give me a drink, lad— to welcome and refresh me."

"And if you will accept the welcome another old mate, Den, its yours. I am sorry to see you looking so— so ill."

Tom had hurriedly prepared a tumbler of hot brandy and water, and, as Chessington spoke, he placed the vessel in Denbigh's hand. As the hand raised the draught to the pallid, trembling lips, a pair of terrible eyes gazed at the speaker through the white rising steam of the drink, but the lips made no reply. Finishing the brandy eagerly, he put the glass down, with a deep-drawn breath, and then looked wistfully and strangely into the faces of his two friends— first the one and then the other.

"Den, got off your clothes," pleaded the youth. "See, they are dripping. You will got your death."

"Presently," he returned softly, still looking into Charlie's loving and sorrowful young face.

"Tom, get out some of your dry things; yours will fit him now."

"Yes, there's a change," Denbigh said with a smile, as with his left hand he grasped the loose breast of the old coat and shook it emptily. Something, however, that he felt there reminded him of his trouble and darkened his face into a look of fierce determination that no mate there had ever seen before on the countenance of George Denbigh.

"Stop a bit" he cried, as he extended his right hand suddenly, and raised liis drooping face. "You want to know what dreadful thing has happened to me, mates, and I want to tell you. You know what I went home for; what face drew me like a loadstone; you know what I saved for and toiled for during all our years of matehood, and of whom I dreamed and planned, and thought by day and by night. You, I say, know all this?" He was addressing Tom, as though, being the elder man, he could best understand him.

"It was your wife," said Tom in a low tone, as his clouded eyes fell to the floor.

"It was. My vessel was wrecked on a southern coast, and months passed before I succeeded in reaching home. Every penny I had went down in the ship; but what of that mates! Hadn't I a faithful loving wife awaiting me! Was I not rich yet, though in rags, and hungry?"

He laughed such a laugh as one never wishes to hear twice; a laugh with the insanity of a fierce wolfish rnge ringing in its tones. "I worked my way to England at last; and when I reached my home— she was gone!"

"Gone!" cried Charlie, as a groan of sympathy broke from Tom's breast.

"The man," said the soft accents of Chessington, from his shaded seat, "the man who would trust any woman is a fool."

There was another flash of George Denbigh's eyes toward the speaker, but again he answered no word.

"I followed them," he said, with clenched feeth nnd livid lips, "over half Europe, without money, or credit. Hungry and footsore, and mad with despair, I tried to run them down, but I never saw her again. She was cast aside like a soiled rag and found rest in some morgue, or den of vice perchance; but who cared for that, save only the man she had deserted!"

"Poor Den!" said Charlie, as he laid his hand softly on his friend's shoulder.

"Wait a bit," he said again, pushing the young man gently from him; "you will have plenty of time to be sorry for poor Den when his work is done."

Tom imd raised his eyes that were now resting with an infinite pity, and yet a strange doubt, on Denbigh's face.

"Did you find the man?" he asked in a low voice.

"Yes!" cried Denbigh, as he rose up, tall, gaunt and haggard, the very shadow of a man, with a lurid flash in his sunken eyes, and all intensity of desperate resolve in liis tone.

"Yes! I have found him! maimed and halt, aye, and blind. Sometimes I followed on his track over land and sea, and if there is a God of Justice in Heaven, no prayers will ever open its gates for him. Frederick Chessington go and render an account for what you have done!"

There was a flash that blotted out the gleam of the diamond, and a report that drowned the wild cry of terror from the victim. He jumped from his seat with upraised hands, and for an instant his awful fear-stricken face showed in the firelight, and then he fell forward on the floor, and died clutching handfuls of the clay in his agonised grasp.

That very night, before the day again broke over the stiffened corpse of the betrayer, George Denbigh quietly died.

Worn out in both mind and body, he had lived to avenge himself; and he died when his work was done. There were bitter tears dropped upon the weak hands held tightly by either faithful friend, and, strange to say, neither felt in his heart that there was blood upon the hands so bedewed.

__________________

13: Japanese Sandman

Norbert Davis

1909-1949

Short Stories, 25 Oct 1942

Thanks to Roy Glashan's Library (www.freeread.com.au)

IT WAS, according to those who should know, an Early California Colonial Ranch Bungalow with a miniature picket fence and one three-year-old artificially hopped-up pepper tree in a front lawn complete with an automatic sprinkler system. It was also, in case you have never visited California, a small home that was neat and dignified and individual and worthy of its owner's pride.

Morris Harley came in very late for him— 9:30— and coasted the truck into the garage and then tip-toed up the pressed gravel drive to the glassed-in rear porch and through it to the neat Pullman-style kitchen.

"Honey—" he said in a theatrical undertone.

"Oh, Honey."

"Morrey."

Morris tip-toed, a little more confidently now, through the breakfast-room— not nook— and across the living-room, dining-room, patio— all one— to the master's bedroom and opened the door,

"How do you feel, Honey?"

"Oh, rotten, I've been whoopsing all day, just all day without stopping, Morrey. I feel awfully sick. Morrey, I'm not going to be one of those dumb ones we've laughed about, am I? I'm not going to want strawberries with lobster sauce, please, do you think?"

"No, Honey," said Morris. He came closer to the bed, feeling his way cautiously in the darkness. "But— but can I get you anything else?"

"Oh, Morrey, you fool! You're scared!"

"I'm not!" said Morris. "Well, all right, I am. Yes, sir. I'm damned scared. Please, Honey. Is—is there anything I can do?"

"Morrey, Morrey, did you worry about me today? All day— when you were out running your little truck?"

"My God!" said Morris. .

Virginia Harley laughed and laughed. "Oh, Morrey! I'm all right. I'm just being a softy. That's our trouble, haven't you heard? We're too soft. Here I've got a good practical nurse and housekeeper and a doctor and a clinic that we've saved for. And just think of all the wonderful strong peasant women who have their children at the end of one furrow and go on and plow the next."

"You stop saying things like that," Morris said miserably.

"Oh, Morrey! You stop worrying! Now go and have your dinner. I told Doris just how to leave it for you. The chopped steak is in the frying pan with the right amount of grease— please, Morrey, don't put any more in—and the potatoes are all sliced right beside it, and there are some grated carrots and a half-head of lettuce. Oh! O-o-oh!"

Morris had got halfway— ten paces— to the kitchen, nodding in the automatic and long-suffering way of all husbands, when he heard that last. Exactly a second later he was beating on the bathroom door.

"Honey! Honey! Are you all right?"

"Shut up and go away."

"Honey! Shall I call the doctor?"

"Morrey, if you dare— Go and eat your dinner and behave yourself!"

ii

IT WAS very late now— or very early— and the false dawn was poking its wan, thin fingers through the slats of the Venetian blinds.

"Yes," said Morris Harley, starting suddenly awake, blind with sleep. "Yeah, Honey."

He reached out automatically, fumbling for the electric alarm clock, and it wasn't there.

His fingers slid along smooth, hard-twill khaki trousers.

"What?" said Morris. "What—"

"Yes."

"My God," said Morris, not believing for a moment that be was really awake. "It's old Pingo-Pongo."

"Sit up very slowly, please. Hands on the outside of the covers. Both hands."

"What?" said Morris. "This is—"

"No," said old Pingo-Pongo. "This is not a dream. You are seeing me, and I am here, and this is a gun."

Morris, swallowed hard. "You talk— much better than you did at the pit."

"I find it convenient to do so."

Morris swallowed again. "I thought— thought you were— I mean, when you didn't come to work any more, we all thought you were in a camp with the other Japs—"

"I'm afraid you underestimated me," said Pingo-Pongo.

"Yes," said Morris sincerely. "My God, yes."

Pingo-Pongo chuckled. "Thank you. It is really a compliment to me." He was smiling, but his teeth did not protrude, and he did not hiss his s's or roll his r's, and he did not bow. He was as sleek and deadly as a cobra, and not any more near-sighted. "Did I deceive you to that extent?"

"Yes," said Morris numbly. "I thought you were just a funny little guy trying to get along."

"How humorous," said Pingo-Pongo. "It is like my name. That is a joke, too. Your fellow workers and drivers explained it to me. They could not pronounce heathen languages and names, so they called me Pingo-Pongo. Isn't that immensely funny?"

"Well—" said Morris.

"What?" said Virginia drowsily. "What, Morrey?"

PINGO-PONGO had a fat, short .38 special revolver, and he put it right up against Morris Harley's nose. Pingo-Pongo was smiling. He was quite amused.

Morris made his voice work. "It's nothing, Honey. I guess I was having a nightmare. Go back to sleep."

"Why?" asked Pingo-Pongo. Virginia rolled over carefully. "What did you— Morrey!"

"Honey," said Morris. "It's all right. Everything is under control. This is a fella that used to work with me at the gravel pit. He— he's a Chinese fella."

"She is your wife," said Pingo-Pongo, "and no doubt you are the best judge in such matters, but I hardly think she is that much of a fool."

"No, I'm not," said Virginia. She eased herself up toward the head of the bed, panting a little. "You're a Jap. What do you want here? What do you want with my husband?"

"A small matter," said Pingo-Pongo. "He will perform it, and then he will be safe, and he can come back to you and roll over and bark and wave his paws like all other American dogs do."

Virginia said, "You can't—"

"One moment," said Pingo-Pongo. "You are raising your voice just a little bit. It would be so unwise if you did it any more. I forgot to introduce my companion. His name is Alfred. There."

He was standing thickly and solidly in the shadows at the head of the bed on Virginia's side, and the dim light made a futuristically menacing mask of his face.

"He is German," said Pingo-Pongo. "And very stupid— as is only to be expected. But he has enough of the— shall I say?— instinct for self-preservation so that he obeys orders when they are given by his superiors. Heil Hitler!"

"Heil Hitler!" said Alfred.

"Do not laugh at him," said Pingo-Pongo. "He actually believes that supreme stupidity. He cannot, I'm happy to say, speak Japanese or English or Spanish or any other civilized language. You must speak to him either in German or in sign language. But really, for a German brain, he is very quick at sign language. Watch."

Pingo-Pongo put the back of his left hand delicately against his mouth and then pointed at Virginia. Alfred moved as instantly and unquestioningly as a mechanical man. His thick arm flipped out, and there was a sharp slapping sound.

Virginia's head thumped against the head of the bed, and a thin little trickle of blood oozed over her lower lip. Pingo-Pongo's eyes gleamed watchfully under their hooded lids. Morris sat as rigid as a man made of ice.

Pingo-Pongo chuckled. "I'm afraid you are a coward, Mr. Harley. According to all your motion pictures and novels and stories, you must immediately arise and smite the horrid, horrid aliens who have dared to lay hands on your wife. Especially because she is carrying your child. Or is there some more delicate—and typically American— way of speaking of her condition?"

"I am carrying his child," said Virginia.

"What do you want of me?" Morris asked.

"Your time," said Pingo-Pongo. "Only a little of it. Your truck. Your gracious help." With his left hand he made delicate stroking motions against both his sallow cheeks, "What would you think that meant?"

"I don't know," Morris said.

"You are not German and stupid. Look at Alfred."

Alfred had a knife in his hand. It had a flat, broadly tapered blade that winked in the light.

"Shaving," said Pingo-Pongo. "Razor. Hence— a knife. It is very simple. It would have to be for a German to understand it. Really, I tell you in confidence, we regret things could not have worked out more— ah— cooperatively. The Japanese are a proud people. It is quite disgusting to be paired, however temporarily, with a race of pigs. But I am sure I'm boring you. You will get dressed and come with me now, Mr. Harley."

"No," said Morris.

Pingo-Pongo smiled. "Are you really so stupid as to think I won't kill you if you don't do exactly what I tell you when I tell you to do it?"

"Morrey," said Virginia. "He means it."

"Honey," said Morris evenly and slowly, "he wants to use me, not you or— or Jasper. If I stepped out of this room— away from you— Alfred would cut your throat. I'm sorry to talk that way, Honey."

"Oh," said Virginia.

"Please don't be sick."

"I won't be. What— what are you going to do?"

"You should ask me," said Pingo-Pongo. "At the moment I have the deciding vote. It is so fortunate that we understand your national psychology. I expected your reaction, and I know exactly the steps to take to meet it."

"What steps?" Morris asked.

"All Americans are cowards," said Pingo-Pongo quite seriously. "They value their lives, the lives of their wives and children and relatives, their security, much more highly than they do their national or personal honor. That is nice. It makes it so easy for me now. Your husband, Mrs. Harley, is terrified for fear something unpleasant might happen to you. For instance, Alfred's knife— So if I explain to Mr. Harley how he can prevent that he will do anything I say. Isn't that true, Mr. Harley?"

"Yes," said Morris.

"Of course," said Pingo-Pongo. "It is so simple when you understand Americans. Now attend me carefully. I wish to retrieve some property of mine which is buried in the cut beyond your Number 3 shovel. I must get it at once, or the shovel will uncover it."

"What is it?" Morris asked,

"Nitroglycerine. You see, I am very frank with you. I wish, also, to use your truck to carry the explosive to a safer place of concealment. I am not ready to use it yet. Are you following me?"

"Yes."

"All right. Now I will explain how you can save your wife's life and your own. I cannot appear openly in this area. It is a combat zone, and no Japanese are allowed in it. For instance, I cannot drive your truck. The first person who noticed me would stop me— or attempt to. So I will ride with you— out of sight on the floor of the truck cab—to the gravel pit, and you will help me load the explosive and then drive me back here again. Then I will wait here with you while Alfred drives the truck to a place we have in mind and unloads the explosive. Then he will drive the truck, back here, and we will leave you both unharmed."

"Why?" said Morris.

PINGO-PONGO smiled at him. "Why not? Your authorities won't be able to find the explosive or Alfred or me, and you will have a great deal of difficulty explaining your part in the affair. In fact, I would advise you not to try. You will be late to work, but you can excuse yourself by saying you were attending your wife. Everything will be so simple that way, and you will also avoid the possibility of me—or someone else—paying your wife a return visit. That is a matter for you to consider most carefully."

Morris looked at Alfred.

PINGO-PONGO said, "Alfred will not touch your wife while we are gone unless we do not return with the explosive within the time limit I have set. Really, neither of you will be harmed if you cooperate."

"When we come back," said Morris, "we'll sit out in front in the truck with the motor running until Virginia comes to the door and I can see she's all right. Do you know what I'll do if she isn't?"

Pingo-Pongo chuckled. "I can imagine. You will drive the truck into a lamp-post or a tree."

"The truck," agreed Morris, "and the nitro— and you."

"It will not be necessary," said Pingo-Pongo. "I will do exactly as I promised. I will explain your precaution to Alfred." He spoke in quick, gutturals, and Alfred nodded once.

"Honey?" said Morris inquiringly.

"Yes, Morrey. He went awful fast, but I'm sure he didn't say anything but about the truck and you waiting until you saw me."

Pingo-Pongo stared at her, surprised. "You can speak German?"

"Sure she can," said Morris, getting out of bed and pulling off the top of his pajamas. "Two years in high school and two years in business college."

"Most amazing," said Pingo-Pongo. "I must tell Alfred that." He spoke again, more slowly now, and Alfred nodded stolidly. "You understood what I said, Mrs. Harley?"

"Yes. You told him I spoke German and that he was not to answer me if I tried to talk to him."

"It will be better that way, I think. You wouldn't enjoy talking to him anyway. He is very stupid. Are you ready now, Mr. Harley? There will be no one at the gravel pit this early, but if you and your truck should be seen it will not excite suspicion. People will merely think you are working extra hours in your zeal to aid the war effort. Should anyone, for any reason, see me you will explain that I am your new assistant or helper and that I am Chinese."

"All right," said Morris.

"Good-by, Morrey," said Virginia Harley slowly and soberly.

"Keep your chin up, Honey," Morris said. "I'll be back in a flash."

He and Pingo-Pongo went out of the bedroom and across to the kitchen and out on the back porch.

"Wait!" said Pingo-Pongo sharply. "Who is that man digging in the lawn next door?"

"He lives in that new house there," Morris said.

"There was no one living in that house two days ago!"

"He moved in yesterday."

"Is he a friend of yours? Has he visited you?"

"No. He just came over once— to borrow some garden tools. The ones he's using now."

"All right," said Pingo-Pongo. "We understand just how you Americans who live in a small suburb like this talk with your neighbors. You will do and say exactly what I tell you. We will walk on the drive to the garage. You will say, 'Good morning. Looks like a swell day, huh?' He will answer some similar nonsense, and you will say, 'This is my new helper.' I will greet him, and then you will say, 'He's a Chinaman, an' doesn't talk good English.' You will use just the words I have said— not any others. Is that clear?"

"Yes," said Morris. "'Good morning. Looks like a swell day, huh? This is my new helper. He's a Chinaman. He doesn't talk good English.'"

"You are a very quick study," said Pingo-Pongo. "That is theater slang for having a good memory. Go ahead now. I will put my gun away and walk close beside you. Your life and your wife's life depends on your absolute obedience."

They went out on the drive. The dawn was a red, fierce glow on the horizon,

The man in the next yard was digging with a gardening fork, and he leaned on it and looked at them. He was a young man with the beginnings of a paunch, and he was bald. He wore a khaki work shirt and khaki pants.

"Good morning," said Morris. "Looks like a swell day, huh?"

"You can have it," said the bald young man.

"This is my new helper."

Pingo-Pongo grinned and giggled and ducked his head. "How-do! How-do, please! Velly fine day!"

"He's a Chinaman," said Morris. "He doesn't talk good English."

"I got ears," said the bald young man.

They had reached the garage, and Morris rolled the patented door up with Pingo-Pongo pretending to help eagerly, and then they were inside and out of sight.

"That was good," said Pingo-Pongo. "He does not suspect anything. He has gone back to his digging. Start the truck, I will sit up on the seat until I am out of sight of your neighbor, and then I will slide down on the floor,"

Morris backed the truck down the drive. The bald young man didn't even look up.

"So nice," said Pingo-Pongo. "Drive very carefully, Mr. Harley. If we have an accident or are stopped by a policeman—"

iii

THE gravel pit was a great brown scar against the side of the hill, and Shovel Number 3 looked like a prehistoric monster with a girder neck and a box head. Morris drove the truck around beside it and stopped.

"Is there anyone in sight?" Pingo-Pongo asked.

"No. No one."

"Good. Just as I expected." Pingo-Pongo got out of the truck. "Bring the two shovels and come this way."

Morris got the shovels from the clamps on the side of the truck body and followed Pingo-Pongo up the steep face of the cut. Gravel slid and rolled back under their feet.

"Here," said Pingo-Pongo. "Dig in that direction."

Morris braced himself and began to dig. It was warm, even this early, and sweat stained the back of his shirt.

"Careful, now," Pingo-Pongo warned. "Be very careful— All right. Stand aside!"

He scraped cautiously with his own shovel and finally uncovered a flat gallon tin that was painted dull brown.

"Yes," he said. "There are nineteen more of these buried in two parallel rows. Be very, very careful of them. This is much more sensitive, even, than ordinary nitroglycerine. The slightest jar will set it off. If this much of it should explode it would enlarge this gravel pit about ten times in a split second. I do not have to tell you what would happen to us in that event."

They dug the tins out one after the other.

"Twenty," said Pingo-Pongo. "That is all. Now we will carry them to the truck. Carry one in each hand, and, don't bump them or jiggle them. Walk on your toes."

They made five trips from the cut to the truck:

"Now," said Pingo-Pongo, "throw in a layer of those fine screenings on the bottom of the truck. About a foot deep."

MORRIS shoveled from the pile of screenings, leveling the fine gravel off on the bed of the truck.

"All right," said Pingo-Pongo. "That is very fine." He climbed up into the truck body. "Now hand me the cans one at a time."

Morris handed up the cans, and Pingo-Pongo worked each one carefully into the gravel, packing them about a foot apart. The seventh can Morris handed up slipped in his fingers just as Pingo-Pongo was reaching for it.

Pingo-Pongo raised his voice for the first time. "Look out, you fool! Look—"

Morris staggered hack, juggling the can. He went down on one knee, but he was grasping the tin safely against his chest with both arms.

There was a sheen of sweat on Pingo-Pongo's face. "You clumsy maniac! If that had dropped— Hand it up here!"

Morris gave him the tin and then the others, handling them much more cautiously now.

"That's all," he said.

Pingo-Pongo jumped down from the truck. "All right. Now we will pile in some of that coarser gravel to hold them and make it look like a regular load and—"

The bald young man slid around the back of the truck. "I wondered how long it was going to be before I could get between you and that nitro." He was holding Morris' new deer rifle, and it was aimed at Pingo-Pongo. "Don't make a move. Don't even bat your eyes."

Pingo-Pongo's voice grated thickly. "You!" he said to Morris. "You signaled him. You disobeyed me."

The morning seemed very misty and dark in front of Morris. "I didn't have to. He's my new helper. He knew that you weren't."

"Luck!" Pingo-Pongo gasped. "Always your American luck. The one chance in a million that he should live next to you!"

"No luck about it," Morris said. "I got him the job. I loaned him and his wife their railroad fare to California. I even loaned them the money to make the down payment on their house."

"Don't forget the five dollars for groceries," said the bald young man sourly.

"He's my brother-in-law," Morris said.

"I ain't boastin' about it, though," said Virginia's brother.

PINGO-PONGO blew out his breath in a long sigh. "So— Mrs. Harley's brother! Then, Mr. Harley, you should tell him about what will happen to his sister. About Alfred and his knife—"

"Is Alfred the bird with the muffin-puss that was in Virginia's bedroom?" Virginia's brother asked. "After you and stupid left, I figure he is acting pretty nutty even for him, so I go around to the back door and knock and holler a little. Then I go in the front door with the key he loaned me to keep track of Virginia with, and I am just in time to see Alfred march Virginia out of the bedroom with a knife against her back, on the way to the back door to see who's there." Virginia's brother nodded at Morris. "It's lucky you are so loopy. You remember them toys you bought? Imagine buyin' baseball stuff for a kid that ain't even born yet! Anyway, the bat was standin' in the hall corner, so I slammed Alfred over the dome with it. I bust it. The bat, I mean. I think maybe I bust Alfred, too."

"Virginia?" Morris asked faintly.

"Say, maybe she's your wife, but I was raised with her. You couldn't hurt her with a hand-axe. When I left she was on the phone hollering for the Army and the Navy and the Air Force and President Roosevelt, And if you think them guys with rifles crawlin' around in the weeds up on the hill there are huntin' ducks, you are crazy. They was afraid to tackle Hiro-Hito for fear he'd drop one of those cans, and they seen I was hidin' behind the truck, so they let me handle it." Virginia's brother raised his voice. "Hey, slew-foots, come on down! The Marines has got the situation, well in hand."

"Marines?" said Pingo-Pongo incredulously.

"One Marine," said Virginia's brother. "Me. Six years before I was invalided out. Hey, lame-brain! What's the matter with you?"

Morris was swaying gently back and forth.

Pingo-Pongo's smile was like a livid mask. "Mr. Harley is relieved that you saved him from betraying his country."

"Why, you bandy-legged little rum-dum," said Virginia's brother. "This guy is my brother-in-law, and he is a dope, but you don't think he was gonna let you get out in the streets with that truck full of nitro, do you? Virginia sure knew that he wouldn't. She was in such a rush for me to get here she wouldn't even let me stop to hit Alfred again. Morrey stalled as long as he could, but he was just about ready to go when I stepped in. You remember that juggling act he put on with the can of nitro? I lost ten years off my life when he was doin' that, and I don't think you liked it so well, either, because you lost track of the number of cans he handed you. He short-changed you. He didn't hand you twenty. He gave you nineteen. There's the other."

With his thumb, without moving the rifle, he pointed under the truck. The flat brown can was under the right rear wheel, tucked in close against the tread of the big tire.

"If you and him had got in the truck," said Virginia's brother, "and drove it forward a quarter of an inch, there'd have been an awful loud noise around here."

Morris fainted dead away; he came down so hard his head bounced.

"Hell's fire!" said Virginia's brother, really worried now. "I hope he ain't hurt himself. Virginia will tear my ears off if he has."

______________

14: The Yellow Angel

James Francis Dwyer

1874-1952

The Popular Magazine  20 Sep 1925

The second of three tales of the adventurer known as The Texan Wasp

TO New Orleans, "the City that Care forgot," rode Robert Henry Blane. Word had come up from old Louisiana that the sun was shining brightly in the romantic French Quarter, that sleek thoroughbreds were running at Jefferson Park and that roses were blooming along Esplanade Avenue, so The Texan Wasp fled from the scouting winds of winter that clattered like invisible Uhlans through the streets of Manhattan. The debonair adventurer had a great and lasting love for New Orleans. Robert Henry Blane registered at the St. Charles, but he paid tribute to the glorious past by crossing Canal Street at meal times and eating in the Vieux Carré. At Antoine's and The Louisiane he ate fat oysters from Bayou Cook, gumbo a la Creole, broiled pompano and roast canvasbacks and blessed the little fat-bellied gods that gave deftness to the studious chefs that ruled the kitchens.

For three whole days The Wasp sunned himself in the soft backwaters of Lazyland, then the golden threads of chance dragged him into a whirlpool. He was sitting in Jackson Square, where "Old Hickory" on his champing horse lifts his hat eternally to the redbrick houses opposite, when a drunken Swedish sailor came weaving along the pathway.

The Swede, a huge, muscular giant, was heavily loaded with wood alcohol. He rolled from side to side of the path, now and then by an almost miraculous effort preventing one of his big feet from eliminating an inoffensive pansy bed,

Coming toward the viking was a tall, handsome girl carrying a basket filled with all the good things that one can buy in the French Market. Fruit, yellow and gold, gleamed in the sunshine and the bleary eye of the Swede was attracted, Possibly thirst ruled him at the moment,

He gave a little more attention to his steering machinery, swung to port with a curious stealthy movement, then, abreast of the basket, he made a grab for a big orange that crowned the pile.

The orange rolled from the stubby fingers as the frightened girl jerked the basket away. The Swede made a second attempt. He stumbled; his enormous paw hooked itself in the handle; the basket was torn from the grip of its owner; and the purchases were scattered over the walk.

Robert Henry Blane was beside the girl in an instant. He recovered the basket and hurriedly collected the nearest objects while the Swede was climbing to his feet. Instead of apologizing the sailor showed a malicious humor.

WITH berserker grunts of rage he hopped after a rolling orange and placed an enormous boot upon it. He yelled with joy as he pursued another, reducing it to pulp in the same manner, He staggered after a third, gurgling as he clumped along the asphalt.

The Texan' Wasp thought it time to interfere with the sailor's fun. As the Swede's hoof was lifted to squash the third orange, Blane gave him a swift push from the rear that sent him sprawling, then, without glancing at the drunk, the Texan picked up the orange and carried it back to the basket.

The Swede lifted himself slowly. His little blue eyes were aflame. A fool had interfered with his game of squashing oranges. Quietly, ever so gently, he gathered his big body together and rushed.

Blane had stooped to collect some scattered okra and the girl's cry of alarm came too late. The hairy mammoth of a sailor was upon him before he could straighten himself. Arms as thick as the body of a full-grown python were around the neck of The Wasp, a garlic-scented breath with the hurtful possibilities of poison gas enveloped him. The Swede was filled with a great desire to garrote the person who objected to his playful manner of rounding up fugitive oranges.

The great Japanese wrestler, Isuchi, who lived in the days of the Emperor Hideyoshi, invented a grip to foil the garroter. It took Isuchi a year to think it out and of the very few who had patiently learned it was a muscular person from Houston named Robert Henry Blane.

He bent back with the neck-breaking pull of the Swede, then, with lightning swiftness, he applied the grip. A roar of pain came from the sailor, a roar that echoed against the walls of the old houses on the square; his arms were flung wide as he released The Wasp and staggered across the path.

The face of Blane became hard and cold; the scar on his right jaw showed white as his mouth tightened. "On your way!" he cried, as the Swede turned. "Beat it or I'll teach you something!" The Swede made a noise like an angry boar. "Py chiminy! Ah bane teach you sumping!" he screamed, and, as he spoke, he charged.

The sailor swung at Blane's head. The head moved the fraction of a second before the fist arrived, then, as the Swede was carried forward by the force of the blow, cold accurate science fell upon him like a barrage from hell. The Texan Wasp was annoyed. He detested blind, brutal force and the huge, flailing arms of the ungallant giant put the TNT of hot indignation into the broadside of jolts and jabs that the sailor stopped. The flat nose of the seafaring gentleman thought its owner had challenged a steam foundry. A swift punch to the jaw, placed with matchless precision, ended the fight.

Robert Henry Blane stepped to the side of the girl. She seemed a. little stunned by the happening; a little hypnotized by the manner in which the debonair stranger who had come to her assistance had disposed of the giant. The Wasp picked up the basket of fruit and vegetables. Inquisitive folk were hurrying from the levee.

"Let us go," said Blane gently. "A crowd will gather soon. I'll carry the basket, please!"

The girl made no objection. Side by side they crossed the square into Decatur, then, in a strange silence, they walked along by the old Cathedral of St. Louis into Royal. The owner of the basket took an occasional frightened glance at the man at her side; the gray eyes of The Texan Wasp were not altogether idle.

He thought the girl had an extraordinary charm. Into his mind floated pictures of lavender gardens, jalousies, little tinkling fountains in shady courts. His companion seemed to be the spirit of the old French Quarter through which they walked— the quarter of other days.

The girl paused at the corner of Royal and St. Peter. Eyes that were soft and dark and luminous examined the face of Robert Henry Blane. A voice that thrilled him whispered thanks.

"I— I would like my mother to thank you," she murmured. "Mother would think it wrong if I— if I let you go before she could express her gratitude. It is just a step up Royal Street. I wonder if you would come?"

"I am delighted at being asked," said Blane. "Not that I crave thanks from your mother, but because I am mindful of the honor that you are doing me in taking me to your home."

The girl flushed sweetly. The soft accent of the South had crept into the voice of the adventurer. For the moment his speech and manner were her own.

PASSING out of the white sunshine into the inky shadows of the old house in Royal Street, Robert Henry Blane was strangely impressed. The house seemed a refuge for the past. A refuge for all the dreams and poetry that went with the old Creole days.

Little phantoms of the days of romance peeped at The Wasp from the dim corners of the big rooms, from behind massive pieces of rosewood, from the shade of big armoires of Spanish mahogany—armoires that had held in their perfumed depths the soft linen of countless generations.

The past peeped from behind Empire mirrors that had reflected the faces of Creole beauties for whose smiles beruffled bucks fought duels at dawn at Spanish Fort and Lake Pontchartrain. An inquisitorial ghost looked the tall Texan over and wondered if the girl had done right in bringing him into the repository of dreams.

The girl ran toward a figure resting in a big armchair near the window of the sitting room.

"Mother, dear," she cried, "I have brought some one with me! A drunken man upset my basket and this gentleman protected me."

The woman turned and Robert Henry Blane, as he bowed low, felt that she too was of a period that the hurrying present had ruthlessly throttled. A frail, sweet woman whose clutch upon life seemed so feeble that one wondered where the energy to breathe, to talk, to eat was actually stored.

She was gracious to The. Wasp. She made him sit beside her at the window. She plied him with questions, questions that amused him. He was Southern, of course? Ah, yes, she knew it the moment he had entered the room. And he had traveled far? For her foreign places had no lure.. She had been born in New Orleans and in New Orleans she would die.

"In this house my great-grandmother, grandmother, mother, and myself were born," she said gently. "My husband lived here for twenty years and sometimes—". She turned her head and looked swiftly at the door by which the girl had left the room a few moments before. "Sometimes," she continued, "he— my husband— returns and talks to me. Talks to me from the court at the back of the house."

Robert Henry Blane, schooled in the art of control, exhibited no surprise at hearing the extraordinary statement. He simply inclined his head and waited for further details. He saw that the woman had chosen the moment when the girl was absent from the room to make the startling confession.

The frail lady watched his face for a moment and, finding that no amazement showed thereon, she leaned forward and spoke in a hurried whisper.

"It is strange, is it not?" she murmured. "I will tell you how it began. Three weeks ago I was. sitting one night overlooking the court at the back of the house. I whispered my husband's name, and— and he answered. Answered me from the court. I was astonished and I—"

The girl returned to the room and the 'mother stopped abruptly in her recital. It was evident to Robert Henry Blane that the story of the spirit voice was one that received little credence from the daughter. He thought the younger woman looked questioningly at the elder before she again returned to her duties in the rear of the house. The Wasp studied the face of the old lady. and found nothing that would suggest mental derangement.

The mother took immediate advantage of the girl's absence.

"He, my husband, spoke to me!" she gasped excitedly. "Dorothy Anne doesn't believe. She was out that evening and she didn't hear. But I heard him distinctly!"

Blane was puzzled.

"Has it happened more than once?" he asked, his curiosity mildly roused by the story. "I mean, have you heard the voice since that evening?"

"Yes, yes!" breathed the old lady, delighted at the interest of the handsome Texan. "I have spoken with him on two other occasions. You see, I could not be fooled because he has spoken to me about something that only he and I knew about. A great secret!"

"That is strange,' murmured Blane.

"This—this secret was a piece of verse," continued the frail reciter. "My husband made me learn it, thinking he might forget it. You see, it—it was a very important piece of poetry and— and he couldn't write it down on paper lest some one would steal it. So my husband made me commit it to memory. I was never to tell it to any one. Never! I promised him. FE never whispered it aloud even!"

THE slight interest that Robert Henry Blane had in the fanciful tale received a sudden fillip. The story took on a new value. There was a suggestion of an uncanny cleverness on the part of some unknown seeker after information. The Wasp was interested.

"This verse," he said gently, "would it be useful to any one now? Your husband has been dead some years—"

"Seven," interrupted the woman. "He was murdered on the twenty-fourth of December, seven years ago."

"Murdered!" cried Blane. "Here?"

"In Baratarias— answered the old lady. "In the swamps across the river. His body was found floating in a bayou near Fleming's on the way to Grand Isle. Do you know Barataria?"

"I have been to Grand Isle."

"Well, it was a boat bringing terrapins from Grand Isle up to Harvey's that found my husband's body. Some one had knifed him. We never discovered who it was."

Again Dorothy Anne returned to the sitting room and on this occasion she showed the reason for her absence in the kitchen. Southern hospitality had to be extended to the visitor and the girl carried a pitcher of golden liquid with tall, slender glasses that, like everything else in the house, seemed to date back to the splendid and romantic days that had fled forever.

She begged The Wasp to drink and the courteous Blane felt that he was whirled back into those other days as he accepted the invitation. For an instant the magic spell cast by the old house and the two sweet women who occupied it clutched him and made him curiously forgetful of the present.

He wondered idly if there really was a busy, bustling Canal Street within five blocks of where he sat, a Canal Street so dreadfully Northern, filled with speeding street cars, wild-eyed shoppers, hurrying drummers, and moneyed Yankees who looked with amused contempt at the Vieux Carré.

The Wasp longed to ask the old lady about the present usefulness of the verse that her husband had taught her, but he held his curiosity in leash and chatted with Dorothy Anne as he sipped the beverage. He thought the girl charming. Her presence brought to his mind thoughts of New England gardens, of blossoming apple trees and dappled sunshine. Her beautiful hands made him think of Betty Allerton, his sweetheart of the long ago.

The chance that Blane awaited arrived at last. The girl left the room and he hurriedly put the question.

"This verse your husband taught you," he asked, "would it be useful to any one now? I mean, would it bring profit in any way?"

"I don't know," replied the woman. "My husband, when he made me memorize the lines, told me that it was part of some secret instructions that would enable him to find something. He didn't tell me what. To me the lines mean nothing at all."

"And have you repeated them to the person— I mean to your husband when he has spoken to you from the court?"

"No, not yet," answered the old lady. "At first when he spoke of them I could not recall them exactly, so I did not like to make the effort. Now I have them perfectly. I could repeat them at once if he asks me."

The Texan Wasp nodded gravely. The frail woman regarded him for a few moments in silence, then she spoke.

"I don't know why I have bothered you with all this!" she cried. "Something— something about you made me think of my husband, so I wanted to tell. You— you are like him. He was adventurous and— and handsome."

Robert Henry Blane smiled his thanks for the compliment as the girl returned to the room, then he rose and thanked mother and daughter for their hospitality.

"You will come and see us again?" asked the mother.

"If I may!" cried The Wasp, his eyes seeking those of the girl.

"Please do," murmured Dorothy Anne.

ONE'S imagination is fired by New Orleans more than by any other city in America. It is a town of haunting memories. It is a place where the unbelievable can be suddenly invested with the props of truth.

Robert Henry Blane motored down to Point a la Hache and dreamed away a few days watching the bald-headed vultures wheel over the desolate land through which the Mississippi plows its way to the Gulf and during those days the story told him by the elderly lady in the old house in Royal Street fought valiantly against all the attempts to evict it from his mind. It stuck like a bur.

It rose up and harried him with questions. What secret did the verse tell of? Who was the clever trickster who had laid such a strange plan to make the old lady repeat the lines? What was the mystery behind the murder of the husband in the swamp lands of Barataria? There came a morning when The Wasp could not withstand the questions. They drove him up through the flat country to the city, up by the battlefield of Chalmette where Andy Jackson whipped the British while the good folk of New Orleans flocked to the cathedral and prayed for "Old Hickory's" success.

The Wasp went direct to the house in Royal Street and had the good fortune to find the old lady alone. Dorothy Anne was out shopping, so the field was clear for cross-examination,

The elderly woman was evidently eager to tell her story in detail. For some reason or other she looked upon the tall Texan as a suitable confessor and she made no attempt to hide her pleasure at his visit. Tactfully The Wasp listened and questioned.

STRANGE story was that of Captain Jules Despard, husband of the woman living in the house of memories. It was a colorful and adventurous tale that delighted Blane. A story that belonged to the hectic and feverish New Orleans of other days. Captain Jules Despard had been a soldier of fortune. A plain, humdrum existence was a nightmare to him. He craved a myriad of sensations. His fingers had grown stubby from moving pawns on the board of chance.

Blane listened as the old lady unfolded the story of her husband's life. The Road, the Husks, and Fortune calling him insistently! Out of New Orleans to fever-stricken ports along the hot Caribbean. Plots hatched in the Old Absinth House, at Fabacher's over a broiled papabotte, at noon breakfasts in Madame Begue's long-remembered restaurant at the corner of Madison and Decatur.

Crazy plots they were, but thrilling. Crammed with the ginger of glorious chance! Chatter of guns, of ammunition, of fool authorities, of charts, of channels, of signal lights from marshy shores! Mother Trouble as the figurehead, Death at the wheel!

Madame Despard brought out old clippings and letters. An account in Spanish of the arrival of Captain Jules Despard in the schooner Georgia Lee at Barranquilla on the Magdalena River. Treasure seeking, so ran the tale. A faded photograph of the captain, a tall, lean-flanked man, leading a half score of followers across the Plaza Bolivar at Caracas. A year in a carcel was the captain's reward for that exploit.

Robert Henry Blane listened attentively, waiting anxiously for the old lady to arrive at the last chapter in the feverish life of Captain Despard. The Wasp was a little afraid that Dorothy Anne would return and interrupt the story, but the fates were kind. Madame Despard came at last to the part that really interested her listener.

"My husband came back from Belize a week before he was murdered," she related. "He was very excited, because he had information of something that would make him rich. Very, very rich. He could not eat; he could not sleep. He was restless and irritable Now and then he would tell me little scraps. Tell me of the wealth that would be his.

"It was always like that," she went on. "Always! Treasure, treasure, always treasure! He dreamed of it, waking and sleeping. He would start up in the middle of the night with the belief that he had gold and jewels in his hands.

"It was during that week that he taught me the verse I mentioned to you," she continued. "He made me learn it carefully. He was afraid that he might forget some little word and he could not write it down on paper lest some one would steal it from him. Poor Jules! A score of times I repeated the lines to him till he was satisfied that I knew them thoroughly. Ah, yes. A day before he was murdered, he made me whisper it to him. Just whisper it into his ear."

The curiosity of The Texan Wasp was intense. He wondered what the verse had to do with the death of the adventurous Despard? Who was the clever trickster who was playing on the old lady's credulity in an effort to get her to repeat it? He was puzzled and yet delighted that he was puzzled.

"Could you connect the verse in any way with your husband's death?" asked Blane.

"There were one or two words that had a relation to the place where his body was found," answered the widow. "Once my husband told me that the verses he knew and which he taught me were only part of the whole poem. There were other lines that some one else knew. Do you understand? I think it was a sort of puzzle. I remember distinctly the day he told me this, because I had protested that the lines had no sense in them at all.

"For seven years I have sat here at the window and wondered over it all," she went on. "Wondered day after day. Curiously I felt during that last week with Jules that he was closer to his dreams than he had ever been. That was strange, wasn't it? You see his belief in the story that he had heard came out from him and forced me to believe. I thought we would be rich. Yes, really rich!

"I would sing songs as I walked about the house and I would tell Dorothy Anne of the things that we would buy and the places where we would go when my husband found the treasure. Then— then one morning the police came and told me that a shrimp boat from Grand Isle had found the body of Jules floating in the bayou near Fleming's. I couldn't believe it. You see— you see, he had made me believe in his star just before he died."

There was silence as the old lady finished her story. The effort seemed to have exhausted her. Her eyes closed gently and her head sank wearily against the pillows. Blane remained motionless, afraid to disturb her slumber.

DOROTHY ANNE returned to find The Wasp sitting in the shadowy room. Blane held up a warning finger as the girl entered and she understood immediately. She beckoned him to follow her into the big kitchen that looked out over the picturesque court at the rear of the house and on tiptoe the Texan obeyed the summons without arousing the sleeper.

"I am afraid that I imposed upon your mother," he whispered. "She told me the story of your father's life. All of it. I had a great desire to hear it, so I did not stop her, and now I think the effort was too much for her."

The girl looked at him intently. "Why did you wish to hear it?" she asked.

"I don't know," replied Blane, looking directly into the soft, dark eyes of his questioner. "Ever since my first  visit I have been wondering. I couldn't rest till—"

"Then mother must have spoken to you of the voice in the court when you first came, here?" interrupted Miss Despard.

"Yes," confessed Blane. "She told me of the incident when you were out of the room."

The wonderful eyes of the girl examined the face of the tall adventurer from Houston, They swept over his features in a curious purposeful way, seeking, so the man thought, for every little foundation that would warrant her confidence. He realized this as he waited, his quiet, gray eyes fixed upon her face.

The girl turned, busied herself for a moment with the packages that she had brought home, then spoke softly, her head turned away from her visitor.

"I am glad that you know all about it," she said, her voice so low that Blane could hardly catch her words. "I was thinking of— of telling you myself. I have wondered ever since we first met if you— if you could help."

"I would like to do anything that I could to assist you," said Blane. "I am at your service if you need me."

AGAIN there fell a little silence, as the girl debated the propriety of bringing an utter stranger into the matters that concerned her family, then she spoke.

"I am worried over the matter," she said, turning toward Robert Henry Blane. "You see, mother has heard the voice on two different occasions, and on each of those occasions I was absent from the house. Both times were in the night, as you know. When she first heard the voice, she told me when I came home and I made a resolve that I would not leave her alone in the house after nightfall. That was more than three weeks ago.

"For ten days," the girl continued,  "nothing happened although mother listened on the balcony above the court every evening, then I had to go out again for a few minutes. I had to run up to the druggist's for some medicine that mother was taking. The pharmacy is at the corner of Royal and Louis and I was not away from the house for more than thirty minutes.

"But in those thirty minutes the person who had spoken to my mother from the dark court spoke to her again and asked her to repeat the verse that my father taught her. You see, he must have been watching the house and, when he saw me leave, he must have rushed around into Bourbon Street, ran up the passage at the rear of our house and climbed the brick wall into the court."

"Then you do not believe what your mother believes?" said Blane. "I mean, you do not connect the voice with your father?"

"No," answered the girl.

"Can I ask why?"

"Yes. I am telling you everything, thinking you might be able to advise me. I have not left the house since that evening because I have been afraid that something terrible might happen. I mean something dreadful like what— like what happened to father. Some one wants to know something that mother knows, and— and I am afraid of what they will do in their efforts to make her tell.

"I wish— I wish mother had repeated the verse," the girl went on. "You see, on the second occasion I returned to the house just as mother was going to do what the voice requested her to do and my arrival upset her. I cried out to her and she became excited and fainted."

"And then?" prompted The Wasp. "Did something happen that made you feel sure there was nothing spiritualistic about the affair?"

"Yes," answered Dorothy Anne. "I looked down into the court, but it was so dark I could see nothing. Then, as I carried mother into the sitting room, I heard some one stumbling through the flower pots at the back. Next morning I went down and looked at them. Half a dozen were broken and there were footprints in the soft soil. A man's footprints."

"Did you tell your mother?" asked Blane.

"No," replied Miss Despard. "I didn't like to. You see, I did not wish to be cruel to mother, who firmly believes that it was my father's voice that came to her out of the court, and then again if I proved to her that some stranger was doing such a wicked thing, she would be horribly frightened."

The Texan Wasp remained silent for a few minutes, then the questioning eyes of the girl forced him to speak.

"I would suggest that we find out why this unknown gentleman is so anxious to hear the verses that your mother learned," he said quietly. "Scaring him off the premises by telling the police will not solve the secret. There must be a great value to the lines. They may be worth thousands of dollars."

"But— but I am afraid of him!" gasped the girl. "I wish now that mother had repeated the lines the last time he came. Then we would be free of him. Now I am terrified. I am afraid to leave the house at night, lest something might happen to mother. You know, she only knows a part of the chant. Perhaps—perhaps he thinks that she knows all of it, and—and if he 'thought that, he might do something dreadful to us."

Robert Henry Blane stepped to the side of the girl.

"Do you believe in me?" he asked gently. "Do you trust me?"

"Oh, yes! Yes!" she answered.

"Then let us do something together," said Blane. "Let us make a little plan. I am rather interested in this fellow who is trying to fool your mother. Suppose to-night that you go out and leave your—"

"I cannot! I am afraid!" cried the girl. "This— this brute who is pretending to be the spirit of my father might kill mother!"

The Wasp took the soft hand of the girl and held it in a firm grip.

"I will be in the court when he comes," he said quietly. "I give you my word that no harm will come to your mother. No harm at all. There is something big behind all this. Now let us map out a little plan that will make this faker look cheap."

IT was exactly eight o'clock when Robert Henry Blane crept up the little passage from Bourbon Street to the brick wall that fenced in the courtyard at the rear of the old Despard house. The passage was not more than two feet wide and it was dark and smelly. Some disputed right to the few inches of ground had left it unoccupied between two houses.

Blane, on reaching the wall, felt carefully for projections that would help him to scale it, then quietly climbed over and dropped noiselessly into the court. Dorothy Anne had agreed to leave the house at fifteen minutes after eight and the Texan thought to make himself perfectly at home in the yard before the arrival of the person who was evidently watching the house in the hope that the girl would leave and give him a free field for his humbug.

The Wasp found a large Spanish water jar in one corner of the yard and snuggled in behind it. A solitary light showed in the rear of the Despard house. Its yellow gleam came through the French windows and faintly illuminated the handmade ironwork of the balcony that ran around the rear of the house, high above the courtyard. Blane knew that the light came from a small sewing room in which Mrs. Despard often sat.

The minutes passed slowly. Infinite silence reigned in the court. Faintly, ever so faintly, came the soft rumble of cars running on Royal.

Then, after what seemed a century of waiting, the sharp ears of Robert Henry Blane heard the patter of feet in the passage up which he had come from Bourbon. Keenly alert he thrust his head forward and registered the slight sounds that followed.

There was the scratching of feet on the brick wall, the grunt of a person slightly winded by the effort made in scaling the barrier, then the plop as the intruder dropped on the soft soil. The fellow passed close to the corner where Blane crouched. He was stumbling forward to a point beneath the window in which the light showed.

The incidents that followed were peculiarly eerie and outlandish. They brought a certain queer thrill to the nerves of The Texan Wasp, who generally adopted a rather blasé attitude in the face of all kinds of happenings. He found himself gripped by a tremendous and all-consuming curiosity.

From the darkness of the courtyard there went up a low moan that had an immediate effect. The French windows of the sewing room were thrown open and Madame Despard appeared upon the balcony. Her attitude, as far as The Wasp could judge, gave no indications of fear. She seemed excited, but not alarmed. She leaned over the iron railing and whispered the name of her dead husband.

"Jules!" she murmured. "Jules!"

THERE was no response. The intruder was coy. He wished to let the mystery of the night help him in his work of deception. Blane thought him a rather clever and artistic scoundrel. Madame Despard called again, and her call brought a faint ghostly whisper from the court. A whisper so wonderfully soft and pliant that The Wasp was thrilled by the creepy feel that the fellow put into it. It might have been the faint echo of a voice calling from the farthest star. The work was admirably well done.

Blane watched the woman on the balcony, outlined clearly against the windows of the sewing room. She was erect now, her hands clasped upon her breast, her whole attitude expressive of belief and exalted joy.

The faker in the court began to whisper softly. Attenuated whispers that seemed to be thin tentacles of sound filled the darkness. They rose and fell and died away. They were disjointed and meaningless, but they were fearfully and dreadfully ghostly.

The fellow was bulldozing the widow by all the old tricks and humbug peculiar to the séances of spiritualistic fakers. He was exhausting her small brain power by getting her to puzzle madly over scraps of nonsense. Coquettish scraps that carried a sort of "well there might be something in it" feel which tired the listener who tried to solve them.

For five minutes or more the widow, hands clasped and head thrust forward, tried to dredge something understandable out of the farrago of nonsense, then the fellow thought it time to make a bold attempt to get the information that he sought. There was a slight interval of complete silence, then he called the name of the woman on the balcony, called it softly, lovingly.

"Luella May!"

It was a little thread of musical sound that went softly upward.

"Jules! Jules!" gasped the woman.

"The verse!" came the whisper from the court. "You have not forgotten the verse?"

"No, no!" cried Madame Despard. "No, Jules!"

"Then say the lines!" came the whispered order from the man in the darkness.

Robert Henry Blane leaned forward. His ears ached with the longing to hear the lines which he knew the woman would repeat. Hearing was the predominant sense at the moment. The silence of the courtyard as Madame Despard braced herself and moistened her dry lips brought to The Wasp an almost unbearable agony.

Then came the words, clear and distinct. They were meaningless words. They floated down to the dark court. Only once was there a break as excitement overcame the speaker and forced her to pause for an instant. It was a strange verse:

"Deep it lies where the shell mounds rise,

Darky keep a-blinking for the big, blue flies,

Big, burned cypress on the right of the stream,

Mighty lonely when the bitterns scream.

Step off the distance from the big shell mound,

Nine to the left and then turn round."

Madame Despard's voice died away. There was absolute silence in the courtyard. The woman thrust herself forward over the railing of the balcony and whispered again and again the name of her dead husband. No answering voice came back to her.

The Texan Wasp, crouching behind the Spanish tinaja, knew why there was no response, Blane's keen ears told him that the fellow in the court was crawling on all fours toward the brick wall at the rear. His mission was accomplished and he wished to escape as quickly as possible.

The Wasp, noiseless as a stalking panther, reached the court side of the brick wall as the fellow dropped into the passageway leading to Bourbon. Mystery, with manacles of steel, bound the tall Texan to the fleeing faker. Something extraordinary, unbelievable— something that was a little terrifying was, so Blane felt, connected with the mission of the man he was starting to trail. He told himself, as he scaled the wall and followed, that the fellow must never get away from him. Imagination pictured some great palpitating nodule of horror that was on the point of bursting.

THE fellow hurried up Bourbon Street to Iberville and turned eastward to the river. The streets were nearly deserted. The French Quarter has little attraction for pedestrians when the night comes down.

The pursued reached the levee, paused for a moment beneath an arc light and scribbled hurriedly on a scrap of paper. The Wasp, hard on his trail, knew that the fellow was putting down the lines that Madame Despard had repeated. They were evidently so important that he did not trust his memory till he could reach a place of comparative privacy.

The man swung southward, taking advantage of all the shadowy sections that he could find. A less efficient trailer than The Wasp might have been thrown off the track, but Blane was an artist in the business of keeping a person in sight without rousing the suspicion of the pursued.

The man reached Howard Avenue and increased his speed. At a run he dashed along the avenue toward Lee Circle and Blane, hugging the shadows on the opposite side of the street, followed swiftly. The terrible curiosity of The Wasp was increasing with each step that he covered. He had a firm and overwhelming conviction that he was on the track of big things.

At the base of the monument erected to the memory of the great Confederate leader, the quarry halted. Blane crouched in the shadow of a big magnolia tree and waited. The actions of the fellow suggested to The Wasp that the monument was the agreed meeting place with a friend.

The guess was correct. From the other side of the avenue came a man moving as fast as a lame leg would allow him to and, as the newcomer passed under the fierce rays of an electric arc on Lee Circle, the Texan in the shadow gave a soft whistle of astonishment. He recognized the limping friend of the man he was following.

The mind of Robert Henry Blane flung up a picture of other days. A picture of a narrow street in Marseilles where a half score of small but wonderfully active French police were blazing away at the roof of a house upon which a lame bandit had taken refuge. The lame one rejected all their suggestions to surrender. He was in plain view, standing bareheaded in the white sunlight of the Midi, his yellow face with huge teeth scowling down at his pursuers.

On that morning at Marseilles, The Wasp, whose knowledge of the Continental underworld was second to none, had immediately recognized the man on the roof. Once or twice, here and there in the big cities of Europe, he had spoken to the fellow. He was known as Gabriel Amade and his Christian name together with his strange yellow face had earned for him the soubriquet of "L' Ange Jaune"—The Yellow Angel.

It was The Yellow Angel who limped across Lee Circle to meet the clever faker who had forced Madame Despard to repeat the lines. And it was evident to the watching Blane that the lame man was delighted with the report which the other made. Gabriel Amade patted his friend softly on the shoulder, then the two turned and hurried along St. Charles Avenue in the direction of Canal.

A rather startled Texan followed on their heels. The yellow-faced bandit had a reputation for tackling big jobs and his ways of getting through those jobs had brought the bloodhounds of the world on his trail.

The pair reached Canal and The Wasp took advantage of the increased pedestrian traffic and moved closer.

Under the lights of the big thoroughfare he could see the yellow face of the French bandit as he turned from time to time to his companion. A joy that was immense sat upon the queer citrine features of the fellow.

At a jog trot they reached Rampart and swung to the right, Blane at a safe distance in the rear. The lamp of a small and rather frowsy hotel seemed to attract them. They headed for it, passed through the door of frosted glass and were lost to view.

Robert Henry Blane stood and reviewed the happenings of the night. The fact that the Despard house had been watched with such care that the departure of Dorothy Anne was immediately noticed by the watcher proved that the information sought from the widow was considered of great consequence. The joy of The Yellow Angel confirmed this belief.

The Texan Wasp, standing on the curb, repeated the scrap of doggerel in an undertone. The verse seemed absolutely meaningless, a loose jumble of incoherent directions. One by one he analyzed the lines, seeking something definite and useable. He took the first: "Deep it lies where the shell mounds rise." The "it" suggested treasure, of course, but "shell mounds" might be anywhere. The whole State of Louisiana was covered with shell mounds.

The second line was more indefinite than the first. It was merely advice to a darky to "keep a-blinking for the big, blue flies." Large blue flies, like shell mounds, were not unusual. The third line told of something that could be taken as sailing directions: "Big, burned cypress on the right of the stream." Nothing very tangible. Across the Mississippi in the great swamp stretches of Barataria there were thousands of cypress trees, burned and otherwise.

The fourth line that told of the bit- terns screaming was also coy in, the matter of details. In the swamp patches between Galveston and Key West, the bitterns boomed at all hours in their breeding season.

The fifth and sixth lines were more informative. They suggested that the big shell mound was the point from which measurements should start and that nine steps and a turn would bring you to something. Something! Where?

A TELEGRAPH messenger passed whistling. To The Texan Wasp came an idea. His old adversary who was now his friend, No. 37, was still in New York. The great man hunter, who carried within his brain a complete Who's Who of the Underworld, might know something of the immediate aspirations of Gabriel Amade. It was worth while asking. The boy had a form and-a pencil. Blane wrote a wire reading:

To Occupant, Room 74, Delza Hotel, New York.

Do you know anything of L'Ange Jaune of Bordeaux? Here now in New Orleans. Think he has big scheme on hand. Interests me greatly. Wire immediately all that you know. BLANE.

Hotel St. Charles, New Orleans.

The messenger, with a dollar tip, hurried off with the wire; Blane slipped off his tie and collar, carelessly thrust his shapely shoes into the mud of the gutter, ruffled his hair, turned up the collar of his coat, pulled the rakish velours hat well over his eyes and stepped across the street to the hotel door through which The Yellow Angel and his friend had disappeared.

A dwarfed and consumptive-looking clerk squatted in the pill box that was labeled "Office." The Wasp turned upon him a smile that suggested near drunkenness. The clerk grinned. He guessed that Robert Henry Blane had received a load in a speak-easy along Rampart.

"What is it, colonel?" asked the clerk.

"Want a— a room," hiccuped The Wasp. "Nice room. Feel very tired."

"You can have one, skipper," said the clerk, humorously changing the title of his guest. "The whole caboose is yours if you've got the frog skins."

The Texan Wasp sprawled forward and became confidential. "Misht my friends," he gurgled. "Two o' 'em Thought they might 'a' come here. Jusht a minute ago. Good fellows! Two, jusht two."

The clerk was amused.

"Don't think they did, general," he said, switching his customer back from the sea to the army. "Two chaps: came in a few minutes ago, but I don't think they were your friends. They might be. Look 'em up if you like. They're in No. 14 and you're going to rest your tired frame in No. 17. Same landing. The stairs are behind you. Here's your key. Good night!"

With erratic steps the Texan stumbled to the stairs, clawed for the banister with an artistry that delighted the clerk, then climbed laboriously into the upper regions. The Yellow Angel and his spiritualistic companion were quartered quite close to the room allotted to Blane and-the knowledge — ; him. The night was young.

HALF a dozen times during the next three hours Robert Henry Blane rose from his crouching position before the door of room No. 14 and fled into his own. Each time he returned as soon as the field was clear. He returned with an eagerness that would have made an observer wonder.

The thin door allowed scraps of conversation to filter through to the alert ears of the Texan. They were thrilling and absorbing scraps. Within the room the yellow-faced bandit and the faker were busy dovetailing the verse that Madame Despard had repeated with lines that they already knew. Out of the medley they were fashioning a concise and definite set of directions.

The interruptions caused by other guests seeking their rooms, and which forced The Wasp to retire momentarily from his observation post, maddened the Texan. He lost track of the verbal smithy work that was being done within  the chamber of the two. And it always seemed. that he was chased from the corridor when the most important work was in progress.

On one matter Blane was certain. He understood the method which the two had adopted to make sense out of the matter they had collected and that which they already knew. First came a line from the widow's chant, then a line of their own. Then another line from the Despard verse and after this another of their own vintage. The secret was plain to Blane. Madame Despard had told him that her husband only knew part of the whole poem and, as he listened, he realized that either half was useless without the other.

The gurgling of a bottle came from the room as the night progressed. The voice of The Yellow Angel mouthing the lines became thicker; the rather cultivated tones of his friend lost the charm that had been noticeable to The Wasp as he listened to the fellow in the courtyard of the Despard house.

Delight at the victory which enabled them to read off the full directions to the place they sought had tempted them to indulge deeply in bootleg stuff that they had on hand. The listener at the door found it harder to understand the words that came to him.

It was midnight when the two retired. Blane listened to the confused mass of adjurations, congratulations and imprecations that they exchanged. They were both hopelessly drunk. Their puzzle had been solved and they were jubilant.

The last remark was made by the French bandit. His English, not too good when he was sober, was shot to pieces by the wood alcohol that he was celebrating on.

"To-morrow him come. Ah buys zee boat!" he gurgled. "Piff, piff, piff, we go! Mighty fast boat, by gar! What he say here? Black Bayou where zee lily pads are! Mon Dieu! Ah am zee rich man! Rich! Rich! Ah go back to Bordeaux an' buy one tam beeg house! Zee grand house for Gabriel Amade!"

Robert Henry Blane went back to his bare and stuffy room, seated himself in a chair and considered the situation. The Yellow Angel and his friend had robbed Madame Despard of a secret that was evidently worth money, much money, if one could judge by the words of the bandit. They had robbed the girl, Dorothy Anne. They had robbed the old house of memories, They had robbed Captain Jules Despard, although the captain had gone to a place where treasure doesn't cut any figure.

Blane returned to the passage and tried the door of room No. 14. It was bolted from the inside and there was no transom. Although drunk, the pair had securely closed the door before retiring.

The Wasp scurried back to his own room, opened the window and thrust his head into the night. The room he occupied was in the rear, its walls close to the back of buildings fronting on Burgundy. About three feet below the window ran a plaster ledge of some fourteen inches in width and the Texan calmly analyzed the chances of reaching the room of the two by means of this pathway.

The ledge offered a precarious foothold to a climber. Here and there it had been bitten into by the relentless teeth of time, proving that its composition was not of a granitelike character. Beneath it was a thirty-foot drop into the cluttered yard of the hotel Blane's eyes examined the section of ledge that showed in the light thrown from his window. He thought of his weight with a little. twinge of regret. Lacking an ounce of fat, he scaled one hundred and seventy pounds and he wondered if the builder of the ornamental excrescence had ever dreamed that a person of that weight would attempt to climb along it.

HE thought not. But then the builder had never imagined that the plaster shelf would be a path along which a cool-headed person could reach a scrap of doggerel that held the secret to some wonderful cache.

Some five feet above the ledge ran a wire that would give a person on the bracket an opportunity to balance himself by clinging lightly to it. The Wasp blessed the wire. He thought a kind Providence had placed it there so that he might imitate Blondin in passing to the chamber of the two. He sat himself down to wait till The Yellow Angel and his friend had passed into a state of drunken slumber that would make it perfectly safe to call upon them.

A clock struck one as Blane lowered himself cautiously onto the ledge. Very gently he tried his weight upon it, his muscular hands gripping the window sill and easing his poundage softly onto the perilous shelf,

Scraps of soft plaster crumbled under the shoes of the adventurous Texan and clattered into the yard below. The noise they made was not altogether pleasing. A sort of hissing whisper came up out of the darkness to the ears of the amateur Blondin. But the nerves of Robert Henry Blane were of steel. They had been tried in many corners of the earth.

Carefully, slowly, he moved forward. His right hand went up and gripped the wire. It steadied him on the narrow pathway. Inch by inch he shuffled along, the little warning whisper of falling plaster accompanying him as he moved. He thought of Captain Jules Despard. He felt that the spirit of the dead captain, if aware of the purpose of the journey, might lend a helping hand. The belief pleased him.

He passed the window of room No. 16. He passed that of No. 15. The next window was that of the chamber he desired to reach. He held his breath and moved ever so slowly. The inch-by-inch progression from his own room had taken more than half an hour.

PARTICULARLY threatening section of the ledge met him as he crept close to his goal. It was a treacherous stretch, where the shelf had been weakened considerably by the leakage from a downpipe. A leakage that had continued for years.

The hail of plaster that dropped into the yard made The Wasp pause. He clung to the wire in an effort to ease the strain. A section of crumbling cement tore itself from a point directly in his path, dropped into space and sent back a threatening rumble as it struck an empty barrel in the yard. For an instant Blane wondered if the whole ledge was going. He stood tense and motionless, listening to the trickle of dry pebbles that followed the fall of the large mass.

His situation was perilous. Caution suggested a quick and speedy return to his own room, but caution was swatted heavily by the old Blane-like slogan of "Take a Chance." He took it, a bold chance.

He stepped boldly forward over the gap caused by the breakaway, flung his hands up into the darkness and grasped the window sill of room No, 14. He clung to it and listened to the cannonade of plaster missiles that came from below. A full yard of the ledge had collapsed beneath him.

The Wasp took a breath of relief and hauled himself up. The window was unlocked. Noiselessly he crawled into the room and dropped upon the floor.

He knew that he was between the beds of the two. The drunken pair were conducting a snoring competition, responding to each other's efforts with a vigor and regularity that spoke highly for the soporific properties of the bootleg stuff they had swallowed.

Blane was a swift and competent worker. He found the clothes of The Yellow Angel and transferred to his own person all the papers that he found in the pockets. He did the same with the clothing of the spiritualistic faker, keeping the papers of each separate so that he would be able to return the documents to the pockets he had taken them from. Then with great deftness he unbarred the door, slipped into the passage and reached his own room.

Then, in the papers he had collected from the pockets of Gabriel Amade, -Blane found what he was in search of. It was the completed verse, the lines recited by Madame Despard interlaced with those that the pair already knew.

Hurriedly the big Texan copied them on the back of an envelope he found in his pocket. A thrill of delight came to him as he scribbled them down. They were strange lines:

Deep it lies where the shell mounds rise, Up Black Bayou where the lily fields are. Darky keep a-blinking for the big, blue flies. Hold to the right to dodge the bar. Big, burned cypress on the right of the stream, Spanish moss like a giant's beard; Mighty lonely when the bitterns scream. Don't be afeard, darky! Don't be afeard! Step off the distance from the big shell mound. Ninety paces, darky, bearing straight to the right! Nine to the left, and then turn round, Swing a spade, darky, and the snake will bite!

The task finished, Robert Henry Blane peeped out into the passage. It was empty. In stockinged feet he dashed back to the room of the two, replaced the papers in their clothes and noiselessly retreated. He had to take a chance by leaving their door unlocked. He reasoned that the condition in which they retired would make it impossible for them to remember with any degree of certainty whether they had locked it or not.

FOR a long time The Wasp sat looking at the lines on the back of the envelope. They brought to him a succession of spinal thrills. They fascinated him. They possessed a queer quality of delightful idiocy that brought again the exquisite creepy titillation of the skin that we experience over childhood wonders, but which we lose in later life. With this sensation still upon him he laid himself down on the hard bed and fell asleep.

Robert Henry Blane was awake at six the next morning. He stepped into the passage and listened for a moment outside the door of room No. 14. The barrage of snores was still walloping the silence. Blane smiled and returned to his own chamber. He carefully rubbed the mud from his shoes, put on the collar and tie that he had discarded on the previous evening, stepped downstairs and out into the sunlight.

He walked to the corner of Canal and Rampart and looked around for a likely messenger through whom he could establish a liaison with his hotel. He was anxious to know if the great man-hunter had responded to the telegram of inquiry regarding Monsieur Gabriel Amade, known to the continental underworld as The Yellow Angel.

A colored boy sprang at the chance to run a message, and Blane, with an eye upon the hotel that sheltered the pair of worthies, wrote an order to the mail clerk of the St. Charles. He was anxious to hear from No. 37.

The boy darted up Canal Street and inside of ten minutes he was back with a telegram. It was from the great sleuth, and it read:

L'Ange Jaune escaped from the penal settlement at Cayenne four months ago. Was serving twenty-five-year sentence for murder. Leaving here for New Orleans at once. Keep him in sight till I arrive. Dangerous killer. Stops at nothing.

Thirty-Seven.

The message pleased Robert Henry Blane. The bulldog tenacity of the man hunter in his fight against crime and criminals was rather delightful. Personally he, Blane, had no quarrel with the French bandit on the matter of former escapades, and he would never have mentioned The Yellow Angel to the sleuth if the lame crook had not interfered with the widowed lady and her daughter who lived in the old house in Royal Street,

Blane thought of Dorothy Anne at the moment and he gladdened the heart of the negro boy by hiring him to take a message to her. He told her that all was. well, that there was no danger as far as she and her mother were concerned and that he would report personally at the earliest opportunity.

That much attended to, he sat himself down to watch the door of the frowzy hotel. Sooner or later the two would bestir themselves and get upon the trail of the thing they sought. Blane thought that he would go along with them. He had an all-consuming desire to see the "it" which the verse mentioned. It was treasure, in all probability, hidden somewhere in Barataria.

The Wasp had a belief that a local resident would tell him the exact situation of Black Bayou, and that with the information he possessed he might locate the exact spot, but he thrust aside the desire, to outwit the pair by beating them to the cache. He had a longing to trail along with them and this longing was augmented by the message that came from No. 37 asking that The Yellow Angel might be kept in sight till the great tracker of criminals reached New Orleans.

Hour after hour passed. The Wasp held his post. The noon whistle screamed from a factory near the Bayou St. John before the pair appeared.

They stepped forth together, apparently well pleased with themselves and the world in general. They swung into Canal Street and Robert Henry Blane took up the chase. The Wasp felt that the welding of the scraps of doggerel would lead himself and the two he followed into an inevitable clash, but he was resolved to let the pair lead him to the cache when he would decide what he would do.

They ate a hurried breakfast lunch at a restaurant on Beronne, then, with determination: in their stride, they headed for the levee and boarded a Tchoupitoulas Street car. Blane, as he swung himself onto the rear platform, had no doubt as to where they were heading. The car would pass the landing dock of the ferry for Harvey's and beyond was the treasure country.

The guess was correct. With The Wasp trailing them, the pair boarded the old ferryboat that thrust its blunt nose into the swift, yellow waters of the Mississippi. The Father of Waters wrestled with the old tub, which, after describing a great arc, dropped down before the thrust of the current and dived into the pile-sheltered landing of Harvey's. Harvey's, flat,, bleak, and unromantic, was the gateway to the "Free State of Barataria."

Thousands come to New Orleans and never see Barataria. Some one mentions it and they are curious. Where is it? What is it? Who lives there? The ordinary resident knows little of it. He waves his arm in an indefinite manner and tells the little that he knows.

Why, it's the swamp country on the other side of the river. Miles and miles of it running down to Grand Isle where they breed the terrapins. You've read Hearn? Lafcadio Hearn? Well, he wrote about it. Tales of the days when the waters of the Gulf rose like a million stallions and came charging up over the leagues of half-submerged country and flung themselves into the Mississippi.

It is the country of shrimps and shrimpers, land of the Cajuns. The uncharted territory in which Jean Lafitte, the pirate, and his thousand followers had their haunts in the roaring days of old. There Lafitte is supposed to have buried his treasure, which the Cajuns hunt for in their spare time. Unromantic folk ask why the pirate didn't dig up the hoard when he wanted money in his latter and poverty-stricken days, but the Cajuns ignore the question. The hoard is there. Somewhere!

ALL the stories that Robert Henry Blane had heard about the swamp country flowed into his mind as he followed the two along the straggling street of Harvey's. New Orleans seemed a thousand miles away. He was in Barataria with the smell of black mud in his nostrils, the wind charged with the odor of shrimps from the cannery on the canal, where a mile of straight waterway takes the adventurous into the network of bayous that lead away to the Gulf.

The Yellow Angel and his friend made for the canal and their mission was immediately obvious. They wished to buy or rent a motor boat. They asked questions of slouching loafers who fished the narrow waterway. They tramped up and down, examining the rather tired craft chained to the mud banks of the canal. They had long arguments with the owners of paint-blistered boats whose disloyal engines refused to start when the prospective buyers asked for an exhibition.

They consulted together, sitting on the banks of the straight mile of water that led to the bayous. They watched the shabby, untidy vessels that came chunking up from Grand Isle, the clumsy stern-wheelers. that had worn themselves out pulling half-mile tows of cypress logs out of the mysterious lands that battled continually with the flood.

It seemed to Blane, as he watched from a distance, that the sorcery and the fierce diablerie of the swamp country had slackened their desire for the moment. The bayous possessed an atmosphere of weird magic, an air of shamanism that took the immediate hurry from the pair.

The afternoon passed without a bargain being struck. Night came down upon Barataria and the two sought a small restaurant and lodging house. Blane, cleverly keeping out of their way, saw them eat a meal and retire to their room above the restaurant.

The Wasp understood the slowing-up of the pair. Now that the directions to the cache were in their hands they were a little afraid to put the verse to the test. And they were a trifle startled at the look of the country they were called upon to explore. They were town rats, and the bare, bleak swamp country looked evil and threatening.

The Wasp thought of No. 37. He wondered if the delay in the purchase of a boat would enable the man hunter to reach New Orleans before the two made their drive into the bad lands. Blane thought not, but he was so impressed with the ability of the sleuth to teach any spot in the quickest possible time that he thought it well to leave a report as to what was doing.

He found a messenger and sent him across the river to the Hotel St. Charles with a letter that was to be given to the great detective on his arrival. The letter contained instructions as to the manner of reaching Harvey's and where to find Blane on arrival there. This done, The Wasp found a room and went to bed. The verse swirled round within his brain. He found himself chanting the lines: "Big, burned cypress on the right of the stream, Spanish moss like a giant's beard; Mighty lonely when the bitterns scream! Don't be afeard, darky! Don't be afeard!"

He thought that this adventure, above all the other strange affairs in which he, had been interested, was the most thrilling. He fell asleep and dreamed of Captain Jules Despard, of Dorothy Anne, and the old house of storied memories,

THE YELLOW ANGEL and his friend showed increased activity on the following morning. Immediately after breakfast they induced the owner of a small speed boat to give them a trial of his craft, and the watching Blane saw that the demonstration was satisfactory. The boat was brought up to the drawbridge that spanned the canal, and- the two tinkered with it during the late morning and the early hours of the afternoon.

Cajun curiosity was stirred by the news of the purchase. Waterside loafers, startled by the fact that two strangers had bought a speed boat after a short trial, sought for reasons. Few strangers go into the swamps. Hunters occasionally, but hunters went with guides. The two, so rumor ran, were going alone. It was against all the laws of Barataria.

A loafing resident, who had blunted his information-seeking teeth upon The Yellow Angel and his pal, offered his opinions unsolicited to Robert Henry Blane.

"They say they're hunters!' he snorted. "Why, they never hunted anything but cooked grub since they were born!"

"Fishermen, perhaps?" suggested The Wasp, amused at the old man's indignation,

"No, nor fishermen either!" cried the local resident, made acidulous by stored curiosity. "I know fishermen when I see 'em, an' sometimes I can smell them when I don't see 'em. Do you know what I think those birds are?"

"What?" asked the amused Texan.

The other spat into the waters of the canal and took a long look at the distant speed boat, above which on the bank sat a group of silent watchers. "I think they're treasure hunters," he whispered. "That's what I think. They know something. Found an old chart, I guess. If I wasn't sick to death with rheumatism, I'd take my old beat an' follow 'em. They're pullin' out this afternoon."

"Which is your boat?" asked Blane.

"The yellow one that's tied up next to theirs," answered the other. "They wanted to buy it yesterday, but I wouldn't sell it to em. Drat 'em!"

The Texan Wasp glanced at the yellow boat and then at its owner. He carelessly took a roll of bills from his pocket and stripped off five tens.

"You might rent your boat to me," he said quietly. "I can handle it. Get it all ready so that I can start after they get away. And hold your tongue about the matter. Savvy? Keeping your mouth shut will bring you another half hundred. Go to it. I'll be sitting here if you want to tell me anything."

The Cajun took the bills, winked slowly and ambled off to do the bidding of his generous patron. There is little money in Barataria. Besides, the owner of the yellow boat saw a chance of. finding out the real reason that was taking what he described as "a close-mouthed pair of damned furriners" into the swamp country.

The afternoon wore on. The Yellow Angel made several trips to the local store and returned with loads of provisions and gasoline. The inquisitive loafers grew in numbers. They craned their necks and fought with each other for positions as they watched the preparations. Then, close to sunset, The Yellow Angel started the engine and excitement ran high.

Blane, at his post of observation, watched the start. The pair were not accomplished boatmen. They made a bad get-away, narrowly escaping a collision with an upbound shrimp boat, then, with the bandit at the wheel, they straightened out and headed down the canal for the bayous.

The Wasp, at a run, made for the yellow boat he had hired. Its owner was ready for him.

"Everything is in tiptop shape," confided the old man. "Engine runs like a watch. Plenty o' gas on her. I'll start her up. An' say, if you can find out what those chaps are goin' after, I'll go—"

"Hop ashore and throw off!" interrupted The Wasp. "Quick about it!"

The owner, recognizing authority in the voice of his client, sprang ashore. He tossed off the ropes and thrust the boat away from the mud wall, but, as he straightened up, he was nearly knocked into the canal by the rush of a stranger. A man with cold, merciless eyes and a chin that had thrust peace to the winds had charged down the sloping bank, gathered himself together as the boat swung away from the shore and with a mighty leap landed in the cockpit beside Blane.

"Just in time,' he growled. "Had the devil of a trip. Flew part of the way to make a fast connection. Got your note at the hotel and came straight over. Queer country this, isn't it?"

ROBERT HENRY BLANE smiled as he glanced at the man hunter. The eyes of No. 37 were fixed upon the speed boat that carried The Yellow Angel and his friend into Barataria. Without being told, he sensed the quarry like a falcon.

Hurriedly Robert Henry Blane told of the house of memories, the verse of Madame Despard, the addition made to it by the pair they were following, the purchase of the boat and the stories of treasure buried in the swamps.

"If I had arrived five minutes earlier, I'd have had him before he started," snapped the sleuth. "We might lose him down here."

"We won't!" snapped The Wasp. "And I wouldn't have stood for you pinching him before he started on this expedition. I want my share of the fun."

"Very well," agreed the sleuth. "But it looks to me that his boat is a lot faster than yours. They're dropping us."

This fact was evident to Robert Henry Blane. The pair in front had the faster boat and before they reached the end of the canal where the network of bayous led into the big swamps, the distance between the two boats had increased perceptibly.

The light was failing fast. The weirdness of the marsh country was made more evident as the boat containing Blane and the man hunter swung into the bayou at the end of the canal. A clear path had been cut through the lily beds, but the black water, unrestrained by the mud walls that marked the canal, slopped in among the trees whose low-hanging branches were decorated with huge beards of Spanish moss. From far ahead came back the pip-pip of the leading boat.

Blane turned over the wheel to the sleuth and tinkered with the engine. He was a trifle annoyed. If The Yellow Angel and his friend got away from them in the swamps, there was a chance of the pair doubling back by another route and making for the city with anything that they might have discovered.

Past half-submerged trees and great stretches of lily fields raced the boat. Darkness came down on the swamps like a pall of velvet. At great distances apart there gleamed a candle in the hut of a moss gatherer or a fur hunter. The silence was terrific.

The Wasp shut off the engine and the boat drifted. No. 37 made a queer snarling noise that brought up a picture of a bulldog registering dissatisfaction because an enemy had found safe sanctuary.

"Nice place," he grumbled. "Darkest spot I've ever seen."

"Seems as if we've lost them," said The Wasp. "If we could locate Black Bayou, we might pick them up."

"If there's any bayou blacker than this, I'd like to see it," growled the man hunter. "I didn't believe you could get this quality of blackness anywhere."

From far ahead a lantern flashed and The Wasp started the engine and made cautiously for the pin point of light. Any one who could give definite -information as to their position or the position of Black Bayou would be a godsend.

The lantern bearer was a colored man in a flat-bottomed boat attending to his traps on the edge of the bayou. A shack, supported on poles, showed above the water as Blane turned a flash light on him.

"Yessuh," admitted the trapper, answering the question of The Wasp, "you is mighty close to Black Bayou tight now. Jest creep along the shore heah for a hundred yards or so an' Black Bayou is to yoah right."

THE flash light revealed the lily-choked opening of Black Bayou. Blane killed the engine, took a long pole and thrust it into the slime. Noiselessly and carefully he drove the boat forward, and as he worked there came to him a strange conviction that the channel up which they worked their way was the one mentioned in the verse. In a whisper he confided his belief to the sleuth whose ears strained the silence. The slowly moving boat disturbed the slumber of swamp things. Dank, blind, clammy things that plopped from mud banks, rotten logs, and lily pads as the boat nosed its way forward. Turtles, lizards, crabs, giant frogs, and water snakes.

There was protest in the little slurring noises that they made, in the discontented plop as the black water received them. The invisible things whispered of death, a devilish death in the slime with the roots of submerged cypress trees clutching one's body.

It was slow and tedious work. The mud odor was appalling. Vicious snags tore at the bottom of the boat; the tenacious, octopus-like lilies clutched the craft with a million fingers.

The two men took turn and turn about with the poling. The job would have been disheartening to any other pair. Blane stiffened his courage and brought new strength to his aching limbs by picturing the old house in Royal Street, the fair face of the girl who had such implicit trust in his honesty. The man hunter thought only of the quarry, Gabriel Amade, The Yellow Angel of Bordeaux.

A TRAILING bunch of Spanish moss, hanging from a limb, brushed the face of Robert Henry Blane, feeling for all the world like the wet beard of some old man of the swamps who protested against the approach of the Texan and his companion. The Wasp recalled the lines of the poem and cautiously turned the flash light on the right bank. A big, burned cypress leaped out of the blackness! It was the cypress of the verse and "the Spanish moss like a giant's beard."

"We're close," he whispered. "If they have beat us to it, they cannot be far away."

A slimy frog plopped onto Blane's hand; from the bow of the boat came a soft hiss that suggested the presence of a cottonmouth who had dropped from the overhanging limb as the boat slipped beneath.

And then, as the boat crept round a bend of the bayou, the light of a small fire showed immediately ahead.

Blane stopped poling. Standing together in silence he and the sleuth regarded the blaze. The boat nudged the bank of the bayou.

The figure of a man came between them and the flames. The fellow tossed a bundle of wood upon the fire and it blazed up brightly. The Wasp and No. 37 could see the stretch of shell-made bank on which the man stood. They could see the boat; they had a fleeting view of another person digging furiously some twenty feet from the blaze.

Blane reached out and felt the muddy bank against which the boat rocked. It was not exactly dry ground, but it was dangerous to pole their craft closer to the shell mound on which were the two men they had followed. It was wiser to climb ashore and approach through the undergrowth.

No. 37 understood. The two climbed noiselessly upon the bank, tied the boat securely to a stump and crept toward the fire. The approach was a quagmire. They sank to their knees in black mud; they found precarious footing on submerged tree trunks.

NEARER and nearer they came. Blane, glancing at his companion, could see the features of the man hunter. Now both men on the shell mound were digging furiously; their muttered words came to the Texan and the sleuth. The fire illuminated the showers of shell lime that were tossed out of the trench in which they worked. The Yellow Angel gave a cry of delight that went out over the swamps. A hoarse cry of joy that was a little frightening in that wilderness. His companion rushed to his side. Together they dropped upon their knees in the trench, and The Wasp and No. 37 seized the opportunity to move swiftly toward the shell mound.

They stumbled through the mud till they found solid footing beneath their feet. The two in the trench were half hidden by the depth of the ditch they had dug. Something that they had discovered had dragged their heads earthward and held them there with the grip of unholy greed.

No. 37 raced across the shell mound, a short revolver in his right hand. He cried out the name of Amade, and The Yellow Angel thrust his head out of the trench. The firelight showed him the face of the enemy, the pitiless tracker of criminals whose numerical pseudonym was known from one end of the world to the other.

A cool devil in the face of danger was Gabriel Amade. For an instant he stared at the man hunter, then he sprang from the trench, dropped to his knees and started to crawl hurriedly through the underbrush to his boat. A bullet from his gun whizzed by the head of the sleuth; the silence of the bayou was shattered by the explosion.

No. 37 rushed forward. The Yellow Angel had gained the bank of the bayou. He sprang for the boat as the man hunter fired. The big hands of. Gabriel Amade clutched at the side of the boat, held him there for an instant, then the black waters of the swamp sucked up to him as the boat listed; the fingers lost their grip and the escaped murderer sank into the stream. Black Bayou had taken the French bandit to its depths.

The great detective stepped back to the trench to find The Wasp trussing up the spiritualistic faker who had induced Madame Despard to recite the lines that had been told to her by her husband.

"They had just found something," said the Texan. "It's in that bronze pot. Wait till I bring it to the fire."

THE strong tight hand of Robert Henry Blane took a handful of coins from the Javanese pot of bronze and let them run slowly through his fingers. The Wasp had a knowledge of numismatics that would have done credit to the keeper of a coin museum, and he recognized the pieces as they shuffled down his palm and trickled like frightened things into the heavily leaded pot.

They were wonder pieces of other days. Pieces whose days of active circulation were buried in the centuries. Coins from fives-core ports. Gold star-pagoda pieces from the Coromandel coast, minted two hundred years before; yellow mohurs struck by Mogul emperors; coins from Morocco bearing the Hectagram, or so-called "Solomon's Seal;" pieces of the old Sierra Leone Company, showing the hand of a slave grasping the hand of his master.

Round pieces, square pieces, shapeless slugs upon which a clumsy imprint had been made. He smiled grimly as he looked at them. Sweat polished by forgotten fingers. Pale gold doubloons— "Doblons de Isabel" —that had paid for murder and pillage. Time-fretted pieces from hot slave ports that had been exchanged for living flesh. Yellow, century-worn slugs from the Guinea coast whose soft jingle had placed iron shackles on black wrists and ankles.

Blane had a desire to laugh. To laugh at the soul-killing methods by which men tried to gather gold. In the slime of the bayou was the escaped convict from Cayenne who had been offered up as the latest sacrifice to the god in the bronze pot.

The Wasp glanced at No. 37. The sleuth was testing the cords that held his prisoner. He turned as he felt the eyes of the Texan upon him and spoke slowly.

"I suppose we had better stay here till dawn," he said. "I heard a snake hiss when we were coming up this bayou and Eve got a dread of snakes. I would have turned back if I didn't think that L'Ange Jaune was in front of me."

"And when we get to New Orleans I'll take you down and introduce you to a young lady who is a representative of the Old South," said Blane quietly. "We are going to take her this pot of coins if you have no objection."

"I have none at all," answered the sleuth. "My reward rests in ridding the world of a bad gentleman. I sent The Yellow Angel to Cayenne and I was a little peeved to think that he had escaped. I'll be greatly pleased to meet your young friend."

____________

15: The Midnight Express

L. McQuaid
fl  1890s

Belgravia, January 1898

This is the only story I know of by this author.

IT WAS the day before Christmas, and I had been more than busy, shopping in town, not only the many gifts for the family party at Denhams which I was taking down with me, but my sister had also sent me a long list of things to buy for the villagers and the school children, as she is quite the Lady Bountiful of that part of the world, and delights in keeping up the old time ways of making the whole neighbourhood share in the Christmas festivities at Denham Court.

The shops were crowded with people on the same errand as myself, and it was no easy matter to get served, though the overworked shopmen were doing their best, so by the time I had completed my purchases and got to the station with my many and various packages, the eight o'clock train that I had hoped to catch was gone, and there was nothing for it but to exercise what patience I could and wait for the next train which left at ten o'clock.

So telegraphing to Denham to let him know I should not be home until after one o 'clock in the morning, I sat down to amuse myself as I best could with the hurrying, pushing throng, that passed me constantly on the platform of the station. Men with their coat collars turned up— for it was a cold night— running to catch their trains, their arms laden with bundles, out of the wrapping papers of which stuck the shafts of small carts, horses' legs, the uncovered heads of drums, and now and again the flaxen hair and blue eyes of some doll that would give joy to some small mother on the morrow . Women with tiny babies in their arms, and dragging a dozen small children at their skirts would get hopelessly entangled in the hurrying mass, and one wondered how the much burdened officials managed to separate them and get them into their proper trains.

Among those who attracted my notice most was a tall, foreign-looking young man, he was not hurrying as the others were, but came and took up his stand under the clock, near me, and it was this very quietude among the frantic rush that first drew my eyes to him; that, and a sort o f strange fascination I felt in looking at him.

He wore a circular Italian cloak made of a dark cloth which fell to his knees, the fur collar of which was turned up around his long thin neck, a soft black felt hat was pulled down somewhat, over the sombre eyes that looked out so darkly from under the brim. For half-an-hour he must have stood there without moving, except for a rapid stealthy look over his shoulders when any one approached closely to him; and once or twice during the time he lifted his hat, and ran his fingers rapidly through his long black hair, which hung down in a heavy mass below his cloak collar.

At last my weary waiting was over, and the porter picking up my many packages, and piloting me along the platform saw me safely into a first class carriage at the front of the train, where, as I had the compartment to myself, I was able to make myself comfortable for the long journey. I unstrapped my rugs, made a pillow for my head out of my muff, and covering myself up well, lay gazing out of the window as we slowly steamed out of the station. I was glad to be alone, and thankfully remembered that the ten o'clock train was an express, so I should be able to take an undisturbed nap when I felt sleepy. It was a clear, cold night with a most brilliant moon, almost at its full, and the landscape when we finally got out into the country away from even the last straggling suburbs, stood out most clear and distinct in the white light; a slight fall of snow had covered the ground to the depth of an inch or two, rounding and smoothing all its inequalities and causing the leafless trees that were silhouetted sharply against its whiteness, to look like fine etchings drawn on the pure background.

After a while I took out one of my books and tried to read, but the lamp gave a very uncertain light, indeed I began to suspect that on this high pressure day it had been overlooked by the man who should have trimmed it, and as it grew dimmer and dimmer I shut my book and settled myself down more comfortably in my corner and in a few minutes I fell fast asleep.

How long I slept I do not know, but I suddenly awakened to a feeling of not being alone in the compartment, and opening my eyes I saw that two other passengers must have got into the carriage while I slept. Being Christmas eve no doubt the arrangements of the line were altered, and the ten o 'clock train was not an express as I had fancied.

The lamp had quite gone out, but the moonlight was, if anything, brighter than before, and as it shone directly into the windows of our compartment, everything was to be seen almost as plainly as by day, and by its light I looked lazily at my companions.

On the opposite side, in the corner furthest from me, close to the window, sat a young girl, with fair golden hair and blue eyes, that looked frankly at me across the carriage; she was well dressed, and her bag and rugs, and various travelling necessities had that nameless air of wealth that is so hard to describe but so readily seen; a book, which she had evidently been trying to read by the moonlight, lay on the seat beside her, and one ungloved hand supported her head. The other passenger sat directly opposite to me in the other corner; he was somewhat in shadow, as the moonlight did not reach up to his face as he leant back against the cushions, but I could see enough to make out a tall man wrapped up in a coat or cloak, and a hat drawn somewhat down over his brows; he was evidently asleep, at least he sat so still I imagined so. And lying there I began to idly speculate on the two passengers, and if they had any connection with each other; they must at least have entered the train together, as it was hardly possible we could have stopped at more than one station during my sleep, and, yes— she was a married woman, for on her hand held up to her face I could see the plain gold ring that showed it; most probably the man in the corner was her husband, not newly married, or they would not have put the distance of the carriage between them. Yes— certainly he must be her husband, for at this moment he leant a little forward, though still in shadow, and with a long slim hand lifted one of the rugs on the seat close beside her and threw it over his own knees. At the same moment she turned her head a little more towards him, and gave him a cold look of disapproval.

Poor little wife, looking more closely at her, she did not look happy, a little frown drew the pretty eyes together, and the corners of the small mouth had a discontented droop. She looked very young, too, and so pretty, with a little sort of foreign air, in spite of her fair hair and quite English-looking face.

Presently I saw her settle herself more comfortably back in her corner, and her heavy eyelids gradually closing, she seemed to fall asleep. I was about doing the same, when I was attracted by the man opposite, moving restlessly and yet stealthily; once or twice he leant forward towards the girl as though to make sure she w as really asleep, and as he did so he left the shadow of the corner and the full moonlight fell upon his upturned face, so I was able to see him most distinctly, and to my surprise I recognised the same man who had attracted my attention in the station during my long wait; but now the face I had thought so calm and statuesque seemed to work with a strange passion, and the sombre eyes were flashing like a tiger's when ready to spring.

He did not seem to notice me, but his movements had thoroughly awakened me, and I lay watching him closely, while at the same time a strange feeling of evil seemed to weigh upon me, and I felt as if a heavy hand of ice was laid upon my heart. Sinking back in his corner again, he unfastened with long white fingers the clasp of his cloak, which, released from its fastening, fell in heavy folds around him.

It was the same cloak I had noticed him wearing in the station— a long Italian circular, of heavy cloth and handsome fur collar; then sliding his hand into the pocket of the cloak, he drew something out, and bending over it, seemed occupied with it for some time; then suddenly rising, with the step of a panther, stepped out into the moonlight, and I saw the naked blade of a short dagger gleam as he raised it in his hand.

Merciful heavens! we were shut in with a madman; and hurriedly disentangling myself from my wraps, I tried to rise to my feet. At the same moment, I saw him throw himself on the poor girl in the corner, and clutching her throat, bury the dagger into her side. With a loud shriek, and without thought of the consequences, I sprang to the floor to rush forward to try and save the unfortunate creature, but at the same moment, with a shrill whistle, the train dashed into a tunnel, which after the moonlight, seemed doubly dark in our unlighted carriage.

I felt how powerless I was to cope with this madman, and when the dark fell so suddenly on us I was quite overcome by a frantic feeling of fear, and crouched back in my corner, trying to cower under the rugs to protect myself at least from his violence. Can you imagine the horror of it?— the intense darkness and this awful deed taking place so close to me? The terror of it will remain with me always, and seemed at that moment to turn me into stone. Every minute was an age. I could fancy the man creeping softly along the carriage to clutch my throat too in his deadly grasp, when with another whistle the train dashed out of the tunnel into the broad moonlight again, and I was alone!— alone! Think of it!

He must have, in the short time, thrown her poor body out on to the track; but where was he? and, quite dazed, I flew to the side of the carriage to thrust my arm out and pull the alarm. Heavens! what was this? Both windows were closed and the door, on that side, at least, locked, for I tried it in my horror, and, looking wildly about the carriage, no marks of violence, no rugs, no cloak— nothing to show that any other being had been in the compartment but myself; only the calm moonlight lay over all. Weak and dazed, I sank back on the seat. Was it I that was mad? Could I disbelieve the sight of my own eyes? Ah! it was terrible! and I was still sitting, almost incapable of thought and with heart beating violently, when the train ran into the little station of Denham. I gathered my rugs up mechanically as the guard opened the door. I must have shown in m y face what I had gone through, for the man said in an alarmed tone as he helped me out—

"Would you like anything, ma'am? You look faint. Or shall I help you to the carriage? it is just outside."

I refused his kind offer, but stopped him to ask what stations we had stopped at since leaving London. He shook his head and said—

"None. It is the ten o'clock express; though, to be sure, it is main late."

On reaching home I told my sister and brother-in-law , but I could see they thought that, tired out with my long day in town, that I had slept the whole journey, and had had a troubled dream. However, the horror of the night had made me thoroughly ill, and for many days I kept my room, with nerves quite shattered and suffering from a sort of low fever, to which I was predisposed from my many years spent abroad.

Our own doctor was away from home on a holiday, but his clever young partner visited me, and took much interest in my account of all that had occurred, and his belief in my sanity, and the realising of what I had seen, comforted me, though after the first confidence he forbade me talking of it, and advised me to put it from my thoughts as far as I could. So gradually I got back my peace of mind, and ceased to constantly dwell upon the mystery.

I was helped in this by the bright young party that was about me. All the nephews and nieces were home from school, and the nursery children were full of fun and frolic.

About the middle of January, when I was in the sunny morning room, helping arrange the lovely flowers that the gardener had just brought in from the hothouse, the butler came to know if I would see Dr. Sands and a person he had brought with him, and directly afterwards the young doctor made his appearance, accompanied by a quiet-looking, gentlemanly man of somewhat solemn demeanour. As soon as we were alone he was presented to me as a well-known detective from Scotland Yard, who wished to ask me a few questions about my Christmas Eve experience, and I was surprised to have him beg I would minutely describe the appearance and dress of the man who had taken the leading part in my night of terror; and, taking out his note-book, he jotted down every item, and then, begging me not to be shocked, told me that he had every reason to believe that the strange occurrence I had witnessed had actually taken place— not on the night I saw it, but twelve months before. A murder had been committed in the ten o'clock express from London on that same line, and, strangely enough, in the same carriage in which I had journeyed down from town. Since the occurrence it had not been used, having been placed on a siding, but the pressure on Christmas Eve was so great that every carriage available had been pressed into service.

That night, twelve months ago, when the train reached its destination, the carriage was empty, though the porter in the London station swore to putting two people into it before starting, a lady and gentleman, though in the hurry of departure and the crowded state of the platform, he had hardly time to observe him. The compartment, how ever, showed signs of a terrible struggle— rugs, umbrellas, and various travelling necessities were strewn about, and the blood-marked cushions were pulled on to the floor; the carriage window was broken and the door unfastened.

Telegraphing down the line, the body of a young girl was found, lying on the rails, quite dead, stabbed to the heart.

"A beautiful young thing she must have been," said the detective, "with fair golden hair; a broad gold wedding ring was on her finger, but nothing on or about her that could lead to her identification."

The papers were full of the murder and inquest for some days; but being in India at the time, I had not heard anything of it.

Every means had been taken to discover the murderer, but all had failed, and at Scotland Yard they had begun to look upon it as one of those mysteries that would never be found out; but oddly enough their attention had again been attracted to the subject by a communication from the Italian police, who begged their help to discover the whereabouts of an Italian Count, who was supposed to be in hiding in London, and their description of the man tallied in every particular with mine, and they had no doubt he was the long-looked-for murderer of the poor young creature.

According to the account from Italy, he was a well-known man, belonging to an aristocratic family in one of the northern provinces. They owned a fine old castle and considerable lands in the Apennines, but were thought proud and poor; and the present Count was, on account of dissipated habits, more straightened than most of the family.

A little over a year ago he had married a young and beautiful German girl, the orphan daughter of a wealthy banker, who had a large fortune of her own.

After six months of married life, which seemed far from happy, owing to his violent temper, they had left the castle to travel; the Count telling everyone that he and his wife intended spending some little time in England. But they had been absent only a fortnight or so when the Count returned alone, telling the household that the Countess had been taken suddenly ill while in London, and died, and that he had only waited for the funeral to return.

By a will made at the time of the marriage, the whole of the Countess's money came to the Count, and on his return he threw him self once more into his wild and dissolute life, which much scandalized his household, who had grown very fond of the young Countess during her short life at the castle, and who felt aggrieved that the Count had not let them know of her illness and death while he was away.

Some months after he had gone to Florence taking his valet with him, and the man, whose name was Santro, had made friends with an English valet whose master was staying at the same hotel, and who had brought down for the benefit of the other servants a pile of English papers that had accumulated in his master's rooms during some months. On looking them over Santro had been struck with the account of the murder in the train, an account of which was given fully in the paper, and became more and m ore convinced as he read that the poor young creature so minutely described was his poor mistress, particularly when he remembered that his master had stopped all enquiries they had made as to their mistress's illness and death, in a most violent manner, which had caused great suspicion in the servants' minds. Determined to satisfy himself Santro took the paper up to his master's room with his afternoon cup of coffee, and folding it so that he could not avoid seeing the account, laid it down in front of him.

The result was more than Santro anticipated. The Count rose to his feet as pale as death, then flying into a terrible passion and heaping upon Santro's head every possible malediction, he seized his hat and cloak and abruptly left the room. Santro,  frightened at what had occurred, but more than ever convinced of the Count's guilt, waited in great alarm for his return; but as hour after hour passed he became anxious and went to consult with his brother who was in the police force, who insisted upon laying the whole story before the proper authorities, and they deeming it most suspicious sent at once to apprehend the Count at his castle, to which he was supposed to have gone.

However he had not been there, but had at once gone to his Florence bankers, and drawing out a very large sum of money had evidently left Italy, and after some weeks of search the police became convinced that he had made his way to England and so communicated with Scotland Yard.

M y description of the murderer— strangely enough as I had come by it— so tallied with that of the Italian police that there was no doubt but the Count must be the murderer of the poor young creature.

Also my having seen him on the platform on Christmas night eve showed that he was still in London, and once on his track the police followed him persistently, until they came up with him in one of the western cities of America whither he had fled to escape them. Brought to bay, however, he managed to escape justice by shooting himself while the police were endeavouring to secure him, perhaps better for himself and far better for his family, who were spared the disgrace of one of their members meeting with a felon's death.

________________

16: Kiss of the Flame Blossom

Donald Dale

Mary Dale Buckner (fl. 1937-1941)

Terror Tales May-June 1938

Oherwise unknown author of thirty or so lurid short stories with such titles as "Priestess of the Corpse-Cats",  "Girls for Horror's Harem", "Call to the Murder Girls" and the like, and one of the few women to write in this genre.

MARGIE'S soft lips met mine in a sweet, virginal kiss of greeting. Her gentle, white hand patted an imaginary wrinkle from my coat lapel and stretched upward to push my hair back into place.

She was so tiny. As she tiptoed to reach my head, her round, little breasts thrust upward toward my racing heart, and the flowing blue sleeve fell back to reveal the fragrant hollow under her arm. I found myself wishing that sometime she would betray a hint of the same madness I felt raging in my blood; but I suspected, even while I wished, that if she did, I should somehow resent it. Yet I could not stifle the wish.

"Darling," I said, clenching my overeager hands behind me, "let's not wait any longer. Let's chuck the wedding plans and get married this afternoon!"

"Why, Roger"— a tender smile tugged at her red lips— "we can't do that. Besides, I have news."

"News?" I asked vaguely.

"Yes, Lida is coming. I think she will be here in time for the wedding."

"Lida?" Desire was still blurring my mind.

"Yes, Lida. You remember, my stepsister who has spent the last six years in the Orient. She's all the family I have left, you know. Isn't it marvelous for her to be coming at this time!"

"Yes, Yes, of course," I answered, coming out of the fog.

"And now, dear, I know you're tired. Make yourself comfortable and I'll fix something cool to drink."

So I sat in the charming living-room of Margie's ancestral house that hot day in early June and tried to quiet the blood that was pounding in my veins, while somewhere back in the kitchen, Margie set ice clinking in a crystal pitcher of lemonade and arranged homemade cookies on a Dresden plate.

No man ever loved a woman as I loved Margie Clark, the girl I was going to marry in three weeks. I worshipped her. She was so lovely, so unspoiled. There was much about love I could teach her.

A soft movement in the hall stirred me from my exciting anticipation. Abstractedly I looked up. In a flash, I was on my feet, then I started back in sudden surprise. In the hallway stood a strange woman, and her piercing, black eyes were boring straight into me. Neither of us spoke. I just stood there, and my gaze was held to hers if by some malignant magnetic force.

"Good afternoon." She finally broke the silence with a charming, faintly foreign accent. "I am Lida. And you— Roger?"

Like a gauche country boy, I stared at her, unable to answer. I had often seen women more beautiful, but never one like this. Hot, violent similes whipped through my mind. A sleek, black serpent, I thought, my eyes following the subtle curves of her tall, unbelievably slender body. The daring cut of the black metallic satin sheath-dress revealed every nuance of her vibrant length. The pointed breasts, like restive, twin volcanoes. The supple waist my two hands could have spanned. The smooth flow of rounded thighs.

Again my eyes sought her burning, gold-flecked eyes, and then the glorious, unhatted crown of red hair. Dull red, like embers ready to burst into flame. And from the black shoulder of her dress, a single rich, red flower leaped upward as if in challenge to the smouldering glory of her hair. Its heavy, insinuating perfume filled the room.

"Are you not going to invite me in?" she asked softly, seeming to taunt me for my stupid daze.

SLEEP did not come easy that night.

I thought miserably back over the evening at Margie's. Nothing unusual had happened, really. The three of us had talked, Margie questioning Lida eagerly about the romance of the Orient. Lida giving veiled hints of a mysterious existence. Just a wilful, theatrical girl, I thought, trying to dramatize herself. And yet, I could not throw off the exotic spell the first sight of her had cast upon me.

I reviewed, too, the few things I knew of Lida Suban, who had incongruously been thrust into the same family with Margie by the marriage of Margie's gentle mother to Lida's dark, handsome father, Jhara Suban.

Lida, four or five years older than Margie, had been, even as a child, moody, restless, strange. Year by year, she seemed to become more intense, more secretive, more restive—and more than once had I suspected for Margie she felt only hatred and intense jealousy!

When Lida was eighteen, Jhara Suban died. It was then the arrogant girl found that, in her own right, she had nothing. That all these years she had been accepting the bounty of her step-mother. That night, she had disappeared from the house that had so long been home to her.

And now, Margie's mother was seven months dead, and the roving Lida was "home" again. The pretentious little moocher! I thought savagely. I could not bear the idea of having to try, after 'Margie and I married, to treat this interloper as a sister. For never had I seen a woman I hated so much— and desired so violently....

Hours later, I awoke with heavy, exciting fumes crowding my nostrils, and the sense of someone in the room. Jerking myself up in bed, I tried to pierce the almost tangible blackness of the room.

At my movement, there sprang up, near the center of the room, small glowing patches as if of fire. To my dazed mind, they had, at first no meaning. Then I saw the pattern!

A helmet of flaming hair. Two blazing eyes, burning holes in the darkness. A faint, glowing outline— as if traced swiftly by a luminous pencil— of a serpentine body.... And held like a torch in the phosphorescent suggestion of slender hands, a huge blossom of flame!

In a panic, I seized the cord of the night-lamp, keeping my eyes focussed on the apparition. By the sane glow of electricity, I saw standing before me— Lida Suban, her supple body covered from neck to toes with a long, red-velvet cape!

Once more I saw the tantalizing smile and heard the words which that afternoon had mocked my gaucherie: "Are you not going to invite me in?"

A tumult of emotions struggled within me. Resentment. Disgust. Passion. An inexplicable terror. "How did you get in here?" I heard my thickened voice ask as I rose to a sitting position.

The contemptuous upquirk of her scarlet lips mocked me, and for answer, she tucked the flame-flower into the red glory of her hair and loosed the gold clasp at her throat. The glowing velvet slipped, caressed the ivory-white length of her, until it sank into a swirl at her feet.

An ivory Aphrodite in a sea of flame! Never was a body more vibrant. I could feel its compelling power, like an electric current as she glided over and sat on the bed beside me. But, though the hot blood pounded in my veins, my heart still spoke of Margie and her clean, pure love. Sharp words of anger rose in my mind for this strange woman who had forced her way into my room, but my tongue could not utter them. She had stretched out her long, glowing hands to stroke my throat, as if exorcising the words of denial that rose there for expression.

I raised my eyes, looked into the queer unfathomable depths of hers, and slowly her gaze wove a net of mad passion around my mind, and thoughts of the worthier love were lost in a hopeless tangle of desire.

THE NEXT morning by the time I had showered and shaved, I tried to persuade myself that no one had been in my rooms the night before. I had had a fantastic nightmare, induced by this strange, alluring woman.

In the first place, it was absurd— insulting— to believe that my fiancee's guest would do such a thing. Besides, there was no way she could have got in. Stubbornly, I thrust back the remembrance that she had appeared in Margie's house also, seemingly without being admitted. This morning, certainly, when I had awakened, there had been no sign of her.

From the bedroom arose the usual, impudent mutterings of Pansy, the young colored maid, who came in to clean each morning. But suddenly something she was saying hit me like a blow: "Hit sho do smell funny in heah. Hit sho do."

With a queer catch in my heart, I stuck my head into the bedroom. The girl was right. There was a "funny" smell— the heavy, acrid odor of the flame flower!

But something else had caught the sharp eyes now, and their plump owner was bending low, seeming to peer at an object that lay on the floor.

She plucked it up between dusky thumb and forefinger, and as she looked at it, her thick lips moved with wonder and foreboding. Becoming aware of my presence, she turned, saying, "Lawsy, Mistuh Roguh, I never seed anythin' like it!"

Then, hastily, she flipped into the air toward me, the thing that had fallen beside my bed. A musty, glowing petal of the scarlet flower!...

The days that followed were torture. I worked frenziedly all day at the office. After that, I called on Margie, sometimes having dinner with her and her guest step-sister, sometimes taking them out to dine and dance.

At those times, there was nothing about Lida Suban to which anyone could object seriously. Exotic, but to all appearances normal in every respect— a quiet visitor whose only peculiarity was the strange, Oriental flower she always wore....

But the nights!

They were a confusion of hate and desire— agony and delirious joy. Every night she came to me— this woman of flame, as if wafted in on the pungent odor of that hellish flower. My new double door-lock was as nothing to her diabolic powers.

Not only was my conscience stricken with my infidelity to Margie, but, not able to shut out her step-sister or to detect the means of her coming, I began to lose control of my nerves. Fear of the supernatural was eating at my mind, at my healthy, scientific sanity. No longer able to bear it, one night I shrieked out my terrified queries to this devil woman. She answered only, "Supernatural? Nothing is supernatural. Nothing has to go beyond nature, for nature gave us all powers over our bodies and minds. It is only necessary to learn to realize them. I could teach you—"

"My God! All I ask is to be left alone!"

"Is that— all?" And her white fingers touched me there in the dark. Her parted mouth pressed my restless head back upon the pillows. ...

Eons later, she spoke again. "Roger, I love you." I started at the sudden vibrancy of her voice. Never before had I seen her like this. There was something touching, now, in her simplicity— in her seeming sincerity that lacked all touch of the exotic.

She went on, with grave, appealing dignity. "You have remotivated my whole life. I came back here to get the money of this 'good little sister' of mine, whom my father— everybody— loved better than me. I was to be next in heritage so long as Margie remained single. I determined she should never live to be married. When I found out about you, my first thought was to prevent the marriage until I could have time to carry out my plans. But when I saw you, I knew you were meant for me. Let me teach you how to live." For a moment, I felt a sort of pity for her; but in the next breath, all her wistfulness was gone. "Because I love you, it is possible for you to save her. But if you marry her..."

As her voice trailed off into silence, the spell her words had cast over me was broken. I pushed her away, sprang from the bed, and began to pace the floor. "Absurd! Stupid threats!' I raged. "You couldn't—"

My protest died, for suddenly she was no longer there. Only the echo of her parting ultimatum hung in the heavy air of the room:

"The choice is yours!"

I TRIED to pretend it was for my fiancee's safety that I opened my arms to passion each night. I told myself, if I refuse this woman's love, she will harm Margie. Yet I don't know even now how much was truth and how much just a rationalization of a primal urge I could not control.

But I do know when I was away from Lida, or when the three of us were together, I hated her enough to beat her cruel brains out. I tried desperately to think of ways to circumvent her. But this was not the kind of thing you take to the police for help, or to your friends for advice.

I began to show signs of the strain. And Margie dosed me with medicines and with diets. "You'll be better," she whispered shyly, her gentle hand stroking my feverish head, "when I can take care of you properly. And it's only six more days now."

Six more days!

In my mind, I heard the echo of Lida's threat: "If you marry her—!" Yet I, too, decided that I should be glad when it was all over. Surely Lida was bluffing. Perhaps after I was married she would go away and leave Margie and me to our happiness. Though I had acceded to Margie's wish that we live in her own beautiful home, I knew one thing: When I became master of the house, I would demand that Lida leave.

With that decision, my mind began to feel easier. And I took that very afternoon off, and Margie and I went to the marriage clerk to get a license. This definite move would stop Lida's melodramatic, mysterious threats. But how inadequately had I plumbed the depths of her malignity and power!

When we came back from out happy errand, Lida lay languidly on the living room divan. She wore scarlet satin in the artfully-cut sheath model she always affected. Its sheen highlighted every sinuous curve of her long body. Involuntarily, remembrance sprang up in me of holding her close in my arms, measuring her height against mine. The inescapable red blossom drooped between the pyramids of her upthrust breasts.

"Oh, Lida darling," Margie trilled in her sweet, confiding way; "look, we've got the license. It won't be long now!"

"No!" Lida's burning echo vibrated in the air. "It will not be long now."

Margie said, "I'm going to mix some drinks. We're going to celebrate!" And started for the kitchen.

A strange, premonitory fear held me speechless. Lida curved into a sitting position. Looked around her as if trying to hit upon an object that would suit some predetermined purpose. Just at that moment, Margie's huge, white Persian cat, probably having heard his mistress's return, came from the bedroom and  started toward the kitchen, edging away, as he invariably did, from Lida and eyeing her with spitting hatred.

The instant Lida saw the animal, she leaped to her feet and stepped swiftly toward it. The beautiful pet forgot his intended visit to his mistress. Great back humped in fear and hatred, and green eyes glued to the strange flower on Lida's bosom, the cat crept toward her, stealthily, as if stalking an enemy, while I looked on, bound to inaction by my own weird thoughts. Suddenly, with an almost human shriek of rage, the big feline catapulted through the air, baring teeth as murderous as those of its jungle ancestors.

Hypnotized by horror, I watched the incredible drama that followed. For a century-long moment, Lida was a flamered statue, moved not a muscle until the cat was in mid-air. Then she whipped her white hands outward. As they swept above the flying white fury, a burst of flame filled the room. In a split second, it was gone— as if it had never been. Only my brain retained the memory of the red blossom flaming like a torch in the white valley between the pointed breasts.

On the floor lay the beautiful, white beast. Not willing to believe my senses, I crept closer, held in the grip of incredulous terror. Gently I touched the limp body with my foot, knowing already the truth.

Margie's pet was dead!

The beautiful animal sprawled like a cast-off tag on the polished floor, its once silken belly turned upward. I stooped, closer and still closer, staring and sniffing. God! I was not mistaken!

The white fur was a blackened crisp, and the poor beast's belly cratered with gaping, raw holes. The air was filled with the smell of brimstone and burning flesh!

With deadly quietness, Lida Suban spoke: "I can do the same to her. The choice is yours!"

DURING the days that followed, Margie was so distressed about my increasing bad health that she never probed my lame explanations about the sudden death of her well-loved pet. I will admit that she was justified in her concern about the state of my nerves. I was at the breaking point.

I knew one thing only. I must not marry Margie, for I was convinced now of Lida's malignant power. What it was, where it came from, I did not know. I only knew it was fatal— and hideous.

I tried to use my extreme bad state of health as an excuse to postpone the wedding. But for my fiancée, my illness was only a more urgent reason for immediate marriage. Thwarted in that argument, I urged, with the purpose of escaping Lida, a long wedding trip. But Margie contended that I was not well enough to undertake it.

I learned the tyranny of gentleness....

My wedding was like a hellish dream. The stately chords of the wedding march were a dirge— a funeral dirge for my bride. I was hardly aware of her, so sweetly virginal, coming down the aisle to meet me, for my feverish eyes were pinned to her demoniac maid-of-honor— long, serpentine body sheathed obscenely in white satin, mysterious eyes shadowed by a drooping, scarlet brim, pale hands clasping the malevolent flame-flower.

The unbearable strain of waiting from moment to moment for her to strike! When would the fatal blow come? What satanic form would it take?

"Wilt thou, Roger, take this woman...?"

"I will." I heard my own voice pronounce Margie's death-sentence.

But nothing happened!... The never-ending reception. Nothing.... The intolerable wedding-dinner! Still nothing.... The evening— and at last, Lida Suban retired to the guest room and my bride and I were alone.

It was not the sort of wedding night a man could have wished. I knew it was not what Margie had dreamed of, during our lovely engagement days. But everything was excused on account of my "health."

"I'm glad all the formalities are over," Margie said, looking tenderly at my drawn face and nervous hands. "My first duty— and pleasure— is to help you get well."

When I lay beside her in the darkness. I clasped her tightly as if mortally afraid of losing her and, laying my head upon her breast, I broke into sobs.

She shielded me in her soft arms, as a mother does a sick child. With little, tender sounds of love and soft, gentle caresses, she soothed me. As the minutes went by, I felt all hurt, all strain of the awful preceding days go out of me, as if by magic. Memory of that woman sleeping in our guest room faded. The hovering, intangible menace drifted away on a tide of love....

My honeymoon began.

"Margie! Margie!"

A VOICE calling my bride waked me from a deep, sweet sleep. At the same instant, Margie, too, was awake. "It's Lida," she whispered; "I wonder what—" She sprang out of bed and started for the door, from beyond which the voice seemed to come.

But, suddenly, Lida stood in the room, as if wafted in on the eddy of sweet, poisonous fumes that drugged the air. The evil flower that hung between her 'breasts lighted her figure like a torch.

Folds of diaphanous, flame-red chiffon billowed about her, revealing her undulant body. She was unearthly— like some heathen goddess of fire. Incandescent, as if alight with an inner flame. She took one swift, gliding step toward Margie.

With a shriek of terror, Margie retreated. The tableau of these two women became an unbreakable fetter, binding me. The tall, menacing woman of flame. My ivory madonna, veiled only by her sheer, white nightgown.

Another tiger-soft stride. Helplessly, I looked on. The red chiffon draperies burst into an aura of living flame. The long, slender arm made a sweeping gesture and Margie's gown hung from her in charred rags.

My wife's agonized scream released me, like a taut spring, and I hurled myself from the bed and toward the living flames. But instantly, her left hand whipped through the air in front of me, and I was thrown back by a blast of scorching wind, held helpless by a wall of roaring heat.

With ghastly, macabre humor, the Flame Goddess toyed with my loved one. First, the hellish hand swept above my bride's head, and the golden curls fell to the floor. Then, she let the blaze play— gently— upon the softly-rounding breasts and, with a cruel sweep, down the curving length of the ivory body.

Margie's screams were almost inhuman now, and I had got beyond making a sound. I had no reason, but plunged, idiotically, over and over, against the unseen barrier that held me.

Gradually, hopelessness laid its heavy hand on me, and out of the calm of despair came a glimmer of reason. The flower, the blossom that blazed so evilly upon the softly-glowing bosom of this she-devil! Did the secret of her power lie in it?

I abandoned my futile plunging against the singeing wall she had with a gesture thrown up in front of me, and began to make a stealthy circle about the death struggle of these two women. I heard my crazed laughter break out into the room as I pictured myself, a hard-headed, young, American business-man, creeping cautiously around my own bridal chamber trying to outmaneuver an imaginary wall of wind!

But I could not get through! For as I circled, so did the cruel heat-wall. At no. point could I penetrate it.

With diabolic cunning, the Flame-demon continued to play her deadly game with my bride. She swept a crisp trail down the lovely curve of back. Left a scorched girdle around the fragile waist.

Fierce anger rose in me. Somehow I must stop this. I looked wildly around me, agony sharpening my wits. Suddenly I had it!

I sprang to the dressing table, seized a huge, cut-glass atomizer. Stepping back to give myself arm-room, I hurled it into the heavy French mirror. The glass shattered into a thousand pieces.

Wildly I surveyed the wreckage. Snatched a razor-sharp lance of it. The natural, earthly feel of it cut cruelly into my tight-gripping palm reassured me.

I knew I had to be careful, or I would strike Margie. I realized, too, that my interference might cause anything. Would we all go up in a sudden burst of unearthly flame? Would the she-devil, with one last violent manifestation, destroy Margie completely ?

The answer had no bearing. I knew only that anything was better than this cat-and-mouse game of fire, so cunningly played. Death, annihilation— anything!— would be welcome.

It was not courage that urged me on— it was wild unreasoning terror. I could see the game was almost over. Lida was tiring of her sport, and Margie was swaying on her feet, on the verge of collapse. Her screams of agony had died away into the soft and unintelligible whimperings of a hurt child and it was only the primitive 'instincts of a wounded animal that kept her trying to avoid the torturing darts of fire. . I made a last tormented effort to break through the blasting wall of heat... but I could not do it. My legs crumpled under me and I fell heavily to the floor. For a moment Lida paused in her torture-game and turned to me with a look that embraced all the evil and malice in this world. It was that glance of concentrated venom that somehow gave me the strength to struggle unsteadily back to my feet. Lida turned away from me contemptuously and slowly raised her arm to loose the withering blast that would mean the end of hope and life for my beloved.

I knew that I could wait no longer— and I must not miss. Lida was taking her time, enjoying to the fullest the pain she was inflicting. As her fingertips were almost in a line with Margie's horror- glazed eyes, I suddenly drew back my arm and, before the Flame-thing could realize my intention, I sent my glass cutlass whizzing through the air— straight at the hellish blossom!

It fell to the littered floor.

THE SUDDENNESS of the result was almost too much for me. The conflagration was turned off as if by magic. The wall of wind was gone. Margie slumped to the floor, a pitiful heap of scorched skin and blackened wisps of cloth.

Lida was no longer a flaming goddess, but a violent, dangerous, disheveled woman at bay. She turned toward me, a look of demoniac hate lashing from her queer, golden eyes. Fear contorted her features.

As I lunged toward her, she whirled, and stooped to snatch wildly at the broken flower at her feet. Suddenly, with an unreasoning flash, I knew what I must do.

I hurled my body through the air, stiff-arming her in my plunge. She was thrown against the wall, but like an angry tigress, she was at me again. But not before I had the red-hot flame-blossom in my bleeding hands.

Fiercely I rent its flaming petals, tore out its demoniac heart. With one hell-ridden scream, the woman dropped to the floor.

Like a man aroused from a nightmare, I looked down at her. Stooped, and laid my hand upon her heart,

Lida Suban was dead.

MARGIE'S golden hair is growing out again and is now an unruly mop of little-girl curls. The burns on her body, with the excellent medical care they had had, are nearly all gone.

As for me, from my horrible experiences with Lida Suban, I have developed an interesting hobby— the study of pyrotechnics and pyro-chemistry, for I have determined to preserve my own peace of mind by working out a natural solution for every manifestation of Lida's seemingly supernatural power.

I accept Lida's boast: "Nothing is supernatural. Nature gave us all powers. All we have to do is to realize them." And from it, I have worked my way, honestly, through the maze of horrible memories.

Lida knew much of the so-called sorcery of the Orient. The luminescence of her body when she appeared in my room and the weird, fiery manifestations on my horrible wedding night are not much more remarkable than many pyrochemical tricks used by "magicians" the world over. As for the flower, a well-known botanist, upon examination of its tattered remnants, pronounced it a giant dicentra, native to most of East India. There was nothing unusual about it.

But Lida had appeared in locked rooms, with no reasonable means of ingress; the cat died at a gesture from her evil hands; she herself fell dead when I destroyed her flower. I am determined not to push these inexplicable facts back to fester in some dark corner of my subconscious. So I continue my study.

And in the meantime, I am the happiest man in the world. I have the perfect wife.

__________________

17: Caterpillars

E. F. Benson

1867-1940

In: The Room in the Tower and Other Stories, 1912

Edward Frederic Benson

Much reprinted horror story

I SAW A month ago in an Italian paper that the Villa Cascana, in which I once stayed, had been pulled down, and that a manufactory of some sort was in process of erection on its site. There is therefore no longer any reason for refraining from writing of those things which I myself saw (or imagined I saw) in a certain Toom and on a certain landing of the villa in question, nor from mentioning the circumstances which followed, which may or may not (according to the opinion of the reader) throw some light on, or be somehow connected with this experience.

The Villa Cascana was in all ways but one a perfectly delightful house, yet, if it were standing now, nothing in the world— I use the phrase in its literal sense— would induce me to set foot in it again, for I believe it to have been haunted in a very terrible and practical manner. Most ghosts, when all is said and done, do not do much harm; they may perhaps terrify, but the person whom they visit usually gets over their visitation. They may on the other hand be entirely friendly and beneficent. But the appearances in the Villa Cascana were not beneficent, and had they made their "visit" in a very slightly different manner, I do not suppose I should have got over it any more than Arthur Inglis did.

The house stood on an ilex-clad hill not far from Sestri di Levante on the Italian Riviera, looking out over the iridescent blues of that enchanted sea, while behind it rose the pale green chestnut woods that climb up the hillsides till they give place to the pines that, black in contrast with them, crown the slopes. All round it the garden in the luxuriance of mid-spring bloomed and was fragrant, and the scent of magnolia and rose, borne on the salt freshness of the winds from the sea, flowed like a stream through the cool, vaulted rooms.

On the ground floor a broad pillared loggia ran round three sides of the house, the top of which formed a balcony ior certain rooms on the first floor. The main staircase, broad and of grey marble steps, led up from the hall to the landing outside these rooms, which were three in number, namely, two big sittingrooms and a bedroom arranged en suite. The latter was unoccupied, the sitting-rooms were in use. From here the main staircase continued up to the second floor, where were situated certain bedrooms, one of which I occupied, while on the other side of the first-floor landing some half-dozen steps led to another suite of rooms, where, at the time I am speaking of, Arthur Inglis, the artist, had his bedroom and studio. Thus the landing outside my bedroom, at the top of the house, commanded both the landing of the first floor, and also the steps that led to Inglis' rooms Jim Stanley and his wife, finally (whose guest I was), occupied rooms in another wing of the house, where also were the servants' quarters.

I arrived just in time for lunch on a brilliant noon of mid-May. The garden was shouting with colour and fragrance, and not less delightful after my broiling walk up from the marina , should have been the coming from the reverberating heat and blaze of the day into the marble coolness of the villa. Only (the reader has my bare word for this, and nothing more), the moment I set foot in the house I felt that something was wrong This feeling, I may say, was quite vague, though very strong, and I remember that when I saw letters waiting for me on the table in the hall I felt certain that the explanation was here: I was convinced that there was bad news of some sort for me. Yet when I opened them I fourd no such explanation of my premonition: my correspondents all reeked of prosperity. Yet this clear miscarriage of a presentiment did not dissipate my uneasiness. In that cool fragrant house there was something wrong.

I am at pains to mention this because it may explain why it was that, though I am as a rule so excellent a sleeper that the extinction of a light on getting into bed is apparently contemporaneous with being called on the following morning, I slept very badly on my first night in the Villa Cascana. It may also explain the fact that when I did sleep (if it was indeed in sleep that I saw what I thought I saw) I dreamed in a very vivid and original manner, original, that is to say, in the sense that something which, as far as I knew, had never previously entered into my consciousness, usurped it then. But since, in addition to this evil premonition, certain words and events occurring during the rest of the day, might have suggested something of what I thought happened that night, it will be well to relate them.

After lunch, then, I went round the house with Mrs. Stanley, and during our tour she referred, it is true, to the unoccupied bedroom on the first floor, which opened out of the room where we had lunched.

"We left that unoccupied," she said, "because Jim and I have a charming bedroom and dressing room, as you saw, in the wing, and if we used it ourselves we should have to turn the dining room into a dressing room and have our meals downstairs. As it is, however, we have our little flat there, Arthur Inglis has his little flat in the other passage; and I remembered (aren't I extraordinary?) that you once said that the higher up you were in a house the better you were pleased. So I put you at the top of the house, instead of giving you that room."

It is true that a doubt, vague as my uneasy premonition, crossed my mind at this. I did not see why Mrs. Stanley should have explained all this, if there had not been more to explain. I allow, therefore, that the thought that there was something to explain about the unoccupied bedroom was momentarily present to my mind.

The second thing that may have borne on my dream was this.

At dinner the conversation turned for a moment on ghosts. Inglis, with the certainty of conviction, expressed his belief that anybody who could possibly believe in the existence of supernatural phenomena was unworthy of the name of an ass. The subject instantly dropped. As far as I can recollect, nothing else occurred or was said that could bear on what follows.

We all went to bed rather early, and personally I yawned my way upstairs, feeling hideously sleepy. My room was rather hot, and I threw all the windows wide, and from without poured in the white light of the moon, and the love song of many nightingales. I undressed quickly, and got into bed, but though I had felt so sleepy before, I now felt extremely wide-awake But I was quite content to be awake: I did not toss or turn, I felt perfectly happy listening to the song and seeing the light. Then, it is possible, I may have gone to sleep, and what follows may have been a dream. I thought anyhow that after a time the nightingales ceased singing and the moon sank. I thought also that if, for some unexplained reason, I was going to lie awake all night, I might as well read, and I remembered that I had left a book in which I was interested in the dining room on the first floor. So I got out of bed, lit a candle, and went downstairs. I entered the room, saw on a side table the book I had come to look for, and then, simultaneously, saw that the door into the unoccupied bedroom was open. A curious grey light, not of dawn nor of moonshine, came out of it, and I looked in The bed stood just opposite the door, a big four-poster, hung with tapestry at the head. Then I saw that the greyish light of the bedroom came from the bed, or rather from what was on the bed. For it was covered with great caterpillars, a foot or more in length, which crawled over it. They were faintly luminous, and it was the light from them that showed me the room. Instead of the sucker-feet of ordinary caterpillars they had rows of pincers like crabs, and they moved by grasping what they lay on with their pincers, and then sliding their bodies forward. In colour these dreadful insects were yellowish grey, and they were covered with irregular lumps and swellings There must have been hundreds of them, for they formed a sort of writhing, crawling pyramid on the bed. Occasionally one fell off onto the floor, with a soft fleshy thud, and though the floor was of hard concrete, it yielded to the pincer-feet as if it had been putty, and crawling back, the caterpillar would mount on to the bed again, to rejoin its fearful companions. They appeared to have no faces, so to speak, but at one end of them there was a mouth that opened sideways in respiration.

Then, as I looked, it seemed to me as if they all suddenly became conscious of my presence. All the mouths at any rate were turned in my direction, and the next moment they began dropping off the bed with those soft fleshy thuds onto the floor, and wriggling towards me. For one second the paralysis of nightmare was on me, but the next I was running upstairs again to my room, and I remember feeling the cold of the marble steps on my bare feet. I rushed into my bedroom, and slammed the door behind me, and then— I was certainly wide awake now— I found myself standing by my bed with the sweat of terror pouring from me. The noise of the banged door still rang in my ears. But, as would have been more usual, if this had been mere nightmare, the terror that had been mine when I saw those foul beasts crawling about the bed or dropping softly onto the floor did not cease then. Awake now, if dreaming before, I did not at all recover from the horror of dream: it did not seem to me that I had dreamed. And until dawn, I sat or stood, not daring to lie down, thinking that every rustle or movement that I heard was the approach of the caterpillars. To them and the claws that bit into the cement the wood of the door was child's play: steel would not keep them out.

But with the sweet and noble return of day the horror vanished: the whisper of wind became benignant again: the nameless fear, whatever it was, was smoothed out and terrified me no longer. Dawn broke, hueless at first; then it grew dove-coloured, then the flaming pageant of light spread over the sky.

THE ADMIRABLE rule of the house was that everybody had breakfast where and when he pleased, and m consequence it was not till lunch-time that I met any of the otheT members of our party, since I had breakfast on my balcony, and wrote letters and other things till lunch. In fact, I got down to that meal rather late, after the other three had begun. Between my knife and fork thert was a small pillbox of cardboard, and as I sat down Inglis spoke.

"Do look at that," he said, "since you are interested in natural history. I found it crawling on my counterpane last night, and I don't know what it is."

I think that before I opened the pillbox I expected something of the sort which I found in it. Inside it, anyhow, was a small caterpillar, greyish-yellow in colour, with curious bumps and excrescences on its rings It was extremely active, and hurried round the box, this way and that. Its feet were unlike the feet of any caterpillar I ever saw: they were like the pincers of a crab. I looked, and shut the lid down again.

"No, I don't know it," I said, "but it looks rather unwholesome. What are you going to do with it?"

"Oh, I shall keep it," said Inglis. "It has begun to spin: I want to see what sort of a moth it turns into."

I opened the box again, and saw that these hurrying movements were indeed the beginning of the spinning of the web of its cocoon. Then Inglis spoke again.

"It has got funny feet, too," he said. "They are like crabs' pincers. What's the Latin for crab? Oh, yes, Cancer. So in case it is unique, let's christen it: 'Cancer Inglisensis'."

Then something happened in my brain, some momentary piecing together of all that I had seen or dreamed. Something in his words seemed to me to throw light on it all, and my own intense horror at the experience of the night before linked itself onto what he had just said. In effect, I took the box and threw it, caterpillar and all, out of the window. There was a gravel path just outside, and beyond it a fountain playing into a basin. The box fell onto the middle of this.

Inglis laughed.

"So the students of the occult don't like solid facts," he said. "My poor caterpillar!"

The talk went off again at once on to other subjects, and I have only given in detail, as they happened, these trivialities in order to be sure myself that I have recorded everything that could have borne on occult subjects or on the subject of caterpillars. But at the moment when I threw the pillbox into the fountain, I lost my head: my only excuse is that, as is probably plain, the tenant of it was, in miniature, exactly what I had seen crowded onto the bed in the unoccupied room. And though this translation of those phantoms into flesh and blood— or whatever it is that caterpillars are made of— ought perhaps to have relieved the horror of the night, as a matter of fact it did nothing of the kind. It only made the crawling pyramid that covered the bed in the unoccupied room more hideously real.

AFTER LUNCH we spent a lazy hour or two strolling about the garden or sitting in the loggia, and it must have been about four o'clock when Stanley and I started off to bathe, down the path that led by the fountain into which I had thrown the pillbox. The water was shallow and clear, and at the bottom of it I saw its white remains. The soaking had disintegrated the cardboard, and it had become no more than a few strips and shreds of sodden paper. The centre of the fountain was a marble Italian Cupid which squirted the water out of a wineskin held under its arm. And crawling up its leg was the caterpillar. Strange and scarcely credible as it seemed, it must have survived the falling-to-bits of its prison, and made its way to shore, and there it was, out of arm's reach, weaving and waving this way and that as it evolved its cocoon.

Then, as I looked at it, it seemed to me again that, like the caterpillars I had seen last night, it saw me, and breaking out of the threads that surrounded it, it crawled down the marble leg of the Cupid and began swimming like a snake across the water of the fountain towards me. It came with extraordinary speed (the fact of a caterpillar being able to swim was new to me), and in another moment was crawling up the marble lip of the basin. Just then Inglis joined us.

"Why, if it isn't old 'Cancer Inglisensis' again," he said, catching sight of the beast. "What a tearing hurry it is in."

We were standing side by side on the path, and when the caterpillar had advanced to within about a yard of us, it stopped, and began waving again, as if in doubt as to the direction in which it should go. Then it appeared to make up its mind, and crawled onto Inglis' shoe.

"It likes me best," he said, "but I don't really know that I like it. And as it won't drown I think perhaps—"

He shook it off his shoe onto the gravel path and trod on it.

ALL THE afternoon the air got heavier and heavier with the Sirocco that was without doubt coming up from the south, and that night again I went up to bed feeling very sleepy, but below my drowsiness, so to speak, there was the consciousness, stronger than before, that there was something wrong in the house, that some thing dangerous was dose at hand. But I fell asleep at once, andhow long after I do not know— either woke or dreamed I awoke, feeling that I must get up at once or I should be too late. Then (dreaming or awake) I lay and fought this fear, telling myself that I was but the prey of my own nerves disordered by Sirocco or what not, and at the same time quite clearly knowing in another part of my mind, so to speak, that every moment's delay added to the danger. At last this second feeling became irresistible, and I put on coat and trousers and went out of my room onto the landing. And then I saw that I had already delayed too long, and that I was now too late.

The whole of the landing of the first floor below was invisible under the swarm of caterpillars that crawled there. The folding doors into the sitting-room from which opened the bedroom where I had seen them last night, were shut, but they were squeezing through the cracks of it, and dropping one by one through the keyhole, elongating themselves into mere string as they passed, and growing fat and lumpy again on emerging Some, as if exploring, were nosing about the steps into the passage at the end of which were Inglis' rooms, others were crawling on the lowest steps of the staircase that led up to where I stood. The landing, however, was completely covered with them: I was cut off. And of the frozen horror that seized me when I saw that, I can give no idea in words.

Then at last a general movement began to take place, and they grew thicker on the steps that led to Inglis' room. Gradually, like some hideous tide of flesh, they advanced along the passage, and I saw the foremost, visible by the pale grey luminousness that came from them, reach his door. Again and again I tried to shout and warn him, in terror all the time that they should turn at the sound of my voice and mount my stair instead, but for all my efforts I felt that no sound came from my throat. They crawled along the hinge-crack of his door, passing through as they had done before, and still I stood there making impotent efforts to shout to him, to bid him escape while there was time.

AT LAST the passage was completely empty: they had all gone, and at that moment I was conscious for the first time of the cold of the marble landing on which I stood barefooted. The dawn was just beginning to break in the Eastern sky.

SIX MONTHS later I met Mrs. Stanley in a country house in England. We talked on many subjects, and at last she said—

"I don't think I have seen you since I got that dreadful news about Arthur Inglis a month ago."

"I haven't heard," said I.

"No? He has got cancer. They don't even advise an operation, for there is no hope of a cure: he is riddled with it, the doctors say."

Now during all these six months I do not think a day had passed on which I had not had in my mind the dreams (or whatever you like to call them) which I had seen in the Villa Cascana.

"It is awful, is it not?" she continued, "and I feel, I can't help feeling, that he may have—"

"Caught it at the villa?" I asked.

She looked at me in blank surprise.

"Why did you say that?" she asked. "How did you know?"

Then she told me. In the unoccupied bedroom a year before there had been a fatal case of cancer. She had, of course, taken the best advice and had been told that the utmost dictates of prudence would be obeyed so long as she did not put anybody to sleep in the room, which had also been thoroughly disinfected and newly whitewashed and painted. But—

___________________

18: Where The Butterflies Come From

William Hay

1875-1945

In: An Australian Rip Van Winkle and Other Stories (1921)

THE RANGE of hills behind the city of Adelaide is, much of it, almost bare of scrub and tree, and in the winter these lofty cones and ovals are covered with a smooth green grass, and rise one over the other in the distance, as round and pleasant as a giant's pleasure-links. Deep in the pathless range, as most people know, are strange, remote valleys and cul-de-sacs, where the sheep feed on the grassy sheer, and outlaws from our Black Forest are said to have made a last stand in former times, while here and there, far up on the sloping bosoms, little cobweb paths wind round and about: perhaps, before the days of mountain roads, the way the early legislator rode his forty miles to the Governor's Ball or Parliament House. In any case the paths were well worn enough, for in many a man sinks well up his calf in the little creepers and weeds that choke them now.

Down in a close valley, in a cot on the Waterfall Road, lived little Isbel Yawkins. Perhaps you would remember that year, after the drought, when the butterflies were so troublesome. Troublesome, we repeat, because many were convinced they killed the flowers in the gardens where they fluttered and crowded, though it was impossible to make quite certain, because, flying in orange companies from flower to flower, and settling for so short a time on this and that, it was not easy to be discovered if their long tongues wrought any damage, or the flower died of something else. Often, that year, Isbel was within an ace of settling this vexed question, but just as she trotted near enough to see the butterfly's face, it lifted orange wings and floated by. Some people, it may be recollected, said you ought to "kill all you could catch," which was not a difficult matter, for they seemed so stupid in the hot air and hung about in nines and tens. Indeed, I heard it said, many grown gardeners killed as many as they conveniently could. Little Isbel, however, was never able to catch any but the dead ones that lay beneath on the ground, and these she was glad enough to secrete for her own.

Nobody else seemed much interested in the butterflies— at least nothing like so interested as was little Isbel. Her too oft-repeated questions on their way of existence, why they were so silent, and where they nested in the evening, produced confessions of absolute ignorance or answers most immature and vague. "Accursed caterpillars which just come from nowhere and go with the blessed rain," was hardly satisfying to a person surrounded daily by these indestructible and lively presences, and no one liked the brilliant things to be trifled with as, "Bugs with angels' wings," or treated jokingly as, "sorts of giddy mosquitoes that have given up housekeeping"; nor, indeed, was she permanently oppressed by mere cross remarks, as "they were bits of doomed vanity without sense enough to make a hole to die in." To Isbel their enchantment was born anew each sunny morning, and decked her short and homely hours, like the gardens where they swam and swayed, with bright and restless mystery.

It seems to have been owing to a remark of Mr. Yawkins' brother— a sort of sailor when he was not helping with the potatoes— that there was the trouble in the family. Mr. Yawkins' brother was sometimes very talkative, and, generally, it was thought, rather a giddy sort of young man. It was vaguely wondered how so giddy-minded a man could trust himself upon the masts and shrouds. Some of the things he related— well!— an elephant or an acrobat couldn't have endured so much worry, and even grown people privately agreed that they didn't believe all his remarks, though politeness might keep them sitting silent longer than you would have expected. Nevertheless, Isbel found him as agreeable a pass-the-time-o'day acquaintance as you might meet in a parsley-walk. To come upon him down by the creek, where the mint smelt strong enough to knock you down, and the soil was black as a coffin, sometimes resulted in a little fish swimming in a glycerine bottle, a geranium-breasted robin on a fork, a frog, or a remark of considerable witchery. Even with Isbel, Mr. Yawkins' brother was never unready with a word, and this was how it occurred that the former, with her interminable butterflies, got that particular reply after the numerous others he had made her. "Where the butterflies come from?" returned he, with a thoughtful gravity, as if the idea was still rather curious to him; "Where the butterflies come from? Look, I'll tell you where they come from, Lizzie! See yonder, up on that great, green balloon" (pointing at one of the hillsides hanging over them), "there's a little path running up and around, till it rounds the corner— well, you chivvy aloft up there, and you follow under where the white cloud is, away and away till it stops … ah, there you'll find 'em sleeping in the trees like pretty birds."

Now Isbel had been nearly up to the lower part of this path before, when she was accompanying some goats that had a kid. So when a great longing took possession of her, to see all the butterflies asleep in their nests, it did not take her more than a night and a day to decide she would go again. She chose Friday, because Mrs. Yawkins had gone to town after some boots. As it happened, Mr. Yawkins' brother was also absent, having had a slight coolness with Mr. Yawkins on the subject of the sea-shells that hang underneath ships, and had gone for the night to the Black Hill. And Mr. Yawkins had taken his lunch along, and did not come up the garden, till he heard Mrs. Yawkins call his name in her rather shrill voice, and when he did, there she was dead-tired and bewildered, and that Isbel nowhere that she could find.

As for little Isbel, in pursuit of her pretty fancy, she had trotted up the hill till her form looked like a small moving stone in the grass, and then she found the path and trotted away. You could hardly have seen her head as she went along. She trotted along the path, and trotted along the path, and trotted along the path, till just round the corner, there was a single hollow tree, in which quite a grown man might have found shelter from the storm. Here somewhat to her bewilderment, the path, as they say it is with life itself, instead of mounting on towards the hill-top, began to descend again, and, though the descent was very gradual, still it was not quite the arrangement she expected. Though a little daunted, she was soon reassured by the "rattle" of some wattle-birds, and three great blasts from the quarries, which made her feel quite at home, and on she went round the hill. At the next bend, she came on a number of black lambs' tails hanging from varnished walking-sticks, which she could not know were just grass-trees, and they made her think of goblin things. Only a little further down, however, was a tiny grass valley, all shut in by towering slopes, in the middle of which was a single great gum-tree. Little Isbel stood awed on the precipitous path-edge, at the sight of this great tree, which was lush and full-leaved with the beautiful soil in which it grew. From ground to summit and from side to side, every leaf was hung with clusters of orange butterflies, till the whole tree was a moving orange yellow in the fading light; so plentiful they were, it seemed as if all the butterflies in the world were clustering there; so thick they hung there was hardly a leaf to be seen for their yellow wings; while others yet, as if they could not find nesting room, or were too happy to sleep, floated rejoicing above the rest in the delicate air.

POOR Mr. Yawkins went up the road nearly to the waterfalls looking for Isbel, and then down the road to the electric-tram terminus, but he did not see her anywhere, nor had any of the neighbours seen her, not even Mrs. Allnutt, who lived at the first bridge, and generally knew where anybody was. He and Mrs. Yawkins and that hurried about all night looking for Isbel, and next morning in the dawn they were still hurrying somewhere, but they could not think where the child had taken herself. Mr. Yawkins' brother came back to dinner at twelve, and he talked a good drop when they told him Isbel was gone away, and followed them about (very aggravating of him it was) just behind them, Mr. Yawkins one way, and Mrs. Yawkins another, bothering them, when they did not want to talk, with all sorts of inquiries. But suddenly he threw up his hands into the air, and gave a wild screech; and when they turned, quite distracted with him, he was running up the mountain behind the kitchen door, shouting to them to scurry up aloft, for he was pretty certain now where the pretty was run to.

Mr. Yawkins soon closed up behind his brother, and quickly learned the stuff he'd been telling Isbel about the butterfly path, and Mrs. Yawkins hurried after them as quickly as she could, shouting at them in her rather shrill voice, and being shouted back at, but she never quite caught up with the others. She was in the brown dress she preferred to wear, with darkish plain hair, and she followed them just as she was, with her sleeves a little up her arms.

You would be surprised how long it took the three, who were in such hot haste, to ascend to the path, and then along to the corner, and so, past the hollow tree, down— down to where the great gum was shimmering in the sun-light, even now alive with butterflies. Mr. Yawkins' brother was struck a'back with the sight, and stood staring at it almost as amazed as Isbel had been, but Mr. Yawkins pushed roughly by him, looking this way and that after his lost one, while Mrs. Yawkins came up and began to call the child's name in a voice rather thoughtlessly loud.

Little Isbel must have slipped in her pleasure at finding all the butterflies, for they found her lying below the path in the valley, her face on her arm, which was stained with blood. About her head, attracted perhaps by the colour of her hair, fluttered two or three of the pretty creatures she had come to see, and one was actually settled on the wayward strands. Mr. Yawkins carried her home, with his wife stumbling and hurrying just behind his arm and now and again reaching forward and touching the child, and behind them came Mr. Yawkins' brother, talking endlessly and excitedly.

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19: The Woman in the Veil

‌E. F. Benson

The Evening News, 26 June 1928

IT WAS a joyful spectacle, as the great train roared westwards, to watch the clearing of the skies which in London for the last week had dripped with chilly relentless rain. Before we reached the first halt at Exeter the floor of compact grey clouds had been rent in a dozen places, and gleams of sunshine lay in golden patches over the landscape: swiftly after that the rags of vapour which hung on to the heavens were shrivelled and consumed in that genial fire, and by the time we struck the coast near Dawlish the radiance of the May afternoon poured down brilliantly on a sea of peacock blues and greens on the rich red earth of the cliffs.

Soon we clanked across the Saltash bridge, and after a delectable travel through the beech-woods sown with bluebells, and passages over spider-web viaducts slung above the tree-tops of the gashed valleys below, came to a station of soft-sounding Cornish name, where I had to change for the branch line to Poltreath.

Here the country became of a more austere aspect, and of a brisker air, for a westerly breeze was blowing, laden with the salt freshness of the Atlantic, and on an evening of unclouded splendour I got out at the little town that clustered steeply on the sides of a dip in the uplands. Half a mile of huddled streets brought me on to the open downs on the edge of which stood the square, grey-stoned Beach Hotel for which I was bound.

Like every proper Londoner, I took advantage of all possible reasons for flying from the town which I adored so deeply, and two such, irresistible in their combination, had just presented themselves. One was that I had some work to do which required a week of seclusion and serious spade-work; the other that painters were proposing to make my house uninhabitable for some days: a remote hotel was, therefore, a desirable refuge.

By chance I had seen in weather reports that Poltreath was enjoying insolently long hours of sunshine, and since I had pleasant recollections of that coast generally, but had never seen the place itself, that was a reason the more for now doing so.

Somewhere in the darker pools of my mind was the knowledge that I had heard of Poltreath quite lately in some special connection, but, though I had been intermittently fishing for it all day, I could not arrive at it. Perhaps I had seen a picture of it in some illustrated paper, perhaps there had been a wreck on its coast, perhaps somebody had gone round its golf links in wholly incredible figures. My knowledge seemed to me to be of this class, merely of an incident with which I was in no way concerned, but which had just caught, though not held, my attention. But what that incident connected with it was, I had no idea.

It was impossible to imagine a more delightfully situated lodging for one who loved sea and sun and was in need of solitude. The big grey hotel, once clearly a country house, was planted four-square close to the edge of the cliffs that tumbled steeply down to the beach: on one side of it was scooped a broad sandy bay; in front, and on the other side, a fringe of sharp-toothed rock bordered the sea. Round it were spread the maritime downs, short-turfed and starred with pink clusters of thrift, across which the coast road ran north and south; before it was spread the Atlantic.

Bleak and desolate it might indeed be when the gales of winter boomed from the south-west, and the few trees that grew about it, dwarfed in height, and bent landwards with crooked trunks and oblique branches, showed that such winds were prevalent. But this evening only the lightest of airs streamed in from the sea, and the water far out across the sands was scarcely rimmed with white.

The air was of the most exhilarating vintage, provocative of activity both in mind and in body, and looking at sun-steeped sea and the smooth-turfed golf-links that lay along the bay, I regretted that the most of my activity would be concerned to exercise itself with a pen plunged in ink instead of shoulders in the sea, and with delvings for words rather than golf-balls.

But quickly I made with myself a bargain which the most scrupulous conscience would approve. My mornings should be long and studious; so, too, my evenings; I vowed that every night after dinner I would settle down for a solid three hours of work. That would make a full day of industry, and thus from lunchtime to dinner I should be free to enjoy the sands and sun and sea of Poltreath.

I inaugurated that dutiful programme at once, and, till dinner, scrambled about the rocks below the hotel, recapturing again the magic that lurks in rock-pools, those entrancing lakes of clearest water, fringed with sea-weed, the home of sideways-scuttling crabs and strawberry-like anemones of the sea. Never have I seen such ranges of rocks as here, such fruitful pools, such sequestered little beaches of sand tucked away in valleys guarded by mussel-covered crags, exposed now at the ebb of the tide.

Then came dinner in a sparsely-populated dining-room, for the sea-side season was not yet in full swing, and after that I went to my sitting-room for the other branch of my programme. This was on the ground-floor, a small slip of a place opening out of that apartment known to hotels and house-agents as "the lounge," where a wireless apparatus, to my deep satisfaction, was telling us, even as the sun, near its setting over the sea, poured light and warmth on us, that rain had been incessant all day in London, and was likely to continue…Then with a profound sense of rectitude I turned my back on the window and sat down to work.

Daylight faded, and without drawing my blind I switched on the lights. As a reward of my industry I had got absorbed in my tale, and when after an unestimated interval I heard a clock in the lounge outside strike a lengthy hour I was astonished to find that it was already midnight. That was full measure of my work, and I dropped my pen and wheeled round in my chair to look at the night. Tranquil it was and brilliant: a moon, a day from the full, blazed whitely on the expanse of the sea, turning it to a sheet of twinkling silver; for foreground there was a narrow strip of downland and then the edge of the cliff. Close outside my windows ran a broad gravel walk.

I suddenly became aware that there was standing on it, not more than a couple of yards distant, the figure of a woman dressed in a long coat, with a motor-veil tied around her head. She was looking into the windows of the lounge, and thus was almost directly in full face to me, but her face was in shadow, and I could not see it at all distinctly.

She seemed to me to have very large or very prominent eyes, her mouth drooped open, and she was very dark of complexion, But the lights, and even more the shadows of moonlight, are very confusing: pink and topaz, black and red, brown and purple are indistinguishable in it. But certainly this middle-aged lady, with pronounced features, was dark…And then her presence there and her strange immobility struck me as odd, as startling even. I was sure she had not been at dinner: what then was she doing just outside the hotel? Then the very natural explanation occurred to me that she had arrived just now by car, and, like myself, was enjoying this rare spectacle of sea and moonshine.

I pulled down my blind, quenched the light, and went out into the lounge on my way bedwards. It was already empty, with only a solitary light burning, and at the far end of it was the night-porter, locking and bolting the front door. He had just finished with this when I came to the foot of the staircase, and he offered me the accommodation of the lift. And then it occurred to me that he had locked out this motoring lady.

"Surely you're locking someone out," I said. "Hasn't a lady in a motor just arrived?"

"No, sir; no arrival," he said.

The memory of that figure looking in at the window of the lounge began to interest me.

"But I saw a woman on the path just outside my window two minutes ago," I said.

He looked at me, a little puzzled, a little bored, but with some glint of interest (was it?) of unease.

"Can't be anyone from here," he said. "No one's gone out since I came on duty, and none's arrived. Some visitor from Poltreath, sir; there's a right of way all along the cliffs."

I bade him goodnight and went upstairs. From the open gallery of the floors above I saw that he had gone to the window at the end of the lounge and was looking out.

Alas for the sunny serenity of Poltreath! During the night I heard the wind awake, and in the morning a gale laden with rain was battering on my panes. Yet that made my industries but the easier, for who would want to be abroad in this tempest? But after lunch the rain ceased and, tiring of the house, I set forth along the coast-road northward.

The wind was tremendous on the upland, and it was a relief, after a mile of buffeting, to dip into a valley, where the force of it was cut off by a headland seawards. There was a very vale of Avilion: copses lined the road, thick with primroses and blue-bells and birdsong, but soon it began to mount again and at the corner just ahead of me I saw from the gestures of the struggling tress that I should emerge into the full blast. I said to myself that I would just walk to that point and then turn homewards.

I came to this corner, and then quite suddenly I found I knew the place, not from having been here before, but from some picture which I had seen quite recently: there was a steep spur of rock, a sharp angle in the road and a glimpse of the sea. At that the solution of what had intermittently puzzled me the day before was manifest. It was just here, at this very corner, that a week before there had appeared in some illustrated paper the picture of a motor-car standing empty in the road and with a rush of retarded recollection the whole memory linked itself up.

Miss Alice Trellings, that iron-willed and ruthless explorer of unknown lands, had been staying at Bude, and had set out alone one evening after dinner to drive to Poltreath where she had engaged rooms at the Beach Hotel. She had never appeared there, nor had she been seen since, but at this corner had been found her motor, facing not towards Poltreath, but in the direction from which she had come. Before now she had suffered more than one attack of loss of memory, due to a sunstroke while crossing the Arabian desert, and the theory of the police had been that, feeling the approach of some such seizure, she had turned back, and then, at its onset, left the car.

It was known that she was wearing a string of very valuable pearls, but it was difficult to imagine that a thief had boarded the car while in motion, had killed her and had disposed of the body. Loss of memory and identity, while seeking the place where she was known, was a far more probable theory.

So there was the memory I had been fishing for; it was a certain satisfaction to have caught and landed it, but its connection with Poltreath was of the most shadowy, and thinking no more about it, I pressed my way homewards. Already the sea had risen angrily under the violence of the gale, and was whitened with breaking wave-crests, while the great rollers were riding in, pounding at the rocky coast; the spouts of foam rose high in the air, and, blown landwards by the wind, hissed as they fell on the grass above the cliffs. I had scarcely got into shelter of the hotel, when again the rain began to stream against the window of my room.

WITH the close of the day, the hurly-burly redoubled: squalls descended on the house with squeals and thunderings, making the solid walls to quake under their grip, and the rain was flung in solid sheets against the panes. But my work prospered, and after dinner I became immersed in it, heedless of the passage of the hours, and at length, yawning and suddenly aware of fatigue and uneasiness, I again heard the clock in the lounge strike midnight. The wind seemed to have somewhat abated, though still the rain fell heavily, and I pushed aside the blind to look out.

The moon, full to-night, though totally obscured behind the wrack of clouds, made a twilight in which I could clearly see the huge spouting of the waves above the black edge of the cliff, and there again on the path outside my window, beaten on by the rain and blown on by the gale, stood the figure I has seen the night before. Her long coat, I noticed, hung straight and undisturbed by the wind, the edge of her motor-veil reposed quietly on her shoulders, as if the wild fury of the storm was powerless to touch that dire tranquillity. After a moment she moved slowly away, disappearing towards the corner of the hotel, round which lay the front door.

I let the blind drop, and stood there with some icy horror of the spirit closing round me, for I knew, not by the ocular evidence alone of that windless isolation in the storm, but by some interior sense, that I had looked upon a visitor from that dim region beyond time and space, which is invested with our terror of death and of the kingdom of its mute citizens.

But mixed with that horror was an overwhelming curiosity. Whose was the spirit, I asked myself, which stood tranquil in this cauldron of the winds, and which on some dread errand of her own had clothed herself again in the sheath of mortality, and to whom was her errand, and how would she accomplish it? Where, too, had she gone now and where would she reappear again?…All this, churning though my conscience, mingled with my terror, stiffening into a certain courage. The terror was there all the while ready to freeze me, but curiosity controlled it.

THE LOUNGE, dimly lit, looked to me at first to be empty; then I saw that the hall-porter was sitting in a chair at the foot of the staircase, asleep. There was no occasion for me to disturb him, and I had already set foot on the bottom step for my ascent, when there came on the front door two raps, distinct, but not loud. Instantly, with a further qualm of fright, my mind suggested that the knocker at this late hour was she whom I had seen on the walk outside. Yet how absurd a notion; here, no doubt, was some expected guest arriving late…And then I saw that the porter had awoke and was listening.

"Someone has arrived," I said. "There's someone knocking…"

He shook his head.

"No one expected to-night, sir," he said. "That's but the wind rattling the shutters."

Even as he spoke the two raps were repeated, and on the heels of them came the faint tingle of an electric-bell.

"And is that the wind ringing the bell?" I asked. "A strange thing! I tell you, there's someone outside."

He stood there a moment, evidently on the strain, and then pulled himself together.

"I seemed to hear the bell, too," he said. "I'll see who it can be, though I think it was only some bell on the landing upstairs."

He turned up the light just inside the door, then drawing back the bolts, threw it open. The illumination streamed strongly out, and standing with him on the threshold, I saw that there was no one there. A space of gravel for some yards in front was clearly lit, round it the wet and roaring darkness I felt sure no one could have hidden himself, so short was the interval between the summons and the opening of the door, but now, to make assurance surer, the porter switched on the light outside the porch, and for fifty yards in every direction the lawn and the gravel-sweep sprang into brightness.

"'Twas just a bell from the landing, sir," he said, "and the rattle of the wind."

Certainly that seemed likely, yet even while this demonstration of the empty night shone round me I felt that invisibly, but somewhere close at hand was the presence that had manifested itself on the other side of the hotel three minutes before. Just the porter quenched the light outside, and in the darkness something pushed by between him and me.

"What was that?" I rapped out, and turning, saw in the lit hall behind, shadowy and wavering of outline, the figure which I had twice seen already. Even as I looked it grew clearer and more solid, and there, with face turned towards us, and eyes directed not on to me but my companion, stood the woman in cloak and motor-veil. The eyes protruded, the mouth gaped, as if starving for air, the face was flushed with a mottled purple. Round this death-mask of one strangled was wound the pink motor-veil, through which I saw the sheen of notable pearls clasping the neck…

It was in some such catalepsy as belongs to nightmare that I stood staring at this head of horror, and then I heard close beside me a gasp and a hoarse, whispered exclamation.

"O God! O Christ!" it said, and the man who stood by me crouched and stole away out of sight into the tumultuous darkness. The phantom moved: it came forward, passed through the glass screen that shielded the door, and followed.

NOW FEAR, like all other pains of body and mind, defeats itself as an instrument for anguish, because when it has reached a certain point some sort of numbness succeeds, just as to the tortured body on the rack comes the failure of the nerves to register pain any more. Thus it was not with any semblance of courage now but with unconcern that I in my turn followed that strangled image of wrath and retaliation.

Into the roar of the tempest we passed, and now borne to me on the wind there came from somewhere ahead thin squeals as of mere animal terror, not human. There just in front were the cliffs with the background of the whitened sea and the curtain of spray, and for one second I caught sight of the fleeing figure of the doomed man outlined against them. His hands shot up in one supreme gesture of despair and then vanished. Vanished also now was his pursuer, and, what was more, the sense of his pursuer. The terror cleared off from my mind like a frosty breath, and I knew only that a man, human like myself, had fallen over the cliff's edge.

I crawled to the top of it, and by the dim moonlight that pierced the clouds I could see some thirty feet below the sheer brink, the man lying huddled on the showers of spray that spurted from the rocks just beyond. It seemed impossible to reach him without assistance, and even if I had managed to climb down without disaster there was nothing I could do.

Accordingly I ran back to the hotel, pealing on the bell at the entrance, and in the bureau I found a switch labelled "Emergency." I pressed my finger and held it there till I heard the creak of the lift and the thud of footsteps on the stairs. Then ropes were fetched and blankets in which could be lifted that which we should find below, and a couple of men, one a doctor who was staying in the hotel and myself, were lowered. Under his direction we slung the body in a hammock of blankets and waited there till those above on the cliff had conveyed their burden into the hotel. The man had stirred; he had groaned as we adjusted the rough transport, and seeing me beside him he had signed to me to come close and had whispered: "Close here; in a rock-pool, full of seaweed."

He died during the night, leaving that legacy of half-a-dozen words, and next morning I found a way down to that sandy inlet where he had fallen. Close to it was a very big rock-pool hidden away in a labyrinth of slippery ledges and masked with the podded growth of the sea. But at one point the thick harvest of brown tendrils strangely bulged out of the water, and among them I saw some pink tissue as of a silk veil.

I convinced myself of what lay below, and went back to the hotel to give my information. In the interval they had searched among the effects of the dead man for the purpose of telegraphing to his relatives, and at the bottom of his trunk, which was pushed under his bed, was a string of pearls.

Now any complete reconstruction of my story is necessarily a matter of guess-work, while the circumstances, as related above, which led to the solution of the disappearance of Miss Alice Trellings would no doubt be laughed to scorn by any jury of sensible Englishmen. Yet they were very oddly confirmed by the inquest held over her swollen body which I had seen pushing up the seaweed of that rock-pool, and it was established that she had met her death not by drowning, but by strangulation.

Again, the night-porter knew that the corpse lay there, for the last words he spoke were to say that there was something in the rock-pool close at hand, while the pearls found in his trunk, which were proved to be those of the murdered woman and to have been worn by her on the last evening of her life, were sufficient to complete the chain of evidence as to the identity of the murderer. But all these disclosures were due to an apparition in which no sensible man could possibly believe…

For the rest we are obliged to fall back on conjecture as to the actual place and manner of the crime, but such conjecture, if it fits the facts, is bounded within very narrow limits.

The murderer was certainly on duty on the night when the crime was committed, and since the strangled body was found in the place indicated by him close to the Beach Hotel, it would follow that Miss Trellings arrived at Poltreath, was admitted, and strangled by the porter who possessed himself of her pearls. He then carried the body down to the beach and hid it under the thick curtain of seaweed in that sequestered pool, difficult of access, about which he whispered to me.

He had then to dispose of her motor-car, which, of course, must not be found near the hotel, and this he apparently drove to that bend in the road where it was found next day, and, leaving it pointing in the direction from which Miss Trellings had come, walked back to the Beach Hotel.

A better device whether arrived at haphazardly or by subtle calculation, could scarcely have been planned, for it put the police on an entirely wrong scent, and led them to suppose that Miss Trellings had abandoned her idea of going to Poltreath, and had turned again in the direction of Bude. That she had suffered before from loss of memory gave them an additional wrong clue as to her disappearance.

BUT OF the phantom itself which I personally saw twice on the gravel walk alongside my windows and of its third and avenging appearance when the murderer saw it also, I have no explanation to offer. It seems a terrible fate for the actual spirit of the dead that it must haunt (unless of its own free will) the scene of its corporeal death, though there is a justice, no less terrible, that it should be the means of vengeance.

Even without that ghostly interference, human justice, slower-footed, would probably have overtaken the murderer, but I can imagine no fear of the gallows, no ticking away of the hours of his last night on earth, so awful for the condemned as that pursuit of him through the night of gale and tempest which elicited those squeals of animal terror.

Nor again can I come to any conclusion as to how the apparition of vengeance made itself visible to mortal eyes, whether it was the image of the woman in cloak and motor-veil which was transferred from the mind of the murderer to me, so that I visualised something that had no objective existence, or whether some glimpse into the unseen coming first to me and subsequently to him, revealed not a subjective impression, but the manifestation of a living spirit angry and intent on vengeance. If so, we can only hope that it is at rest now in that world which lies so closely round us hidden by the merciful veil which sometimes is momentarily lifted.

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Table of Contents

- 1: Jan Verbeeck's Profession / Albert Payson Terhune

- 2: Mellicent / Richard Dehan
- 3: The Black Fox Skin / Hesketh Prichard
- 4: The Quest / P. C. Wren
- 5: One Born Every Minute / Peter Cheyney

- 6: The Pearls of Jacob Le Maire / Frank Reid

- 7: Snapragon and Ghost / Ethel Lina White
- 8: Kali / Eric Taylor
- 9: The Mad Detective / John D. Swain

- 10: The Adventure of the Diamond Necklace / George. F. Forrest

- 11: The Spectre Lovers / Sheridan Le Fanu
- 12: One Year / "Waif Wander"
- 13: Japanese Sandman / Norbert Davis
- 14: The Yellow Angel / James Francis Dwyer
- 15: The Midnight Express / L. McQuaid
- 16: Kiss of the Flame Blossom / Donald Dale
- 17: Caterpillars / E. F. Benson

- 18: Where The Butterflies Come From / William Hay

- 19: The Woman in the Veil / ‌E. F. Benson