Author: Various
Date: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00
Description: 14 stories, some quite long, by both masters of the short story form, and unknowns. There is also the latest Cumulative Index of numbers 101 to 140, arranged in alphabetic order of author's names. The stories have been gathered from newspapers, magazines, and long out of print collections and anthologies, and all are in the Life+70 yrs public domain. 1: A Weed of Lethe / C. L. Antrobus 2: A Straggler of '15 / Arthur Conan Doyle 3: The Wraith of Barnjum / F. Anstey 4: The Wind of Destiny / Ada Cambridge 5: The Gilded Pupil / Ethel Lina White 6: Missing: Page Thirteen / Anna Katharine Green 7: T

PAST MASTERS 140

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

3 October 2023

Contents

1: A Weed of Lethe / C. L. Antrobus

2: A Straggler of '15 / Arthur Conan Doyle

3: The Wraith of Barnjum / F. Anstey

4: The Wind of Destiny / Ada Cambridge

5: The Gilded Pupil / Ethel Lina White

6: Missing: Page Thirteen / Anna Katharine Green

7: The Fox / Katharine Tynan

8: The Watch / Anonymous

9: Nerves / Fred M. White

10: On The Sweeny Wire / Charles R. Barnes

11: P.’s Correspondence / Nathaniel Hawthorne

12: Pursuit / Roy W. Hinds

13: The Unknown Quantity / Howard Fielding

14: The New Administration / Melville Davisson Post

Cumulative Index Issues 101-140

_______________

1: A Weed of Lethe

C. L. Antrobus

Clara Louisa Antrobus, 1846-1919

Temple Bar, July 1902

Mrs Antrobus came to writing late in life, producing several novels and one collection of short stories. As her obituary observed, she "excelled in presenting the sad and wistful aspects of life, and in scenic descriptions, particularly of woods and moorland."

AN EASTERLY wind blew strongly that hot July morning, and the little white village in the forest was filled with a mingled odour of dust and strawberries, for the fruit-gatherers had just come in with their fragrant baskets. East and west ran the road, white as the houses, emerging from the encompassing woodland for the brief two hundred yards of the village, then plunging again into the green depths to meet other white roads that wound for long miles through that living emerald. And over all was the burning blue of the summer sky.

The wind rose higher, coming in gusts, and a thick white pillar of dust whirled up the street, then broke into seattered olonds, powdering the roofs, falling underfoot, rolling away into the woods. When the dust column had passed, it left a man standing at the end of the street, as though he had stepped out of that wild eddy; a fantastic figure, tall, alert; in shabby black trousers, white flannel shirt, a long black scarf wound round his waist, and a large, much battered white felt hat. His pipe or flageolet seemed but the hollow stem of some umbelliferous plant; yet, when he put it to his lips, the sound that he drew from that poor instrument startled the loungers in front of the hotel as though a breath of flame had passed over them.

For it was a wondrous tumult of harmonies, like the rush of the wind in the forest; it was the music heard by Carolan the Bard when he slept on the fairy h ill; it was Father Odin’s chant in battle; it was Orpheus singing amid the frenzied chorus of the Bacchantes: and as the walls of Thebes rose to witchery of music, so rose in each hearer’s soul the fairy palace of his dreams, whether of the shining past or the glowing future; to some only a dim vision of impossible rest, yet enough to “take the prison’d soul, And lap it in Elysium.”

For the man with the pipe held his listeners prisoned, strangers and villagers alike. Silent and motionless, they stood where those magic notes had first fallen on their ears; the saddler, the wheelwright, the old chemist, the women with their baskets of strawberries, the grey-bearded snake-catcher leaning on his stick with his bag and adder tin, the labourer with scythe on shoulder, the group of visitors by the hotel;— all paused, forgetting the thing they were doing, oblivious of aught save that wild stream of melody flowing round them. Still the piper played, and the breeze blew the dust in white swirls about his feet. Then the wind rose and the dust rose also, till the piper was seen through it as through a pale mist. Suddenly, still playing, with amazing leapings and twirlings, piper and dust-cloud spun away together up the road and into the forest depths.

For a minute, while yet the notes of the pipe were heard, the people remained immovable, silent; then, awaking as from a dream, each one looked upon his neighbour, and turned again to the daily business of life.

“The pied piper has departed without handing round the hat,” observed a tourist. “Truly a most singular piper!”

“There’s two on ’em,” muttered the old snake-catcher, staring after the vanishing dust-cloud.

“What! Are there two pipers?”

The old man nodded. “T’other’s harmless enough, like this; ” he pulled a green snake out of his bag, and the creature glided up his sleeve. “But yon,” pointing to the woods, “he’s like what I’ve got here,” tapping the adder tin. “Ay, there’s queer things i’ the forest,” he added as he moved away.

“ ‘Pied piper’? " said another idler reflectively, “I have always pictured that troublesome musician in a garment of many colours like Jacob. Yet after all we call the magpie pied.”

“Whatever his dress,” rejoined the first speaker, “undoubtedly he is the piper.”

“In these days?” asked the other jestingly.

“Even in these days. I might say, particularly in these days. Old beliefs, old legends have come to the surface again now and then at all times— weeds of Lethe; and the amount of ancient wreckage lately thrown up by that slow stream is surprising; living wreckage, some of it; the old gods are returning.”

“The piper is a weed worth cultivating,” remarked a third visitor standing in the hotel doorway, a red-haired, keen-eyed, cheerful individual; “and the snake-catcher is right, there are two pied fellows going piping about. This one I have not seen before, but the other was playing here yesterday. He looked ill, poor chap, and his piping was as melancholy as himself. Nothing like what we have just heard. The pipe was different too, it was a flageolet. Now this last resembled the thing the pifferari play upon— sort of old Greek thing— I forget its name.”

“Monaulos,” said a tall man in clerical dress, with a strong, clever face, perhaps a little hard in expression, as the face of a priest is apt to be; a hardness, however, that might be disturbed, and to-day there was a perceptible softening of glance and manner.

“Monaulos,” he repeated, “curious that it should have sung in the ears of mankind so many centuries.”

“This is its swan-song, Powell,” said the red-haired visitor, “we are going to iron the world flat into the commercial ideal. Nobody will know anything except how to switch on something or other, and dexterously to tell as many lies as the devil let fall over Syria.”

“I hope not.”

“Must be so; we shall be much too busy with our muck-rakes to think of any immortal garland. The dust of the arena not only clings to our feet, it is rising and veiling our sight, smothering our souls. There is the germ of a sermon for you, Powell. However, one miracle will happen, one that all good men have desired. The whole earth will be of one faith— Mammon-worship, mingled with that which accompanies it, a craving for ignoble power.”

" ‘Mammon, the least erected spirit that fell,' ” quoted Powell with a half smile.

“Of course,” replied his friend. “A suitable god for those cramped by stooping over the muck-rakes. Nobody will want to stand upright, either in body or spirit. Going to Barrow Down? Well, remember me to Mrs. Warrington. I ’m off to see the abbey.”

The two departed, and one of the remaining loungers idly inquired,

“Who’s the parson? I seem to know the name. Noticed him at breakfast.”

“Yes, he arrived last night,” answered another. “He’s Eldred Powell, the preacher. Sure to be a bishop by-and-by, then archbishop. The red-haired man, who gave you a beating at billiards last night, is Yates the barrister, Powell’s particular friend. He is here as best man.”

“Best man?” with lively interest.

“Just so. You recollect that tremendous smash of Black and Warrington last year? Black blew his brains out, and Warrington bolted, and was luckily drowned in the wreck of the Marina. Well, Powell is going to marry Warrington’s widow.”

“Oh? What is she like?”

“Don’t know. Never saw her. She is staying at Barrow Down for the wedding next week. It is to be a quiet affair, Yates tells me. Powell preaches at Barrow to-morrow, I believe.”

“I think I will go and hear him.”

“Be early then. I’m told the church won’t hold more than a dozen.”

And the speaker strolled away.

ALL FOREST ROADS are more or less beautiful, and the sun-dappled way to Barrow Down was fair indeed that morning. There was a sense of rejoicing life everywhere. The woods were in their fullest luxuriance, musical with rustling leaves and sweet with scents of lime-blossom and fern and ripening grass. And Eldred Powell’s spirit was in harmony with the joy of the summer day. He was a dreamer who intended that his dreams should become realities. Already he had done well in the fierce fight; he would do still better in the future. His name was even now in the mouths of men; by-and-by it should not be “a,” but “the” name; and when he who bore it had passed out of the battle, it should echo down the centuries as did those of the great churchmen of old. Such were his dreams; but to-day the tumult of that Btrife seemed far distant. His keen face softened, life was very good to him; his one impossible dream had become a reality, he was going to marry Amy Warrington. His thoughts went back to the time when she was Amy Marston, and he poor, struggling, perforce silent. Now— he checked his musings, the piper again! Yet those plaintive, hesitating notes stealing from out the woodland surely were never blown by that masterful piper whose cadences swept round like wind-driven flame?

Powell stopped a moment to listen, then went on with a frown; he remembered the air this invisible musician was playing; Dick Warrington had been fond of it, had often played it on his flageolet. Poor Dick had gone downward of his own free will; idle, extravagant: not cruel, but neglectful, absorbed in his boon companions while his wife sat alone— the one woman whom Powell had desired to marry. Then the weaving years had wrought at the web of life, and the pattern had changed; Dick slept under the Channel seas, as was best, and here was this sunny July morning, the sunny future. Powell walked more swiftly, and gradually the sighing melody died in the forest behind him ; he was glad when the familiar notes no longer reached his ear.

A rise of the ground, a turn of the road, and he was in the hamlet of Barrow Down, its thatched cottages, little church, and well, clustering, together within the surrounding belt of forest, cottages and church alike white with the snow of climbing roses. Nearly opposite the church was a small house with blue palings and a mulberry-tree at the gate, and here Powell was welcomed by a fair, slender woman with a face like Signorelli’s Enthroned Madonna.

“You have arrived, then?” she said, and voice and smile were sweet and radiant as the day.

"Two hours ago,” he replied, “two long hours. How well you are looking! This place suits you.”

“Is it not idyllic? Though I have been here so short a time years seem to have passed sinoe I left town. One feels like a dreaming chrysalis rolled up in a green leaf, or a sleepy butterfly, so carelessly happy.”

“It is time you were carelessly happy,” he responded; a remark that would have considerably surprised his friends had they heard it, for Powell had the reputation of being a just but somewhat hard man, one to whom the expression “careless happiness" was as rank heresy. Indeed, he was not quite sure that anybody ought to be happy at all; if they were, it should be a sober, cautious enjoyment, not a feast of the gods, but a family dinner ordered by himself. However, Powell, like many others, was better than his opinions, and Amy Warrington could bring to light, as with a magic wand, the spring of sympathy that welled far below the seeming arid surface.

“Come and see the church where you will preach to-morrow,” she went on, “it is so tiny one oould almost put it in one’s pocket.”

“The church where we shall be married the day after to-morrow. I do not know what possessed me to say I would preach. The sermon will be either my best or my worst; probably the latter.”

His companion shook her head.

“Not the latter,” she said, as they strolled across the road and up the churchyard path, strewn with white rose-petals blowing off the porch.

“Well, Haughton ”— Haughton was the Vicar of Barrow Down— “seems to have set his heart on my preaching, so I could hardly refuse. At any rate, I shall have no difficulty in making myself heard,” added Powell, glancing round.

They were standing within the church. “Does it not remind you,” she asked, “of the fairy carriage and pair that went into a walnut-shell? There are no aisles, you see; only the nave, and that is very small. One hears all the outside sounds; the rustle of the leaves, and the cow-bells.”

Powell was about to speak, when he became aware that somebody was looking in at them through an open window behind him. He turned suddenly, and a white slouch hat vanished below the sill.

“What is it?” Amy Warrington turned also, but there was nothing save the white-rose dusters swinging to and fro in the wind.

"I fancied I saw a man at that window," said Powell; “a piper whom I heard at Crowhnrst this morning.”

“In black and white clothes?— the Pied Piper as I call him? Does he not play wonderfully? The villagers are quite superstitious about him; they think his playing witchcraft. Of course I hear the news of the forest, at least of Barrow Down. The women gossip at the well, just as they did in old times; and I have made friends with them that I may go and gossip too. They are quite pleased to see me.”

“Who would not be pleased to see you?”

She laughed softly; everything about her was soft and gentle, almost subdued, yet with a sense of reviving life as of a rainbeaten flower expanding again to the sunshine.

"The people tell me there are two pipers,” she resumed, “exactly like each other, one who takes money and one who does not. I have only seen the one who does not, he never stops for it. Perhaps they are brothers, or perhaps the people are mistaken in imagining there are two.”

“Mistakes are easily made concerning these human grasshoppers,” replied Powell. “They disappear when the sun no longer warms. I wonder where they go? If we searched a hollow tree in winter, should we find a piper asleep in it? But if you smiled like that, Amy, he would wake up, thinking summer had come. Now show me the gossiping well, I want to see the whole of Barrow Down.”

He had spoken jestingly, but he felt a vague, unreasoning dislike to the idea of the two pipers. The memory of both recurred to him at intervals during the day, always with an indefinable uneasiness, a slight chill of the backbone, which he told himself was sheer nonsense and rank superstition as absurd as the village gossip of witchcraft. What if ten or a dozen such fellows were wandering in the forest? Yet there had been something uncanny about that fantastically leaping piper in the dustcloud, something that caused a faint stirring at the roots of one’s hair, and which, Powell told himself, was of course a ridiculous delusion. Nevertheless, a certain discomfort of thought connected with the pied musician went with him when he returned to his hotel, waited on him during dinner, and mingled with his dreams.

Sunday was another day of clear heat and summer glory. A little wind went to and fro in the forest, and the sound of church bells went with it, bringing many strangers to Barrow Down; for the visitors at the Crowhurst hotels felt that to hear a celebrated preacher in this place of fair quiet was like the pepper in the cream tart of Arabian story; therefore the tiny church was filled even to the crowding of the rose-shadowed porch. In the brief pause ere he began, Powell looked down on the upturned faces— one or two of them well-known in the great world— and his soul swelled with satisfaction; here was an audience able to appreciate him, able to criticise, and he did not fear criticism. He meant to give his best; a sermon carefully considered, brilliantly written; the discourse of a clever man which was exceedingly like the discourses of other clever men. This was what the congregation expected, and as the opening sentences fell upon their ears, they settled themselves to listen with an air of serene content.

Without, the forest sang its mighty undersong, a vast murmur that rose and fell like a distant surge; while at the windows blossom and leaf rustled softly as the warm wind blew over them. Eight, ten minutes passed; Powell was in full swing and thoroughly satisfying both himself and his listeners, when above that murmuring voice of the woodland rose a ripple of melody, like summer rain among the leaves. Faint and far away at first, slowly increasing in volume, drawing nearer, nearer, the weird music of the pied piper. Powell stopped as suddenly as a lassoed steed; he lost the thread of his sermon, knew also that he had lost the rapt attention which he had commanded a moment before. The piper entangled preacher and congregation alike in his marvellous net of sound. The check, however, was but momentary to Powell, he gathered up his scattered thoughts and went doggedly on. Yet he was conscious that he no longer held the minds of those he addressed; and the rain of melody beoame a rushing river of music, a falling of waters. Then into his memory flashed that old tale of Thessaly, of the pouring fountains that were human lives wasting— so many human lives! The piteousnees of it all! And casting aside everything he had intended to say, Powell spoke as he had never spoken before and perhaps never would again; preaching as the piper played, feeling in unison with that sweeping flood of harmony.

He regained mastery over his audience; their minds were his to sway as he wished. How long he was thus speaking he did not know, neither did those who heard; but the actual time was short.

He ceased as suddenly as he had begun, and the music without ceased also, as the last word left his lips, the swift silence coming almost as a shook. During a full minute no one stirred; then a sigh breathed through the church as though all were awaking from a dream, and Powell gave the benediction.

The congregation slowly streamed out into the sunshine, talking in low tones.

“He is even better than I anticipated,” said a thin, dark man with keen eyes, “much better! Extraordinarily eloquent!”

“Yes,” agreed the friend addressed, “and did yon hear the piper? What with the fellow without and the fellow within, I feel as though I had been bewitched.”

“Extraordinarily eloquent!” repeated the other thoughtfully.

THAT DAY Powell dined with the vicar of Barrow Down. Later, standing with Amy Warrington under the mulberry tree by the gate, he mentioned the piper.

“It is best to be simple,” he said.

“ The piper has taught me something. The whole place has taught me something. You are right in all you say of it. I begin to peroeive the need of the desert. One might learn a great deal here.”

“I hoped you would like it,” she responded. “When we are white-haired and very old, we might live here, and forget our elderly aches and pains. Nothing seems to matter in the forest, earth and sky are so soothing. Have you noticed that all the sounds are pleasant? Think how much that means. There is no noise whatever, only musical sound. I am beginning to realise how we needlessly torment ourselves by living in the monotony of towns, and refusing the natural consolations offered to us. Here everything changes from hour to hour. Look at the poppies dosing their petals now that the sunset is dying; they fold them like hands in prayer. There is a glow-worm; do you see it?"

“I see nothing but you,” said Powell, and a smile flickered over her face.

“Another thing I have learnt,” she resumed, “the infinite variety in the lights of God. That moon just rising behind the trees is not the same as yesterday, nor will it be the same to-morrow, end it casts different shadows. The lights we make are always the same; but moonlight, starlight, sunlight, daylight; the dawns and sunsets, all vary continually. I seemed to hare gained new eyes in these few weeks.”

“Help me to see too. There are many things I could perceive more clearly through your eyes.”

The moon rose above the forest as Powell walked back to Crowhurst along the white road, barred and chequered by moving shadows of bush and tree. The night was fragrant and still; only the faintest breeze rustled the leaves and shook the perfume from lime-blossom and wild-flower. He had gone rather more than half a mile, when from out the moon-flecked gloom on his right came a whisper of musis, sweet, vibrating— the pied piper again. The whisper grew, became an exquisite maze of harmonies soft as the wind in the leaves, delicate as the shadows and sparkling as the dew; yet with a strange quality of insistence, a calling, as it were, alluring, irresistible.

Powell stopped a moment to listen, then turned aside into the dusky labyrinth of the woodland; he wonld speak with this wondrous piper; so he followed that music with quiet unhurrying step as in a dream. He did not hasten to overtake the player, he was not Bure after all that he wished to meet him face to face; but he desired to hear once more those singing rushing waves of melody that had so stirred his spirit in the church at Barrow Down. Apparently the musician retreated as Powell advanced, for the same distance seemed always between them. Still he walked on, hardly conscious of thought, surrendering himself to the magic of the night and the spell of that strange piping that drew him through the white sheen and olive-black shadows of the moonlit forest.

And how varied were those shadows! He noticed them, as he passed onward; no two alike, a million fantastic shapes thrown across his path, meeting him, thronging round him, behind him. In the gloom, a ray of moonlight fell on something shining, silvery, a lustrous fretwork of grey crystal on the trunk of a fallen tree. It was but dew-drenched lichen, yet it looked like lattice-work carved by the fairies. As Powell drew near the fallen trunk, the glistening fretwork vanished, there remained but a pale blur on the dark bark. The glimmering fairy lattice was visible from one point only, where the moonbeams fell on it aslant and lit the dew entangled in its meshes. Such evanescent loveliness!—and unseen; perhaps never to reappear; needing the hour, the especial conditions of air and light. For whose pleasure was it and all other beauty oreated? Why should the monstrous egotism of man imagine anything unseen because he does not see it?

Familiar words rose dimly in Powell’s mind; “And behold, it was very good.” Yes, that was it, “very good,” and he had not much observed the world’s beauty, he had been too busy. Was it a sin to be too busy to stand humbly before the works of the Great Artist? Perhaps to admire was a duty; to ignore, ingratitude? Had he been ungrateful?

A winged shadow flitted before him, crossing a moonbeam and so visible, then lost in the darkness; only a grey night-moth, a marvellous little life. And the forest was full of these marvellous little lives! Here, at his feet, were jewels that surely Titania had dropped, tiny lights gleaming from the short herbage; jewels? no, glow-worms; little lives again. Nay, the woods themselves were alive! He was walking in a living world, not the dead one of houses built by man, but the world-home not made with hands. The forest scents ‘floated round him as he walked on; here a gush of lime-blossom, there the breath of grass and fern, followed by the faint fragrance of the wild rose. All this!— and the deep, soft gloom, the phantasmal beauty of the shadows, the white lustre of the moon— Powell stood still, the piper had ceased playing. That wonderful music no longer rippled through the forest, only the churring of the fern-owls and the rustle of the wind in the trees broke the silence of the night.

The sudden stillness aroused Powell as from a vision. Where was he? How far from Crowhurst? He had not the slightest idea in what direction he had wandered, nor did he know the hour. He was standing in an open grassy space; high in the blue moon-flooded heaven the dragon coiled and sparkled, and Bootes swung slowly westward, with Arcturus glittering through the moonshine as through white mist.

“Fled is that music— do I wake or sleep?” murmured Powell.

Then he looked up. “Past eleven,” he said, forgetting his watch.

He had wandered far indeed, back almost to the morning of the world, and the star-dials sufficed him. He turned to retrace his steps, star-guided, when he saw on the left a charcoal-burner’s hut; one of those shelters of turf laid on poles that men have not yet lost the art of making, and resembling a giant fir-cone set on end. There was evidently someone within, for the yellow gleam of a candle shone from the half-open door. Whoever might be the inmate, he would know the nearest way back to Crowhurst, thought Powell, as he went, moth-like, to the candle flame.

The dusky interior of the little wood dwelling was comfortable enough. There was the usual square of four bricks to put fire upon; a coffee-pot stood in the ashes. On a rough bench serving as a table were a cup, a jug of water, the candle, and one or two medicine bottles. Beside the bench was a wooden box; the remaining wall-space being occupied by a primitive bed which was merely a solid block of wood, not more than a foot high, and covered with a horse-cloth. On this, his head pillowed on a rolled-up coat, his face turned towards the wall, lay the pied piper.

For a moment Powell felt extreme astonishment; then he asked himself why he should be surprised. This woodland hut accounted for the sudden cessation of the music; the piper had simply stopped playing and walked in here.

“Who is it?” he asked feebly, not changing his position.

“Pardon me,” began Powell, standing at the open door, “ I have lost my way. Can you direct me— "  his voice died, for the man in the piper’s dress turned his head and the light of the candle fell full on his face— the face of Richard Warrington, who had been drowned in the wreck of the Marina.

“What!” he ejaculated, raising himself on his elbow, “is it you, Powell? What brought you here? Come in and sit down.” But the shock had been so great that the other felt powerless to more.

“Come in,” repeated Warrington fretfully. “Can’t you see I am ill— dying? sit down on that box, and let me think a little.”

Powell obeyed mechanically. Was he dreaming? Surely he must be; and yet he knew himself awake.

“Now, tell me what brought you here?”

“I do not know. I mean, it was purely accidental. I followed some music and lost my way.”

“That confounded piper, my double? I believe he is the devil, or a particular friend of the devil’s. Perhaps I ought to say I am his double, rather than he mine. I found him here when I came, and thought it would be a good idea to dress like him; two alike make more impression on people’s minds. Not that they ever mistook my playing for his!” Here Warrington laughed; adding, “Have you ever seen his face?"

“No, he was playing in clouds of dust the only time I saw him, and wore his hat drawn low.” Powell spoke almost unconsciously, he hardly knew what he was saying; his mind was in the utmost confusion..

“Exactly. That is one of the queer things about him. No one ever sees his face. There is always the dust or the distance, the hat or the trees, or something or other that is in the way. He is the devil of Tartini’s dream, though perhaps he plays too well to be a devil. They never do anything well except mischiefmaking. But our piper excels in that, he led you here.”

Dick Warrington paused, and a silence of some minutes ensued. Powell sat with unseeing eyes fixed on the half-open door, where the white moonlight lay on the threshold and made the grass look hoary. He could not realise this monstrous happening, this dead man alive. His whole spirit was in a tumult of revolt; he sat striving to master the whirling chaos within him.

The flame of the candle flickered unsteadily as the night breeze wandered in, the churring of a fern-owl sounded near, then there was stillness again, save for the ceaseless murmur of the forest, which seemed to deepen the silence in the hut. At last he spoke.

“You were saved, then?” he said dully.

“Obviously. I was picked up by a fishing-boat, and the idea came into my head of giving a false name and becoming a conveniently dead man. So I told the fishing-folk I was Peter Smith, and asked them to pat me ashore on the Cornish coast. I knew Amy had friends who would look after her; at least, I hoped so, and really my dying seemed an excellent notion. What else could I do ? I was stone-broke, you know; and I was going over to Guernsey to try if an old acquaintance there could give me a lift of any sort. I assure you I had not the least idea my partner was such a rascal. I left everything to his management, and thought he was feathering both our nests very nicely. I never imagined he was doing it with the clients’ money. So, when the smash came, I hurried off, as I didn’t exactly know what I had been let in for. I thought my Guernsey friend could tell me, and possibly assist. Well, I landed in Cornwall and got work on a farm. The farmer was a decent chap, and I stayed there till this spring, when I bought an oboe— I could play it, you know— and started life again as a musical tramp. The fact was I oould no longer work. A chill I got in the wreck had stuck to me somehow, and— you see the result. Gradually I drifted here, imitated the piper’s dress— I couldn’t imitate his music!— and that’s all. Putting it baldly, I stole, or permitted Black to steal for me; then I ran away; and have been hiding ever since.”

Powell made no comment. After a moment’s pause, the other resumed.

“Now that I can see the end coming, I can also see what a fool I have been all along. But that’s always the way. No use talking about it. I’m very comfortable here. The charcoal-burner permits me to use the hut for the merest trifle; and I have a doctor and a parson— not the parson of Barrow Down who is going to marry you and Amy to-morrow; mine belongs to South Beeches, a mile from here. By the way, do you know you are a good eight miles from Crowhurst, and nearly ten from Barrow. Of course, to my parson and doctor, and everyone else, I am Peter Smith. In fact, I am Peter Smith, Dick Warrington died a year ago; and Peter Smith is dying too; my doctor says so. Better give me some of that stuff of his in the bottle there. It picks me up for a minute or two: I am talking a good deal, and I shall not last out the night.”

Powell gave the medicine in silence; he did not in the least believe Warrington was in any immediate danger, and he could not yet trust himself to speak. Despite his priestly training, his whole soul seethed with fury.

“Thanks. In my wanderings about the forest," Dick continued, “I naturally heard all the gossip, and latterly it has interested me very much. At first I was rather taken aback when I heard that Amy was at Barrow and going to marry you; but on reflection I perceived what an excellent arrangement it was. It is a great solace to me to leave my wife in such good hands.”

The levity of this exasperated Powell.

“If yon were not ill—” he began.

“Yes, I understand," responded Warrington, with a glance of mocking amusement, “you would give me a thrashing; just as yon did when we were at school together, and I lied about something— I forget what. How long ago it seems! Well, never mind, you can’t do it now, and I wish you to listen. You may give me some more of that physic by-and-by in lieu of the thrashing; it’s much worse! I heard, as I have said, all the news, and took care to keep out of the way. I had had a scare at Crowhurst when I went to pipe to the tourists and saw Yates there. He did not recognise me, but I got a fright. However, I could not resist taking a peep at you and Amy in the church at Barrow yesterday. “ Then it was you whom I saw outside a window ? ”

“Yes; I dodged below the sill when you turned your head. That was my last outing, I got a lift back in a cart. To-day you have heard the real piper; he has the field to himself now. I retire before my rival— before both my rivals."

“If you have nothing more to say than this sort of thing—”

“But I have!” interrupted the other. "I’ve lots to say, and it’s worth listening to. Balaam was no good, yet he could see clearly enough; he was a true prophet. Bear that in mind, regard me as Balaam, and attend. I shall not live till morning. You do not believe that, nevertheless it is the truth; therefore your marriage must take place as arranged; that is, to-morrow. Wait!” as Powell opened his mouth to speak, “I know all you would say, and it is mere conventional rubbish. And don’t look so freezingly indignant, one would think I was asking you to commit bigamy. There is no fear of that, I shall go out before sunrise.”

“The question does not appear to me to admit of discussion.”

“Oh, doesn’t it, though! Of course if you were as sensible as I am there would be no discussion. As you are not, argument is necessary. You are now resolved to be the usual high-minded nuisance; to proclaim the erroneous date of my first demise, and the annoying date of my second; to delay your marriage for— say six months or a year; set people’s tongues wagging delightedly— they would probably say you and Amy knew I was living, but somebody else found it out; your bishop would hear that and be scandalised, and doubtful of you. All this you would bear with an uplifted feeling of martyrdom and conscious excellence. Yet, as the time of waiting passed on— and it would pass slowly— you would begin to reflect that for the sake of your career it might be wiser not to marry Amy.”

His listener made a swift gesture of negation. Warrington smiled and continued.

“Yes, you would, and your hesitation would urge you on. Because you did not wish to forsake her, you would do so. You would esteem it a duty to your bishop and the church, for if you remained celibate people would pity and regard you as a saintly martyr, having escaped the toils of a designing woman who would hare led you into bigamy if luck had not befriended you. Your fame would go up by leaps and bounds. Am I not right? Have I not touched Achilles’ heel ? ”

“I humbly trust I should not be so basely mean.”

“You trust, yes; but you are not sure, you cannot say that you are sure, because in your soul you feel I may be right. Moreover, you would not feel base, you would so thoroughly enjoy doing violence to your own feelings; the hair shirt would be one of your own choosing— your own making. Now I offer you a hair shirt that will worry nobody but yourself; that, in short, will be a garment of righteousness to you if you accept it meekly.”

He paused, a gleam of good-humoured malice in his eyes, and Powell stirred impatiently.

“Yes, I know,” resumed Dick, “I am worse than the hair shirt. Still, I am right; there is the point. I am undoubtedly right. Your hair shirt fits your own spiritual vanity and harasses other people. The one I am advising fits everything except your spiritual vanity, and a little sand-papering of that would really be an improvement. You are a good fellow, but you have a tendency towards arrogance; the jingle of St. Peter’s keys, you know. Now the cause of your reluctance to agree with me respecting this matter of the marriage is that you are afraid of the date of my demise coming out some day. You fear people saying, ‘Powell married the widow the day after her husband's death.’ You need not fear; the secret will never be known unless you reveal it; and the consciousness of the circumstances of my departure will be just the hair shirt needed. Your sense of social propriety is too strong. I am aware it is open to you to retort that my sense of social propriety has always been too weak; both statements are correct; and if you persist in your crooked notions, your strictness will prove as disastrous to Amy’s happiness as my laxity. I did not behave altogether well to her, therefore I am trying to do what I can to smooth her future. But you who profess to despise the world are ready to spoil her life for fear of what the world might  say! It will never say anything, because it will never have anything to say unless you go shouting to it to come and look at me. There will be nothing to hinder your marriage to-morrow, I am going fast.”

Warrington stopped speaking, and there was a short silence. The night breeze sighed through the forest, a long, deep suspiration that, coming from afar, swelled softly upon the ear, filling all the air, drew near like an invisible presence, passed and died in the distance.

“Curious that, is it not?” said the sick man, “ that sort of wind passing like a vast bird. What does Raleigh say?— 'The wings of man’s life are plumed with the feathers of death.’ I’ve noticed all sorts of odd things since I have been wandering about here. It has been a return to Mother Earth, and a wonderful old dame she is.”

Powell turned and looked at his companion.

"Are you not talking too much?” he asked in a more friendly tone.

"Too much for my health or for your satisfaction? Don’t trouble about me. I have not much time left, and if I am to say anything I must say it now. Hullo! there is my double again. Now what do you suppose he is playing, a dirge ? There is the sound of a going in it. Hear the 'Ave atque vale!’ Considerate of him, is it not ? An act of courtesy to his poor double.”

As the strange wailing music rose in the forest, Powell felt a sense of startled uneasiness. Perhaps too, the woodland spells were working, those spells of serenity, of repose, of feeling softened by the peace of the forest as the air is softened by the leaves, for it was in a gentle compassionate voice that he said, “Do you think you are worse? Where is your doctor? Let me fetch him.”

“Certainly not!” Dick positively laughed. “Peter Smith is no concern of yours, and you are not to appear in connection with him. I’m no worse than I was when you came. My doctor was here this afternoon, and he will be here again to-morrow, also the parson. What more do you want? And the charcoal-burner— a decent fellow— turns up at six. Just sit and think things out while I listen to my piper who makes such delicate music in the woods. Look at the situation as though you were advising— not yourself, but a friend; deny yourself the joy of martyrdom; put the priest aside and treat the matter as a man. Remember I am known only to strangers, and my name is Peter Smith. I die to-morrow, nay, to-day, for I see it is past midnight; the moon is sinking, going with the piper’s dirge; and I am going too.”

“If you would but let me fetch—"

“Nonsense! Besides, you could not find the way unless I described it, which I shall not do. I am only tired. I will sleep a little while yon think oyer what I have said. I’ll talk about it again presently.”

He turned over and seemed to sink into slumber. Without, that strange melody still wailed through the forest, but more softly, muffled as it were; the white moonlight moved away from the door as the moon sank lower; and Powell sat immovable, thinking— thinking. Yet more softly the piper piped, was he going? Powell bent over the sleeper. Dick was breathing quietly. The moon sank, and without was the starlit darkness and the faint rustle of the leaves, the piper was gone! Still Powell sat thinking. He did not believe that Warrington would die so soon; but if he did? Was he right? Was silence right?

And still Powell sat motionless, while Warrington slept and the world swung round till Arcturus dipped beneath the earth-rim and the Pleiades rose over the eastern horizon. Then came the indefinable stir that heralds the dawn. A wind stole through the forest, not the long sigh of deepest night, but the waking wind, the forerunner of the sun. A few birds twittered; slowly the black masses of foliage paled, then took form and colour. The dawn wind returned, this time stronger; the shadows changed, as the pearl-grey light glimmered in the east. The candle flickered, went out; there was no need of it in the growing radiance— not grey now, but blue.

Powell rose to his feet with a little shiver, and a vague idea of making a fire lest the sleeper should need anything when he awoke. Surely Dick was very still! Something in the attitude of the motionless figure struck Powell, and he bent over the rough bed. The pale clear light fell full on Warrington’s face, and his old friend drew back; the wanderer had been right, he had departed before sunrise.

Hardly knowing what he did, Powell went out of the hut into the exquisite freshness of the dawn, and the risen sun sent a shaft of gold across the dewy grass to his feet. He walked on a little way, trying to collect his thoughts. All round him was the awakened woodland, rejoicing in the glory of the new day, he himself the only unhappy thing, a blot on that fair peace. Presently he came to a cottage, where a woman was milking cows. It was no matter of surprise to her that gentlefolk should be abroad at that hour. She merely supposed him to be a restless tourist or insatiate butterfly-destroyer, and supplied him with the milk he desired and a slice of bread. Powell ate this meal sitting on a bank opposite the cottage; then bidding farewell to the milker, he took hie way back as he thought to the hut. But he could not find the open glade where stood the odd little dwelling. No matter, he would return to the cottage and inquire; there could not be many such huts in the forest, the woman would be able to tell him.

Woodland ways are confusing; Powell tried first one white road, then another, yet he failed to find a cottage. After walking for nearly an hour, he came upon a fallen tree, and sat down. The food had calmed him, that and the dawn miracle, his mind was clear and quiet. Here in this radiant morning the past night seemed unreal, incredible. Had he sat in that hut?— talked with a man believed dead a year ago?— seen him die? Or was it all a shadowy horror before dawn?— an evil dream to be forgotten ? Here was the fresh beauty of the summer day, and at Barrow Down the wind would be blowing the white rose petals, and Amy would be waking to her wedding morning while he was on his way to darken her happiness with the risen ghost of past grief— with a memory of present pain that would be as a cloud throughout her life.

There was pain enough in the world, was he bound to cause more? Almost the past night seemed to him a vision; would it be wiser, better to let it remain a vision, seen only by himself? Had he not followed the piper? Why did he? Powell was as free from superstition as any man, but when he recalled the spell of that weird piping— well, he drove it from his mind, he could not solve the mystery. An evil weed of Lethe truly, for that uncanny music had led him to that other weed of Lethe. Once more the question presented itself; that poor weed had but risen for a moment, to sink again beneath the waves of oblivion; must he speak of that brief rising? Silence would hurt no one. Powell rose to his feet.

“Whether I am right or wrong I cannot tell,” he said aloud, “but I will be silent.”

He took the first road he could find, and presently met a labourer who directed him to Crowhurst.

“It was about five miles off,” the man said.

As Powell walked on a familiar voice hailed him, and to his astonishment he saw Yates advancing from a side path.

“Oh, here you are!” ejaculated the barrister. “That’s right! I’m thankful to see a human being, particularly yourself. Where are we? Does this road lead to Crowhurst? Powell, I’ve spent the night in the forest. I lost my way!”

“So did I.”

“Did you? Well, it happened thus. I started for Barrow Down after dinner, thinking I should meet you, but met the old snake-catcher instead, who told me he had seen you following that mysterious piper; and as there is something uncommonly odd abont that pied fellow, I thought I had better follow too. It is such a slur on the best man if he loses the bridegroom! ”

“Did yon hear the piper?”

“The music?— yes, and went after it like a boy after a butterfly. It led me through the woods for what seemed hours, then suddenly stopped close by a church with an inviting porch. There, the piping having ceased, I sat down to rest and fell asleep, praising the charity of our forefathers who built porches to churches. When I awoke it was broad day, but nobody about. I suppose there must have been a village near, but I didn’t see it. I set out to find a guide and rambled here. Most extraordinary night! The piper is either the devil or Pan in disguise, else how could he drag us both about the place like that? However, it does not matter, since all’s well.”

“Yes,” replied Powell, “all’s well.”

________________

2: A Straggler of '15

Arthur Conan Doyle

1859-1930

Black & White, 21 March 1891

World's News (Sydney) 25 March 1905

Tales of Ring and Camp, John Murray, 1922

Arthur Ignatius Conan Doyle

One of Doyle's own favourite short stories, rarely reprinted.

IT WAS a dull October morning, and heavy, rolling fog-wreaths lay low over the wet, grey roofs of the Woolwich houses.

There were few folk in the streets, for the toilers bad all been absorbed since break of day by the huge, smoke-spouting monster, which sucked in the manhood of the town, to belch it forth, weary and work-stained, every night. Stout women, with thick red arms and dirty aprons, stood upon the whitened doorsteps, leaning upon their brooms, and shrieking their morning greetings across the road. One had gathered a small knot of cronies around her, and was talking energetically, with little shrill titters from her audience to punctuate her remarks.

"Old enough to know better!" she cried, in answer to an exclamation from one of the listeners. "Why, 'ow old is he at all? Blessed if I could ever make out."

"Well, it ain't so hard to reckon," said a sharp-featured, pale-faced woman, with wateryblue eyes. "He's been at the battle o' Waterloo, and has the pension and medal to prove it."

"That were a ter'ble long time agone," remarked a third. "It were afore I were born."

"It were fifteen year after the beginnin' of the century," cried a younger woman, who had stood leaning against the wall, with a smile of superior knowledge upon her face. "My Bill was a-saying so last Sabbath, when I spoke to him o' old Daddy Brewster, here."

"And suppose he spoke truth, Missus Simpson, 'ow long agone do that make It?"

"It's eighty-one now," said the original speaker, checking off the years upon her coarse, red fingers, "and that were fifteen. Ten, and ten, and ten, and ten, and ten— why, it's only sixty and six year, so he ain't so old after all."

"But he weren't a new-born babe at the battle, silly," cried the young woman with a chuckle. "S'pose he were only twenty, then he couldn't be less than six-and-eighty now, at the lowest"

"Ay, he's that— every day of it," cried several. "I've had 'bout enough of it," remarked the large woman, gloomily. "Unless his young niece, or grand-niece, or whatever she is, comes to-day, I'm off; and he can find someone else to do his work. Your own 'ome first, says I."

"Ain't he quiet, then, Missus Simpson?" asked the youngest of the group.

"Lieten to him now." she answered, with her hand half-raised, and her head turned slant-wise towards the open door. From the upper floor came a shuffling, sliding sound, with a sharp tapping of a stick. "There he go back and forrards doing what he call his sentry-go. 'Arf the night through he's at that game, the silly old juggins. At six o'clock this very mornin', there he was beatin' with a stick at my door. 'Turn out guard,' he cried, and a lot more jargon that I could make nothing of. Then what with his coughin' and 'awkin' and spittin', there ain't no gettin' a wink o' sleep. Hark to him now!"

"Missus Simpson! Missus Simpson!" cried a cracked and querulous voice from above.

"That's him!" she cried, nodding her head with an air of triumph. "He do go on somethin' scandalous. Yes, Mister Brewster, sir."

"I want my morning ration, Missus Simpson."

"It's just ready, Mister Brewster, sir.

"Blessed if he ain't like a baby cryin' for its pap." said the young woman.

"I feel as if I could shake his old bones up sometimes," cried Mrs. Simpson viciously. "But who's for a 'arf of fourpenny?"

The whole company were about to shuffle off to the public-house when a young girl stepped across the road, and touched the housekeeper timidly unon the arm. "I think that is No. 56, Arsenal View," she said. "Can you tell me if Mr. Brewster lives there?"

The housekeeper looked critically at the new-comer. She was a girl of about twenty, broad-faced and comely, with a turned-up nose and large honest grey eyes. Her print dress, her straw hat with its hunch of glaring poppies, and the bundle she carried had all a smack of the country.

"You're Norah Brewster, I s'pose," said Mrs. Simpson, eyeing her up and down with no friendly gaze.

"Yes; I've come to look after my grand-uncle Gregory."

"And a good job, too," cried the housekeeper, with a toss of her head. "It's about time that some of his own folk took a turn at it, for I've had enough of it. There you are, young woman! in you go, and make yourself at home. There's tea in the caddy, and bacon on the dresser, and the old man will be about you if you don't fetch him his breakfast. I'll send for my things in the evenin'."

With a nod she strolled off with her attendant gossips in the direction of the public-house.

Thus left to her own devices, the country girl walked into the front room and took off her hat and jacket. This done, she looked round curiously at the prints upon the walls. Over the fireplace, in a small square case, a brown medal caught her eye, hanging from a strip of purple ribbon. Beneath was a slip of newspaper cutting. She stood on her tiptoes, with her fingers on the edge of the mantelpiece, and craned her neck up to see it, glancing down from time to time at the bacon, which simmered and hissed beneath her. The cutting was yellow with age, and ran in this way:—

"On Tuesday an Interesting ceremony was performed at the barracks of the 3rd Regiment of Guards, when, in the presence of the Prince Regent, Lord Hill, Lord Saltourn, and an assemblage which comprised beauty as well as valor, a special medal was presented to Corporal Gregory Brewster, of Captain Haldane's flank company, in recognition of his gallantry in the recent great battle In the Lowlands. It appears that on the ever-memorable 18th of June, four companies of the 3rd Guards and of the Coldstreams, under the command of Colonels Maitland and Byng, held the important farm-house of Hougoumont, at the right of the British position. At a critical point of the action these troops found themselves short of powder. Seeing that Generals Foy and Jerome Bounaparte were again massing their infantry for an attack on the position, Colonel Byng despatched Corporal Brewster to the rear to hasten up the reserve ammunition. Brewster came upon two powder tumbrils of the Nassau division, and succeeded, after menacing the drivers with his musket, in inducing them to convey their powder to Hougoumont. In his absence, however, the hedges surrounding the position had been set on fire by a howitzer battery of the French, and the passage of the carts full of powder became a most hazardous matter. The first tumbril exploded, blowing the driver to fragments. Daunted by the fate of his comrade, the second driver turned his horses, but Corporal Brewster, springing upon his seat, hurled the man down, and, urging the powder cart through the flames, succeeded in forcing a way to his companions. To his gallant deed may be directly attributed the success of the British arms, for without powder it would have been impossible to have held Hougoumont, and the Duke of Wellington had repeatedly declared that had Hougoumont fallen, as well as La Haye Sainte, he would have found it impossible to have held his ground. Long may the heroic Brewster live to treasure the medal which he has so bravely won, and to look back with pride to the day when in the presence of his comrades he received this tribute to his valor from the august hands of the first gentleman of the realm."

The reading of this old cutting increased in the girl's mind, the veneration which, she had al-ways had for her warrior kinsman. From her infancy he had been her hero, and she remem-bered how her father used to speak of his cour-age and his strength, how he could strike down a bullock with a blow of his fist, and carry a fat sheep under either arm. True that she had never seen him, but a rude painting at home, which depicted a square-faced, clean-shaven, stalwart man, with a great bearskin cap, rose ever before her memory when she thought of him.

She was still gazing at the brown medal and wondering what the "dulce et decorum est" might mean, which was inscribed upon the edge, when there came a sudden tapping and shuffling upon the stair, and there at the door was standing the very man who had been so often in her thoughts.

But could this indeed be he? Where was the martial air, the flashing eye, the warrior face which she had pictured? There, framed in the doorway, was a huge, twisted old man, gaunt and puckered, with twitching hands and shuffling, purposeless feet. A cloud of fluffy white hair, a red-veined nose, two thick turts of eyebrow, and a pair of dimly questioning, watery-blue eyes— these were what met her gaze. He leaned forward upon a stick, while his shoulders rose and fell with his crackling, rasping breathing.

"I want my morning rations," he crooned, as he stumped forward to his chair. "The cold nips me without 'em. See to my fingers!"

He held out his distorted hands, all blue at the tips, wrinkled and gnarled, with huge, projecting knuckles.

"It's nigh ready," answered the girl, gazing at him with wonder in her eyes. "Don't you know who I am, grand-uncle? I am Norah Brewster, from Witham."

"Rum is warm," mumbled the old man, rock- ing to and fro in his chair, "and schnapps is warm, and there's 'eat in soup, but it's a dish o' tea for me. What did you say your name was?"

"Norah Brewster."

"You can speak out, lass. Seems to me folk's voices isn't so loud as they used."

"I'm Norah Brewster, uncle. I'm your grand-niece, come from down Essex way to live with you."

"You'll be brother Jarge's girl! Lor', to think o' little Jarge having a girl."

He chuckled hoarsely to himself, and the long, stringy sinews of his throat jerked and quivered.

"I am the daughter of your brother George's son," said she as she turned the bacon.

"Lor', but little Jarge was a rare 'un," he continued. "Eh, by Jimini, there was no chousing Jarge. He's got a bull pup o' mine that I gave him when I took the bounty. You've heard him speak of it, likely?"

"Why, grandpa George has been dead this twenty years," said she, pouring out the tea.

"Well, it was a bootiful pup— ay, a well-bred 'un, by Jimini! I'm cold for lack of my rations. Rum is good, and so is schnapps, but I'd as lief have tea as either."

He breathed heavily while he devoured his food.

"It's a middlin' goodish way you've come," said he at last. "Likely the stage left yesternight."

"The what, uncle?"

"The coach that brought you."

"Nay, I came by the mornin' train."

"Lor' now, think o' that! You ain't afeared of those new-fangled things! To think of you coming by railroad like that! What's the world a-comin' to?"

There was silence for some minutes while Norah sat stirring her tea and glancing sideways at the bluish lips and champing jaws of her companion.

"You must have seen a deal of life, uncle," said she. "It must seem a long, long time to you!"

"Not so very long, neither. I'm ninety come Candlemas, but it don't seem long since I took the bounty. And that battle, it might have been yesterday. I've got the smell of the burned powder in my nose yet. Eh, but I get a power o' good from my rations!"

He did indeed look less worn and colorless than when she first saw him. His face was flushed and his back more erect.

"Have you read that?" he asked, Jerking his head towards the cutting.

"Yes, uncle, and I am sure you must be proud of it."

"Ah, it was a great day for me! A great day! The Regent was there, and a fine body of a man, too! 'The ridgment is proud of you,' says he. 'And I'm proud of the ridgment,' says I. 'A damned good answer too!' says he to Lord Hill, and they both bust out a-laughing But what be you a-peepin' out o' the window for?"

"Oh, uncle, here's a regiment of soldiers coming down the street, with the band playing in front of them."

"A ridgment, eh? "Where be my glasses? Lor' but I can hear the band, as plain as plain. Here's the pioneers an' the drum-major! What be their number, lass?"

His eyes were shining and his bony, yellow fingers, like the claws of some fierce old bird, dug into her shoulder.

"They don't seem to have no number, uncle. They've something wrote on their shoulders. Oxfordshire, I think it be."

"Ah, yes," he growled. "I heard as they'd dropped the numbers, and given them newfangled names. There they go, by Jimini! They're young, mostly, but they hain't forgot how to march. They have the swing— ay, I'll say that for them. They've got the swing."

He gazed after them until the last files had turned the corner and the measured tramp of their marching had died away in the distance.

He had just regained his chair when the door opened and a gentleman stepped in.

"Ah, Mr. Brewster! Better to-day?" he asked.

"Come in, doctor! Yes, I'm better. But there's a deal o' bubbling in my chest. It's all them toobes. If I could but cut the phlegm I'd be right. Can't ye get me something to cut the phlegm?"

The doctor, a grave-faced young man, put his fingers to the furrowed blue-corded wrist.

"You must be careful," he said; "you must take no liberties."

The thin tide of life seemed to thrill rather than to throb under his finger.

The old man chuckled. "I've got brother Jarge's girl to look after me now. She'll see I don't break barracks or do what I hadn't ought to; why, darn my skin,  I knew something was amiss!"

"With what?"

"Why, with them soldiers. You saw them pass, doctor— eh? They've forgot their stocks. Not one on 'em had his stock on." He croaked and chuckled for a long time over his discovery. "It wouldn't ha' done for the Dook!" he muttered. "No, by Jimini! the Dook would ha' had word there."

The doctor smiled. "Well, you are doing very well," said he. "I'll look in once a week or so and seo how you are!" As Norah followed him to the door he beckoned her outside. "He is very weak," he whispered. "If you find him failing you must send for me."

"What ails him, doctor?"

"Ninety years ail him. His arteries are pipes of lime. His heart is shrunken and nabby. The man is worn out."

Norah stood watching the brisk figure of the young doctor and pondering over hese new re-sponsibilities which had come upon her. When she turned, a tall, brown-faced artilleryman, with the three gold chevrons of sergeant upon his arm, was standing, carbine in hand at her elbow.

"Good morning, miss!" said he, raising one thick finger to his jaunty, yellow-banded cap. "I b'lieve there's an old gentleman lives here of the name of Brewster, who was engaged in the battle of Waterloo?"

"It's my grand-uncle, sir," said Norah, cast-ing down her eyes before the keen, critical gaze of the young soldier. "He is in the front parlor."

"Could I have a word with him, miss? I'll call again if it don't chance to be convenient."

"I am sure that he would be very glad to see you, sir. He's in here, if you'll step in. Uncle, here's a gentleman who wants to speak with you."

"Proud to see you, sir— proud and glad, sir!" cried the sergeant, taking three steps forward into the room and grounding his carbine while he raised his hand, palm forwards, in a salute.

Norah stood by the door with her mouth and eyes open, wondering whether her grand-uncle had ever, in his prime, looked like this magnificent creature, and whether he, in his turn, would ever come to resemble her grand-uncle.

The old man blinked up at his visitor, and shook his head slowly.

"Sit ye down sergeant," said he, pointing with his stick to a chair. "You're full young for the stripes. Lordy, it's easier to get three now than one in my day. Gunners were old soldiers then, and the grey hairs came quicker than the three stripes."

"I am eight years' service, sir." cried the ser-geant. "Macdonald is my name— Sergeant Macdonald, of H Battery, Southern Artillery Division. I have called as the spokesman of my mates at the gunners' barracks to say that we are proud to have you in the town, sir."

Old Brewster chuckled, and rubbed his bony hands.

"That were what the Regent said," he cried. " 'The ridgment is proud of ye,' says he. 'And I am proud of the ridgment,' says I. 'And a damned good answer, too,' says he, and he and Lord Hill bust out— a-laughin'."

"The non-commissioned mess would be proud and honored to see you, sir," said Sergeant Macdonald. "And, if you could step as far, you'll always find a pipe o' baccy and a glass of grog awaitin' you."

The old man laughed until he coughed.

"Like to see me, would they? The dogs!" said he. "Well, well, when the warm weather comes again I'll maybe drop in. It's likely that I'll drop in. Too grand for a canteen, eh? Got your mess just the same as the orficers. What's the world a-coming to at all!"

"You was in the line, sir, was you not?" asked the sergeant respectfully.

"The line?" cried the old man with shrill scorn. "Never wore a shako in my life. I am a Guardsman, I am. Served in the 3rd Guards— the same they call now the Scots Guards. Lordy, but they have all marched away, every man of them, from old Colonel Byng down to the drummer boys, and here am I a straggler— that's what I am, sergeant, a straggler! I'm here when I ought to be there. But it ain't my fault neither, for I'm ready to fall in when the word comes."

"We've all got to muster there," answered the sergeant. "Won't you try my baccy, sir?" handing over a sealskin pouch.

Old Brewster drew a blackened clay pipe from his pocket, and began to stuff the tobacco into the bowl. In an instant it slipped through his fingers and was broken to pieces on the floor. His lip quivered, his nose puckered up, and he began crying with the long, helpless sobs of a child.

"I've broke my pipe," he cried.

"Don't, uncle, oh don't," cried Norah, bending over him and patting his white head as one soothes a baby. "It don't matter. We can easy get another."

"Don't you fret yourself, sir," said the sergeant. " 'Ere's a wooden pipe with an amber mouth, If you'll do me the honor to accept it from me. I'd be real glad if you will take it."

"Jimini!" cried he, his smiles breaking in an instant through his tears. "It's a fine pipe. See to my new pipe, Norah. I lay that Jarge never had a pipe like that. You've got your firelock there, sergeant."

"Yes, sir; I was on my way back from the butts when I looked in."

"Let me have the feel of it. Lordy, but it seems like old times to have one's hand on a musket. What's the manual, sergeant, eh? Cock your firelock—look to your priming— present your firelock— eh, sergeant? Oh, Jimini! I've broke your musket in halves!"

"That's all right, sir," cried the gunner, laughing; "you pressed on the lever and opened the breech-piece. That's where we load 'em, you know."

"Load 'em at the wrong end! Well, well, to think o' that. And no ramrod, neither! I've heerd tell of it, but I never believed it afore. Ah, it won't come up to Brown Bess. When there's work to be done you mark my word and see if, they don't come back to Brown Besst"

"By the Lord, sir," cried the sergeant hotly, "they need some change out in South Africa row. I see by this mornin's paper that the Government has knuckled under to these Boers. They're hot about it at the non-com. mess, I can tell you, sir."

"Eh, eh," croaked old Brewster. "By Gosh! It wouldn't ha' done for the Dook; the Dook would ha' had a word to say over that!"

"Ah, that he would, sir," cried the sergeant; "and God send us another like him. But I've wearied you enough for one sitting. I'll look in again, and I'll bring a comrade or two with me if I may, for there isn't one but would be proud to have speech with you."

So, with another salute to the veteran and a gleam of white teeth at Norah, the big gunner withdrew, leaving a memory of blue cloth and of gold braid behind him. Many days had not passed, however, before he was back again, and during all the long winter he was a frequent visitor at Arsenal View. He brought others with him, and soon, through all the lines, a pilgrimage to Daddy Brewster's came to be looked upon as the proper thing to do. Gunners and sappers, linesmen and dragoons, came bowing and bobbing into the little parlor, with clatter of side-arms and clink of spurs, stretching their long legs across the patchwork rug, and hunting in the front of their tunics for the screw of tobacco or paper of snuff which they had brought as a sign of their esteem.

It was a deadly cold winter, with six weeks on end of snow on the ground, and Norah had a hard task to keep the life in that time-worn body. There were times when his mind would leavis him, and when, save an animal outcry when the hour of his meals came round, no word would fall from him. As the warm weather came once more, however, and the green buds peeped forth again upon the trees, the blood thawed in his veins, and he would even drag himself as far as the door to bask in the life-giving sunshine.

"It do hearten me up so," he said one morning, as he glowed in a hot May sun. "It's a job to keep back the flies, though! They get owdacious in this weather and they do plague me cruel."

"I'll keep them off you, uncle," said Norah.

"Eh, but it's fine! This sunshine makes me think o' the glory to come. You might read me a bit o' the Bible, lass: I find It wonderful soothing."

"What part would you like, uncle?"

"Oh, them wars."

"The wars?"

"Ay, keep to the wars! Give me the Old Testament for chice. There's more taste to it, to my mind! When parson comes he wants to get off to something else, but it's Joshua or nothing with me. Them Israelites was good soldiers— good growed soldiers, all of 'em."

"But, uncle," pleaded Norah, "it's all peace in the next world."

"No it ain't, gal."

"Oh, yes, uncle, surely!"

The old corporal knocked his stick irritably upon the ground.

"I tell ye it ain't, gal. I asked parson."

"Well, what did he say?"

"He said there was to be a last light. He even gave it a name, he did. The battle of Arm—Arm—"

"Armageddon."

"Ay, that's the name parson said. I 'specs the 3rd Guards'll be there. And the Dook— the Dook'll have a word to say."

An elderly, grey-whiskered gentleman had been walking down the street, glancing up at the numbers of the houses. Now, as his eye? fell upon the old man, he came straight for him.

"Hullo," said he; "perhaps you are Gregory Brewster?"

"My name, sir," answered the veteran.

"You are the same Brewster, as I understand, who is on the roll of the Scots Guards as having been present at the battle at Waterloo?"

"I am that man, sir, though we called it the 3rd Guards in those days. It was a fine regiment, and they only need me to make up a full muster."

"Tut, tut, they'll have to wait years for that," said the gentleman heartily; "but I am the colonel of the Scots Guards, and I thought I would like to have a word with you."

Old Gregory Brewster was up in an instant with his hand to his rabbit-skin cap.

"God bless me!" he cried; "to think of it, to think of it."

"Hadn't the gentleman better come in?" suggested the practical Norah from behind the door.

"Surely, sir, surely; walk in, sir, if I may be so bold."

In his excitement he had forgotten his stick, and as he led the way into the parlor his knees tottered and he threw out his hands. In an instant the colonel had caught him on one side, and Norah on the other.

"Easy and steady," said the colonel, as he led him to his armchair.

"Thank ye, sir; I was near gone that time, But, Lordy, why. I can scarce believe it. To think of me, the corporal o' the flank company, and you the colonel of the battalion, Jimini! how things come round, to be sure."

"Why, we are very proud of you in London," said the Colonel. "And so you are actually on of the men who held Hougoumont?" He looked at the bony, trembling hands with their huge, knotted knuckles, the stringy throat, and the heaving rounded shoulders. Could this in- deed, be the last of that band of heroes? Then he glanced at the half-filled phials, the blue liniment bottles, the long-spouted kettle, and the sordid details of the sick-room. "Better, surely, had he died under the blazing rafters of the Belgian farmhouse," thought the colonel.

"I hope that you are pretty comfortable and happy," he remarked after a pause.

"Thank ye, sir. I have a good deal of trouble with my toobes— a deal of trouble. You wouldn't think the job it is to cut the phlegm. And I need my rations. I gets cold without 'em. And the flies! I ain't strong enough to light against them."

"How's the memory?" asked the colonel.

"Oh, there ain't nothing amiss there. Why, sir, I could give you the name of every man in Captain Haldane's flank company."

"And the battle— you remember it?"

"Why, I sees it all afore me every time I shuts my eyes. Lordy, sir, you Wouldn't hardly believe how clear it is to me. There's our line from the paregoric bottle right along to the snuff-box. D'ye see? Well, then, the pill-box is for Hougoumont on the right, where we was; and Norah's thimble for La Haye Sainte There it is all right, sir, and here were our guns, and here, behind, the reserves and the Belgians. Ach, them Belgians!" He spat furiously into the fire. "Then here's the French where my pipe lies, and over here, where I put my baccy pouch, was the Proosians a-comin' up on our left flank. Jimini! but it was a glad sight to see the smoke of their guns."

"And what was it that struck you most, now, in connection with the whole affair?" asked the colonel.

"I lost three half-crowns over it, I did," crooned old Brewster. "I shouldn't wonder if I was never to get that money now. I lent 'em to Jabez Smith, my rear rank man, in Brussels, 'Only till pay-day. Grig.' says he. By Gosh! he was struck by a lancer at Quarter Brass, and me with not so much as a slip o' paper to prove the debt! Them three half-crowns is as good as lost to me."

The colonel rose from his chair, laughing. "The officers of the Guards want you to buy yourself some little trifle which may add to your comfort," he said. "It is not from me, so you need not thank me."

He took up the old man's tobacco pouch and slipped a crisp banknote inside it.

"Thank ye kindly, sir. But there's one favor that I would like to ask you, Colonel."

"Yes, my man?"

"If I'm called, Colonel, you won't grudge me a flag and a firing-party?"

"All right, my man, I'll see to it," said the Colonel. "Good-bye; I hope to have nothing but good news from you."

"A kind gentleman, Norah," croaked old Brewster, as they saw him walk past the window; "but, Lordy, he ain't fit to hold the stirrup of my Colonel Byng."

It was on the very next day that the corporal took a sudden change for the worse. Even the golden sunlight streaming through the window seemed unable to warm that withered frame. The doctor came and shook his head in silence. All day the man lay with only his putting blue lips and the twitching of his scraggy neck to show that he still held the breath of life. Norah and Sergeant Macdonald had sat by him in the afternoon, but he had shown no consciousness of their presence. He lay peacefully, his eyes half-closed, his hands under his cheek, as one who is very weary.

They had left him for an instant, and were sit-ting in the front room where Norah was preparing the tea, when of a sudden they heard a shout that rang through the house. Loud and clear and swelling, it pealed in their ears, a voice full of strength and energy and flery passion.

"The Guards need powder," it cried, and, yet again, "the Guards need powder."

The sergeant sprang from his chair and rushed in, followed by the trembling Norah. There was the old man standing up, his blue eyes sparkling, his white hair bristling, his whole figure towering and expanding, with eagle head and glance of fire.

"The Guards need powder," he thundered once again, "and by God, they shall have it!"

He threw up his long arms and sank back with a groan into his chair. The sergeant stooped over him, and his face darkened.

"Oh, Archie, Archie," sobbed the frightened girl, "what do you think of him?"

The sergeant turned away.

"I think," he said, "that the 3rd Guards have a full muster now."

_______________

3: The Wraith of Barnjum

F. Anstey

1856-1934

Temple Bar, March 1879

Thomas Anstey Guthrie.

I FRANKLY ADMIT, whatever may be the consequences of doing so, that I was not fond of Barnjum; in fact, I detested him. Everything that fellow said and did jarred upon me to an absolutely indescribable extent, although I did not discover for some time that he regarded me with a strange and unreasonable aversion.

We were so essentially unlike in almost every particular— I, with my innate refinement and high culture, my over-fastidious exclusiveness in the choice of associates; and he, a big, red, coarse brute, with neither sweetness nor light, who knew himself a Philistine, and seemed to like it— we were so unlike, that I often asked him, with a genuine desire for information, what had I in common with him?

And yet it will scarcely be believed, perhaps, that with such good reasons for keeping apart, we were continually seeking one another's company with a zest that knew no satiety. The only explanation I can offer for such a phenomenon is, that our mutual antipathy had become so much a part of ourselves, that we could not let it perish for lack of nourishment.

Perhaps we were not conscious of this at the time, and when we agreed to go on a walking tour together in North Wales, I think it was chiefly because we knew that we could devise no surer means of annoying one another; but, however that may be, in an ill-starred day for my own peace of mind, we started upon a journey from which but one of us was fated to return.

I pass by the painful experiences of the first few days of that unhappy tour. I will say nothing of Barnjum's grovelling animalism, of his consummate selfishness, his more than bucolic indifference to the charms of Nature, nor even of the mean and sordid way in which he contrived to let me in for railway tickets and hotel bills.

I wish to tell my melancholy story with perfect impartiality, and I am sure that I am not reduced to exciting any prejudice to secure the sympathies of all readers.

I shall pass, then, to the memorable day when my disgust, so long pent up, so imperfectly concealed, culminated in one grand outburst of a not ignoble indignation, to the hour when I summoned up moral courage to sever the bonds which linked us so unequally.

I remember it so well, that brilliant morning in June when we left the Temperance Hotel, Doldwyddlm, and scaled in sulky silence the craggy heights of Cader Idris, which, I presume, still overhang that picturesque village, while, as we ascended, an ever-changing and ever-improving panorama unrolled itself before my delighted eyes.

The air up there was keen and bracing, and I recollect that I could not repress an æsthetic shudder at the crude and primitive tone which Barnjum's nose had assumed under atmospheric influences. I mentioned this (for we still maintained the outward forms of friendship), when he retorted, with the brutal personality which formed so strong an ingredient of his character, that if I could only see myself in that suit of mine, and that hat (referring to the dress I was then wearing), I should feel the propriety of letting his nose alone. To which I replied, with a sarcasm that I feel now was a little too crushing, that I had every intention of doing so, as it was quite painful enough to merely contemplate such a spectacle; and he, evidently meaning to be offensive, remarked, that no one could help his nose getting red, but that any man in my position could at least dress like a gentleman. I took no notice of this insult; a Bunting (I don't think I mentioned before that my name is Philibert Bunting)— a Bunting can afford to pass such insinuations by; indeed, I find it actually cheaper to do so, and I flattered myself that my dress was distinguished by a sort of studied looseness, that would appeal at once to a cultivated and artistic eye, though of course Barnjum's hard and shallow organs could not be expected to appreciate it.

I overlooked it, then, and presently we found ourselves skirting the edge of a huge chasm, whose steep sides sloped sheer down into the slate-blue waters of the lake below.

How can I hope to give an idea of the magnificent view which met our eyes as we stood there— a view of which, as far as I am aware, no description has ever yet been attempted?

To our right towered the Peaks of Dolgelly, with their saw-like outline cutting the blue sky with a faint grating sound, while the shreds of white cloud lay below in drifts. At our feet were the sun-lit waters of the lake, upon which danced a fleet of brown-sailed herring-boats; beyond was the plain of Capel Curig, and there, over on the left, sparkled the falls of Y-Dydd.

As I took all this in I felt a longing to say something worthy of the occasion. Being possessed of a considerable fund of carefully-dried and selected humour, I frequently amuse myself by a species of intellectual exercise, which consists in so framing a remark that a word or more therein may bear two entirely opposite constructions; and some of the quaint names of the vicinity seemed to me just then admirably adapted for this purpose.

I was about to gauge my dull-witted companion's capacity by some such test, when he forestalled me.

'You ought to live up here, Bunting,' said he; 'you were made for this identical old mountain.'

I was not displeased, for, Londoner as I am, I have the nerve and steadiness of a practised mountaineer.

'Perhaps I was,' I said good-humouredly; 'but how did you find it out?'

'I'll tell you,' he replied, with one of his odious grins. 'This is Cader Idris, ain't it? well, and you're a cad awry dressed, ain't you? Cader Idrissed, see?' (he was dastard enough to explain) 'That's how I get at it!'

He must have been laboriously leading up to that for the last ten minutes!

I solemnly declare that it was not the personal outrage that roused me; I simply felt that a paltry verbal quibble of that description, emitted amidst such scenery and at that altitude, required a protest in the name of indignant Nature, and I protested accordingly, although with an impetuosity which I afterwards regretted, and of which I cannot even now entirely approve.

He happened to be standing on the brink of an abyss, and had just turned his back upon me, as, with a vigorous thrust of my right foot, I launched him into the blue æther, with the chuckle at his unhallowed jest still hovering upon his lips.

I am aware that by such an act I took a liberty which, under ordinary circumstances, even the licence of a life-long friendship would scarcely have justified; but I thought it only due to myself to let him see plainly that I desired our acquaintanceship to cease from that instant, and Barnjum was the kind of man upon whom a more delicate hint would have been distinctly thrown away.

I watched his progress with some interest as he rebounded from point to point during his descent. I waited— punctiliously, perhaps, until the echoes he had aroused had died away on the breeze, and then, slowly and thoughtfully, I retraced my steps, and left a spot which was already becoming associated for me with memories the reverse of pleasurable.

I TOOK the next up-train, and before I reached town had succeeded in dismissing the incident from my mind, or if I thought of it at all, it was only to indulge relief at the reflection that I had shaken off Barnjum for ever.

But when I had paid my cab, and was taking out my latch-key, a curious thing happened— the driver called me back.

'Beg pardon, sir,' he said hoarsely, 'but I think you've bin and left something white in my cab!'

I turned and looked in: there, grinning at me from the interior of the hansom, over the folding-doors, was the wraith of Barnjum!

I had presence of mind enough to thank the man for his honesty, and go upstairs to my rooms with as little noise as possible. Barnjum's ghost, as I expected, followed me in, and sat down coolly before the fire, in my arm-chair, thus giving me an opportunity of subjecting the apparition to a thorough examination.

It was quite the conventional ghost, filmy, transparent, and, though wanting firmness in outline, a really passable likeness of Barnjum. Before I retired to rest I had thrown both my boots and the contents of my bookcase completely through the thing, without appearing to cause it more than a temporary inconvenience— which convinced me that it was indeed a being from another world.

Its choice of garments struck me even then as decidedly unusual. I am not narrow; I cheerfully allow that, assuming the necessity for apparitions at all, it is well that they should be clothed in robes of some kind; but Barnjum's ghost delighted in a combination of costume which set the fitness of things at defiance.

It wore that evening, for instance, to the best of my recollection, striped pantaloons, a surplice, and an immense cocked hat; but on subsequent occasions its changes of costume were so rapid and eccentric, that I ceased to pay much attention to them, and could only explain them on the supposition that somewhere in space there exists a supernatural store in the nature of a theatrical wardrobe, and that Barnjum's ghost had the run of it.

I had not been in very long before my landlady came up to see if I wanted anything, and of course as soon as she came in, she saw the wraith. At first she objected to it very strongly, declaring that she would not have such nasty things in her house, and if I wanted to keep ghosts, I had better go somewhere else; but I pacified her at last by representing that it would give her no extra trouble, and that I was only taking care of it for a friend.

When she had gone, however, I sat up till late, thinking calmly over my position, and the complications which might be expected to ensue from it.

It would be very easy to harrow the reader's feelings and work upon his sympathies here by a telling description of my terror and my guilty confusion at the unforeseen consequences of what I had done. But I think, in relating an experience of this kind, the straightforward way is always the best, and I do not care to heighten the effect by attributing to myself a variety of sensations which I do not remember to have actually felt at the time.

My first impression had not unnaturally been that the spectre was merely the product of overwrought nerves or indigestion, but it seemed improbable that a cabman should be plagued by a morbid activity of imagination, and that a landlady's digestion could be delicate sufficiently to evolve a thing so far removed from the merely commonplace; and, reluctantly enough, I was forced to the conclusion that it was a real ghost, and would probably continue to haunt me to the end of my days.

Of course I was disgusted by this exhibition of petty revenge and low malice on the part of Barnjum, which might be tolerated perhaps in a Christmas annual, with a full-page illustration, but which, in real life and the height of summer, was a glaring anachronism.

Still, it was of no use to repine then; I resolved to look at the thing in a common-sense light— I told myself that I had made my ghost, and would have to live with it. And after all, I had much to be thankful for: Barnjum in the spirit was a decided improvement upon Barnjum in the flesh; and as the spirit did not appear to be gifted with speech, it was unlikely to tell tales.

Luckily for me, too, Barnjum was absolutely unknown about town: his only relative was an aunt resident at Camberwell, and so there was no danger of any suspicion being excited by chance recognition in the circles to which I belonged.

It would have been folly to shut one's eyes to the fact that it might require considerable nerve to re-enter society closely attended by an obscure and fancifully-attired apparition.

Society would sneer considerably at first and make remarks, but I was full of tact and knowledge of the world, and I knew, too, that men have overcome far more formidable obstacles to social success than any against which I should be called upon to contend.

And so, instead of weakly giving way to unreasonable panic, I took the more manly course of determining to live it down, with what success I shall have presently to show.

When I went out after breakfast the next morning, Barnjum's ghost insisted upon coming too, and followed me, to my intense annoyance, all down St. James's Street; in fact, for many weeks it was almost constantly by my side, and rendered me the innocent victim of mingled curiosity and aversion.

I thought it best to affect to be unaware of the presence of anything of a ghostly nature, and when taxed with it, ascribed it to the diseased fancy of my interlocutor; but, by-and-by, as the whole town began to ring with the story, I found it impossible to pretend ignorance any longer.

So I gave out that it was an artfully-contrived piece of spectral mechanism, of which I was the inventor, and for which I contemplated taking out a patent; and this would have earned for me a high reputation in the scientific world if Messrs. Maskelyne and Cooke had not grown envious of my fame, declaring that they had long since anticipated the secret of my machine, and could manufacture one in every way superior to it, which they presently did.

Then I was obliged to confide (in the strictest secrecy) to two members of the Peerage (both persons of irreproachable breeding, with whom I was at that time exceedingly intimate) that it was indeed a bonâ fide apparition, and that I rather liked such things about me. I cannot explain how it happened, but in a very short time the story had gone the round of the clubs and drawing-rooms, and I found myself launched as a lion of the largest size— if it is strictly correct to speak of launching a lion.

I received invitations everywhere, on the tacit understanding that I was to bring my ghost, and the wraith of Barnjum, as some who read this may remember, was to be seen at all the best houses in town for the remainder of the season; while in the following autumn, I was asked down for the shooting by several wealthy parvenus, with a secret hope, unless I am greatly mistaken, that the ghost might conceive the idea of remaining with them permanently, thereby imparting to their brand-new palaces the necessary flavour of legend and mystery; but of course it never did.

To tell the truth, whatever novelty there was about it soon wore off— too soon, in fact, for, fickle as society is, I have no hesitation in asserting that we ought to have lasted it at least a second season, if only Barnjum's ghost had not persisted in making itself so ridiculously cheap that, in little more than a fortnight, society was as sick of it as I was myself.

And then the inconveniences which attached to my situation began to assert themselves more and more emphatically.

I began to stay at home sometimes in the evening, when I observed that the phantom had an unpleasant trick of illuminating itself at the approach of darkness with a bilious green light, which, as it was not nearly strong enough to enable me to dispense with a reading lamp, merely served to depress me.

And then it began to absent itself occasionally for days together, and though at first I was rather glad not to see so much of it, I grew uneasy at last. I was always fancying that the Psychical Society, who are credited with understanding the proper treatment of spectres in health and disease, from the tomb upwards, might have got hold of it and be teaching it to talk and compromise me. I heard afterwards that one of their most prominent members did happen to come across it, but, with a scepticism which I cannot but think was somewhat wanting in discernment, rejected it as a palpable imposition.

I had to leave the rooms where I had been so comfortable, for my landlady complained that the street was blocked up by a mob of the lowest description from seven till twelve every evening, and she really could not put up with it any longer.

On inquiry I found that this was owing to Barnjum's ghost getting out upon the roof almost every night after dark, and playing the fool among the chimney-pots, causing me, as its apparent owner, to be indicted five times for committing a common nuisance by obstructing the thoroughfare, and once for collecting an unlawful assembly: I spent all my spare cash in fines.

I believe there were portraits of us both in the 'Illustrated Police News,' but the distinction implied in this was more than outweighed by the fact that Barnjum's wraith was slowly but surely undermining both my fortune and my reputation.

It followed me one day to one of the underground railway stations, and would get into a compartment with me, which led to a lawsuit that made a nine days' sensation in the legal world. I need only mention the celebrated case of 'The Metropolitan District Railway v. Bunting,' in which the important principle was once for all laid down that a railway company by the terms of its contract is entitled to refuse to carry ghosts, spectres, or any other supernatural baggage, and can moreover exact a heavy penalty from passengers who infringe its bye-laws in this respect.

This was, of course, a decision against me, and carried heavy costs, which my private fortune was just sufficient to meet.

But Barnjum's ghost was bent upon alienating me from society also, for at one of the best dances of the season, at a house where I had with infinite pains just succeeded in establishing a precarious footing, that miserable phantom disgraced me for ever by executing a shadowy but decidedly objectionable species of can-can between the dances!

Feeling indirectly responsible for its behaviour, I apologised profusely to my hostess, but the affair found its way into the society journals, and she never either forgave or recognised me again.

Shortly after that, the committee of my club (one of the most exclusive in London) invited me to resign, intimating that, by introducing an acquaintance of questionable antecedents and disreputable exterior into the smoking-room, I had abused the privileges of membership.

I had been afraid of this when I saw it following me into the building, arrayed in Highland costume and a tall hat; but I was quite unable to drive it away.

Up to that time I had been at the bar, where I was doing pretty well, but now no respectable firm of solicitors would employ a man who had such an unprofessional thing as a phantom about his chambers. I threw up my practice, and had no sooner changed my last sovereign than I was summoned for keeping a ghost without a licence!

Some men, no doubt, would have given up there and then in despair— but I am made of sterner stuff, and, besides, an idea had already occurred to me of turning the table upon my shadowy persecutor.

Barnjum's ghost had ruined me: why should I not endeavour to turn an honest penny out of Barnjum's ghost? It was genuine— as I well knew; it was, in some respects, original; it was eminently calculated to delight the young and instruct the old; there was even a moral or two to be got out of it, and though it had long failed to attract in town, I saw no reason why it should not make a great hit in the provinces.

I borrowed the necessary funds and had soon made all preliminary arrangements for running the wraith of Barnjum on a short tour in the provinces, deciding to open at Tenby, in South Wales.

I took every precaution, travelling by night and keeping within doors all day, lest the shade (which was deplorably destitute of the commonest professional pride) should get about and exhibit itself beforehand for nothing; and so successful was I, that when it first burst upon a Welsh audience, from the platform of the Assembly Rooms, Tenby, no ghost could have wished for a more enthusiastic reception, and— for the first and last time— I felt positively proud of it!

But the applause gradually subsided, and was succeeded by an awkward pause. It had not struck me till that moment that it would be necessary to do or say anything in particular during the exhibition, beyond showing the spectators round the phantom, and making the customary assurance that there was no deception and no concealed machinery, which I could do with a clear conscience. But a terrible conviction struck me as I stood there bowing repeatedly, that the audience had come prepared for a comic duologue, with incidental music and dances.

This was quite out of the question, even supposing that Barnjum's ghost would have helped me to entertain them, which, perhaps, I could scarcely expect. As it was, it did nothing at all, except grimace at the audience and make an idiotic fool of itself and me— an exhibition of which they soon wearied. I am perfectly certain that an ordinary magic lantern would have made a far deeper impression upon them.

Whether the wraith managed in some covert way, when my attention was diverted, to insult the national prejudices of that sensitive and hot-blooded nation, I cannot say. All I know is, that after sitting still for some time they suddenly rose as one man; chairs were hurled at me through the ghost, and the stage was completely wrecked before the audience could be induced to go away.

It was all over. I was hopelessly ruined now! My weak fancy that even a spectre would have some remnants of common decency and good-feeling hanging about it, had put the finishing touch to my misfortunes!

I paid for the smashed platform and windows with the money that had been taken at the doors, and then I travelled back to London, third class, that night, with the feeling that everything was against me.

IT WAS Christmas, and I was sitting gloomily in my shabby Bloomsbury lodgings, watching with a miserable, apathetic interest Barnjum's wraith as, clad in a Roman toga, topboots, and a turban, it flitted about the horsehair furniture.

I was wondering if they would admit me into any workhouse while the spectre continued my attendant; I was utterly and completely wretched, and now, for the first time, I really repented my conduct in having parted with Barnjum so abruptly by the bleak cliff side, that bright June morning.

I had heard no more of him— I knew he must have reached the bottom after his fall, because I heard the splash he made— but no tidings had come of the discovery of his body; the lake kept its dark secret well.

If I could only hope that this insidious shade, now that it had hounded me down to poverty, would consider this as a sufficient expiation of my error and go away and leave me in peace! But I felt, only too keenly, that it was one of those one-idea'd apparitions, which never know when they have had enough of a good thing— it would be sure to stay and see the very last of me!

All at once there came a sharp tap at my door, and another figure strode solemnly in. This, too, wore the semblance of Barnjum, but was cast in a more substantial mould, and possessed the power of speech, as I gathered from its addressing me instantly as a cowardly villain.

I started back, and stood behind an arm-chair, facing those two forms, the shadow and the solid, with a feeling of sick despair. 'Listen to me,' I said, 'both of you: so long as your— your original proprietor was content with a single wraith, I put up with it; I did not enjoy myself— but I endured it. But a brace of apparitions is really carrying the thing too far; it's more than any one man's fair allowance, and I won't stand it. I defy the pair of you. I will find means to escape you. I will leave the world! Other people can be ghosts as well as you— it's not a monopoly! If you don't go directly, I shall blow my brains out!'

There was no firearm of any description in the house, but I was too excited for perfect accuracy.

'Blow your brains out by all means!' said the solid figure; 'I don't know what all this nonsense you're talking is about. I'm not a ghost that I'm aware of; I'm alive (no thanks to you); and, to come back to the point— scoundrel!'

'Barnjum— and alive!' I cried, almost with relief. 'If that is so,' I added, feeling that I had been imposed upon in a very unworthy and ungentlemanly  manner, 'will you have the goodness to tell me what right you have to this ridiculous apparition here?'

He did not seem to have noticed it particularly till then. 'Hullo!' he said, looking at it with some curiosity, 'what d'ye call that thing?'

'I call it a beastly nuisance!' I said. 'Ever since— since I last saw you, it's been following me about everywhere in a— in a very annoying manner!'

Will it be believed that the unfeeling brute only chuckled at this? 'I don't know anything about it,' he said, 'but all I can say is that it serves you jolly well right, and I hope it will go on annoying you.'

'This is ungenerous,' I said, determined to appeal to any better feelings he might have; 'we did not part on— on the best of terms perhaps—'

'Considering that you kicked me over a precipice when I wasn't looking,' he retorted brutally, 'we may take that as admitted.'

'But, at all events,' I argued, 'it is ridiculous to cherish an old grudge all this time; you must see the absurdity of it yourself.'

'No, I don't,' he said.

I determined to make a last effort to move him. 'It is Christmas Eve, Barnjum,' I said earnestly, 'Christmas Eve. Think of it. At this hour, thousands of throbbing human hearts are speeding the cheap but genial Christmas card to such of their relations as they consider at all likely to respond with a turkey. The costermonger, imaginative for the nonce, is investing damaged evergreens with a purely fictitious value, and the cheery publican is sending the member of his village goose-club back to his cottage home, rich in the possession of a shot-distended bird and a bottle of poisonous port. Hear my appeal. If I was hasty with you, I have been punished. That detestable thing on the hearthrug there has dogged my path to misery and ruin; you cannot be without some responsibility for its conduct. I ask you now, as a man— nay, as an individual—to call it off. You can do it well enough if you only choose; you know you can.'

But Barnjum wouldn't; he only looked at his own wraith with a grim satisfaction as it capered in an imbecile fashion upon the rug.

'Do,' I implored him; 'I would do it for you, Barnjum. I've had it about me for six months, and I am so sick of it.'

Still he hesitated. Some waits outside were playing one of those pathetic American melodies— I forget now whether it was 'Silver Threads among the Gold,' or 'In the Sweet By-and-By'— but, at all events, they struck some sympathetic chord in Barnjum's rough bosom, for his face began to twitch, and presently he burst unexpectedly into tears.

'You don't deserve it,' he said between his sobs, 'but be it so'; then, turning to the ghost, he added: Here, you, what's your name? avaunt! D'ye hear, hook it!'

It wavered for an instant, and then, to my joy, it suddenly 'gave' all over, and, shrivelling up into a sort of cobweb, was drawn by the draught into the fireplace, and carried up the chimney, and I never saw it again.

BARNJUM'S escape was very simple; he had fallen upon one of the herring-boats in the lake, and the heap of freshly-caught fish lying on the deck had merely broken his fall instead of his neck. As soon as he had recovered from the effects, he was called away from this country upon urgent business, and found himself unable to return for months.

But to this day the appearance of the wraith is a mystery to me. If Barnjum had been the kind of man to be an 'esoteric Buddhist,' it might be accounted for as an 'astral shape'; but esoteric Buddhism requires an exemplary character and years of abstract meditation— both of which conditions were far beyond Barnjum's attainment.

The shape may have been one of those subtle emanations which we are told some people are constantly shedding, like the coats of an onion, and which certain conditions of the atmosphere, and the extreme activity of Barnjum's mind under sudden excitement, possibly contributed to materialise in this particular instance.

Or, perhaps, it was merely a caprice of one of those vagrant Poltergeists, or supernatural buffoons, which took upon itself, very officiously, the duty of avenging my behaviour to Barnjum.

Upon one point I am clear: the whole of this system of deliberate persecution being undertaken directly on Barnjum's account, he is morally and legally bound to reimburse me for the heavy expense and damage which have resulted therefrom.

Hitherto I have been unable to impress Barnjum with this principle, and so my wrongs are still without redress.

I may be asked why I do not make them the basis of an action at law; but persons of any refinement will understand my reluctance to resort to legal proceedings against one with whom I have at least lived on a footing of friendship. I would fain persuade, and shrink from appealing to force; and, besides, I have not succeeded as yet in persuading any solicitor— even a shady one— to take up my case.

________________

4: The Wind of Destiny

Ada Cambridge

1844-1926

Australian Town and Country Journal (NSW), 20 Aug 1898

Ada Cambridge Cross

THE YACHTSMEN of the bay had been jubilant for months; this morning they were in ecstasies simply. Aha! it was their turn now. The sporting landsmen, magnates of the Melbourne Club and the great stations, who had had all the fun of the fair hitherto, were out of it this time. Oh, no doubt the new Governor was fond of his "bike," and of a good horse, and of golf and polo, and the usual things; and, of course, he would be pleased with the triumphal arches and many gorgeous demonstrations of civic welcome and goodwill. But it was here that his heart would be-here, on the blue water, with the brethren of his craft. The country might not know it, but they knew it mariners all, with their own freemasonry— they and he.

Every yacht of any consequence had been on the slips quite lately— as lately as was compatible with having paint and varnish dry. One or two of the new models, wanting extra depth for their bulbous keels, were all but too late in their desire to be spick and span for the great occasion, but happily got a west-wind tide to float them up in time. And here they all were, scores and scores of them, as smart as they could be, with their beautiful sails going up, burgee and ensign flying in the breeze of the loveliest morning that could possibly have been provided for a national festival depending wholly on the weather for success. Yesterday it had been cloudy and gloomy, threatening rain; and to-morrow the north wind to blow a sultry hurricane, opaque with dust; but to-day was heavenly. No other adjective, as Fanny Pleydell remarked, could describe its all round perfection.

She was putting on her new white drill with the blue sailor collar, and her new straw hat with Kittiwake in gold letters on its new blue ribbon, and joyously addressed her brother through a passage and two open doors. He shouted back that it— the day— was "ripping," which meant the same thing. The only doubt about it was whether there would be wind enough. There is always that doubt in yachting forecasts— that and the lesser fear of having too much; without which, however, yachting would be no fun at all. The Kittiwake (once the property of Mr. Adam Drowe) was one of the crack boats, and Herbert Lawson— familiarly "Bert"— was skipper and owner; and he had no mind to make himself a mere St. Kilda decoration, as the landlubbers in authority desired. Let the others tug at moorings if they chose, like wild birds tied by the legs, for hours and hours; the Kittiwake intended to fly when she opened her wings— weather permitting— and not submit to be treated as a slab in a canvas wall. She was going to meet the Sunbeam in free water, half-way down the bay, which, with any sort of wind, she could easily do, and still be back in time for the landing ceremony. And so Captain Bert kept an eye on tree branches and the set of anchored craft, while giving keen attention to his toilet, arraying himself in ducks like the driven snow and flannels like milk, waxing the curly points of his moustache till they tapered smoothly as a ram's horns, trimming his nails, and choosing a silk handkerchief to foam out of his breast pocket, as with a view to being inspected at close quarters through a strong telescope from the Sunbeam's deck.

But he was not dressing himself for the eyes of his vice-sovereign lady. It was for the sake of Lena Pickersgill and Myra Salter that he took such pains to render his handsome person as at tractive as possible-and he did not quite know which.

Let me briefly explain. Old Lawson had died not long ago, leaving Herbert master of a good business in Melbourne, a good old family house at Williamstown (with the Kittiwake attached), and a most comfortable and even luxurious income for the post-boom days. Sister and brothers were sufficiently provided for-the former married, the latter studying for professions— and there was no widowed mother to take care of and defer to. Herbert was a man of domestic instincts, and turned of thirty, and an arbitrary housekeeper bullied him. In short, every circumstance of the case cried aloud to him to take a wife, and he was as ready as possible to do so. But, of course, he wished to be a lover before becoming a husband, and fate had not yet clearly indicated the object he sought. He was a particular young man, as he had every right to be, and much in dread of making a mistake.

To-day he had arrived at the stage of choosing Lena and Myra, out of all the girls he knew, as the only possibles. Before night he hoped to have made up a distracted mind as to which of the two was the right one. Chaperoned by young Mrs. Pleydell, both were to be guests of the Kittiwake for a long, fine day; and surely no better opportunity for the purpose could possibly have been devised.

Miss Salter was a Williamstown young lady, a schoolmate of Fanny Pleydell's, and was to embark with her hostess early. She was Fanny's candidate for the vacancy in the family, and rather suffered as such from the advocacy of her friend. Miss Pickersgill, belonging to a some what higher rank of life, lived in town, and was to be taken off from the St. Kilda pier. Fanny had not wanted to have Lena asked, and for that reason Bert had firmly insisted on it. For that reason also he was inclined to promote her to the place of honor, rather than a girl whom he felt was being thrust down his throat.

But when he presently met the latter, and helped her into his dinghy with the tenderest air of strong protection, he thought her very sweet. She was a fair, slim thing, shy, unaffected, and amiable, and looked delicious in her white garb. All the ladies on board had to wear white to-day, to harmonise with the pearly enamel of the boat and her snowy new Lapthorn sails; and Myra had the neatest frock, and the prettiest figure, to set it off. And, moreover, as he very well knew, she did not run after him when she was let alone.

He rowed her and his sister to the yacht, on which a numerous white-uniformed crew had made all ready for the start, and he sent the dinghy back in charge of his brother to pick up three more lady guests. These three were nobodies as regards this story— a homely aunt and two plain cousins, who had a family right to the suddenly valuable favors at their kinsman's disposal. They made up the number he thought would fill the cockpit comfortably— three on each side.

Mrs. Pleydell, as soon as she had gained the deck, plunged below to investigate the matter of supplies; Miss Salter sat down to survey the scene, and the skipper sat down beside her. They had quite twenty minutes of quiet tete-a-tete, and to that extent placed Miss Pickersgill at a disadvantage.

"Isn't it a heavenly morning?"— or "a ripping day," as the case might be— was what they said; and "I wonder will the breeze hold?" and "Didn't you feel certain last night that it was changing for rain?"— conversation that had no literary value to make it worth reporting. However, it is not in words that incipient lovers explain themselves, but in the accompaniment to words played by furtive eyes and the corners of lips, and other instruments of nature inaudible to the outward ear. Myra's varying complexion confessed a lot of things, and the amount of intelligence in the horns of that moustache which had been waxed so care fully was wonderful. Indeed, it really seemed, thus early in the day, as if the die were cast. Both looked so handsome and felt so happy, and the weather and all the circumstances were so specially favorable to the development of kindly sentiments.

"I am so glad you were able to come," the young man remarked, whenever they fell upon a pause, changing the emphasis to a fresh word each time. And the young woman put It in all sorts of modest but convincing ways that he was not more glad than she was. Oh, it was a heavenly morning, truly! And Mrs. Pleydell and the crew were more and more careful to do nothing to mar the prospect.

But soon the fat aunt and excited cousins arrived, all in white, and as conscious of it as if dressed for a fancy ball, and it was time to make for the rendezvous across the bay. Thither were the yachts of all clubs converging in dozens and scores like an immense flock of seabirds skimming the azure water, their sails like silver and white satin in the sun. As Bert Lawson steered his own, proudly convinced that she was queen of the company, he named his would-be rivals to his guest keeping her so close to him that he had to apologise for touching her elbow with the tiller now and then. Occasionally he exchanged an opinion with the crew that the old so-and-so didn't look so bad and they continually cocked their eyes aloft to where the blue ensign waved in the languid breeze. It wasn't every boat that could dip that flag to the new Governor— no, indeed!

"Isn't it a pretty sight?" the ladies cried to one another— and it certainly was. Even the prosaic shore was transfigured and glorious— in one place at least. The St. Kilda pier and the hotel, and the steep slope connecting -them, smothered all over in green stuff and hunting, and packed with what appeared to be the whole population of the colony, was a striking spectacle as viewed from the sea. The most bigoted Englishman must acknowledge it.

"Oh," exclaimed Fanny Pleydell, staring through a strong pair of glasses, "I wouldn't have had you miss it for the world, Myra dear."

"And yet I nearly did," the girl replied, glancing at Bert from under her hat brim as he stood over her, intent on business. "If mother had not been so much better this morning, I could not possibly have left her."

The skipper ceased shouting Ito his too numerous mien not to crowd the boat's nose so that he could not see it, and dropped soft eyes on his sister's friend. "Dear, dutiful, unselfish little soul!" he thought. "That's the sort of, woman to make a good wife. That's the girl for me."  It was still not more than twenty minutes to eleven, and he had got as far as that.

But now Miss Pickersgill intervened. She put off from the gorgeous pier, which was not yet closed to the public, in the dinghy of a local friend, in order that the Kittiwake should not be burdened with its own. It afterwards transpired that she had engaged to grace the yacht of a local friend, and had thrown him over for Bert Lawson, having no scruples of pride against making use of him, nevertheless. She was a radiant vision, in tailor made cream serge, a full-blooded, full-bosomed, high-colored, self-confident young beauty, with bold eyes and a vivacious manner, calculated to make any picnic party lively. As she approached, like a queen enthroned, all the male creatures hung forward to gaze and smile. Bert springing to the side to help her over— which was only what she expected and was accustomed to. And she jumped into the midst of the ground around the cockpit— four humble-minded admirers and one firm adversary— chose her place, and settled herself, nodding and waving salutations all around, as if she were Mrs. Bert already.

Myra's heart sank in presence of so formidable a rival. Myra was the daughter of a retired-sea captain in rather narrow circumstances; Lena's father was a stockbroker, and reputed to roll in money. She had fat gold bangles on her wrists, and a diamond in each ear. She lifted her smart skirt from a lace-frilled petticoat, and the serge was lined with silk. The dejected observer moved to make way for so unquestionable a superior. But Bert detained her with a quiet hand.

"Sit still," he said, "There is plenty of room." To her surprise and joy, she found he still preferred her near him. It was not money and gold bracelets that could quench her gentle charm.

And now the fun began. The yacht, with every stitch of canvas spread, set out upon her course, determined to be the first to salute her future commodore. There was just enough wind to waft her along with a motion as soft as feathers, as airy as a dream, and the heavenly morning, on the now wider waters, was more heavenly than ever.

"It's our day out, and no mistake," quoth Miss Pickersgill, in her hearty way. "Let's have a song, old chap"— to Bert-"or do something or either to improve the occasion. What do you say, Mrs Pleydell?"

"I," said the hostess cheerfully, but with tightened lips, "am going to get you all something to eat."

"And I'll go and help you," said Myra, rising hastily.

"Oh, all right-go on; I'll keep 'em' alive till you come back. Now then, tune up, everybody! I'll begin. What shall I sing, Mr.. Lawson?" with a languishing glance at. him over her shoulder. "You shall choose."

"I think you'd better whistle," said Bert, whose eyes were on his sails, and his nose sniffing anxiously.

"All serene. I can do that too. But why had I better whistle?"

"Wind's dying away to nothing, I grieve to say."

"By George, it is!" his young men echoed, in sympathetic concern. "If we don't mind, we shall fall between two stools, and be but of everything."

"What's the odds, so long as you're happy?" was Miss Lena's philosophic response. And they adopted that view. With every prospect of being ignominiously becalmed, out of the track of events in which they had expected to take a leading and historic part, they lolled about the deck and sang songs with rousing choruses— popular ditties from the comic operas of the day— and professed them selves as jolly a jolly could be.

"How fascinating she is!" sighed Myra Salter, listening from the little cabin to the voice of the prima donna overhead. "I don't wonder they all admire her so much!"

"I am quite sure my brother does not admire her," said Mrs. Pleydell with decision. "He thinks, as I do, that she is a forward minx-he must." Bert's laugh just then came ringing down the stairs. In an interval between two songs, he and Miss Pickersgill were enjoying a bout of "chaff"— rough wit that crackled like fire works. "Of course she amuses him," said Fanny grudgingly.

"And isn't it lovely to be able to amuse people?" the girl ejaculated, envious still. "She charms them so that they forget about the wind and everything. She is just the life and soul of the. party, Fanny."

"I think she spoils it, Myra. If we don't look out, we shall be having her serenading the Governor with 'He's a jolly good fellow,' or some thing of that sort. If she attempts to disgrace us with her vulgarity before him, clap your hand over her mouth, my dear. I shall."

Myra laughed, and was somewhat comforted. But she still thought how lovely it would be to be able to amuse people and take them out of them selves. "He would never be dull with her," she thought sadly. "I am so stupid that I should bore him to death."

One of Miss Salter's unusual charms, perfectly appreciated by sensible Mrs. Pleydell, and no overlooked by Bert, was a sweet humble-mindedness— a rare virtue in these days.

The first of several light luncheons was served on deck, without interrupting the concert. Between gulps of wine and mouthfuls of sandwich, Miss Pickersgill continued to raise fresh tunes and the crew to shout the choruses, and the audience of fat aunt and simpering cousins to applaud admiringly. It was a case of youth at the prow and pleasure at the helm, and an abandonment of all responsibility. A dear little catspaw came stealing along, and hardly excited anybody. The yacht gathered way, and began to make knots again, faster and faster, but even that did not draw the light-hearted young folks from their frivolous pastime. Thanks to the syren of St. Kilda, they had almost forgotten the errand they were on. It really did not seem to matter much to anyone whether he or she met Lord Brassey or not; he had become an incident of the day, rather than its main feature.

Still, the eyes of the crew continually searched the horizon, and presently one man saw smoke where no one else saw anything, and out of that .spot a faint blur grew which resolved itself into the Aramac with the Governor on board, and the Ozone and Hygeia, its consorts. The three boats in a row advancing steadily, under all the steam they could make, were not unimpressive in their way, but the only thing the Kittiwake cared to look at was the lovely pillar of white cloud, shining like a pearl, which was recognised as the Sunbeam with all sail set. She was bearing off from the Government flotilla, dismissed from their company, superseded and discarded; but to yachtsmen's eyes she was a sort of winged angel, a spirit of the sea, and they but grubby mortals by comparison, common and gross.

"Why, why," they exclaimed, with groans of regret, gazing on the fairy column as if that were all the picture, "why didn't they let him come up in her, and let us bring him? What does he want with a lot of cheap-jack politicians here? They just spoil it all."

"It wouldn't be them if they didn't," someone said, voicing a rather prevalent opinion. And in fact they were spoiling it rather badly on the Aramac just then, if all tales be true. They had not wanted Miss Pickersgill to show them how to do it.

It was past the hour fixed for the landing ceremonies-and the poor sun-baked crowds ashore would have been dropping with fatigue if there had been room to fall In-when Bert Lawson shouted "Dip! dip!" to his brother, who held the ensign halliards, and was confused by the excitement of the moment. After all, the Kittiwake was first; and proud was every heart aboard when the cocked-hatted figure on the Aramac's bridge saluted her and the flag as if he had known and loved the one as long as the other. Every man and woman was convinced that he stood lost in admiration of her beauty and the way she was manoeuvred. Bert thought her as close as was compatible with proper respect, and they all posed to the best advantage for the Governor's eye, Miss Pickersgill in front.

"Now, you fellows,"- she panted- breathlessly. "All at once—'See-ee the conq'rlng he-e-e-e-ero—' "

But Mrs. Pleydells hand was up like a flash, and there was a "Hsh-sh-sh!" like the protest of a flock of geese. The fair Lena was so taken aback that she nearly fell into the captain's arms. The captain did not seem to mind; his arm went round her waist for a moment almost as if it had the habit of doing it; and he whispered an apology that restored her self-control. At the some instant he signalled to the crew, and they burst into three great solid British cheers. Another signal stopped them from further performances, and the steamers swept by. The crisis of the day was over. .".

Then the Kittiwake turned and followed the fleet, and realised her remaining ambitions. She was back at St. Kilda, with the yachts that had been lying there all the morning, by the time his great Excellency, transhipped once more, arrived there. Through their glasses the ladies could see the procession of little figures along the-pier, and the departure of the carriages after the guns had fired the salute; and they could hear . the school children singing. When all was over a sigh of vast contentment expressed the common thought, "What a day we're having!" The turn of the landsmen had come,: but no one at sea could envy them..

"Now we'll have a look at the Sunbeam as she lies," sold Bert, and headed back, for Williamstown.

"And we want some refreshment after what we have gone through," said the hospitable hostess.

Luncheon was served for the third time, and subsequently two afternoon teas. The yachts, dissolving all formation, swam aimlessly about the bay, more like seabirds than ever, and took snapshots at each other .with their kodak cameras. Miss Pickersgill's singing powers failed somewhat, but she continued to chaff and chatter with the young men, breaking off at intervals to hail her friends on passing boats. Good-natured Fanny Pleydell laughed with the rest at the fun she made; the admiring aunts and cousins could not remember when they had been so entertained; and Myra Salter was satisfied at heart because Bert had never allowed her to feel "out of it."

And so the happy day wore through. They had had seven hours together when they begun to look for Lena's dinghy, and before separating they testified with one consent that they had never had a more delightful holiday, or, as Lena neatly phrased it; "such a jolly high old time.".

"Then I'll tell you what we must do," said the gratified host. "Go out together— the same party, since we suit each other so well— on the sixteenth of next month. That's our opening day, Miss Pickersgill, as of course you know; and, with the Governor for commodore, it ought to be the best we've ever had."

"All who are in favor of this motion," chanted Lena, "hold up your hands!"

Every hand went up at once, except Myra's. The shy girl looked to Fanny for an endorsement. of the free and easy invitation, and Mrs. Pleydell was knitting her brows. But soon she smiled consent, to please her brother, who, stealing behind Miss Salter unobserved, seized her two hands and lifted them into the air.

They imagined they were going to have their good time over again. They even anticipated a better one, though only of half the length. For whereas the wind had been too light on the 25th of October, it blew like business on the 16th of November, when it was of the last importance that it should do so. No more auspicious opening day had ever dawned upon Victorian yachtsmen. The Governor, who was their Governor— for the first time in history, had consented to direct their evolutions in person. This alone— this and a good wind— assured laurels to the clubs of Hobson's Bay which all other clubs would envy them. The Sunbeam had been towed to the chosen anchorage; Government House was on board. All the swells, as Miss Pickersgill termed them, indigenous to the soil, would be lone and lorn at the races, because their Lord and Lady were away. If they offered their ears for a place in vice-regal company they could not get it. "Aha!" said the yachtsmen one to another, "it is our turn now."

This time the Kittiwake took her own dinghy to St. Kilda. She towed it along with her all the afternoon, as a brake upon the pace, which threatened to carry her beyond the position assigned to her in the wheeling line, for she was faster than the boats before and behind her. And so the services of local friends were not required on Miss Lena's behalf. Bert himself, in a very ruffled sea indeed, went off to the pier to fetch her. But not altogether for the sake of paying her special honor; rather because it was most difficult to bring anything alongside to-day without bumping off fenders and on to new paint. He had had the kindest feeling for both girls during the past three weeks, but what little love he had fallen into was love for Myra Salter. He had just left her deeply in love with him. He had given her the card of sailing directions, taught her how to read the commodore's signals, and told her she was to be his captain for the day, as he was to be the crew's. Down in the small cabin, picking pecks of strawberries, with the assistance of the aunt and cousins, Mrs. Pleydell's prophetic eye saw visions of an ideal home and family— that comfortable and prosperous domestic life which is the better and not the worse for having no wild-fire passions to inflame and ravage it— and a congenial sister-in-law for all time. Myra lingered on deck to follow the movements of the tossing dinghy through, the captain's strong field-glasses, also assigned to her exclusive use for this occasion. He had another pair— not quite so strong— for Miss Pickersgill.

Little did that young lady suppose that she was to play second fiddle for a moment. She wore another new dress and a ravishingly peaked cap, much more becoming than the sailor straw. She smiled upon the skipper, struggling to hold the dinghy to the pier, as a faithful bond-slave merely doing his bounden duty.

"It is our opening day!" she sang, as she flourished a hand to him. "It is our opening da-ay!"

"It is, indeed," he shouted back. "Made on purpose. Only I think we shall have too much of a good thing, this time, instead of not enough. Wind keeps getting up, and we've reefed already."

"Oh, it's stunning!" she rejoined, gaily skipping into the boat; she was a heavy weight, and nearly tipped it over. "Let it get up! The more the merrier."

"Yes, if there were going to be racing. I wish there was! We should just run away from everything."

"Then let's race,", quoth Miss Pickersgill, as if commanding it to be done. "Let's show the old buffer—" I grieve to say it was his sacred lordship she referred to— "what the Kittiwake can do."

Bert had to explain. It took him until they reached the yacht to make the young lady who looked so nautical understand what she was talking about. And after all she was inclined to be sentimentally hurt because he would not do such a little thing to please her.

The wind got up, more and more, showing that there was to be no monotonous repetition of the former circumstances. The Kittiwake danced and pranced as if the real sea were under her, and half a-dozen dinghies trailed astern would hardly have made any difference. There was no sitting round the cockpit, as on drawing-room chairs, to flirt and sing; one side was always in . the air, and the other all but under water, see-sawing sharply at uncertain intervals; and the ladies had to give their attention to holding on and keeping their heads out of the way of the swinging boom. Lena shouted to the men, who had to stick to business in spite of her, that it was the jolliest state of things imaginable, and said "Go. it!" to rude Boreas when he smacked her face, to encourage him to-further effort's. But her five companions were more or less of the opinion that they had liked the first cruise better. The poor, fat aunt was particularly disconcerted by the new conditions; she. said she couldn't get used to the .feeling of having no floor under her, and the sensation of the sea climbing up her back.

She was the first to say, "No, thank you," to strawberries and cream, and "Yes, please," to whisky.

Is there anything funny in having the toothache that people should laugh at the victim as at some inexhaustible joke? Ask the poor soul whose nerves are thus exquisitely tortured what his opinion is. He will tell you that it is one of the gravest elements in the tragedy of human pain; also that the heartless-brute who sniggers at it ought to have thumbscrews put on him and twisted tight. Is there anything disgraceful in being sea-sick in rough weather, that those who don't happen to feel so at the moment should turn up their noses at the sufferers in contemptuous disgust? Emphatically not. It is a misfortune that may befall the best of us, and does, instead of being, as one would suppose, the penalty of a degrading vice, like delirium tremens. Why, even the Sunbeam was ill that afternoon— the first folks of the land, fresh from the discipline of a long and stormy voyage—  which sufficiently proves the fact.

But when Myra Salter was observed to sit silent and rigid, with bleached lips and a corpse-like skin, it was with eyes that slightly hardened at the sight. Yes, even the captain's eyes! It is true he smiled at her, and said,. "Poor "child!", and peremptorily ordered the useless stimulant, and was generally concerned and kind; but the traditional ignominy of her case affected him; her charm and dignity were impaired— vulgarised; and the flavor of his incipient romance began to go. Of course young men are fools— we all are, for that matter— and young love, just out of the ground, as it were, is like a baby lettuce in a garden full of slugs. And it is no use pretending that things are different from what they are. And if you want to be an artist, and not a fashionable photographer, you must not paint poor human nature, and leave the moles and wrinkles out. It is a pity that an estimable young man cannot be quite perfect, and that an admirable young woman should be unjustly despised; but so it is, and there's no more to be said.

Myra shook her head at the suggestion of whisky; only to imagine the smell of it was to feel worse at once— to feel an instant necessity to hide herself below. But Fanny Pleydell, coming upstairs at the moment when she was beginning to stagger down, caught her in her arms and held her back-a fatal blunder on Fanny's part.

"No, my dear, no!" she cried, on the spur of a humane impulse; "you must not go into that horrible hole; it would finish you off at once. Besides, there isn't room for you; aunt and the girls are sprawling all over the place. Have a little spirits, darling— yes, you must; and keep in the fresh air if you want to feel better."

She pressed whisky and water on the shuddering-girl, and cruel consequences ensued. Bert turned .his head away, and tried to shut his ears. Lena smiled at him in an arch and confidential manner. She was as bright and pretty, as ever more so, indeed, for the wind exhilarated her and deepened her bloom.

"I think," she-said, "it is a great-mistake for people who are not good sailors to go to sea in rough weather, don't you?"

Well, Bert almost thought it was. He was a very enthusiastic yachtsman, especially to-day, when he wanted the Kittiwake and all her appurtenances to be as correct as possible.

The drill was over, and the regiment of yachts disbanded. The Sunbeam had gone to a pier at Williamstown, and the commodore was receiving his new colleagues and entertaining them. The Kittiwake was off St. Kilda, with her freight of sick on board. The aunt filled up one tiny cabin, the cousins another, and they groaned and wailed and made other unpleasant noises, to the amusement of a callous crew. Myra Salter, too helplessly ill to sit up without support while the boat rushed through the water with a slice of deck submerged, had sagged down to the floor of the cockpit, and now lay there in a limp heap, propped against Fanny's knees. She had not spoken for an hour, and during that time Bert had hardly noticed her. He had been devoting himself to Miss Pickersgill, so far as the duties of his official post allowed, as was only natural when she had become practically his sole companion, and when as a lover of a good breeze and proper sailoring, she had proved herself so sympathetic.

Now he was rowing her home from the yacht to the shore. She sat facing him in the dinghy, with the yoke lines round her waistband he could not keep his eyes from her brilliant person, nor keep himself from mentally comparing it with that sad wisp on the cockpit floor.  She met his glance, and held it. They were both excited by the wind, the inspiring flight of the yacht, the varied interests of the opening day.

"Oh, it was splendid!" she exclaimed. "Whatever the others may think about it, I know I never enjoyed myself so much in my life. And I am so much obliged to you for taking me, Mr. Lawson."

"You are the right sort to take," replied: Bert with enthusiasm; and he imagined a wife who would enter into his favorite pursuits like a true comrade. "And I hope we shall have many a good cruise together."

"It won't be my fault if we don't," she said , promptly.

"It. won't be mine," he returned: ."Consider yourself asked for every day that you'll deign to come." '

"What, for ever?"

"For ever."

She looked at him archly, pensively, meaningly, with her head on one side. She was really very handsome in her coquettish peaked cap, and he reflected that she was evidently healthy and probably rich.

"You don't mean that, Mr. Lawson?"

"I do mean it, literally and absolutely;"

"For every yachting day. as long as I live?"

"For every yachting day, and every day that isn't a yachting day."

She was so joyously flustered that she ran the dinghy into the pier. He had to catch heir in his arms to prevent her going overboard. As there were people watching them from above, he could not kiss her, but he gave an earnest of his intention to do so at the first opportunity.

Of course she was the wrong one. He knew it no later than the next day, in his heart of hearts, though never permitting himself to acknowledge it, because he flatters himself that he is a gentleman.  Equally, of course, he will go on to render his mistake irrevocable, and be miserable ever after, and make her so from the highest motives. Already the wedding gown is bought, and they go together to ironmongers and upholsterers to choose new drawing-room furniture and pots and kettles for the kitchen. The marriage will surely take place when the bride has made her preparations; and anybody can foretell what the consequences will be. They will pull against each other by force of, nature, and tear their little shred of romance to bits in no time. And then they will sink together to that sordid and common matrimonial state which is the despair and disgrace of civilisation. She will grow fat and frowsy as she gets into years— a coarse woman, selfish and petty, and full of legitimate grievances; and he will hate her first, and then cease to care one way or the other, which is infinitely worse :than hating. And so two lives will be utterly spoiled, and possibly three or four— not counting the children, who will have no sort of fair start.

And all because there was a bit of a breeze on the opening day of the season!

But such is life.

______________

5: The Gilded Pupil

Ethel Lina White

1879-1944

The Hardin Tribune-Herald, USA, 27 June and 10 July, 1936

First e-book edition: Roy Glashan's Library, 3 Aug 2023

Ethel Lina White

One of a series of this author's short stories from the mid 1930s which seem to have been published only in newspapers in the United States. These US stories were found and extracted by Paul Moulder and Roy Glashan.

THE essential part of this tale is that Ann Shelley was an Oxford M.A.

Unfortunately, so many other young women had the same idea of going to college and getting a degree that she found it difficult to harness her qualifications with a job. Therefore, she considered herself lucky, when she was engaged as resident governess to Stella Williams, aged 15— the only child of a millionaire manufacturer.

It was not until her final interview with Stella's mother, in a sun room which was a smother of luxury, that she understood the exact nature of her duties. Lady Williams— a beautiful porcelain person, with the brains of a butterfly—looked at her with appealing violet eyes.

"It's so difficult to explain, Miss Shelley. Of course, my husband considers education comes first, but what I want is some one to exercise a moral Influence on Stella. She— she's not normal."

"Thymus gland?" hinted Ann.

"O far worse. She won't wash."

Ann thought of the times she had been sent upstairs to remove a water mark, because she had overslept, or wanted to finish a thriller, and she began to laugh.

"That's normal, at her age," she explained. "School girls often scamp washing."

Lady Williams looked skeptical, but relieved.

"The trouble began," she said, "when she was too old for a nurse. Nannie used to wash and dress her, like a baby. But she refuses to let her maid do anything but impersonal things, like clothes. It's her idea of independence. She's terribly clever and socialistic. She'll try to catch you out."

"That sounds stimulating," smiled Ann.

All the same, she was not impressed pleasantly by her new pupil. Stella was unattractive, aggressive, and superior. Her sole recommendation to Ann's favor was her intelligence, which was far above the average.

On her first Saturday half holiday, Ann walked out to the grounds of Arlington Manor— the residence of the earl of Blankshire— to visit her old governess, Miss West. It was a May day of exciting weather, with concealed lightning bursting through a white windy sky. She thrilled with a sense of liberation, when she turned in to the road through the woods, where the opening beeches were an emerald filigree against the blue shadows of the undergrowth.

Miss West's cottage suggested a fairy tale, with its thatched roof and diamond-paned windows. It stood in a clearing, and was surrounded by a small garden, then purple with clumps of irises.

Ann's knock was answered by the maid, Maggie— a strapping country girl. She showed the visitor into the bed-sitting-room, where her mistress, who was crippled with rheumatism, was sitting up in bed. Miss West was an old woman, for she had also been a governess to Ann's mother. Her mouth and chin had assumed the nutcracker of age, so that she looked rather like an old witch, with her black blazing eyes and snowy hair.

Her dominant quality was her vitality. Ann could still feel it playing on her, like a battery, as they exchanged greetings.

"I love your little house," she remarked later, when Maggie had brought in tea. "But it's very lonely. Are you ever nervous?"

"Nervous of what?" asked Miss West. "There's nothing here to steal, and no money. Everyone knows that the earl is my banker."

This was her way of explaining that she was a penniless pensioner of the earl, whom she had taught in his nursery days.

"Every morning, some one comes down from the manor with the day's supplies," she said. "At night, a responsible person visits me for my orders and complaints... O you needn't look down your nose. The earl is in my debt. He is prolonging my life at a thrilling expense to himself, but I saved his life, when he was a child, at the risk of my own."

Her deep voice throbbed as she added, "I still feel there is nothing so precious as life."

Later, in that small bewitched room, Ann was to remember her words.

"Life's big things appeal most to me," she confessed. "Oxford was wonderful— every minute of it. And I'm just living for my marriage with Kenneth. I told you I was engaged. He's a doctor on a ship, and we'll have to wait. In between, I'm just marking time."

"You have the important job of moulding character," Miss West reminded her. "How does your gilded pupil progress?"

"She's a gilded pill," Ann grimaced.

"Is Oxford responsible for your idea of humor?" asked Miss West, who had a grudge against a university education.

"No, it's the result of living in a millionaire's family. Please, may I come to see you, every Saturday afternoon? You make me feel recharged."

Although Miss West had acted like a mental tonic, Ann was conscious of a period of stagnation, when she walked back through the wood. She taught, in order to live, and went to see an old woman, as recreation. Life was dull. It might not nave appeared so flat had she known that she was marked down already for a leading part in a sinister drama, and that she had been followed all the way to the cottage.

FOR the next few weeks life continued to be monotonous for Ann, but it grew exciting for Stella, as, gradually, she felt the pull of her governess' attraction. Ann had a charming appearance, and definite personality. She made no attempt to rouse her pupil's personal pride by shock tactics, but relied on the contrast between her own manicured hands and the girl's neglected nails.

Presently she was able to report progress to the young ship's doctor.

"My three years at Oxford have not been wasted," she wrote. "The gilded pupil has begun to wash."

In her turn, she became fonder of Stella, especially when she discovered that the girl's aggressive manner was a screen for an inferiority complex.

"I always feel people hate me," she confided to her governess, one day. "I'm ashamed of having a millionaire father. He didn't make his money. Others make it for him. He ought to pay them a real spending income, and, automatically, increase the demand, and create fresh employment."

Ann found these socialistic debates rather a trial of tact, but she enjoyed the hours of study. Stella was a genuine student, and always read up her subject beforehand, so that lessons took somewhat the form of discussions and explanations. Ann was spared the drudgery of correcting French exercises and problems in algebra.

But her gain was some one else's loss. She had no idea how seriously she was restricting the activities of another in the plot.

Doris— the schoolroom maid— hunted daily amid the fragments in the wastepaper basket for something which she had been ordered to procure. And she searched in vain.

WHEN Stella's devotion to the bathroom was deepening to passion, she began to grow jealous of her governess' private hours.

"Do you go to the pictures on Saturday?" she asked.

"No. I visit an old witch, in a cottage in the wood."

"Take me with you."

"You'd be bored. It's my old governess."

"Your governess? I'd love to see her. Please."

Ann had to promise a vague "some day." Although she was sorry to disappoint Stella, she could not allow her to encroach on her precious liberty.

By this time, however, her time-table was an established fact to the brains of the plot. Therefore, the next Saturday she visited Miss West she was followed by a new trailer.

She noticed him when she came out of the great gates of the millionaire's mansion, because he aroused a momentary sense or repugnance. He was fair and rather womanish in appearance, but his good looks were marred by a cruel red triangular mouth.

He kept pace with her on the opposite side of the street when she was going through the town, but she shook him off later on. Therefore it gave her quite a shock when she turned into the beech avenue— now a green tunnel— to hear his footsteps a little distance in the rear.

Although she was furious with herself, she hurried to reach the cottage, which was quite close. The door was opened before she could knock, because her arrival was the signal for Maggie's release. It was Ann herself, who had suggested the extra leisure for the maid while she kept the old lady company.

Miss West, whose bed faced the window, greeted her with a question.

"When did you lose your admirer?"

"Who?" asked Ann, in surprise.

"I refer to the weedy boy who always slouches past the minute after your knock."

"I've never noticed him... But I thought I was followed here today by a specially unpleasant-looking man."

"Hum. We'd better assume that you were... How much money have you in your bag?"

"More than I care to lose."

"Then leave all the notes with me. I'll get the manor folk to return them to you by registered post... And, remember, if the man attacks you on your way home, don't resist. Give him your bag— and run."

"You're arranging a cheerful program for me," laughed Ann.

WHEN nine struck, Miss West told her to go.

"Maggie is due now any minute," she told her, "and so is the housekeeper from the manor. Good-by— and don't forget it means 'God be with you.'"

Ann was not nervous, but when she walked down the garden path she could not help contrasting the dark Green twilight of the woods with the sun splashed beech avenue of the afternoon. Clumps of fox-gloves glimmered whitely through the gloom, and in the distance an owl hooted to his mate.

She passed close by the bushes where a man was hiding. He could have touched her, had he put out his hand. She was his quarry, whom he had followed to the cottage, so he looked at her intently.

Her expensive bag promised a rich haul. Yet he let her go by and waited, instead, for someone who was of only incidental interest to the plot.

A few minutes later Maggie charged down the avenue like a young elephant, for she was late. She had not a nerve in her body, and only three pence in her purse. As she passed the rhododendron thicket a shadow slipped out of it like an adder— a black object whirled round in the air— and Maggie fell down on the ground like a log.

THE mystery attack was a nine days' wonder, for bag-snatching was unknown in the district. But while Maggie was recovering from slight concussion, in the hospital, Ann had the unpleasant task of mentally bludgeoning her pupil out of a "rave." After the weekly visit of the hairdresser, Stella appeared in the schoolroom with her hair cut and waved in the same fashion as Ann's.

"Like it?" she asked self-consciously.

"It's charming." Ann had to be tender with the inferiority complex. "But I liked your old style better. That was you. Don't copy me, Stella. I should never forgive myself if I robbed you of your individuality."

Stella wilted, like a pimpernel in wet weather.

"I'm not going to have a crush on you," she declared. "Too definitely feeble. But we're friends aren't we? Let's have a sort of friend's charter, with a secret signature, when we write to each other. Like this." She scrawled a five fingered star on a piece of paper and explained it eagerly. "My name."

Ann was aware that Doris, the schoolroom maid, was listening with a half grin, and she decided to nip the nonsense in the bud.

"You'll want a secret society next, you baby," she said, as she crumpled up the paper. "Now, suppose we call it a day and go to the pictures."

Stella especially enjoyed that afternoon's entertainment, because the film was about a kidnapped girl, and she was excited by the personal implication.

"If a kidnapper ever got me, I'd say 'Good luck' to him. He'd deserve it," she boasted, as they drove home. "They wouldn't decoy me into a taxi with a fake message."

Ann's private feeling was that Stella's intelligence was not likely to be tested, since she ran no possible risk. Lady Williams was nervous on the score of her valuable jewelry, so the house was burglar proof, with flood-lit grounds and every kind of electric alarms.

Besides this, Stella either went out in the car, driven by a trusted chauffeur, or took her walks with a pack of large dogs.

So it was rather a shock to Ann when the girl lowered her voice.

"I'll tell you a secret. They've had a shot for me. They sent one of our own cars to the dancing class, but I noticed Hereford wasn't driving so I wouldn't get in. I wouldn't tell them at home because of mother."

Ann, who was still under the influence of the picture, was horrified.

"Stella," she cried, "I want you to promise me something. If ever you get a note signed by me take no notice of it."

"I promise. But if you signed it with our star, I'd know it was genuine. And if you were in danger nothing and no one would stop me from coming to your rescue."

"Single-handed, like the screen heroines who blunder into every trap?"

"Not me. I'll bring the police with me... Isn't that our schoolroom maid coming down the drive? Isn't she gorgeous?"

Doris, transformed by a marine cap and generous lipstick, minced past the car. She had to be smart, because she was meeting a fashionable gentleman with a cruel red mouth.

When she saw him in the distance she anticipated his question by shaking her head.

"No good swearing at me," she told him. "I can't get what isn't there. But I've brought you something else."

She gave him a sheet of crumpled paper on which was the rough drawing of a star.

THE next time Ann went to the cottage in the wood the door was opened by the new maid— an ice-cold competent brunette, in immaculate livery. There was no doubt she was a domestic treasure, and a great improvement on Maggie, but Ann was repelled by the expression of her thin lipped mouth.

"I don't like your new maid's face," she said to her old governess when Coles had carried out the tea table.

"Neither do I," remarked Miss West calmly. "She's far too good for my situation— yet she's no fool. My opinion is she's wanted by the police and has come here to hide. It's an ideal spot."

"But you won't keep her?"

"Why not? She's an excellent maid. There's no reason why I should not benefit by the special circumstances, if any. After all, it's only my suspicion."

"What about her references?"

"Superlative. Probably forged. The housekeeper hadn't time to inquire too closely. The place isn't popular, after the attack on Maggie."

"But I don't like to think of you alone, at her mercy."

"Don't worry about me. She's been to the cupboard and found out it's bare. I've nothing to lose."

Ann realized the sense of Miss West's argument, especially as she was in constant touch with the manor. Not long afterwards she wondered whether she had misjudged the woman, for she received a letter, by the next morning's post, which indicated that she was not altogether callous.

Its address was the cottage in the wood.

Dear Madam,  it ran,

Pardon the liberty of my writing to you, but I feel responsible for Miss West in case anything happens to her and there's an inquest. I would be obliged if you would tell me is her heart bad and what to do in case of a sudden attack. I don't like to trouble her ladyship as I am a stranger to her and Miss West bites my head off if I ask her. I could not ask you today because she is suspicious of whispering. Will you kindly drop me a line in return and oblige.

Yours respectfully,]

Marion Coles

Ann hastily wrote the maid a brief note, saying that Miss West had good health— apart from the crippling rheumatism— but recommending a bottle of brandy, in case of emergency. She posted it and forgot the matter.

MEANWHILE, Miss West was finding Coles' competency a pleasant change. On the following Saturday, when she carried in her mistress' lunch, Miss West looked, with approval, at her spotless apron and muslin collar.

After she had finished her well-cooked cutlet and custard, she lay back and closed her eyes, in order to be fresh for Ann's visit.

She had begun to doze when she heard the opening of the front door. Her visitor was before her usual time.

"Ann," she called.

Instead of her old pupil, a strange woman entered the bedroom. Her fashionably thin figure was defined by a tight black suit and a halo hat revealed a sharp rouged face.

As Miss West stared at her she gave a cry of recognition.

"Coles!"

The woman sneered at her.

"Here's two gentlemen come to see you," she announced.

As she spoke, two men, dressed with flashy smartness, sauntered into the room. One was blond and handsome, except for a red triangular mouth; the other had the small cunning eyes and low set ears of an elementary criminal type.

"Go out of my room," ordered Miss West. "Coles you are discharged."

The men only laughed as they advanced to the bed.

"We're only going to make you safer, old lady." said the fair man. "You might fall out of bed and hurt yourself. See?"

Miss West did not condescend to struggle while her feet and hands were secured with cords. Her wits told her that she would need to conserve every ounce of strength.

"Aren't you taking an unnecessary precaution with a bedridden woman?" she asked scornfully.

"Nothing too good for you, sweetheart," the fair man told her.

"Why have you come here? My former maid has told you that there is nothing of value in my cottage."

"Nothing but you, beautiful."

"How dare you be insolent to me? Take off your hats in a lady's presence."

The men only laughed. They sat and smoked cigarettes in silence, until a knock on the front door made them spring to their feet.

"Let her in," ordered the ringleader.

Miss West strained at her cords as Coles went out of the room. Her black eyes glared with helpless fury when Ann entered, and stood—horror stricken—in the doorway.

"Don't dare touch her," she cried.

The men merely laughed again, as they seized the struggling girl, forced her down on a bedroom chair and began to bind her ankles.

"Ann," commended the old governess. "Keep still. They're three to one. An elementary knowledge of arithmetic should tell you resistance is useless."

The pedantic old voice steadied Ann's nerves.

"Are you all right, Miss West?" she asked coolly.

"Quite comfortable, thanks."

"Good." Ann turned to the men. "What do you want?"

They did not answer, but nodded to Coles, who placed a small table before Ann. With the deft movements of a well trained maid she arranged stationery— stamped with Miss West's address and writing materials.

Then the fair man explained the situation.

"The Williams' kid wot you teach is always pestering you to come here and see the old lady. Now, you're going to write her a nice little note, inviting her to tea this afternoon."

Ann's heart hammered as she realized she had walked into a trap. The very simplicity of the scheme was its safeguard. She was the decoy bird. The kidnappers had only to install a spy in the Williams' household, to study the habits of the governess.

Unfortunately she had led them to an ideal rendezvous— the cottage in the wood.

"No," she said.

The next second she shivered as something cold was pressed to her temple.

"We'll give you five minutes to make up your mind," said the fair man, glancing at the grandfather's clock. "Then we shoot."

Ann gritted her teeth. In that moment her reason told her that she was probably acting from false sentiment and a confused sense of values. But logic was of no avail. She could not betray her trust.

"No," she said again.

The second man crossed to the bed and pressed his revolver to Miss West's head.

"Her, too," he said.

Ann looked at her old governess in an agony, imploring her forgiveness.

"She's only fifteen," she said piteously, as though in excuse.

"And I'm an old woman," grunted Miss West. "Your reasoning is sound. But you forget someone younger than your pupil. Your unborn son."

Ann's face quivered, but she shook her head. Then the old governess spoke with the rasp of authority in her voice.

"Ann, I'm ashamed of you. What is money, compared with two valuable lives, not to mention those still to come? I understand these—gentlemen do not wish to injure your pupil. They only want to collect a ransom."

"That's right, lady," agreed the fair man. "We won't do her no harm. This will tell the old man all hell want to know."

He laid down a typewritten demand note on the table and added a direction to Ann.

"When we've gone off with the kid, nip off to the old man as fast as you can go and give him this."

"With her legs tied to a chair?" asked the deep sarcastic voice of the old woman.

"She's got her hands free, ain't she? Them knots will take some undoing, but it's up to her, ain't it?"

"True. No doubt she will manage to free herself ... But suppose she writes this note and the young lady does not accept the invitation? What then?"

The fair man winked at his companion.

"Then you'll both be unlucky," he replied.

ANN listened in dull misery. She could not understand the drift of Miss West's questions. They only prolonged the agony. Both of them knew they could place no reliance on the promise of the kidnappers. The men looked a pair of merciless beasts.

If she wrote that note she would lure her poor little gilded pupil to her death.

She started as her governess spoke sharply to her.

"Ann, you've heard what these gentlemen have said." She added in bitter mockery of their speech. "They wouldn't never break their word. Write that note."

Ann could not believe her ears. Yet she could feel the whole force of her vitality playing on her like an electric battery. It reminded her of a former experience, when she was a child. Her uncle, was paid for her education, was an Oxford don and he raised an objection against Miss West because she was unqualified.

In the end he consented to give his niece a viva-voce examination, on the result of which depended the governess' fate.

Ann passed the test triumphantly, but she always felt, privately, that Miss West supplied the right answers, as she sat staring at her pupil with hypnotic black eyes.

Now she knew that the old magic was at work again. Miss West was trying to tell her something without the aid of words.

Suddenly the knowledge came. Her old governess was playing for time. Probably she was expecting some male visitors from the manor, as the earl and his sons often came to the cottage. What she, herself, had to do was to stave off the five minute sentence of death by writing a note to Stella, which was hallmarked as a forgery so that the girl would not come.

As she hesitated she remembered that she had extracted a promise from her pupil to disregard any message. The question was, whether it would be obeyed, for she knew the strength of her fatal attraction, and that Stella was eager to visit the cottage.

Hoping for the best, she began to write, disguising her handwriting by a backward slant.

"Dear Stella—"

With an oath the man snatched up the paper and threw it on the floor in a crumpled ball.

"None of them monkey tricks." he snarled. "We know your proper writing. And sign it with this."

Ann's hope died as the man produced the letter which she had written to Coles about Miss West's health and also Stella's rough drawing of a star.

She was defeated by the evidence— a specimen of her handwriting— for which Doris, the schoolroom maid had searched in vain— and the secret signature.

"I— can't," she said, feebly pushing away the paper.

Again the pistol was pressed to her head.

"Don't waste no time," growled the fair man.

"Don't waste no time," echoed Miss West. "Ann, write."

There was a spark in the old woman's eyes and the flash of wireless. Impelled to take up the pen, Ann wrote quickly, in a firm hand, and signed her note with a faithful copy of the star.

The men hung over her, watching every stroke and comparing the writing with Coles' letter.

"Don't put no dots," snarled the fair man, who plainly suspected a cypher, when Ann inserted a period.

He read the note again when it was finished and then passed it to his companion, who pointed to a word suspiciously. The old woman and the girl looked at each other in an agony of suspense as they waited for the blow to fall.

Then the fair man turned sharply to Miss West.

"Spell 'genwin'." he commanded.

As she reeled off the correct spelling he glanced doubtfully at his companion, who nodded.

"O.K." he said.

Miss West's grim face did not relax and Ann guessed the reason. She was nerving herself for the second ordeal of Coles' inspection.

Fortunately, however, the men did not want their female confederate's opinion. The job was done and they wanted to rush it forward to its next stage. The fair man sealed the note and whistled on his fingers.

Instantly the weedy youth who had followed Ann to the cottage appeared from behind a clump of laurels in the drive, wheeling a bicycle. He snatched the letter from Coles and scorched away round the bend of the road.

Ann slumped back in her chair, feeling unstrung in every fiber. Nothing remained but to wait— wait— and pray Stella would not come.

The time seemed to pass very slowly inside the room. The men smoked in silence until the carpet was littered with cigarette-stubs and the air veiled with smoke. Miss West watched the clock as though she would galvanize the minute hand.

"Don't come," agonized Ann. "Stella, don't come."

But absent treatment proved a failure for Coles, who was hiding behind a curtain, gave a sudden hoot of triumph.

"The car's come."

"Push the girl to the front," commanded the fair man.

He helped to lift Ann's chair to the window so that she saw the Williams' Lanchester waiting in front of the cottage. Stella stood on the drive and the chauffeur, Hereford, was in the act of shutting the door. He sprang back to his seat, backed, saluted, and drove swiftly away.

Ann watched the car disappear with despairing eyes. She could not scream because fingers were gripping her windpipe, nearly choking her. But Stella could distinguish the pale blue of her frock behind the diamond paned window and she waved her hand as she ran eagerly up the garden path.

Had Ann been normal she might have guessed the truth from Stella's reaction to the scene when she burst into the room. Instead of appearing surprised, she dashed to Ann and threw her arms around her.

"They didn't fool me," she whispered.

Then she began to fight like a boxing kangaroo, in order to create the necessary distraction, while the police car came round the bend of the drive.

The prelude to a successful raid was Mr. Williams' call for prompt action, when his daughter brought him Ann's note.

"It's her writing and our private star," she told him. "But— read it."

He glanced at the few lines and laughed.

"An impudent forgery," he said.

"No, it's an S.O.S. It looks like a second try for me."

After she had told her father about the first unsuccessful attempt to kidnap her, he realized the importance of nipping the gang's activities in the bud.

This seems the place to print the note, which was the alleged composition of an Oxford M.A.

Dear Stella,

Miss West will be pleased if you will come to tea this afternoon. Don't waste no time and don't run no risks. Let Hereford drive you in the car. To prove this is genuine I'm signing it with our star, same as you done, one day in the schoolroom.

Yours,

Ann Shelley

__________________

6: Missing: Page Thirteen

Anna Katharine Green

1846-1935

Anna Katharine Green

One of a number of Violet Strange detective novellas. I can't establish if it was published in a magazine before it appeared in the collection "The Golden Slipper", Putnams, 1915, from which this is taken. The author attained a college degree, and made a very comfortable living as a best-selling author of detective novels and stories.

"ONE MORE! just one more well paying affair, and I promise to stop; really and truly to stop."

"But, Puss, why one more? You have earned the amount you set for yourself,— or very nearly,— and though my help is not great, in three months I can add enough—"

"No, you cannot, Arthur. You are doing well; I appreciate it; in fact, I am just delighted to have you work for me in the way you do, but you cannot, in your present position, make enough in three months, or in six, to meet the situation as I see it. Enough does not satisfy me. The measure must be full, heaped up, and running over. Possible failure following promise must be provided for. Never must I feel myself called upon to do this kind of thing again. Besides, I have never got over the Zabriskie tragedy. It haunts me continually. Something new may help to put it out of my head. I feel guilty. I was responsible—"

"No, Puss. I will not have it that you were responsible. Some such end was bound to follow a complication like that. Sooner or later he would have been driven to shoot himself—"

"But not her."

"No, not her. But do you think she would have given those few minutes of perfect understanding with her blind husband for a few years more of miserable life?"

Violet made no answer; she was too absorbed in her surprise. Was this Arthur? Had a few weeks' work and a close connection with the really serious things of life made this change in him? Her face beamed at the thought, which seeing, but not understanding what underlay this evidence of joy, he bent and kissed her, saying with some of his old nonchalance:

"Forget it, Violet; only don't let any one or anything lead you to interest yourself in another affair of the kind. If you do, I shall have to consult a certain friend of yours as to the best way of stopping this folly. I mention no names. Oh! you need not look so frightened. Only behave; that's all."

"He's right," she acknowledged to herself, as he sauntered away; "altogether right."

Yet because she wanted the extra money—

THE SCENE invited alarm,— that is, for so young a girl as Violet, surveying it from an automobile some time after the stroke of midnight. An unknown house at the end of a heavily shaded walk, in the open doorway of which could be seen the silhouette of a woman's form leaning eagerly forward with arms outstretched in an appeal for help! It vanished while she looked, but the effect remained, holding her to her seat for one startled moment. This seemed strange, for she had anticipated adventure. One is not summoned from a private ball to ride a dozen miles into the country on an errand of investigation, without some expectation of encountering the mysterious and the tragic. But Violet Strange, for all her many experiences, was of a most susceptible nature, and for the instant in which that door stood open, with only the memory of that expectant figure to disturb the faintly lit vista of the hall beyond, she felt that grip upon the throat which comes from an indefinable fear which no words can explain and no plummet sound.

But this soon passed. With the setting of her foot to ground, conditions changed and her emotions took on a more normal character. The figure of a man now stood in the place held by the vanished woman; and it was not only that of one she knew but that of one whom she trusted—a friend whose very presence gave her courage. With this recognition came a better understanding of the situation, and it was with a beaming eye and unclouded features that she tripped up the walk to meet the expectant figure and outstretched hand of Roger Upjohn.

"You here!" she exclaimed, amid smiles and blushes, as he drew her into the hall.

He at once launched forth into explanations mingled with apologies for the presumption he had shown in putting her to this inconvenience. There was trouble in the house— great trouble. Something had occurred for which an explanation must be found before morning, or the happiness and honour of more than one person now under this unhappy roof would be wrecked. He knew it was late—that she had been obliged to take a long and dreary ride alone, but her success with the problem which had once come near wrecking his own life had emboldened him to telephone to the office and—"But you are in ball-dress," he cried in amazement. "Did you think—"

"I came from a ball. Word reached me between the dances. I did not go home. I had been bidden to hurry."

He looked his appreciation, but when he spoke it was to say:

"This is the situation. Miss Digby—"

"The lady who is to be married tomorrow?"

"Who hopes to be married tomorrow."

"How, hopes?"

"Who will be married tomorrow, if a certain article lost in this house tonight can be found before any of the persons who have been dining here leave for their homes."

Violet uttered an exclamation.

"Then, Mr. Cornell," she began—

"Mr. Cornell has our utmost confidence," Roger hastened to interpose. "But the article missing is one which he might reasonably desire to possess and which he alone of all present had the opportunity of securing. You can therefore see why he, with his pride— the pride off a man not rich, engaged to marry a woman who is— should declare that unless his innocence is established before daybreak, the doors of St. Bartholomew will remain shut to-morrow."

"But the article lost— what is it?"

"Miss Digby will give you the particulars. She is waiting to receive you," he added with a gesture towards a half-open door at their right.

Violet glanced that way, then cast her looks up and down the hall in which they stood.

"Do you know that you have not told me in whose house I am? Not hers, I know. She lives in the city."

"And you are twelve miles from Harlem. Miss Strange, you are in the Van Broecklyn mansion, famous enough you will acknowledge. Have you never been here before?"

"I have been by here, but I recognized nothing in the dark. What an exciting place for an investigation!"

"And Mr. Van Broecklyn? Have you never met him?"

"Once, when a child. He frightened me then."

"And may frighten you now; though I doubt it. Time has mellowed him. Besides, I have prepared him for what might otherwise occasion him some astonishment. Naturally he would not look for just the sort of lady investigator I am about to introduce to him."

She smiled. Violet Strange was a very charming young woman, as well as a keen prober of odd mysteries.

The meeting between herself and Miss Digby was a sympathetic one. After the first inevitable shock which the latter felt at sight of the beauty and fashionable appearance of the mysterious little being who was to solve her difficulties, her glance, which, under other circumstances, might have lingered unduly upon the piquant features and exquisite dressing of the fairy-like figure before her, passed at once to Violet's eyes, in whose steady depths beamed an intelligence quite at odds with the coquettish dimples which so often misled the casual observer in his estimation of a character singularly subtle and well-poised.

As for the impression she herself made upon Violet, it was the same she made upon everyone. No one could look long at Florence Digby and not recognize the loftiness of her spirit and the generous nature of her impulses. In person she was tall and as she leaned to take Violet's hand, the difference between them brought out the salient points in each, to the great admiration of the one onlooker.

Meantime, for all her interest in the case in hand, Violet could not help casting a hurried look about her, in gratification of the curiosity incited by her entrance into a house signalized from its foundation by such a series of tragic events. The result was disappointing. The walls were plain, the furniture simple. Nothing suggestive in either, unless it was the fact that nothing was new, nothing modern. As it looked in the days of Burr and Hamilton so it looked to-day, even to the rather startling detail of candles which did duty on every side in place of gas.

As Violet recalled the reason for this, the fascination of the past seized upon her imagination. There was no knowing where this might have carried her, had not the feverish gleam in Miss Digby's eyes warned her that the present held its own excitement. Instantly, she was all attention and listening with undivided mind to that lady's disclosures.

They were brief and to the following effect:

The dinner which had brought some half-dozen people together in this house had been given in celebration of her impending marriage. But it was also in a way meant as a compliment to one of the other guests, a Mr. Spielhagen, who, during the week, had succeeded in demonstrating to a few experts the value of a discovery he had made which would transform a great industry.

In speaking of this discovery, Miss Digby did not go into particulars, the whole matter being far beyond her understanding; but in stating its value she openly acknowledged that it was in the line of Mr. Cornell's own work, and one which involved calculations and a formula which, if prematurely disclosed, would invalidate the contract Mr. Spielhagen hoped to make, and thus destroy his present hopes.

Of this formula but two copies existed. One was locked up in a safe deposit vault in Boston, the other he had brought into the house on his person, and it was the latter which was now missing, having been abstracted during the evening from a manuscript of sixteen or more sheets, under circumstances which she would now endeavour to relate.

Mr. Van Broecklyn, their host, had in his melancholy life but one interest which could be at all absorbing. This was for explosives. As consequence, much of the talk at the dinner-table had been on Mr. Spielhagen's discovery, and possible changes it might introduce into this especial industry. As these, worked out from a formula kept secret from the trade, could not but affect greatly Mr. Cornell's interests, she found herself listening intently, when Mr. Van Broecklyn, with an apology for his interference, ventured to remark that if Mr. Spielhagen had made a valuable discovery in this line, so had he, and one which he had substantiated by many experiments. It was not a marketable one, such as Mr. Spielhagen's was, but in his work upon the same, and in the tests which he had been led to make, he had discovered certain instances he would gladly name, which demanded exceptional procedure to be successful. If Mr. Spielhagen's method did not allow for these exceptions, nor make suitable provision for them, then Mr. Spielhagen's method would fail more times than it would succeed. Did it so allow and so provide? It would relieve him greatly to learn that it did.

The answer came quickly. Yes, it did. But later and after some further conversation, Mr. Spielhagen's confidence seemed to wane, and before they left the dinner-table, he openly declared his intention of looking over his manuscript again that very night, in order to be sure that the formula therein contained duly covered all the exceptions mentioned by Mr. Van Broecklyn.

If Mr. Cornell's countenance showed any change at this moment, she for one had not noticed it; but the bitterness with which he remarked upon the other's good fortune in having discovered this formula of whose entire success he had no doubt, was apparent to everybody, and naturally gave point to the circumstances which a short time afterward associated him with the disappearance of the same.

The ladies (there were two others besides herself) having withdrawn in a body to the music-room, the gentlemen all proceeded to the library to smoke. Here, conversation loosed from the one topic which had hitherto engrossed it, was proceeding briskly, when Mr. Spielhagen, with nervous gesture, impulsively looked about him and said:

"I cannot rest till I have run through my thesis again. Where can I find a quiet spot? I won't be long; I read very rapidly."

It was for Mr. Van Broecklyn to answer, but no word coming from him, every eye turned his way, only to find him sunk in one of those fits of abstraction so well known to his friends, and from which no one who has this strange man's peace of mind at heart ever presumes to rouse him.

What was to be done? These moods of their singular host sometimes lasted half an hour, and Mr. Spielhagen had not the appearance of a man of patience. Indeed he presently gave proof of the great uneasiness he was labouring under, for noticing a door standing ajar on the other side of the room, he remarked to those around him:

"A den! and lighted! Do you see any objection to my shutting myself in there for a few minutes?"

No one venturing to reply, he rose, and giving a slight push to the door, disclosed a small room exquisitely panelled and brightly lighted, but without one article of furniture in it, not even a chair.

"The very place," quoth Mr. Spielhagen, and lifting a light cane-bottomed chair from the many standing about, he carried it inside and shut the door behind him.

Several minutes passed during which the man who had served at table entered with a tray on which were several small glasses evidently containing some choice liqueur. Finding his master fixed in one of his strange moods, he set the tray down and, pointing to one of the glasses, said:

"That is for Mr. Van Broecklyn. It contains his usual quieting powder." And urging the gentlemen to help themselves, he quietly left the room. Mr. Upjohn lifted the glass nearest him, and Mr. Cornell seemed about to do the same when he suddenly reached forward and catching up one farther off started for the room in which Mr. Spielhagen had so deliberately secluded himself.

Why he did all this— why, above all things, he should reach across the tray for a glass instead of taking the one under his hand, he can no more explain than why he has followed many another unhappy impulse. Nor did he understand the nervous start given by Mr. Spielhagen at his entrance, or the stare with which that gentleman took the glass from his hand and mechanically drank its contents, till he saw how his hand had stretched itself across the sheet of paper he was reading, in an open attempt to hide the lines visible between his fingers. Then indeed the intruder flushed and withdrew in great embarrassment, fully conscious of his indiscretion but not deeply disturbed till Mr. Van Broecklyn, suddenly arousing and glancing down at the tray placed very near his hand remarked in some surprise: "Dobbs seems to have forgotten me." Then indeed, the unfortunate Mr. Cornell realized what he had done. It was the glass intended for his host which he had caught up and carried into the other room— the glass which he had been told contained a drug. Of what folly he had been guilty, and how tame would be any effort at excuse!

Attempting none, he rose and with a hurried glance at Mr. Upjohn who flushed in sympathy at his distress, he crossed to the door he had lately closed upon Mr. Spielhagen. But feeling his shoulder touched as his hand pressed the knob, he turned to meet the eye of Mr. Van Broecklyn fixed upon him with an expression which utterly confounded him.

"Where are you going?" that gentleman asked.

The questioning tone, the severe look, expressive at once of displeasure and astonishment, were most disconcerting, but Mr. Cornell managed to stammer forth:

"Mr. Spielhagen is in here consulting his thesis. When your man brought in the cordial, I was awkward enough to catch up your glass and carry it in to. Mr. Spielhagen. He drank it and I— I am anxious to see if it did him any harm."

As he uttered the last word he felt Mr. Van Broecklyn's hand slip from his shoulder, but no word accompanied the action, nor did his host make the least move to follow him into the room.

This was a matter of great regret to him later, as it left him for a moment out of the range of every eye, during which he says he simply stood in a state of shock at seeing Mr. Spielhagen still sitting there, manuscript in hand, but with head fallen forward and eyes closed; dead, asleep or—he hardly knew what; the sight so paralysed him.

Whether or not this was the exact truth and the whole truth, Mr. Cornell certainly looked very unlike himself as he stepped back into Mr. Van Broecklyn's presence; and he was only partially reassured when that gentleman protested that there was no real harm in the drug, and that Mr. Spielhagen would be all right if left to wake naturally and without shock. However, as his present attitude was one of great discomfort, they decided to carry him back and lay him on the library lounge. But before doing this, Mr. Upjohn drew from his flaccid grasp, the precious manuscript, and carrying it into the larger room placed it on a remote table, where it remained undisturbed till Mr. Spielhagen, suddenly coming to himself at the end of some fifteen minutes, missed the sheets from his hand, and bounding up, crossed the room to repossess himself of them.

His face, as he lifted them up and rapidly ran through them with ever-accumulating anxiety, told them what they had to expect.

The page containing the formula was gone!

Violet now saw her problem.

ii

THERE was no doubt about the loss I have mentioned; all could see that page 13 was not there. In vain a second handling of every sheet, the one so numbered was not to be found. Page 14 met the eye on the top of the pile, and page 12 finished it off at the bottom, but no page 13 in between, or anywhere else.

Where had it vanished, and through whose agency had this misadventure occurred? No one could say, or, at least, no one there made any attempt to do so, though everybody started to look for it.

But where look? The adjoining small room offered no facilities for hiding a cigar-end, much less a square of shining white paper. Bare walls, a bare floor, and a single chair for furniture, comprised all that was to be seen in this direction. Nor could the room in which they then stood be thought to hold it, unless it was on the person of some one of them. Could this be the explanation of the mystery? No man looked his doubts; but Mr. Cornell, possibly divining the general feeling, stepped up to Mr. Van Broecklyn and in a cool voice, but with the red burning hotly on either cheek, said, so as to be heard by everyone present:

"I demand to be searched— at once and thoroughly."

A moment's silence, then the common cry:

"We will all be searched."

"Is Mr. Spielhagen sure that the missing page was with the others when he sat down in the adjoining room to read his thesis?" asked their perturbed host.

"Very sure," came the emphatic reply. "Indeed, I was just going through the formula itself when I fell asleep."

"You are ready to assert this?"

"I am ready to swear it."

Mr. Cornell repeated his request.

"I demand that you make a thorough search of my person. I must be cleared, and instantly, of every suspicion," he gravely asserted, "or how can I marry Miss Digby to-morrow."

After that there was no further hesitation. One and all subjected themselves to the ordeal suggested; even Mr. Spielhagen. But this effort was as futile as the rest. The lost page was not found.

What were they to think? What were they to do?

There seemed to be nothing left to do, and yet some further attempt must be made towards the recovery of this important formula. Mr. Cornell's marriage and Mr. Spielhagen's business success both depended upon its being in the latter's hands before six in the morning, when he was engaged to hand it over to a certain manufacturer sailing for Europe on an early steamer.

Five hours!

Had Mr. Van Broecklyn a suggestion to offer? No, he was as much at sea as the rest.

Simultaneously look crossed look. Blankness was on every face.

"Let us call the ladies," suggested one.

It was done, and however great the tension had been before, it was even greater when Miss Digby stepped upon the scene. But she was not a woman to be shaken from her poise even by a crisis of this importance. When the dilemma had been presented to her and the full situation grasped, she looked first at Mr. Cornell and then at Mr. Spielhagen, and quietly said:

"There is but one explanation possible of this matter. Mr. Spielhagen will excuse me, but he is evidently mistaken in thinking that he saw the lost page among the rest. The condition into which he was thrown by the unaccustomed drug he had drank, made him liable to hallucinations. I have not the least doubt he thought he had been studying the formula at the time he dropped off to sleep. I have every confidence in the gentleman's candour. But so have I in that of Mr. Cornell," she supplemented, with a smile.

An exclamation from Mr. Van Broecklyn and a subdued murmur from all but Mr. Spielhagen testified to the effect of this suggestion, and there is no saying what might have been the result if Mr. Cornell had not hurriedly put in this extraordinary and most unexpected protest:

"Miss Digby has my gratitude," said he, "for a confidence which I hope to prove to be deserved. But I must say this for Mr. Spielhagen. He was correct in stating that he was engaged in looking over his formula when I stepped into his presence with the glass of cordial. If you were not in a position to see the hurried way in which his hand instinctively spread itself over the page he was reading, I was; and if that does not seem conclusive to you, then I feel bound to state that in unconsciously following this movement of his, I plainly saw the number written on the top of the page, and that number was—13."

A loud exclamation, this time from Spielhagen himself, announced his gratitude and corresponding change of attitude toward the speaker.

"Wherever that damned page has gone," he protested, advancing towards Cornell with outstretched hand, "you have nothing to do with its disappearance."

Instantly all constraint fled, and every countenance took on a relieved expression. But the problem remained.

Suddenly those very words passed some one's lips, and with their utterance Mr. Upjohn remembered how at an extraordinary crisis in his own life he had been helped and an equally difficult problem settled, by a little lady secretly attached to a private detective agency. If she could only be found and hurried here before morning, all might yet be well. He would make the effort. Such wild schemes sometimes work. He telephoned to the office and—

Was there anything else Miss Strange would like to know?

iii

MISS STRANGE, thus appealed to, asked where the gentlemen were now.

She was told that they were still all together in the library; the ladies had been sent home.

"Then let us go to them," said Violet, hiding under a smile her great fear that here was an affair which might very easily spell for her that dismal word, failure.

So great was that fear that under all ordinary circumstances she would have had no thought for anything else in the short interim between this stating of the problem and her speedy entrance among the persons involved. But the circumstances of this case were so far from ordinary, or rather let me put it in this way, the setting of the case was so very extraordinary, that she scarcely thought of the problem before her, in her great interest in the house through whose rambling halls she was being so carefully guided. So much that was tragic and heartrending had occurred here. The Van Broecklyn name, the Van Broecklyn history, above all the Van Broecklyn tradition, which made the house unique in the country's annals (of which more hereafter), all made an appeal to her imagination, and centred her thoughts on what she saw about her. There was door which no man ever opened— had never opened since Revolutionary times— should she see it? Should she know it if she did see it? Then Mr. Van Broecklyn himself! just to meet him, under any conditions and in any place, was an event. But to meet him here, under the pall of his own mystery! No wonder she had no words for her companions, or that her thoughts clung to this anticipation in wonder and almost fearsome delight.

His story was a well-known one. A bachelor and a misanthrope, he lived absolutely alone save for a large entourage of servants, all men and elderly ones at that. He never visited. Though he now and then, as on this occasion, entertained certain persons under his roof, he declined every invitation for himself, avoiding even, with equal strictness, all evening amusements of whatever kind, which would detain him in the city after ten at night. Perhaps this was to ensure no break in his rule of life never to sleep out of his own bed. Though he was a man well over fifty he had not spent, according to his own statement, but two nights out of his own bed since his return from Europe in early boyhood, and those were in obedience to a judicial summons which took him to Boston.

This was his main eccentricity, but he had another which is apparent enough from what has already been said. He avoided women. If thrown in with them during his short visits into town, he was invariably polite and at times companionable, but he never sought them out, nor had gossip, contrary to its usual habit, ever linked his name with one of the sex.

Yet he was a man of more than ordinary attraction. His features were fine and his figure impressive. He might have been the cynosure of all eyes had he chosen to enter crowded drawing-rooms, or even to frequent public assemblages, but having turned his back upon everything of the kind in his youth, he had found it impossible to alter his habits with advancing years; nor was he now expected to. The position he had taken was respected. Leonard Van Broecklyn was no longer criticized.

Was there any explanation for this strangely self-centred life? Those who knew him best seemed to think so. In the first place he had sprung from an unfortunate stock. Events of unusual and tragic nature had marked the family of both parents. Nor had his parents themselves been exempt from this seeming fatality. Antagonistic in tastes and temperament, they had dragged on an unhappy existence in the old home, till both natures rebelled, and a separation ensued which not only disunited their lives but sent them to opposite sides of the globe never to return again. At least, that was the inference drawn from the peculiar circumstances attending the event. On the morning of one never-to-be-forgotten day, John Van Broecklyn, the grandfather of the present representative of the family, found the following note from his son lying on the library table:

Father:

Life in this house, or any house, with her is no longer endurable. One of us must go. The mother should not be separated from her child. Therefore it is I whom you will never see again. Forget me, but be considerate of her and the boy.

William.

Six hours later another note was found, this time from the wife:

Father:

Tied to a rotting corpse what does one do? Lop off one's arm if necessary to rid one of the contact. As all love between your son and myself is dead, I can no longer live within the sound of his voice. As this is his home, he is the one to remain in it. May our child reap the benefit of his mother's loss and his father's affection.

Rhoda.

Both were gone, and gone forever. Simultaneous in their departure, they preserved each his own silence and sent no word back. If the one went east and the other west, they may have met on the other side of the globe, but never again in the home which sheltered their boy. For him and for his grandfather they had sunk from sight in the great sea of humanity, leaving them stranded on an isolated and mournful shore. The grand-father steeled himself to the double loss, for the child's sake; but the boy of eleven succumbed. Few of the world's great sufferers, of whatever age or condition, have mourned as this child mourned, or shown the effects of his grief so deeply or so long. Not till he had passed his majority did the line, carved in one day in his baby forehead, lose any of its intensity; and there are those who declare that even later than that, the midnight stillness of the house was disturbed from time to time by his muffled shriek of "Mother! Mother!", sending the servants from the house, and adding one more horror to the many which clung about this accursed mansion.

Of this cry Violet had heard, and it was that and the door— But I have already told you about the door which she was still looking for, when her two companions suddenly halted, and she found herself on the threshold of the library, in full view of Mr. Van Broecklyn and his two guests.

Slight and fairy-like in figure, with an air of modest reserve more in keeping with her youth and dainty dimpling beauty than with her errand, her appearance produced an astonishment none of which the gentlemen were able to disguise. This the clever detective, with a genius for social problems and odd elusive cases! This darling of the ball-room in satin and pearls! Mr. Spielhagen glanced at Mr. Cornell, and Mr. Cornell at Mr. Spielhagen, and both at Mr. Upjohn, in very evident distrust. As for Violet, she had eyes only for Mr. Van Broecklyn who stood before her in a surprise equal to that of the others but with more restraint in its expression.

She was not disappointed in him. She had expected to see a man, reserved almost to the point of austerity. And she found his first look even more awe-compelling than her imagination had pictured; so much so indeed, that her resolution faltered, and she took a quick step backward; which seeing, he smiled and her heart and hopes grew warm again. That he could smile, and smile with absolute sweetness, was her great comfort when later—But I am introducing you too hurriedly to the catastrophe. There is much to be told first.

I pass over the preliminaries, and come at once to the moment when Violet, having listened to a repetition of the full facts, stood with downcast eyes before these gentlemen, complaining in some alarm to herself: "They expect me to tell them now and without further search or parley just where this missing page is. I shall have to balk that expectation without losing their confidence. But how?"

Summoning up her courage and meeting each inquiring eye with a look which seemed to carry a different message to each, she remarked very quietly:

"This is not a matter to guess at. I must have time and I must look a little deeper into the facts just given me. I presume that the table I see over there is the one upon which Mr. Upjohn laid the manuscript during Mr. Spielhagen's unconsciousness."

All nodded.

"Is it— I mean the table— in the same condition it was then? Has nothing been taken from it except the manuscript?"

"Nothing."

"Then the missing page is not there," she smiled, pointing to its bare top. A pause, during which she stood with her gaze fixed on the floor before her. She was thinking and thinking hard.

Suddenly she came to a decision. Addressing Mr. Upjohn she asked if he were quite sure that in taking the manuscript from Mr. Spielhagen's hand he had neither disarranged nor dropped one of its pages.

The answer was unequivocal.

"Then," she declared, with quiet assurance and a steady meeting with her own of every eye, "as the thirteenth page was not found among the others when they were taken from this table, nor on the persons of either Mr. Cornell or Mr. Spielhagen, it is still in that inner room."

"Impossible!" came from every lip, each in a different tone. "That room is absolutely empty."

"May I have a look at its emptiness?" she asked, with a naive glance at Mr. Van Broecklyn.

"There is positively nothing in the room but the chair Mr. Spielhagen sat on," objected that gentleman with a noticeable air of reluctance.

"Still, may I not have a look at it?" she persisted, with that disarming smile she kept for great occasions.

Mr. Van Broecklyn bowed. He could not refuse a request so urged, but his step was slow and his manner next to ungracious as he led the way to the door of the adjoining room and threw it open.

Just what she had been told to expect! Bare walls and floors and an empty chair! Yet she did not instantly withdraw, but stood silently contemplating the panelled wainscoting surrounding her, as though she suspected it of containing some secret hiding-place not apparent to the eye.

Mr. Van Broecklyn, noting this, hastened to say:

"The walls are sound, Miss Strange. They contain no hidden cupboards."

"And that door?" she asked, pointing to a portion of the wainscoting so exactly like the rest that only the most experienced eye could detect the line of deeper colour which marked an opening.

For an instant Mr. Van Broecklyn stood rigid, then the immovable pallor, which was one of his chief characteristics, gave way to a deep flush as he explained:

"There was a door there once; but it has been permanently closed. With cement," he forced himself to add, his countenance losing its evanescent colour till it shone ghastly again in the strong light.

With difficulty Violet preserved her show of composure. "The door!" she murmured to herself. "I have found it. The great historic door!" But her tone was light as she ventured to say:

"Then it can no longer be opened by your hand or any other?"

"It could not be opened with an axe."

Violet sighed in the midst of her triumph. Her curiosity had been satisfied, but the problem she had been set to solve looked inexplicable. But she was not one to yield easily to discouragement. Marking the disappointment approaching to disdain in every eye but Mr. Upjohn's, she drew herself up—(she had not far to draw) and made this final proposal.

"A sheet of paper," she remarked, "of the size of this one cannot be spirited away, or dissolved into thin air. It exists; it is here; and all we want is some happy thought in order to find it. I acknowledge that that happy thought has not come to me yet, but sometimes I get it in what may seem to you a very odd way. Forgetting myself, I try to assume the individuality of the person who has worked the mystery. If I can think with his thoughts, I possibly may follow him in his actions. In this case I should like to make believe for a few moments that I am Mr. Spielhagen" (with what a delicious smile she said this) "I should like to hold his thesis in my hand and be interrupted in my reading by Mr. Cornell offering his glass of cordial; then I should like to nod and slip off mentally into a deep sleep. Possibly in that sleep the dream may come which will clarify the whole situation. Will you humour me so far?"

A ridiculous concession, but finally she had her way; the farce was enacted and they left her as she had requested them to do, alone with her dreams in the small room.

Suddenly they heard her cry out, and in another moment she appeared before them, the picture of excitement.

"Is this chair standing exactly as it did when Mr. Spielhagen occupied it?" she asked.

"No," said Mr. Upjohn, "it faced the other way."

She stepped back and twirled the chair about with her disengaged hand.

"So?"

Mr. Upjohn and Mr. Spielhagen both nodded, so did the others when she glanced at them.

With a sign of ill-concealed satisfaction, she drew their attention to herself; then eagerly cried:

"Gentlemen, look here!"

Seating herself, she allowed her whole body to relax till she presented the picture of one calmly asleep. Then, as they continued to gaze at with fascinated eyes, not knowing what to expect, they saw something white escape from her lap and slide across the floor till it touched and was stayed by the wainscot. It was the top page of the manuscript she held, and as some inkling of the truth reached their astonished minds, she sprang impetuously to her feet and, pointing to the fallen sheet, cried:

"Do you understand now? Look where it lies and then look here!"

She had bounded towards the wall and was now on her knees pointing to the bottom of the wainscot, just a few inches to the left of the fallen page.

"A crack!" she cried, "under what was once the door. It's a very thin one, hardly perceptible to the eye. But see!" Here she laid her finger on the fallen paper and drawing it towards her, pushed it carefully against the lower edge of the wainscot. Half of it at once disappeared.

"I could easily slip it all through," she assured them, withdrawing the sheet and leaping to her feet in triumph. "You know now where the missing page lies, Mr. Spielhagen. All that remains is for Mr. Van Broecklyn to get it for you."

iv

THE CRIES of mingled astonishment and relief which greeted this simple elucidation of the mystery were broken by a curiously choked, almost unintelligible, cry. It came from the man thus appealed to, who, unnoticed by them all, had started at her first word and gradually, as action followed action, withdrawn himself till he now stood alone and in an attitude almost of defiance behind the large table in the centre of the library.

"I am sorry," he began, with a brusqueness which gradually toned down into a forced urbanity as he beheld every eye fixed upon him in amazement, "that circumstances forbid my being of assistance to you in this unfortunate matter. If the paper lies where you say, and I see no other explanation of its loss, I am afraid it will have to remain there for this night at least. The cement in which that door is embedded is thick as any wall; it would take men with pickaxes, possibly with dynamite, to make a breach there wide enough for any one to reach in. And we are far from any such help."

In the midst of the consternation caused by these words, the clock on the mantel behind his back rang out the hour. It was but a double stroke, but that meant two hours after midnight and had the effect of a knell in the hearts of those most interested.

"But I am expected to give that formula into the hands of our manager before six o'clock in the morning. The steamer sails at a quarter after."

"Can't you reproduce a copy of it from memory?" some one asked; "and insert it in its proper place among the pages you hold there?"

"The paper would not be the same. That would lead to questions and the truth would come out. As the chief value of the process contained in that formula lies in its secrecy, no explanation I could give would relieve me from the suspicions which an acknowledgment of the existence of a third copy, however well hidden, would entail. I should lose my great opportunity."

Mr. Cornell's state of mind can be imagined. In an access of mingled regret and despair, he cast a glance at Violet, who, with a nod of understanding, left the little room in which they still stood, and approached Mr. Van Broecklyn.

Lifting up her head,— for he was very tall,— and instinctively rising on her toes the nearer to reach his ear, she asked in a cautious whisper:

"Is there no other way of reaching that place?"

She acknowledged afterwards, that for one moment her heart stood still from fear, such a change took place in his face, though she says he did not move a muscle. Then, just when she was expecting from him some harsh or forbidding word, he wheeled abruptly away from her and crossing to a window at his side, lifted the shade and looked out. When he returned, he was his usual self so far as she could see.

"There is a way," he now confided to her in a tone as low as her own, "but it can only be taken by a child."

"Not by me?" she asked, smiling down at her own childish proportions.

For an instant he seemed taken aback, then she saw his hand begin to tremble and his lips twitch. Somehow— she knew not why— she began to pity him, and asked herself as she felt rather than saw the struggle in his mind, that here was a trouble which if once understood would greatly dwarf that of the two men in the room behind them.

"I am discreet," she whisperingly declared. "I have heard the history of that door— how it was against the tradition of the family to have it opened. There must have been some very dreadful reason. But old superstitions do not affect me, and if you will allow me to take the way you mention, I will follow your bidding exactly, and will not trouble myself about anything but the recovery of this paper, which must lie only a little way inside that blocked-up door."

Was his look one of rebuke at her presumption, or just the constrained expression of a perturbed mind? Probably, the latter, for while she watched him for some understanding of his mood, he reached out his hand and touched one of the satin folds crossing her shoulder.

"You would soil this irretrievably," said he.

"There is stuff in the stores for another," she smiled. Slowly his touch deepened into pressure. Watching him she saw the crust of some old fear or dominant superstition melt under her eyes, and was quite prepared, when he remarked, with what for him was a lightsome air:

"I will buy the stuff, if you will dare the darkness and intricacies of our old cellar. I can give you no light. You will have to feel your way according to my direction."

"I am ready to dare anything."

He left her abruptly.

"I will warn Miss Digby," he called back. "She shall go with you as far as the cellar."

v

VIOLET in her short career as an investigator of mysteries had been in many a situation calling for more than womanly nerve and courage. But never— or so it seemed to her at the time— had she experienced a greater depression of spirit than when she stood with Miss Digby before a small door at the extreme end of the cellar, and understood that here was her road—a road which once entered, she must take alone.

First, it was such a small door! No child older than eleven could possibly squeeze through it. But she was of the size of a child of eleven and might possibly manage that difficulty.

Secondly: there are always some unforeseen possibilities in every situation, and though she had listened carefully to Mr. Van Broecklyn's directions and was sure that she knew them by heart, she wished she had kissed her father more tenderly in leaving him that night for the ball, and that she had not pouted so undutifully at some harsh stricture he had made. Did this mean fear? She despised the feeling if it did.

Thirdly: She hated darkness. She knew this when she offered herself for this undertaking; but she was in a bright room at the moment and only imagined what she must now face as a reality. But one jet had been lit in the cellar and that near the entrance. Mr. Van Broecklyn seemed not to need light, even in his unfastening of the small door which Violet was sure had been protected by more than one lock.

Doubt, shadow, and a solitary climb between unknown walls, with only a streak of light for her goal, and the clinging pressure of Florence Digby's hand on her own for solace— surely the prospect was one to tax the courage of her young heart to its limit. But she had promised, and she would fulfill. So with a brave smile she stooped to the little door, and in another moment had started her journey.

For journey the shortest distance may seem when every inch means a heart-throb and one grows old in traversing a foot. At first the way was easy; she had but to crawl up a slight incline with the comforting consciousness that two people were within reach of her voice, almost within sound of her beating heart. But presently she came to a turn, beyond which her fingers failed to reach any wall on her left. Then came a step up which she stumbled, and farther on a short flight, each tread of which she had been told to test before she ventured to climb it, lest the decay of innumerable years should have weakened the wood too much to bear her weight. One, two, three, four, five steps! Then a landing with an open space beyond. Half of her journey was done. Here she felt she could give a minute to drawing her breath naturally, if the air, unchanged in years, would allow her to do so. Besides, here she had been enjoined to do a certain thing and to do it according to instructions. Three matches had been given her and a little night candle. Denied all light up to now, it was at this point she was to light her candle and place it on the floor, so that in returning she should not miss the staircase and get a fall. She had promised to do this, and was only too happy to see a spark of light scintillate into life in the immeasurable darkness.

She was now in a great room long closed to the world, where once officers in Colonial wars had feasted, and more than one council had been held. A room, too, which had seen more than one tragic happening, as its almost unparalleled isolation proclaimed. So much Mr. Van Broecklyn had told her; but she was warned to be careful in traversing it and not upon any pretext to swerve aside from the right-hand wall till she came to a huge mantelpiece. This passed, and a sharp corner turned, she ought to see somewhere in the dim spaces before her a streak of vivid light shining through the crack at the bottom of the blocked-up door. The paper should be somewhere near this streak.

All simple, all easy of accomplishment, if only that streak of light were all she was likely to see or think of. If the horror which was gripping her throat should not take shape! If things would remain shrouded in impenetrable darkness, and not force themselves in shadowy suggestion upon her excited fancy! But the blackness of the passage-way through which she had just struggled was not to be found here. Whether it was the effect of that small flame flickering at the top of the staircase behind her, or of some change in her own powers of seeing, surely there was a difference in her present outlook. Tall shapes were becoming visible— the air was no longer blank— she could see— Then suddenly she saw why. In the wall high up on her right was a window. It was small and all but invisible, being covered on the outside with vines, and on the inside with the cobwebs of a century. But some small gleams from the star-light night came through, making phantasms out of ordinary things, which unseen were horrible enough, and half seen choked her heart with terror.

"I cannot bear it," she whispered to herself even while creeping forward, her hand upon the wall. "I will close my eyes" was her next thought. "I will make my own darkness," and with a spasmodic forcing of her lids together, she continued to creep on, passing the mantelpiece, where she knocked against something which fell with an awful clatter.

This sound, followed as it was by that of smothered voices from the excited group awaiting the result of her experiment from behind the impenetrable wall she should be nearing now if she had followed her instructions aright, freed her instantly from her fancies; and opening her eyes once more, she cast a look ahead, and to her delight, saw but a few steps away, the thin streak of bright light which marked the end of her journey.

It took her but a moment after that to find the missing page, and picking it up in haste from the dusty floor, she turned herself quickly about and joyfully began to retrace her steps. Why then, was it that in the course of a few minutes more her voice suddenly broke into a wild, unearthly shriek, which ringing with terror burst the bounds of that dungeon-like room, and sank, a barbed shaft, into the breasts of those awaiting the result of her doubtful adventure, at either end of this dread no-thoroughfare.

What had happened?

If they had thought to look out, they would have seen that the moon— held in check by a bank of cloud occupying half the heavens— had suddenly burst its bounds and was sending long bars of revealing light into every uncurtained window.

vi

FLORENCE DIGBY, in her short and sheltered life, had possibly never known any very great or deep emotion. But she touched the bottom of extreme terror at that moment, as with her ears still thrilling with Violet's piercing cry, she turned to look at Mr. Van Broecklyn, and beheld the instantaneous wreck it had made of this seemingly strong man. Not till he came to lie in his coffin would he show a more ghastly countenance; and trembling herself almost to the point of falling, caught him by the arm and sought to read his face what had happened. Something disastrous she was sure; something which he had feared and was partially prepared for, yet which in happening had crushed him. Was it a pitfall into which the poor little lady had fallen? If so— But he is speaking— mumbling low words to himself. Some of them she can hear. He is reproaching himself—repeating over and over that he should never have taken such a chance; that he should have remembered her youth—the weakness of a young girl's nerve. He had been mad, and now— and now—

With the repetition of this word his murmuring ceased. All his energies were now absorbed in listening at the low door separating him from what he was agonizing to know— a door impossible to enter, impossible to enlarge— a barrier to all help—an opening whereby sound might pass but nothing else, save her own small body, now lying—where?

"Is she hurt?" faltered Florence, stooping, herself, to listen. "Can you hear anything— anything?"

For an instant he did not answer; every faculty was absorbed in the one sense; then slowly and in gasps he began to mutter:

"I think— I hear— something. Her step— no, no, no step. All is as quiet as death; not a sound, not a breath— she has fainted. O God! O God! Why this calamity on top of all!"

He had sprung to his feet at the utterance this invocation, but next moment was down on knees again, listening— listening.

Never was silence more profound; they were hearkening for murmurs from a tomb. Florence began to sense the full horror of it all, and was swaying helplessly when Mr. Van Broecklyn impulsively lifted his hand in an admonitory Hush! and through the daze of her faculties a small far sound began to make itself heard, growing louder as she waited, then becoming faint again, then altogether ceasing only to renew itself once more, till it resolved into an approaching step, faltering in its course, but coming ever nearer and nearer.

"She's safe! She's not hurt!" sprang from Florence's lips in inexpressible relief; and expecting Mr. Van Broecklyn to show an equal joy, she turned towards him, with the cheerful cry,

"Now if she has been so fortunate as to that missing page, we shall all be repaid for our fright."

A movement on his part, a shifting of position which brought him finally to his feet, but he gave no other proof of having heard her, nor did his countenance mirror her relief. "It is as if he dreaded, instead of hailed, her return," was Florence's inward comment as she watched him involuntarily recoil at each fresh token of Violet's advance.

Yet because this seemed so very unnatural, she persisted in her efforts to lighten the situation, and when he made no attempt to encourage Violet in her approach, she herself stooped and called out a cheerful welcome which must have rung sweetly in the poor little detective's ears.

A sorry sight was Violet, when, helped by Florence, she finally crawled into view through the narrow opening and stood once again on the cellar floor. Pale, trembling, and soiled with the dust of years, she presented a helpless figure enough, till the joy in Florence's face recalled some of her spirit, and, glancing down at her hand in which a sheet of paper was visible, she asked for Mr. Spielhagen.

"I've got the formula," she said. "If you will bring him, I will hand it over to him here."

Not a word of her adventure; nor so much as one glance at Mr. Van Broecklyn, standing far back in the shadows.

Nor was she more communicative, when, the formula restored and everything made right with Mr. Spielhagen, they all came together again in the library for a final word.

"I was frightened by the silence and the darkness, and so cried out," she explained in answer to their questions. "Any one would have done so who found himself alone in so musty a place," she added, with an attempt at lightsomeness which deepened the pallor on Mr. Van Broecklyn's cheek, already sufficiently noticeable to have been remarked upon by more than one.

"No ghosts?" laughed Mr. Cornell, too happy in the return of his hopes to be fully sensible of the feelings of those about him. "No whispers from impalpable lips or touches from spectre hands? Nothing to explain the mystery of that room long shut up that even Mr. Van Broecklyn declares himself ignorant of its secret?"

"Nothing," returned Violet, showing her dimples in full force now.

"If Miss Strange had any such experiences— if she has anything to tell worthy of so marked a curiosity, she will tell it now," came from the gentleman just alluded to, in tones so stern and strange that all show of frivolity ceased on the instant. "Have you anything to tell, Miss Strange?"

Greatly startled, she regarded him with widening eyes for a moment, then with a move towards the door, remarked, with a general look about her:

"Mr. Van Broecklyn knows his own house, and doubtless can relate its histories if he will. I am a busy little body who having finished my work am now ready to return home, there to wait for the next problem which an indulgent fate may offer me."

She was near the threshold— she was about to take her leave, when suddenly she felt two hands fall on her shoulder, and turning, met the eyes of Mr. Van Broecklyn burning into her own.

"You saw!" dropped in an almost inaudible whisper from his lips.

The shiver which shook her answered him better than any word.

With an exclamation of despair, he withdrew his hands, and facing the others now standing together in a startled group, he said, as soon as he could recover some of his self-possession:

"I must ask for another hour of your company. I can no longer keep my sorrow to myself. A dividing line has just been drawn across my life, and I must have the sympathy of someone who knows my past, or I shall go mad in my self-imposed solitude. Come back, Miss Strange. You of all others have the prior right to hear."

vii

"I SHALL have to begin," said he, when they were all seated and ready to listen, "by giving you some idea, not so much of the family tradition, as of the effect of this tradition upon all who bore the name of Van Broecklyn. This is not the only house, even in America, which contains a room shut away from intrusion. In England there are many. But there is this difference between most of them and ours. No bars or locks forcibly held shut the door we were forbidden to open. The command was enough; that and the superstitious fear which such a command, attended by a long and unquestioning obedience, was likely to engender.

"I know no more than you do why some early ancestor laid his ban upon this room. But from my earliest years I was given to understand that there was one latch in the house which was never to be lifted; that any fault would be forgiven sooner than that; that the honour of the whole family stood in the way of disobedience, and that I was to preserve that honour to my dying day. You will say that all this is fantastic, and wonder that sane people in these modern times should subject themselves to such a ridiculous restriction, especially when no good reason was alleged, and the very source of the tradition from which it sprung forgotten. You are right; but if you look long into human nature, you will see that the bonds which hold the firmest are not material ones— that an idea will make a man and mould a character— that it lies at the source of all heroisms and is to be courted or feared as the case may be.

"For me it possessed a power proportionate to my loneliness. I don't think there was ever a more lonely child. My father and mother were so unhappy in each other's companionship that one or other of them was almost always away. But I saw little of either even when they were at home. The constraint in their attitude towards each other affected their conduct towards me. I have asked myself more than once if either of them had any real affection for me. To my father I spoke of her; to her of him; and never pleasurably. This I am forced to say, or you cannot understand my story. Would to God I could tell another tale! Would to God I had such memories as other men have of a father's clasp, a mother's kiss— but no! my grief, already profound, might have become abysmal. Perhaps it is best as it is; only, I might have been a different child, and made for myself a different fate— who knows.

"As it was, I was thrown almost entirely upon my own resources for any amusement. This led me to a discovery I made one day. In a far part of the cellar behind some heavy casks, I found a little door. It was so low— so exactly fitted to my small body, that I had the greatest desire to enter it. But I could not get around the casks. At last an expedient occurred to me. We had an old servant who came nearer loving me than any one else. One day when I chanced to be alone in the cellar, I took out my ball and began throwing it about. Finally it landed behind the casks, and I ran with a beseeching cry to Michael, to move them.

"It was a task requiring no little strength and address, but he managed, after a few herculean efforts, to shift them aside and I saw with delight, my way opened to that mysterious little door. But I did not approach it then; some instinct deterred me. But when the opportunity came for me to venture there alone, I did so, in the most adventurous spirit, and began my operations by sliding behind the casks and testing the handle of the little door. It turned, and after a pull or two the door yielded. With my heart in my mouth, I stooped and peered in. I could see nothing— a black hole and nothing more. This caused me a moment's hesitation. I was afraid of the dark— had always been. But curiosity and the spirit of adventure triumphed. Saying to myself that I was Robinson Crusoe exploring the cave, I crawled in, only to find that I had gained nothing. It was as dark inside as it had looked to be from without.

"There was no fun in this, so I crawled back, and when I tried the experiment again, it was with a bit of candle in my hand, and a surreptitious match or two. What I saw, when with a very trembling little hand I had lighted one of the matches, would have been disappointing to most boys, but not to me. The litter and old boards I saw in odd corners about me were full of possibilities, while in the dimness beyond I seemed to perceive a sort of staircase which might lead— I do not think I made any attempt to answer that question even in my own mind, but when, after some hesitation and a sense of great daring, I finally crept up those steps, I remember very well my sensation at finding myself in front of a narrow closed door. It suggested too vividly the one in Grandfather's little room— the door in the wainscot which we were never to open. I had my first real trembling fit here, and at once fascinated and repelled by this obstruction I stumbled and lost my candle, which, going out in the fall, left me in total darkness and a very frightened state of mind. For my imagination which had been greatly stirred by my own vague thoughts of the forbidden room, immediately began to people the space about me with ghoulish figures. How should I escape them, how ever reach my own little room again undetected and in safety?

"But these terrors, deep as they were, were nothing to the real fright which seized me when, the darkness finally braved, and the way found back into the bright, wide-open halls of the house, I became conscious of having dropped something besides the candle. My match-box was gone— not my match-box, but my grandfather's which I had found lying on his table and carried off on this adventure, in all the confidence of irresponsible youth. To make use of it for a little while, trusting to his not missing it in the confusion I had noticed about the house that morning, was one thing; to lose it was another. It was no common box. Made of gold and cherished for some special reason well known to himself, I had often hear him say that some day I would appreciate its value, and be glad to own it. And I had left it in that hole and at any minute he might miss it— possibly ask for it! The day was one of torment. My mother was away or shut up in her room. My father— I don't know just what thoughts I had about him. He was not to be seen either, and the servants cast strange looks at me when I spoke his name. But I little realized the blow which had just fallen upon the house in his definite departure, and only thought of my own trouble, and of how I should meet my grandfather's eye when the hour came for him to draw me to his knee for his usual good-night.

"That I was spared this ordeal for the first time this very night first comforted me, then added to my distress. He had discovered his loss and was angry. On the morrow he would ask me for the box and I would have to lie, for never could I find the courage to tell him where I had been. Such an act of presumption he would never forgive, or so I thought as I lay and shivered in my little bed. That his coldness, his neglect, sprang from the discovery just made that my mother as well as my father had just fled the house forever was as little known to me as the morning calamity. I had been given my usual tendance and was tucked safely into bed; but the gloom, the silence which presently settled upon the house had a very different explanation in my mind from the real one. My sin (for such it loomed large in my mind by this time) coloured the whole situation and accounted for every event.

"At what hour I slipped from my bed on to the cold floor, I shall never know. To me it seemed to be in the dead of night; but I doubt if it were more than ten. So slowly creep away the moments to a wakeful child. I had made a great resolve. Awful as the prospect seemed to me,— frightened as I was by the very thought,— I had determined in my small mind to go down into the cellar, and into that midnight hole again, in search of the lost box. I would take a candle and matches, this time from my own mantel-shelf, and if everyone was asleep, as appeared from the deathly quiet of the house, I would be able to go and come without anybody ever being the wiser.

"Dressing in the dark, I found my matches and my candle and, putting them in one of my pockets, softly opened my door and looked out. Nobody was stirring; every light was out except a solitary one in the lower hall. That this still burned conveyed no meaning to my mind. How could I know that the house was so still and the rooms dark because everyone was out searching for some clue to my mother's flight? If I had looked at the clock— but I did not; I was too intent upon my errand, too filled with the fever of my desperate undertaking, to be affected by anything not bearing directly upon it.

"Of the terror caused by my own shadow on the wall as I made the turn in the hall below, I have as keen a recollection today as though it happened yesterday. But that did not deter me; nothing deterred me, till safe in the cellar I crouched down behind the casks to get my breath again before entering the hole beyond.

"I had made some noise in feeling my way around these casks, and I trembled lest these sounds had been heard upstairs! But this fear soon gave place to one far greater. Other sounds were making themselves heard. A din of small skurrying feet above, below, on every side of me! Rats! rats in the wall! rats on the cellar bottom! How I ever stirred from the spot I do not know, but when I did stir, it was to go forward, and enter the uncanny hole.

"I had intended to light my candle when I got inside; but for some reason I went stumbling along in the dark, following the wall till I got to the steps where I had dropped the box. Here a light was necessary, but my hand did not go to my pocket. I thought it better to climb the steps first, and softly one foot found the tread and then another. I had only three more to climb and then my right hand, now feeling its way along the wall, would be free to strike a match. I climbed the three steps and was steadying myself against the door for a final plunge, when something happened— something so strange, so unexpected, and so incredible that I wonder I did not shriek aloud in my terror. The door was moving under my hand. It was slowly opening inward. I could feel the chill made by the widening crack. Moment by moment this chill increased; the gap was growing— a presence was there— a presence before which I sank in a small heap upon the landing. Would it advance? Had it feet— hands? Was it a presence which could be felt?

"Whatever it was, it made no attempt to pass, and presently I lifted my head only to quake anew at the sound of a voice— a human voice— my mother's voice— so near me that by putting out my arms I might have touched her.

"She was speaking to my father. I knew from the tone. She was saying words which, little understood as they were, made such a havoc in my youthful mind that I have never forgotten the effect.

"'I have come!' she said. 'They think I have fled the house and are looking far and wide for me. We shall not be disturbed. Who would think looking of here for either you or me.'

"Here! The word sank like a plummet in my breast. I had known for some few minutes that I was on the threshold of the forbidden room; but they were in it. I can scarcely make you understand the tumult which this awoke in my brain. Somehow, I had never thought that any such braving of the house's law would be possible.

"I heard my father's answer, but it conveyed no meaning to me. I also realized that he spoke from a distance,— that he was at one end of the room while we were at the other. I was presently to have this idea confirmed, for while I was striving with all my might and main to subdue my very heart-throbs so that she would not hear me or suspect my presence, the darkness— I should rather say the blackness of the place yielded to a flash of lightning— heat lightning, all glare and no sound— and I caught an instantaneous vision of my father's figure standing with gleaming things about him, which affected me at the moment as supernatural, but which, in later years, I decided to have been weapons hanging on a wall.

"She saw him too, for she gave a quick laugh and said they would not need any candles; and then, there was another flash and I saw something in his hand and something in hers, and though I did not yet understand, I felt myself turning deathly sick and gave a choking gasp which was lost in the rush she made into the centre of the room, and the keenness of her swift low cry.

" 'Garde-toi! for only one of us will ever leave this room alive!'

"A duel! a duel to the death between this husband and wife—this father and mother— in this hole of dead tragedies and within the sight and hearing of their child! Has Satan ever devised a scheme more hideous for ruining the life of an eleven-year-old boy!

"Not that I took it all in at once. I was too innocent and much too dazed to comprehend such hatred, much less the passions which engender it. I only knew that something horrible— something beyond the conception of my childish mind— was going to take place in the darkness before me; and the terror of it made me speechless; would to God it had made me deaf and blind and dead!

"She had dashed from her corner and he had slid away from his, as the next fantastic glare which lit up the room showed me. It also showed the weapons in their hands, and for a moment I felt reassured when I saw that these were swords, for I had seen them before with foils in their hands practising for exercise, as they said, in the great garret. But the swords had buttons on them, and this time the tips were sharp and shone in the keen light.

"An exclamation from her and a growl of rage from him were followed by movements I could scarcely hear, but which were terrifying from their very quiet. Then the sound of a clash. The swords had crossed.

"Had the lightning flashed forth then, the end of one of them might have occurred. But the darkness remained undisturbed, and when the glare relit the great room again, they were already far apart. This called out a word from him; the one sentence he spoke— I can never forget it:

"'Rhoda, there is blood on your sleeve; I have wounded you. Shall we call it off and fly, as the poor creatures in there think we have, to the opposite ends of the earth?'

"I almost spoke; I almost added my childish plea to his for them to stop— to remember me and stop. But not a muscle in my throat responded to my agonized effort. Her cold, clear 'No!' fell before my tongue was loosed or my heart freed from the ponderous weight crushing it.

"'I have vowed and I keep my promises,' she went on in a tone quite strange to me. 'What would either's life be worth with the other alive and happy in this world.'

"He made no answer; and those subtle movements— shadows of movements I might almost call them— recommenced. Then there came a sudden cry, shrill and poignant— had Grandfather been in his room he would surely have heard it—and the flash coming almost simultaneously with its utterance, I saw what has haunted my sleep from that day to this, my father pinned against the wall, sword still in hand, and before him my mother, fiercely triumphant, her staring eyes fixed on his and—

"Nature could bear no more; the band loosened from my throat; the oppression lifted from my breast long enough for me to give one wild wail and she turned, saw (heaven sent its flashes quickly at this moment) and recognizing my childish form, all the horror of her deed (or so I have fondly hoped) rose within her, and she gave a start and fell full upon the point upturned to receive her.

"A groan; then a gasping sigh from him, and silence settled upon the room and upon my heart, and so far as I knew upon the whole created world.

"That is my story, friends. Do you wonder that I have never been or lived like other men?"

After a few moments of sympathetic silence, Mr. Van Broecklyn went on, to say:

"I don't think I ever had a moment's doubt that my parents both lay dead on the floor of that great room. When I came to myself— which may have been soon, and may not have been for a long while— the lightning had ceased to flash, leaving the darkness stretching like a blank pall between me and that spot in which were concentrated all the terrors of which my imagination was capable. I dared not enter it. I dared not take one step that way. My instinct was to fly and hide my trembling body again in my own bed; and associated with this, in fact dominating it and making me old before my time, was another— never to tell; never to let any one, least of all my grandfather— know what that forbidden room now contained. I felt in an irresistible sort of way that my father's and mother's honour was at stake. Besides, terror held me back; I felt that I should die if I spoke. Childhood has such terrors and such heroisms. Silence often covers in such, abysses of thought and feeling which astonish us in later years. There is no suffering like a child's, terrified by a secret which it dare not for some reason disclose.

"Events aided me. When, in desperation to see once more the light and all the things which linked me to life— my little bed, the toys on the window-sill, my squirrel in its cage— I forced myself to retraverse the empty house, expecting at every turn to hear my father's voice or come upon the image of my mother— yes, such was the confusion of my mind, though I knew well enough even then that they were dead and that I should never hear the one or see the other. I was so benumbed with the cold in my half-dressed condition, that I woke in a fever next morning after a terrible dream which forced from my lips the cry of 'Mother! Mother!'— only that.

"I was cautious even in delirium. This delirium and my flushed cheeks and shining eyes led them to be very careful of me. I was told that my mother was away from home; and when after two days of search they were quite sure that all effort to find either her or my father were likely to prove fruitless, that she had gone to Europe where we would follow her as soon as I was well. This promise, offering as it did, a prospect of immediate release from the terrors which were consuming me, had an extraordinary effect upon me. I got up out of my bed saying that I was well now and ready to start on the instant. The doctor, finding my pulse equable, and my whole condition wonder fully improved, and attributing it, as was natural, to my hope of soon joining my mother, advised my whim to be humoured and this hope kept active till travel and intercourse with children should give me strength and prepare me for the bitter truth ultimately awaiting me. They listened to him and in twenty-four hours our preparations were made. We saw the house closed— with what emotions surging in one small breast, I leave you to imagine— and then started on our long tour. For five years we wandered over the continent of Europe, my grandfather finding distraction, as well as myself, in foreign scenes and associations.

"But return was inevitable. What I suffered on re-entering this house, God and my sleepless pillow alone know. Had any discovery been made in our absence; or would it be made now that renovation and repairs of all kinds were necessary? Time finally answered me. My secret was safe and likely to continue so, and this fact once settled, life became endurable, if not cheerful. Since then I have spent only two nights out of this house, and they were unavoidable. When my grandfather died I had the wainscot door cemented in. It was done from this side and the cement painted to match the wood. No one opened the door nor have I ever crossed its threshold. Sometimes I think I have been foolish; and sometimes I know that I have been very wise. My reason has stood firm; how do I know that it would have done so if I had subjected myself to the possible discovery that one or both of them might have been saved if I had disclosed instead of concealed my adventure."

A pause during which white horror had shone on every face; then with a final glance at Violet, he said:

"What sequel do you see to this story, Miss Strange? I can tell the past, I leave you to picture the future."

Rising, she let her eye travel from face to face till it rested on the one awaiting it, when she answered dreamily:

"If some morning in the news column there should appear an account of the ancient and historic home of the Van Broecklyns having burned to the ground in the night, the whole country would mourn, and the city feel defrauded of one of its treasures. But there are five persons who would see in it the sequel which you ask for."

When this happened, as it did happen, some few weeks later, the astonishing discovery was made that no insurance had been put upon this house. Why was it that after such a loss Mr. Van Broecklyn seemed to renew his youth? It was a constant source of comment among his friends.

_________________

7: The Fox

Katharine Tynan

1859-1931

In The Lost Angel, 1908

Katharine Tynan

THE Ballinacurra property was a very pretty one. It comprehended some miles of wood and water, a grouse mountain, a trout stream. There was a big house, with a courtyard at the back, in a state of disrepair. It had acres of glass, long ranges of outbuildings. Fortunately Sir Adrian Ingestre's purse was equal to making it all as good as new again. The place was full of workmen: the noise of hammering resounded all day long. As soon as a few rooms were ready for occupation Sir Adrian had moved in. He was delighted with his Irish property, none the less because he had bought it for a song. His English friends were glad to keep him company where there was such sport to be had. The county was ready to receive him. Only two people held coldly aloof. They were his nearest neighbours, the Prince of Erris and his grand-daughter, Kathaleen O'Driscoll.

As it happened the prince's property made a wedge into Ballinacurra land. It was a small wedge, but it spoilt any chance of enclosing Ballinacurra within a ring fence. It was a wild over-grown place, a wilderness by Ballinacurra, which had been at some time a well-kept park and would be again, now it was an Englishman's property.

Sir Adrian Ingestre had come into the country with a kindly heart towards all its inhabitants. He had no idea of making a Naboth's vineyard of the prince's wild piece of bog and mountain. In fact he was about to call on the prince to ask him to make one of his party of guns, when another neighbour, Lady Derrymore, warned him of the indiscretion he had nearly committed.

The occasion was a dance following a dinner at Derrybeg. His hostess had been very kind to him. In fact her Irish softness of speech and manner had made him her devoted slave.

"I want to dance," he said to her, "with the little girl in the green frock who has the eyes of a mountain pony."

Lady Derrymore looked the way he indicated. There was a shy child with a golden-brown head, and extraordinary bright eyes under a tangle of lashes. She was looking their way and at the moment her expression was one of the utmost resentment.

"I daren't do it," she said, laughing. "Why that is O'Driscoll's grand-daughter, little Kathaleen. Don't you know that they hate you like poison?"

"I didn't know anything of the sort," he said bluntly. "May I ask why?"

"Because Ballinacurra is O'Driscoll land. Because they are banished to the waste and derelict bit of the property. Because you're restoring Ballinacurra. Because we've all received you, and with constitutional inertness allowed you to take a leading place among us. Because— you talk of starting a pack of deer-hounds. They do not consider that the sale of Ballinacurra included the deer. My dear Sir Adrian, the deer belong to none of us. Occasionally they swim the river to us, and we might as well call them ours. The original deer-forest, the last bit of it that remains, certainly belongs to the prince."

"The deer were mentioned in the inventory of my property. They feed in my park all day. After all my project of the hounds was a dim and distant one. For the present I am quite satisfied with the fox-hunting, especially since you have made me master. They might have postponed their hatred till I had given them cause."

"You've given them plenty," laughed Lady Derrymore. "O'Driscoll hasn't put his leg across a horse these twenty years, yet they resent our giving you the mastership. It's no use telling them that we couldn't afford to keep it ourselves. They'd think we ought to have pawned our last bit of plate to keep the hounds out of an Englishman's hands. They say O'Driscoll won't let the hounds cross his land this winter. I know he's trying to stir up strife against you all over the country; and mind the people look up to him a deal as the last Prince of Erris."

"I never heard anything so unreasonable," said the Englishman aghast.

"My dear man, that's the charm of us," said his hostess, flirting her fan.

"I'll call on him and have it out."

"You'll find the door shut in your face."

"I shall be no worse for that."

The memory of the eyes under the golden brown tangle of hair followed Sir Adrian long after their owner had coldly refused him the dance which despite Lady Derrymore's warnings he had been determined enough to ask for.

He called at Castle Erris a day or two later and found the avenue leading to the dilapidated mansion in such a state of disrepair, so littered by the boughs and even whole trees of old storms that he was obliged to leave his dog-cart a little way from the entrance-gate and do the rest on foot.

The door was opened to him by an old man in a shabby suit of livery. When he had heard the visitor's name his face assumed the oddest mixture of comical perplexity and a dogged determination.

"Whisper, now, dear," he said, looking furtively behind him. "I wouldn't take in that name not if you gev me Darner's fortune. 'Tis one of the Master's bad days. He's sittin' with his foot laid up in cotton-wool forenenst him, clanin' his ould breech-loader. An' if I was to mintion your name to him maybe 'tis the contints of it he'd be givin' me in me back. The divil a lie in it!"

Since Sir Adrian Ingestre could not storm the Prince of Erris in his own stronghold he was obliged to retire, not knowing whether to feel more angry or amused.

During the winter that followed there were several unpleasant incidents in connection with the hunting. There were protests against the hunt crossing their lands from farmers who had never objected before. Once or twice the riders were met by a group of rough peasants carrying pitchforks and other unpleasant implements.

"They learnt the way of it," said Lady Derrymore, "in the Land League times: but they haven't been putting it into practice since we declared peace all round. Upon my word, Sir Adrian, it's too bad, seeing all the employment you've been giving in the country, but if it goes on we'll have to ask Colonel O'Conor to sacrifice himself for the rest of us and take the hounds. It's all the old prince. It's surprising what influence he has."

"It's always easy to influence the people badly," said Sir Adrian with an outburst of spleen, which showed that he had been hard hit by the failure he had been as master.

It was no later than the Tuesday after that, that the hounds having lost an old dog-fox at the Lohort Spinney gave cry again as they were being led home to the kennels. The members of the hunt had dispersed slowly and sadly. The master, the huntsman and the whipper-in with a few idlers were all that remained. It was a winter afternoon, cold and bright, with the yellow leaves yet shivering on the trees, since there hadn't been a gale to bring them down.

The hounds were let slip and disappeared into the spinney. The huntsman gave the tally-ho, although there were none but themselves to hear it. They swept through the spinney and out into the open country beyond. Then made for Bargy Woods.

Down the side of a ravine, up the other went the hounds, giving tongue; Sir Adrian riding behind them. It was rough riding, for the woods were full of the stumps of trees which had been lately felled, and once or twice Sir Adrian's mare stumbled with him, but regained her footing. Once he was down. By the time he was up again and in the saddle he heard the furious barking of the hounds at a distance. They were evidently at fault; the quarry had slipped into a drain or otherwise baffled them.

Sir Adrian looked round for the huntsman: he was not in sight. He rode on where the yelping of the hounds led him. Presently he came out in the middle of a little glade. The dogs' voices were deafening by this time. They were leaping like mad below a great chestnut-tree, all their sharp, excited faces turned upwards to the tree, their tongues panting, their tails going like mad.

Sir Adrian rode into the midst of them, looked up into the tree, and then fell to flogging the hounds furiously with his whip. In a minute or two the huntsman and whipper-in appeared on the scene looking rather crestfallen. Sir Adrian roared his orders. The huntsman called his hounds off. In a few seconds they were trotting away to the kennels, disappointed of their sport, but evidently anticipating their coming meal.

Sir Adrian remained below the tree till the din passed somewhat out of hearing. Then he looked up into the soft golden masses of the boughs.

"Now," he said in a tone of concentrated emotion, fury, concern, irritation, all struggling together. "You'd better let that thing go; and then be obliging enough to tell me what you did it for. I don't suppose it was motive enough that you were spoiling the run."

"Indeed I never thought of you," said a sweet cold voice out of the tree. "And as for letting the little beast go, why I just can't. It's quite a young thing and it has broken its paw. It fell right at my feet, yelping like a pet dog. Do you suppose I was going to leave it to the hounds?"

"You knew your danger, I suppose?"

"Oh, yes, I knew," said the voice airily. "It was a near thing too. The first hound almost pulled me back out of the tree. I believe he carried a bit of the braid off my skirt away in his mouth."

"Good heavens! If the pack had pulled you down with the scent of the fox about you they'd have made short work of you."

"I shouldn't have liked that sort of death," said the voice. "Of course I knew it in a way. But what would you have done yourself if the fox had come tumbling at your feet like that?"

"I hope I'd have had more sense than to do what you did," Sir Adrian replied grimly. "But now are you coming down? Is the little beast's paw really broken? Didn't it scratch and bite at you when you picked it up?"

"No more than a pet dog. I have a theory that it is some one's pet fox; or it has been tamed by the suffering, like the lion in the story. Here, catch it! I'm coming."

A small sunburnt hand and wrist were thrust from the warm drift of leaves. From the fingers, held by the scruff of the neck, dangled helplessly a little fox.

In the same manner Sir Adrian received it, and laid it down on the moss. The thing showed no inclination to run away. Its anxious face wore the expression of a dog in trouble. Sir Adrian mentally inclined to the theory of the fox being a pet.

"What are you going to do?" asked the voice, at his side now. Miss O'Driscoll had slung herself down with surprising ease and grace from the tree.

"Going to set the paw," he answered. "I've never done as much for a fox before, but I have more than once for a dog. And, as a preliminary, I'm going to muzzle you, old fellow. A fox's bite is a very nasty thing, Miss O'Driscoll, as fortunately have not been obliged to realise."

He produced his handkerchief and with surprisingly little resistance on the part of the fox bound up his jaws. Then he looked about for something of which to make his splints, found what he wanted, and performed the little operation skilfully and tenderly.

When he had finished— "Now, what are we going to do with him?" he asked. "Ballinacurra is nearer than Erris. Supposing— I think I could get a donkey-cart close by— I take him there?"

The girl had been leaning over him so intent on what he was doing that her breath was on his cheek; he could see where the upward-sweeping eyelashes caught the light on their gold; the down on the young roses of her cheeks was like a baby's.

"That will be best," she said. "When he gets well—"

"It must be for you to decide. Perhaps you had better make a pet of him to keep him from being hunted again."

"I think we shall give him his choice," she said softly.

"You know, I think it was splendid of you," he went on. "Perfect lunacy, of course, but splendid all the same."

She reddened at his praise.

"I think you are very kind," she said simply, "I don't know any one else who would have been so good to the fox, and so clever."

"And you forgive me?" he asked extending a frank hand. "I want to be friends with O'Driscoll and his grand-daughter."

She put her hand into his.

"Grandpapa was angry because the deer were to be hunted," she said.

"I shall not think of it again," he answered eagerly.

She flung back her mane, and her bright eyes looked at him, at once shy and fearless.

"There are other things," she said, "things of no importance. It was my fault. I did my best to make my grandfather hate you."

"But you don't hate me?"

"Not now." Their hands were still clasped above the little fox, which lay, licking uneasily at the splinted leg, between them.

"Not now," she repeated, and then her eyes fell.

Down along the woodland road came a donkey-cart returning from the market whither it had carried a family of small pigs. It was easy to arrange for the carriage of the little fox to Ballinacurra. When they had seen it start, Miss O'Driscoll held out her hand.

"Good-bye," she said.

"We go the same way," he replied, turning to recapture his horse, which was grazing in a glade close by.

They walked on then, side by side, till he had seen her within her own gate.

"I shall let you know how our patient progresses," he said as they parted; and it was with a curious thrill of pleasure he said that "our".

The gout had set its victim free for the time, and the Prince of Erris was in paradise.

"It's almost worth while to have it for the joy of getting rid of it, Kathaleen Mavourneen," he said to his grand-daughter.

"I want to tell you," she said, sitting down on his discarded footstool, "we made a mistake about him over there—" nodding her head in the direction of Ballinacurra chimneys, just visible among the trees— "the Englishman. We O'Driscolls, we're too proud not to own when we've made a mistake,— done an injustice. He's a gentleman, if he is rich, and he's kind, and he has no intention of hunting the deer which are your property, he says, and it isn't his fault that he bought Ballinacurra, and he desires very much the privilege of knowing you, Grandpapa."

"Why, child, what do you mean? Wasn't it yourself that stuffed my head with stories against him, and set me on to make it impossible for him to keep the hounds? If he withdraws about the deer and acknowledges they are ours, why I don't see anything against him, except that he's an Englishman, and that he can't help. It would be ungenerous for us to visit that or his riches upon him, eh, Kathaleen?"

"Quite right, Grandpapa," said Kathaleen seriously, and then proceeded to tell him the story of the fox, and to repeat a portion of Sir Adrian's conversation as they walked home together, which showed quite the proper feeling towards the O'Driscolls, who had been a power in the land before ever an Ingestre had followed a Norman robber into England and much more to the same purport. Be sure Sir Adrian's remarks lost nothing in Miss Kathaleen's repetition of them.

The very next day the Prince of Erris's ancient bath-chair was seen trundling up the avenue of Ballinacurra; and the prince's apologies for not having made an opportunity earlier of welcoming Sir Adrian Ingestre to the county, which was O'Driscoll country, left nothing to be desired.

The little fox's paw mended in time; but before he had the choice offered to him of being a pet or having his liberty to be hunted, Miss O'Driscoll had promised to change her name to Ingestre. And the fox, having made his choice, became the permanent inmate of a very comfortable house at Ballinacurra. Only sad to relate he sometimes raided a hen-roost, when he got loose, like any of his wild brethren. But Lady Ingestre's fox was a privileged beast, and her ladyship's partiality for him was quite shared by Sir Adrian, to the grief of many honest dogs.

____________________

8: The Watch

Anonymous

Sunshine Advocate (Victoria), 20 Jan 1939

Untitled as published. I have given this story the above name.

THEY LAY sweating and dusty by the side of a stream. Overhead a glaring ball of fire blazed mercilessly down, beating the miles of waste land with hellish intensity. The whole atmosphere seemed charged, quivering with heat. Even the burnished sky had assumed a glaze— like a bright blue bowl fresh from the potter's oven.

For hours they had tramped, seeing no sign of life in all this desolation; hearing nothing, save the short, sharp cough of a disturbed jackal as it streaked across the scrub. Sharp to one side of them jutted a high range of mountains, its slopes precipitous and cactus-strewn. It was to the top of the nearest height that the little column hoped to make its way— so soon as certain, long-promised reinforcements joined them.

"And they call this war!" muttered a young Italian in the accoutrements of a Blackshirt officer, as he dipped his head gratefully in the clear cool water. "Do you realise, Vincenzo, that we have advanced five days with scarcely a flutter of white garments on the horizon for a sign of the enemy?"

Vincenzo looked up. He too was an officer. He too was young— scarcely more than a boy. His tunic lay on the ground beside him, and his body, sun-blistered, gleamed brick-red under the fierce white light. His face, as was that of his friend was burned almost as black as those of the Askari soldiers about them. He shrugged eloquently.

"We were told it was to be like this," he reminded. "They hope to lure us far enough from the main body to make us a miniature '96. Black swine!"

An Askari soldier squatting a few yards off overheard the epithet. He was grinning broadly, his immense white teeth flashing like diamonds against his skin.

Wafou could remember the time— not so long ago— when he too would have been classified as a "black swine." That was when, as a child, he had bidden farewell to his father on the eve of Adowa. Queer, he thought, how that defeat still rankled with the Italians!

Vincenzo had removed his breeches and stepped into the stream. His tattered uniform and pathetic array of valuables lay heaped upon the bank. Wafou's eyes, egg-white in his coal-black face, flickered over them. A knife, a bunch of keys, two lira, some Marie Therese dollars and a pipe— and the watch! Long had the Askari desired a watch like that. They were hard to come by back in the market at Asmara. Those, and he had had two of them, had failed to function inside a week. This, he knew, was a recent present to the young officer— a gift from his mother back in Florence. He had heard Vincenzo extol its virtues on many occasions. The Askari's gaze moved reluctantly away from the gleaming silver disc and began to traverse the mountain side to his right. A wrinkle formed in the placid black skin of the warriors' brow. And then the sound of a harsh staccato laugh of a hyena sounded. Wafou smiled again.

Vincenzo, lying prone in the stream, had been joined by his friend. Their voices blended harmoniously in the Fascist Marching Song, Giovannezza. Wafou seemed to make up his mind. He glanced quickly about him. No one was looking, Swiftly he stooped, stumbled over Vincenzo's bundle, and withdrew— to be-come one of many black-faced, red-fezzed soldiers squatting before the piled rifles.

WHEN Vincenzo discovered his loss, Wafou was missing.

Sergeant Mahmoud hazarded the guess that the Askari, always of a roving disposition, had this time wandered too far from his comrades and fallen a prey to a predatory lion. It was an explanation as good as any— though it did not satisfy Vincenzo, who was a soldier and a watch the less. He groused all day.

"You don't understand how I feel about it," he told his friend. "My mother gave the watch to me for luck. Besides, it was a very special watch, and I am superstitious."

"Maybe," chaffed the other, "we shall shoot a lion and hear your blessed watch ticking inside him— like the crocodile in the English play I saw in London.

"It's all very well to joke," grunted Vincenzo. "For myself I hope we do. We shall at least be certain that one black thief has got his deserts!"

The day simmered grimly onto a tepid finish and still the sentries gave no warning of the approaching reinforcements. Vincenzo and his comrade consulted together. It was decided to pitch camp. At least there was water here. To push on alone, uncertain of the location of the next well, would be courting a hideous death.

Night fell with tropical swiftness. One moment the sun bleared redly above the jagged ridge of mountain to the west, the next the Southern Cross glittered bravely like brilliants on a purple mantle. A cold wind swept suddenly up the valley, and went, leaving the scrub motionless and still, save for the occasional crackle of a twig which betrayed the presence of some heavy animal. Then gradually the darkness became filled with sound. Whisperings, mutterings, the stealthy thrash of bodies through the undergrowth. The frightened snortings, the chatter, the screech, the trumpeting and roaring of wild animals newly awakened from their sun-baked slumber of the day.

In his bivouac Vincenzo lay lis-tening and thinking of his mother back in Florence. There was a girl in the Cafe Desti— pretty name, Amalia... They said this would be a long war... perhaps she'd marry that fair Swede after all. Girls like Amalia could not wait for ever. And that watch... it was like Mother to send it. Such sense of humour... always ragging him about not being able to get up in the mornings...

The camp grew still. He slept.

DOWN the mountain side, like squat bugs rolling down a wall, crawled a vast black army. Not for nothing had Wafou smiled when he had heard the laugh of a hyena echoing in the distance. Then only had he known for certain what hitherto he had suspected; namely, that Ras Kallu and his hyena-men were lying in wait for the invaders among the upper ridges of the mountains.

Nearer, nearer the came, silent footed and swift— naked or partially clad in their queer tog-like garments, with the long striped hyena tails dangling about their shoulders.

In the forefront now marched Wafou— Wafou the deserter; now plumed and painted like his ancestors, whose blood surged too strongly in his veins for his allegiance. In his right hand, in place of his rifle which he now wore slung upon his back he carried a broad, sharp spear and his left arm, shielded by a wheel of hide, kept guard over the vital inches round his heart. No chain was about his neck, for Wafou though the son of chiefs, was tribeless and the last of his race, but in the place where the chief's chain should be, hung something else— a small round disc which ticked continuously at the end of a leathern throng.

Great indeed had been the interest in Wafou's new Ju-Ju when he had first presented himself among the men. They had listened awe-struck to the devil knocking to be released from the little silver case. And Wafou, who was wise in his generation, had elaborated on the white man's magic which only he among the black people could command— he,and the stranger Emperor who ruled Ethiopia from the great palace beyond the hills.

To Ras Kallu, he had spoken bravely in the language of his fathers.

"I see you, great Lord, and I come as a son to deliver your enemies into your hands. Lo! They lie sleeping the sleep of fools in the country of the lion— and in their pockets are many dollars. They have rifles, but these are not in their hands. They lie stacked in little heaps ready for warriors to seize. The two sentries guarding the camp are lazy fellows, prone to smoke in secret, and into their tobacco have I mixed the root of N' gabrobwe, which, as all men know, means death."

So Wafou, the deserter, became the hero of his people, and led them bravely to the massacre.

Closer drew the dark circle about the sleeping camp. Silently like snakes slithering through the scrub, wriggled the black bodies— a thousand to fifty. And in distant Florence, a mother was praying for the safety of her boy.

Upon two hammocks at opposite ends of the camp two red-fezzed soldiers lolled; their heads slumped forward, their rifles discarded on the ground. Towards one of these Wafou insinuated himself, his wide mouth a grin with animal delight. It was Ambusi who sat so still and breathless at his post— Ambusi who had beaten Wafou before his comrades not a moon ago.

Well, Wafou was even now. Stooping, he picked up the sentry's rifle and turned. His jungle keen gaze which all the pseudo-civilisation of Asmara could not destroy noted the rows of eyes glaring out of the dark towards him. The blood of his ancestors raced in his veins, pounding madly at his temple and throat. There was killing to do. Wafou threw back his head. The shrill cry of the hyena— the signal for attack— shivered for an instant in his throat.

And then:

Brrrr-rrr-rrrr.

The sharp noise of a bell ringing split the stillness. With a howl of fear Wafou stepped back, clutching at the watch at his breast. But the thing was secure about it. Grasp it tight as he might he could not still the ringing.

The nearest natives saw his terror and misunderstood. They knew only what Wafou had told them about the little knocking devil that lived in the silver box. Now, with bulging eyes and skins that dripped with sweat, they remembered how he described its theft. Here, then, was no ordinary Ju-ju.

This was a powerful and a white man's Ju-ju. A Ju-ju that hated Wafou who had stolen it— who had recognised its home. They could hear it screaming— screaming for its master! With a bellow of superstitious terror the foremost of the natives turned.

Their flight spread consternation and panic to the rest. And, as scampering to their posts the first of the Askaris turned the deadly nozzle of a machine-gun into the darkness, Ras Kallu's hyena army fled.

VINCENZO bent over the bullet riddled body of a black man and recognised him.

"Wafou," he muttered. "So that's where you got to?"

His friend, stooping swiftly, detached something from the dead man's neck.

"Look, Vincenzo!" he cried.  "Your alarm watch!— You see I was right."

The Italian boy snatched at it gleefully, grimaced and threw it in to the scrub.

"Broken," he muttered regretfully. "And it was a present from Mother."

___________

9: Nerves

Fred M. White

The Windsor Magazine, Jan 1911

Warwick Examiner and Times (Qld), 24 Jul 1916

Fred Merrick White

REX BRUNELL drummed on the table with carefully polished fingernails.

"Pinero," he said, "has aptly described a capitalist as a pawnbroker with an imagination. Now, I regard that as essentially true. I have had considerable experience with the fraternity in question, and incidentally I have been ruined by one of them. I can afford to tell you men this now, because I am about to get my own back— and more. I never met a capitalist yet who was not a nervous man, or one blessed with a good digestion. Goldmark is no exception to the rule."

James Goldmark smiled. The great man was entertaining a select circle of friends in his suite of rooms at the Majestic Hotel. There were four of them, all intimates of Rex Brunell, all of them with fingers more or less scarred by contact with high finance. "A fool and his money are soon parted," Goldmark said cynically. "Brunell was bound to lose his money. It struck me that I might as well have it as anybody else."

A laugh greeted this sally. It was quite characteristic of Goldmark. He grinned behind his glasses, his teeth were taut over the inevitable black cigar. A waiter came into the dining-room and laid a card on the table before Goldmark.

"I'll get you to excuse me one moment," the capitalist said, and vanished.

The smoke-laden air seem to clarify as the door closed upon Goldmark. Three pairs of glittering eager eyes were turned upon Brunell. He waved his hand carelessly.

"Patience," he said. "No explanation is needed. That man was going to make our fortunes. Instead of which he has practically beggared the lot of us. He is not in the least ashamed of himself. He has used us as a blind to deceive others. In a less effete civilisation than ours we should shoot him and pitch his black, attenuated carcase into the Thames. Now we dine with him instead. After all, it is only a question of financial methods. Goldmark adopts them and we don't. Therefore he gets the best of us. Now, I object to be ruined on principle. We all do, in fact. Therefore we are going to adopt his methods. I have thought it all out, and that is why we are here to-night. Watch me, play up to my lead, and all will be well. Hush! For the moment let us dissemble."

Goldmark returned to the dining-room again, followed by a dapper little man with a waxed moustache and a wonderfully groomed exterior. He brought the genuine Parisian flavour with him.

"It was not me, but you, that this gentleman wanted to see, Brunell," the financier explained. "The waiter delivered the card to me by mistake. I explained to Dr. Chassier that any friend of yours was a friend of mine. Doctor, a glass of champagne?"

"This is a pleasant surprise," Brunell cried. "Regan and Powell and Hartigan, this is my friend Dr. Chassier, of Paris University. I need not remind you that he is the great authority on the eye. Of his reputation I say nothing, because it speaks for itself. Now, this is kind of you, Chassier. I hope you have not come merely because I mentioned that certain unpleasant symptoms of mine "

"Well, partly," the doctor admitted with a smile. "The astigmatism you mentioned— nothing serious, of course, but still... I am glad to hear that you have dropped the cigarettes."

"Tobacco is bad in certain circumstances?" Goldmark asked. "Do have a glass of champagne."

The expert began to talk, at first quietly, till he warmed to his subject. It was "shop" of the kind that this neurotic age takes to so kindly. He spoke of the marvels of his branch of surgical science. He had them all quivering before long as to what particular form of ocular weakness they were suffering from. Goldmark sprawled across the table, puffing at his black cigar.

"Ugh! How it gets on one's nerves!" he shuddered. "I hope you chaps won't laugh at me, but those funny little globular discs that come flashing before one's eyes at times—"

"A pawnbroker with an imagination," Brunell murmured. "My dear fellow, I don't feel in the least like laughing. Anything wrong with the eyes— To think of it! And Chassier told me that I should lose my sight if I didn't chuck the cigarettes."

Goldmark laid down his cigar, gazed at it, and took it up again.

"Of course that is all bosh," he said uneasily.

"By no means, my dear sir," Chassier said gravely. "Cases of smoker's blindness are by no means uncommon. I had one case the other day—a man retired from your Guards. He came to me so far gone that I nearly paralysed him with strychnine. I had to. There were times when he could not rise from his bed. It was a long struggle, but I cured him. Another week later—"

Chassier shrugged his shoulders. The room had suddenly grown strangely silent. Goldmark pitched his cigar into the fireplace. He was pale and anxious; a little bead stood on his forehead.

"You could tell the symptoms at a glance?" he asked. "In my case, for instance?"

The specialist nodded. He crossed the room and touched Goldmark on the forehead and chin with the tips of his long white fingers. The gesture was typically professional. The sleek dark head of the capitalist was turned up to the light as Chassier lifted an eyelid.

"Heavens!" he muttered under his breath. "Man alive, but there is—Still—"

Goldmark caught the whispered words. They gripped his heart; he was suffocating. The room swam round him, the damp beads broke out on his face like a gentle rain.

"A pawnbroker with an imagination," Brunell repeated.

"Nothing of the sort," Chassier said drily. "There is no imagination here. Monsieur Goldmark, I should like to make a little test. There are certain things— drugs— that I always carry with me... Just a spot or two in a glass of water. No ill effect, I assure you... Merely to exaggerate certain features, so that I may be better able to judge of your— er—"

Goldmark watched the clear yellow drops measured into a champagne glass like a man who dreams.

"Is it as bad as all that?" he asked piteously.

"I have expressed no opinion," Chassier said professionally. "Please to drink this."

When Goldmark came to himself again, he was in a darkened room. He was conscious of the fact that he was still in possession of his sight, much as if he were seeing things under water. Everything was waved and blurred; stagnant things seemed to be in slow motion. In a way his surroundings were familiar; he was in his own arm-chair in his sitting-room at the hotel; he could dimly make out the outline of the table. This gripping paroxysm of fear passed presently; his scattered thoughts were growing coherent. What were they saying about all this in the City?

"Is there anybody here?" he asked.

"I am here," the voice of Chassier responded. "There is nothing to be alarmed about."

"I must have fainted," Goldmark groaned. "What is the matter with my eyes? And where are the others?"

"Well, they went home last night, of course. I asked them to leave me here. Your eyes will be quite normal, say, in a day or two. I had to use belladonna at once. Not a whisper of this has got out, of course. We thought that you would prefer it. But you'll have to cut those cigars off altogether. Another week or two, and you would be beyond my assistance. A pipe, now—"

"Never mind that," Goldmark cried. "I gather that I have been here all night. What time is it now?"

"About two o'clock on Wednesday afternoon."

"Good Heavens! I should have been in the City at ten. My people there will think that I have gone mad. Have they been here? Are any inquiries being made?"

"Your secretary called you up, of course. Several other inquiries, as a matter of fact. It seemed to me to be discreet to put them off. You are supposed to be suffering from acute gastritis brought about by eating some impregnated oysters. The people here are under the impression that I am a doctor who was specially summoned to attend you. I have had great financiers in my hands before, therefore I have taken special pains to disguise the truth. If your enemies in the City get hold of this—"

"By Heavens, I should be ruined!" Goldmark groaned. "They'd be at my throat in a moment. If anything happens to the Santa Anna group of mines just now, I'm done. I may not be able to see, but, by Jove, I can do business! Push my chair over to the telephone, please. I must call up Gregory."

Chassier raised no objection. So long as the patient made no use of his eyes, all would be well. Possibly they might have to be bandaged for a day or two, but, at any rate, they would be saved. Goldmark worried at the handle of the telephone savagely, and the reply came at length.

"Give me 99976 London Wall," he said. "What? Oh, yes! Is that you, Gregory. Here's a precious nice mess. Something gone wrong with my eyes. What? Told me I was smoking too many cigars. Well, that's just what Dr. Chassier, of Paris, says. Lucky thing for me he happened to be in London. I've got to stay in a darkened room for a day or two, though nobody knows it but yourself. Supposed to be suffering from acute gastritis. For Heaven's sake, keep this to yourself! What? What? Rather serious this is. I can only just hear what you say. See Razuli as to those mines. You might get 'em up at least two points before closing-time. Keep the game going till Saturday, when that matter over the Mexican concession is settled. Mind I am posted from time to time during the day. And tell everybody that I shall be in the City certain to-morrow."

The slow day dragged on, with frequent calls on the telephone. A nurse appeared presently and brought Goldmark food. She read the City article from The Times to him in a clear pleasant voice; she put him to bed in due course, with the intimation that she was close at hand in case he needed anything.

"It's all very good of you, doctor," Goldmark groaned. "You won't find me haggling over your fees when the time comes for payment. What a lucky thing it was that you happened to look up Brunell! Another week, and it would have been too late!"

"Another week, and it would have been too late," Chassier said gravely.

"Well, I am grateful," Goldmark replied. "On the whole, I'm not doing so badly. I never appreciated the telephone as I have done the last two days. Keeps me in constant touch with Gregory. Rather bad instrument, but I can just make out what he says. Odd thing is that he can hear me distinctly."

"A not uncommon peculiarity of telephones," Chassier replied. "Anyway, you can comfort yourself with the assurance that you are making rapid progress towards recovery. When you wake up to-morrow morning, you will be able to make out objects in this room quite distinctly. I shall come and ser you before the evening. I have another delicate operation to perform."

The telephone went utterly wrong about five o'clock, and Goldmark grizzled for the rest of the evening. It was quite early when the nurse insisted upon putting Goldmark to bed, followed by the administration of a medicine that filled him with a feeling of sublime contentment. He turned over contentedly and fell asleep. What did all the mines in the world matter to him just then?

A golden bath of sunshine filled the bedroom as Goldmark awoke in the morning. The blind was up as Goldmark turned round with a clear view before him. The queer sensation had gone from his eyes; familiar objects had assumed their proper proportions.

As a matter of fact, there was not one familiar object to be seen. Here was a strange bed in a strange room sparely furnished. On a chair Goldmark's clothes lay neatly folded. Here were his boots and frock coat and top hat together with a change of linen. On the dining table was all that was necessary for the toilette, including one of his own clean collars. Here also was his breakfast flanked by a Thermos flask of hot coffee. On the bed lay a copy of The Times as yet unfolded.

In his pyjamas Goldmark sprang from the bed and rushed into the sitting-room. There was nothing there but a table and arm-chair, together with the telephone in the corner. The rest of the house was empty. Down in the basement was the other end of the telephone into which Goldmark had been speaking for the past two days.

Now, what had happened to him? How had those fellows managed it, and why? How had they contrived to move him from the Majestic in the dead of the night and bring him to this desolated house?

Possibly that day's Times might throw a light on the darkness. It did.

THE STRANGE DISAPPEARANCE

OF MR. JAMES GOLDMARK

Little doubt is now expressed that Mr. Goldmark has been the victim of some accident, or that he has deliberately made away with himself. Since he so mysteriously vanished from the Majestic Hotel on the night of Wednesday last, nothing has been seen or heard of him. Nobody saw him leave the hotel, and no letter has come from him. It is hardly necessary to say that this remarkable mystery has created something like a panic in the City, especially in the mining market. Taking advantage of Mr. Goldmark's absence, the bears for the last two days have kept up a vigorous attack on the Santa Anna group, so that the stock was quoted yesterday as low as 11¾, after which it suddenly declined to 7¼ which price was freely offered by the bears— a striking contrast to the prices of Monday last. Scotland Yard is silent in the matter, and up to the time of going to press has nothing to communicate.

Jabez Goldmark was a man of nerves and imagination, nevertheless he kept his head at that crisis. He shaved, in cold water, without so much as a scratch, and partook of an excellent breakfast. He was so far awake to the situation that he subsequently took his cigar-case from his pocket and lighted one of the big black weeds.

He would very much liked to have met Dr. Chassier at that moment. He stifled his regrets as he stepped into a taxi and drove Citywards.

The cool and immaculate Gregory nearly fell off his padded chair as Goldmark strode into his office. The latter poured out a tornado of questions.

"Tell you all about it later on," he said. "Call it one of my little games, if you like. This affair is going to cost over half a million, but it can't be helped. "We've got to get those shares back to par again, and a few points over. Please 'phone our bankers to come here at once. I'll give the bears something to chew before four o'clock."

FRIDAY, October 19, 19—, was a day long remembered in the City. The sight of Goldmark, cool and stern and immaculate outside the Stock Exchange, gave the bears cold fits. Then there were excursions and alarums, followed by a battle which lasted till three o'clock, and a subsequent flight of the bears, leaving their dead and murdered on the field. Goldmark figured it all out on the back of an old envelope.

"Cost me half a million, all the same," he said. "Only nobody need know that. And it's nobody's business where I have been the last two days. Gregory, ring up Mr. Brunell, and ask him where I can conveniently see him this evening."

"That's all right, sir," Gregory said a few minutes later. "Mr. Brunell will be very pleased to see you at his rooms to dinner this evening at eight o'clock."

Goldmark nodded his approval. At eight o'clock he strode into Brunell's room, to find himself confronted by Regan and Powell and Hartigan, as well as his host.

"I should like," he said quietly— "I should like a little explanation."

"Only natural," Brunell said politely. "I ordered dinner for 8.15 on purpose. We are not going to quarrel over this matter, my dear sir. And you are quite at liberty to make it public if you like. But, unless I am greatly mistaken, you will do nothing of the kind. The last thing in the world you want is for people to laugh at you. Now, you robbed me quite in the way of business, and no doubt enjoyed it. Anyway, I didn't. So I decided to fight you with your own weapons. It seemed to me that if it came to scheming, I could scheme as well as you can. That is why I invented a double for Dr. Chassier, and very well he acted his part. He came on the scene in the most natural manner in the world, and he frightened you very nearly to death. As I am fond of saying, a financier is a pawnbroker with an imagination. You have a most vivid imagination, and I played on it. When the sham Chassier gave you those drops to take, he drugged you. 'Chassier' had a room at the hotel close to yours, and we carried you there. You were placed in a big packing-case and smuggled over to Charing Cross, whence you were fetched to the house where the comedy was played out. Hartigan, who is great at theatricals, acted the part of your nurse. We had only to keep you quiet for a day or two, and the thing was done. As you may imagine, your disappearance created the wildest excitement. All sorts of things were said. You had committed suicide, you had absconded, you could not face your creditors. Your mines hardly needed the efforts of the bears to send them down with a bump. At the lowest point we all bought steadily. We knew that by to-day everything would be up again, and we bought till we could buy no longer. No, you are not going to teach us a lesson, as that flash in your eyes indicates, because we have unloaded already. By the way, how are your eyes feeling? Quite all right again?"

"You are a clever lot!" Goldmark sneered.

"I flatter myself that we are," Brunell said coolly. "That little artistic touch as to the telephone was quite smart. Gave you a telephone, and you could be more or less content. Regan fitted the 'phone, and added a few thicknesses of flannel over the transmitter so as to deaden the voice of Powell, who successfully played the part of your man Gregory. All the time you thought that everything was going well, Gregory was in a cold bath of perspiration over your disappearance. We got our knowledge of the drug business from a doctor whom we carefully pumped for information. I put the belladonna in your eyes, and the sham Chassier— whom you do not know even by sight, though he is one of your victims— administered the sleeping draught that put you all right again. Now, you must admit that all this is infinitely more artistic and civilised than taking you by the scruff of the neck and giving you the thrashing that you so richly deserve, Goldmark. We have got our own back, and a lot more. We have fined you half a million, and, so far as we are concerned, we are quite prepared to let bygones be bygones. What do you say?"

"I could get you five years if I liked!" Goldmark muttered.

"Precisely. The facts are beyond dispute. But are you going to do it? Are you going to let the whole world know how delightfully you have been fooled?"

Goldmark capitulated at discretion.

"Let us go in to dinner," he suggested.

"By all means," Brunell smiled. "Pawnbroker with an imagination, proceed. I've got some special cigars for you to try presently— very strong, but, in the circumstances, I know you won't mind that."

________________

10: On The Sweeny Wire

Charles R. Barnes
fl 1909-1926

The Popular Magazine  1 May, 1911

Mrs Belle Sweeny was protagonist of a humour series that ran mostly in "The Popular Magazine", 1909-1914. I could nothing more about the writer.

A PARTY telephone wire is like a political picnic— lots of strangers on the ground and all full-fledged listeners-in. And Belle Sweeny, the race-track gambler's widow, found her neighbors' conversation irresistible, but, sad to relate, almost as disastrous.

A telephone inspector was in the Sweeny apartment, looking over the instrument. Mrs. Sweeny stood by, evidently suspicious, and watched the man as he worked. Sometimes telephone inspectors turned out to be evil-disposed persons, bent on loot. If one's back were toward them, they would deftly collect whatever property happened to be available and decamp. So Mrs. Sweeny gave this man no opportunity at all to develop a burglarious streak, but watched his every move.

At last he finished brushing out the transmitter, tapping here and there with an inquisitive finger, tightening contact screws and the like, and went his way. His observer, now off duty, made her way to the Boarder's rooms for a chat.

"Good mornin'," she said, as she entered.

He returned the greeting and offered her a chair.

"Thanks," said she, seating herself. "One of them telephone fellers was just here, fixin' the thing. I been watchin' him. You don't find me takin' chances on parties that comes around like that, bein' flat workers. Not me!"

"It's best to be careful," agreed the Boarder.

"That's what my Danny usta tell me b'fore he was shot," she continued. "We was on a party line then—" She broke off abruptly, as if memory had flashed a message. "Say," she resumed, "was you ever a party liner?"

"A what?" the Boarder asked.

"A party liner," came the repetition. "You're one when you and three or four other people all listens to what each other says on the phone, b'cause they're on the same line and can. Anybody that would listen like that would peek through a keyhole— and I never met nobody that wouldn't listen. After you've been a party liner for a while, you've got more of a rubberneck disposition than a' astronomer. You watch a show from beginnin' to end, through op'ry glasses, b'cause it makes you think you're peekin' at somethin' on the sly. It's a worse habit than whis'lin' through your teeth; but there's times when it comes in handy for some folks. The fine young one I had almost put Mr. Dan Sweeny and wife down and out."

"I suppose the telephone company got after you?" the Boarder hazarded.

"You don't get no coupon with that guess." Mrs. Sweeny assured him. "Nothin' like that happened; but somethin' else did. Me and Danny seen our bank roll all made up and ready to go on in a disappearin' act. It was a scary time for me, I tell you, mister."

The boarder left off whittling the end of a pencil and began to make himself comfortable.

Mrs. Sweeny continued:

"About that time Danny had had a failin' out with a feller named 'Mike the Wop' that was workin' at one of them race-track books. My husban' wouldn't stand for somethin' he done, and told him so. They quarreled somethin' outrag'ous; but afterward they made it up. Danny brought him out to dinner, and we treated him real stylish, like he was in the legislature and willin' to be bought on the racin' question. But that there Mike wasn't no kind of a man. He had a low, backbitin' disposition— he said he had Sicilian blood in him, and I believe it. Them Sicilians is great on that revenge thing, mister."

The Boarder nodded.

"And," his landlady went on, "I didn't trust him; and afterward I told Danny to watch him like he was a tack on a dark floor. I remember that time at dinner that the telephone was talked about— somethin' brought it out— and our party line got a hearin'. And Mike, bein' one of them fellers that alwus likes to pan out wimmin for bein' mutts and havin' no principles, says he bet I listened on the line.

" 'Well,' I says, 'bein' that I'm honust by nature,' I says, 'I'll say this much: If I happen to take down the receiver and the line's busy,' I says, 'mebbe I don't put the thing right back up on the hook,' I says.

"Mike laughs.

" 'Haw-haw-haw!' he says, 'you're like all the rest of 'em, Mis' Sweeny,' he says. 'Wimmin would listen on a telephone line, if what they heard was that their own house was burnin' down,' he says. 'They'd stick till the folks got through talkin' and then take a chance at gettin' out alive,' he says.

"Well, I didn't have no argument with him, seein' that he's nothin' but a rowdy. And then the talk turns to who's on the line with us. You know how them things will come off. You bring up somethin' to talk about and tell all you know about it, and then begin to lie. We told Mike that a Presbyterian minister was the L party; and a clairvoyant was the X party, and a feller named Doyle, that run a corner saloon over on Amsterdam Av-noo, was the R party, and we was the J party. I knew, for I'd called up the information operator from downtown and asked. Mebbe I was buttin' in, but I just had to know. At first I was goin' to kick about havin' a saloon on our line, but the phone wasn't there; it was at the man's house. Of course all this patter didn't mean nothin' much to Mike at the time. It was just somethin' that comes off between ladies and gent'm'n. But wait! I seen the time when I wished we'd never said a word about who was on our line. All the trouble come from that."

The Boarder was showing considerable interest.

"I don't see how—" he began.

But Mrs. Sweeny had the floor, and reminded him of it.

"Sometimes," she declared, "you don't seem like you had sense. Ain't I doin' my best to tell you how?"

He subsided, and she went on:

"That evenin' when Mike left, Danny walked to the corner saloon with him and interduced him to the proprietor, Doyle. This here Doyle was crazy about the horses, and had more respect for Danny, who was a bookmaker, than for the man that made the subway. Danny didn't stay, though, but come home right away. He wasn't one of them stay-out-all-nights, except when there was somethin' special to celebrate, like makin' a big winnin' at the track. When he come in, he says to me:

" 'Belle,' he says, 'Mike ain't such a bad feller.'

" 'There's worse,' I says, 'but they're in jail. Take it from me, Danny, the Wop is the kind that'll meet you with a glad face and then forget that he ever looked pleasant— he's a smile-that-won't-stay-on feller,' I says. 'I like him much,' I says; 'about as much as you'd like doin' the housework,' I says.

"You see, mister, a woman's got a' instinct that's wound up all the time and rings up people and things like a cash register."

The Boarder was moved to comment.

"Woman's intuition is a strange thing," he said.

"I bet on mine," she assured him, "and I don't have to walk home much, as you might say. And when it told me the Wop's number— which was 00— I was sure that the right record was playin'. I tried to make Danny listen to it, but he was goin' to sleep in his chair and wanted peace. So we let the thing drop.

"One mornin' not long after that our telephone rung, and some party ast for Mr. Doyle.

" 'You're in the wrong pew,' I says.

" 'Ain't this the R party?' says the feller talkin', and his voice sounded familiar.

" 'No,' I says, 'this is the J party.'

"I heard him laughin'."

" 'Hello, Mrs. Sweeny,' he says, 'rubberin' in on the line again? This is Mike talkin'.'

" 'No,' I says, gettin' mad. 'I ain't rubberin' in on the line. Our bell rung,' I says, 'and a lady's got a puffec' right to answer her telephone if the bell rings,' I says.

"He laughs again.

" 'Correct,' he says; 'go to the head of the class.' Then he told me he didn't mean nothin' and for me not to go away mad. But I hung up, and throwed a salt cellar across the room, I was so put out.

"After a while, though, the thing got to easin' up on my chest, and I begun to wonder what the Wop's business with Mr. Doyle was. I knew that Doyle was makin' considerable money out of his place; so, puttin' two and two together, it looked to me that mebbe the Wop was after it. Now, mister, we've brought up at the place where there's a curious woman to deal with— and somethin' usually happens when one of them persons is turned loose, don't it?"

"I believe so," laughed the Boarder.

"You better had," she told him. "Oh, don't they know human nature, though!"

"Who?" inquired he, not knowing where he stood.

"Them gamblers," she replied. "They know it better than a s'ciety woman thinks she knows bridge. Well, let me go on with my story. The next day, about the same time in the mornin', our phone rings again, and it is another case of wrong number and another case of Mike. After we'd rung off, I gets to thinkin' again: 'What does he want with Doyle?' And the next minute I've got the receiver down, and there I am, a peeping Tomerino, waitin' for what's comin' off. I didn't stay in suspense. Right off I heard Mr. Doyle sayin':

" 'Hello!' And then come Mike's voice. They was talkin' about a winner that was bein' held for a killin'. Mr. Doyle was to play it on Mike's tip.

" 'I ain't quite sure yet,' says Mike. 'They're keepin' that horse covered up; but I'll give you the info in time. You'll know in two or three days. Then get on, and get on hard.'

"Mr. Doyle was for it, mister. And mebbe you think I ain't the curious little girl about that time! What horse was goin' to come through? If I could find out and tell Danny, we'd have a fine, soft place to cut loose in, after the horse had got home ahead of 'em all. The thing got me all excited. I couldn't hardly wait till the next day, for I meant to listen in again— that telephone had took all my morals away from me, and I just didn't care what happened, as long as I got that information. I didn't even excuse myself on the grounds that I was doin' a' underhanded thing for the husban' I loved— and at that, I figgered on gettin' a swell dress out of the killin'. This money thing, mister, is somethin' that's awful quick and sure in givin' wimmin a crool attack of bein' wicked. Ain't it?"

The Boarder thought so.

"Well," Mrs. Sweeny went on, "it took me out of the Sunday-school class right away. And to make the temptation all the stronger, Mike the Wop alwus seemed to get our number b'fore he got what he wanted. You'd ought to of heard him pan out the service! He was real worked up about them girls makin' so many mistakes. But I didn't care. When the bell rung, I knew that them two men was goin' to talk, so I got right on the job. And I stuck like garlic smell on a' I-talian. I got crazy to know the name of that horse; and you can know how anxious I was, when I tell you that I almost cut out bein' company for Mrs. 'Big Joe' Goss—"

"Er—" the Boarder began.

"She was a sick lady I was sittin' up with afternoons," Mrs. Sweeny hastened to explain. "And there's more telephone stuff to her side of the story. But just you wait. It'll all come out in time. Mrs. Big Joe was the wife of a pool-room keeper that me and Danny knowed real well, and her bein' all in with neuritis, I was puttin' out a helpin' hand and gnawin' on the rag all afternoon, so's she wouldn't have a relapse thinkin' how Big Joe abused her. I'd been doin' it about ten days; and lately I'd of gave my right mitt to stick around and listen to what might come over the telephone. Gee! but I was anxious to get the name of that horse, mister! It was real deep anxiety, the kind that makes you forget hatin' people."

"I think I can appreciate your position," the Boarder assured her with sympathy.

"You don't have to be a bettin' man to do it," she said. "If you've ever walked down street in a new suit, without no umbrella, and you're dead sure it's goin' to rain, and it don't,-then you have went through somethin' like I did about that horse. But things have a habit of comin' to ends, and this here pony business wasn't any exception. A day or two later, it all come out. My bell had rung, as usual, and when me and the Wop had quit roastin' the telephone company to each other, I. hung up and waited long enough for Mike to get his number. Then I kicks in. Mr. Doyle took down his receiver at just about the time I did— say, I had the thing timed to a second— for I heard him say:

" 'Hello!'

"Mike says 'Hello!' too. Then he went on;

" 'Doyle,' he says, 'I've got it. They're goin' to pull it in the fourth race to-morruh,' he says.

" 'What is it?' says Doyle.

" 'Whirlwind, Junior,' says Mike, 'and go to it, Doyle, like it was beefsteak and mushrooms,' he says, 'and you hadn't et in a week. It's the best thing that's happened since Doc Cook discovered easy money,' he says. 'And don't let this info get away. There's twenty to one, if you get on early, and half that, anyway,' he says.

"Mr. Doyle didn't take a second to answer.

" 'You're on,' he says, 'and I'll carry fifty for you.'

" 'Fifty?' says the Wop, in a voice that might mean anything.

" 'I mean a hundred,' says Doyle. And then they babbled along for five minutes about the horse, and the best pool room to put up the money in, and such a line of stuff. Doyle never went to the track, b'cause if he did he couldn't help bettin' on every race, and that alwus busted him."

Mrs. Sweeny paused a moment, a bit out of breath.

"I can't help rememberin'," she continued, "how fine I felt when I'd got that tip away from them men. I couldn't wait till Danny come home that night. Once or twice I thought of tryin' to locate him in some of them Broadway bootleggeries, but I stopped to think that mebbe some one else might be in on the line— some telephone girl— and spread the Whirlwind, Junior, stuff. You see, mister, when you're bad yourself, you find yourself believin' that everybody else is a crook, too. It's caused by what you tell me is the sighological moment—"

"No," interrupted the Boarder, "it is a psychic phenomena—a brain condition—"

"Put that in storage," Mrs. Sweeny indignantly cut in. "Don't you s'pose I know what I'm talkin' about? Sighological moment is good enough for me. I heard Mrs. 'Gold Dollar' Cohen say that a few evenin's ago, and she ain't got nothin' on me. If she can use them there words, I guess Belle Sweeny can. They don't cost nothin' and—"

The Boarder smiled.

"I meant no offense," he said. "Won't you please go on with the story?"

Mollified, the good lady gave her upturned nose the "going down" signal, and sailed forthwith into her yarn.

"Well," she continued. "I was fidgety as a crate of hens till Danny come home. Then I told him all about what I'd heard.

" 'Belle,' he says, when I'd shook it out of the trap, 'you get a nice, new dress just for this. What does that there one cost you was tellin' me about— the grape de foy grass?' he says.

" 'Danny,' I says, 'it ain't grapes, it's crépe,' I says. But I didn't bother him with the rest of the name, b'cause I knowed he wouldn't understand. I only mentioned somethin' like two fifty, which was nearer his idea of information, and he stood for it.

" 'To-morruh,' he says, 'when I bring home the money,' he says, 'you get yours. I'll go to it for a thousand,' he says, 'and when everything's added up, there ought to be enough to pay our hired girl with, anyhow,' he says. And with that he went to readin' his paper, after havin' asked when in— well, he wanted to know when dinner would be ready, he bein' as hungry as never no man was b'fore. So I left him go ahead and read his paper, and we didn't mention the horse again till the next day.

"I tell you, mister, I was just about crazy to go out to the track and see that Whirlwind, Junior, eat 'em up. I could see in my mind about how it would be. The horse would keep pretty well in front for a while, till the jockey seen just what he had to beat, then he'd give Whirlwind his head, and mebbe beat him up, down the stretch. And there'd be a gang of howlin' maniacs, yellin' for the fav'rite to make good.

"You bet there'd be excitement enough to satisfy a modust young thing like me, and I wanted to mix up in it. Also, I wanted to set around with a knew-it-all grin all over my face and collect my bit, me havin' gave Danny fifty to put down for me. Did you ever make a surething bet?" she asked.

"No," replied the Boarder.

"Then," Mrs. Sweeny said, "you don't know the thrillin' feelin' you get, waitin' for things to come across. I can't describe it to you, but it sure is some feelin'. It begun with me as soon as Danny went out of the house, and kep' up right along. At noon, I slips over to Mrs. Big Joe's house for lunch and to stay there with her all afternoon. I couldn't go to no track, with her feelin' like she wanted to jump out of the window and spendin' her time quarrelin' with her nurse. She wouldn't row none with me, b'cause she kept too interested in what scandal was goin' on in our set.

"I guess mebbe I'd been there a' hour, when the phone, that was set on a stand by her bed, begun to ring.

" 'I wisht,' she says, all nervous, 'I wisht, Belle, that some one would kick this thing in the eye for me. It like to drives me bugs,' she says, puttin' the receiver to her ear. I was siftin' close b'side her, and when she says 'Hello!' I could hear the voice at the other end real plain.

" 'Is Joe there?' it says. And you can just guess that I set up and took notice. That there voice belonged to Mike the Wop, and I seen, just as clear as anything, that Big Joe was in on the deal, too. Somethin' told me he was. Mrs. Big Joe said her husban' wasn't nowhere around. He was down at his pool room, she was sure.

" 'No,' says Mike, 'he ain't there. I called up. Say, Mrs. Goss,' he says, 'I wisht I knew where to find him.'

" 'What you want with him?' she says.

" 'There's a bad tip loose,' he says, 'on Whirlwind, Junior,' he says, 'and I don't want Joe to fall for it,' he says. 'Nobody's supposed to play it,' he says, 'but Sweeny. It's a plant,' he says.

"Mrs. Big Joe looks up at me, and I'm bendin' down close to the receiver that was against her ear. She pulled it away a little bit, so I could hear better. 'This here's too good to be true,' she says, forgettin' that anything was the matter of her. Then to Mike:

" 'What's this you're sayin'?'

" 'Sweeny's goin' to get his this afternoon,' Mike tells her, 'and I guess him and his rubberneckin' wife is goin' to have somethin' to study about to-night,' he says. Then we heard him laugh. 'Ha-ha-ha!' he says, 'I bet they have their telephone tore out by the roots,' he says. 'And I bet she never rubbers again, as long as she lives.'

"Mrs. Big Joe gets awful anxious at that. 'What you drivin' at, Mike?' she says.

" 'You'll hear later on,' he says. 'I'm showin' Dan Sweeny that he can't make a monkey of me and get away with it,' he says. 'And I'm flatterin' myself today that I'm clever enough to walk home alone, anyway. So Joe ain't there? Well, I got to hunt him up. If you should happen to get him on the phone, tell him I said not to play that Whirlwind thing. It's goin' all up and down the line, and how it got loose I don't know. Tell him, if you find him. Good-by.' And Mike hung up b'fore we could get any more out of him.

"Mrs. Big Joe was so interested that she couldn't hardly stay in bed.

" 'Tell me, Belle,' she says, 'what all this here funny business means,' she says.

"I just set there and bowed my poor, whirlin' head in my hands. For I seen it all now. The Wop had been nursin' his grudge against Danny, and he had played a slick hand. He'd been callin' up our number right along, figgerin' that I'd rubber in and hear what was goin' on. I s'pose he kept at it so long to be sure that I'd get the phony tip. He'd prob'ly been listenin' for that little click you hear when somebody takes down another receiver on a party-line wire, and he'd found out when I was listenin' that way, takin' a chance, like all them gamblers does, that it was me, and not somebody else. And right now he was havin' his little giggle and warnin' his good fr'en's off the information.

"It sure had me goin', mister, and for a while I was so flustered that I couldn't get my head workin' even good enough to tell Mrs. Big Joe what had happened. Wasn't it a' awful thing, mister, me gettin' my husban' in wrong, through my sneakin' ways?"

"I suppose you felt decidedly unpleasant," the Boarder said. "But what of Doyle? Was he being slaughtered, too?"

"It looked like this to me," Mrs. Sweeny told him. "What do you think the Wop cared about Mr. Doyle? Nothin'. He wasn't no fr'en' of the Wop's— just a' acquaintance—a fr'en' of a man that the sneakin', lyin' Sicilian didn't like, anyway. Doyle was only a tool, that's all. Nobody cared what happened to him."

"I see," said the Boarder.

"Well," she resumed, "I fin'ly got settled down enough to tell Mrs. Big Joe the whole story. I didn't hide a bit of it. But she didn't have a word to say against me.

" 'I'd of did the same,' she said. 'A lady has got a puffec' right to listen if she wants to. What do we have party lines for, if they ain't to listen at, when a pusson ain't got nothing else to do?' she says. And I thought it was real lovely in her. Some folks is too narrow-minded to take her kind of a view of things.

"But she was full of the idee that we ought to find Danny and make him run away from that Whirlwind stuff. For the life of me, I didn't know where to telephone to, for sometimes Danny left his pardner run the book and stayed in town, even when he was bettin'. And them times he was usually in a hotel room, playin' poker and such a line of work.

" 'Be-lieve me,' I said to Mrs. Big Joe, 'I'm clean up in the air,' I says, 'for I don't know where to look for him.'

"But she wanted to do somethin'.

" 'Belle,' she says, 'call up all the live dives along Broadway, close to Forty-second Street,' she says, 'and if he ain't in one of 'em, we'll get the track. Now begin.' She takes the book from the table and hands it to me.

"For a while, it seemed as if the type just danced around, but soon I was able to read, and then I begun to call up numbers. My only hope was that, as Whirlwind, Junior, wasn't to start till the fourth race, Danny might fool around with some of his pals till late, and then ride out to the track in a' automobile. When I got that far in my reasonin', I kept repeatin' that word, 'automobile, automobile, automobile.' It struck me like a hunch, but it was several minutes before I knew what it meant. After that, I didn't telephone no more places. I rung up Mrs. Gold Dollar Cohen.

" 'Say,' I says, 'somethin' turrible has happened,' I says, 'and I must get to Danny,' I says, 'b'fore the fourth race. And will you lend me your car for a fast ride, and your choofer?' I says. Follerin' which, I told her of the mean trick that the Wop had pulled on me and Danny. Mrs. Gold Dollar spoke right up, as soon as she seen what was happenin'.

" 'Belle,' she says, 'you can have the French car,' she says, 'and, what's more, I'll go along. Where are you now?'

" 'At Mrs. Big Joe's,' I says.

" 'Then,' she says, 'get trimmed up, Belle,' she says, 'b'cause it won't be more'n ten minutes till I'm yellin' my head off out in front of that there place for you,' she says. Then we hangs up, and I'm the busy party for a while, gettin' fixed for the trip. Oncet I says to Mrs. Big Joe that I'd ought to stick around and take care of her, but she let out a awful holler at that.

" 'There is big things to be did this day,' says she, 'and I'm sure I'm able to take care of myself,' she says, 'for there's the nurse to bawl out,' she says, 'when I want somethin' to do. And, anyway, I want Mike the Wop to understand that ladies has a puffec' right to listen at a telephone. I do it myself,' she says, 'and I ain't goin' to stand for no call down from no cheap Sicilian,' she says. 'Our husban's ought to beat him up.'

" 'Ain't that the truth!' I says, real emphatically. And then I was on my way, hopefuller than I'd been since the Wop showed us his hand.

"Mrs. Gold Dollar was waitin' for me when I got downstairs.

" 'Belle,' she says to me, 'wait till we get over in Brooklyn,' she says. 'I've told my man to hit it up and make Sheepshead Bay quicker than it was ever did b'fore. I don't care if we do get pinched,' she says, 'for the Gold Dollar is havin' a great season with his book, and his wife ought to be allowed a little fun now and then,' she says.

"My eyes was shut all durin' that trip, mister, so I can't tell just what happened. All I know is that them new French-make cars hits only every sixteenth high spot, and even at that they touch so light that you can't notice it. Mrs. Gold Dollar screamed all the way out. When she begun, the choofer stopped the car, but she hollers:

" 'Ferdunund, if you do that again, I'll scream! Go on! Make them wheels go round like they was paid for it. I'm havin' the time of my life!'

"And you can take it from me, mister, he done just that. Whee! We sure did go; and it didn't seem hardly ten minutes b'fore the thing stopped, and there we was. Both of us set right out on a hunt for Danny, and pretty soon we found him talkin' with a couple of gents.

" 'Danny,' I says, 'we been bunked,' I says.

" 'Give it a name, Belle,' he says.

" 'The Wop,' I says, 'has handed us somethin'.'

" 'Whirlwind, Junior?' says he.

" 'Yep,' says I. 'It's bad. He ain't goin' to win.' Then I told him the story as fast as I could patter it out. When I was through, he only kinda laughed.

" 'Well, Belle,' he says, 'I'm sorry you and Mrs. Gold Dollar took the trouble to come way out here and tell me,' he says, 'for I didn't get on Whirlwind. They was a big tip out that he was to make a killin', and it didn't look good to me. I don't never fall for them hot ones, Belle, for I never seen many of 'em get across,' he says, 'but thanks, just the same, for the bother you and Mrs. Gold Dollar has went to on my account,' he says. 'It makes a man think he's got fr'en's.'

"I was so surprised, mister, that I couldn't do nothin' but stare.

" 'You didn't get on?' I managed to say, after a while.

" 'Nope, I didn't,' he says.

" 'Well,' says I, comin' to my senses, 'it looks to me as if the only man that gets stung is Mr. Doyle,' I says, 'and I guess somebody ought to call him up.'

"Danny looked at me hard when I said that. In another minute he was runnin' away as hard as he could go.

" 'I'm goin' to phone him,' he says.

"And five minutes afterward he was back, mister, with a grin on his face that made it look like a half-opened steamer trunk.

" 'Belle,' he says, 'nobody has got no worries but Mike the Wop. My fr'en' Doyle didn't make no bets,' he says, 'b'cause he was in on the plant. He was stallin' for Mike; only he didn't know it was us,' he says.

" 'Who was meant, then?' I says.

" 'Haw-haw-haw!' says Danny, 'who do you s'pose?'

" 'The minister on the line,' says I.

" 'You lose,' says he. 'Doyle said that he thought they were after the clairvoyant!'

" 'My sakes!' I says.

" 'Yes,' he says. 'Mike the Wop says to Doyle that the clairvoyant had trimmed him some way. And Doyle didn't have no use for her, b'cause his wife kept goin' there and spendin' money for bum information. So he got in on the plant, and there you are,' he says.

"Mrs. Gold Dollar and me was so supprised that we couldn't chatter. And that's some supprised for a woman. Then Mrs. Gold Dollar come to. She dug down in her shoppin' bag, and brought out a hundred.

" 'Well,' she says, 'somebody's got to lose somethin' this day, Mr. Sweeny,' she says. 'Go put this on Roller Skates for me, to show,' she says."

____________

11: P.’s Correspondence

Nathaniel Hawthorne

1804-1864

The Democratic Review, Apr 1845

Nathaniel Hawthorne

MY UNFORTUNATE friend P. has lost the thread of his life by the interposition of long intervals of partially disordered reason. The past and present are jumbled together in his mind in a manner often productive of curious results, and which will be better understood after the perusal of the following letter than from any description that I could give. The poor fellow, without once stirring from the little whitewashed, iron-grated room to which he alludes in his first paragraph, is nevertheless a great traveler, and meets in his wanderings a variety of personages who have long ceased to be visible to any eye save his own. In my opinion, all this is not so much a delusion as a partly willful and partly involuntary sport of the imagination, to which his disease has imparted such morbid energy that he beholds these spectral scenes and characters with no less distinctness than a play upon the stage, and with somewhat more of illusive credence. Many of his letters are in my possession, some based upon the same vagary as the present one, and others upon hypotheses not a whit short of it in absurdity. The whole form a series of correspondence, which, should fate seasonably remove my poor friend from what is to him a world of moonshine, I promise myself a pious pleasure in editing for the public eye.

P. had always a hankering after literary reputation, and has made more than one unsuccessful effort to achieve it. It would not be a little odd, if, after missing his object while seeking it by the light of reason, he should prove to have stumbled upon it in his misty excursions beyond the limits of sanity.

LONDON,

February 29, 1845.

MY DEAR FRIEND:

Old associations cling to the mind with astonishing tenacity. Daily custom grows up about us like a stone wall, and consolidates itself into almost as material an entity as mankind’s strongest architecture. It is sometimes a serious question with me whether ideas be not really visible and tangible, and endowed with all the other qualities of matter. Sitting as I do at this moment in my hired apartment, writing beside the hearth, over which hangs a print of Queen Victoria, listening to the muffled roar of the world’s metropolis, and with a window at but five paces distant, through which, whenever I please, I can gaze out on actual London— with all this positive certainty as to my whereabouts, what kind of notion, do you think, is just now perplexing my brain? Why— would you believe it?— that all this time I am still an inhabitant of that wearisome little chamber— that whitewashed little chamber— that little chamber with its one small window, across which, from some inscrutable reason of taste or convenience, my landlord had placed a row of iron bars— that same little chamber, in short, whither your kindness has so often brought you to visit me! Will no length of time or breadth of space enfranchise me from that unlovely abode? I travel; but it seems to be like the snail, with my house upon my head. Ah, well! I am verging, I suppose, on that period of life when present scenes and events make but feeble impressions in comparison with those of yore; so that I must reconcile myself to be more and more the prisoner of Memory, who merely lets me hop about a little with her chain around my leg.

My letters of introduction have been of the utmost service, enabling me to make the acquaintance of several distinguished characters who, until now, have seemed as remote from the sphere of my personal intercourse as the wits of Queen Anne’s time or Ben Jenson’s compotators at the Mermaid. One of the first of which I availed myself was the letter to Lord Byron. I found his lordship looking much older than I had anticipated, although, considering his former irregularities of life and the various wear and tear of his constitution, not older than a man on the verge of sixty reasonably may look. But I had invested his earthly frame, in my imagination, with the poet’s spiritual immortality. He wears a brown wig, very luxuriantly curled, and extending down over his forehead. The expression of his eyes is concealed by spectacles. His early tendency to obesity having increased, Lord Byron is now enormously fat— so fat as to give the impression of a person quite overladen with his own flesh, and without sufficient vigor to diffuse his personal life through the great mass of corporeal substance which weighs upon him so cruelly. You gaze at the mortal heap; and, while it fills your eye with what purports to be Byron, you murmur within yourself, “For Heaven’s sake, where is he?” Were I disposed to be caustic, I might consider this mass of earthly matter as the symbol, in a material shape, of those evil habits and carnal vices which unspiritualize man’s nature and clog up his avenues of communication with the better life. But this would be too harsh; and, besides, Lord Byron’s morals have been improving while his outward man has swollen to such unconscionable circumference. Would that he were leaner; for, though he did me the honor to present his hand, yet it was so puffed out with alien substance that I could not feel as if I had touched the hand that wrote Childe Harold.

On my entrance his lordship apologized for not rising to receive me, on the sufficient plea that the gout for several years past had taken up its constant residence in his right foot, which accordingly was swathed in many rolls of flannel and deposited upon a cushion. The other foot was hidden in the drapery of his chair. Do you recollect whether Byron’s right or left foot was the deformed one.

The noble poet’s reconciliation with Lady Byron is now, as you are aware, of ten years’ standing; nor does it exhibit, I am assured, any symptom of breach or fracture. They are said to be, if not a happy, at least a contented, or at all events a quiet couple, descending the slope of life with that tolerable degree of mutual support which will enable them to come easily and comfortably to the bottom. It is pleasant to reflect how entirely the poet has redeemed his youthful errors in this particular. Her ladyship’s influence, it rejoices me to add, has been productive of the happiest results upon Lord Byron in a religious point of view. He now combines the most rigid tenets of Methodism with the ultra doctrines of the Puseyites; the former being perhaps due to the convictions wrought upon his mind by his noble consort, while the latter are the embroidery and picturesque illumination demanded by his imaginative character. Much of whatever expenditure his increasing habits of thrift continue to allow him is bestowed in the reparation or beautifying of places of worship; and this nobleman, whose name was once considered a synonyme of the foul fiend, is now all but canonized as a saint in many pulpits of the metropolis and elsewhere. In politics, Lord Byron is an uncompromising conservative, and loses no opportunity, whether in the House of Lords or in private circles, of denouncing and repudiating the mischievous and anarchical notions of his earlier day. Nor does he fail to visit similar sins in other people with the sincerest vengeance which his somewhat blunted pen is capable of inflicting. Southey and he are on the most intimate terms. You are aware that, some little time before the death of Moore, Byron caused that brilliant but reprehensible man to be evicted from his house. Moore took the insult so much to heart that, it is said to have been one great cause of the fit of illness which brought him to the grave. Others pretend that the lyrist died in a very happy state of mind, singing one of his own sacred melodies, and expressing his belief that it would be heard within the gate of paradise, and gain him instant and honorable admittance. I wish he may have found it so.

I failed not, as you may suppose, in the course of conversation with Lord Byron, to pay the weed of homage due to a mighty poet, by allusions to passages in Childe Harold, and Manfred, and Don Juan, which have made so large a portion of the music of my life. My words, whether apt or otherwise, were at least warm with the enthusiasm of one worthy to discourse of immortal poesy. It was evident, however, that they did not go precisely to the right spot. I could perceive that there was some mistake or other, and was not a little angry with myself, and ashamed of my abortive attempt to throw back, from my own heart to the gifted author’s ear, the echo of those strains that have resounded throughout the world. But by and by the secret peeped quietly out. Byron— I have the information from his own lips, so that you need not hesitate to repeat it in literary circles— Byron is preparing a new edition of his complete works, carefully corrected, expurgated, and amended, in accordance with his present creed of taste, morals, politics, and religion. It so happened that the very passages of highest inspiration to which I had alluded were among the condemned and rejected rubbish which it is his purpose to cast into the gulf of oblivion. To whisper you the truth, it appears to me that his passions having burned out, the extinction of their vivid and riotous flame has deprived Lord Byron of the illumination by which he not merely wrote, but was enabled to feel and comprehend what he had written. Positively he no longer understands his own poetry.

This became very apparent on his favoring me so far as to read a few specimens of Don Juan in the moralized version. Whatever is licentious, whatever disrespectful to the sacred mysteries of our faith, whatever morbidly melancholic or splenetically sportive, whatever assails settled constitutions of government or systems of society, whatever could wound the sensibility of any mortal, except a pagan, a republican, or a dissenter, has been unrelentingly blotted out, and its place supplied by unexceptionable verses in his lordship’s later style. You may judge how much of the poem remains as hitherto published. The result is not so good as might be wished; in plain terms, it is a very sad affair indeed; for, though the torches kindled in Tophet have been extinguished, they leave an abominably ill odor, and are succeeded by no glimpses of hallowed fire. It is to be hoped, nevertheless, that this attempt on Lord Byron’s part to atone for his youthful errors will at length induce the Dean of Westminster, or whatever churchman is concerned, to allow Thorwaldsen’s statue of the poet its due niche in the grand old Abbey. His bones, you know, when brought from Greece, were denied sepulture among those of his tuneful brethren there.

What a vile slip of the pen was that! How absurd in me to talk about burying the bones of Byron, who, I have just seen alive, and encased in a big, round bulk of flesh! But, to say the truth, a prodigiously fat man always impresses me as a kind of hobgoblin; in the very extravagance of his mortal system I find something akin to the immateriality of a ghost. And then that ridiculous old story darted into my mind, how that Byron died of fever at Missolonghi, above twenty years ago. More and more I recognize that we dwell in a world of shadows; and, for my part, I hold it hardly worth the trouble to attempt a distinction between shadows in the mind and shadows out of it. If there be any difference, the former are rather the more substantial.

Only think of my good fortune! The venerable Robert Burns— now, if I mistake not, in his eighty-seventh year— happens to be making a visit to London, as if on purpose to afford me an opportunity of grasping him by the hand. For upwards of twenty years past he has hardly left his quiet cottage in Ayrshire for a single night, and has only been drawn hither now by the irresistible persuasions of all the distinguished men in England. They wish to celebrate the patriarch’s birthday by a festival. It will be the greatest literary triumph on record. Pray Heaven the little spirit of life within the aged bard’s bosom may not be extinguished in the luster of that hour! I have already had the honor of an introduction to him at the British Museum, where he was examining a collection of his own unpublished letters, interspersed with songs, which have escaped the notice of all his biographers.

Poh! Nonsense! What am I thinking of? How should Burns have been embalmed in biography when he is still a hearty old man?

The figure of the bard is tall and in the highest degree reverend, nor the less so that it is much bent by the burden of time. His white hair floats like a snowdrift around his face, in which are seen the furrows of intellect and passion, like the channels of headlong torrents that have foamed themselves away. The old gentleman is in excellent preservation, considering his time of life. He has that crickety sort of liveliness— I mean the cricket’s humor of chirping for any cause or none— which is perhaps the most favorable mood that can befall extreme old age. Our pride forbids us to desire it for ourselves, although we perceive it to be a beneficence of nature in the case of others. I was surprised to find it in Burns. It seems as if his ardent heart and brilliant imagination had both burned down to the last embers, leaving only a little flickering flame in one corner, which keeps dancing upward and laughing all by itself. He is no longer capable of pathos. At the request of Allan Cunningham, he attempted to sing his own song to Mary in Heaven; but it was evident that the feeling of those verses, so profoundly true and so simply expressed, was entirely beyond the scope of his present sensibilities; and, when a touch of it did partially awaken him, the tears immediately gushed into his eyes and his voice broke into a tremulous cackle. And yet he but indistinctly knew wherefore he was weeping. Ah, he must not think again of Mary in Heaven until he shake off the dull impediment of time and ascend to meet her there.

Burns then began to repeat Tam O’Shanter; but was so tickled with its wit and humor— of which, however, I suspect he had but a traditionary sense— that he soon burst into a fit of chirruping laughter, succeeded by a cough, which brought this not very agreeable exhibition to a close. On the whole, I would rather not have witnessed it. It is a satisfactory idea, however, that the last forty years of the peasant poet’s life have been passed in competence and perfect comfort. Having been cured of his bardic improvidence for many a day past, and grown as attentive to the main chance as a canny Scotsman should be, he is now considered to be quite well off as to pecuniary circumstances. This, I suppose, is worth having lived so long for.

I took occasion to inquire of some of the countrymen of Burns in regard to the health of Sir Walter Scott. His condition, I am sorry to say, remains the same as for ten years past; it is that of a hopeless paralytic, palsied not more in body than in those nobler attributes of which the body is the instrument. And thus he vegetates from day to day and from year to year at that splendid fantasy of Abbotsford, which grew out of his brain, and became a symbol of the great romancer’s tastes, feelings, studies, prejudices, and modes of intellect. Whether in verse, prose, or architecture, he could achieve but one thing, although that one in infinite variety. There he reclines, on a couch in his library, and is said to spend whole hours of every day in dictating tales to an amanuensis— to an imaginary amanuensis; for it is not deemed worth anyone’s trouble now to take down what flows from that once brilliant fancy, every image of which was formerly worth gold and capable of being coined. Yet Cunningham, who has lately seen him, assures me that there is now and then a touch of the genius— a striking combination of incident, or a picturesque trait of character, such as no other man alive could have bit off— a glimmer from that ruined mind, as if the sun had suddenly flashed on a half-rusted helmet in the gloom of an ancient ball. But the plots of these romances become inextricably confused; the characters melt into one another; and the tale loses itself like the course of a stream flowing through muddy and marshy ground.

For my part, I can hardly regret that Sir Walter Scott had lost his consciousness of outward things before his works went out of vogue. It was good that he should forget his fame rather than that fame should first have forgotten him. Were he still a writer, and as brilliant a one as ever, he could no longer maintain anything like the same position in literature. The world, nowadays, requires a more earnest purpose, a deeper moral, and a closer and homelier truth than he was qualified to supply it with. Yet who can be to the present generation even what Scott has been to the past? I had expectations from a young man— one Dickens— who published a few magazine articles, very rich in humor, and not without symptoms of genuine pathos; but the poor fellow died shortly after commencing an odd series of sketches, entitled, I think, the Pickwick Papers. Not impossibly the world has lost more than it dreams of by the untimely death of this Mr. Dickens.

Whom do you think I met in Pall Mall the other day? You would not hit it in ten guesses. Why, no less a man than Napoleon Bonaparte, or all that is now left of him— that is to say, the skin, bones, and corporeal substance, little cocked hat, green coat, white breeches, and small sword, which are still known by his redoubtable name. He was attended only by two policemen, who walked quietly behind the phantasm of the old ex-emperor, appearing to have no duty in regard to him except to see that none of the light-fingered gentry should possess themselves of thee star of the Legion of Honor. Nobody save myself so much as turned to look after him; nor, it grieves me to confess, could even I contrive to muster up any tolerable interest, even by all that the warlike spirit, formerly manifested within that now decrepit shape, had wrought upon our globe. There is no surer method of annihilating the magic influence of a great renown than by exhibiting the possessor of it in the decline, the overthrow, the utter degradation of his powers— buried beneath his own mortality— and lacking even the qualities of sense that enable the most ordinary men to bear themselves decently in the eye of the world. This is the state to which disease, aggravated by long endurance of a tropical climate, and assisted by old age— for he is now above seventy— has reduced Bonaparte. The British government has acted shrewdly in re-transporting him from St. Helena to England. They should now restore him to Paris, and there let him once again review the relics of his armies. His eye is dull and rheumy; his nether lip hung down upon his chin. While I was observing him there chanced to be a little extra bustle in the street; and he, the brother of Caesar and Hannibal— the great captain who had veiled the world in battle-smoke and tracked it round with bloody footsteps— was seized with a nervous trembling, and claimed the protection of the two policemen by a cracked and dolorous cry. The fellows winked at one another, laughed aside, and, patting Napoleon on the back, took each an arm and led him away.

Death and fury! Ha, villain, how came you hither? Avaunt! or I fling my inkstand at your head. Tush, tusk; it is all a mistake. Pray, my dear friend, pardon this little outbreak. The fact is, the mention of those two policemen, and their custody of Bonaparte, had called up the idea of that odious wretch— you remember him well— who was pleased to take such gratuitous and impertinent care of my person before I quitted New England. Forthwith up rose before my mind’s eye that same little whitewashed room, with the iron-grated window— strange that it should have been iron-grated!— where, in too easy compliance with the absurd wishes of my relatives, I have wasted several good years of my life. Positively it seemed to me that I was still sitting there, and that the keeper— not that he ever was my keeper neither, but only a kind of intrusive devil of a body-servant— had just peeped in at the door. The rascal! I owe him an old grudge, and will find a time to pay it yet. Fie! fie! The mere thought of him has exceedingly discomposed me. Even now that hateful chamber— the iron-grated window, which blasted the blessed sunshine as it fell through the dusty panes and made it poison to my soul-looks more distinct to my view than does this my comfortable apartment in the heart of London. The reality— that which I know to be such— hangs like remnants of tattered scenery over the intolerably prominent illusion. Let us think of it no more.

You will be anxious to hear of Shelley. I need not say, what is known to all the world, that this celebrated poet has for many years past been reconciled to the Church of England. In his more recent works he has applied his fine powers to the vindication of the Christian faith, with an especial view to that particular development. Latterly, as you may not have heard, he has taken orders, and been inducted to a small country living in the gift of the Lord Chancellor. Just now, luckily for me, he has come to the metropolis to superintend the publication of a volume of discourses treating of the poetico-philosophical proofs of Christianity on the basis of the Thirty-nine Articles. On my first introduction I felt no little embarrassment as to the manner of combining what I had to say to the author of Queen Mali, the Revolt of Islam, and Prometheus Unbound with such acknowledgments as might be acceptable to a Christian minister and zealous upholder of the Established Church. But Shelley soon placed me at my ease. Standing where he now does, and reviewing all his successive productions from a higher point, he assures me that there is a harmony, an order, a regular procession, which enables him to lay his hand upon any one of the earlier poems and say, “This is my work,” with precisely the same complacency of conscience wherewithal he contemplates the volume of discourses above mentioned. They are like the successive steps of a staircase, the lowest of which, in the depth of chaos, is as essential to the support of the whole as the highest and final one resting upon the threshold of the heavens. I felt half inclined to ask him what would have been his fate had he perished on the lower steps of his staircase, instead of building his way aloft into the celestial brightness.

How all this may be I neither pretend to understand nor greatly care, so long as Shelley has really climbed, as it seems he has, from a lower region to a loftier one. Without touching upon their religious merits, I consider the productions of his maturity superior, as poems, to those of his youth. They are warmer with human love, which has served as an interpreter between his mind and the multitude. The author has learned to dip his pen oftener into his heart, and has thereby avoided the faults into which a too exclusive use of fancy and intellect are wont to betray him. Formerly his page was often little other than a concrete arrangement of crystallizations, or even of icicles, as cold as they were brilliant. Now you take it to your heart, and are conscious of a heart-warmth responsive to your own. In his private character Shelley can hardly have grown more gentle, kind, and affectionate than his friends always represented him to be up to that disastrous night when he was drowned in the Mediterranean. Nonsense, again— sheer nonsense! What, am I babbling about? I was thinking of that old figment of his being lost in the Bay of Spezzia, and washed ashore near Via Reggio, and burned to ashes on a funeral pyre, with wine, and spices, and frankincense; while Byron stood on the beach and beheld a flame of marvelous beauty rise heavenward from the dead poet’s heart, and that his fire-purified relics were finally buried near his child in Roman earth. If all this happened three-and-twenty years ago, how could I have met the drowned and burned and buried man here in London only yesterday?

Before quitting the subject, I may mention that Dr. Reginald Heber, heretofore Bishop of Calcutta, but recently translated to a see in England, called on Shelley while I was with him. They appeared to be on terms of very cordial intimacy, and are said to have a joint poem in contemplation. What a strange, incongruous dream is the life of man!

Coleridge has at last finished his poem of Christabel. It will be issued entire by old John Murray in the course of the present publishing season. The poet, I hear, is visited with a troublesome affection of the tongue, which has put a period, or some lesser stop, to the lifelong discourse that has hitherto been flowing from his lips. He will not survive it above a month, unless his accumulation of ideas be sluiced off in some other way. Wordsworth died only a week or two ago. Heaven rest his soul, and grant that he may not have completed The Excursion! Methinks I am sick of everything he wrote, except his Laodamia. It is very sad, this inconstancy of the mind to the poets whom it once worshiped. Southey is as hale as ever, and writes with his usual diligence. Old Gifford is still alive, in the extremity of age, and with most pitiable decay of what little sharp and narrow intellect the Devil had gifted him withal. One hates to allow such a man the privilege of growing old and infirm. It takes away our speculative license of kicking him.

Keats? No; I have not seen him except across a crowded street, with coaches, drays, horsemen, cabs, omnibuses, foot-passengers, and divers other sensual obstructions intervening betwixt his small and slender figure and my eager glance. I would fain have met him on the seashore, or beneath a natural arch of forest trees, or the Gothic arch of an old cathedral, or among Grecian ruins, or at a glimmering fireside on the verge of evening, or at the twilight entrance of a cave, into the dreamy depths of which he would have led me by the hand; anywhere, in short, save at Temple Bar, where his presence was blotted out by the porter-swollen bulks of these gross Englishmen. I stood and watched him fading away, fading away along the pavement, and could hardly tell whether he were an actual man or a thought that had slipped out of my mind and clothed itself in human form and habiliments merely to beguile me. At one moment he put his handkerchief to his lips, and withdrew it, I am almost certain, stained with blood. You never saw anything so fragile as his person. The truth is, Keats has all his life felt the effects of that terrible bleeding at the lungs caused by the article on his Endymion in the Quarterly Review, and which so nearly brought him to the grave. Ever since he has glided about the world like a ghost, sighing a melancholy tone in the ear of here and there a friend, but never sending forth his voice to greet the multitude. I can hardly think him a great poet. The burden of a mighty genius would never have been imposed upon shoulders so physically frail and a spirit so infirmly sensitive. Great poets should have iron sinews.

Yet Keats, though for so many years he has given nothing to the world, is understood to have devoted himself to the composition of an epic poem. Some passages of it have been communicated to the inner circle of his admirers, and impressed them as the loftiest strains that have been audible on earth since Milton’s days. If I can obtain copies of these specimens, I will ask you to present them to James Russell Lowell, who seems to be one of the poet’s most fervent and worthiest worshipers. The information took me by surprise. I had supposed that all Keats’s poetic incense, without being embodied in human language, floated up to heaven and mingled with the songs of the immortal choristers, who perhaps were conscious of an unknown voice among them, and thought their melody the sweeter for it. But it is not so; he has positively written a poem on the subject of Paradise Regained, though in another sense than that which presented itself to the mind of Milton. In compliance, it may be imagined, with the dogma of those who pretend that all epic possibilities in the past history of the world are exhausted, Keats has thrown his poem forward into an indefinitely remote futurity. He pictures mankind amid the closing circumstances of the time-long warfare between good and evil. Our race is on the eve of its final triumph. Man is within the last stride of perfection; Woman, redeemed from the thraldom against which our sibyl uplifts so powerful and so sad a remonstrance, stands equal by his side or communes for herself with angels; the Earth, sympathizing with her children’s happier state, has clothed herself in such luxuriant and loving beauty as no eye ever witnessed since our first parents saw the sun rise over dewy Eden. Nor then indeed; for this is the fulfillment of what was then but a golden promise. But the picture has its shadows. There remains to mankind another peril— a last encounter with the evil principle. Should the battle go against us, we sink back into the slime and misery of ages. If we triumph— But it demands a poet’s eye to contemplate the splendor of such a consummation and not to be dazzled.

To this great work Keats is said to have brought so deep and tender a spirit of humanity that the poem has all the sweet and warm interest of a village tale no less than the grandeur which befits so high a theme. Such, at least, is the perhaps partial representation of his friends; for I have not read or heard even a single line of the performance in question. Keats, I am told, withholds it from the press, under an idea that the age has not enough of spiritual insight to receive it worthily. I do not like this distrust; it makes me distrust the poet. The universe is waiting to respond to the highest word that the best child of time and immortality can utter. If it refuse to listen, it is because he mumbles and stammers, or discourses things unseasonable and foreign to the purpose.

I visited the House of Lords the other day to hear Canning, who, you know, is now a peer, with I forget what title. He disappointed me. Time blunts both point and edge, and does great mischief to men of his order of intellect. Then I stepped into the lower House and listened to a few words from Cobbett, who looked as earthy as a real clodhopper, or rather as if he had lain a dozen years beneath the clods. The men whom I meet nowadays often impress me thus; probably because my spirits are not very good, and lead me to think much about graves, with the long grass upon them, and weather-worn epitaphs, and dry bones of people who made noise enough in their day, but now can only clatter, clatter, clatter, when the sexton’s spade disturbs them. Were it only possible to find out who are alive and who dead, it would contribute infinitely to my peace of mind. Every day of my life somebody comes and stares me in the face whom I had quietly blotted out of the tablet of living men, and trusted nevermore to be pestered with the sight or sound of him. For instance, going to Drury Lane Theater a few evenings since, up rose before me, in the ghost of Hamlet’s father, the bodily presence of the elder Kean, who did die, or ought to have died, in some drunken fit or other, so long ago that his fame is scarcely traditionary now. His powers are quite gone; he was rather the ghost of himself than the ghost of the Danish king.

In the stage-box sat several elderly and decrepit people, and among them a stately ruin of a woman on a very large scale, with a profile— for I did not see her front face— that stamped itself into my brain as a seal impresses hot wax. By the tragic gesture with which she took a pinch of snuff, I was sure it must be Mrs. Siddons. Her brother, John Kemble, sat behind— a broken-down figure, but still with a kingly majesty about him. In lieu of all former achievements, Nature enables him to look the part of Lear far better than in the meridian of his genius. Charles Matthews was likewise there; but a paralytic affection has distorted his once mobile countenance into a most disagreeable one-sidedness, from which he could no more wrench it into proper form than he could rearrange the face of the great globe itself. It looks as if, for the joke’s sake, the poor man had twisted his features into an expression at once the most ludicrous and horrible that he could contrive, and at that very moment, as a judgment for making himself so hideous, an avenging Providence had seen fit to petrify him. Since it is out of his own power, I would gladly assist him to change countenance, for his ugly visage haunts me both at noontide and night-time. Some other players of the past generation were present, but none that greatly interested me. It behooves actors, more than all other men of publicity, to vanish from the scene betimes. Being at best but painted shadows flickering on the wall and empty sounds that echo anther’s thought, it is a sad disenchantment when the colors begin to fade and the voice to croak with age.

What is there new in the literary way on your side of the water? Nothing of the kind has come under any inspection, except a volume of poems published above a year ago by Dr. Channing. I did not before know that this eminent writer is a poet; nor does the volume alluded to exhibit any of the characteristics of the author’s mind as displayed in his prose works; although some of the poems have a richness that is not merely of the surface, but glows still the brighter the deeper and more faithfully you look into then. They seem carelessly wrought, however, like those rings and ornaments of the very purest gold, but of rude, native manufacture, which are found among the gold-dust from Africa. I doubt whether the American public will accept them; it looks less to the assay of metal than to the neat and cunning manufacture. How slowly our literature grows up! Most of our writers of promise have come to untimely ends. There was that wild fellow, John Neal, who almost turned my boyish brain with his romances; he surely has long been dead, else he never could keep himself so quiet. Bryant has gone to his last sleep, with the Thanatopsis gleaming over him like a sculptured marble sepulcher by moonlight. Halleck, who used to write queer verses in the newspapers and published a Don Juanic poem called Fanny, is defunct as a poet, though averred to be exemplifying the metempsychosis as a man of business. Somewhat later there was Whittier, a fiery Quaker youth, to whom the muse had perversely assigned a battle-trumpet, and who got himself lynched, ten years agone, in South Carolina. I remember, too, a lad just from college, Longfellow by name, who scattered some delicate verses to the winds, and went to Germany, and perished, I think, of intense application, at the University of Gottingen. Willis— what a pity!— was lost, if I recollect rightly, in 1833, on his voyage to Europe, whither he was going to give us sketches of the world’s sunny face. If these had lived, they might, one or all of them, have grown to be famous men.

And yet there is no telling: it may be as well that they have died. I was myself a young man of promise. O shattered brain, O broken spirit, where is the fulfillment of that promise? The sad truth is, that, when fate would gently disappoint the world, it takes away the hopefulest mortals in their youth; when it would laugh the world’s hopes to scorn, it lets them live. Let me die upon this apothegm, for I shall never make a truer one.

What a strange substance is the human brain! Or rather— for there is no need of generalizing the remark— what an odd brain is mine! Would you believe it? Daily and nightly there come scraps of poetry humming in my intellectual ear— some as airy as birdnotes, and some as delicately neat as parlor-music, and a few as grand as organ-peals— that seem just such verses as those departed poets would have written had not an inexorable destiny snatched them from their inkstands. They visit me in spirit, perhaps desiring to engage my services as the amanuensis of their posthumous productions, and thus secure the endless renown that they have forfeited by going hence too early. But I have my own business to attend to; and besides, a medical gentleman, who interests himself in some little ailments of mine, advises me not to make too free use of pen and ink. There are clerks enough out of employment who would be glad of such a job.

Good by! Are you alive or dead? and what are you about? Still scribbling for the Democratic? And do those infernal compositors and proof-readers misprint your unfortunate productions as vilely as ever? It is too bad. Let every man manufacture his own nonsense, say I. Expect me home soon, and— to whisper you a secret— in company with the poet Campbell, who purposes to visit Wyoming and enjoy the shadow of the laurels that he planted there. Campbell is now an old man. He calls himself well, better than ever in his life, but looks strangely pale, and so shadow-like that one might almost poke a finger through his densest material. I tell him, by way of joke, that he is as dim and forlorn as Memory, though as unsubstantial as Hope.

Your true friend, P.

P. S.— Pray present my most respectful regards to our venerable and revered friend Mr. Brockden Brown.

It gratifies me to learn that a complete edition of his works, in a double-columned octavo volume, is shortly to issue from the press at Philadelphia. Tell him that no American writer enjoys a more classic reputation on this side of the water. Is old Joel Barlow yet alive? Unconscionable man! Why, he must have nearly fulfilled his century. And does he meditate an epic on the war between Mexico and Texas with machinery contrived on the principle of the steam-engine, as being the nearest to celestial agency that our epoch can boast? How can he expect ever to rise again, if, while just sinking into his grave, he persists in burdening himself with such a ponderosity of leaden verses?

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12: Pursuit

Roy W. Hinds

1887-1930

The Popular Magazine  7 Sep 1920

THE open country lay ahead as far as he could see. At his back and rolling away from each hand were the wooded foothills. He emerged from the gentle shadows and stood in the morning sunlight, gazing uncertainly; dreading to quit the seclusion afforded by the dense defiles of brooding trees. The day had come on without a tremor of breeze, and birds, unmindful of his presence, beat their wings close at hand.

Early morning mist lay low and peacefully upon the prairie. The grass at his feet and the tree leaves above glistened splendidly with lingering dew. The earth in the forest was still quite damp, and moistened grass blades clung to his heavy shoes. The sun, yet too low upon the horizon to dazzle the eye, glowed red with promise. Even as he looked, the mist shriveled until only its heavier filaments lay here and there upon the vast expanse.

"It's going to be hot," he muttered. "That grass will be scorched in an hour— and it's a long ways to a water hole."

He seemed to be seeking argument against a journey he knew he must take.

Again he fell to contemplating the scene which repelled him. He hugged the darker aisles behind; instinctively he clung to the curb of the forest. Very slowly he pulled off the heavy coat that incased his upper body. He flung the coat to the ground and contemplated its tattered and huddled shape.

"I guess I don't need that no more," he thought. "It'll be too hot to wear— and I don't care much about lugging it, across there," and his worried eyes swept the whole range.

His hand stole thoughtfully to the left bosom of his shirt. His finger tips clutched impulsively at what he felt there, and his jaws came together sharply. His eyes glared with renewed fear.

For a full minute the hand held the crumpled mass of shirt front— the cloth into whose texture yellow paint had soaked; yellow paint now dried stiff and forming the figures "2896." He realized then the necessity of wearing the heavy coat— an old garment he had stolen from a "trusty" in the big prison twenty miles behind. Those numbers must be hidden. How could he ever have forgotten that?

The cool morning air and the song of birds had exhilarated him. For a moment he had vainly imagined himself a free man. He was at large, but he was not free.

Then a hopeful thought thrust itself uppermost. It was no strange thing for a man to go coatless in such weather and in this rough country. Perhaps he could turn his shirt.

In a twinkling he stripped the garment from his back, but a hurried glance at its nether side dispelled his hope. The paint of the numbers had soaked through the shirt, and their reverse forms, more ragged of outline, were plainly incriminating.

There was nothing to do but wear the coat. His undergarments, too, were stamped with the hateful numbers— "2896." His shoes, while not numbered, were prison shoes— but they were of a coarse variety and sufficiently worn to pass for the footwear of a workingman, a farmer— or, for the matter of that, a tramp. His trousers, with the coat, had been stolen from the "trusty"— and there was nothing about them to suggest the terrible place from which he had fied. He wore a slouch hat, limp and soiled, in keeping with his general appearance of a laborer— a hat he had found hanging on a peg in a sheltering barn. He had come hatless from the prison. He felt safer bareheaded than he did with the stiff cap he had worn inside; a cap worn nowhere else but inside, and known to the surrounding population for what it was.

He must wear the coat. He snatched it vp, almost angrily, and got into it. He was relieved when the hated numbers— the visible link between himself and the place he dreaded— were covered. But somehow he couldn't yet bring himself to plunge into the open.

He sat down, his back against a tree trunk. He was strong and vigorous. He had breakfasted heartily on food begged, the night before, at a farmhouse. The farm wife was generous, Perhaps she knew whence he came. She had not asked him to work. Her whole manner had indicated a subtle understanding that he wished to be on his way as quickly as he ate. For miles around that prison the inhabitants instinctively thought of fugitives when strangers came among them, ill-clothed and hungry. Women have a habit of helping a man in distress, without bothering much as to the causé of the distress or the worth of those they help.

She gave him supper, while the husband looked on askance, but said nothing. He knew it was dangerous to assist escaped convicts, and there was a probability that this man was a fugitive. Two small boys and a wee girl hugged the wall of the kitchen and gazed: silently and steadily upon the man while he ate. At the end of the meal the girl child came to the man's side and confidently laid her hands on his knee. He patted her head and smiled into her wide-open blue eyes, and she was not frightened at all by his unshaved face and rough aspect.

Then, with sudden thought, he hastened away.

The woman had given him a parcel of food. He had drunk deeply at a forest spring. A night of peaceful sleep in the warm. outdoors had made him fit for the day's ordeal.

But he dreaded the open country. Across the prairie lay a city. It was a day's tramp. Halfway between the wooded hills and the city was a water hole. Even now, with the last trailing bits of mist vanishing from the air, the man could: see, at the very point the sky lifted from the earth, a black spot no bigger than;his hat. He knew this to be the grove of jack oaks at the water hole. He would have to march halfa day without water. He had nothing in which to carry it.

He had spent two nights in the open. Until now he had had the woods in which to roam. His progress had been slow. He didn't like the idea of waiting in the woods until darkness came again and then setting out to cross the prairie, He would be without food all day. He would have plenty of water, for the spring was near by, but he would have no food. At night he would be faint—and he still would have to tramp through the night without food. He would be half starved when he reached the city.

If he sought to lay a course that would keep him within the shades of the forest, and handy to deep ravines and caves in case of hot pursuit, it would take three days to reach another city which lay far to the south. And then there grew up within him a dread of the city— any city. The telegraphed news of his flight had long since sped into the cities. The police would be awaiting him. Particularly would the police of near-by cities be awaiting him.

There was danger for him in the open country. There was danger for him in the city. The woods were safer, but he couldn't subsist for long in the woods. Where, then, could he go?

He thought of the "Bootleg Swamp." He knew the place— a low-lying, tangled stretch of forest; a day's tramp to the northeast. For the most part, the Bootleg Swamp was uninhabitable; but there were spots within its ragged confines which were habitable. The swamp was, roughly, shaped like a boot— a generous mile from one end to the other and at a few points a quarter mile wide. There was much marshy ground within the Bootleg, but there was also high ground; and at the moment he could recall three caves—two quite close together and another at the far end of the swamp. These caves were high and dry. The pathless woods came up to their very mouths. Huge rocks abounded at hand. All around the caves were moats of swampland.

Not very far away— but far enough— were habitations. He could forage for food. Perhaps he could contrive to steal firearms and ammunition. He could hide, he guessed, for a month in the Bootleg Swamp. By the end of that time the "noise" of his escape would have died down.

With steadily mounting hope, the fugitive got to his feet and, keeping within the forest, set out for the Bootleg Swamp.

AT ABOUT noon of the-same day there emerged from the outskirts of the city across the prairie a small automobile, driven by a man who now and then turned nervous glances over his shoulder. At each of these glances the man was reassured, for there was no sign of pursuit— but he drove the car as swiftly as he dared, once he had gained the open road.

This man was, plainly, a man of business. His smooth, florid face bore the stamp of gentility. He was a large man, fleshy— and the cut of his clothing marked him at once as a man of scrupulous taste and one who had had no light turn of prosperity. There was a nervous flutter in his keen gray eyes, and his necktie was twisted slightly out of adjustment.

He drew a long breath of relief when the automobile turned into the road through the woods— and sighed happily as though he, too, dreaded the open country.

"That was a narrow squeak," he muttered. And then: "But I wonder where I shall go from here?"

His agile mind was not ready with an answer, so he continued to drive along the forest road.

The road was bad, and curled in and out among the hills and trees seemingly without design or destination. At places it ran back almost upon itself. The automobile crashed into a rock at a turn in the road. The radiator was smashed. The fenders were jammed into a hopeless mass, and both front tires were blown out and torn beyond repair. The crash catapulted him out of the car, but he landed upon a soft, grassy slope— and was uninjured. His faultless garb was scarcely ruffled— and yet he stood there and cursed his luck.

He removed from the automobile a traveling bag. By an almost superhuman effort he pushed the machine back into the roadway and upon an embankment overlooking a tangled ravine. In another moment the automobile plunged downward— and was hidden from view in the depths of the forest below. He sat by the roadside, breathing heavily and wiping perspiration from his red face. Soon he took measures to obliterate the tracks in the road and at the spot of the wreck— and then, traveling bag in hand, set out upon the road.

At nightfall he was very hungry. He emerged into a clearing and saw the lights of a farmhouse ahead. He must have food. A dog growled. A gruff voice from the porch silenced the dog, but the animal from the darkness kept up a relentless vigil, and never took its eyes off the stranger until he disappeared, with the farmer, into the house.

"I hired a man in Torrey to drive me over to Barstow," the fugitive explained glibly. "His machine broke down in the woods, so I decided to walk the rest of the way. How far is it to Barstow?"

"Twenty miles," said the farmer.

"Twenty miles!" exclaimed the stranger. "Twenty miles! Why he told me it was only twenty miles from where I left him, and I've walked all afternoon."

"Its a good twenty miles from here," the farmer declared. "He told you wrong, stranger. But set up to the table."

"Yes, do set up," seconded the farmer's wife.

The stranger was hungry and he ate of the coarse fare in silence. Finally he inquired: 'Can you drive me over to Barstow?"

"I ain't got nothing but an old mule," the farmer replied, "and he's about fagged out. I don't like to take him out on a twenty-mile haul. I couldn't make that trip, stranger; I wouldn't get back here with that mule till late to-morrow."

"I'll pay well," the stranger argued.

"Maybe you can get a rig in the settlement, four miles up the road. It ain't exactly a town— but there's half a dozen farmhouses close together, and we call it a settlement."

"I'll try them."

"And," the farmer warned him, "be careful when you come to the forks three miles up the road. The road to the left runs into the settlement, and the other one runs through the woods to the prairie— and comes out across from Bootleg Swamp."

"What is Bootleg Swamp?"

The host described the swamp. He finished: "It's a bad place. Most all water and bogs, with a cave in the rocks here and there."

By adroit questioning, the stranger learned all about Bootleg Swamp. He finished his meal, and his sharp eyes rested upon a small girl who, throughout, had clung to her mother's skirts. He spoke to the child, and she huddled closer to her mother. His smiles and simple talk failed to induce the child to approach. The man handed the woman a five-dollar bill— at which she stared incredulously— and then he departed, traveling bag in hand.

The moon came up out of the black woods, and the night songs of insect life swelled higher and higher. Tired as he was, the food had soothed the fugitive's nerves. His thoughts fell into a more orderly and coherent array. He realized, grimly, the extreme danger he ran by knocking at farmhouse doors. Soon the whole State would know of his flight, and not a man who saw him along this road but would remember him. He was leaving a plain trail.

A sudden idea brought him up sharply. Very carefully he set the traveling bag down in the road. He took off his hat and mopped his brow. It was a hazardous idea— but supposing it worked?

He recalled the poverty of the farmhouse he had.left behind. He recalled the pinched faces of the father, mother, and child. Those homesteaders were very poor. The stranger was very rich. In the traveling bag was close to one hundred thousand dollars. He was a man of quick decision—a man used to taking long chances; and he picked up the traveling bag and retraced his steps to the farmhouse. The more he thought of the idea, the better he liked it.

He paid but little attention to the renewed growlings of the dog. In a few minutes, walking along the road, the fugitive and farmer were in conversation. The fugitive had guessed aright. The farmer, with nose ground into the earth by poverty, had his price. It was five thousand dollars, and it was paid on the spot.

The homesteader conducted the fugitive to a cave at the north end of Bootleg Swamp. He provided him with a blanket. The next day he was to bring food and clothing— rough clothing. For a month he would maintain a supply system for the man in hiding.

That was the agreement. It was past midnight when the farmer got back home. There was a question in the eyes of his wife, but she uttered no word— and he chose to keep silent for the time.

About this time the man from the big prison far across the hills approached a farmhouse outlying from the group known as a settlement. He begged for food, and got it. The man of the house asked him a few simple questions, for which the escaped convict had ready answers. He was tired but not disposed to tarry, and left as soon as he had eaten. That woman, too, gave him a parcel of food. Despite his rough garb and an aspect made fiercer by the day's toilsome trudge, the children there had not been frightened of him. When he walked away a friendly dog trotted at his heels. He stopped, patted the animal's head, and then waved him back to the house. An hour later, the man crawled into a cave at the south end of Bootleg Swamp and, exhausted, slept the night through.

THE MORNING papers in the city across the prairie carried, among other things, two accounts— one with a big head on the first page and the other a small item on an inside page. Said the first:

Just as the police were about to swoop down on the office of Wilfred Towers in the Nagel Building, as the last move in closing the net on a gigantic swindle in oil lands, Towers made his escape from the city with the proceeds of his alleged fraudulent transactions. In some way Towers learned of the activities of the police, obtained the money, said to be nearly one hundred thousand dollars, and got out of the city. It is known that he fled in a small automobile, and that he carried nothing but a traveling bag supposed to have contained the money. It is not known which road he took.

There followed a lengthy account of Mr. Towers' peculations. The police, according to the newspaper, wefe wholly in the dark as to his whereabouts. Read the other story:

The police have as yet found no trace of Rufus Mapes, the life prisoner who escaped from Traverse Prison a few days ago. Mapes is supposed to have fled into the hills, and in all likelihood will turn up here or in Barstow within a few days, as it is regarded as impossible for him to subsist in the woods. Mapes has always maintained his innocence of the murder for which he was imprisoned six years ago, and at times doubt has been expressed in official circles as to his guilt. All efforts to obtain a parole or pardon have failed, however. Having no money, Mapes, no doubt, will be starved out of the woods. The farmers in the vicinity of the prison deny having seen the fugitive— but prison authorities declare the settlers have never given information about escaped prisoners, even when they are known to have fled through their very dooryards.

Wilfred Towers awakened early. His cave at the north end of Bootleg Swamp was high and dry, but the trees thereabouts were so thick that the hiding place was gloomy even in bright sunlight. A hasty survey of the cave assured him that it could be made habitable, with the help of some few things.

He had determined to remain in hiding a month. By the end of a month the search for him would be conducted in faraway places. Never by any chance would the police suspect that Wilfred Towers, whose life always had beeri one of luxury, would seek refuge in Bootleg Swamp. For Wilfred Towers Bootleg Swamp was safe as Hindustan.

His next concern was for the money. He deliberated upon this for an hour, walking about among the trees on the mound. He gazed into the black depths of stagnant swamp water below. He recalled the devious and slender path of dry land by which he had reached this haven. The farmer came with food and clothing about eight o'clock. He did not linger. He seemed in a hurry to get away. He received his instructions in stolid silence, and departed. By that time Towers had made a definite plan for disposal of the stolen fortune.

He took from the traveling bag packages of bills ranging upward from twenties. In the bag was a stout metal box. He put the money in this box and buried it deeply at the highest point of the mound. He marked the spot well in his mind. If the police should come up on him now, there would be five thousand dollars they wouldn't get. He would bargain with the rest of the money for a reduced sentence.

He had made arrangements with the homesteader for the disposal of the remainder of the money. The man was to hide the traveling bag somewhere on his farm. If Towers left the swamp a free man he would get. the money and depart. If he left a captive, and was led away to jail, he would send his lawyer after the money. When he faced, in court, the people he had fleeced he would have something to trade on. Perhaps he could hammer the sentence down almost to nothing, by returning most of his ill-gotten gains.

Having breakfasted and drank from a jug of water, Towers lay at the mouth of the cave and sought to pass dull time in meditation, He soon realized that he must have reading matter. Next morning he would instruct the homesteader to bring newspapers and whatever magazines he could find. A month in this cave with nothing to read was unthinkable. He passed part of the day in fixing up the cave. He cleared jutting rocks from the floor and gathered moss upon which to spread his blanket.

He took off the fashionable clothing and dressed in rough garments brought by the homesteader. His sleek, white hands contrasted oddly with the coarse garb. A stubble of black beard had sprung out on his face. As the beard grew the appearance of his face would change.

Wild flowers, that morning, had lifted their heads modestly from grassy spots between the rocks. At nightfall the flowers were uprooted by his boots. He spent another restless night. At times he awakened, and cursed the police for nipping his plans.

AT THE SOUTH end of Bootleg Swamp Rufus Mapes, escaped convict, put in the day around the cave he had chosen. He had a parcel of food, but that was all. He drank sparingly of water from the swamp. That night he would go foraging. He would attempt to get a bucket of fresh water.. He couldn't drink the swamp water for long. It might lay him low in sickness. He had nothing to read, but he spent the day as quietly as he could. He studied the trees about him. He fed, with crumbs from his parcel of food, a squirrel which he enticed almost to his feet. The squirrel was meat, but he didn't attempt to kill it. The animal had too much confidence in him. Wild flowers grew in grassy spots around his cave. He studied them thoughtfully. One flower stem was bent, and the blossom was about to die. He loosened the earth about its roots and sprinkled the place with water.

At night he stole out of the swamp, across the strip of prairie and through the forest. He returned to the cave with a jug of fresh water. He found the jug in a farmyard. He brought back a fowl he had picked off a roost. His pockets were filled with vegetables and garden stuff. He had begged matches. He dressed the fowl and roasted it. He roasted potatoes. With these he ate onions and radishes. Next day he would live on the remains of the fowl and vegetables.

Five days the fugitives, each thinking himself the sole occupant of the swamp, spent in hiding.

ABNER Huckins, a farmer in the settlement, became convinced that some one was hiding in Bootleg Swamp. He had missed chickens from his coops and garden stuff from his farm. In a patch of sand at the edge of the woods he saw the tracks of heavy shoes. The man who had made those tracks had been headed for the swamp.

But the farmer had no idea of going into the swamp. Instead he went home and read, studiously, a three-day-old newspaper. In time he came to the story of Rufus Mapes. He decided at once that Rufus Mapes, escaped convict, was in Bootleg Swamp. He had heard a neighbor tell of a strange man who came begging a few nights ago. Suspicion became fact with Huckins. He notified the police of Torrey. In the settlement he kept his mouth shut. There might be a reward.

The posse, led by the sheriff from Torrey, descended upon Bootleg Swamp on the sixth day. Rufus Mapes, having walked almost to the edge of the trees in the process of killing time, saw the formidable array of men scattered over the prairie and slowly closing in. He saw that they kept spreading farther and farther apart, with evident intention of surrounding the swamp. He saw their Winchesters. He crept back to his cave.

Hope seemed to have fled. The stark walls of Traverse Prison rose before him. That prison would be his tomb. No, he would die in the swamp. He would let them shoot him to death. For the first time in many years he fell upon his knees and uttered a prayer. It was an incoherent plea to a force with which he felt himself to have been long out of touch. Then he lay in the cave and waited.

Wilfred Towers was taking a nap in his cave at the north end of Bootleg Swamp. He was awakened by a noise at the mouth of the cave. He sprang to his feet, his heart beating furiously. Perspiration beaded his face. He was smitten with nervous tremors. In the uncertain light he made out the form of a dog standing at the mouth of the cave.

He crashed his heavy boot against the dog's ribs. The animal rolled down the mound into the swamp water, scrambled back to dry land, and, howling mournfully, made off through the woods.

Bootleg Swamp, from east to west, was bisected by a narrow strip of dry ground, and it was upon this that the sheriff and three deputies made their entrance. Halfway through they stopped, peering cautiously into the tangled growth about them. Their Winchesters were ready for instant use.

"We can't cover this whole swamp at once," said the sheriff. 'We can get through to the ends of it, by winding about and watching our ground; but which way will we go first?"

Just then they heard a dog yelping at the north end of Bootleg Swamp. They searched the north end of Bootleg Swamp and found a man hiding in a cave.

"Well, I declare!" the sheriff exclaimed, when the fugitive had been secured. "It's Wilfred Towers. I never thought you'd come to a place like this, Towers. We came here looking for a fellow that ran away from Traverse Prison."

The sheriff laughed gleefully, for the capture of Towers was a far better stroke than he had dared hope. "But I guess we're satisfied— eh, boys?"

"Yes, indeed," chorused the deputies.

Rufus Mapes, in his cave at dusk, saw a dog slink from the forest and crouch fearfully upon the earth. After a time he emerged from the cave. There was no sight nor sound of man. He went to the dog's side. He saw blood. He bathed the wound with water and gave the animal scraps and bones of chicken meat. The man and dog spent the night in the cave. Next morning, very much bewildered because the posse hadn't closed in, Mapes crept to the rim of the swamp. Not a man was visible over the wide expanse of prairie.

His mind groped for an explanation of this surprising development. Spurred by an intense curiosity, he decided to explore the swamp. He kept the dog at his heels, and very cautiously picked his way about. In the late afternoon he came to the cave at the north end. There he found food which he shared with the dog. They ate ravenously.

The dog sought to bury a meat bone. Mapes, still wondering what had become of his apparent pursuers, studied the animal thoughtfully. He noticed, suddenly, that the dog was pawing at a spot which plainly had been dug up before. Curious, he investigated.

In a few minutes he had uncovered a metal box. He broke it open with a jagged rock, and pulled out five thousand dollars in bills. He sank upon the ground, sobbing; fearing his reason had fled. Then he became calm, and thought of the prayer he had uttered in the cave when the posse drew near. He knew himself to be the beneficiary of a miracle, but he couldn't hope to explain the miracle.

Late that night, with the dog trotting at his heels and wth a small fortune in his pockets, Rufus Mapes, escaped convict, crept out of Bootleg Swamp. In time he made his way safely into the city; and, eventually, to a distant region.

________________

13: The Unknown Quantity

Howard Fielding

Charles Witherle Hooke, 1861-1929

The Popular Magazine Sep 7 1920

1: What Happened to Mr. Drakenfeld?

INVESTIGATORS of various sorts swarmed in New York in the summer of 1919. Everybody knows this, because everybody was investigated, even the investigators, many of whom were not well situated to stand it. What truths were discovered the public will never learn, for you can't get anything into print without a press agent, and no press agent will give out the truth. That isn't what he's paid for; if he did it he'd be fired.

I never was a press agent, but I was an investigator, and there is only one reason why I shall not be fired for giving out the facts which follow; I have already quit. The job didn't suit me, and I never wanted it; the office sought the man. It happened this way:

A LAW SCHOOL of high standing had recently given me a diploma, because I had fallen half a mile with an airplane. I hit the sacred soil of Texas when I came down, but that wasn't my fault. Texas was under me at the time, and as the engine was stalled I had no other place to go. Eventually I found myself once more in New York, to my great joy; got the diploma aforesaid, and formed an insignificant connection with the distinguished firm of Bullard, Kay & Evans. Mr. Bullard was my patron, a friend of the family in old days, when my grandfather was accumulating the money which I hope to spend before it rusts. The veteram lawyer is a fervent patriot, and a sworn foe of all who menace the foundations of things as they are; special counsel to a number of leagues and societies all of them engaged in some sort of investigation. He was looking for good investigators and he drafted me.

My service was informal at first, and then I was equipped with a species of legal authority, though I think the less said as to its validity the better. Mr. Bullard's opinion certainly commands respect, and he said that I was an agent of the government. At any rate I was special assistant to somebody whose official status might have been viewed favorably by most of the inferior courts.

Whether or not I had valid powers, I had responsibilities, obligations of honor; and not only was my reputation constantly at stake, but my career and my patrimony as well. The esteem of Mr. Bullard was essential to my future, for no budding lawyer could afford to leave that office under a cloud, and besides the old man was a trustee under my father's will. For all these reasons it behooved me to walk very straight in the paths of investigation.

On an afternoon in August, 1919, my immediate chief in the "Pussyfoot Service"— as I called it— put me on the trail of a man named Henry Drakenfeld. It was the smallest of routine matters; there was no charge against the man, and virtually no basis for suspicion. He had rented a little office in a downtown building, and the overzealous superintendent had reported the new tenant as mysterious in his business relations, of Austrian parentage and Russian affiliations.

My chief said that I could probably learn all that we required about Drakenfeld at the Hotel Lansing where he had lived for some time. The manager of the hotel was one of the persons to whom Drakenfeld had referred when applying for his office.

I had the advantage of acquaintance with the manager, Johnny Brett; and I knew him to be truthful, except in professional affairs, when he was telling a guest why it was still necessary to charge the war-time rates of five dollars for a two-dollar room that was really worth no more than one. And at that Johnny Brett wasn’t as bad as the average. He was out when I called, and it may have been half past four o’clock when I finally nailed him.

“I don't know much about Drakenfeld,” said he, “except that he's honest. He's lived here for two or three years, and has run behind in his account quite often, but has always squared up as soon as he got the wherewithal. His money comes irregularly, and doesn't last long."

"From what source does it come?"

“Inventions; mostly electrical, as I understand. He never says much about his business— or anything else. But I judge that he's invented some really valuable things, only he couldn't handle them and they got away. He had to go to somebody else for the money, and you know what that means. He got what they absolutely had to chip up before fastening their tentacles on the goods, and then he was frozen out."

“If he does his own inventing, he must have a laboratory," said I. "Where is it?"

“I don't know,” Brett replied. “He used to have some kind of an arrangement with Gesner & Lahn, makers of electrical apparatus, on Elm Street, but they were burned out, three ór four months ago, and have never resumed business. I’ve understood that since then Drakenfeld hasn't done any mechanical work; he's been trying to finance a patent of his. No; I haven't the least idea what it is, but I think he's found the man who will eventually steal it— identity not yet revealed to me."

“What’s his nationality? Some say Austrian, others Russian."

“He lived in Russia for some years when he was young, but the family were Austrians. They all came to this country ten or twelve years ago, and the men became citizens. Most of them are dead now, but there's an elder brother of Henry's who went back to Russia."

“Is the brother a bolshevik?”

"Search me; but it's a sure thing that Henry isn't. Hes a plutocrat, just like myself; that is, he will be one, when he gets the stuff. He's got brains and ambition; and he makes good money, too; I know he does; but he can't hang onto it. He's got a weakness; a pretty woman can twist him around her finger. That's where his money goes."

I expressed a natural regret that Drakenfeld should be so foolish; and Brett and I exchanged the usual congratulatory glance because we were immune; that is, each of us thought that he himself was so, though, perhaps, a little doubtful of the other.

"Do you know any of his woman friends?" I asked.

Brett shook his head.

“You see he's always owing me money,” he explained. “Naturally he doesn't want me to get too wise. Even the girls on the switchboard don't know anything. He keeps his friends off the wire; being an electrician, he knows all about listening in."

"Another address?" I suggested; and Brett owned that he suspected it. Drakenfeld was out most of the time, day and night; hated sleep, apparently.

“I haven't laid eyes on him since he settled a good-sized bill, about a week ago,” he added.

"He received money at that time?”

"Yes; and I was glad, for other than selfish reasons. Drakenfeld had been a good deal worried, I thought. Something besides a board bill on his mind. I figured that it was a woman. But he seemed in better spirits when he paid his bill, so I guess the money fixed everything. It will, if you use it right."

That was all I got from Brett, and he couldn't give me the name of any person who might tell me more. There was nothing here to arouse suspicion, yet in those days a practical scientist was worth looking up, at least to the extent of finding out where he did his work. His laboratory, if he had one, should have been on our lists already, together with some facts about the man; and the mere absence of this data gave the subject a momentary aspect of importance. But probably Drakenfeld himself would tell me all about it, and prove his scientific researches to be as innocent as anything can be that is done for no higher aim than money to spend on pretty women.

Drakenfeld's new office was in the Waldo Building on William Street near Wall. Trinity was telling the hour when I reached that region: six— billions. They say the old clock used to look down Wall Street and count millions when it struck, but now it ticks millions, and doesn't ring up for anything less than a billion. I was too late to have much hope of finding Drakenfeld; the building already seemed deserted when I entered the tomblike marble hall, and the elevator man was my only companion for the whole height of the shaft. My destination was Room 1605, on the topmost story.

I tapped on the door and turned the knob at the same time. The door yielded to my hand, and I saw an open desk and an empty chair, with a window for background. There was no one except myself in that room. On the desk, however, a man’s straw hat was sitting on its crown in the middle of the blue blotter; and beside it stood an ash receiver holding two-thirds of a large cigar whose odor was still in the air and not stale. It came into my mind that Drakenfeld was visiting a neighber, for I had noticed a door standing ajar a little way down the hall. I congratulated myself that I hadn’t missed my man, and sat down contentedly to wait for him.

The room was not yet fully furnished, and I got a curious impression that it never would be. This came, I think, from something in the look of things arousing an untraceable reminiscence of some other place. It was not based on any rational suspicion that the office had been hired as a bluff. There were indeed indications that Drakenfeld meant to be handsomely surrounded in his little den. A fine old mahogany table stood in a corner, and on its top was a beautiful cabinet with glass doors— empty. It was probably intended to hold models of the invention which Drakenfeld was trying to finance. Several framed pictures were on the floor, leaning, with their faces to the wall. Only one had been hung— an excellent print of “The Fool,” by Franz Hals.

There the silly fellow stood, twanging his guitar and leering at his lady-love; and I could never tire of watching him; he restores my faith more than a hundred sermons. An ineffable charm is painted in with this repellent subject, because the artist saw the exact truth, and dared to tell it, and knew how. Sincerity such as that would have saved the world some millions of selected lives, and the rags of its poor honor, if it had entered into the hearts of leading men, five years ago. Just the simple truth; that alone would have done it— to portray the lustful, greedy world as it is. There were men whose voices not even press agency could have bedeviled from the public ear, but alas, they had nothing to say that was true.

After what Brett had told me of Drakenfeld's weakness, I was a little surprised to find this picture standing obviously first in his liking. Still, the painted fool is happy, and perhaps Drakenfeld in his romantic adventures required and expected no more. Of course, in my meditations Drakenfeld was the fool; it never occurred to me that it might be myself.

There was a faint sound of shuffling feet, a tinkle of keys, and then the door opened and I saw a woman with broom and duster— a woman prematurely old and beginning to be gray; perhaps quite pretty not so long ago, and obviously a victim of life’s tragedy. Chronic defeat and haunting terror were in her countenance, with a hint of impotent cunning, her last poor weapon against the world. She seemed unreasonably startled by my presence, and by the absence of the proper tenant; her unsteady gaze roved to all parts of the room, as if she expected to see Drakenfeld in the wastebasket or under the wicker couch that stood against a wall.

“The gentleman isn’t here,” she said at last, quite innocent of any desire to offend. “He’ll be coming back, of course.”

“I hope so,” said I. “I haven’t seen him. The door was unlocked, and I came in.”

She meditated upon this with a manner of slyness somewhat suggestive of an unsound mind.

“Did you see the lady that was here, sir?”

“No,” said I. “How long ago?”

“Around half past five or later,” said she, and seemed to expect me to continue the subject.

“Why did you ask if I had seen her?”

“I thought you might have been waiting or her, down below," said she, and seemed imperfectly convinced when I denied it.

“What happened while she was here?" I asked.

“Oh, just nothing; nothing much at all. There was a few high words, but she went right away. It ain't worth having any trouble about."

Apparently there had been a quarrel between Drakenfeld and a woman, overheard by this odd creature who had been unreasonably excited by the occurrence. I asked where she was when the quarrel took place. In 1606, the next room. What had she heard? Oh, just that the gentleman told the lady to go away. He spoke loud but not roughlike; on the contrary quite polite. He said, “Go away, please." My witness was positive on that point.

And what had the lady said? The witness didn’t know; hadn't heard a word. It was all over before she could get to the door of 1606 from the place in that room where she had chanced to stand when the trouble began. She was in time to see the lady coming from Mr. Drakenfeld’s office, “with her eyes blazing like a tiger's;" and she herself had dodged back into 1606 and shut the door— a very significant detail, letting me know not only that the lady had been in a blazing wrath, but that she possessed an eloquent and compelling personality. It was not terror but a sudden, unendurable sense of her own inferiority that had quelled this poor woman and driven her to hide. Indeed, she seemed not wholly unaware of this, and her vague description of the lady consisted chiefly of crude terms of admiration.

She was even moved to show me by imitations, wild facial expressions, and weird struttings, how the lady had “stood up tall like a queen”— an exhibition at which I had not the heart to smile. Moreover there was in this portrayal a kind of crazy skill, intentional or unconscious. If the design were to make me see Drakenfeld's visitor as a person capable of tragic deeds, the attempt fully succeeded. And as a climax she added this:

“What’s more, I'd like to know where she went. She didn't take no elevator; I'd have heard the doors."

"Why do you tell me all this?” I demanded suddenly. “What else happened up here? Why were you frightened when you came into this room?”

She was frightened now, sure enough, but unfortunately she was driven away from the truth instead of toward it as I had hoped. Incomparable slyness entered into her; she began to lie really well, giving me to understand that she had dreaded to walk in on Mr. Drakenfeld when he was angry. She was afraid of him, anyhow; he had driven her away the day before yesterday, when she came in too soon. Apparently there was something about the man that terrified her, though she still honestly insisted that “he never spoke rough.”

“Where is Mr. Drakenfeld now?” said I. “It’s evident that you know.”

She stared at me, her mouth open and her lips trembling. Slowly she retreated a pace or two, then stopped, steadying herself with à hand on the doorknob.

“You know where Mr. Drakenfeld is,” I repeated, “and I insist that you tell me. I'm going to find him, anyhow."

I took a step toward her, and at that she turned and fled, executing the movement with animal quickness, so that her strangled cry seemed to speak in the empty air after she was gone. She had slammed the door behind her, and I lost an appreciable moment trying to pull it open without turning the knob. The woman must have sprung the catch, unknown to me. When I got out she had vanished.

To the left, the door that I had previously noticed still stood open— wider, I imagined. The woman might have gone that way, and something told me that it was the way to Drakenfeld; that he had been hiding there all the time, for some obscure reason. But when I reached the door I was surprised to find that it opened not on an office but a stairway, leading to the roof, of course.

At the top was another door, rather small and low, and, what was more important, locked. I was momentarily baffled till I realized that I had not yet reached the level of the roof, and was merely trying to get into a storeroom. A passage to the left seemed, from where I stood, to be a blank butt end. This was an illusion; it led to another right-angle turn, and to a second stairway, of about ten steps, with the sky beyond.

Against the blue background there appeared grotesquely the soles of a man’s shoes, heels upward, and his legs to the knees, clothed in loose gray trousers. He must have fallen forward across the threshold which was raised considerably above the roof on which his body lay, the rigid legs being thus tilted up the more absurdly as viewed from my position.

And when I had sprung up the stairs I saw him lying with his arms outspread and his face pressed hard against the metal of the roof, like an awkward diver who has fallen flat on the water. Death, which revels in such monstrous statuary on the battlefield, had found a chance to create a single choice piece of it in the Wall Street district, safely beyond cannon shot.

Blood, not very much, had crept out in various directions from under him; and I presently wondered that there was not more, for when I turned him over I saw what seemed a horrible wound involving nearly the whole breadth of his body. A strange wound, by what I could see of it; conceivably the weapon was a shotgun, held close, but not aimed directly at the victim; rather from left to right.

He might have caught at the barrel in the moment of discharge, with his left hand which was lacerated and burned. But this explanation did not satisfy me; it could hardly account for several injuries to the throat and chin, since the body wound did not extend much above the lower end of the breastbone.

I thought of a bomb, but the effects were not sufficient unless the thing had been a mere toy. Perhaps Drakenfeld’s invention was of an explosive character, yet this idea hardly suited the design of the cabinet in his office; and, besides, if a machine of any sort had blown up, where were the pieces? A few might be in the inventor’s body, surely not all. This catastrophe had not taken place on the open roof but in the constricted passage of the stairway, yet there was no wreckage nor so much as a dent in the walls. Blood on the upper steps showed where Drakenfeld had first fallen, and a broad smear on the left side was the mark of his hand, made while he was trying to rise; but there was nothing else except a tiny rag from his coat which had been blown to the right side where a few drops of blood that went with it had glued it to the paint. Moreover, there was the question whether Drakenfeld had retained strength to creep over the threshold, like a wounded animal instinctively seeking the free air, or had been dragged to where he lay by a person who had meant to put the body out of sight on the roof but had lacked the strength.

The mystery of this death was too much for me; I could not read the story of it from the visible indications. And, naturally, I wasted no time trying to do it. Perhaps a quarter of a minute sufficed for my examination. This big, blue-eyed, square-jawed Teuton could hardly be anybody else than Henry Drakenfeld, and he was dead with many evidences of murder. The only person known to me who could throw light on the crime was doubtless now in flight, scared by my aimless questioning; and my first act must be to prevent her from getting out of the building, if I could.

I made two steps of the nearest stairs, and not more than three of the other, and I lost no time anywhere till my thumb was on the button of the elevator. An ascending car was about to stop at the fifteenth floor. Hoping to save a few seconds, I ran down to meet it there, arriving just in time to go aboard at the heels of two young women whose presence I regretted. It was unpleasant to alarm them by giving any order, and I thought it wouldn't be necessary, but we were barely under way when the red light began to glow in the indicator.

"Don't stop," said I to the conductor. “Get down as fast as you can. I’m a government officer, and this is important."

He took my word for it, and was less surprised than I had expected; indeed, I thought he might have got a hint of what had taken place. He said he had seen the cleaning woman “beatin’ it down the stairs” just as he started up. Possibly he had spoken to her and learned something. She had come clear from the sixteenth floor, he said, and was “all in.” His English was indescribable, but he used it with an ingenuity which got his meaning over.

“Was anybody down below?” I asked. “Where’s the superintendent?”

Yes; and he would stop the woman. What had she done?

As I made no reply he began to excuse himself for intrusiveness; I forget what he called it, but that is the translation. It was my job to ask the questions; he knew that. There was nothing nosey about kim. He knew better than to interfere with an officer. And he was so busy trying to square himself with the government that he neglected to check the car properly; let it run past the main floor, and then stopped it with a very hard jolt.

This frightened one of the young women so that she cried out, but the other showed no alarm whatever, and met my sympathetic glance with a quick, bright smile, revealing the most beautiful. white teeth; and next instant she addressed to her companion a few ordinary words that gained a value from the way they were pronounced. The quiet, low-pitched voice and sweet serenity of manner reinforced a suggestion that had come already with my first discerning glance at her, and I was startlingly reminded of a cousin whom I greatly value. The actual resemblance was not close; the stranger was of a somewhat darker strain, more vivid in coloring, and her large and very brilliant hazel eyes were peculiar to herself— I have never seen the like. Yet the tall, slender figure, the exquisite mouth and chin, and small white teeth; the voice besides— these were very similar; and certainly she had established in my marrow an odd delusion of kinship, admiration, and loyalty.

For ten seconds I had mighty little interest in the murder of Drakenfeld. It would have been necessary to speak his name several times in my ear before getting my attention. Yet there was nothing here that savored of instantaneous romance; I was wholly unaware of any sentiments other than those that I have mentioned, not even the strange, nameless pang that beauty sometimes inflicts at first sight. The young lady, so to speak, had united herself to me by a .different sort of bond. I vaguely fancied that there must be something answerable in her own consciousness. 1 spoke to her, saying I don't know what, and she replied in words now equally forgotten, but certainly there seemed no sense of strangeness on either side, no constraint in either voice.

Meanwhile, the elevator man was struggling with the car which presently he brought to the desired level. The doors opened, and I saw the shorter girl escape with haste born of her recent alarm, and the taller walk out ahead of me with a grace that surprised me no more than if I had known her always. She might pass into the crowd and be lost to my sight forever, but I never thought of that; I knew she wouldn't.

As soon as I was clear of the car I saw the superintendent of the building, halfway down the hall, at a telephone. Beside him stood the scrubwoman wringing her hands and pouring out a half intelligible stream of talk which the man vainly tried to check. Hearing steps approaching, the woman turned nervously; became silent for an instant, staring and clutching her brow; and then spoke loud and clear, flinging out her arm at full length.

“There she is! That's her!” she cried.

She was pointing at the tall girl who stopped, and looked at the wild woman gently, with pity for her evident distress. Then, perceiving that an accusation of some sort was being launched against herself, she turned to me, and seemed to put the matter in my hands without a word. The fact that I was an officer had nothing to do with it; her reliance on me for protection was personal and sincere—or I was a fool.

The elevator man had run past us. He spoke to the superintendent in a resounding whisper, announcing the dignity of my status. The superintendent said, into the telephone: “Yes; I hope you can send it right over"— evidently the patrol wagon; after which he hung up the receiver, and gave his attention to me.

“I'm here in consequence of your report on Drakenfeld," said I. “What has this woman told you?"

“She says Drakenfeld has been shot. She found him dead, and didn't dare report it— afraid of getting into trouble; but she talked with a man that came to see him— you I suppose— and got a different kind of scare, so she came down here to me. She thinks it was done by a woman who called on Drakenfeld and quarreled with him and then disappeared. Mrs. Berger"— he called to her in a shouting voice, wishing her to repeat the identification which she had just made, but he failed to get her attention. She was telling her story to the elevator man, and nothing could stop her.

“I think Mrs. Berger knows very little about it," said I. “It’s not even certain that Drakenfeld was shot by-anybody. I have seen his body—"

"What did happen to him?" the superintendent interrupted.

“Don’t ask me," I responded. “What happened to Henry Drakenfeld is going to be a mighty hard question."

2: The Adventure of a Fool With a Woman

THE SUPERINTENDENT decided to proceed without a second identification. He addressed himself to my tall young friend, trying to speak sternly but a good deal shaken by the lady's manner— thereby rising in my estimation because he knew a manner when he saw one.

“This woman says you were in Mr. Drakenfeld's office, and that there was a quarrel. Is that so?"

I couldn't see the girl harried by a cross-examination under such circumstances. I was too shaky on the facts; I couldn't have protected her.

“Excuse me," said I promptly.  “This seems to me inadvisable. I will question this witness, if you please, and I prefer to do it in private.” I turned to her. “Would you mind coming with me? I must go up again to Mr. Drakenfeld's office."

"I will do whatever you think best," said she; and I proceeded to tether the superintendent so that he couldn't bother us.

"You'l wait here till the police come, of course," said I. “Detain Mrs. Berger, and get her story straight."

At this the girl, standing very near me, spoke softly.

"Please say something kind to her," said she. “The poor woman is terribly frightened, and I think she hasn't really meant to do anything wrong."

“Don’t be alarmed, Mrs. Berger,” said I. “You'll be all right. Just tell the superintendent what you know, and there’ll be no trouble."

It is doubtful if she heard what I said, but the girl heard it; and, though it was neither intelligent nor kind, except in manner of utterance, at least I had done my poor best at her command. She thanked me with her eyes; nodded farewell to the short girl who remained rooted to the spot, staring blankly as if she didn't know what to do or say; and then we walked away, the elevator man following.

"Did you wish her to come with you?" I asked.

“Oh, no," she responded. "There's no reason why she should. We're not really acquainted. I merely found her in an office where I went to make inquiries. I am looking for a position as stenographer; that's how I encountered Mr. Drakenfeld. There was an error in an advertisement; it read Room 1605, but should have been 1505."

"Do you wish to tell me about the scene with Drakenfeld?" said I, willing that she should speak in the elevator man's presence since she seemed to have so plain a story.

“I have no objection, except that it is not pleasant to speak ill of him now,” said she; “and I really can’t speak otherwise and tell the truth. He was shockingly rude to me. Perhaps I shouldn’t have walked in without knocking, but I thought it was the public entrance of a suite. At any rate, it seemed a trifle; it was not as if I had interrupted a private conversation, or even a man’s usual work. He was merely standing by his desk, and gathering up some things as if about to leave.”

“What sort of things?” We were now leaving the car.

“I didn’t notice.”

“Did he put them in his pockets?”

“No; in a paper bag. I think he was only putting the desk to rights. But I hadn’t must time to see, for he began at once to shout at me, telling me to go away. I was so startled that I stood stock-still, and the door closed behind me. Then he was perfectly furious, but I think he didn’t mean me to understand all he said. Some of it was only to relieve his own irritation; that part was in German.”

I gathered that she knew that language.

“He must have been ashamed,” she went on, “for he moderated his tone, and told me where I ought to go. I’m afraid I didn’t thank him. I was very angry. I have a dreadful temper," she added with that charming smile of hers.

“So you walked down the stairs to 1505,” said I.

“Down the stairs, and back and forth in the corridor,” she amended. “Oh, it was quite a while before I was myself again.”

I had left Drakenfeld’s door open. We entered, and I stood beneath the picture of the fool.

“Will you sit down?” said I.

She hesitated.

“Ought we to stay here?” she said. “He is lying there alone. I feel that some one ought to be with him. Shall we go? I am not timid; I have never had any terror of the dead.”

There came to me an odd idea, which would have been -natural, perhaps, if I had really been a detective. I wasn’t; I was a raw recruit, the rankest of amateurs without aptitude or training. The value of my idea, as I saw it, was that it promised an acquittal for this young woman, in case any one should be insane enough to accuse her of the death of Drakenfeld; and this was possible unless I could persuade her to change her story.

She had not gone directly to Room 1505; she had paced the corridor; had been alone at the very time when the murder was committed.

"By the way," said I, coming out of my meditation, "did you hear a shot, while you were on the fifteenth floor?"

“I heard a strange sound,” she answered. “It was hardly like a shot— though I know nothing whatever of firearms. It sounded too dull and like a blow with something heavy. I barely noticed it, and I’m surprised that I remember." A moment's pause. "Shall we go now?"

I assented, and we went out into the corridor. She started in the right direction, but that was not significant, for she already knew that the way to the roof was not around the shafts of the elevators. So we came to the first stair, and began to ascend. I took care to give her no guidance; let her precede me by a step. It was nearly certain that, if she had never been that way before, she would make the same mistake that I had made, and try to go into the locked storeroom,

For a moment, as we came to the top, it seemed that I had fully succeeded. She stopped, but turned toward me, where I stood on a slightly lower level. I thought she showed nervousness; perhaps she felt more reluctance than she had been willing to confess, and was now seizing a moment to prepare her mind. What she said to me seemed to confirm this theory; it was clearly a device to cover a brief delay.

“You wish to know my name, of course. How singular I hadn’t thought of it. I have a card here—" she made a movement to take something from a little silk bag, and then went on somewhat as if she were reading from the card she hadn’t taken out, “Miss Angela Dee— D, double e; and I live on Seventy-third Street,” mentioning the number which I was very sorry to hear. We had a man under observation in that house, and I believed him to be a very bad egg.

“Are you pleasantly situated?” I asked. “Have you made any promising acquaintances?”

“One or two,” she answered; and, turning, went on without the least hesitation along the way to the left. In effect she had not even noticed the deceptive door.

When we came to the turn, she raised her eyes. There was now no view of the dead man from that point, for in the course of my examination I had drawn him fully out to the roof, and the raised threshold hid him. But when we had ascended three or four steps he became visible, and his aspect seemed to me a thousand times more shocking than when I had been alone. I was aghast at having led Miss Dee into such a presence; I begged her to descend, and even laid a restraining hand upon her arm.

“No,” she said softly; “let me go on. I will cover his face."

And she went nearer by two steps to that repellent spectacle.

It was long past seven by the clocks, but really, of course, an hour earlier, and the evening was very clear. On that high roof daylight still lingered, and the face of Drakenfeld, discolored, and painfully contorted with the strain of his last effort, stared upward at the sky.

“I beg you to come back,” I pleaded again, but she did not stop; she merely looked away from that which she approached, and turned to me her countenance from which the color had completely fled.

In the same instant, while she looked down at me, my ears were deafened by an explosion accentuated by its nearness and the narrow space. I knew only that its source was between Miss Dee and myself, and that it seemed to leap out straight at my body. Some missile struck me in the side, and I fell against the wall. Miss Dee sank back on the steps; I saw rather than heard her scream, and my own voice sounded as if it were sealed up in a tin can when I cried out to know if she was hurt. She only gave me back the same question, and with such anguish of entreaty in the quivering lips that I replied in a gasp, not waiting for the breath with which to speak.

“It missed me. Don't be distressed. You are safe?”

"Yes— but you— oh, it seemed to go straight toward you.”

My own impression exactly.

“What could have made it go off? I didn't touch it."

Apparently this said in bewilderment alone, not in defense; there was no sign that she perceived anything in what had taken place but an utterly mysterious and terrifying accident. Beyond doubt it was mysterious enough, but what was left of my intelligence rebelled against regarding it as accidental. The silk bag with a ragged hole near the bottom lay where it had fallen, and was now partly covered by her skirt. I saw a vapor rising from it, and I smelled burning cloth. Lest her dress should be ignited I snatched the bag away, crushing it between my hands till the feeble fire seemed to be extinguished. Then I laid it on the stairs within the lady's reach.

"A revolver?" I had felt its outlines. "Will you let me see it?"

“Why— surely.” She put her hand on the bag. “Do you wish—”

“The revolver only,” said I. “Please give it to me.”

Looking in my face all the time she groped in the bag; found and drew forth the weapon. And by the reasonable chances of the game I ought to have been dead next instant. That was the least of my troubles. If she was the sort of girl to do a thing like this I wanted to be dead. It couldn’t come too soon. Here was a question to be answered, and for the true answer I was willing to pay the price.

She handled the revolver childishly, and with shuddering aversion; gave it to me at last, muzzle foremost and aimed with the traditional accuracy of firearms that go off by accident. The heart in my bosom ticked some seconds that were longer than time has any right to be, but I still failed to learn what the unmeasured spaces of eternity are like.

When the lady had released her hold of the weapon I turned it to a safe angle, and viewed it with more interest than its intrinsic merit deserved. It was small and of an old pattern lacking all modern devices of safety; five shot, and of a large caliber for its weight. I glanced at each side of the cylinder; it seemed to be empty except for the exploded shell under the hammer.

I looked down at my side which had begun to ache. The bullet had struck my leather belt, plowing a long furrow in it, and going out through the back of my coat. There would be a good bruise under that furrow, but virtually I was unhurt.

Was it possible, was it believable that this girl had tried to kill me so that she could escape before the arrival of the police? The plan was feasible. They would come up by the elevator; she might have gone down by the stairs. But, indeed, there was a better way, visible from where I stood— a fire escape ladder, painted blood red and singularly conspicuous, that led down from the roof to an adjoining structure less tall by one story. If Miss Dee had been upon the roof, earlier that afternoon, she must have seen the top of that ladder; might even have hesitated whether to make use of it after Drakenfeld was dead. For, of course, if any of my suspicions were in line with fact she had committed that crime, and with premeditation— had come prepared to use mysterious means for the man’s extinction.

These thoughts came to me against my will, and with that peculiar clearness of which the mind is capable after escape from death— as if refreshed by halting at the call of the false news that it need work no more. I did not credit these promptings of the reasoning faculty, but they held me attentive for some moments, and must have been to some extent legible in my face. I became aware that my companion was watching me with acute anxiety, and I was ashamed of inward treason and of outward neglect unmannerly and cruel.

“Let us go down,” said I. “You are too much shaken by this accident to stay here longer."

I put out my hand to help her rise, and I thought she hesitated, shrinking. Then she took it; strove for control and failed; clasped it with both of hers, and so clung to me, weeping, her face hidden, her tears wetting my wrist. This was soon over, really a restrained emotional display for such a situation and such a woman—a creature of blood and flame despite the quiet of her usual ways. What was in her mind I could not know, but the gross facts must be as clear to her as to me. If that bullet had gone an inch to the right it must have given me a mortal wound; I should have fallen on that stairway and never again have risen by my own strength. And if it were indeed an accident, the woman wholly innocent and with no will to flee, what would have been her position, there between two men, the dying and the dead, when the police came?

While these thoughts were passing I heard men’s voices. Some one said, “It’s locked.” And then the superintendent, as if farther down the stairs: “That isn't the door. Go on to the left."

I thrust Miss Dee's revolver into my pocket.

"Not a word about the accident," I cautioned her.

She gave me a long glance; it rested on my eyes like kisses.

“The bag,” she whispered. "It is torn and burned.”

I crushed that piece of evidence into the breast of my coat.

3: Pointing Out Perils to a Blind Man.

MY BREAST POCKET was uncommonly large, and it happened to contain only a letter or two; nevertheless the silk bag overloaded it, and might be seen if I should leave my coat open— the scar on my belt besides; but with the coat buttoned I looked, or, at least, felt, as if I had stolen a peck of potatoes, baked potatoes at that, for to my surprise the infernal thing was still hot. I must have failed to squeeze some of the sparks, and they were continuing to do business. This agreeable discovery I had just made when the police appeared, after some slight delay in the passage.

There were two men in plain clothes and two in uniform, the superintendent overtaking them just as they turned the corner. The leadership plainly lay with one of the detectives, a cheerful Irishman of thirty-five, with light blue eyes in a face beautifully bronzed. He halted where we stood in the space at the foot of the stairs while the others went to the roof.

The detective had seemed a little surprised at the sight of us, and I had an uncomfortable moment while he glanced from me to my companion and back again. It would have been a relief to speak, but I couldn’t think of anything to say; and it was he that opened the conversation.

“My name is Martin. I got yours from Mr. Boggs”— the superintendent. “He mentioned this lady, besides, though not by name.”

“Miss Dee,” said I, and Martin raised his hat. “It was she who went to Drakenfeld’s office, by mistake.”

“Yes; so I heard. Wrong address in an advertisement.” He gestured toward the stairs. “She’s been up there, I suppose. She’s identified him as Drakenfeld.”

“Tt is the man I saw in the office," Miss Dee responded, with the quiet precision of a lady who reproves an offender. “I did not know Mr. Drakenfeld, as you may already have been told."

Whether Martin felt himself properly sat on, for the trick he had attempted, I didn't know, but the incident was unfortunate and I hastened to cover it with words, telling of Drakenfeld’s strange rudeness to Miss Dee, and anything else that promised to be interesting. The detective listened restlessly, as if harassed by vague suspicions. Perhaps he noticed that my voice sounded as if I were lying. It did, though I believed what I said.

“Was he on the roof when he was shot?” Martin inquired, at the first pause in my eloquence.

“There’s no certainty that he was shot at all," said I; "or that anybody else was present. He was on the stairs when it happened. I think it was an explosion, an accident."

“Is that so?" Martin was interested now, allright. "Excuse me just a second." He ascended far enough to look out along the roof, waving a hand behind him as if requesting us not to move.

Evidently the other detective was at that moment examining Drakenfeld's wound, for Martin asked: “How does it look, Paddy? What hit him?”

“Dummed if I know,” was the response. “He’s all scratched-like, but I don’t see where nothing went deep. There’s a coat button and a piece of a fountain pen sticking in him, and he's burned some, where the clothes was blowed off his chist; but I don't see no gunshot wound."

Miss Dee was somewhat affected by these details of Drakenfeld's misfortune. She drew close to me, not timidly but with reliance delicately differentiated from that which is blindly given to a stranger in a tragic moment. My feeling of a natural intimacy returned with added force, as if we should have known each other long.

I heard Martin say: “Better let him alone, Paddy. The doctor'll be here in a minute. Search all around the roof. Where does that escape ladder lead? Send a man down to see if anything is open below."

A voice not Paddy's, and noticeably more remote, said: “That ladder is fresh painted. It’s all wet. Nobody could have gone down that way and not left tracks."

“Well, that's good luck,” said Martin, and came down to the foot of the stairs. Immediately I observed that same uneasiness in his manner, as if he had descended into an atmosphere of suspicion. He looked from side to side, sniffing.

"Ain't it queer,” said he, “that the fumes of an explosion should stay in a place like this; a kind of funnel, as you might say, with a draft up through it all the time? Smells like burning rags. Don't you notice it?"

I certainly did. It came from my own pocket, but I couldn't tell that to Martin. I tried to hope that the odor was imaginary. Apparently not, but what to do? Should I deny this vapor, or sniff the tainted gale with an imitation of the detective’s curiosity? Miss Dee saved me the hazard of trusting my voice on such a theme.

“I noticed it when we first came up,” said she; “but it’s almost gone now.”

Then I struck in, striving to change the subject— leaning against the wall meanwhile, with folded arms, squeezing the silk bag as hard as I dared.

“Drakenfeld was an inventor,” said I, “an electrician and chemist. Personally he seems to have been a quiet and gentlemanly fellow. How shall we account for his violent behavior to Miss Dee when she entered his office this afternoon? There must have been a reason, and when we get down to it, we shall understand what happened afterward.”

“Yes,” said Martin. “I guess we shall.” Then to Miss Dee: “And you walked right in? The door wasn’t locked, you say?”

“No, but he thought it was," said she; “that was evident from what took place. I startled him, greatly. He seemed to think I had seen some things that were on his desk, but I hadn’t. He was gathering them up when I came in, and he put them down quickly, yet carefully, as if they were fragile. The side of his desk hid them, and I know only that they were small objects—quite a number of them— and that some were in a paper bag. Still, I didn’t really see anything but the top of the bag.”

This was a slight improvement on the story as she had told it to me, but perhaps my theory that Drakenfeld’s death was accidental had tended to refresh her memory. I hastened to avail myself of this advantage.

“In my opinion they were parts, or perhaps models, of something on which Drakenfeld had been working," I said. “For a purpose not yet clear to us he subsequently brought them up here; doubtless he was getting ready to do that when Miss Dee interrupted him. The things were of a dangerous nature. Drakenfeld, carrying them under his left arm— or in his left hand close to his breast— stumbled on these stairs, and was killed by the resulting explosion."

Martin nodded slowly.

“No shooting, you think? Nobody present but himself."

“That is my view,” said I, trying to speak just like a man of brains and experience.

“Would you mind standing aside a little?” said the detective.. “Thank you.” He put his finger on the wall. “Now what would be your view of that?”

It was the hole made by the bullet from Miss Dee’s revolver. Entering at a sharp angle the projectile had left a gouged mark very conspicuous and undeniably fresh.

“You happened to be covering it with your shoulder," Martin remarked, “but I'd noticed it before."

I perceived clearly that the devil was in this game, and playing a very strong hand. The wall was metal-sheathed except for one wooden panel, and the bullet had hit it right in the middle, having taken a strange jump after scarring my belt. Martin could hardly have thought me so childish as to have tried to conceal the bullet hole with my shoulder; it was sure to be found. His intimation had been intended merely to convey his general estimate of my intelligence, and his conviction that I was hiding evidence from the police. If I should now tell the truth, he would doubt my sincerity and despise my judgment. Not for an instant would he believe that the shot was accidental, but only that I was a “mark” in a double sense, having stood up for a target, and then allowed myself to be bamboozled by the protestations of a pretty woman.

In effect I should be accusing Miss Dee of having tried to murder an officer in the government's service who, she supposed, was holding her in virtual arrest. The revolver was undeniably in her possession; let her explain how it had happened to go off at a moment so opportune. That is what the police would say. And I had no explanation to offer, unless it could be found in the contents of the silk bag, which Martin would certainly expect to see. I was afraid to take a blind chance on this; and, besides, I seemed to know what Miss Dee wished me to do. This feeling was decisive, and. I withheld my evidence.

Martin was examining the mark on the wall, with the eye of an expert.

“This bullet didn't come from any modern, high-powered shell,” he said. "Somebody's gat was a rank back number, or I'm the more mistaken. Guess we'll have a good view, when I’ve dug out this pill.”

The same idea was very active in my own mind, and I proceeded to argue against it— like an incompetent lawyer with a bad case.

"No bullet killed Drakenfeld," said I. "We shall have to find out what actually did it. I hoped to find some fragments here that might correspond with the things which he was handling when Miss Dee surprised him. "There's nothing of the sort on his desk now; he must have taken the stuff away with him. Thats why I asked Miss Dee to come up here—in the hope that she could identify the pieces.”

“But she says she didn’t see anything,” Martin objected, “except the top of a paper bag.”

“Well,” said I desperately, "where's that bag? And he wouldn't have brought it empty. Where's the contents?"

“It might have blown up," Martin suggested. “And then again, somebody might have copped it.” I thought his glance rested for a moment on my breast.

This man was too much for me, in the present situation. He was certain to get me, unless I could break away. I imagined him inspired by jealousy of the new brood of investigators; I had seen a little of that in previous contacts with the police. If he could get me into a hole, and put Miss Dee in such a position that he could make her arrest inevitable, he would score a gratifying triumph, so I thought. It was necessary to shake him off. I was deadly anxious for a word in private with Miss Dee, and, besides, there was the smoldering volcano in my pocket.

"I must return to Drakenfeld’s office,” said I. “The door is unlocked—”

“Not now," Martin said, suppressing a smile. “I looked out for that. Here's the key. I'll drop in on my way down. I haven't heard Miss Dee's evidence as yet."

“I'm afraid it's not of much use,” she said. "I've already told all I know."

“To the captain here," Martin promoted me one grade from the lieutenancy I had held a year ago. “Sure. But you see we . don't know yet whether Uncle Sam will want to follow up this case. It may be only a murder from private motives, and just a job for the common police. And that reminds me— I gather from what the captain said, that you didn't go direct from Drakenfeld's room to the one below; you waited in the corridor a few minutes to get over your nervousness, and while there you heard the shot."

"I heard a sound," she said.

"And how much longer were you there— in the hall?"

"I don’t know. Five or ten minutes.”

“And nobody came down?”

“Not all the way. I remember seeing that woman, the one who cares for the rooms on the sixteenth floor. She was on the stairs, almost at the top, and looking down at me; but she went back.”

“Yes; she saw you there,” said Martin. “When the shot was fired— according to her own story— she was in an office at the end of the hall, about under us as we stand. She went to the door, and then back to her work. It took a matter of two minutes, as I figure it, for the idea to get hold of her mind that something was wrong. Then she came up here, and found. the body. In that two minutes the murderer had got away, naturally. She says he wasn't on the top floor. If he was hiding on the roof, I’d like to know why, and also how he got down eventually. He didn't take an elevator; he couldn't have gown down by the stairs without being seen by you; and, anyhow, he never got to the bottom. Where did he go? I guess that's going to be a very serious question in this affair."

Some minutes ago the superintendent had come down from the roof, passing us with. only a nod to Martin, and hurrying away as if on urgent affairs. In fact, duty called him to all parts of the building at once, for it was being searched by the police.

“You are making out a case against the scrubwoman,” I said to Martin. “Is there any evidence?"

“No,” said he; “but if ske did it, we'll get her, of course. There'll be the weapon, you see; the one that made that hole. It'll be hidden somewhere in the top part of this building, along with anything she may have taken off of Drakenfeld. When those things are found, she'll confess. If we don't find 'em, she's innocent."

He caught my eye, and gave me a meaning glance to which I instantly responded with a meaning nod. Neither of them meant anything to me; I hadn't time to think about it. All I wanted was to break the clinch, and my nod did the business.

“All right,” he said. “I'Il be down in a few minutes.”

He saluted Miss Dee who responded with a charming ease of manner far beyond my imitation. It was she who saved us from the error of guilty haste, as we walked into the passage— a regular whispering gallery with a probable listener at either end. Silence would be suspicious; I must find something to say that would be safe.

"I'm afraid you'll be late to dinner," was the best I could manage.

“Thank you”— with the ghost of a smile. “I t will wait till I come."

“And it won't be cold?”

"It always cools a little, after sunset; especially the butter, which makes it nicer, of course."

“I see. Your landlady scrimps on the ice."

“It’s a lodging house," she explained. “I have a little food in my room; that's what I meant."

Cake and tea, after such an experience; I was starved by the mere thought of it. Still, she might not like to go alone to a restaurant so late; I must persuade her to let me take her to dinner at some cheerful place where she could have a good time. An alluring prospect, for me, and darkened singularly little by the shadow of the tragedy in which we stood. Recklessness was always my specialty, and, besides, I had been an airman, in which sport one learns to forget life-and-death matters quicker than seems humanly possible. I didn't quite forget that somebody had been murdered, but I easily ignored it, and flew away in fancy toward dinner with the most beautiful and interesting girl in the world.

While I was leading up to the invitation, however, we entered Drakenfeld's office, and the door was shut behind us. Instantly the changed countenance of my companion reminded me that we had merely been acting, in the hall, and that the bright and pleasant scene was over.

We both glanced round to assure ourselves of privacy; I even opened a clothes closet, empty except for a piece of wrapping paper on the floor, and an egg box with the crossed cardboard which had once protected its fragile contents.

“I am your only listener," said I. "Are you frightened?"

“I am shaken to pieces.” Only the thrill in her voice gave any sign of it. “I am afraid of that detective. He means to arrest me."

“I won't let him. You are my witness in a government case, and he doesn't dare touch you.”

“How can I ask you to protect me—”

“I hope it isn’t necessary to ask. You were in my company and there was an accident. I should be a brute to let you suffer for it.”

“You make me ashamed to speak selfishly," she said, "but my position is worse than you suppose. Mr. Martin can easily find out that I had that pistol; the housekeeper knows it."

“At Seventy-third Street?"

“Yes; and there are cartridges in my room. If the bullet is dug out of the wall—"

“It’ll look rather bad. I shall have to tell the story."

“But can you tell it? Oh, I mean, of course, will it help me? They will say I meant to do it. Every one will believe the worst possible— that I killed this man, and then tried to escape from you.”

“We must meet this danger,” said I; “fix up our own story and be the first to put it over. To begin— why did you have that revolver, and where did you get it?”

“It was in a trunk— one of my mother’s that I have at the house. The revolver had belonged to my father, long ago, and my mother had kept it after his death; and there were a few cartridges, too. It happened that I had a very terrifying experience while looking for a position. It was in a room like this, at the top of a high building, quite late in the afternoon. I found a man alone, and he tried to detain me in his private office. He became excited; behaved as if he were insane."

"Many of them are," said I, very tense, for I was mentally engaged in strangling that man.

“Fortunately I am quite strong,” said she, “and quick besides, which was even more to the purpose. Mother used to say that I was making tennis a career, and wasting my life; but, really, I was saving it. However, I didn’t wish to do it again, and it was absolutley necessary to continue looking for work. So I thought of that pistol; and the housekeeper was with me when I got it from the trunk, in the cellar. I have a very small room, without space for trunks."

"If we are forced to tell this story," said I, "it will be dreadfully unpleasant, but at least you will win sympathy."

“None; less than none," said she. “I must tell you the truth about myself. I am hiding my identity, because otherwise I could not hope to get employmnet. I am Anne Dillon’s daughter. Don’t think that I am ashamed of my name or of my mother, though I don't share her opinions. I’m not a radical of any sort, and I don't hate England. I hate nene of them, not even Germany; I can't personify a nation, as my mother does. I see only a group of men holding political power which all of them misuse, for their own ambition's sake, and for the advantage of the greedy commercial interests that support them."

Not a radical of any sort, you see. I devoutly hoped that Martin was still on the roof or had gone deaf. What this girl said to me didn't matter; I was far past caring what she believed; I knew what she was, or thought I did, and her misfortunes ached in my heart.

Her mother, widely known as a “feminist” and author, had just been sent to prison for twenty years under the espionage law, as the ostensible result of writings and addresses against England, with especial reference to Russian affairs. As to these she had let some very wild cats out of the bag; her knowledge of what was going on seemed uncanny, and she wouldn't tell how she got it. That was the real reason for the severity in her case, as I happened to have heard.

Anne Dillon's daughter couldn't afford to be arrested on any charge, and certainly she couldn't shoot a government officer by accident, not if the Angel of Chance should personally come down to testify in her favor, All thought of open dealing in that matter was now nonsense. And moreover, though I knew of no earthly reason why Anne Dillon's daughter should have been more likely than Miss Dee to shed the blood of Drakenfeld, she would surely be held for that crime if it could plausibly be shown that she possessed the physical means. Something must be done to cover the revolver, and the need was so immediate that I could not take the time for even a decent expression of sympathy with her in the bitter grief for her mother's fate. A dozen words which no grammarian could have patched into a sentence were all I could utter on that theme, but she seemed to discover that they were sincerely kind. Then I plunged frankly but aimlessly into the difficulties of the situation, and it was she who provided the first genuine idea.

“Nobody knows that I took the pistol with me to-day," she said. “If I could go home and put it somewhere, and hide the cartridges, or change them for others with different bullets—"

"That's the answer,” said I; “but you mustn’t go there. Are your keys in that bag?”

"Yes; but how can you send any one without—"

“I'm going myself.”

“No; I can't let you do that.” She spoke firmly. “You will have to give false testimony—"

"Did you kill Drakenfeld? Did you shoot a piece out of my belt on purpose? No; and I’m merely trying to avoid what will amount to testifying that you did. If I’ve got to lie, at least I’ll exercise a choice. I won't do it in a way to shield a murderer, and hurt an innocent person who was under my orders and protection. Now tell me how to find your room."

“It’s on the top floor, in the middle.”

I was too much excited to comprehend what this implied, though I vaguely wondered where the window was, and how she could manage to dine in such a place.

“It has a skylight.” She seemed to answer my thought. “The gas is close to the door on the left.” Curiously enough she now seemed exhilarated, filled with a wild kind of joy that Made her beauty shine. And by this time I was well keyed up, living a good deal of life for every tick of a watch.

“You don't mind my going in? It seems necessary. Where are the cartridges?”

They were on a shelf in a wardrobe; she made a swift movement, infinitely graceful, as if she were taking them down. Not to be forgotten, that gesture; I could find the cartridges in the dark.

She reminded me that I had promised to wait for Martin. True enough; and I had also promised him something else, with my head, but I didn't know what it was. Certainly it would be unwise to run away from him.

“I shall have to come back,” said I, “after you are clear of this place. Once outside, you must take a cab to the Hollis Building, on the north side of Union Square. We have offices on the sixth floor. Ask for my chief—" and I gave the name. “He won't be there, as I happen to know. Say you have a message from me, if you encounter anybody who seems to amount to anything. Wait 2 few minutes, just for an alibi; and then ride up to Duncan’s. Do you know where that is?”

It was a restaurant quite near to where she lived.

“I have passed the door,” said she.

“Will you dine with me there? Or wherever you please, of course; but it's there we'd better meet. In case of delay. call up Duncan’s and have me paged. And whatever happens, don’t be distressed; I won’t say afraid, because you’re not that sort. What I mean is that Pll play this game with you to the limit. That’s not only my desire but my duty, for I’m on this case, and I’ve got to find the right answer. You’re wholly innocent, and yet very painfully situated, so that any accusation against you will more powerfully help the guilty.”

With that I opened the door, so that she couldn’t say anything to hold me back. She understood the plan; we had no time to discuss it. But there was one detail which I had overlooked, of such importance that she had to speak of it, even in the hall where listeners were to be feared.

“The money for the cab,” she said. “All I have is in the bag. And it’s not enough,” she added.

With appropriate secrecy I gave her a bill from my pocket, and she tucked it into her glove, while we waited for the rapid car which took interminable seconds for the ascent. Martin did not appear, however.

Down below, guarding the entrance of the building, there were two policemen, one of whom I had met on a previous occasion, when my conduct had been of a different color than at present. This encounter with an acquaintance who had reason to think well of me should be a help, yet I looked for a hard fight to pass Miss Dee through the lines. Nothing of the sort; I merely mentioned that she was going somewhere at my request, and that was enough. The only trouble was in hiding my astonishment, for the explanation did not dawn on me.

The officer thought that Miss Dee was a government detective, Even Martin himself had been in doubt and afraid of making a mistake that would be wounding to his vanity. That was why he had issued no stringent orders.

I met him in the sixteenth hall; he was coming from Drakenfeld’s office, red-hot.

“Where’s Miss Dee?” he demanded. “You promised me that she should be here.”

“When did I promise that?” said I.

“Why, man, I gave you the eye, and you agreed.”

“Oh, that was what you meant. Well, I didn’t get it. Sorry. I’ve sent her away with a message.”

Then he plumped the question at me, as to whether she was in the service, and I knew why she had got away so easily. I didn’t dare keep Martin in doubt;. there would be too great a crash when he found out who Miss Dee really was. I answered simply, no. “Didn’t you say she was, when you passed her out of this building?”

“Certainly not.” But I knew that I should be accused of it on the day of reckoning.

“The murder lies between those two women,” said he; “and you've let one of them out without even searching her. We haven’t found anything. Where’s the gun? I'll bet it’s gone, and you're responsible."

“I'll stake my reputation on Miss Dee,” said I foolishly.

“You sure have done just that," he rejoined; “and you stand to lose. Let me lay this case before you for a minute. A doctor has seen the body. There's no bullet wound; the injuries are superficial, mostly mere scratches. The explosion wasn't heavy, though it was high-powered stuff that went off— a very small quantity. The shock may have stopped Drakenfeld’s heart, but more likely it was the vapor that killed him. There’s no trace of any bomb. The doctor thinks the explosive was in a number of little containers made of something like gelatine, that burned in the flash. The shot touched off the dynamite, and was meant to do it, by somebody who knew what the result would be. We can’t stand for mere coincidence, that Drakenfeld just happened to be carrying death under his arm when somebody held him up. The trick was turned by a person having scientific knowledge; and where does a crazy old scrubwoman come into that?”

“I think she’s telling the truth,” said I. “The bullet hole is the only liar; you'll find it had nothing to do with Drakenfeld. I still believe he stumbled on the stairs

"If that was so, there'd be a burned mark on the light-gray paint, but there isn't. The bullet hole is telling the truth, but what are you doing?" He drew a full breath, and faced me squarely. “Now, captain, I hope you'll take this as it's meant, for your own good. You don't know anything about detective work; you've had no experience; you're only a big, full-blooded kid, not long out of college. I know all-about you. You were born rich, and you've lived reckless—  rough sports, fast cars, airplanes of your own; and incidentally you've chased the girls. But it hasn't spoiled you yet. Itsa damned pity you had that fall out of the sky, and queered the balance wheel in your head so that you couldn't stick in the aviation service. There's where you'd have made good. As a detective, however, you're rotten."

“Thanks for these kind words,” said I; “but where do we go from here?”

“Go find your chief, no matter where you have to look. Take Miss Dee, if you can get her. Have you made an appointment?”

“Yes.”

“Well, there’s one chance in a million that she’ll keep it. She may be the finest girl in the world; I don’t pretend to judge, as yet.” Martin was just in time with that. “Take her to see your chief, and don’t let her out of your sight till you’ve told all you know, and loaded off the responsibility on the man higher up. He may not be as crazy as yourself, where a pretty girl is concerned; and even if he’s worse you won’t be disgraced and go to prison for anything that he does. But that’s where you’re headed now; for I tell you plainly that Miss Dee is in bad, and it’s your honor and liberty that you risk when you shield her the way you're doing. Where do you think she's gone?"

“To the Hollis Building, with a message."

“Well,” said he, pressing the button of the elevator, "this saves me the trouble of going near Union Square. I know where Miss Dee is not. And even if I meet her by accident, I'll merely tip my lid and go by. I don't want any mix-up with Uncle Sam on this case, and, besides, I've taken a great fancy to yourself. That’s right, though you don't believe it. I want to give you every chance; it'll be a fine lesson for you. And you'll make quite a reputation besides, which you won't deserve, for it's mere luck that has put the solution of this murder into your hands. I hope you'll win out, but for God's sake go straight. At your left hand, my son, there's a precipice a mile deep."

The car had risen within earshot, and Martin’s tone changed to one of professional cordiality.

“Well, captain,” said he, “I’m on my way. Keep in mind those little matters we were speaking of, and I'll be much gratified. See you again soon.”

He stepped aboard, and the shaft engulfed him, I waited for the next trip of the car, in order to give him a chance to get out of the way, not because I had anything to detain me. I begrudged the time, small as it was; I wanted to be doing something; it was never my way to waste many minutes merely thinking. Miss Dee and I were in a mighty bad place, and it was up to me to get us out. The way was plain: Miss Dee must be protected temporarily, and then the Drakenfeld case must be solved. As to the insides of that mystery, I hadn’t a rational idea, but when you know for certain that a thing has to be done, you generally do it. All I asked was the privilege of getting into action.

4: Another Drakenfeld Makes an Entrance and an Exit.

I HAVE SAID that I had no rational idea in the Drakenfeld case, nothing which could be called a theory, That is true; but I had a kind of suspicion hardly deserving of so strong a word. It was based on observation alone, on my almost unconscious judgment of the countenance and bearing of a certain person. This was the elevator man who had first taken me up, and had afterward taken me too far down— into the basement, along with Miss Dee and her chance acquaintance. Subsequently another person had been in charge of the car; and when he came for me, after descending with Martin, I asked whether the change was usual at that hour.

Earlier, so he told me. He was the regular night man, but had come on a little late that evening. And where was the day man— the one whom he had relieved? Gone home; half an hour ago. Nobody had detained him, on account of what had happened upstairs? Oh, no; my informant expressed all possible surprise at the idea. The other man was very good; more than six years in America; apparently beyond suspicion, and, besides, he had not left the car. He knew nothing at all.

“You came from the same place on the other side,” said I.

“Yes; both from—” He named a city, or perhaps a region, which I had never heard of, and can’t remember. I learned, however, that the other Greek’s name was Frank, a designation singularly unsuited to his physiognomy.

Of course it was possible that Frank had revealed to me only his customary aspect, but I doubted it. As I recalled his face, it wore a knowing and a cunning look; and he was certainly excited. I was persuaded that he had dropped the car into the basement not from mere inattention but from acute nervousness. Here was a clew which Martin had certainly overlooked, and I resolved to follow it up.

Martin's statement that nobody had gone down by the elevator, immediately after Drakenfeld's death, was based partly on Frank's evidence, probably corroborated by the superintendent and other persons in the lower hall at the time. .But Frank might have traveled up and down in his car, and not have been noticed by anybody. If I could have spared the time, I would have tried to learn where he lived; but my business was too urgent. Frank must wait till to-morrow.

My acquaintance on guard duty at the door informed me that Martin had gone right out, to the station probably. It was my opinion, on the contrary, that he was headed for Union Square, despite what he had offensively said in regard to the chance of Miss Dee's visiting that region. Certainly I hoped that Martin would go there. Miss Dee would have left when he arrived, and he would merely have the disappointment of learning that she had really kept her word. Meanwhile I could get to Seventy-third Street in a cab. The subway express might be somewhat more speedy, but an accidental halt in the tube would be fatal; and, besides, I needed a kind of privacy that I might examine the contents of my pockets. Curiously enough, by the way, the fire in the silk bag seemed to have gone out the moment that Martin could no longer eye the breast of my coat.

Looking for a cab I ran upon the first piece of luck that had come to me thus far— except the original meeting with Angela Dee; Heaven pardon for forgetting that. By the curb I saw a very expensive and swift car, and, beside it, my excellent friend Orlando Pierce, alone. He must have been working late in his office, and he was going uptown.

It would have been useless to ask for a better man. Pierce was utterly lawless; entirely devoted to his friends, and not so situated that he could safely betray me, even if he should wish to do so. I hailed him; got the offer of a ride without asking; and the permission to sit in the rear part of the cab, without offense. I told him frankly that I had something to do which I preferred to keep to myself, and he cheerfully assented. Pierce's whele life consisted of— I might almost say depended upon— keeping things to himself.

When we were in motion, I took the silk bag from my pocket, and reverently removed the contents. Miss Dee had given me permission, but the act seemed intrusive nevertheless. There were two handkerchiefs, one badly scorched, the other not at al, a notebook blackened on one side, a letter that had got it worst of all, a vanity box, a bunch of keys, and a little purse. Turning the bag inside out I found the lining half consumed. The burned part must have been uncommonly combustible, perhaps from some liquid that had been spilled upon it recently. There were plain indications that the blaze had started near the bottom, around the hole that the discharge of the revolver had made. Apparently it had then worked under the end of the notebook and up the other side which was the chief seat of damage. The book had acted as a fireproof partition; the letter and the spoiled handkerchief had lain to the right, so to speak; the other articles, including the revolver, to the left. A single black mark on the unscorched cover of the notebook had obviously been made by the flash frem the loose-jointed cylinder of the weapon at the instant of discharge.

Here was the end of any chance to argue that the fire had preceded the shot, and had exploded the cartridge. I doubted that there had been heat enough in the hottest spot; and I now knew that where the cartridge lay there had been’ virtually none. It was the flame from the end of the barrel that had set the bag afire. Beyond that, in the line of causation, I could not go; there was nothing here that even hinted at an explanation; and L proceeded to question the weapon itself.

As I have said, it lacked all modern safety devices, but it did have a hammer so shaped that it would not readily catch on anything. I had thought it might have caught on the cover of the notebook, but that was impossible; and the lining of the bag on the unburned side— the only one possible to consider— was without rent or seam, perfectly smooth. And what was even more convincing, the ancient mechanism of the revolver had been long estranged from oil; to work it as a self-cocker was an athletic exercise, and when it had been cocked with the thumb the necessary pull on the trigger was equal to at least five times the weight of the weapon. I was very familiar with firearms, but here was something new to me, in the way of hard action.

This thing go off by accident? I should really like to know how. The hammer fell as if it were tired; I doubted that it would explode a shell. And there came to me a memory picture of Miss Dee ascending the steps above me, and holding the bag lightly by its cord. Her left hand had held it, raised a little, so as to be almost directly in my line of vision, as I looked up into her face. She had made no sudden movement. I could swear that if this rusty pistol had been fullcocked and hanging by a looped string around the trigger, it would not have been discharged by anything which Miss Dee did atthat time. Impossible; the force required could fairly be called violent, and I knew positively that the revolver had lain as if cradled in wool when the shot came.

The car slowed up, and Pierce spoke without turning his head:

“You asked me to stop here.”

“Yes,” said I. “Thanks.”

We were just below Washington Square, near a little shop that I knew by reputation. I restored the bag and revolver to my pockets, and left Pierce waiting for a couple of minutes while I bought a box of cartridges, of .38 caliber but of a style that couldn't be the same as those in Miss Dee's possession. I got in beside Pierce, swore him to secrecy, and asked for a little speed—-a request never addressed to him in vain.

We stopped on Seventy-third Street near Amsterdam Avenue, and Pierce said he would wait. I think he expected me to reappear with a pretty girl, and was hopeful of two, but nothing was said on that subject.

When I reached Miss Dee’s house there was no one at the windows, or in the hall when the key had let me in. I ascended, and all the doors were closed; the place was silent as if tenantless. Four flights I climbed, and came to the middle room, and entered, and closed the door. Above me was the skylight, partly open, and the stars shone through it—just enough to show me the outlines of that little room. I knew that it was not a miracle of order, nor even of neatness save as her own labors with it might avail.

I felt the delicacy and fineness of the life she led there, under such hard conditions.

And there came to me, with sickening reproach, the thought of the luxury that had surrounded me from my cradle, of the selfindulgence that had strewn my path with waste. I knew that I had taken more than my share while she was getting less than hers; that I had gorged myself with food while she was hungry— we together on this raft at sea, with fellow castaways that float around the sun, alive after the disaster we call birth, cut off from any refuge other than death, and with a certain stock of necessaries to be shared among us.

Why, when I owned two airplanes for my pleasure, I used to spend more for gasoline in a few days than would support this far more precious life on such a scale for a whole year. A minor item in my bill, and there were others that I didn’t care to think of; for the first time in my experience I was properly ashamed.

There must have been a dangerous contagion in the air. Miss Dee had denied that she was any sort of radical, but it seemed likely that she had poisoned my mind. Doubtless it was my duty to inform against her.

I found the gas, and lighted it; and saw a few good books on a tiny stand beneath it. Opposite was the wardrobe, not a handsome piece nor in the flower of its youth. It was well filled with what seemed to be pretty dresses whose origin was indicated by parts of a frock in process of construction, which lay on the narrow bed.

At the first attempt I touched the envelope with the cartridges, took it down, counted and pocketed the contents, and substituted others from the box which I had bought. I restored the refilled envelope to the shelf, and laid the revolver beside it, after cleaning it hastily with a handkerchief, taking the empty shell from the cylinder, and slipping in a loaded one of the other pattern.

Two tenants were audible below me when I came out into the hall, but they went into their rooms, and I made the whole descent unseen. Neighbors across the street were all I had to fear, and there was small likelihood that one of them would notice or remember me. Still, I didn’t loiter on the doorsteps by any means, and I kept a sharp lookout. That was why I saw Detective Martin and his partner called Paddy coming round the corner from Amsterdam Avenue.

It was a long distance for such immediate recognition— certainly more than five hundred feet— but the Lord has given me an eye like a telescope, a fine asset when I used to fly; and I spotted Martin while his hind leg was still cut off from view by the edge of the apartment hotel in the southeast angle. There was no chance in the world that either of the men had seen me, or would do so while I was covering the short distance to Columbus Avenue. Numerous wayfarers would intervene to shield me, now that I had come down to the pavement level. I walked around the block to where the car still waited, and Pierce carried me to Duncan's. He grumbled a little at my desertion of him, but on the whole behaved like a good sport.

Miss Dee had not arrived; it was too early to expect her; I had made very quick time. At that hour it was unnecessary to engage a table; I merely waited on a divan in the gaudy entrance hall, filled with eddies of tobacco smoke, and perfumes at fifteen dollars a bottle— fifteen and up, as the merchants say. It was not pleasant to think of Martin and his desecrating search, but he was a good, clean Irishman with gentlemanly instincts in his vitals. It might have been much worse, and, at any rate, I couldn't prevent it. The great peril I had averted, but there were others almost as serious. Martin would certainly learn who Miss Dee really was. This might not have the least effect upon his own opinion of the Drakenfeld affair, but it would influence his conduct; he would arrest Miss Dee, of course, at the first opportunity. The house would be watched, and some time in the course of the night a general alarm would be sent out unless she had already been taken.

I had no intention of letting her go home; I would take her to the house of a lawyer who had been my father’s friend, was cotrustee with Bullard, but much broader in his views, and a good fellow besides. He would defend Miss Dee, and probably begin by hiding her in his house for a few days. This would be a dazzling change from the little skylight room, but the guest would ernament that mansion, and more than match its inmates in both the form and the substance of gentility.

It occurred to me that time was speeding, and that possibly I ought to telephone Mr. Conniston— the lawyer aforesaid— and prepare his mind and Mrs. Conniston's for the honor in store for them. Unfortunately I had not yet consulted Miss Dee, and it was conceivable that she might not consent to the arrangement. Minutes passed, and still she didn't appear. I began to be haunted by a harrowing suggestion emanating from the silken and bejeweled panorama before my eyes. Miss Dee knew something of, Duncan's; a good deal can be seen through the broad doorway. Was it possible that she had gone home to dress? She had worn a plain blue frock so dark in shade as to be almost black, and a very charming hat, as it seemed to me; a costume perfect in line, and exquisitely becoming; but there were few ladies among Duncan's guests who were not in evening attire. Miss Dee would have been well aware of that.

I might ring up the house on Seventy-third Street, and ask for Miss Dee, but Martin would hear of it, and might trace the call. 'The risk was not worth while; the chances were ten thousand to one that she had not gone home.

Could she have got into trouble on the way up? How about money? It was my impression that I had given her ten dollars; that there had been no bills of smaller denomination in my pocket. The whole sum was two hundred dollars; I had drawn it from the bank that afternoon, and had spent nothing but change, of which I happened to have a handful.

The dire thought came to me that there might have been a lone dollar on the outside of my roll, and that Miss Dee might not have inspected it till she took it from her glove to pay for the cab. Anxiously I consulted the roll which should have been made up of nine tens and a hundred. There were ten tens, and that was all. I must have given Miss Dee a hundred-dollar bill.

She had no other money; the size of the bill might have been an inconvenience, or even a source of danger. The nighthawk cabman is by no means extinct, and dreadful crimes have sprung from less temptation than the sight of a hundred dollars. I am not easily disturbed by fanciful alarms, but these were backed by the solid truth tLat something must have happened or Miss Dee would long ago have come to Duncan's. She could not fail to be aware of my anxiety, and as she hadn't relieved it by telephoning, she must be so situated that she couldn't.

I tried to call up our offices in the Hollis Building, but nobody was there. The only other place where news might possibly be  had was the house on Seventy-third Street. Duncan himself promised to receive any lady who should ask for me, and to see that the wire was held in case of a call by telephone. No cab being instantly available, I walked, and reached. Seventy-third Street just in time to encounter Martin at the Amsterdam Avenue corner.

“Ah, captain," said he; “it’s easy to guess where you’re going, but she isn’t there.”

“I was looking for you,” said I. “Information came to me that you had gone to Miss Dee’s house. What did you do there?”

“Made a quiet search,” he replied. “No rumpus kicked up, and no disturbance of property. By the way, it seems she’s Anne Dillon’s daughter. No doubt you’ve taken that fact into consideration, as affecting your own welfare. But I’ll say no more on that point; I’ve given you my advice, and you’ve turned it down. Of course I found the gat where you planted it—the same one you had in your hip pocket, downtown. I pulled up your coat tails when you weren't noticing, and saw the butt of the gun. An old-timer, easily identified. I suppose she gave it to you, and convinced you of her innocence. Very. good."

He had dropped into a sing-song tone, like a child speaking a piece of poetry, and now he favored me with the second stanza.

“I found the cartridges, too, looking just as pretty as if they were the real ones. No doubt you bought them on your way uptown; it's what I'd have done myself, if sufficiently interested. Now, if I knew what else she gave you, besides the gun— the thing that had been afire, and is still in your breast pocket— I might be in a position to agree with your theory of the case. As it is, Ill have to go my own way."

He pulled out his watch with a peculiar jerk that confused my attention because I didn't know what was coming, and prevented me from speaking what was on my tongue.

“Gee; it's getting late,” said he. ‘I must step on the gas. So long. I hope you'll come through this affair with honor and reputation, and I don't say you won't."

“Hold on a minute,” said I, “What are you going to do?"

“Turn in my report.”

“Including all those dreams you've just been telling me?”

"Dreams?" said he, and touched me quickly on the breast. “Show me what's there."

He had me. Why hadn't I got rid of that bag?

“Not now and not here," said I. “Where can we meet a little later? Midnight, perhaps."

He was on the point of forcing an issue right on the spot, but changed his mind. “Call me up, at the station, at eleven-thirty," said he, "and name the place."

“All right," said I. We saluted, and he walked away.

What could I do with the brief respite I had gained? Take legal advice from Mr. Conniston, perhaps; I could think of nothing better. I was out of my depth, and knew it. I couldn't merely throw myself on Martin's mercy, and ask him to swallow the coincidence of the accidental shot. He wouldn't do it. I should simply be removing from his mind the last possible doubt of Miss Dee's guilt.

Even with Mr. Conniston I should have difficulty in making the truth acceptable, but he was a great reader of character, and would be easily persuaded if she were present. I hailed a cabby, as my ferryman Vain Hope, and saved five seconds by a ride to Duncan’s.

There was no word of any lady, but a man had asked for me; and as he wasn’t precisely an ornament for the lobby of that fashionable resort he had been sequestered in a little office of the management, Duncan having taken him for some sort of stool pigeon with whom I should wish to speak privately if at all. To my astonishment this was Frank, the elevator man, still wearing that guilty look, and in addition a strip of surgeon’s plaster alongside his left eye. His hands were similarly decorated. Before I could speak he told me that he had been hit by a motor car, and patched up in a drug store. That was why he hadn’t come earlier.

“Who told you I was here?" said I, for it seemed incredible that this fellow should have got his information from Miss Dee.

He gave me her name at once, however; identified her as the lady who was with me in his car, and went on to say that she had sent him with a message. She couldn’t meet me this evening; she would telephone me tomorrow and tell me why. Very sorry; but she had to go to Brooklyn to see a friend.

That was the gist of it, in Frank’s barbarous dialect which I could fairly well understand, but no human being could write. As for the message, it sounded like the voice of Shakespeare speaking through the lips of a spiritualistic medium; but if you have surveyed the medium before the lights were lowered, what else do you expect? Miss Dee must have given the address; she might not have dared to speak as she had wished; she might have failed to make her language comprehensible. Quite possibly Frank was giving me his best interpretation of what he had heard.

Where had he seen her? On William Street, near the building. He was standing at a corner when she came up and spoke to him. Had she paid him for delivering the message?— a trick question, of course. No; she had said that I would pay. She had only a hundred-dollar bill and couldnt change it.

This seemed to prove the meeting, and I tried in vain to get a clearer report of the conversation. Frank enlarged upon the subject, but from imagination rather than memory. There were, however, a few mangled phrases not original with him, and possibly Miss Dee's. “To Brooklyn to see a friend,” was certainly not hers, though he persisted in declaring that it was.

“You didn't come straight up here,” said I “Why not?"

He explained that the lady had taken him across Brooklyn Bridge in a taxicab, because he lived over there and was in a hurry to get home. He had to see a man who would be waiting for him; then he would come right back to New Vork, so he had told the lady, and do her errand with me. She didn't have to tell him where Duncan's was, he said with pride; he had a íriend who worked in the kitchen. And he would have been here soon enough, but for his accident.

His eagerness and voluble particularity as to that mishap stamped it as genuine; and it was natural besides, for he seemed to be one of those men who make bad soldiers because they lose the power to take care of themselves when under the influence of excitement. And I suspected that Frank had not been calm since the death of Drakenfeld.

What to make of the message I did not know. Essential parts were obviously missing, whether they had never got into Frank's head, or had been knocked out of it at the time of his injury. There were seeming contradictions in his story besides.

"You were loafing on a corner when Miss Dee saw you,” said I; “but next minute you were in a great hurry to go home and meet a friend. How is that?"

“No loafa there," he protested. “I wanta see you but you no come out till I gotta go.”

What was his business with me? He stumbled on his answer, trembled visibly, and forgot the English words that he wished to use, yet managed to make his meaning clear in one disjointed speech not very long. This little rascal knew something about Drakenfeld, and he had come to sell it, if I would pay the price!

The impudence of his proposal almost commanded admiration. He was ignorant as a dog, but he must have known that I could use the law to make him speak; and what was more directly obvious, that I could take him by the threat and choke his information out of him. But, as he himself suggested, if I should get it that way, it might not be reliable.

I couldn’t wait for any legal process, and the weakness and somewhat battered condition of my adversary made violence or threats repugnant. He read this in my face, and the answering ecstasy of relief that came into his eyes made me feel as if I had promised not to hurt him.

“If you tell me the whole truth, and it is worth anything at all,” said I, “you'll get a hundred dollars."

It appeared that this was not enough. Mr. Drakenfeld had offered him much more for his silence, and, besides, he had a partner who would kill him if he sold out for too little. Any partner of Frank's might very probably commit murder, and rather than be an accessory to that crime, I met the figure, provisionally; drew a check, and sent it out to Duncan to be cashed.

Encouraged by this proceeding, Frank told me that he knew where Drakenfeld had been living, not at the Hotel Lansing, and under another name. He had two rooms in a lodging house; Frank had seen them. One was fitted up for cooking, and I gathered that Drakenfeld had enlarged the facilities in a manner regarded as mysterious— his laboratory beyond a doubt.

That was all I learned before my money was brought in; the remainder of the story I extracted while we rode in a cab to Montague Street on Brooklyn Heights. 'The address had cost me the full two hundred dollars; Frank demanded it, and won his point by mere readiness to waste time in haggling, To me time was worth more than money; and, indeed, if the story was true the price was very small. There was a fair chance that I had found the key of the whole mystery, and at the very least I should be in a trading position with Martin. I should have something to say to him at half past eleven.

My elation was mingled with a serious though formless disquietude, verging on a treason to friendship. Miss Dee had gone to Brooklyn; the place where she had set Frank down from her cab— near his home— was barely five minutes walk from the Montague Street house, though in a poor neighborhood. Was it believable that she had known something of Drakenfeld and had hidden it from me?

I asked Frank if he had heard her give any instructions to the cabman. Yes; but it was only the name of a hotel or apartment house, strange to him and mow forgotten. Would twenty dollars help him remember? He squirmed painfully, but admitted at last that he could not deliver the goods. He did recall, however, that the cabman had hesitated and then said: “Oh, yes; that's up on the Park Slope." This was worth a thousand dollars to me, but I paid only ten; and freed from all unworthy suspicion, I proceeded to dig out and translate the further contents of Frank’s mind.

He had a friend, an iceman, with a route on Brooklyn Heights, whom he had sometimes assisted in making deliveries, thinking he might go into that business if he could save up the necessary capital. Among the customers was Drakenfeld, known as Drake; and Frank had frequently taken ice to his rooms, in the past three months. When Drakenfeld applied for an office in the William Street building he rode in the other elevator and did not see Frank; but Frank saw him, and subsequently discovered that he bore a different name, lived in a different borough, and was under suspicion as perhaps an undesirable tenant— which proves that there was one good investigator in the cab as Frank and I rode together.

The two acquaintances met in the elevator on the first day after Drakenfeld moved in. Naturally the conversation ran to ice, and Drakenfeld experienced a chill He bargained for Frank's silence, but no money had been forthcoming, only promises. A payment was due this afternoon, and Frank was waiting confidently for Drakenfeld to settle, when news came of his death. Here was an asset gone bad in hopeless style.

The story was of the sort that can be believed though told by a liar. A naturalness and a fatality were in it, corresponding with the mysterious proceedings of the "divinity that shapes our ends rough," as Hamlet should have worded it, “Hew them how we will.” And there were certain details of the improvised laboratory which were obviously veracious, for Frank described it as it looked to him who had no notion of the use of anything he saw. He knew from the maid that there was something suspicious about it, and about the man himself whose comings and goings were extremely irregular.

“But he paid good, over there,” said Frank; “so all right.”

Sometimes when Drakenfeld was at home his door would be locked against everybody for a day or two at a stretch, but when he was away anybody could get in. The maid kept her pass-keys in a little closet near Drakenfeld’s door, to the left. He often had callers, mostly women; and though Frank had never seen any of these he quoted the maid to the effect that all were supposed to be rich, and one was very beautiful. The rooms were up one flight, in the rear; apparently in an extension.

I halted the cab at a little distance, and paid the cabby a small fee to see that he didn’t run away. The house had once been a residence of some pretensions, but it was now gone shabby. In the vestibule, with the door open behind them, were two women of middle age and similar appearance, both clothed in the same style of labored and ineffectual excellence, like two sisters in the dressmaking business. One was obviously a departing guest; the other proved to be the landlady, Mrs. Mellen.

I asked for Mr. Drake, and she made no comment on the hour. She said she thought he had visitors; she would take up my name.

"It's all right; they expect me," said I, and made for the stairs, the landlady following with mild expostulations. She halted, however, at the head of the stairs, and I heard a woman call to her in a somewhat excited tone, from the hall above. “Mrs. Mellen, is that you?" with an urgent request that she come up, for some reason which did not reach my ears.

Ten paces brought me to a door with a mullioned glass panel, thinly curtained on the inside, and showing a faint light. Just as I reached it another door opened at my right hand, and an old man in a bath robe thrust  out a tousled gray head. He looked as if he had been called from bed by some alarm, but he said nothing to me.

From Drakenfeld’s rooms, subdued apparently by distance, came the sound of a man's voice speaking with a slight foreign accent and very angrily. A few words were meaningless for lack of what had gone before; then I heard clearly:

"Don't lie to me, woman! I know why you are here. But you shall not get away with it."

The response went straight to my vitals, for it was Miss Dee who spoke, the cool restraint of her tone making the man's violent utterance seem trivial.

“I am here for my own safety, and I shall remain. Oblige me by coming no nearer.”

He would do well to heed that, but he responded with what seemed an oath in some outlandish tongue, and I heard a sound as of a piece of furniture pushed aside.

There followed a peculiarly heavy and crashing shot, as if several weapons were discharged at once. Then whoever had been hurt fell to the floor, and there came also a lighter fall mingled with the tinkle of breaking.glass. At almost the same instant there arose an outcry behind me, from the upper hall, and I heard the word “Fire!” A draft seemed to sweep toward me an odor of smoke; and I was aware that the old man in the bath robe ran toward the stairs.

All but the sounds from within the room made faint impressions on my consciousness; they were memories afterward rather than objects of immediate attention. The whole time involved in all I have described was only a few seconds, but I might long since have broken down the door. Instead I had fumbled with a key that had been left in the lock. It turned properly at last, and I passed in.

There was a vestibule from which I saw, between curtains at either side of a broad doorway, only a portion of the room beyond— a great mahogany sideboard against the left-hand wall, the gilt stems and glittering pendants of three old candelabra on its top; an end of a center table, and some dark, ponderous chairs. I was so prepared for what the room must hold that these harmless things impressed and thrilled me with a counterfeit of the expected horror. They sprang into unnatural prominence, then vanished, and Miss Dee appeared between the curtains, checking herself suddenly at sight of me. She was powerfully agitated but without loss of dignity or control.

“Ah!” she cried, and put out her hand to me. “You must have heard—"

“Yes; I heard him threaten you.” I now stood beside her, and could see the whole room. A man's body lay on the floor, face downward; evidently he had stood near the large window in the wall at my right, and had fallen outward toward the middle of the room..

“Was he armed?”

"I don’ t know,” she said. "Yes, I think he was."

I had knelt beside the body.

“Where did you get a weapon? Did you find one here?”

“I didn’t have any. Nor he, as far as I know. I saw none.”

“You didn’t shoot him?”

“No; it was an accident.”

I looked up at her, not consciously losing faith, but merely dazed by the too striking falsity to facts. The weapon with which this man had been killed was partly hidden, but I had seen it almost instantly. There was a flat-topped writing table just beyond the body, with an end close to the window. From it the man had dragged down in falling a metal reading lamp, of unusual size and weight.

Fragments of electric bulbs were strewn about. The lamp's bronze shade, a flattened pyramid more than two feet square at the base, had not been broken from the standard. Its edge had struck the barrel of an automatic pistol whose butt alone was visible, protruding from under the shade’s green-beaded fringe.

Taking the man by the shoulder, I turned him on his back, and the next instant had sprung to my feet, and was staring down at him. I am not afraid of the dead, no matter how they die, but to see an apparition of the same man slain a second time in the same way, is a shock to the nerves. This was not actually the precise image of Drakenfeld’s dead body, but I thought it was, at the moment.

Light from the chandelier shone on the rigid face frozen in the same expression, and on the breast fire-blackened and torn with wounds. His coat lay open, the left side of it in rags; his shirt was soaked with blood.

I had taken Miss Dee’s hand, and had felt the sudden clasp of her fingers, very cold but steady. She spoke quietly:

“Yes; I think

"Mr. Drakenfeld's brother. He told me so; and one could hardly doubt it. He came a few minutes before you; he had been here earlier, I don't know at what hour. While he was away he had learned of his brother's death, and he was greatly excited. The situation gave him some excuse— finding me here, a stranger— but he went beyond reason, accusing me of I don't know what— of trying to steal some secret of his brother's. And there was a letter which he had written and left here, for the other Mr. Drakenfeld; he demanded that I give it to him."

“Is that it?” A sealed envelope lay on the writing table.

“Yes; I had hidden it under the lamp— after he came in, but he did not see me do it. His sight was very defective; he wore heavy spectacles." They were on the floor, broken.

"What did he do?" I asked.

He spoke violently, but kept his distance at first. Then he grew more angry, and moved toward me. I was on the other side of the table. He pushed that chair aside, and we faced each other with the table between us. He put his hand into the breast of his coat; and there was a terrible explosion, and he fell."

I pulled the pistol from under the lamp shade, and was startled to find it still warm to the touch; then indescribably surprised by its condition, when I had drawn it into view. It was ripped from end to end, as if all the cartridges that could be stuffed into its magazine had exploded simultaneously.

Miss Dee did not see it; she had turned toward the door.

“It is strange no one comes,” she said. "I have heard voices constantly."

I had heard them, too, no more than a distant babble with an occasional cry. There had been no trampling in the halls, no noise of gongs from the street, nor of invading firemen. And with some small part of my mind I had inferred that, if there had really been a fire in the house, the lodgers must have extinguished it.

“Mr. Drake, Mr. Drake!” a feeble, gentlemanly voice was calling. I ran to the vestibule, and met the pale old man whom I had seen already, checking him before he got a fair view into the room. Misinterpreting my haste, he said:

“There’s no danger now. Some of our young men have put out the fire. It started in a bureau; a revolver seems to have gone off with no possible cause. Most extraordinary occurrence. It was lying in a drawer and there was no one in the room,”

"Are you sure of these facts?" said I.

“Certainly. I’ve just been looking at the revolver. It was loaded with five cartridges, and so far as I can make out they all went off at once. I never heard of such a thing. And, by the way, was there not some slight disturbance here? I’m far from a trouble maker, and, in fact, our landlady is hardly in a state to be addressed on such a topic; but I heard— persons quarreling, and then I—"

“A man has shot himself," said I; “accidentally, with his own pistol. "I am a government officer—” it choked me more than usual. “I shall take charge of this matter; and I'll be obliged if you won't raise any alarm as yet."

“Is the man dead?" he asked. “Is it Mr. Drake?"

"His brother, we believe. Have you ever seen him?"

"Yes, several times; some months ago, however. He used to come here often, but I heard he had gone to Russia. I had no acquaintance with either of the gentlemen."

“I led him to the curtained doorway, and he stood for a few moments on the threshold, showing no agitation but looking fixedly and sadly at the dead, doubtless with such thoughts as might come to an aged man in the presence of the messenger who will call so soon for him. He raised his eyes at last to Miss Dee, and viewed her without recognition, as I observed, but with a strange, wistful smile. He stood with death, and looked across a misty desert of the years toward youth and beauty, once his dear companions. Miss Dee neither moved nor spoke; she merely looked at him kindly. He bowed his gray head, and then looked up at me.

“It is my neighbor’s brother," he said, adding: “The young lady is perhaps associated with you.”

“We are together in this case,” said I.

“Oh,” said he vaguely; and turned toward his own room, which was in the main part of the house, its window looking out along Drakenfeld’s wall.

“Can it be true,” Miss Dee whispered— “what he said of that revolver?”

“I think so.”

“What does it mean?”

“It means,” said I, “that Henry Drakenfeld had solved one of the world's great life-and-death problems."

5: The Messenger of Peace.

IT HAS BEEN several times mentioned, and abundantly proved, that I am a very poor investigator; but when facts become sufficiently pointed and insistent they will begin to drill their way into the solid ivory of my intellect. It had become impossible for me to escape the knowledge that the strange series of explosions which had cost two lives, and lacked only one little inch of getting a third, setting a house on fire besides, and burdening many minds, must all have had a single cause.

I took from my pocket the cartridge shell which I had removed from Angela’s revolver; and I was not surprised to find the rim perfectly smooth. The hammer had never fallen on it; some other force more subtle had effectéd the detonation. We examined it together, and I told her what was implied. ' I learned that in her total ignorance of firearms she had twirled the cylinder, after pushing in the cartridge through the groove at the side, so that the bullet would go out through the barrel. She had not known that when the weapon was cocked the shell would move to the right, and the hammer descend on a vacant chamber. Except for this childish error the result of the discharge would, of course, have been entirely different, and must have been obvious on a single glance at the weapon.

“The thing that has done this is a detonating ray," said I; “and its source is in this room."

“The lamp," said she.

I took it by the stem, a metal tube more than an inch in diameter at the slenderest point, and held it upside down. It weighed something like forty pounds. Drakenfeld could be sure that no maid would ever exert herself to move it; and the shade came low to hide any mysteries in its upper part.

Certainly there was something under the shade that was no usual part of a lamp's design. The flaring, hollow base held mysteries also. It was half filled with mechanism, obscurely visible in the inverted position, through a glass plate set in with exquisite workmanship, and so strong that the fall had not broken it. An insulated wire ran through the plate, and took power from an ordinary connection with a fixture beside the window. There was a good length of wire, so that the lamp could be moved freely by any one who cared to exert the strength.

The apparatus under the shade was in the form of a tube that seemed to be a lead alloy, set horizontally, but capable of delicate adjustment for direction; and along its top there ran a longer and more slender tube— a telescope for sighting. How this could be used I failed to understand till I discovered that the shade was set in springs— of Drakenfeld’s contrivance— and could be lifted off by one who knew the trick. Removing it, and setting the lamp upright, I looked through the slender tube and saw the crossed threads used in sighting.

Back of the lead cylinder, and connected with one of the sockets of the lamp, was the wreckage of a part of the apparatus that had been mostly a delicate structure of glass. Though perfectly ignorant of the subject, I guessed rightly that this had been the projector or mechanism for throwing the energy out as a single beam— obviously a prime essential of any machine designed to throw a detonating ray. The object is to explode your enemies’ ammunition, and not your own as well.

If there had been any doubt remaining in my mind as to the purpose of the whole contrivance, it would have been dispelled by the discovery that on the side of the larger tube was beautifully engraved, “The Peacemaker.” Drakenfeld was an idealist and friend of man, it seemed, and perhaps not precisely an enthusiast as to the League of Nations. He had meant to take a short cut to peace by blowing up all the military high explosives in the world; and at least he could have made a very startling demonstration.

While making these investigations very hastily, I had heard Angela’s story. No one came to disturb us. Only one person besides ourselves knew what had happened in those rooms, and the venerable gentleman had gone to bed. The landlady, I subsequently learned, was in mild hysteria, tended by such of the women lodgers as were behind with the rent. The men were in the room where the fire had been, discussing its mysterious origin, and drinking beerless beer to the health of the local fire department, themselves.

We had a dead man for our companion, but that must be endured. We must know the facts before we summoned help. Miss Dee told me what only a natural dolt could have failed to guess, that Frank, the elevating Greek, had raised his first stake of the evening by selling to her the same information which he had subsequently sold to me. He had accepted from her my hundred-dollar bill, and as she was left penniless by the transaction he had kindly lent her three dollars for a cab, in which he himself rode to his appointment with the iceman.

Recognizing the importance of the information Angela had come straight to Montague Street. She had learned from Frank that Drakenfeld received many visits from women; at the house she had boldly asked for “Mr. Drake,” and had been permitted to go up unattended. She had let herself into the rooms with the maid's keys, and had determined to stay on guard till I should come, in response to her message sent by Frank— much of which the wily Greek had of course suppressed.

Angela's dinner had consisted of a sandwich purchased with her last fifteen cents. The cabman took all the rest. That was why she had not tried to telephone to Duncan’s from that house: the instrument was a slot machine, and she had not a nickel.

By this I was once more reminded of my promise to Detective Martin. It was far past the hour appointed, but he might be waiting. I told Angela of this necessity, and asked if she would prefer to go with me to the telephone rather than remain in that room.

“I should prefer to go with you, of course,” said she, very sweetly, “but I will stay. We should not leave him here alone.”

Martin was still at the Old Slip Station, though he had long since abandoned hope of hearing from me. He could conceal his surprise at the sound of my voice, but I shook his placidity very soon, with considerable satisfaction.

“I'm in the house where Drakenfeld lived,” said I, and gave the address. ‘Come over here, and I'll tell you the whole insides of the case.” And I let that sink in. “Miss Dee is with me, and will be glad to see you. Between us we’ve worked it all out.” I gave him a few seconds to digest that. "Miss Dee found Drakenfeld’s brother here, the one that went to Russia. He's dead, I’m sorry to say. Yes; he was shot. Miss Dee was present, and she tells me it was an accident.”

“What!” Martin roared.

“Yes,” said I. “Come right over.”

“I sure will,” said he.

He did, and was convinced; and bilis like the good fellow that he is. His experience and capacity sufficed to clear up the remaining points in the case, the most perplexing of which had altogether escaped my attention.

I knew, of course, that the top of the Waldo Building on William Street, across the river, would be visible by daylight from the window where the lamp had stood. That was the reason why he had chosen the location for an office—on the top floor by preference. It gave him a chance to make longdistance tests with his ray. His plan was to put small quantities of high explosives in thin-walled spheres which would leave no trace beyond a little blackening of a surface on which they should be detonated. He could conceal them on the roof of the Waldo Building, just before leaving. Then, at night, he could turn on his cru and, though he might not be able to observe the results, even with his telescope, he could satisfy himself in regard to them next day. The small explosions on the roof of that tall building at night would never attract attention.

He would doubtless aim the detonator by daylight. It could do no harm while the current was not turned on. His nocturnal experiments would entail little risk of blowing anything up. Whatever the effective circle of influence might be at that distance, he would so adjust the instrument that only the lower rim of that circle would touch the roof of the building. The remaining power would be dissipated in the sky.

On the day of his death he had pointed the detonator before leaving the Montague Street rooms, but the power was not turned on, of course. A veteran experimenter of such skill would never have made that mistake. ‘How was it done? By the brother, beyond question; not intentionally, for he knew no more of the lamp's secrets than the maid. When Jacob Drakenfeld had left America for Russia the invention was an apparent failure. A month later there was a different story to tell, and an inkling of it got through by secret channels to Moscow where Jacob was; and he returned with all speed to the United States. Henry aimed to abolish war; Jacob wanted to make soviet Russia invincible.

The bolshevik brother reached New York unheralded, on the day when these things came to pass. It was afternoon; he went at once to Montague Street, knowing nothing of the office in New York. He waited; Henry did not come, and it seemed likely that he might go first to the Hotel Lansing, perhaps pass the night there. Jacob decided to leave a letter, and then go to the hotel.

Because of his failing eyes— he was really half blind— Jacob could not see to write even at a western window. He tried to turn on one of the light bulbs in the desk lamp, and started the detonator by some freak of chance. A half blind man was the one to do it, by long continued soft fumbling under the shade, in the course of which he pulled every cord that was there. The ray produced neither audible nor visible effect, and he was unaware of what he had done. He kept on fumbling, got a light at last, and wrote the long missive which Miss Dee subsequently found. Then he went to the Hotel Lansing where, some hours later, he learned of his brother’s death. He hurried back to Montague Street, desperate, for the secret of the invention must be there and he must have it first.

Meanwhile, at a few minutes past six, when Henry Drakenfeld, laden with his explosive spheres, started for the roof of the Waldo Building the detonating ray was in operation; and when he reached a certain point on the last stairs the explosion took place, and he was killed. At exactly the same elevation, a short while later, the cartridge exploded in Miss Dee's revolver from the same cause.

So much was clear enough. But the current had remained on, for the whole evening. When Miss Dee moved the lamp in hiding Jacob’s letter under it, she directed the ray diagonally upward through the house, and set off the revolver in the bureau drawer in a room on the next floor at the front: And a minute later, when Jacob Drakenfeld advanced menacingly toward the girl, and tried to draw a pistol with which to intimidate her, the detonating wave struck the weapon, and its owner fell dead.

This being: true, how did it happen that Martin’s squad, all armed, ascended to the Waldo Building’s roof without mishap? That riddle did not even occur to my simple mind.

Jacob Drakenfeld must have moved the lamp when he put out the light after finishing his letter, or more probably just before leaving the room. The change in direction was perhaps very small, barely causing the ray to miss the roof.

Drakenfeld’s method of projecting it in a straight line remains a complete mystery. It is known that he employed parabolic mirrors made of double glass— like a thermos bottle; but nothing which the experts have been able to construct has even promised to be effective. The present theory is that the action depends on a gas imprisoned between the two layers of glass. As to the nature of that gas, they are in total ignorance. There was apparatus in Drakenfeld’s laboratory which could be used for generating gases of various kinds, but there were no chemicals from which to make anything of value in this line. That was why Drakenfeld seemed to use so little caution in guarding his discovery. As long as certain substances were never in the laboratory except when he was there, he rested secure. Nobody could steal his idea—which means that he felt certain that nobody could analyze the gas, for, of course, he left some of it in his projector when he was absent.

I have said that this is my best information, but there is a possibility, encouraging to all true patriots, that my informants are lying to me in the interests of the public welfare, and that the secret now reposes where it will do the most good. As evidence of this cheerful view, I seem to be the beneficigry of mysterious favor, as if I had served my country in a way that can't be mentioned even in a whisper. For example, when I told Mr. Bullard that I hoped to marry the daughter of Anne Dillon, he nearly had apoplexy; but before a month had passed, and without the slightest, further effort on my part, the lady who will do me the honor to become my mother-in-law was pardoned and released. Moreover, her little estate which had been so tied up in the course of her ineffectual defense that the daughter nearly starved, disentangled itself as if by magic at the merest touch of my legal wand.

If these are evidences of anybody's gratitude to me, they are ample. I ask no more.

___________________

14: The New Administration

Melville Davisson Post

1869-1930

The Saturday Evening Post, 20 Nov 1915

Melville Davisson Post

Best known now for his historical "Uncle Abner" crime stories, Post also wrote contemporary series featuring other sleuths such as Mosieur Jonquelle, prefect of the Paris police; Walker of the Secret service; and Sir Henry Marquis of Scotland Yard. He also wrote numerous non-series stories, such as this one.

THERE was a moment’s silence after the attorney for the Government sat down. Everybody thought the judge would at once refuse the motion for a retrial and sentence the prisoner. There was plainly no error. The law was clear, the evidence was sufficient, and the judge had so strongly indicated the guilt of the accused m his charge to the jury that acquittal was out of the question; in fact, he had practically directed the jury to find the prisoner guilty.

Of course a motion to set aside the verdict is always made; but any one could see that it was a mere form here. Surely there was no shadow left for judicial hesitation after the attorney for the Government had finished It would have taken only a moment, and to-morrow was the last day of the term; but, instead, the judge rose. He looked ill and tired The heat was oppressive

“I will pass on the motion in the morning,” he said.

The attorney for the prisoner caught at the straw.

Your Honor will consider the argument?”

“Oh, yes,” replied the judge in his tired voice. Then he added. “I have a telegram from the Department of Justice. Two judges of the Supreme Court will be here in the morning. I am asked to leave this case open.” Then he swept away the hope: “You may have the benefit of their opinion on the length of sentence ”

He looked worn out. It was July The summer term of the District Court of the United States was always trying, but this sitting had been particularly oppressive. The usual catalogue of crimes— revenue infractions and the like — was commonly disposed of swiftly in this court; but he had not been able to expedite this case It had expanded, lengthened, and worn out his patience. Perhaps dilatory, inefficient counsel was the real cause.

He went into his chamber, took off his black silk gown and gave it to his attendant. He gathered up some papers from his table and inclosed them with a rubber band; then he put on his hat and went out.

These Federal buildings have the city post-office underneath The judge did not go to the elevator Several members of the local bar were in the cage. He knew how they would receive him. One would have a story to make him laugh, another some expression from his utterances to flatter— and so on He felt that he was too tired and irritable to be annoyed; but he did not escape.

On the steps he met the attorney for the prisoner. He was a man who had come up into a practice through the petty intrigues of local politics He had learned in that school to approach his object obliquely, and he carried this plan into the trial of his cases.  He cultivated an open, hearty manner to cover his subtility.

"Judge," he said, "I wish you could manage to go easy on Johnson ” And he began to urge the estimable life of the cashier, his long residence in the community, and the fact that no length of penal sentence could help anybody; then he added: “I think the man is telling the truth, judge. I think he was trying to save the bank—”

It was false. His experience moved him to accept the worst motive among all possible ones. The judge, ill and overborne, stopped him

“I won't hear you, Dickerman,” he said “I’m tired of these curbstone arguments—”

The man was unabashed.

“Sure, judge,” he replied, “but I got worked up over Johnson It’s an awful pity. He has a nice home and the best little woman in the world—”

He said it in the big, emotional manner he was accustomed to use in his campaigns among the people, and it was true as far as he went, but he neglected to add that the nice home went to him provided he kept the cashiej out of the penitentiary— everything else he had got hold of on a straight-out fee But he was shrewd He saw that this was no moment to go farther, and he stepped out of the way.

“I’m glad you’re going to join the family at the shore to-morrow night. It’ll do you good, judge... Rotten hot here!” And he went on.

Three doors opened from the post office into the street— the great double one in the middle for the public and, on each side of it, one to the elevator and another to the stairway. A big, new motor car stood by the curb and a man in the shade of the building, by the door on the elevator side, was fanning his heated face with a panama hat. He had about him every indicatory evidence of a leading citizen He was past middle life— in the neighborhood of sixty. He stood erect, with the expansive front that the dominion of money and success give to those lucky men who get up in the world out of a humble origin.

When the judge came out of the Federal Building on the stairway side, the man stepped down to the motor, opened the door of the tonneau and threw up his hand in a friendly signal The judge entered the motor and sat down as though it were a custom.

"Thank you, Tollman,” he said. “It’s mighty kind of you to stop for me this way.”

“No trouble, judge,” replied the man. “I never leave the bank until four o’clock and it’s only a turn round the block for you.”

He got in, closed the door and the motor moved away from the curb Then he added:

“What do you suppose the Department’s after?”

He had heard the telegram discussed by the spectators coming out of the courtroom

“It’s a national bank,” said the judge “The Government may have some special interest.” Then he added: "Members of the Supreme Court sometimes sit on the circuit, or the Chief Justice may be going out to the Circuit Court of Appeals. We are on the way; it’s’ nothing unusual.’’

“You didn’t sentence Johnson,” said the man.

“I left the whole matter open,” replied the judge. “If the members of the Supreme Court sit to-morrow they can fix the sentence.”

“Dead open-and-shut case?” said Tollman.

“Oh, yes,” replied the judge.

He felt very tired and indisposed to talk, but he regarded the obligations of friendly courtesy. Again Tollman slapped his big knee with his fat hand.

“It’s a pity... Nice fellow, Johnson— not very smart.”

“I thought the trick by which he covered the cash shortage from the bank examiner was exceedingly clever,” said the judge. “Has such a thing been done before?”

Tollman pulled out his under lip between his thumb and finger, his foot tapped on the floor of the car.

“Never heard of it,” he said “If anybody ever used it before he was smart enough not to get caught.” Then he turned about toward his companion. “You’re wrong, judge; Johnson ain’t smart. I saw that when he first came into the bank, under me— when I was cashier of the Eighth National ”

He had the appearance, whether false or true, of one givng an inside opinion in confidence to a friend

“He’s just a trailer— got no initiative The bank was bound to go to the wall in competition with modern investment methods. Johnson never struck out on a new line in his life; he followed what other men did. Why, judge—”

He put his fat hand on his companion’s arm as though indicative of a deeper confidence.

“He’s been running that bank just the same way I used to run it before I made my strike in Universal Steel Common and started the Citizens’ National.”

He paused and puffed out his chest.

"The banking business must keep up with the times, like any other business."

“Universal Steel Common?” replied the judge. “Isn’t that the stock Johnson was gambling in with the bank funds?”

Tollman rocked his big torso in confirmation.

“Exactly!” he said. “The very samel Only it’s no good now — ^went to pot two years ago. The broker knew it was taking penmes out of a blind man’s hat. Imagine anybody buying that stock now!”

Then he added m a firmer tone:

“No, judge; Johnson ain’t smart. You know how the banking business goes. Sometimes you have to take a nibble at bad stuff to help out a good depositor. Take, for instance, the big block of Gas bonds that first got his bank in bad. He asked me whether the Citizens’ National was a subscriber. Well, it wasn’t up to me to knock Old Blackwell’s bonds. He’s a good depositor. I said yes. It was the truth. We had a little of it— covered on the side, of course... Johnson has no sense.”

“He has sense enough to know that he was violating the banking laws of the United States,” replied the judge.

The big man laughed.

“He knew that all right, I reckon.”

“I suppose,” continued the judge, “he thought his plan would not be discovered; and perhaps it would not have been but for the chance of your bank opening one of the packages.”

Tollman did not reply. The car had entered the street on which the judge lived. It was a street ending in the public highway. A huge, old brick house sat in a grove of ancient maples, on a big plot of ground, at some distance from the street. There was an old-fashioned, low iron fence, with a little gate opening into a red-brick path, before the place. The car stopped. Tollman leaned across his guest and flung the car door open. He spoke, with his head down, in the performance of the act:

“I was offered the leases on the Haverford oil tract mighty low to-day.”

The judge did not at once reply. He got out. Then he answered :

“Lawsuits are uncertain! Thank you, Tollman.”

It was all the hint the man wanted. The lands were in litigation in the Federal Court and this was a look through the keyhole.

The judge opened the gate and went slowly up the brick path to his door. He was alone m his house for this day and night. His family and servants had gone to the coast to avoid the midsummer heat. He would join them to-morrow night, when his court term closed. He would be glad of the vacation. This evening he felt utterly fagged out and worthless.

As the path turned round some shrubs he saw a figure huddled against his door. The attitude was peculiar. The figure did not seem to be sittmg against the door, nor yet was “huddled” the word to describe that posture. The figure seemed to be bent over— the head down, the legs doubled under it; the shoulders and the back stooped. At the sound of his advancing feet the figure rose. He saw that it was the prisoner Johnson’s wife; and he remembered vaguely that just now he had not seen her in her accustomed place by the prisoner’s chair.

The whole aspect of this woman was one of inconsolable misery. Her eyes were swollen; the muscles of her face were drawn; her mouth seemed slack and loose, and from time to time it trembled, though the woman no longer wept. She was young; but her worn, faded, neglected dress, the strain of the long trial, the despair at the result of it, and the constant misery had aged her. Her brown hair looked dead about the livid face, twitching from lack of sleep.

“Oh, judge,” she said, “won’t you save him?” The extremity of bitter misery was in the broken voice. “He did no more than other men had done before— only he did it for the bank— not for himself. He thought everything Mr. Tollman had anything to do with was all right. I know all about it. The jury didn’t understand. You don’t understand!”

This was the one thing the judge loathed and hated— this emotional appeal of the wife, the mother, the sweetheart of the accused. Women never understood that courts considered only proximate causes; that men were tried for the commission of those overt acts that by the letter of the law constituted a crime. They never understood that ultimate motives, influences and all the vast ramifications of an event could not be inquired into. They never regarded legal rules governing the introduction of evidence, that the law did not consider what one thought or believed; that cases were not tried on feeling. The judge endeavored to explain that all the things she urged could not be considered in the case — and how irregular her conduct was.

"I cannot hear you," he said.

The woman swayed a moment, looking him in the face ; then she sank down in that peculiar posture— on her knees, her back bent, her face in her hands. And she began to speak, trembling, shaken, with jerky words:

“What’ll I do?... You won’t hear me.... Oh, God! What’ll I do? He’s a good man I know him; I’m his wife... He didn’t mean any harm. The things other men did drove him into it. Oh, God! If the judge would only think about everything! If there was only somebody to understand everything they wouldn’t make him suffer for all of it!”

It seemed to the judge that the best thing for him to do was to pass quickly. He opened the door with a latchkey, entered and closed it behind him. Then he put down his hat and, with his bundle of legal papers under his arm, went slowly up the stairway. At the first landing he stopped, held on to the baluster and looked back. Through the little squares of glass along the side of the door he could see the woman on the porch in that abject position, the tears trickling through her fingers.

THE COURT opened with the two Supreme Judges sitting with the District Judge. A gust of rain had cleared out the heat. The air was fresh. Everybody seemed vitalized and restored to the energies of life— except the District Judge. He looked the mere physical wreck of a man. His face was pallid and his jaw sagged as he sat in his black silk robe between his two associates. Perhaps the fine, clean-cut, vital faces of those two associate judges brought his ill appearance more conspicuously to the eye.

The courtroom was crowded. Everybody came in to see the visiting members of the Supreme Court.

We have a belief that the conduct of great affairs and elevation above the passions and interests of men give, in time, to the human face a power and serenity beyond anything to be observed in our usual life. And the aspect of these two members of the highest tribunal in the world amply justified this theory Everybody was impressed. The courtroom was silent. The clerk and attendants went about on tiptoe and spoke in whispers. There was an atmosphere of dignity that swept out and ejected every trivial thing.

There was here, now, the awe and the solemnity, the grip of power, that we feel must inevitably attend the majestic presence of that vast, dominating, imperial thing we call the State. Everybody felt that, at last— finally— he was before that regal ultimate authority that ruled the order of his life and the conduct of his affairs, pressing on him on ail sides invisibly, like the air— an authority that he could neither resist nor question.

The whole local bar was in the courtroom The chairs before the attorneys’ tables were filled. The entire jury panel was present. The prisoner Johnson sat inside the rail, near his attorney. He sat with his head down, his hands open and resting awkwardly on his knees, like one who, having passed through every misery, dumbly awaits the end of all things.

His wife was now in the chair beside him. Her face was washed out and gray, like plaster; but it was lifted: and the wide-distended eyes followed every act and gesture of the two majestic judicial figures. She did not move; she saw nothing about her in the courtroom; she heard no sound or whisper. Those visiting members or the Supreme Bench, sitting on each side of the almost ghastly District Judge, alone engrossed and dominated her attention.

The younger justice, on the left of the bench, conducted the busmess of the court.

"The case," he said, “of the United States versus Carter Johnson is before us on a motion to set aside the verdict of the jury and grant a new trial.”

His voice, clear and even hke a sheet of light, filled the remote corners of the courtroom.

“On yesterday we directed the District Judge to hold this case open until we could arrive and sit with him. It is not the custom of the Department of Justice, to which we belong, to interfere in the temporary conduct of matters in these inferior tribunals below us; but this case has been brought forcibly to our attention and we have determined to appear here and dispose of it.

“Carter Johnson was the cashier of the Eighth National Bank of this city. He was convicted in this court on two several counts— the misappropriation of bank funds and the falsification of the bank statement under oath. The facts are that the directors of this bank left the conduct of its affairs to the cashier, Johnson, as they were accustomed to do with the former cashier. Johnson invested heavily in an issue of Gas bonds. These securities rapidly depreciated in value. To recoup the loss Johnson speculated with bank funds This speculation was unsuccessful, and to cover the cash shortage in his accounts Johnson resorted to a deceptive trick.”

The justice went on:

“It is a custom of the Treasury Department of the United States to send out packages of money. These packages, when received, are inclosed by a strip of paper pasted round them. This strip of paper or label is stamped with the amount and denomination of the bills making up the package. No bank questions the correctness of these labels. Carter Johnson made use of this Treasury custom in order to cover the cash shortage in his bank.

“He carefully preserved the printed bands from the packages of bills of bigb denomination that his bank would get from the Treasury in the course of business. When the examiner appeared he would remove the bands from packages of low denomination, paste on the false bands, and send out these apparently original Treasury packages to other banks in the city. He would ask the banks to hold these packages and lei him have loose currency. By this plan he was able to show his cash on hand correct. Later, when the examiner was gone, he would return the currency and receive back his packages. This trick, invented by an intelligence, cunning and regardless of fair dealing, enabled him to cover his defalcations for a considerable period.”

Then he concluded:

“These are the facts. They were established beyond doubt and the verdict of the jury was inevitable.”

He looked down at the prisoner.

“It is our opinion that the motion to set aside the verdict and grant a new trial ought to be overruled.”

There was on the prisoner no evidence of this crushing blow, except that he seemed to sink down a little in his chair. The woman beside him gave no sign whatsoever. Perhaps she did not realize what these formal words meant— that they swept away her last vestige of hope; but the aspect ot the prisoner, thus crumpled up as by some disintegrating pressure, drew the attention of the elder justice on the right of the bench. He spoke, looking out over the courtroom

“That every man shall realize in his own person the result of his premeditated act is a condition of human affairs that we are not here to disturb.”

There was no emotion in his face or in the words he uttered; there was only the supreme serenity of a phenomenon in Nature.

There was a moment of silence and the younger justice continued with the case.

“We are also of the opinion,” he said, “that this whole matter ought to be disposed of. Rutger Beekman is in the courtroom. Let him stand up.”

A iittle man, prim and very carefuliy dressed, -who had been entirely hidden by the crowd, came out and stood before the rail. He looked discolored, and the lids below his eyes puffed as from the ravages of an organic disease. Everybody moved with interest. This was the Eastern broker to whom Johnson had sent the money for his speculations.

“You obeyed our summons," said the justice.

The little man was very greatly disturbed.

“Yes, your Honor," he answered in a nervous voice.

The justice went on.

“The books in your office, exhibited to the Federal authorities, show that from time to time you purchased for Carter Johnson forty-eight thousand shares of Universal Steel Common at one dollar a share.”

He stopped and looked down at the man before the rail.

“Your books do not show that a secret partner, one Livingston Prichard, created this market for your purchase with stock bought at its actual value of twenty-five cents a share. Where is the remaining thirty-six thousand dollars?”

The little man’s face seemed to turn to ashes; he hung a moment on his toes, his mouth open. The justice went on, with no change in his calm, deliberate voice:

“The money, in United States gold certificates, is in safety-deposit box number 472 of the North Dominion Trust Company, in the city of Montreal.”

He paused

“It is the order of this court that you, Rutger Beekman, turn over to the register the key to this box, now on your person, together with your order to the vault officer, signed with two marks under the signature according to your secret understanding with that official. You wiU also pay into court the amount of your commission— that is to say, one-fourth of one per cent on the whole sum of forty-eight thousand dollars ”

Everybody was astonished, Hiram Tollman, president of the Citizens’ National Bank, sitting behind the attorneys, knew that the Federal Secret Service had rim this case down in every direction. He regretted now that he had taken so prominent a seat in the courtroom. With the result of so vast a system of secret espionage, no one could say what features of this affair might come up. He looked at the trembling broker turning over his key to the register of the court, and sweat dampened the palms of his hands. The calm voice of the justice was going on:

“The certificates delivered to Carter Johnson have been sold for their actual value of twenty-five cents a share; our order restores to the insolvent bank the entire sum drawn out by the cashier and adjusts this feature."

He paused and looked at his associate.

“Shall we consider, here, the aspect of Rutger Beekman’s criminal responsibility?”

“Let it go over,” replied the elder justice. “Beekman will be presently before us.”

These words, simple and uttered with no threat or menace, gave everybody in the courtroom a sense of vague, unreasoning terror,

“We come now,” continued the younger justice, “to a consideration of the original loss of the Eighth National Bank, which the cashier undertook to recoup by his speculations.”

This was the thing of which the president of the Citizens’ National Bank was apprehensive. He had hoped to slip out of the courtroom unnoticed He was feeling under his chair for his hat, when the voice of the justice reached him as with the impact of a blow:

“Hiram Tollman is in the courtroom. Let him stand up.”

He got on his feet, it seemed to the man, by no will and by no muscular effort of his own; his whole body damp with sweat. He looked up at the District Judge as for some cover or protection. The visiting justice crushed out the man’s mute appeal.

“The District Judge,” he said, “sits with us to-day for the purpose only of entering such orders as we shall direct.”

And the fact was abundantly evident. The judge was not consulted and he took no part in the conduct of the court affairs. He sat between the two Supreme Court judges, pallid and ill, his face sunken. The justice went on in his even voice:

“When the cashier of the Eighth National Bank was offered the block of Gas bonds he inquired whether your bank was a subscriber to the issue. You replied that it was. This answer, true in a narrow interpretation of words, was, in fact, intended to deceive. Your subscription was for ten bonds only and attended by collateral security. Carter Johnson took your answer to mean that you considered this issue to be a safe, desirable security. He relied on it and accordingly invested seventy-five thousand dollars in these bonds. The bonds were, in fact, worth twenty-five thousand— all of which you, Hiram Tollman, on that day and at the moment of the inquiry, well knew... Now by that investment, so made, the Eighth National Bank lost the sum of fifty thousand dollars, and the succeeding events resulted ”

The man standing up in the court room trembled, and sweat threaded along the creases of his obese body. He tried to urge some justification, but seemed unable to formulate the thing.

The elder justice appeared to grasp what he meant; for he said in his deep, level voice:

“It is not our purpose to hold one man responsible for the neglect of another. What one undertakes to do, or pretends to do, for the benefit of persons maintaining him in a position of trust, we hold him bound to perform.”

The younger justice waited a moment, as though in emphasis of the pronouncement of the elder and as a profound courtesy. He looked down at the silent faces turned everywhere toward the bench. Then he went on:

“The directors of the Eighth National Bank are in the courtroom. Let them stand up.”

Five men, sitting here and there on the packed benches, rose. The attorney, Dickerman, was general counsel for these directors. They were his best, his most substantial clients; and now, by a supreme measure of assurance, he rose and addressed the judges.

‘‘Your Honors,” he said, ‘‘these men are not in court as parties to any proceeding and no order can be entered against them.”

The justice looked calmly at the man.

“Everybody concerned with this affair is before us,” he said, “and will be included in our decree. As for you, Sylvester Dickerman, it is our order that you be allowed twenty-five dollars a day for your services during the conduct of the trial of Carter Johnson, and no more. You will return all fees above that sum, together with your contract contingent on the acquittal of the accused.”

There was silence; and he added:

“We have observed your methods for a long time. They do not please us, Sylvester Dickerman. But we do not revoke your license. You will be presently before us, and we think that your knowledge of this fact will be a sufficient safeguard of the public interest.”

The man seemed appalled, like one who suddenly sees an invisible peril uncovered before him.

The justice went on:

“As for you”— and he named the five directors— “you have neglected the duties which you assumed to perform for the stockholders of the Eighth National Bank. In consequence of that neglect— but for one consideration— our decree would direct you to pay into the bank the loss of this investment— that is to say, the sum of fifty thousand dollars— out of your individual private fortunes.

“As the matter stands, you will pay, share and share alike, all the costs of the proceedings in this court, including the trial of Carter Johnson and the fees allowed by us to his attorney; all the costs and expenses of the receivership; and whatever sums are required to rehabilitate the Eighth National Bank.”

The justice looked now at the prisoner, and that abject person rose as though the look were in itself a compelling summons. He stood with his body relaxed, his shoulders stooped, his head down. The woman beside him also rose, her strained white face fixed on the justice as by the fascination of some invisible sorcery. The whole court-room was profoundly silent. Everybody tbongbt that sentence on the prisoner was about to be pronounced; but, instead, the justice turned toward the man Tollman standing withm the rail behind the local bar.

"It is an elementary principle of justice," he said, “regarded by all men, that no one shall take a gain at the risk of another. He shall take his gain at his own risk.”

He paused and addressed Tollman directly:

“It is on this conception of justice, Hiram Tollman, that we are about to consider your responsibility in this affair. That Carter Johnson trusted to your judgment in the purchase of securities is a secondary matter, behind the primary duty of the cashier and directors of this bank to investigate for themselves. That you were cashier of this bank when Carter Johnson entered it as a clerk, and that he continued to be influenced by your methods and example, are not considerations moving us toward our decree.”

Here the elder justice again uttered a pronouncement that no man present in the courtroom ever afterward forgot:

“That another influenced me,” he said, “and I violated the law is a defense that we shall always reject.”

Then the younger justice continued:

“The basis of our decree against you, Hiram Tollman, is in the fact that you took a gain at the risk of the Eighth National Bank. The money which you used in the first speculations, which made your fortune, was the money of this bank, in your custody as cashier. It was you, Hiram Tollman, who invented the trick— afterward used by Carter Johnson— to cover the shortage in your currency during the period of your speculations. Unlike Johnson, you were successful in your investments. Your trick was not discovered; you put back the funds placed in hazard and converted the gain to your own use.

“You imagined, Hiram Tollman, that this matter was adjusted by the return of the funds. It was not so adjusted The gain must be restored to adjust it. That gain together witli the legal interest to date, is one hundred and fifteen thousand dollars, and it is our order that you pay it in to the receiver of the Eighth National Bank within thirty days after the rising of this court.”

All persons in the courtroom were amazed The vast, invisible espionage of the Department of Justice appalled them. Every man connected in any degree with a doubtful affair was seized with apprehension and began to go back over the details of his life, fearful lest he had overlooked some avenue through which his affair might have come to the knowledge of this elaborate Secret Service, which nothing seemed to escape.

The younger justice ceased, and the elder, sitting on the right of the bench, addressed the prisoner. Everybody thought that he was about to deliver some elaborate opinion, but he uttered only one preliminary sentence.

“Excessive punishment,” he said, “is, beyond all things, abhorrent to us. You are released from the custody of the marshal.”

The prisoner, expecting to receive a penal sentence, would have fallen but for the arms of the woman about him, her face transfigured.

To all this the justices of the Supreme Bench gave no attention. The younger began to dictate the orders and decrees covering the points of his decision; and when they were written out the District Judge, sitting motionless in his black robes, signed them without a word.

“Enter. William A. Plainfield.”

IT WAS night. The judges left the Federal Building, the District Judge walking between the two justices of the Supreme Court. Persons on the street, as in awe, crossed to the opposite side as the three impressive figures approached. They turned into the grounds of the District Judge and entered his house.

The community of misfortunes drew the banker— Tollman— the lawyer and the broker together as they came out on the street.

“Who summoned you to appear?” said Dickerman, addressing the broker. “The New York marshal couldn’t find you when we sent over a subpoena."

“Nobody summoned me.”

“How did you get notice to appear, then?”

“I didn’t get any notice,” replied the man. “I just felt that I had to come.”

The lawyer looked at the broker a moment, his eyes wide, his mouth gaping; then, without a word, he crossed the street to the telegraph office, the others following. The operator was a friend of Dickerman’s.

“Mack,” he said, breathing quickly, like a man with a defective heart, “did the judge get a telegram yesterday?”

“Sure!” replied the man.

“Where from?”

“Washington, I reckon,” answered the operator, turning over his file for the message. “It’s not marked.”

“Ask Washington,” said the lawyer.

The line was open and the operator called. There was silence and after a time the instrument clicked.

“That’s queer,” said the operator— “not sent from Washington! That’s damn queer! It came over the line.”

They went out and along the street to the judge’s residence, ail moved in common by a single fearful idea. The house was wholly dark. They stopped at the gate. Other persons joined them A crowd assembled. Finally it moved from the gate along the brick path to the door. The door was locked. No one replied to the bell or knocking.

Finally an officer got in through a window and opened the door. The family doctor joined him and the two men went up the steps together The crowd waited, silent, in the hall and on the porch outside.

Suddenly the voice of the doctor reached them from an upper chamber, where he stooped over the body of a man lying across the threshold, his bundle of legal papers scattered on the floor.

“Dead! ... The judge!”

Then, a moment later:

“Good God! His limbs are set in rigor mortis! He’s been dead twenty-four hours!”

All at once, with a sickening sense of dread, the broker, the lawyer, the banker— everybody from the courtroom— realized that the District Judge had been sitting, for this day, between the two mysterious justices, after he was dead; and that, for this day, the administration of justice in the court had been taken over by the Ultimate Authority— infinite and just— behind the moving of events.

End

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Anthologies 101 to 140

And new original Pulpmeister Collections since 7 Oct 2022

__________

Anthony Abbot (1893-1952)

—About the Perfect Crime of Mr. Digberry  111

Achmed Abdullah (1881-1945)

—Ebony And Amber  131

—Fear  109

—Lucifer  125

—Once it Happened 122

—Pell Street Blues  114

J. Y. Akerman (1806-1873)

—The Miniature 128

W. L. Alden (1837-1908)

—A Sleeping Car Tragedy  109

—The Development of Furlani  124

Grant Allen (1848-1899)

—Fra Benedetto's Medal 102

—The Man Who was Not on the Passenger List  131

Frederick Irving Anderson (1877-1947)

—The Hunter's Moon 108

—The Peppercorn Entail  119

Sherwood Anderson (1876-1941)

—The Other Woman 134

Anonymous

—The Butler's Revenge  127

—By the Queen's Orders  123

—Crocodile Tales  113

—Detective Death  109

—An Extra Man (as by "Jackson Gee")  139

—The Garage Crime  103

—The Ghost of Grave Gully  138

—The Ghost of Ranqueralles  127

—Lost: A Millionaire 106

—Lynch Law  137

—My First Operation  136

—The Phantom of Castle Ballyran 102

—Rogue's Room 86,  109

—A Spanish Ghost Story  134

—The Stuffed Cat 139

—The Stolen Ship 105

—Vanderdecken's Message Home  125

—The Watch   140

—The Young Earl  113

F Anstey  (1856-1934)

—The Curse of the Catafalques  132

—The Wraith of Barnjum  140

C. L. Antrobus (1846-1919)

—The Weed of Lethe 133

M. B. Archer  (fl 1889)

— A Very Queer Inn  134

Arthur Armstrong, (fl 1930s)

—Her Ladyship's Necklace  117

K. and J. Arnold, (fl. 1913)

—The Unexpected  137

Harry Ashe (fl. 1930s)

—Zero-Zero  122

William Waldorf Astor (1848-1919)

—Balkameh  110

Bertram Atkey  (1880-1952)

—The Call of the Wildwater 111

—The Case of the Drugged Golfers 111

—The Deadly House 118

—Ghosts at Stoneylands 111

—Ragan in Ruins  112

—The Statue Stealers 111

—The Un-Punctual Painting  127

—Wolfmaster  111

—The Woman With The Wolves  112

J. L. Aton (fl. 1920s)

—Creatures of the Ray  121

Stacy Aumonier (1877-1928)

—The Accident of Crime 132

—The Old Lady with the Two Umbrellas 114

F. Britten Austin (1885-1941)

—Brought Down in Flames  138

_______

J. F. B. (fl. 1867-1917)

—Throne of Chaos

Reginald Bacchus (fl 1890s-1900s)

—The Doctor's Luck  112

George Vaux Bacon (fl. 1910s)

—The Last Reel  126

John Baer (fl. 1920s)

—More Than He Could Chew  122

Clifford Ball (1908-1947)

—The Swine of Aeaea  130

Agnes and Elliot Balestier (fl. 1900s-1920s / 1871-1939)

—The Hope of Hurley 137

John Kendrick Bangs (1862-1922)

—The Water Ghost of Harrowby Hall 103

Sabine Baring‑Gould (1834-1924)

—Aunt Joanna  121

Charles R. Barnes (fl 1909-1926)

—On The Sweeny Wire  140

Charles Beadle (1881-1944)

—The Double Scoop  39

H Bedford-Jones (1887-1949)

—An American Comedy  120

—The Dance of Life 101

—George, Tête Bêche 130

—A Matter of Routine  139

—The Messenger 130

—North of Singapore  120

—The Temple of the Ten 107

—The Trail of Jeopardy 118

—Viking Loot  119

E. B. Bell (fl 1927)

—The Stolen Rubies  117

J. J. Bell (1871-1934)

—Billy   123

—The Curtain  123

T. Bell (fl 1912-1922)

—Curious Cubes   126

Robert Benchley (1889-1945)

—How to Get Things Done 103

—The Lynn Horse-Car Murders  136

Stephen Vincent Benét (1898-1943)

—We'll Never be Rich!  123

E. F. Benson (1867-1940)

—The Bed by the Window  134

—Caterpillars  135

—The Woman in the Veil  135

J. D. Beresford (1873-1947)

—The Lost Suburb  131

James A. Beverly  (fl 1910s)

— At the Crack o' Doom 105

Ambrose Bierce (1842-1914?)

—Staley Fleming's Hallucination  133

Earl Derr Biggers (1884-1933)

—Henry and the Restless Sex 106

Harriette G. Bingham (fl 1922-23)

—Wraiths  136

Ottwell Binns (1872-1935)

—The Derelict  (as by "Ben Bolt")  117

—Dixon's Romance  137

George A Birmingham (1865-1950)

—The Mermaid  128

Eugene Shade Bisbee (1864-1933)

—The Compass of Fortune 101

—A Hundred Thousand Dollar Trance 101

Robert Blatchford (1851-1943)

—The Studio  123

Tip Bliss (1890-1944)

—The Risen Dead  119

Capel Boake (Doris Boake Kerr, 1889-1944)

—The Bookshop 130

—The Secret Garden  130

Rolf Boldrewood (1826-1915)

—Dick Thornton's Mistake  138

Christopher B. Booth (1889-1950)

—Mr Clackworthy Profits by the Drama  132

Frederick Booth (1882-1948)

—Nothing But Dust  126

Marjorie Bowen (1886-1952)

—Cambric Tea 111

—The Chinese Apple  123

—Florence Flannery  112

—Marwood's Ghost Story  126

B. M. Bower (1871-1940)

—Bootlegger’s Luck  137

M. E. Braddon (1835-1915)

—How I Heard My Own Will Read  125

Max Brand (1892-1944)

—Bulldog 129

—Spy!   101

—Whistle Thrice 129

—Wine on the Desert 110

Broughton Brandenburg (fl 1900-1933)

—The Mystery of the Steel Disk 105

F. Raymond Brewster (fl. 1910s-20s)

—The Wire That Wasn't Cut  119

Roy Bridges (1885-1952)

—The Desk  113

—The Oak  113

—The Voyager  113

Thomas Charles Bridges (1868-1944)

—The Seringapatam Medal 106

—The Slatter Case 106

Willis Brindley (fl 1920s)

—The Strike at Too Dry 102

Rhoda Broughton (1840-1920)

—The Man With the Nose  109

John Buchan (1875-1940)

—The Grove of Ashtaroth 110

Edward Bulwer-Lytton (1803-1873)

—The House and the Brain  108

Walter Noble Burns  (1872-1932)

—The Man the Law Forgot  110

Lt. Morley Burroughs  (fl mid-1930s)

—Broken Images  127

Ellis Parker Butler  (1869-1937)

—Brother Bill  108

_____________

William Caine (1873-1925)

—Mr. Aroun's Jewel 122

Ada Cambridge (1844-1926)

—The Wind of Destiny  140

Scott Campbell (1858-1933)

—On Her Sole  132

Hayden Carruth (1862-1932)

—Uncle Bentley and the Roosters  107

Rathburne Case (fl 1926)

—The Gun Girl  131

Willa Cather (1873-1947)

—The Bohemian Girl  108

—Paul's Case  103

Robert W. Chambers (1865-1933)

—The Case of Mrs Helmer 107

—The Demoiselle d'Ys  134

—A Matter of Interest  106

F. E. Chase (fl 1900)

—The White Brick 127

G.K. Chesterton  (1874-1936)

—The Mask of Midas   113

—The Tower of Treason  132

Rupert Chesterton  (fl 1907-1923)

—The Black Bell Buoy 133

Peter Cheyney  (1896-1951)

—La Belle Dame Sans Souci  103

—One Born Every Minute  135

Eugene A. Clancy (1882-1952)

—Flies on the Ceiling 111

John Clemons (fl 1935-1941)

—Fresh Paint  125

Frederick Ames Coates (fl 1919-1936)

—Strictly Private  112

Irvin S. Cobb  (1876-1944)

—Ace, Deuce, Ten Spot, Joker   114

—Darkness   118

—The Gold Brick Twins  138

—Mr. Lobel's Apoplexy  138

Sylvanus Cobb, Jun. (1823-1887)

—My Mad Engineer 105

Thomas Cobb  (1854-1932)

—The Witness 106

Captain R. F. Coffin (1826-1888)

—A Female Crusoe  125

Frank Condon (1882-1940)

—Made To Order   127

Frank Conly (fl. 1912-1924)

—On the Plymouth Express 121

Richard Connell (1893-1949)

—$100   121

—The Prince Has The Mumps  138

—The Unfamiliar  123

Joseph Conrad (1857-1924)

—The Partner  138

Marie Corelli  (1855-1924)

—The Lady with the Carnations  127

Francis Marion Crawford (1854-1909)

—The Dead Smile 122

Oswald Crawfurd (1834-1909)

—Our Mr. Smith  134

Nym Crinkle  (1835-1903)

—The End of All  53

Bithia Mary Croker (1849-1920)

—The Former Passengers 133

—The Red Bungalow  114

—The Secret of the Amulet  134

—"To Let."  122

Arthur Morris Crosby (fl 1930s)

—The Little Affair of the Eiffel Tower 101

Oliver F. Crothers (fl 1932-4)

—Facsimile  118

George William Curtis (1824-1892)

—Titbottom's Spectacles  123

____________

Donald Dale (Mary Dale Buckner,  fl. 1937-1941)

—Kiss of the Flame Blossom  127

Eric A. Darling (fl. 1915-1921)

—The Undoing of Le Croix  119

Norbert Davis (1909-1949)

—Japanese Sandman  135

Sam P Davis   (1850-1918)

—Bigler's Barometer

Carlton Dawe  (1865-1935)

—Why Mrs. Wetherton Went Home  101

L. de Chavanne (1861-?)

—The Artists Story  109

Paul De Kock (1793-1871)

—The Guilty Secret  124

Richard Dehan (1863-1932)

—The Delusion of Mrs. Donohoe 133

—A Dish Of Macaroni  119

—In The Fourth Dimension 110

—Lady Clanbevan's Baby  112

—The Last Expedition 123

—The Man Who Lost Himself  104

—Mellicent  135

—The Motor-Burglar 103

—Ponsonby and the Pantheress 106

—The Revolt of Rustleton  107

—A Spirit Elopement  137

E. M. Delafield (1890-1943)

—Time Works Wonders  112

C. J. Dennis (1876-1938)

—Dennis Starpool's Windfall  127

—The Mother  101

—While Jerry was Away 102

Gerald de Vries (fl 1928-32)

—Black Cats  126

Charles Dickens (1812-1870)

—To Be Taken with a Grain of Salt  121

Captain Dingle  (1879-1947)

—Roll and Go!  109

Dick Donovan (J E Muddock, 1843-1934)

—The Barnfield Murder Case 105

—Some Experiments With a Head  107

Laurence Donovan (1885-1948)

—Death Dances on Dimes 118

—Death Shaves Close  132

—Mind Over Murder 127

—Murder's So Sorry 129

—Never Hire a Killer 112

—Pistol-Packin' Gran'ma  113

Arthur Conan Doyle (1859-1930)

—Bones  128

—My Friend the Murderer  114

—The Parasite 119

—The Retirement of Signor Lambert  136

—A Straggler of '15   140

—The Striped Chest  117

—That Little Square Box  126

Edith Stewart Drewry (1841-1925)

—A Twin Identity  138

J Allan Dunn  (1872-1941)

—Black Cat  119

—The Crowing Hens of Totulu 131

—The Flying Skull 102

—The High Rigger 122

—On the Account 100

—Skull Manor 131

—Wild Justice  128

James Francis Dwyer (1874-1952)

—The Bandaged Foot  112

—The Blush of Venus 111

—The Citizen 114

—The Kafir's Skull 111

—The Little Green Devils  111

—A Midnight Burlesque  112

—The Murdered Ships  112

—The Wild Girl  124

—The Yellow Angel  135

_______

Ross Ellis (fl 1914-1932)

—The Hawk and the White Elephant 126

John Regnault Ellyson (?—1922)

—The Revolving Head 129

George Allan England (1877-1936)

—The Head of Iskander  124

—The Man With the Glass Heart  118

—Verdict: "Suicide"  118

Cyril Etheridge (fl 1907)

—The Death of Kalu's Hand 102

H. Havelock Ettrick (fl 1899-1902)

—The Red and Black Death  101

Gwyn Evans (1898-1938)

—"The Man Who Was—"  127

_____________

Harcourt Farmer (fl  1919-1922)

—When Brasset Forgot  110

B. L. Farjeon (1838-1903)

—Little Liz  114

Jeffery Farnol (1878-1952)

—Bagged   117

—Black Coffee  121

—Cat Luck 111

—Footprints 130

—Not Much to Look At  111

—The Rook  132

Ernest Favenc (1845-1908)

—Bill Somers  128

—The Drought Demons 107

—Fraulein von Heslau 108

—The Justice of Captain Dampier  108

—The Lady Ermetta; or, The Sleeping Secret  110

—The Living Dead  109

—My Only Murder 103

—Never Save a Man from the Sea 108

—The New Super of Oakley Downs 128

—On the Back of an Envelope  128

—The Other Mrs Brewer  128

—Spirit-Led 103

—A Tale of the Western Desert 107

—The Story of a Long Watch  112

—The Strange Occurrence on Huckey's Creek 129

—The Swagman's Dream 107

—The Wastrel  109

—Those Dissipated Cows 114

John Ferguson (1871-1952)

—The White Line 111

Howard Fielding (Charles Witherle Hooke, 1861-1929)

—The Unknown Quantity  140

Mulloy Finnegan (fl 1910s)

—Sage-Brush Sally's Mother  123

Paul Fitzgerald (Gerald Beaumont, fl. 1910s-1930s)

—The Jigglesqueak  134

F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896-1940)

—Dice, Brassknuckles & Guitar  114

—Three Hours Between Planes 65

Mrs. May Agnes Fleming  (1840-1880)

—How The Lone Star Went Down  68

J. S. Fletcher (1863-1935)

—Green Ink  127

—The New Sun  121

—The Revolver 105

—A Shot in the Night 105

—The Tiger Lily 108

Homer Eon Flint (1892-1924)

—The Man in the Moon 114

John Taintor Foote (1881-1950)

—Actress Grows Old  117

Hulbert Footner  (1879-1944)

—Four o'Clock in the Morning 102

Athol Forbes (1866-1917)

— A Parish Scandal  125

Sewell Ford  (1868-1946)

—Seed To The Sower  110

George F. Forrest (fl 1900s)

—The Adventure of the Diamond Necklace  135

Mary Helena Fortune (1833-1911)

—The Red Room 103

Gilbert Frankau (1884-1952)

—Mustard-Pot—  Mountebank  111

—Patricia Jackson's Pearl Necklace  112

—Pug-Face's Daughter 111

—The Way of Silence  117

—Who Killed Castelvetri?  121

Algernon Free (fl 20's-30s)

—A Doubting Mama  124

Jacques Futrelle (1873-1912)

—The Tragedy of the Life Raft  136

_______________

John Galsworthy (1867-1933)

—The Two Looks  113

John Galt (1779-1839)

—The Black Ferry   121

Ltnt Edgar Gardiner (fl 1920s-1930s)

—Eyes of the Dead  108

Arthur Gask (1869-1951)

—Ghosts 122

—A Voice From The Dead  128

Mary Gaunt (1861-1942)

—Peter Addie and the Ju-Ju  128

J. U. Giesy (1877-1947)

—The Rose-Colored Rug 112

R. Murray Gilchrist (1868-1917)

—The Return 107

Charlotte Perkins Gilman (1860-1935)

—The Giant Wistaria  114

Guy Gilpatric (1896-1950)

—The Flaming Chariot 106

Laird Goldsborough (1902-1950)

—The Great Buddha of Kwang Ki  117

Joseph Gollomb (1881-1950)

—A Case Without a Clew  110, 139

Ralph Gordon (fl 1932-1936)

—Bubbles!  132

Winifred Graham (1873-1950)

—Badger  137

Jack Gray (fl 1930s)

—The Nudist Gym Death Riddle  110

Anna Katharine Green (1846-1935)

—Missing: Page Thirteen  140

Evelyn Everett Green (1856-1932)

—The First Class Passenger  129

Zane Grey (1872-1939)

—Tigre  107

The Brothers Grimm

—Little Snow-white  (Sneewittchen)  136

C. Ranger Gull  (1875-1923) and Reginald Bacchus (1874-1945)

See also Guy Thorne

—Le Maitres de l'Affiche  108

—The Ordeal By Fire 101

__________________

Stephen G. Hale (fl. 1931-2)

—The Laughing Death  137

James Norman Hall (1887-1951)

—Sing a Song of Sixpence 110

Arthur P. Hankins (1880-1932)

—The Infallible Eye  128

Mark Harper (1874-1952)

—Six Heads on a String 111

Kennett Harris  (1863-1929)

—A Hairbreadth 'Scape for Euphemia 129

Bret Harte (1839-1902)

— Colonel Starbottle for the Plaintiff  134

Nathaniel Hawthorne  (1804-1864)

—Dr. Heidegger's Experiment 105

—P.’s Correspondence  140

William Hay (1875-1945)

—Where The Butterflies Come From  135

Joseph Heighton (fl. 1907-1915)

—The Missing Boatswain  122

Sam Hellman (1885-1950)

—Films and Flapjacks  125

Ernest G. Henham (1870-1946)

—The Third Ovanoff  119

Henry Augustus Hering (1864-1945)

—The Crew of the Flying Dutchman  1125

—Dead Man's Hand  125

Beatrice Heron-Maxwell (1859-1927)

—The Dancer's Mascot 136

Robert S. Hichens (1864-1950)

—How Love Came To Professor Guildea  136

Roy W. Hinds (1887-1930)

—A Burglar for a Lady  132

—Mirrors  112

—"Pegged"  139

—Pursuit  140

William Hope Hodgson (1877-1918)

—Bullion!  88

Lyle Wilson Holden (fl 1920s)

—The Devil Plant  131

Lee Holt (1865-1933)

—The Necklace of Rubies  125

Anthony Hope (1863-1933)

—Count Antonio and the Wizard's Drug 105

—The House Opposite 105

—The Philosopher in the Apple-Orchard 105

E. W. Hornung (1866-1921)

—The Magic Cigar 104

Robert E. Howard (1906-1936)

—The Haunter of the Ring  132

—The Shadow of the Vulture 106

William Dean Howells (1837-1920)

—Braybridge's Offer 109

Fergus Hume (1859-1932)

—A Colonial Banshee 131

Helen Hysell  (fl. 1920s)

—The Dimpled Dumb-Bell  126

______________

Washington Irving (1783-1859)

—Rip Van Winkle 102

________________

M. R. James (1862-1936)

—Rats  109

Malcolm Jameson (1891-1945)

—Catalyst Poison  138

Val Jameson (fl 1900-1920s)

—Dixon's Theories 106

—The Waif of the Bush  128

Herbert Jamieson (fl 1904-1910)

—Fooled!  123

George B. Jenkins, Jr. (1890-1929)

—The Poppa-Guy and the Flapper  125

Herbert Jenkins (1876-1923)

—The Gylston Slander  134

"J. F. B."

—Thone of Chaos  109

__________

Ken Kessler (fl 1942-1946)

—Murder Makes a Lovely Frame  132

Richard Ashe King (1839-1932)

—Disinherited  103

—Trapped 103

Otis Adelbert Kline (1891-1946)

—Servant of Satan  117

George L. Knapp (1872-1950)

—McKeevers Dinosaur  125

Eric Knight (1897-1943)

—A Bit of a Do  124

Leavitt Ashley Knight (fl  1910s)

—The Millennium Engine 122

Meyer Krulfeld (fl  1937-1942)

—The Thing From Antares  109

_____________

Wm. E. Lanham (fl. 1890s)

—The Strange Case of Thomas Blakewitch  125

Patrick Lawrence (fl 1936)

—Death Marks the Spot  124

Henry Lawson (1867-1922)

—The Mystery of Dave Regan 101

—On The Tucker Track  101

Maurice Leblanc (1864-1941)

—The Lady With the Hatchet 131

Arthur Leeds (fl. 1915-1926)

—The Man Who Shunned the Light  109

Sheridan Le Fanu (1814-1873)

—Dickon the Devil 129

—Schalken the Painter  107

—The Spectre Lovers  135

—Squire Toby's Will 133

William Le Queux (1864-1927)

—The Mysterious Treasure of Mme Humbert  129

C. Lart (fl 1903)

—Jean Achard  123

Kenneth Latour (fl 1922-1927)

—The Last Crash 133

Maurice Leblanc (1864-1941)

—The Lady With the Hatchet  133

H. Field Leslie (fl 1920s-early 30s)

—The Night the Devil Walked 107

Lottie Lesh (fl 1930)

—The Circle of Illusion 108

Henry Leverage (Carl Henry, 1879-1931)

—Imagination 105

—Two Aces 103

—Two Voices  118

—The Voice in the Fog 110

Sinclair Lewis (1885-1951)

—Go East, Young Man  138

—The Kidnaped Memorial 132

Scott Littleton (fl. 1930s)

—Snatch  124

Sumner Locke (1881-1917)

—At the Pitch of the Scrap  131

—The Painted Wooden Soldier  132

—Paper Ladies  113

Jack London (1876-1916)

—The Pearls of Parlay 102

Edwin Truett Long (1904-1945)

—Once An Outlaw—  113

—Radium Nemesis  125  ( as by Carey Moran)

—Rain in Dahomey  113

Dorothy Margarette Selby Lowndes, 1871-1950 (as by Dolf Wyllarde)

—The Hunting of Chilton Sahib  113

Marie Belloc Lowndes (1868-1947)

—The Haunted Flat  107

_________________

Arthur Machen  (1863-1947)

—The Ceremony  117

Fred MacIsaac (1886-1940)

—The Ghost City  101

Ida Warner MacLean (fl. 1910s)

—The Hunchback of the Casentino  137

William  Maginn (1793-1842)

—The Man in the Bell  121

William J. Makin (1894-1944)

—The Rhino Charges  119

—The Tiger Woman  139

Lucas Malet (Mary St. Leger Harrison 1852-1931)

—The Birth of a Masterpiece 103

Katherine Mansfield (1888-1923)

—Poison 122

Don Marquis (1878-1937)

—The Other Room   214

Richard Marsh (1857-1915)

—The Crime 134

—A First Night 133

—The Haunted Chair  117

—La Haute Finance  137
—My Aunt's Excursion 129

—On the Film  123

—The Pipe 110

—Pugh's Poisoned Ring  138

Archibald Marshall (1866-1934)

—The Anonymous Letter 118

Radcliffe Martin (1873-1947)

—The Treasure Hunt  139

Herman Howard Matteson (1876-1951)

—The Shadow Jumper  108

—The Whispering Shell 109

—With Much Gusto 109

L. McQuaid (fl  1890s)

—The Midnight Express  135

Harold Mercer (1882-1952)

—Circumstantial Evidence  121

—Cutting a Long Story Short  133

—Keeping Killick Killed 111

—The Man With Hair Like Mine 129

—The Servicetown Mystery 111

—The Tragerigal Bobgetts 129

—The Work of Brother Petherick 129

L. McQuaid (fl 1890s)

—The Midnight Express  128

Edna St Vincent Millay (1892-1950)

—The Murder in the "Fishing Cat"  139

Pierre Mille (1864-1941)

—The Miracle of Zobéide  138

Alice Duerr Miller (1874-1942)

—Birth of a Hero  121

Henry E. Mitchell (fl. 1910)

—At Sunrise 133

Bertram Mitford (1837-1916)

—The Forty-Seven Rônin  121

Cleveland Moffett (1863-1926)

—On the Turn of a Coin  101

Dick Moreland (fl 1934-41)

—Tramp  117

Jacque Morgan (?-1925)

—The Feline Light and Power Company is Organised 137

Captain Frederick Moore (1881-1947)

—Wyatt's Pearl Business  130

William Morris (1834-1896)

—Lindenborg Pool 130

Arthur Morrison (1863-1945)

—The Thing in the Upper Room  138

William C Morrow (1853-1923)

—Over an Absinthe Bottle  134

J. E. Muddock (1843-1934)

—The Blue Star  127

Alick Munro (fl 1900s)

—The Terror of the Pond 121

________

Jan Neruda (1834-1891)

—Vampire  123

Edith Nesbit  (1886–1924)

—The Dragon Tamers 129

—In the Dark 129

—Hurst of Hurstcote 129

—A Woman's Vengeance  136

Clarence Herbert New (1862-1933)

—The Greater Plot  127

C. C. Newkirk (1870-1938)

—The Scientific Circle  130

Douglas Newton (1884-1951)

—Contrary to the Evidence  117

Hume Nisbet (1849-1921)

—The Haunted Station 126

—Norah and the Fairies 118

Charles G. Norris (1881-1945)

—The Beach  103

________________

Jack O'Brien (fl 1943-1945)

—Pieces of Hate  132

Seumas O'Brien (fl. 1915-1932)

—The Whale and the Grasshopper 133

Alice O'Hanlon (1840-?)

— An Insoluble Mystery  134

Harvey O'Higgins (1876-1929)

—The Case of the Forged Letter  127

—James Illinois Bell 129

—The Man with the Blue Nose 124

Owen Oliver  (1863-1933)

—As Told To The Children  110

—Partners  123

Baroness Orczy (1865-1947)

—The Man in the Inverness Cape 114

Roy O'Toole (fl. 1912)

—The Old Man of the Desert  121

"Ouida" (Louise Rame) 1839-1908

—A Lemon Tree 102

John Barton Oxford (Richard Barker Shelton, 1876-1944)

—Short Rations  117

__________

Frank L Packard (1877-1942)

—Contraband  132

Will A. Page (1877-1928)

—The Fur-Lined Overcoat  125

Barry Pain (1864-1928)

—Celia and the Ghost  123

Frederick C. Painton (1896-1945)

—Back Door Invasion 136

—Murder in Morocco  125

—Narcotic Man  123

—Two Paris Knights  126

William Edward Park (fl 1910s)

—As You Please 122

Gilbert Parker (1862-1932)

—Dibbs, R.N.  137

James Payn (1830-1898)

—Two Delicate Cases 129

Elia W Peattie (1862-1935)

—A Michigan Man  113

G. G. Pendarves (1885-1938)

—The Djinnee of El Sheyb 101

—El Hamel, the Lost One  126

—The Footprint 130

James Clifton Peters (fl. 1929-37)

—The Upas Tree  117

Austin Philips (1875-1947)

—Sailors' Luck 102

Marjorie Pickthall  (1883-1922)

—The Desert Road 107

—Freedom 122

—The Worker in Sandal-Wood  132

Ernest M Poate (1884-1935)

—Big, Bad Annie  113

—Mirage  101

Muriel A. Pollexfen (1876-1923)

—The Fox's Earth  109

—Mycroft's Luck  124

William H. Pope (fl. 1910s-1930s)

—The Virus of Hell  121

Melville Davisson Post (1869-1930)

—The New Administration  140

Captain John Powers  (fl 1934)

—Lost Treasures of Eden  126

Rosa Praed (1851-1935)

—The Ghost Monk  118

—Some Evidence of Alfred Curran 133

—The Stolen Ring  132

Ambrose Pratt (1874-1944)

—A King's Word 129

—Scum of the Earth: No Liability 130

Marcel Prévost (1862-1941)

—A Presentiment  119

Francis Prevost (1862-1949)

—A Ghost of the Sea  131

H. Hesketh-Prichard (1876–1922)

—Tartas The Terrible  124

—The Black Fox Skin  135

"Propellor" (fl 1931)

—Retribution  123

Mearle Prout (fl mid-1930s)

—Guarded  121

—The House of the Worm 103

Edwin Pugh (1874-1930)

—False Pretences  136

__________

A. T. Quiller-Couch  (1863-1944)

—The Legend of Sir Dinar  139

—Old Aeson  109

___________

Beatrice Redpath (1886-1937)

—The Tentacles of Evil  127

Arthur J. Rees (1872-1942)

—The Missing Passenger's Trunk  139

Lizzie C. Reid (fl 1900s)

—Confession  123

W. Pett Ridge (1859-1930)

—A Model Crime 113

—Mr. Barling's Income 101

Morgan Robertson (1861-1915)

—The Hairy Devil 119

Gary Robson (fl. 1930s)

—Frame-Up  137

Arthur Somers Roche (1883-1935)

—Alicia goes a-Burgling   101

—King of Swindlers 119

Anthony M. Rud  (1893-1942)

—Desert Gesture  125

Damon Runyon  (1880-1946)

—Palm Beach Santa Claus  117

_____________

"Saki" (H. H. Munro, 1870-1916)

—Hermann the Irascible  138

—The Talking-Out of Tarrington  112

Charles Wesley Sanders  (c1876-1937?)

—A Girl Who Was Afraid  110

Freeman Sandom (fl mid-1930s)

—Opium  123

"Sapper" (H C McNeile): (1888-1937)

—Thirteen Lead Soldiers 130

—Uncle James's Golf Match 103

Arthur Savage (fl. 1928-1940)

—The Real Thing  138

Karl Schiller (fl 1914)

—The Hands of Horror  119

Leroy Scott (1875-1929)

—The Langdon Mystery  136

Chris Sewell (fl 1901-1927)

—The Intruder  131

—Two Reflections  137

Sandy Sharp (fl 1890s)

—A Cunning Escape  124

M. P. Shiel (1865-1947)

—Dickie 106

—Orasio  Calvo  128

Margaret Busbee Shipp (1871-1936)

—The Priestess of the Purple Petunia 106

—The Prethereau Sapphire 108

Helen Simpson (1897-1940)

—Young Magic  101

Violet A. Simpson (fl 1898-1927)

—The Legend of Westry Court  128

Lady Eleanor Smith (1902–1945)

—No Ships Pass 118

Junius B. Smith (1883-1945)

—Unexpected  136

Albert Snow  (fl. 1941)

—Devil's Fire   113

Alexander Snyder (fl. 1922-1932)

—Blasphemers' Plateau  137

Theodore Seixas Solomons (fl. 1920-30s)

—A Good Old Scout  127

E. S. Sorenson (1869-1939)

—A Day on the Road  128

—That Valuable Mare  132

—The Red Wig  136

Erle R. Spencer (1897-1937)

—The Rum Runner 127

C. C. Spruce (fl. 1934-5)

—Cave of the Criss-Cross Knives  108

H. de Vere Stacpoole (1863-1951)

—Blight  122

—Passion Fruit  125

Allan Stephens (1875-?)

—A Golden Grave  113

Francis Stevens (1883-1948)

—The Curious Experience of Thomas Dunbar  128

Oliver Strange (fl 1890s-1930s)

— The Knotted String  136

Georges Surdez (1900-1949)

—Surprise Attack  126

John D. Swain (fl 1900s-1930s)

—The Mad Detective  135

Annie S. Swan (1859-1943)

—Giles Haggerston's Ward  137

______________

John Talland (fl. 1928-36)

—Conscience Money  117

Eric Taylor (fl 1920s-30s)

—Kali   135

Emile C. Tepperman (1899-1951)

—Sleuth of the Air Waves  108

—In This Corner― Death  139

Albert Payson Terhune (1872-1942)

—Cephas the Paladin 120

—Jan Verbeeck's Profession  135

—The Sights They Missed 106

—The Twenty-Four-Hour Croesus  107

Kennedy Tester (fl 1937-42)

—Murder in a Mortuary  122

William Makepeace Thackeray (1811-1863)

—The Devil's Wager 103

Eugene Thomas (fl.  1930s)

—The Adventure of the Voodoo Moon  121

Guy Thorne (C. Ranger Gull, 1876-1923)

—Ella the Ambitious  131

—A Desperate Choice  103

—The Ordeal By Fire 101

—The Prize of Marchant  124

—A Regent of Love Rhymes 102

J. F. Tilsley (fl 1910s)

—The Avenger  123

Leo Tolstoy (1828-1910)

—The Three Hermits  136

Roger Torrey (1901-1946)

—Mansion of Death 102

—Murder's Never Easy  139

J. T. Trowbridge (1827-1916)

—The Man Who Stole a Meeting-House 105

Parry Truscott  (Abbie Hargrave,  1871-1936)

—The Woman Who Sat Still  110

Charles Warren Tyler (1887-1952)

—It was Signed "Bill"  132

Hartridge D. Tyler (fl 1910-1912)

—A Steam-Room Fracas  112

Katharine Tynan  (1859-1931)

—A Castle In Spain  123

—The Castle Of Dromore  118

—The Fox  140

_________________

Louis Joseph Vance (1879-1933)

—Night  108

Evelyn Van Buren (fl 1906-1917)

—Connie   136

Charles E. Van Loan (1876-1919)

—The Crusader 106

Alexander Vindex Vennard (1884-1947)

(Except as otherwise noted, all as by "Frank Reid")

—Easy Going  (as by "Bill Bowyang")  123

—The Genius of Dakaru 133

—The Skeleton of Paradise Island  134

—The Pearls of Jacob Le Maire  135

Paul Vernier (fl 1919)

—The Sting of Victory  125

E. Charles Vivian (1882-1947)

—Long Pig   124

______________

Robert A. Wait (fl 1929-35)

—The Invisible Finite  126

Edgar Wallace (1875-1932)

—A Priestess of Osiris  134

—The Disappearance of Lady Mary Bretley 139

W. B. Wallace (fl 1900s)

—The Demon of the Opal  101

George Arthur Walstab (1834-1909)

—The House by the River  112

Waif Wander (1833-1911)

—Christmas Eve Long ago at Braidwood 129

—The Convict's Revenge  127

—The Cross of Kilbawn  139

—One Year  135

—Give Every Man a Chance  128

Harold Ward (aka Ward Sterling, 1879-1950)

—"I Am Dead!"  118

—The Sporting Chance  137

—The Thing From the Grave 137

Edward Parrish Ware (1883-1949)

—Hell's Back Room  109

—Killer's Can't Fly  109

Cy Warman (1855-1914)

—Sycamore: A Ghost Story  136

Gladys Waterer (fl  1911-1923)

— The "Gossip"  136

Henry Brereton Marriott Watson (1863-1921)

—The Devil of the Marsh  117

F A M Webster (1886-1949)

—The Black Patch 118

—The Owl 122

—Rats  119

Lester Weil (fl 1934)

—White Lie  137

Stanley G. Weinbaum (1902-1935)

—Pygmalion's Spectacles  124

Hugh C. Weir (1884-1934)

—The Man With Nine Lives  114

Carolyn Wells (1862-1942)

—Christabel's Crystal   117

G.A. Wells (fl 1917-1938)

—The Ghoul and the Corpse 128

Albert Richard Wetjen (1900-1948)

—Checkmate 1219

—The Fortunes of War  114

—Strain 105

—You Can't Explain These Things  114

Edward Lucas White, 1866-1934

—Loki's Sword  122

—The Skewbald Panther  117

Ethel Lina White (1879-1944)

—At Twilight  113

—The Call of the Tiger  118

—Catastrophe  132

—Don't Dream on Midsummer's Eve  138

—The Gilded Pupil  140

—The Ghost Gavotte 130

—Lighting Strikes Twice  134

—Pink Tulips 133

—The Royal Visit  138

—The Sham Shop  118

—Snapragon and Ghost  135

—Thumbs Down  131

—The Uninvited Guest 122

—The Unknown  130

—You'll Be Surprised  134

—The Unlocked Window 122

—Waxworks  122

Fred M. White (1859-1935)

—Adventure  109

—Blind Chance 123

—Nerves 140

—The Western Way  110

—The Wings of Chance  117

Victor L. Whitechurch (1868-1933)

—Launched at Society  124

Henry S. Whitehead (1882-1932)

—The Cunning of the Serpent  119

—No Eye-Witnesses 102

—West India Lights 102

V. Omar Whitehead (fl 1919)

—The Green Hat   127

Raoul Whitfield (1896-1945)

—Kiwi  113

—Mistral 119

—Smoky Skies  110

Valentine Williams (1883-1946)

—At The Shrine of Sekhmet  139

John Strange Winter (1856-1911)

—Another Johnnie  123

Owen Wister (1860-1938)

—Padre Ignacio  126

H. C. Witwer (1890-1929)

—Lady of Lyons, N. Y.  112

—An Even Break  133

Thomas Wolfe (1900-1938)

—The Sun and the Rain 105

William Almon Wolff (1885-1933)

—Keep Your Eye on the Ball 126

—Time to Unmask  125

P C Wren (1875-1941)

—The Quest  135

Dolph Wyllarde (Dorothy Margarette Selby Lowndes, 1871-1950)

—The Hunting of Chilton Sahib 139

May Wynne (1875-1949)

—Suffocated  131

_________________

W. Clyde Young (fl 1923-1939)

—Kisses in the Dark  128

____________________

Arthur Leo Zagat (1895-1949)

—They Dine in Darkness  131

____________________

Original Collections Since 7 Oct 2022

CAPEL BOAKE (Doris Boake Kerr)

The House by the River,  and other stories

1: The Chateau

2: The Necessary Third

3: Jenny

4: Finito I'Amore

5: Atavism

6: The House by the River

7: The Bookshop

8: Tiny Feet

9: The Amber Necklace

10: Rose Aylmer

11: The Contract

12: The Secret Garden

13: The Bend of the Road

14: Strawberry Farm

15: Smith's George

16: The Wooden Buddha

17: The Green God

18: A Touch of the Sun

19: James

20: The Room Next Door

21: Quicksilver

22: The Brothers

23: Scarlet Hibiscus

24: The Wooing of Betty

25: The Redemption

26: "Doug."

27: A Matter of Business

28: The Making of a Star

29: Murray's Farm

30: The Sad Case of Miss Brown

________

ERNEST FAVENC

Uncollected Tales Vol 1

1: A Tale of the Western Desert

2: The Swagman's Dream

3: A Hypnotic Experience

4: The Drought Demons

5: The Murder of Tom Bates

6: A Fatal Gamble

7: The Haunted Steamer

8: The Mystery of the Death Stroke

9: An Unwilling Pirate

10: The Mount of Misfortune

11: The Prisoner of War

12: The Mad Hatter

13: Tralooa

14: The Puzzle Chart

15: Fey

16: The Lost Gully

17: A Ghostly Tryst

18: Fraulein von Heslau

19: Bread Cast on the Waters

20: The Dead Malay

21: The Phantom Cab

22: The Luck of Tintinburra

23: The Skeleton's Legacy

24: The Chapel in the Desert

25: The Horror of Leston Downs

26: Fate of Kittycrummie

27: The Land of Wait

28: A Long Road's End

29: The Mistake of a Life

30: Glugson's Bend Sanatorium

31: The Last of Old Rat

32: An Unquiet Corpse

33: The Gonderanups

34: My Only Murder

Uncollected Tales Vol 2

1: A Racial Mixture

2: The Wastrel

3: The Living Dead

4: Fraulein von Heslau

5: Never Save a Man from the Sea

6: The Justice of Captain Dampier

7: The Kaditcha

8: The Black Waterhole

9: The Great Treasure Lobster

10: Kept Secret

11: Body-stealing Extraordinary

12: The Burning Mountain of the Interior

13: The Mystery of the Pocket Book

14: Jim's Latest Experience

15: For Peace and Quiet

16: A Christmas of the Past

17: The Birds of the Air

18: Something to his Advantage

19: Captain Etienne Despard

20: An Outside Incident

21: A Message From The Desert

22: How We Slewed Old Stoney

Uncollected Tales Vol 3

1: Horatio's Confession of Hope

2: The Lady Ermetta

3: The Shadow of a Shadow

4: A Gruesome Shipmate

5: Matthewson's Invisible Pig

6: Four Junction Creek

7: My Socialist

8: The Abduction of Nettletop

9: Jobblestone's Curry

10: A Resurrection

11: Reformation of Miverson's Parrot

12: Record of a Homicide

13: The Island of Scoriae

14: That Fool Jones

15: A Substantial Ghost

16: Accursed Coin

17: A Tale of Vanderlin Island

18: Brewster's Afflicted Dog

19: Jimbras of West Australia

20: Dopper's Legacy

21: The Invisible Horseman

22: At Fever Camp

23: The Secret of the Gorge

24: The Proggleton Cup

25: The Medium

26: Jonson's Flea-bitten Grey

27: The Deaf Cook

28: The Strange Adventure of George Vallance

Uncollected Tales Vol 4

1: Mrs Darke's Dream

2: The  Haunted Milk Bucket

3: An Injured Ghost

4: The Mass-Hassa

5: Of the Trouble Caused by Timothy

6: In the Lap of Delilah

7: A Wrecked Fortune

8: The Peak of Lost Dreams

9: M'Phail's Roan Bull

10: A Year's Reprieve

11: A Plot That Failed

12: The Hill of the White Dead

13: The Story of a Bottle

14: A Romance of Kangaroo Point

15: A Great War Number

16: Johnson's Chow

17: A Mean Piece of Work

18: The Desert Queen

19: Waifs of the Straits

20: My Friend Caliban

21: A Buccaneer's Diary

22: The Grasp of the Dead

23: A Tragedy of Ears

24: Mystery of the Overland Line

25: Half-Castes of Mt Doubletop

26: The Pest Year of 1905

27: The Boy and the Black

Uncollected Tales Vol 5

1: The Unholy Experiment of Martin Shenwick

2: The Ghostly Bullock-Bell

3: The Spell of the Mas-Hantoo

4: The Sacrifice of Norman Grainger

5: On the Island of Shadows

6: Malchook's Doom

7: The Red Lagoon

8: The Last Message

9: M'Whirter's Wraith

10: An Outstanding Debt

11: The Boundary Rider's Story

12: Blood For Blood

13: A Strange Occurrence on Huckey's Creek

14: Doomed

15: A Doomed Man

16: The Ghost's Victory

17: In The Night

18: An Unquiet Spirit

19: The Track of the Dead

20: A Geological Nightmare

21: Jerry Boake's Confession

22: A Desert Mystery

23: Farrar's Mission

24: A Poet's Mistake

25: Spirit-Led

26: The Story of Lafont

27: Darkie

28: Sundered Paths

29: A Visitation

30: The Legend Drameedah Told

31: Brown's Range

Uncollected Tales Vol 6

1: Those Dissipated Cows

2: A Lay of Ravenswood

3: The Gold King

4: Morrison's Buggy

5: The Youvel Mountain Ghosts

6: The Doom of the Desert

7: A Feud in the Far West

8: Not Retributive Justice

9: A Gum-tree in the Desert

10: The Martinet

11: A Missing Vessel

12: The Lively Dick

13: The White Men of New Guinea

14: A Reigning Family of New Guinea

Tales of the Unexplainable

15: Mrs Maunder's Vision

16: The Shadow of a Shadow

17: The Communicative Organ Grinder

18: An Unquiet Corpse

19: Rosita's Curse

20: Professor Dodo's Experiment

210: Gannon's Ghost

22: The Black Waterhole

23: Brewsters Afflicted Dog

24: The Cataleptic

25: The Haunted Milk Bucket

26: The Black Gin's Curse

27: "Back in Ten Minutes"

287: Wicked Benson

29: The Invisible Horseman

30: Jonson's Flea-Bitten Grey

Tales of the Tender Passion

31: Jim's Device

32: She Didn't Do

33: Mad MacGregor's Wooing

34: Jim's Second Experience of It

35: The Downfall of Smailes

36: Jim's Last and Serious Case

Uncollected Tales Vol 7

1: A Very Drunken Ghost

2: The Oldest Inhabitant

3: The Shilling Reef

4: Benson's Bride

5: Natural History of a Thousand Years Ago

6: The Askinville Feud

7: A Tale of the Sixties.

8: A Tale of Carpentaria

9: A Suburban Mystery

10: The Freckleton Fountain.

11: Revenge of Bankson's Ghost

12: The Eight-Mile Tragedy

13: What Puzzled Balladune.

14: Tommy's Ghost

15: Mrs. Stapleton No. 2

16: A Tradition of the MacArthur River

17: The Extra Hand

18: Faithful Unto Death

19: The New Super of Oakley Downs

20: Bill Somers

21: A Bush Idyll

22: The Pituri Curse

23: A Snake Story

24: Clarissa

25: The Cook's Love Story

26: A Yarn of a Pub

27: The Story of a Rock Hole

28: Darkie

29: A Fusion of Intellects

30: Diary of a Sydney Office Boy

31: The First Discoverers of the West Australian Goldfields

32: The Great Cataclysm of 1897

33: Half a Poem

34: A Hypnotised Dog

35: In the Arctic Circle

36: Tommy's Fall

37: The Lost Tribe

38: The Member for Turrawilligar

39: Outlaw Tracking

40: Tomlinson's Transformation

41: The True Story of the Marvellous Fossil Discovery

42: The Two Mayors

43: Ching How's Revenge

____________________

EDGAR JEPSON

The Dead that Wept, and other stories

1: The Humanising of the Bishop

2: The Wrong Man's Daughter

3: The Dead That Wept

4: The Burglar, The Twins, and Ernestine

5: The Carling Cure

6: The Rejuvenation of Bellamy Grist

7: Jerry Bilder's Mistake

8: The Thing in the Two-Pair Back

9: Daffy

10: Lady Drysdale's Theft

11: Priscilla's Poaching

12: The Tea-Leaf  (with  Robert Eustace)

13: Mr. Belton's Immunity (with  Robert Eustace)

14: The Emerald Celt

15: The Bechut Mystery

16: A Criminal Freak

___________________

HAROLD MERCER

The Grave of Pierre Lamont and other stories

1: Doing the Right Thing

2: The Honor of the Family

3: Checkmate

4: The Work of Brother Petherick

5: The Romance of Ginger Mick

6: The Tango With the Stars (verse)

7: A Bit of 'Bacca

8: Reardon’s Rhapsodies.

9: The Good Samaritan

10: The Grave of Pierre Lamont

11: The Fairy Godmother

12: Grigson With the Wind Up

13: The Tragerigal Bobgetts

14: Old Maudie

15: The Melbourne Cup Mystery

16: Biggar in a New Suit

17: Glubson— Realist (verse)

18: Disembowelled Spirits

19: Cutting a Long Story Short

20: The Fakir

21: The Climax

22: The Confession

23: Unleashing The Lease

24: The Lottery Ticket

25: Everybody Dies

26: The Man With Hair Like Mine

27: A Memory of Morbecque

28: Non-Union Ghost

29: The Crabbiness of Miss Cripps

30: Honor Among Thieves

31: Biggar and Better Times

32: Uncle Bill Comes to Light

33: Marketing our Bridge

34: “With Self-Clipped Wings"

_________________

"FRANK REID" (1884-1947)

(Alexander Vindex Vennard)

The Skeleton of Paradise Island, and other stories

1: Easy Going

2: The Genius of Dakaru Island

3: The Skeleton of Paradise Island

4: Come-To-Grief Creek

5: The Gamble

6: The Moorhead Legacy

7:  The Pearls of Manomoa

8: The Green Parrot

9: The Parrot and the Pearls

10: The Madonna of the Thousand Isles

11: The Prince of Wandabilla

12: The Pink Death

13: Fingers of Death

14:  The Green Umbrella

15: The Pearler of Pomete

16:  The Curse of the Poppy

17: Cave of Death

18: The Creeping Death

19: Three Teeth

20: The Afterglow

21: Scalyback

22: The Plague Ship

23: Long Pig: The Mate's Adventure

24: The Pearls of Jacob Le Maire

25: The Mutiny on the Cypress

26: The Resurrection of Peter Breen

27: The Orang-Utan

26: A Home for Marie Ellen

__________________

ETHEL LINA WHITE

The Uninvited Guest and other stories

1: Cheese

2: Waxworks

3: The Scarecrow

4: An Unlocked Window

5: White Cap

6: Falling Downstairs

7: Green Ginger

8: The Holiday

9: The Sham Shop

10: The Call of the Tiger

11: At Twilight

12: The Uninvited Guest

The Ghost Gavotte  and other stories

1: The Ghost Gavotte

2: The Unknown

3: Catastrophe

4: Thumbs Down

5: Underground

6: The Seven Years' Secret

7: A Bad-Good Woman

8: Noblesse Oblige

9: The Pillow

10: Maids of Honour

11: The Day

12: The Suicide and the Saint

13: The Counter-Irritant

14: The Cellar

15: Don't Dream on Midsummer's Eve

16: The Fairy Pot

17: If You Can... Lose

18: It Hung on a Thread

_________________

HENRY S. WHITEHEAD

Thirty-Two Uncanny Tales

1: The Door / Nov 1924

2: The Fireplace / Jan 1925

3: The Wonderful Thing / July 1925

4: Across The Gulf / Weird Tales, May 1926.

5: Jumbee / Sep 1926

6: The Projection of Armand Dubois / Oct 1926

7: West India Lights / April 1927

8: The Left Eye / June 1927

9: The Shadows / Weird Tales Nov 1927

10: The Cult of the Skull / Dec 1928

11: The People of Pan / March 1929

12: Black Tancrède / June 1929

13: Sweet Grass / July 1929

14; The Lips / Sep 1929.

15: The Tabernacle / Jan 1930

16: The Shut Room / April 1930

17: Passing of a God / Jan 1931

18: The Tree-Man / Feb-March 1931

19: Black Terror / Oct 1931

20: Cassius / Nov 1931

21: The Moon-Dial / Jan 1932

22: The Trap / March 1932

23: Mrs. Lorriquer / April 1932

24: The Great Circle / June 1932

25: Seven Turns in a Hangman's Rope / 15 July 1932

26: No Eye-Witnesses / Aug 1932

27: The Napier Limousine/ Jan 1933

28: The Chadbourne Episode / Feb 1933

29: Bothon / Aug 1946

30: The Ravel Pavane / 1946

31: Scar-Tissue / 1946

32: "—In Case of Disaster Only" / 1946

______________________

Table of Contents

- Unnamed
- 2: A Straggler of '15 / Arthur Conan Doyle
- 3: The Wraith of Barnjum / F. Anstey
- 4: The Wind of Destiny / Ada Cambridge
- 5: The Gilded Pupil / Ethel Lina White

- 6: Missing: Page Thirteen / Anna Katharine Green

- 7: The Fox / Katharine Tynan
- 8: The Watch / Anonymous
- 9: Nerves / Fred M. White
- 10: On The Sweeny Wire / Charles R. Barnes

- 11: P.’s Correspondence / Nathaniel Hawthorne

- 12: Pursuit / Roy W. Hinds

- 13: The Unknown Quantity / Howard Fielding

- 14: The New Administration / Melville Davisson Post

- Cumulative Index Issues 101-140