PAST MASTERS 116

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

V1 began with 2 stories which have since found to be copyright, and they have been replaced in V2 by two other stories. V1 is no longer available.

V2,  22 Nov 2023

Contents

1: The Order of the Bath / Irvin S. Cobb

2: The Legend of Sleepy Hollow / Washington Irving

3: On the Plains / Ernest Favenc

4: Paint Me as I Am / Kenneth Barber

5: Haunted By A Bard / H. F. Lester

6: Nominated for Murder / Roger Torrey (novelette)

7: Oysthers! / Gordon Young

8: The Purple Emperor / Robert W Chambers

9: Bones! / Richard Dehan

10: The End of the Path / Newbold Noyes

11: The Unknown Masterpiece / Frederick Irving Anderson

12: According To The Evidence / Hugh Pendexter

13: The Wonderful Tune / Jessie Douglas  Kerruish

14: Rats / Michael Annesley

15: The Floating Island of Madness / Jason Kirby

16: Ship of the Golden Ghoul / Lazar Levi

_______________

1: The Order of the Bath

Irvin S. Cobb

1876–1944

From: Ladies and Gentlemen, 1927

IT SEEMED like everything that was happening that week happened to the Gridleys. Substantially, these were Mrs. Gridley's own words in speaking of the phenomena.

To begin with, their waitress quit practically without any warning at all. Afflicted by that strange and sudden migratory impulse which at times affects most of the birds and many of the hired help, she walked out between two suns. In the second place, the water famine reached a point where the board of trustees forbade the use of water for all-over bathing purposes or for wetting-down lawns or washing cars or sprinkling streets or spraying flower-beds even; and Mr. Gridley, as one of the trustees, felt it incumbent upon him to set a proper example before the rest of the community by putting his own household upon the strictest of rations, abluently speaking. In the third place, Mr. Jeffreys Boyce-Upchurch, the eminent English novelist, became their guest. And fourthly, although not occurring in this order, the Gridleys took on a butler of the interesting name of Launcelot Ditto.

To a considerable extent, three of these events were interrelated. The drought which had brought on the shortage in the village reservoir was the isolated exception, a manifestation of freaky nature and of absolutely unprecedented weather conditions. But the others were more or less coordinated. If their old waitress had not quit on them the Gridleys would not have been in the market for a new servant to fill the vacancy, and if Mr. Boyce-Upchurch had not been coming to stay with them it was possible she might not have quit at all. There was a suspicion that she was influenced by a private objection to so much company in the heat of the summer, Mrs. Gridley's mother and sister from Baltimore, the latter bringing her little boy with her, having just concluded a two weeks' stay; and if it had not been Mr. Boyce-Upchurch who was coming, but some less important person, the Gridleys would have been content with hiring for the succession one who also was a female and home-grown, or if not exactly home-grown, one belonging to almost any of the commoner Nordic stocks— say Scandinavian or Celtic— whereas it was felt that the advent of a Boyce-Upchurch called for something of an especially rich and fruity imported nature in the line of butlers. At least, such was the language employed by Mrs. Gridley's brother, Mr. Oliver Braid, in describing, this phase of the issue. He— young Mr. Braid— was the only member of the household who declined to take the situation seriously. In this regard he stood quite alone. Mr. Gridley took it seriously, as, to a more or less degree, did the neighbors also. But Mrs. Gridley took it most seriously of all.

Its seriousness began to lay hold upon her in the morning on a Monday, which proverbially is a bothersome day for housewives anyhow, when Miss Rena Belle Titworthy, the recording secretary of the Ingleglade Woman's Club and its only salaried officer, called to break the news to her, it being that in the judgment of a majority of the active workers in the club Mrs. Gridley should have the distinguished pleasure of entertaining Mr. Boyce-Upchurch on the occasion of his impending visit. In a more vulgar circle of life the same thing has been termed passing the buck.

"But," expostulated Mrs. Gridley, "but— of course I feel flattered and I am sure Henry will, too, when he comes home tonight and hears about it— but I'm afraid we couldn't make such a prominent man comfortable. Our house is rather small and all that, and besides there's Olga having packed up and left only last night and all that. Really, don't you think, Miss Rena Belle, that he would prefer to go to the hotel where he could be— you know— quieter and more to himself? Or to Mrs. Wainwright's? She's the president of the club and she's the madam chairman of the executive committee besides, and naturally the pleasure of having Mr. Boyce-Upchurch should go to her. Her house is a mansion, almost, while we—"

Miss Titworthy caught her up right there.

"No," said Miss Titworthy firmly. Miss Titworthy had authority about her and a considerable distinction. She was large and deep-chested and combined in her manner the magisterial and the managerial and, subtly, the maternal. She had all that a motherly woman should have, except children. And, as just stated, she was large, while on the other hand Mrs. Gridley was slight and, upon the whole, plastic by temperament, not to say bordering on the yielding. And bulk, in such cases, counts.

"Pardon me," said Miss Titworthy still more firmly, "pardon me, my dear, but no. Madam Chairman Wainwright is closing up their place to go to their other place in the Berkshires; you must have known that. Probably you forgot it. And the hotel is quite out of the question. I had a letter only yesterday from Mr. Boyce-Upchurch, written by him personally— it seems he doesn't carry a secretary with him on his tour— saying he preferred stopping at some private home. He mentioned the inconveniences of American hotels and something about their exceedingly high rates. I'm going to keep it as a souvenir. And so, what with Madam Chairman Wainwright closing up and you being the first vice-president— well, there you are, aren't you?" concluded Miss Titworthy with a gesture which was meant to be a death blow to further argument.

"And then the water being shut off— I'm thinking of that, too," said Mrs. Gridley, but in a weakening tone. "Henry had the plumber come and disconnect all three of the bathtubs. He said he wasn't going to put temptation in the way of his own family or himself, either. I know lots of people are doing it on the sly— using a hose, too— but I can't even have a little water in a sprinkling can for my poor withered flowers. Look at them out of that window there— just literally drying up. And we're sending all the wash, even the flat pieces, to the Eagle Laundry. And Henry is going to his club in town for a bath every day, and I'm doing the best I can with the wash-basin and a sponge, and the way Nora— that's my cook's name— and Delia, the waitress— now that Olga has gone, Delia's the only other girl we've got left— the way those two carry on and complain you'd think I was personally responsible for the fact that not a drop of rain has fallen in over two months. And the English being such great hands for their tubs and all, and Mr. Boyce-Upchurch being an Englishman and all, why, I'm honestly afraid, Miss Rena Belle, that he'll be awfully put out.

"I dessay he'll be able to accommodate himself to a condition over which none of us has any control," stated Miss Titworthy. "He'll arrive Wednesday afternoon on the five o'clock boat. He asked that he be met with a car. I dessay you'll be wanting to give a little dinner to him Wednesday evening. I don't know what he'll want to do Thursday morning— be driven around, I imagine. And Thursday afternoon there's the reception at the Woman's Club, and his lecture is that night, and Friday he leaves for Trenton where he has his next date on Saturday. He did write something about preferring to be ridden over to Trenton."

"I could take him over myself," said Mrs. Gridley, her citadel undermined and she rapidly capitulating, "if he doesn't mind going in a two-seated runabout."

"There'll be no trouble about the car," stated Miss Titworthy. "I dessay someone will proffer the use of a touring car."

"Well, that point is settled then," agreed Mrs. Gridley, now entirely committed to the undertaking. "But I must get somebody in and broken in to take Olga's place between now and Wednesday. Really that gives me only today and tomorrow, and help is so hard to get, you've no idea, Miss Titworthy! I suppose I'd better run into town this afternoon and go to the employment agencies. No, I can't,— there's my bridge lesson. And tomorrow is the Fergus' tea. I can't go then, either. I promised Mrs. Fergus I'd pour. I suppose I'll have to get Henry or my brother Oliver to do it. But neither one of them would know how to pick out a girl, provided there's any choice at the agencies to pick from— oh, dear!"

"Had you thought of a butler?" inquired Miss Titworthy.

"A butler?"

"Yes, instead of a maid. You'll pardon the suggestion but I was thinking that Mr. Boyce-Upchurch being a foreigner and accustomed, of course, to butlers, and a butler giving a sort of air— a tone, as it were— to a household, that perhaps— well—"

They had fallen on fertile ground, those seeds. They were sprouting, germinating. Before the massive shoulders of the Ingleglade Woman's Club's efficient recording secretary had vanished down the bowery and winding reaches of Edgecliff Avenue they were putting forth small green speculative shoots through Mrs. Gridley's mind. Always and ever, from the very first days of her married life, Mrs. Gridley had cherished in the back of her mind a picture of an establishment in which the butler, a figure of dignity and poise and gray striped trousers in the daytime but full-dress by night, would be the chief of staff. As what woman has not? And now for the gratifying of that secret ambition she had an excuse and a reason.

SECTION TWO of this narrative brings us to another conversation. At this stage the narrative seems somehow to fall naturally into sections, but one has a premonition that toward the last it will become a thing of cutbacks and close-ups and iris-ins and fade-outs, like a movie. It brings us to this other conversation, which passed over the telephone between Mrs. Gridley and her brother Mr. Oliver Braid.

"Well, Dumplings," said that gentleman, speaking at noon of Tuesday from his office, "the hellish deed is done!"

"You got one then?" she answered eagerly.

"Got one? Madam, you wrong me and you low-rate him. I got the One and only One— the Original One. The only misleading thing about him is his name. Be prepared for a pleasant shock. It's Launcelot Ditto. I ask you to let that soak into your tissues and be absorbed by the system. Only Ditto means more of the same and if I'm any judge, there aren't any more at home like him and there never will be. But the Launcelot part fits like a union suit.

"Oh, girl, I'm telling you he's got everything, including the adenoids. Not the puny domestic brand of our own faulty and deficient land, mind you, but the large, super-extra-fine export, golden-russet adenoid of that favored island whose boast is that Britons never shall be slaves except to catarrh. And he's as solemn as a Masonic funeral. And he stepped right out of a book by way of the stage. He ought to be serving strawberries and Devonshire cream on the terrace to the curate of St. Ives and the dear old Dowager Duchess of What-you-may-call-'em, while the haw-haw blooms in the hedgerow. He ought to be coming on at the beginning of Act One to answer the telephone and pat the sofa pillows smooth and fold up 'The Pink 'Un,' and sigh deeply because the Young Marster is going to the dogs. He ought to be outlining the plot to a housekeeper in rustling black silk named Meadows."

"Ollie Braid, are you delirious?"

"Not at all. I am dazed, dazzled, blinded, but I am not delirious. I can half shut my eyes and see him in his hours of ease sitting in our buttery perusing that sprightly volume with full-page illustrations entitled 'The Stately Homes of Old England.' Sounds pretty good, eh what? Good— hell! He's perfect. He certainly ought to do a lot for us socially over there in Ingleglade. I can half shut 'em again and see the local peasantry turning a lovely pea-green with envy as he issues forth on the front lawn to set up the archery butts so that we may practice up on our butting. That's another place where the buttery will come in handy."

"He was willing to come out, then?"

"Well, at first he did balk a little on the idea of demeaning himself by accepting a position with the lower or commuting classes. The country, yes; the town, perhaps, but the environs— well, hardly. That was his attitude. But with my lilting love-song I won him, he-siren that I am. I told him Ingleglade was not really suburban but merely outlying, if one gets what one means. That wasn't deception, that was diplomacy. Anyhow, haven't we got some of the outlyingest real-estate dealers in the entire state of New Jersey? Do we not combine all the drawbacks of the city with few or none of the advantages of the country? I often sit and wonder whence comes this magic power of mine for bending strong natures to my will. The crowning stroke was when I told him Boyce-Upchurch was so shortly to honor us. That won him. He admires Boyce-Upchurch tremendously. Not his books— he hasn't read 'em— but it seems he knows Boyce-Upchurch's uncle, who's an archduke or a belted earl or something well up among the face-cards."

"You talk too much, Oliver. You think you're funny and you aren't."

"Oh, but, madam—"

"Shut up a minute! He has references, of course?"

"Fair lady, sweet dame, I plight you my solemn word that with the references he's got from noble British families he could be our ambassador to the Court of St. James the day after he took out his naturalization papers. He's temporarily unattached but that's because he hasn't been able to find anybody worthy of him. He's only taking us on trial. Why hark ye, lass, he used to work for the 'Un'rable 'Urrible 'Ubbs. He's got the documents to prove it."

"The what?"

"I'm merely telling you what he said. It didn't sound like a name to me, either, at first. But now it's beginning to grow on me; I may make a song out of it."

"When will he be out?"

"This very night. I'm chaperoning him personally. We are to meet at the ferry, and I'm to wear a primrose in my buttonhole in case he's forgotten how I look. I'm reading up now on the history of the Norman Conquest. I want to be prepared to meet him on his own ground should he care for conversation."

"Ollie, you always were an idiot."

"Dear wench, 'tis a family failing. I have a sister, a flower-like slip of a thing, but, alas, she suffers from pollen in the pod."

"And what's more, she's going to give you a hard slap the first chance." Over the line her voice took on an uncertain tone. "Of course I know you're exaggerating frightfully but—"

"As regards Launcelot, you couldn't exaggerate. He confounds the powers of description. He baffles the most inventive imagination. He—"

"Oh, do listen! All at once I'm beginning to worry about Norah. I hadn't thought of her until right now."

"What of Norah?"

"Well, from what you say and even making allowances for your romancing, this man must be very English. And Norah's so— so Irish. Delia is, too, for that matter. But especially Norah."

"Strange, but I had noticed that myself about our Norah."

"Notice it?— I should say. She calls the English— what is it she calls them?"

"Black-and-Tans. Also Saxon oppressors. Also a name which is pronounced by hissing first and then gritting the teeth in a bitter manner. I think it's an old Gaelic word signifying Oliver Cromwell. You may recall having heard that Norah has a brother who had some personal misunderstanding with the authorities in Dublin in the year 1916. He became at that time very seriously antagonized toward them. And it looks to me as though Norah was inclined to take sides in the controversy."

"Naturally. But she may make trouble. I hadn't thought of that before. And if he should happen to do anything or say anything to arouse her or if she should take one of her grudges against Mr. Boyce-Upchurch— oh, I'm scared, Oliver!"

"Prithee be blithe and gay. Norah and I understand each other. We have a bond between us or will have one as soon as I tell her privately that I'm contributing to a fund for financing an uprising on the part of those poor down-trodden Hindus. Immediately on my arrival this evening I'll take Norah apart and—"

"You'll do what?"

"Don't worry. I'm going to put her back together again, so you'd never notice it. But I'll take her apart and beg her for my sake to remain calm, cool, and collected. You leave Norah to me."

"I suppose I'll have to; there's nothing else to be done. And, Oliver, you may be a born idiot but just the same you're a dear for going to all this trouble on my account and I do appreciate it. There— I'm throwing you a kiss by wire."

"Kindly confine yourself to appreciating Launcelot— that, God wot, will be reward enough for me, fond heart. And in case either our butler or our guest, or both of them, should desire to call the tenants in from the estate, all to stand and join in singing the Royal Anthem, please remember how it goes— God Save the King until Norah's Brother Can Get at Him!"

DITTO SHIFTED from civilian garb and served dinner that evening. It became a meal that was more than a meal; it became a ceremonial. There was a formalism to it, there was pomp and circumstance. The passing of a dish was invested with a ritualistic essence. Under Ditto's ministrations so simple a dessert as cold rice pudding took on a new meaning. One wondered what Ditto could have done with a fancy ice. One felt that merely with a loaf of bread and a jug of wine and none of the other ingredients of Old Omar's recipe for a pleasant evening, he nevertheless could have fabricated the plausible illusion of a banquet of courses. Mrs. Gridley was thrilled to her marrows— possibly a trifle self-conscious, but thrilled.

After dinner and a visit to the service wing, Mr. Braid sought out his sister on the veranda where she was doing what most of her sister-villagers of parched Ingleglade were doing at that same hour— wishing for rain.

"Well, Dumplings," he said, "you may continue to be your own serene self. In me behold a special plenipotentiary doing plenipotenching by the day, week, or job, satisfaction guaranteed or money refunded. I've just had a little heart-to-heart chat with Norah and there isn't a cloud in the sky as large as a man's hand."

"I wish there were— this terrible drought!" she said, her thoughts divided between the two concerns uppermost in her mind. "What did you say to her?"

"I approached the subject with my customary tact. With a significant glance toward the visiting nobleman I reminded Norah that blood was thicker than water, to which she piously responded by thanking God for three thousand miles of the water. Still, I think she's going to keep the peace. For the moment, she's impressed, or shall I say fascinated. Ditto is high-hatting her something scandalous, and she's taking it. For all our Norah's democratic principles she evidently carries in her blood the taint of a lurking admiration for those having an aristocratic bearing, and Ditto is satisfying the treasonable instinct which until now she has had no chance to gratify— at least, not while living with us. As for Delia, that shameless hussy is licking the spoon and begging for more. She's a traitor to United Ireland and the memory of Daniel O'Connell.

"Mind you, I'm not predicting that the spell will endure. The ancient feud may blaze up. We may yet have a race war in our kitchen. For all you know, you may at this moment be sitting pretty on a seething volcano; but unless something unforeseen occurs I think I may safely promise you peace and harmony, during the great event which is about to ensue in our hitherto simple lives.

"For, as I said just now, Norah is under a thrall— temporary perhaps but a thrall just the same. Well, I confess to being all thralled-up myself. That certainly was a high-church dinner— that one tonight was. Several times I was almost overcome by a well-nigh irrepressible temptation to get up and ask Ditto to take my place and let me pass a few things to him."

"I don't believe there ever has been such a drought," said Mrs. Gridley.

"Ho, hum, well, I suppose we'll all get used to this grandeur in time," said Mr. Braid. "I wonder if he is going to put on the full vestments every night no matter whether we have company or not? I wish on nights when we do have very special company he'd loan me his canonicals and wear mine. I expect he'd regard it as presuming if I asked for the address of his tailor? What do you think, Dumplings?"

"I wish it would rain," said Mrs. Gridley. "And I hope and pray Norah doesn't fly off into one of her tantrums. I wonder does Mr. Boyce-Upchurch like Thousand Islands dressing or the Russian better? What were you just saying, Ollie?"

Mr. Braid tapped his skull with his forefinger.

"Ah, the family failing," he murmured, "that dread curse which afflicts our line! With some of the inmates it day by day grows worse. And there's nothing to be done— it's congenital."

"I expect the best thing to do is just to take a chance on the Russian," said Mrs. Gridley. "If he doesn't like it, why he doesn't like it and I can't help myself, I didn't catch what you said just then, Ollie?"

"Abstraction overcomes the victim; the mind wanders; the reason totters," said Mr. Braid. "By the way, I wonder if Ditto would care to have his room brightened with a group view of the Royal Family— the King in shooting costume, the Queen wearing the sort of hat that the King would probably like to shoot; the lesser members grouped about? You know the kind of thing I mean."

"Would you start off tomorrow night with clams or a melon?" asked Mrs. Gridley.

"Or perhaps he'd prefer an equestrian photograph of the Prince of Wales," said Mr. Braid. "I know where I can pick up one second hand. I'll stop by tomorrow and price it. It's a very unusual pose. Shows the Prince on the horse."

"Melon, I guess," said Mrs. Gridley. "Most Englishmen like cantaloups, I hear. They're not so common among them."

"My duty being done I think I shall retire to my chamber to take a slight, not to say sketchy bath in a shaving mug," said Mr. Braid.

"I wish it would rain," said Mrs. Gridley.

NUMBERS of friendly persons met Mr. Boyce-Upchurch at the boat that Wednesday afternoon. Miss Titworthy inevitably was there and riding herd, so to speak, on a swaying flock of ewes of the Ingleglade Woman's Club. She organized a sort of impromptu welcoming committee at the ferry-house. Mrs. Gridley missed this, though. She had to stay outside with her runabout. Her husband and brother— the latter had escorted Mr. Boyce-Upchurch to One Hundred and Twenty-fifth Street from the University Club where he had been a guest of someone since finishing his New England swing the week before— were with the visiting celebrity. They surrendered him over to Miss Titworthy, who made him run the gantlet of the double receiving line and introduced him to all the ladies. Of these a bolder one would seek to detain him a minute while she told him how much she admired his books and which one of them she admired most, but an awed and timider one would merely say she was so glad to meet him, having heard of him so often. Practically every timider one said this. It was as though she followed a memorized formula. Now and then was a bolder bold one who breasted forward at him and cooed in the manner of a restrained but secretly amorous hen-pigeon.

Mr. Boyce-Upchurch bore up very well under the strain of it all. Indeed, he seemed rather to expect it, having been in this country for several months now and having lectured as far west as Omaha. He plowed along between the greeters, a rather short and compact figure but very dignified, with his monocle beaming ruddy in the rays of the late afternoon sun and with a set smile on his face, and he murmuring the conventional words.

The ceremonial being concluded, the two gentlemen reclaimed him and led him outside, and there he met Mrs. Gridley, who drove him up the Palisades Road, her husband and brother following in a chartered taxi with Mr. Boyce-Upchurch's luggage. There was quite a good deal of luggage, including a strapped steamer-rug and two very bulging, very rugged-looking kit bags and a leather hat-box and a mysterious flat package in paper wrappings which Mr. Braid told Mr. Gridley he was sure must contain a framed steel engraving of the Death of Nelson.

Mr. Braid pattered on:

"For a truly great and towering giant of literature, our friend seems very easy to control in money matters. Docile— that's the word for it, docile. He let me tip the porter at the club for bringing down these two tons of his detachable belongings, and on the way up Madison Avenue he deigned to let me jump out and go in a shop and buy him an extra strap for his blanket roll, and he graciously suffered me to pay for a telegram he sent from the other side, and also for that shoe-shine and those evening papers he got on the boat. Told me he hadn't learned to distinguish our Yankee small change. Always getting the coins mixed up, he said. Maybe he hasn't had any experience."

"Rather brusk in his way of speaking to a fellow," admitted Mr. Gridley. "You might almost call it short. And rather fussy about getting what he wants, I should say. Still, I suppose he has a great deal on his mind."

"Launcelot will fairly dote on him," said Mr. Braid. "Mark my words, Launcelot is going to fall in love with him on the spot."

Meanwhile, Mrs. Gridley was endeavoring to explain to Mr. Boyce-Upchurch why it was that in a town lying practically on a river so large and so wide as the Hudson there could be a water shortage. He couldn't appear to grasp it. He declared it to be extraordinary.

This matter of a water shortage apparently lingered in his mind, for half an hour later following tea, as he was on the point of going aloft to his room to dress for dinner he called back to his host from half-way up the stairs:

"I say, Gridley, no water in the taps, your wife tells me. Extraordinary, what? Tell you what: I'll be needing a rub-down tonight— stuffy climate here and all that. So later on just let one of your people fetch up a portable tub to my room and bring along lots of water, will you? The water needn't be hot. Like it warm, though. Speak about it, will you, to that slavey of yours."

Mrs. Gridley gave a quick little wincing gasp and a hunted look about her. But Delia had gone to carry Mr. Boyce-Upchurch's waistcoat upstairs. The episode of the waistcoat occurred a few minutes before, immediately after the guest had been ushered into the house.

"Frightfully warm," he remarked on entering the living-room. "Tell me, is America always so frightfully warm in summer?" Then, without waiting for an answer, he said: "Think I must rid myself of the wescut. All over perspiration, you know." So saying, he took off first his coat and next his waistcoat and hung the waistcoat on a chair and then put the coat back on again. Still, as Mr. Braid remarked in an undertone to nobody in particular, it wasn't exactly as though Mr. Boyce-Upchurch had stripped to his shirt-sleeves because, so Mr. Braid pointed out to himself, the waistband of the trousers came up so high, especially at the back, and the suspenders— he caught himself here and mentally used the word "braces" instead— the braces were so nice and broad that you didn't see enough of the shirt really to count.

Dinner was at seven-thirty, with twelve at the table and place cards, and Delia impressed to aid Ditto at serving, and the finest show of flowers that Mrs. Gridley's dusty and famished garden could yield. She had spent two hours that afternoon picking the least wilted of the blossoms and designing the decorative effects. Little things occurred, one or two of them occurring before the dinner got under way.

Ditto approached the lady of the house. "Madame," he said throatily, in the style of one who regally bears yet more regal tidings, "madame, Mr. Boyce-Upchurch doesn't care for cocktails. 'E would prefer a sherry and bittez."

"Oh!" exclaimed Mrs. Gridley in a small panic of dismay. "Oh, I'm so sorry but I'm afraid there isn't any sherry."

"There's cooking sherry out in the kitchen, sis," said Mr. Braid, who stood alongside her smiling happily about nothing apparently. "Tackled it myself the other day when I was feeling daredevilish."

"But the bitters— whatever they are!"

"Give him some of that cooking sherry of yours and he'll never miss the bitters."

"Sh-h-h," she warned, "he might hear you."

He didn't, though. At that moment Mr. Boyce-Upchurch was in conversation with Mrs. Thwaites and her husband from two doors away. He was speaking to them of the hors d'oeuvres which had just been passed, following the cocktails. The Thwaites were fellow countrymen of his; their accent had betrayed them. Perhaps he felt since they spoke his language that he could be perfectly frank with them. Frankness appeared to be one of his outstanding virtues.

It now developed that the relish attracted him and at the same time repelled. Undeniably, Norah's fancy ran to the concoction of dishes, notably, appetizers and salads, which one read about in certain standard women's magazines. Her initial offering this night had novelty about it, with a touch of mystery. Its general aspect suggested that Norah had drowned a number of inoffensive anchovies in thick mayonnaise and then, repenting of the crime, had vainly endeavored to resuscitate her victims with grated cheese.

"Messy-looking, eh?" Mr. Boyce-Upchurch was pointing an accusing finger at the coiled remains on a bit of toast which Mrs. Thwaites had accepted, and he was speaking in a fairly clear voice audible to any who might be near at hand. "Glad I didn't take one. Curious fancy, eh what, having the savory before dinner instead of afterwards— that is, if the ghastly thing is meant to be a savory?"

Major Thwaites mumbled briefly in a military way. It might have been an affirmative mumble or almost any other variety of mumble; you could take your choice. Mrs. Thwaites, biting at her lower lip, went over and peered out of a front window. She had an unusually high color, due perhaps to the heat.

That, substantially, was all that happened in the preliminary stages of the dinner party. There was one more trifling incident which perhaps is worthy to be recorded but this did not occur until the second course was brought on. The second course was terrapin. Mrs. Gridley was a Marylander and she had been at pains to order real diamond-backs from down on the Eastern Shore and personally to make the stew according to an old recipe in her family. Besides, the middle of July was not the regular season for terrapin and it had required some generalship to insure prime specimens, and so naturally Mrs. Gridley was proud when the terrapin came on, with the last of her hoarded and now vanishing store of Madeira accompanying it in tiny glasses.

Mr. Boyce-Upchurch sniffed at the fragrance arising from the dish which had been put before him. He sniffed rather with the air of a reluctant patient going under the ether, and with his spoon he stirred up from the bottom fragments of the rubbery black meat and bits of the queer-shaped little bones and then he inquired what this might be. He emphasized the 'this.'

"It's terrapin," explained Mrs. Gridley, who had been fluttering through a small pause for him to taste the mixture and give his verdict. "One of the special dishes of my own state."

"And what's terrapin?" he pressed. She told him.

"Oh," he said, "sort of turtle, eh? I shan't touch it. Take it away, please,"— this to the reverential Ditto hovering in the immediate background.

From this point on, the talk ceased to be general. In spots, the dinner comparatively was silent, then again in other spots conversation abounded. From his seat near the foot, Mr. Braid kept casting interpolations in the direction of the farther end of the table. Repeatedly his sister squelched him. At least, she tried to do so. He seemed to thrive on polite rebuffs, though. He sat between the Thwaites, and Major Thwaites was almost inarticulate, as was usual with him, and Mrs. Thwaites said very little, which was not quite so usual a thing with her, and Mr. Braid apparently felt that he must sow his ill-timed whimsicalities broad-cast rather than bestow them upon the dead eddy of his immediate neighborhood.

For instance, when Miss Rachel Semmes, who was one of Ingleglade's most literary women, bent forward from her favored position almost directly opposite the guest of honor and said, facing eagerly toward him over the table, "Oh, Mr. Boyce-Upchurch, talk to me of English letters," Mr. Braid broke right in:

"Let's all talk about English letters," he suggested. "My favorite one is 'Z.' Well, I like 'H,' too, fairly well. But to me, after all, 'Z' is the most intriguing. What's your favorite, everybody?"

Here, as later, his attempted levity met deservedly the interposed barrier of Miss Semmes' ignoring shoulders. She twisted in her place, turning her back on him, the more forcibly to administer the reproof and with her eyes agleam behind her glasses and her lips making little attentive sucked-in gasping sounds, she harkened while Mr. Boyce-Upchurch discoursed to her of English letters with frequent references to his own contributions in that great field.

As the traveled observer in his own time may have noted, there is a type of cultured Britisher who regards it as stupid to appear smart in strange company, and yet another type who regards it as smart to appear stupid. Mr. Boyce-Upchurch fell into neither grouping. He spoke with a fluency, with an authoritative definiteness, with a finality, which checked all counter-thoughts at their sources. In his criticisms of this one and that one, he was severe or he was commendatory, as the merits of the individual case required. He did not give opinions so much as he rendered judgments. There was about him a convincing firmness. There was never even a trace, a suggestion of doubt. There were passages delivered with such eloquence that almost it seemed to some present as though Mr. Boyce-Upchurch must be quoting from a familiar manuscript. As, if the truth must be known, he was. Still, had not all of intellectual America as far west as Omaha acclaimed "Masters of the Modern English Novel, with Selected Readings from the Author's Own Books" as a noteworthy platform achievement?

Thus the evening passed, and the Gridleys' dinner party. All had adjourned back again to the living-room, where coffee and cigarettes were being handed about, when from without came gusts of a warm swift wind blowing the curtains and bringing a breath of moistness.

"Oh, I believe it's really fixing to rain," declared Mrs. Gridley, hopefully, and on this, as if in confirmation, they all heard a grumble of distant summer thunder off to the northwest.

At that, Mrs. Thwaites said she and the Major really must run home— they'd come away leaving all the windows open. So they bade everybody good night— the first ones to go.

Mr. Braid saw them to the door. In fact he saw them as far as the front porch.

"Coming to the lecture tomorrow night, I suppose," he said. "Rally around a brother Briton, and all that sort of thing?"

"I am not," said little Mrs. Thwaites, with a curious grim twist in her voice. "I heard it tonight."

"Perishing blighter!" said the Major; which was quite a long speech for the Major.

"I'm ashamed!" burst out Mrs. Thwaites in a vehement undertone. "Aren't you ashamed, too, Rolf?"

"Rarther!" stated the Major. He grunted briefly but with passion.

"Fault of any non-conformist country," pleaded young Mr. Braid, finely assuming mortification. "Raw, crude people— that sort of thing. Well-meaning but crude! Appalling ignorance touching on savories. No bitters in the home. No—"

"Don't make fun," said Mrs. Thwaites. "You know I don't mean that."

"Surely, surely you are not referring to our notable guest? Oh, Perfidious Albinos!" He registered profound grief.

"I am not." Her words were like little screws turning. "Why should we be ashamed of him— Rolf and I? He's not typical— the insufferable bounder! Our writing folk aren't like that. He may have been well-bred— I doubt it. But now utterly spoiled."

"Decayed," amended her husband. "Blighting perisher!" he added, becoming, for him, positively oratorical.

"It's you Americans I'm ashamed of," continued this small, outspoken lady. "Do you think we'd let an American, no matter how talented he might be, come over to England to snub us in our own homes and patronize us and preach to us on our shortcomings and make unfair comparisons between his institutions and ours and find fault with our fashion of doing things? We'd jolly well soon put him in his place. But you Americans let him and others like him do it. You bow down and worship before them. You hang on their words. You flock to hear them. You pay them money, lots of it. You stuff them up with food, and they stuff you with insults. This one, now— he's a sponge. He's notorious for his sponging."

"Pardon, please," interjected Mr. Braid. "There you touch my Yankee pride. Sponging is an aquatic pastime not confined to one hemisphere. You perhaps may claim the present international champion but we have our candidates. Gum we may chew, horn-rimmed cheaters we may wear, but despite our many racial defects we, too, have our great spongers. Remember that and have a care lest you boast too soon."

"You won't let me be serious, you do spoof so," said Mrs. Thwaites. "Still, I shall say it again, it's you Americans that I'm ashamed of. But I was proud of you tonight, young man. When you mispronounced the name of Maudlin College by calling it 'Magdeline,' the Yankee way, and he corrected you, and when immediately after that when you mentioned Sinjin Ervine as 'St. John' Ervine and he corrected you again, I knew you must be setting a trap. I held my breath. And then when you asked him about his travels and what he thought of your scenic wonders and he praised some of them, and you brought in Buffalo and he said he had been there and he recalled his trip to Niagara Falls and you said: 'Not Niagara Falls, dear fellow— Niffls!' why that was absolutely priceless scoring. Wasn't it absolutely priceless, Rolf?"

"Rarther!" agreed the Major. He seemed to feel that the tribute demanded elaboration, so he thought briefly and then expanded it into "Oh, rarther!"

"We do our feeble best," murmured young Mr. Braid modestly, "and sometimes Heaven rewards us. Heaven was indeed kind tonight. . . . Speaking of heavenly matters— look!"

As though acting on cue the horizon to the west had split asunder, and the red lightning ran down the skies in zig-zag streaks, like cracks in a hot stove, and lusty big drops spattered on the porch roof above them.

"It's beginning to shower— and thank you once more for 'Niffls.'" Mrs. Thwaites threw the farewell over her shoulder. "We shall have to run for it, Rolf."

IN THE STEEPLE of the First Baptist Church of Ingleglade, two blocks distant, the clock struck eleven times. Except for the kitchen wing the residence of the Gridleys on Edgecliff Avenue was, as to its lower floor, all dark and shuttered. The rain beat down steadily, no longer in scattered drops but in sheets. It was drunk up by the thirsty earth. It made a sticky compound of a precious wagon-load of stable leavings with which Mrs. Gridley, one week before, had mulched her specimen roses in their bed under the living-room windows. It whipped and it drenched a single overlooked garment dangling on the clothes line between the two cherry trees in the back yard. Daylight, to any discriminating eye, would have revealed it as a garment appertaining to the worthy and broad-beamed Norah; would have proven, too, that Norah was not one who held by these flimsy, new-fangled notions of latter-day times in the details of feminine lingerie. For this was an ample garment, stoutly fashioned, generously cut, intimate, bifurcated, white, fit for a Christian woman to wear. It surreptitiously had been laved that morning in the sink and wrung out and hung for drying upon a lately almost disused rope, and then, in the press of culinary duties, forgotten. Now the rain was more or less having its way with it, making its limp ornamentation of ruffles limper still, making the horn buttons upon its strong waistband slippery. So much for the exterior of this peaceful homestead.

ABOVE in the main guest-room, Mr. Boyce-Upchurch fretted as he undressed for bed. He felt a distinct sense of irritation. He had set forth his desires regarding a portable tub and plenty of water to be made ready against his hour of retiring yet, unaccountably, these had not been provided. His skin called for refreshment; it was beastly annoying.

A thought, an inspirational thought, came to him. He crossed to his front window and drew back the twin sashes. The sashes opened quite down to the floor and immediately outside, and from the same level, just as he remembered having noted it following his arrival, the roof of the veranda sloped away with a gentle slant. The light behind him showed its flat tin covering glistening and smooth, with a myriad of soft warm drops splashing and stippling upon it. Beyond was cloaking impenetrable blackness, a deep and Stygian gloom; the most confirmed Styg could have desired none deeper.

So Mr. Boyce-Upchurch walked back and entered the bathroom. There, from a pitcher, he poured the basin full of water and then stripped to what among athletes is known as the buff, meaning by that the pink, and he dipped an embroidered guest towel in the basin and with it sopped himself from head to feet, then dampened a cake of soap and wielded it until his body and his head and his limbs and members richly had been sudded. This done he recrossed his chamber, pausing only to turn out the lights. He stepped out upon the porch roof, gasping slightly as the downpouring torrent struck him on his bare flesh.

FROM THE HEAD of the stairs Mr. Gridley, in a puzzled way, called down:

"Say, Emaline?"

"In a minute— I'm just making sure everything is locked up down here," answered Mrs. Gridley in a voice oddly strained.

"Say, do you know what?" Mr. Gridley retreated a few steps downward. "He's gone and put his shoes outside his door in the hall. What do you suppose the big idea is?"

"Put out to be cleaned," explained Mr. Braid from the foot of the stairs. "Quaint old custom— William the Conqueror always put his out. But don't call 'em shoes; that's one of those crude Americanisms of yours. The proper word is 'boot.'"

"Well, who in thunder does he expect is going to clean them?— that's what I want to know!" demanded the pestered Mr. Gridley.

"Perhaps the slavey—" began Mr. Braid.

"Ollie, for heaven's sake hush!" snapped Mrs. Gridley. "I warn you my nerves can't stand much more tonight. They're still up out in the kitchen— and suppose Delia heard you. It's a blessing she didn't hear him this afternoon."

"I wonder if he thinks I'm going to shine 'em?" inquired Mr. Gridley, his tone plaintive, querulous, protesting. He strengthened himself with a resolution: "Well, I'm not! Here's one worm that's beginning to turn."

"There's Ditto," speculated Mrs. Gridley. "I wouldn't dare suggest such a thing to either of those other two. But maybe possibly Ditto—"

"Never, except over my dead body," declared Mr. Braid. "I'd as soon ask His Grace the Archbishop of Canterbury to press my pants for me. Fie, for shame, Dumplings!"

"But who—"

"I, gallant Jack Harkaway the volunteer fireman," proclaimed Mr. Braid. "I, Michael Strogoff the Courier of the Czar— I'll shine his doggone shoes— I mean, his doggone boots. I'll slip up and get 'em now. There's a brush and some polish out back somewheres. Only, by rights, I should have some of the genuine Day & Martin to do it with. And I ought to whistle through my teeth. In Dickens they always whistled through their teeth, cleaning shoes."

"Well, for one, I'm going to take a couple of aspirin tablets and go straight to bed," said Mrs. Gridley. "Thank goodness for one thing, anyway— it's just coming down in bucketsful outside!"

ON THE PORCH TOP in the darkness, Mr. Boyce-Upchurch gasped anew but happily. The last of the lather coursed in rivulets down his legs; his grateful pores opened widely and he outstretched his arms, the better to let the soothing cloudburst from on high strike upon his expanded chest.

On the sudsy underfooting his bare soles slipped— first one sole began to slip, then the other began to slip. He gasped once more, but with a different inflection. His spread hands grasped frantically and closed on the void. Involuntarily he sat down, painfully and with great violence. He began to slide: he began to slide faster: he kept on sliding. His curved fingers, still clutching, skittered over stark metal surfaces as he picked up speed. He slid thence, offbound and slantwise, toward the edge. He gave one low muffled cry. He slid faster yet. He slid across the spouting gutter, over the verge, on, out, down, into swallowing space.

OUT IN the service ell the last of the wastage from the Gridleys' dinner party was being disposed of and the place tidied up against the next gustatory event in this house, which would be breakfast. Along the connecting passage from his butler's pantry where he racked up tableware, Ditto was speaking rearward to the two occupants of the kitchen. He had been speaking practically without cessation for twenty minutes. With the h's it would have taken longer— probably twenty-two to twenty-four minutes.

He was speaking of the habits, customs, and general excellencies of the British upper classes among whom the greater part of his active life congenially had been spent. He was approaching a specific illustration in support and confirmation of his thesis. He reached it:

"Now, you tyke Mr. Boyce-Upchurch, now. Wot pride of bearin' 'e's got! Wot control! Wot a flow of language when the spirit moves 'im! Always the marster of any situation— that's 'im all oaver. Never losin' 'is 'ead. Never jostled out of 'is stride. Never lackin' for a word. Stock of the old bull-dog— that's wot it is!"

Where he stood, so discouraging, he could not see Norah. Perhaps it was just as well he could not see her. For a spell was lifting from Norah. If there is such a word as 'unenglamoured' then 'unenglamoured' is the proper word for describing what Norah rapidly was becoming.

From Delia the tattle-tale, Norah had but just now heard whispered things. She was sitting at ease, resting after an arduous spell of labors, but about her were signs and portents— small repressed signs but withal significant. The lips tightly were compressed; one toe tapped the floor with an ominous little tattoo; through the clenched teeth she made a low steady wasp-like humming noise; in the eyes smoldered and kindled a hostile bale. It was plain that before long Norah would herself be moved to utterance. She did but bide her time.

However, as stated, Ditto could not see. He proceeded to carry on:

"No nonsense abaht 'im, I tell you. Knows wot 'e wants and speaks up and arsks for it, stryte out."

SEVERAL OF MRS. GRIDLEY'S specimen rose bushes served somewhat to break the force of Mr. Boyce-Upchurch's crash, though their intertwining barbed fronds sorely scratched him here and there as he plunged through to earth. He struck broadside in something soft and gelatinous. Dazed and shaken, he somehow got upon his feet and first he disentangled himself from the crushed-down thorny covert and then he felt himself all over to make sure no important bones were broken.

Very naturally, the thought next uppermost with him, springing forward in his mind through a swirl of confused emotions, was to reenter the house and return, without detection, to his room. He darted up the front porch steps and tried the front door. It was barred fast. He tried the windows giving upon the porch; their blinds were drawn, latched from within.

Out again in the storm he half circled the main body of the house, fumbling in the cloaking blackness at yet more snugly fastened windows. An unbelievable, an appalling, an incredible conviction began to fasten its horrid talons upon Mr. Boyce-Upchurch. He could not get in without arousing someone and certainly in this, his present state, he dare not arouse anyone in order to get in. Yet he must get in. Desperation, verging already on despair, mounted in his swirling brain.

Past a jog in the side wall he saw, thirty feet on beyond and patterning through some lattice-work, a foggy shaft of light from a rain-washed window. As cautiously he moved toward it a taut obstacle in the nature of a cord or small hawser rasped him just under the nose and, shrinking back, he was aware of a ghostly white article swinging gently within arm-reach of him. Partly by touch, partly by sight, he made out its texture— woven linen or cotton cloth, limp and clammy with wetness— and he made out its contours; divined likewise its customary purposes. At home a few old-fashioned ladies still were addicts; he recognized the pattern; he had an elderly maiden aunt. In emergency it would provide partial covering— of a sort. Most surely this was an emergency. And yet—

As he hesitated, with tentative fingers still pawing the sopping shape of it, and torn between a great loathing and a great and compelling temptation, the sound of a human voice penetrated the clapboards alongside him and caused him to cower down close.

"DOGGONE it!"

Mr. Braid, bearing in one hand a brace of varnished boots of Regent Street manufacture, tumbled over a sharp-cornered object in the inky darkness of the cuddy behind the living-room and barked his shins, and his cry was wrung with anguish.

"Doggone it!" he repeated. "Who's gone and hid the infernal electric light in this infernal Mammoth Cave of a storeroom? And where in thunder is that box of polish and that blacking brush? I'm sure I saw 'em here the other day on one of these dad-blamed shelves. Ouch!"

His exploring arm had brought what from weight and impact might have been an iron crowbar to clatter down upon his shoulders. As a matter of fact, it was the discarded handle of a patent detachable mop.

"Oh, damn!" soliloquized Mr. Braid. "Everything else in the condemned world is here but what I'm after. And I haven't got any matches and I can't find the light bulb. Maybe Norah or Delia'll know."

He backed out of the cavernous closet into the hall, heading for the kitchen by way of the intervening pantry.

THAT VOCAL THREAT of peril from within diminished, died out. Mr. Boyce-Upchurch straightened, and in that same instant, piercing the night from a distance but drawing nearer, came to his dripping ears the warning of a real and an acute danger. A dog— a very large and a very fierce dog, to judge by its volume of noise output— was coming toward him from the right and coming very swiftly.

The Thwaites' police dog, born in Germany but always spoken of by its owners as Belgian, was the self-constituted night guard of all premises in the entire block. To her vigilant senses suspicions of a prowler abroad had floated out of the void. Baying, belling, she was now bounding across lots to investigate.

With a frenzied snatch, Mr. Boyce-Upchurch tore the pendent flapping thing free from its clothes-pin moorings and he thrust his two legs into its two legs and convulsively he clutched its hemmed girth about his middle, and forgetting all else save that a menacing monster was almost upon him breathing its hot panted breaths upon his flinching rear, he flung himself headlong toward that sheltering entryway from whence the blurry radiance poured.

ENLARGING upon his subject, Ditto stepped into the kitchen.

"As I was syin' a bit ago, tyke Mr. Boyce-Upchurch," he continued. "Look at 'm, I arsk you? Poise, composture, dignity— that's 'im agyne! It's qualities like them 'as mykes the English wot they are the 'ole world over. It's—"

"Saints defind us!" shrieked Norah, starting up.

In through the back door burst Mr. Boyce-Upchurch, and he slammed it to behind him and backed against it, and for a measurable space stood there speechless, transfixed, as it were, being, in a way of speaking, breeched but otherwise completely uncovered excepting for certain clingy smears of compost— compost is the word we will use, please— upon the face and torso.

Delia's accompanying scream was just a plain scream but Norah's further outcry took on the form of articulated words:

"Proud, sez you? Yis, too proud to sup our cocktails but not too proud to be rampagin' around in the rain turnin' somersaults in somebody's cow-yard. Dignified, you sez? Yis, too dignified to ate the vittles I was after fixin' fur him, but not too dignified to come lapein' in on two dacint women wearin' nothin' only a pair of somebody's— Whooroo, it's me own best Sunday pair he has on him!"

On the linoleum of the butler's pantry behind them Mr. Oliver Braid laid him down, holding in either hand a Regent Street boot, and uttered gurgling sounds denoting a beautiful joy.

FROM the American of July 22d:

Among the passengers sailing today on the Mulrovia for Southampton was Mr. Jeffreys Boyce-Upchurch, the well-known English novelist, returning home after suddenly breaking off his lecture tour in this country on account of lameness resulting from a severe fall which he is reported to have had less than a week ago while filling an engagement in New Jersey. Mr. Boyce-Upchurch declined to see the reporters desirous of questioning him regarding the accident. Walking with a pronounced limp, he went aboard early this morning and remained secluded in his stateroom until sailing-time.

From the Telegram, same date, under Situations Wanted:

BUTLER, English, unimpeachable references, long experience, perfectly qualified, desires employment in cultured household, city preferred. Positively will not accept position where other members of domestic staff are Irish. Address: L. D., General Delivery.

_______________

2: The Legend of Sleepy Hollow

Washington Irving

1783-1859

The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent, 15 March 1820

Found Among the Papers of the Late Diedrich Knickerbocker.

A pleasing land of drowsy-head it was,

Of dreams that wave before the half-shut eye,

And of gay castles in the clouds that pass,

For ever flushing round a summer sky.

—Castle of Indolence

IN THE BOSOM of one of those spacious coves which indent the eastern shore of the Hudson, at that broad expansion of the river denominated by the ancient Dutch navigators the Tappan Zee, and where they always prudently shortened sail and implored the protection of St. Nicholas when they crossed, there lies a small market-town or rural port which by some is called Greensburg, but which is more generally and properly known by the name of Tarry Town. This name was given, we are told, in former days by the good housewives of the adjacent country from the inveterate propensity of their husbands to linger about the village tavern on market days. Be that as it may, I do not vouch for the fact, but merely advert to it for the sake of being precise and authentic. Not far from this village, perhaps about two miles, there is a little valley, or rather lap of land, among high hills, which is one of the quietest places in the whole world. A small brook glides through it, with just murmur enough to lull one to repose, and the occasional whistle of a quail or tapping of a woodpecker is almost the only sound that ever breaks in upon the uniform tranquility.

I recollect that, when a stripling, my first exploit in squirrel-shooting was in a grove of tall walnut trees that shades one side of the valley. I had wandered into it at noontime, when all Nature is peculiarly quiet, and was startled by the roar of my own gun as it broke the Sabbath stillness around, and was prolonged and reverberated by the angry echoes. If ever I should wish for a retreat whither I might steal from the world and its distractions and dream quietly away the remnant of a troubled life, I know of none more promising than this little valley.

From the listless repose of the place and the peculiar character of its inhabitants, who are descendants from the original Dutch settlers, this sequestered glen has long been known by the name of Sleepy Hollow, and its rustic lads are called the Sleepy Hollow Boys throughout all the neighboring country. A drowsy, dreamy influence seems to hang over the land, and to pervade the very atmosphere. Some say that the place was bewitched by a High German doctor during the early days of the settlement; others, that an old Indian chief, the prophet or wizard of his tribe, held his powwows there before the country was discovered by Master Hendrick Hudson. Certain it is, the place still continues under the sway of some witching power that holds a spell over the minds of the good people, causing them to walk in a continual reverie. They are given to all kinds of marvelous beliefs, are subject to trances and visions, and frequently see strange sights and hear music and voices in the air. The whole neighborhood abounds with local tales, haunted spots, and twilight superstitions; stars shoot and meteors glare oftener across the valley than in any other part of the country, and the nightmare, with her whole ninefold, seems to make it the favorite scene of her gambols.

The dominant spirit, however, that haunts this enchanted region, and seems to be commander-in-chief of all the powers of the air, is the apparition of a figure on horseback without a head. It is said by some to be the ghost of a Hessian trooper whose head had been carried away by a cannonball in some nameless battle during the Revolutionary War, and who is ever and anon seen by the country-folk, hurrying along in the gloom of night, as if on the wings of the wind. His haunts are not confined to the valley, but extend at times to the adjacent roads, and especially to the vicinity of a church at no great distance. Indeed, certain of the most authentic historians of those parts, who have been careful in collecting and collating the floating facts concerning this spectre, allege that the body of the trooper, having been buried in the churchyard, the ghost rides forth to the scene of battle in nightly quest of his head, and that the rushing speed with which he sometimes passes along the Hollow, like a midnight blast, is owing to his being belated, and in a hurry to get back to the churchyard before daybreak.

SUCH is the general purport of this legendary superstition, which has furnished materials for many a wild story in that region of shadows; and the spectre is known at all the country firesides by the name of the Headless Horseman of Sleepy Hollow.

It is remarkable that the visionary propensity I have mentioned is not confined to the native inhabitants of the valley, but is unconsciously imbibed by every one who resides there for a time. However wide awake they may have been before they entered that sleepy region, they are sure in a little time to inhale the witching influence of the air, and begin to grow imaginative—to dream dreams and see apparitions.

I mention this peaceful spot with all possible laud, for it is in such little retired Dutch valleys, found here and there embosomed in the great State of New York, that population, manners, and customs remain fixed, while the great torrent of migration and improvement, which is making such incessant changes in other parts of this restless country, sweeps by them unobserved. They are like those little nooks of still water which border a rapid stream, where we may see the straw and bubble riding quietly at anchor or slowly revolving in their mimic harbor, undisturbed by the rush of the passing current. Though many years have elapsed since I trod the drowsy shades of Sleepy Hollow, yet I question whether I should not still find the same trees and the same families vegetating in its sheltered bosom.

In this by-place of Nature, there abode, in a remote period of American history—that is to say, some thirty years since—a worthy wight of the name of Ichabod Crane, who sojourned, or, as he expressed it, "tarried," in Sleepy Hollow for the purpose of instructing the children of the vicinity. He was a native of Connecticut, a State which supplies the Union with pioneers for the mind as well as for the forest, and sends forth yearly its legions of frontier woodmen and country schoolmasters. The cognomen of Crane was not inapplicable to his person. He was tall, but exceedingly lank, with narrow shoulders, long arms and legs, hands that dangled a mile out of his sleeves, feet that might have served for shovels, and his whole frame most loosely hung together. His head was small, and flat at top, with huge ears, large green glassy eyes, and a long snipe nose, so that it looked like a weathercock perched upon his spindle neck to tell which way the wind blew. To see him striding along the profile of a hill on a windy day, with his clothes bagging and fluttering about him, one might have mistaken him for the genius [genie, djinn] of Famine descending upon the earth, or some scarecrow eloped from a cornfield.

His school-house was a low building of one large room, rudely constructed of logs, the windows partly glazed and partly patched with leaves of old copy-books. It was most ingeniously secured at vacant hours by a withe twisted in the handle of the door and stakes set against the window-shutters, so that, though a thief might get in with perfect ease, he would find some embarrassment in getting out—an idea most probably borrowed by the architect, Yost Van Houten, from the mystery of an eel-pot. The school-house stood in a rather lonely but pleasant situation, just at the foot of a woody hill, with a brook running close by and a formidable birch tree growing at one end of it. From hence the low murmur of his pupils' voices, conning over their lessons, might be heard in a drowsy summer's day like the hum of a bee-hive, interrupted now and then by the authoritative voice of the master in the tone of menace or command, or, peradventure, by the appalling sound of the birch as he urged some tardy loiterer along the flowery path of knowledge. Truth to say, he was a conscientious man, and ever bore in mind the golden maxim, "Spare the rod and spoil the child." Ichabod Crane's scholars certainly were not spoiled.

I would not have it imagined, however, that he was one of those cruel potentates of the school who joy in the smart of their subjects; on the contrary, he administered justice with discrimination rather than severity, taking the burden off the backs of the weak and laying it on those of the strong. Your mere puny stripling, that winced at the least flourish of the rod, was passed by with indulgence; but the claims of justice were satisfied by inflicting a double portion on some little tough, wrong-headed, broad-skirted Dutch urchin, who sulked and swelled and grew dogged and sullen beneath the birch. All this he called "doing his duty" by their parents; and he never inflicted a chastisement without following it by the assurance, so consolatory to the smarting urchin, that "he would remember it and thank him for it the longest day he had to live."

When school-hours were over, he was even the companion and playmate of the larger boys; and on holiday afternoons would convoy some of the smaller ones home who happened to have pretty sisters, or good housewives for mothers noted for the comforts of the cupboard. Indeed it behooved him to keep on good terms with his pupils. The revenue arising from his school was small, and would have been scarcely sufficient to furnish him with daily bread, for he was a huge feeder, and, though lank, had the dilating powers of an anaconda; but to help out his maintenance he was, according to country custom in those parts, boarded and lodged at the houses of the farmers whose children he instructed. With these he lived successively a week at a time, thus going the rounds of the neighborhood with all his worldly effects tied up in a cotton handkerchief.

That all this might not be too onerous on the purses of his rustic patrons, who are apt to consider the costs of schooling a grievous burden and schoolmasters as mere drones, he had various ways of rendering himself both useful and agreeable. He assisted the farmers occasionally in the lighter labors of their farms, helped to make hay, mended the fences, took the horses to water, drove the cows from pasture, and cut wood for the winter fire. He laid aside, too, all the dominant dignity and absolute sway with which he lorded it in his little empire, the school, and became wonderfully gentle and ingratiating. He found favor in the eyes of the mothers by petting the children, particularly the youngest; and like the lion bold, which whilom so magnanimously the lamb did hold, he would sit with a child on one knee and rock a cradle with his foot for whole hours together.

In addition to his other vocations, he was the singing-master of the neighborhood and picked up many bright shillings by instructing the young folks in psalmody. It was a matter of no little vanity to him on Sundays to take his station in front of the church-gallery with a band of chosen singers, where, in his own mind, he completely carried away the palm from the parson. Certain it is, his voice resounded far above all the rest of the congregation, and there are peculiar quavers still to be heard in that church, and which may even be heard half a mile off, quite to the opposite side of the mill-pond on a still Sunday morning, which are said to be legitimately descended from the nose of Ichabod Crane. Thus, by divers little makeshifts in that ingenious way which is commonly denominated "by hook and by crook," the worthy pedagogue got on tolerably enough, and was thought, by all who understood nothing of the labor of headwork, to have a wonderfully easy life of it.

The schoolmaster is generally a man of some importance in the female circle of a rural neighborhood, being considered a kind of idle, gentleman-like personage of vastly superior taste and accomplishments to the rough country swains, and, indeed, inferior in learning only to the parson. His appearance, therefore, is apt to occasion some little stir at the tea-table of a farmhouse and the addition of a supernumerary dish of cakes or sweetmeats, or, peradventure, the parade of a silver tea-pot. Our man of letters, therefore, was peculiarly happy in the smiles of all the country damsels. How he would figure among them in the churchyard between services on Sundays! gathering grapes for them from the wild vines that overrun the surrounding trees; reciting for their amusement all the epitaphs on the tombstones; or sauntering, with a whole bevy of them, along the banks of the adjacent mill-pond, while the more bashful country bumpkins hung sheepishly back, envying his superior elegance and address.

From his half-itinerant life, also, he was a kind of travelling gazette, carrying the whole budget of local gossip from house to house, so that his appearance was always greeted with satisfaction. He was, moreover, esteemed by the women as a man of great erudition, for he had read several books quite through, and was a perfect master of Cotton Mather's History of New England Witchcraft, in which, by the way, he most firmly and potently believed.

He was, in fact, an odd mixture of small shrewdness and simple credulity. His appetite for the marvelous and his powers of digesting it were equally extraordinary, and both had been increased by his residence in this spellbound region. No tale was too gross or monstrous for his capacious swallow. It was often his delight, after his school was dismissed in the afternoon, to stretch himself on the rich bed of clover bordering the little brook that whimpered by his school-house, and there con over old Mather's direful tales until the gathering dusk of the evening made the printed page a mere mist before his eyes.

Then, as he wended his way by swamp and stream and awful woodland to the farmhouse where he happened to be quartered, every sound of Nature at that witching hour fluttered his excited imagination— the moan of the whippoorwill* from the hillside; the boding cry of the tree-toad, that harbinger of storm; the dreary hooting of the screech-owl, or the sudden rustling in the thicket of birds frightened from their roost. The fire-flies, too, which sparkled most vividly in the darkest places, now and then startled him as one of uncommon brightness would stream across his path; and if, by chance, a huge blockhead of a beetle came winging his blundering flight against him, the poor varlet was ready to give up the ghost, with the idea that he was struck with a witch's token. His only resource on such occasions, either to drown thought or drive away evil spirits, was to sing psalm-tunes; and the good people of Sleepy Hollow, as they sat by their doors of an evening, were often filled with awe at hearing his nasal melody, "in linked sweetness long drawn out," floating from the distant hill or along the dusky road.

—

* The whippoorwill is a bird which is only heard at night. It receives its name from its note, which is thought to resemble those words.

Another of his sources of fearful pleasure was to pass long winter evenings with the old Dutch wives as they sat spinning by the fire, with a row of apples roasting and spluttering along the hearth, and listen to their marvelous tales of ghosts and goblins, and haunted fields, and haunted brooks, and haunted bridges, and haunted houses, and particularly of the headless horseman, or Galloping Hessian of the Hollow, as they sometimes called him. He would delight them equally by his anecdotes of witchcraft, and of the direful omens and portentous sights and sounds in the air which prevailed in the earlier times of Connecticut, and would frighten them woefully with speculations upon comets and shooting stars, and with the alarming fact that the world did absolutely turn round and that they were half the time topsy-turvy!

But if there was a pleasure in all this while snugly cuddling in the chimney-corner of a chamber that was all of a ruddy glow from the crackling wood-fire, and where, of course, no spectre dared to show its face, it was dearly purchased by the terrors of his subsequent walk homewards. What fearful shapes and shadows beset his path amidst the dim and ghastly glare of a snowy night! With what wistful look did he eye every trembling ray of light streaming across the waste fields from some distant window! How often was he appalled by some shrub covered with snow, which, like a sheeted spectre, beset his very path! How often did he shrink with curdling awe at the sound of his own steps on the frosty crust beneath his feet, and dread to look over his shoulder, lest he should behold some uncouth being tramping close behind him! And how often was he thrown into complete dismay by some rushing blast howling among the trees, in the idea that it was the Galloping Hessian on one of his nightly scourings!

All these, however, were mere terrors of the night, phantoms of the mind that walk in darkness; and though he had seen many specters in his time, and been more than once beset by Satan in divers shapes in his lonely perambulations, yet daylight put an end to all these evils; and he would have passed a pleasant life of it, in despite of the devil and all his works, if his path had not been crossed by a being that causes more perplexity to mortal man than ghosts, goblins, and the whole race of witches put together, and that was—a woman.

Among the musical disciples who assembled one evening in each week to receive his instructions in psalmody, was Katrina Van Tassel, the daughter and only child of a substantial Dutch farmer. She was a blooming lass of fresh eighteen, plump as a partridge, ripe and melting and rosy-cheeked as one of her father's peaches, and universally famed, not merely for her beauty, but her vast expectations. She was withal a little of a coquette, as might be perceived even in her dress, which was a mixture of ancient and modern fashions, as most suited to set off her charms. She wore the ornaments of pure yellow gold which her great-great-grandmother had brought over from Saardam, the tempting stomacher of the olden time, and withal a provokingly short petticoat to display the prettiest foot and ankle in the country round.

Ichabod Crane had a soft and foolish heart towards the sex, and it is not to be wondered at that so tempting a morsel soon found favor in his eyes, more especially after he had visited her in her paternal mansion. Old Baltus Van Tassel was a perfect picture of a thriving, contented, liberal-hearted farmer. He seldom, it is true, sent either his eyes or his thoughts beyond the boundaries of his own farm, but within those everything was snug, happy, and well-conditioned. He was satisfied with his wealth but not proud of it, and piqued himself upon the hearty abundance, rather than the style, in which he lived. His stronghold was situated on the banks of the Hudson, in one of those green, sheltered, fertile nooks in which the Dutch farmers are so fond of nestling. A great elm tree spread its broad branches over it, at the foot of which bubbled up a spring of the softest and sweetest water in a little well formed of a barrel, and then stole sparkling away through the grass to a neighboring brook that bubbled along among alders and dwarf willows. Hard by the farmhouse was a vast barn, that might have served for a church, every window and crevice of which seemed bursting forth with the treasures of the farm; the flail was busily resounding within it from morning to night; swallows and martins skimmed twittering about the eaves; and rows of pigeons, some with one eye turned up, as if watching the weather, some with their heads under their wings or buried in their bosoms, and others, swelling, and cooing, and bowing about their dames, were enjoying the sunshine on the roof. Sleek, unwieldy porkers were grunting in the repose and abundance of their pens, whence sallied forth, now and then, troops of sucking pigs as if to snuff the air. A stately squadron of snowy geese were riding in an adjoining pond, convoying whole fleets of ducks; regiments of turkeys were gobbling through the farmyard, and guinea-fowls fretting about it, like ill-tempered housewives, with their peevish, discontented cry. Before the barn-door strutted the gallant cock, that pattern of a husband, a warrior, and a fine gentleman, clapping his burnished wings and crowing in the pride and gladness of his heart—sometimes tearing up the earth with his feet, and then generously calling his ever-hungry family of wives and children to enjoy the rich morsel which he had discovered.

The pedagogue's mouth watered as he looked upon this sumptuous promise of luxurious winter fare. In his devouring mind's eye he pictured to himself every roasting-pig running about with a pudding in his belly and an apple in his mouth; the pigeons were snugly put to bed in a comfortable pie and tucked in with a coverlet of crust; the geese were swimming in their own gravy; and the ducks pairing cosily in dishes, like snug married couples, with a decent competency of onion sauce. In the porkers he saw carved out the future sleek side of bacon and juicy relishing ham; not a turkey but he beheld daintily trussed up, with its gizzard under its wing, and, peradventure, a necklace of savory sausages; and even bright Chanticleer himself lay sprawling on his back in a side-dish, with uplifted claws, as if craving that quarter which his chivalrous spirit disdained to ask while living.

As the enraptured Ichabod fancied all this, and as he rolled his great green eyes over the fat meadow-lands, the rich fields of wheat, of rye, of buckwheat, and Indian corn, and the orchard burdened with ruddy fruit, which surrounded the warm tenement of Van Tassel, his heart yearned after the damsel who was to inherit these domains, and his imagination expanded with the idea how they might be readily turned into cash and the money invested in immense tracts of wild land and shingle palaces in the wilderness. Nay, his busy fancy already realized his hopes, and presented to him the blooming Katrina, with a whole family of children, mounted on the top of a wagon loaded with household trumpery, with pots and kettles dangling beneath, and he beheld himself bestriding a pacing mare, with a colt at her heels, setting out for Kentucky, Tennessee, or the Lord knows where.

When he entered the house, the conquest of his heart was complete. It was one of those spacious farmhouses with high-ridged but lowly-sloping roofs, built in the style handed down from the first Dutch settlers; the low projecting eaves forming a piazza along the front capable of being closed up in bad weather. Under this were hung flails, harness, various utensils of husbandry, and nets for fishing in the neighboring river. Benches were built along the sides for summer use, and a great spinning-wheel at one end and a churn at the other showed the various uses to which this important porch might be devoted. From this piazza the wondering Ichabod entered the hall, which formed the center of the mansion and the place of usual residence. Here rows of resplendent pewter, ranged on a long dresser, dazzled his eyes. In one corner stood a huge bag of wool ready to be spun; in another a quantity of linsey-woolsey just from the loom; ears of Indian corn and strings of dried apples and peaches hung in gay festoons along the walls, mingled with the gaud of red peppers; and a door left ajar gave him a peep into the best parlor, where the claw-footed chairs and dark mahogany tables shone like mirrors; andirons, with their accompanying shovel and tongs, glistened from their covert of asparagus tops; mock-oranges and conch-shells decorated the mantelpiece; strings of various-colored birds' eggs were suspended above it; a great ostrich egg was hung from the center of the room, and a corner cupboard, knowingly left open, displayed immense treasures of old silver and well-mended china.

From the moment Ichabod laid his eyes upon these regions of delight, the peace of his mind was at an end, and his only study was how to gain the affections of the peerless daughter of Van Tassel. In this enterprise, however, he had more real difficulties than generally fell to the lot of a knight-errant of yore, who seldom had anything but giants, enchanters, fiery dragons, and such-like easily-conquered adversaries to contend with, and had to make his way merely through gates of iron and brass, and walls of adamant, to the castle keep, where the lady of his heart was confined; all which he achieved as easily as a man would carve his way to the center of a Christmas pie, and then the lady gave him her hand as a matter of course. Ichabod, on the contrary, had to win his way to the heart of a country coquette beset with a labyrinth of whims and caprices, which were forever presenting new difficulties and impediments, and he had to encounter a host of fearful adversaries of real flesh and blood, the numerous rustic admirers who beset every portal to her heart, keeping a watchful and angry eye upon each other, but ready to fly out in the common cause against any new competitor.

Among these the most formidable was a burly, roaring, roistering blade of the name of Abraham— or, according to the Dutch abbreviation, Brom— Van Brunt, the hero of the country round, which rang with his feats of strength and hardihood. He was broad-shouldered and double-jointed, with short curly black hair and a bluff but not unpleasant countenance, having a mingled air of fun and arrogance. From his Herculean frame and great powers of limb, he had received the nickname of Brom Bones, by which he was universally known. He was famed for great knowledge and skill in horsemanship, being as dexterous on horseback as a Tartar. He was foremost at all races and cockfights, and, with the ascendancy which bodily strength acquires in rustic life, was the umpire in all disputes, setting his hat on one side and giving his decisions with an air and tone admitting of no gainsay or appeal. He was always ready for either a fight or a frolic, but had more mischief than ill-will in his composition; and with all his overbearing roughness there was a strong dash of waggish good-humor at bottom. He had three or four boon companions who regarded him as their model, and at the head of whom he scoured the country, attending every scene of feud or merriment for miles around. In cold weather he was distinguished by a fur cap surmounted with a flaunting fox's tail; and when the folks at a country gathering descried this well-known crest at a distance, whisking about among a squad of hard riders, they always stood by for a squall. Sometimes his crew would be heard dashing along past the farm-houses at midnight with whoop and halloo, like a troop of Don Cossacks, and the old dames, startled out of their sleep, would listen for a moment till the hurry-scurry had clattered by, and then exclaim, "Ay, there goes Brom Bones and his gang!" The neighbors looked upon him with a mixture of awe, admiration, and good-will, and when any madcap prank or rustic brawl occurred in the vicinity, always shook their heads and warranted Brom Bones was at the bottom of it.

This rantipole hero had for some time singled out the blooming Katrina for the object of his uncouth gallantries, and, though his amorous toyings were something like the gentle caresses and endearments of a bear, yet it was whispered that she did not altogether discourage his hopes. Certain it is, his advances were signals for rival candidates to retire who felt no inclination to cross a line in his amours; insomuch, that when his horse was seen tied to Van Tassel's paling on a Sunday night, a sure sign that his master was courting— or, as it is termed, "sparking"— within, all other suitors passed by in despair and carried the war into other quarters.

Such was the formidable rival with whom Ichabod Crane had to contend, and, considering all things, a stouter man than he would have shrunk from the competition and a wiser man would have despaired. He had, however, a happy mixture of pliability and perseverance in his nature; he was in form and spirit like a supple-jack— yielding, but tough; though he bent, he never broke; and though he bowed beneath the slightest pressure, yet the moment it was away— jerk! he was as erect and carried his head as high as ever.

To have taken the field openly against his rival would have been madness; for he was not a man to be thwarted in his amours, any more than that stormy lover, Achilles. Ichabod, therefore, made his advances in a quiet and gently-insinuating manner. Under cover of his character of singing-master, he made frequent visits at the farm-house; not that he had anything to apprehend from the meddlesome interference of parents, which is so often a stumbling-block in the path of lovers. Balt Van Tassel was an easy, indulgent soul; he loved his daughter better even than his pipe, and, like a reasonable man and an excellent father, let her have her way in everything. His notable little wife, too, had enough to do to attend to her housekeeping and manage her poultry for, as she sagely observed, ducks and geese are foolish things and must be looked after, but girls can take care of themselves. Thus while the busy dame bustled about the house or plied her spinning-wheel at one end of the piazza, honest Balt would sit smoking his evening pipe at the other, watching the achievements of a little wooden warrior who, armed with a sword in each hand, was most valiantly fighting the wind on the pinnacle of the barn.

In the meantime, Ichabod would carry on his suit with the daughter by the side of the spring under the great elm, or sauntering along in the twilight— that hour so favorable to the lover's eloquence.

I profess not to know how women's hearts are wooed and won. To me they have always been matters of riddle and admiration. Some seem to have but one vulnerable point, or door of access, while others have a thousand avenues and may be captured in a thousand different ways. It is a great triumph of skill to gain the former, but still greater proof of generalship to maintain possession of the latter, for the man must battle for his fortress at every door and window. He who wins a thousand common hearts is therefore entitled to some renown, but he who keeps undisputed sway over the heart of a coquette is indeed a hero. Certain it is, this was not the case with the redoubtable Brom Bones; and from the moment Ichabod Crane made his advances, the interests of the former evidently declined; his horse was no longer seen tied at the palings on Sunday nights, and a deadly feud gradually arose between him and the preceptor of Sleepy Hollow.

Brom, who had a degree of rough chivalry in his nature, would fain have carried matters to open warfare, and have settled their pretensions to the lady according to the mode of those most concise and simple reasoners, the knights-errant of yore— by single combat; but Ichabod was too conscious of the superior might of his adversary to enter the lists against him: he had overheard a boast of Bones, that he would "double the schoolmaster up and lay him on a shelf of his own school-house;" and he was too wary to give him an opportunity. There was something extremely provoking in this obstinately pacific system; it left Brom no alternative but to draw upon the funds of rustic waggery in his disposition and to play off boorish practical jokes upon his rival.

Ichabod became the object of whimsical persecution to Bones and his gang of rough riders. They harried his hitherto peaceful domains; smoked out his singing school by stopping up the chimney; broke into the schoolhouse at night in spite of its formidable fastenings of withe and window stakes, and turned everything topsy-turvy; so that the poor schoolmaster began to think all the witches in the country held their meetings there. But, what was still more annoying, Brom took all opportunities of turning him into ridicule in presence of his mistress, and had a scoundrel dog whom he taught to whine in the most ludicrous manner, and introduced as a rival of Ichabod's, to instruct her in psalmody.

In this way, matters went on for some time without producing any material effect on the relative situation of the contending powers. On a fine autumnal afternoon Ichabod, in pensive mood, sat enthroned on the lofty stool whence he usually watched all the concerns of his little literary realm. In his hand he swayed a ferule, that sceptre of despotic power; the birch of justice reposed on three nails behind the throne, a constant terror to evildoers; while on the desk before him might be seen sundry contraband articles and prohibited weapons detected upon the persons of idle urchins, such as half-munched apples, popguns, whirligigs, fly-cages, and whole legions of rampant little paper gamecocks. Apparently there had been some appalling act of justice recently inflicted, for his scholars were all busily intent upon their books or slyly whispering behind them with one eye kept upon the master, and a kind of buzzing stillness reigned throughout the school-room. It was suddenly interrupted by the appearance of a Negro in tow-cloth jacket and trowsers, a round-crowned fragment of a hat like the cap of Mercury, and mounted on the back of a ragged, wild, half-broken colt, which he managed with a rope by way of halter. He came clattering up to the school-door with an invitation to Ichabod to attend a merry-making or "quilting frolic" to be held that evening at Mynheer Van Tassel's; and, having delivered his message with that air of importance and effort at fine language which a Negro is apt to display on petty embassies of the kind, he dashed over the brook, and was seen scampering away up the hollow, full of the importance and hurry of his mission.

All was now bustle and hubbub in the late quiet school-room. The scholars were hurried through their lessons without stopping at trifles; those who were nimble skipped over half with impunity, and those who were tardy had a smart application now and then in the rear to quicken their speed or help them over a tall word. Books were flung aside without being put away on the shelves, inkstands were overturned, benches thrown down, and the whole school was turned loose an hour before the usual time, bursting forth like a legion of young imps, yelping and racketing about the green in joy at their early emancipation.

The gallant Ichabod now spent at least an extra half hour at his toilet, brushing and furbishing up his best, and indeed, only, suit of rusty black, and arranging his locks by a bit of broken looking-glass that hung up in the school-house. That he might make his appearance before his mistress in the true style of a cavalier, he borrowed a horse from the farmer with whom he was domiciliated, a choleric old Dutchman of the name of Hans Van Ripper, and, thus gallantly mounted, issued forth like a knight-errant in quest of adventures. But it is meet I should, in the true spirit of romantic story, give some account of the looks and equipments of my hero and his steed. The animal he bestrode was a broken-down plough-horse that had outlived almost everything but his viciousness. He was gaunt and shagged, with a ewe neck and a head like a hammer; his rusty mane and tail were tangled and knotted with burrs; one eye had lost its pupil and was glaring and spectral, but the other had the gleam of a genuine devil in it. Still, he must have had fire and mettle in his day, if we may judge from the name he bore of Gunpowder. He had, in fact, been a favorite steed of his master's, the choleric Van Ripper, who was a furious rider, and had infused, very probably, some of his own spirit into the animal; for, old and broken down as he looked, there was more of the lurking devil in him than in any young filly in the country.

Ichabod was a suitable figure for such a steed. He rode with short stirrups, which brought his knees nearly up to the pommel of the saddle; his sharp elbows stuck out like grasshoppers'; he carried his whip perpendicularly in his hand like a sceptre; and as his horse jogged on, the motion of his arms was not unlike the flapping of a pair of wings. A small wool hat rested on the top of his nose, for so his scanty strip of forehead might be called, and the skirts of his black coat fluttered out almost to his horse's tail. Such was the appearance of Ichabod and his steed as they shambled out of the gate of Hans Van Ripper, and it was altogether such an apparition as is seldom to be met with in broad daylight.

It was, as I have said, a fine autumnal day, the sky was clear and serene, and Nature wore that rich and golden livery which we always associate with the idea of abundance. The forests had put on their sober brown and yellow, while some trees of the tenderer kind had been nipped by the frosts into brilliant dyes of orange, purple, and scarlet. Streaming files of wild ducks began to make their appearance high in the air; the bark of the squirrel might be heard from the groves of beech and hickory nuts, and the pensive whistle of the quail at intervals from the neighboring stubble-field.

The small birds were taking their farewell banquets. In the fullness of their revelry they fluttered, chirping and frolicking, from bush to bush and tree to tree, capricious from the very profusion and variety around them. There was the honest cock robin, the favorite game of stripling sportsmen, with its loud querulous note; and the twittering blackbirds, flying in sable clouds; and the golden-winged woodpecker, with his crimson crest, his broad black gorget, and splendid plumage; and the cedar-bird, with its red-tipt wings and yellow-tipt tail and its little monteiro cap of feathers; and the blue jay, that noisy coxcomb, in his gay light-blue coat and white under-clothes, screaming and chattering, bobbing and nodding and bowing, and pretending to be on good terms with every songster of the grove.

As Ichabod jogged slowly on his way his eye, ever open to every symptom of culinary abundance, ranged with delight over the treasures of jolly Autumn. On all sides he beheld vast store of apples— some hanging in oppressive opulence on the trees, some gathered into baskets and barrels for the market, others heaped up in rich piles for the cider-press. Farther on he beheld great fields of Indian corn, with its golden ears peeping from their leafy coverts and holding out the promise of cakes and hasty pudding; and the yellow pumpkins lying beneath them, turning up their fair round bellies to the sun, and giving ample prospects of the most luxurious of pies; and anon he passed the fragrant buckwheat-fields, breathing the odor of the beehive, and as he beheld them soft anticipations stole over his mind of dainty slapjacks, well buttered and garnished with honey or treacle by the delicate little dimpled hand of Katrina Van Tassel.

Thus feeding his mind with many sweet thoughts and "sugared suppositions," he journeyed along the sides of a range of hills which look out upon some of the goodliest scenes of the mighty Hudson. The sun gradually wheeled his broad disk down into the west. The wide bosom of the Tappan Zee lay motionless and glassy, excepting that here and there a gentle undulation waved and prolonged the blue shadow of the distant mountain. A few amber clouds floated in the sky, without a breath of air to move them. The horizon was of a fine golden tint, changing gradually into a pure apple green, and from that into the deep blue of the mid-heaven. A slanting ray lingered on the woody crests of the precipices that overhung some parts of the river, giving greater depth to the dark-gray and purple of their rocky sides. A sloop was loitering in the distance, dropping slowly down with the tide, her sail hanging uselessly against the mast, and as the reflection of the sky gleamed along the still water it seemed as if the vessel was suspended in the air.

It was toward evening that Ichabod arrived at the castle of the Heer Van Tassel, which he found thronged with the pride and flower of the adjacent country. Old farmers, a spare leathern-faced race, in homespun coats and breeches, blue stockings, huge shoes, and magnificent pewter buckles. Their brisk withered little dames, in close crimped caps, long-waisted shortgowns, homespun petticoats, with scissors and pincushions and gay calico pockets hanging on the outside. Buxom lasses, almost as antiquated as their mothers, excepting where a straw hat, a fine ribbon, or perhaps a white frock, gave symptoms of city innovation. The sons, in short square-skirted coats with rows of stupendous brass buttons, and their hair generally queued in the fashion of the times, especially if they could procure an eel-skin for the purpose, it being esteemed throughout the country as a potent nourisher and strengthener of the hair.

Brom Bones, however, was the hero of the scene, having come to the gathering on his favorite steed, Daredevil— a creature, like himself full of metal and mischief, and which no one but himself could manage. He was, in fact, noted for preferring vicious animals, given to all kinds of tricks, which kept the rider in constant risk of his neck, for he held a tractable, well-broken horse as unworthy of a lad of spirit.

Fain would I pause to dwell upon the world of charms that burst upon the enraptured gaze of my hero as he entered the state parlor of Van Tassel's mansion. Not those of the bevy of buxom lasses with their luxurious display of red and white, but the ample charms of a genuine Dutch country tea-table in the sumptuous time of autumn. Such heaped-up platters of cakes of various and almost indescribable kinds, known only to experienced Dutch housewives! There was the doughty doughnut, the tenderer oly koek, and the crisp and crumbling cruller; sweet cakes and short cakes, ginger cakes and honey cakes, and the whole family of cakes. And then there were apple pies and peach pies and pumpkin pies; besides slices of ham and smoked beef; and moreover delectable dishes of preserved plums and peaches and pears and quinces; not to mention broiled shad and roasted chickens; together with bowls of milk and cream,— all mingled higgledy-piggledy, pretty much as I have enumerated them, with the motherly teapot sending up its clouds of vapor from the midst. Heaven bless the mark! I want breath and time to discuss this banquet as it deserves, and am too eager to get on with my story. Happily, Ichabod Crane was not in so great a hurry as his historian, but did ample justice to every dainty.

He was a kind and thankful creature, whose heart dilated in proportion as his skin was filled with good cheer, and whose spirits rose with eating as some men's do with drink. He could not help, too, rolling his large eyes round him as he ate, and chuckling with the possibility that he might one day be lord of all this scene of almost unimaginable luxury and splendor. Then, he thought, how soon he'd turn his back upon the old school-house, snap his fingers in the face of Hans Van Ripper and every other niggardly patron, and kick any itinerant pedagogue out of doors that should dare to call him comrade!

Old Baltus Van Tassel moved about among his guests with a face dilated with content and good-humor, round and jolly as the harvest moon. His hospitable attentions were brief, but expressive, being confined to a shake of the hand, a slap on the shoulder, a loud laugh, and a pressing invitation to "fall to and help themselves."

And now the sound of the music from the common room, or hall, summoned to the dance. The musician was an old gray-headed Negro who had been the itinerant orchestra of the neighborhood for more than half a century. His instrument was as old and battered as himself. The greater part of the time he scraped on two or three strings, accompanying every movement of the bow with a motion of the head, bowing almost to the ground and stamping with his foot whenever a fresh couple were to start.

Ichabod prided himself upon his dancing as much as upon his vocal powers. Not a limb, not a fiber about him was idle; and to have seen his loosely hung frame in full motion and clattering about the room you would have thought Saint Vitus himself, that blessed patron of the dance, was figuring before you in person. He was the admiration of all the Negroes, who, having gathered, of all ages and sizes, from the farm and the neighborhood, stood forming a pyramid of shining black faces at every door and window, gazing with delight at the scene, rolling their white eyeballs, and showing grinning rows of ivory from ear to ear. How could the flogger of urchins be otherwise than animated and joyous? The lady of his heart was his partner in the dance, and smiling graciously in reply to all his amorous oglings, while Brom Bones, sorely smitten with love and jealousy, sat brooding by himself in one corner.

When the dance was at an end Ichabod was attracted to a knot of the sager folks, who, with old Van Tassel, sat smoking at one end of the piazza gossiping over former times and drawing out long stories about the war.

This neighborhood, at the time of which I am speaking, was one of those highly favored places which abound with chronicle and great men. The British and American line had run near it during the war; it had therefore been the scene of marauding and infested with refugees, cow-boys, and all kinds of border chivalry. Just sufficient time had elapsed to enable each storyteller to dress up his tale with a little becoming fiction, and in the indistinctness of his recollection, to make himself the hero of every exploit.

There was the story of Doffue Martling, a large blue-bearded Dutchman, who had nearly taken a British frigate with an old iron nine-pounder from a mud breastwork, only that his gun burst at the sixth discharge. And there was an old gentleman who shall be nameless, being too rich a mynheer to be lightly mentioned, who, in the battle of Whiteplains, being an excellent master of defense, parried a musket-ball with a small sword, insomuch that he absolutely felt it whiz round the blade and glance off at the hilt: in proof of which he was ready at any time to show the sword, with the hilt a little bent. There were several more that had been equally great in the field, not one of whom but was persuaded that he had a considerable hand in bringing the war to a happy termination.

But all these were nothing to the tales of ghosts and apparitions that succeeded. The neighborhood is rich in legendary treasures of the kind. Local tales and superstitions thrive best in these sheltered, long-settled retreats; but are trampled under foot by the shifting throng that forms the population of most of our country places. Besides, there is no encouragement for ghosts in most of our villages, for they have scarcely had time to finish their first nap and turn themselves in their graves before their surviving friends have travelled away from the neighborhood; so that when they turn out at night to walk their rounds they have no acquaintance left to call upon. This is perhaps the reason why we so seldom hear of ghosts except in our long-established Dutch communities.

The immediate cause, however, of the prevalence of supernatural stories in these parts, was doubtless owing to the vicinity of Sleepy Hollow. There was a contagion in the very air that blew from that haunted region; it breathed forth an atmosphere of dreams and fancies infecting all the land. Several of the Sleepy Hollow people were present at Van Tassel's, and, as usual, were doling out their wild and wonderful legends. Many dismal tales were told about funeral trains and mourning cries and wailings heard and seen about the great tree where the unfortunate Major Andre was taken, and which stood in the neighborhood. Some mention was made also of the woman in white that haunted the dark glen at Raven Rock, and was often heard to shriek on winter nights before a storm, having perished there in the snow. The chief part of the stories, however, turned upon the favorite spectre of Sleepy Hollow, the headless horseman, who had been heard several times of late patrolling the country, and, it was said, tethered his horse nightly among the graves in the churchyard.

The sequestered situation of this church seems always to have made it a favorite haunt of troubled spirits. It stands on a knoll surrounded by locust trees and lofty elms, from among which its decent whitewashed walls shine modestly forth, like Christian purity beaming through the shades of retirement. A gentle slope descends from it to a silver sheet of water bordered by high trees, between which peeps may be caught at the blue hills of the Hudson. To look upon its grass-grown yard, where the sunbeams seem to sleep so quietly, one would think that there at least the dead might rest in peace. On one side of the church extends a wide woody dell, along, which raves a large brook among broken rocks and trunks of fallen trees. Over a deep black part of the stream, not far from the church, was formerly thrown a wooden bridge; the road that led to it and the bridge itself were thickly shaded by overhanging trees, which cast a gloom about it even in the daytime, but occasioned a fearful darkness at night. Such was one of the favorite haunts of the headless horseman, and the place where he was most frequently encountered.

The tale was told of old Brouwer, a most heretical disbeliever in ghosts, how he met the horseman returning from his foray into Sleepy Hollow, and was obliged to get up behind him; how they galloped over bush and brake, over hill and swamp, until they reached the bridge, when the horseman suddenly turned into a skeleton, threw old Brouwer into the brook, and sprang away over the tree-tops with a clap of thunder.

This story was immediately matched by a thrice-marvelous adventure of Brom Bones, who made light of the galloping Hessian as an arrant jockey. He affirmed that on returning one night from the neighboring village of Sing-Sing he had been over taken by this midnight trooper; that he had offered to race with him for a bowl of punch, and should have won it too, for Daredevil beat the goblin horse all hollow, but just as they came to the church bridge the Hessian bolted and vanished in a flash of fire.

All these tales, told in that drowsy undertone with which men talk in the dark, the countenances of the listeners only now and then receiving a casual gleam from the glare of a pipe, sank deep in the mind of Ichabod. He repaid them in kind with large extracts from his invaluable author, Cotton Mather, and added many marvelous events that had taken place in his native state of Connecticut and fearful sights which he had seen in his nightly walks about Sleepy Hollow.

The revel now gradually broke up. The old farmers gathered together their families in their wagons, and were heard for some time rattling along the hollow roads and over the distant hills. Some of the damsels mounted on pillions behind their favorite swains, and their light-hearted laughter, mingling with the clatter of hoofs, echoed along the silent woodlands, sounding fainter and fainter until they gradually died away, and the late scene of noise and frolic was all silent and deserted. Ichabod only lingered behind, according to the custom of country lovers, to have a tête-à-tête with the heiress, fully convinced that he was now on the high road to success. What passed at this interview I will not pretend to say, for in fact I do not know. Something, however, I fear me, must have gone wrong, for he certainly sallied forth, after no very great interval, with an air quite desolate and chop-fallen. Oh these women! these women! Could that girl have been playing off any of her coquettish tricks? Was her encouragement of the poor pedagogue all a mere sham to secure her conquest of his rival? Heaven only knows, not I! Let it suffice to say, Ichabod stole forth with the air of one who had been sacking a hen-roost, rather than a fair lady's heart. Without looking to the right or left to notice the scene of rural wealth on which he had so often gloated, he went straight to the stable, and with several hearty cuffs and kicks roused his steed most uncourteously from the comfortable quarters in which he was soundly sleeping, dreaming of mountains of corn and oats and whole valleys of timothy and clover.

It was the very witching time of night that Ichabod, heavy-hearted and crestfallen, pursued his travel homewards along the sides of the lofty hills which rise above Tarry Town, and which he had traversed so cheerily in the afternoon. The hour was as dismal as himself. Far below him, the Tappan Zee spread its dusky and indistinct waste of waters, with here and there the tall mast of a sloop riding quietly at anchor under the land. In the dead hush of midnight he could even hear the barking of the watch-dog from the opposite shore of the Hudson; but it was so vague and faint as only to give an idea of his distance from this faithful companion of man. Now and then, too, the long-drawn crowing of a cock, accidentally awakened, would sound far, far off, from some farm-house away among the hills; but it was like a dreaming sound in his ear. No signs of life occurred near him, but occasionally the melancholy chirp of a cricket, or perhaps the guttural twang of a bull-frog from a neighboring marsh, as if sleeping uncomfortably and turning suddenly in his bed.

All the stories of ghosts and goblins that he had heard in the afternoon now came crowding upon his recollection. The night grew darker and darker; the stars seemed to sink deeper in the sky, and driving clouds occasionally hid them from his sight. He had never felt so lonely and dismal. He was, moreover, approaching the very place where many of the scenes of the ghost-stories had been laid.

In the center of the road stood an enormous tulip tree which towered like a giant above all the other trees of the neighborhood and formed a kind of landmark. Its limbs were gnarled and fantastic, large enough to form trunks for ordinary trees, twisting down almost to the earth and rising again into the air. It was connected with the tragical story of the unfortunate André, who had been taken prisoner hard by; and was universally known by the name of Major André's tree. The common people regarded it with a mixture of respect and superstition, partly out of sympathy for the fate of its ill-starred namesake, and partly from the tales of strange sights and doleful lamentations told concerning it.

As Ichabod approached this fearful tree he began to whistle: he thought his whistle was answered— it was but a blast sweeping sharply through the dry branches. As he approached a little nearer he thought he saw something white hanging in the midst of the tree— he paused and ceased whistling, but on looking more narrowly perceived that it was a place where the tree had been scathed by lightning and the white wood laid bare. Suddenly he heard a groan— his teeth chattered and his knees smote against the saddle; it was but the rubbing of one huge bough upon another as they were swayed about by the breeze. He passed the tree in safety, but new perils lay before him.

About two hundred yards from the tree a small brook crossed the road and ran into a marshy and thickly-wooded glen known by the name of Wiley's Swamp. A few rough logs, laid side by side, served for a bridge over this stream. On that side of the road where the brook entered the wood a group of oaks and chestnuts, matted thick with wild grape-vines, threw a cavernous gloom over it. To pass this bridge was the severest trial. It was at this identical spot that the unfortunate André was captured, and under the covert of those chestnuts and vines were the sturdy yeomen concealed who surprised him. This has ever since been considered a haunted stream, and fearful are the feelings of the schoolboy who has to pass it alone after dark.

As he approached the stream, his heart began to thump; he summoned up, however, all his resolution, gave his horse half a score of kicks in the ribs, and attempted to dash briskly across the bridge; but instead of starting forward, the perverse old animal made a lateral movement and ran broadside against the fence. Ichabod, whose fears increased with the delay, jerked the reins on the other side and kicked lustily with the contrary foot: it was all in vain; his steed started, it is true, but it was only to plunge to the opposite side of the road into a thicket of brambles and alder bushes. The schoolmaster now bestowed both whip and heel upon the starveling ribs of old Gunpowder, who dashed forward, snuffing and snorting, but came to a stand just by the bridge with a suddenness that had nearly sent his rider sprawling over his head. Just at this moment a plashy tramp by the side of the bridge caught the sensitive ear of Ichabod. In the dark shadow of the grove, on the margin of the brook, he beheld something huge, misshapen, black, and towering. It stirred not, but seemed gathered up in the gloom, like some gigantic monster ready to spring upon the traveller.

The hair of the affrighted pedagogue rose upon his head with terror. What was to be done? To turn and fly was now too late; and besides, what chance was there of escaping ghost or goblin, if such it was, which could ride upon the wings of the wind? Summoning up, therefore, a show of courage, he demanded in stammering accents— "Who are you?" He received no reply. He repeated his demand in a still more agitated voice. Still there was no answer. Once more he cudgelled the sides of the inflexible Gunpowder, and, shutting his eyes, broke forth with involuntary fervor into a psalm tune. Just then the shadowy object of alarm put itself in motion, and with a scramble and a bound stood at once in the middle of the road. Though the night was dark and dismal, yet the form of the unknown might now in some degree be ascertained. He appeared to be a horseman of large dimensions and mounted on a black horse of powerful frame. He made no offer of molestation or sociability, but kept aloof on one side of the road, jogging along on the blind side of old Gunpowder, who had now got over his fright and waywardness.

Ichabod, who had no relish for this strange midnight companion, and bethought himself of the adventure of Brom Bones with the Galloping Hessian, now quickened his steed in hopes of leaving him behind. The stranger, however, quickened his horse to an equal pace. Ichabod pulled up, and fell into a walk, thinking to lag behind; the other did the same. His heart began to sink within him; he endeavored to resume his psalm tune, but his parched tongue clove to the roof of his mouth and he could not utter a stave. There was something in the moody and dogged silence of this pertinacious companion that was mysterious and appalling. It was soon fearfully accounted for. On mounting a rising ground, which brought the figure of his fellow-traveller in relief against the sky, gigantic in height and muffled in a cloak, Ichabod was horror-struck on perceiving that he was headless! but his horror was still more increased on observing that the head, which should have rested on his shoulders, was carried before him on the pommel of the saddle. His terror rose to desperation, he rained a shower of kicks and blows upon Gunpowder, hoping by a sudden movement to give his companion the slip— but the spectre started full jump with him. Away, then, they dashed through thick and thin, stones flying and sparks flashing at every bound. Ichabod's flimsy garments fluttered in the air as he stretched his long lank body away over his horse's head in the eagerness of his flight.

They had now reached the road which turns off to Sleepy Hollow; but Gunpowder, who seemed possessed with a demon, instead of keeping up it, made an opposite turn and plunged headlong down hill to the left. This road leads through a sandy hollow shaded by trees for about a quarter of a mile, where it crosses the bridge famous in goblin story, and just beyond swells the green knoll on which stands the whitewashed church.

As yet the panic of the steed had given his unskillful rider an apparent advantage in the chase; but just as he had got halfway through the hollow, the girths of the saddle gave away and he felt it slipping from under him. He seized it by the pommel and endeavored to hold it firm, but in vain, and had just time to save himself by clasping old Gunpowder round the neck, when the saddle fell to the earth, and he heard it trampled underfoot by his pursuer. For a moment the terror of Hans Van Ripper's wrath passed across his mind, for it was his Sunday saddle; but this was no time for petty fears; the goblin was hard on his haunches, and (unskilled rider that he was!) he had much ado to maintain his seat, sometimes slipping on one side, sometimes on another, and sometimes jolted on the high ridge of his horse's back-bone with a violence that he verily feared would cleave him asunder.

An opening in the trees now cheered him with the hopes that the church bridge was at hand. The wavering reflection of a silver star in the bosom of the brook told him that he was not mistaken. He saw the walls of the church dimly glaring under the trees beyond. He recollected the place where Brom Bones' ghostly competitor had disappeared. "If I can but reach that bridge," thought Ichabod, "I am safe." Just then he heard the black steed panting and blowing close behind him; he even fancied that he felt his hot breath. Another convulsive kick in the ribs, and old Gunpowder sprang upon the bridge; he thundered over the resounding planks; he gained the opposite side; and now Ichabod cast a look behind to see if his pursuer should vanish, according to rule, in a flash of fire and brimstone. Just then he saw the goblin rising in his stirrups, and in the very act of hurling his head at him. Ichabod endeavored to dodge the horrible missile, but too late. It encountered his cranium with a tremendous crash; he was tumbled headlong into the dust, and Gunpowder, the black steed, and the goblin rider passed by like a whirlwind.

The next morning the old horse was found, without his saddle and with the bridle under his feet, soberly cropping the grass at his master's gate. Ichabod did not make his appearance at breakfast; dinner-hour came, but no Ichabod. The boys assembled at the school-house and strolled idly about the banks of the brook; but no schoolmaster. Hans Van Ripper now began to feel some uneasiness about the fate of poor Ichabod, and his saddle. An inquiry was set on foot, and after diligent investigation they came upon his traces. In one part of the road leading to the church was found the saddle trampled in the dirt; the tracks of horses' hoofs, deeply dented in the road and evidently at furious speed, were traced to the bridge, beyond which, on the bank of a broad part of the brook, where the water ran deep and black, was found the hat of the unfortunate Ichabod, and close beside it a spattered pumpkin.

The brook was searched, but the body of the schoolmaster was not to be discovered. Hans Van Ripper, as executor of his estate, examined the bundle which contained all his worldly effects. They consisted of two shirts and a half, two stocks for the neck, a pair or two of worsted stockings, an old pair of corduroy small-clothes, a rusty razor, a book of psalm tunes full of dog's ears, and a broken pitch-pipe. As to the books and furniture of the school-house, they belonged to the community, excepting Cotton Mather's History of Witchcraft, a New England Almanac, and a book of dreams and fortune-telling; in which last was a sheet of foolscap much scribbled and blotted in several fruitless attempts to make a copy of verses in honor of the heiress of Van Tassel. These magic books and the poetic scrawl were forthwith consigned to the flames by Hans Van Ripper, who from that time forward determined to send his children no more to school, observing that he never knew any good come of this same reading and writing. Whatever money the schoolmaster possessed— and he had received his quarter's pay but a day or two before— he must have had about his person at the time of his disappearance.

The mysterious event caused much speculation at the church on the following Sunday. Knots of gazers and gossips were collected in the churchyard, at the bridge, and at the spot where the hat and pumpkin had been found. The stories of Brouwer, of Bones, and a whole budget of others were called to mind, and when they had diligently considered them all, and compared them with the symptoms of the present case, they shook their heads, and came to the conclusion that Ichabod had been carried off by the galloping Hessian. As he was a bachelor and in nobody's debt, nobody troubled his head any more about him, the school was removed to a different quarter of the hollow and another pedagogue reigned in his stead.

It is true an old farmer, who had been down to New York on a visit several years after, and from whom this account of the ghostly adventure was received, brought home the intelligence that Ichabod Crane was still alive; that he had left the neighborhood, partly through fear of the goblin and Hans Van Ripper, and partly in mortification at having been suddenly dismissed by the heiress; that he had changed his quarters to a distant part of the country, had kept school and studied law at the same time, had been admitted to the bar, turned politician, electioneered, written for the newspapers, and finally had been made a justice of the Ten Pound Court. Brom Bones too, who shortly after his rival's disappearance conducted the blooming Katrina in triumph to the altar, was observed to look exceedingly knowing whenever the story of Ichabod was related, and always burst into a hearty laugh at the mention of the pumpkin; which led some to suspect that he knew more about the matter than he chose to tell.

The old country wives, however, who are the best judges of these matters, maintain to this day that Ichabod was spirited away by supernatural means; and it is a favorite story often told about the neighborhood round the intervening fire. The bridge became more than ever an object of superstitious awe, and that may be the reason why the road has been altered of late years, so as to approach the church by the border of the mill-pond. The schoolhouse, being deserted, soon fell to decay, and was reported to be haunted by the ghost of the unfortunate pedagogue; and the plough-boy, loitering homeward of a still summer evening, has often fancied his voice at a distance chanting a melancholy psalm tune among the tranquil solitudes of Sleepy Hollow.

Postscript

Found in the Handwriting of Mr. Knickerbocker.

THE PRECEDING TALE is given almost in the precise words in which I heard it related at a Corporation meeting of the ancient city of Manhattoes, at which were present many of its sagest and most illustrious burghers. The narrator was a pleasant, shabby, gentlemanly old fellow in pepper-and-salt clothes, with a sadly humorous face, and one whom I strongly suspected of being poor, he made such efforts to be entertaining. When his story was concluded there was much laughter and approbation, particularly from two or three deputy aldermen who had been asleep the greater part of the time. There was, however, one tall, dry-looking old gentleman, with beetling eyebrows, who maintained a grave and rather severe face throughout; now and then folding his arms, inclining his head, and looking down upon the floor, as if turning a doubt over in his mind. He was one of your wary men, who never laugh but upon good grounds— when they have reason and the law on their side. When the mirth of the rest of the company had subsided and silence was restored, he leaned one arm on the elbow of his chair, and sticking the other akimbo, demanded, with a slight but exceedingly sage motion of the head and contraction of the brow, what was the moral of the story and what it went to prove.

The story-teller, who was just putting a glass of wine to his lips as a refreshment after his toils, paused for a moment, looked at his inquirer with an air of infinite deference, and, lowering the glass slowly to the table, observed that the story was intended most logically to prove—

"That there is no situation in life but has its advantages and pleasures— provided we will but take a joke as we find it;

"That, therefore, he that runs races with goblin troopers is likely to have rough riding of it.

"Ergo, for a country schoolmaster to be refused the hand of a Dutch heiress is a certain step to high preferment in the state."

The cautious old gentleman knit his brows tenfold closer after this explanation, being sorely puzzled by the ratiocination of the syllogism; while, methought the one in pepper-and-salt eyed him with something of a triumphant leer. At length he observed that all this was very well, but still he thought the story a little on the extravagant—there were one or two points on which he had his doubts.

"Faith, sir," replied the story-teller, "as to that matter, I don't believe one-half of it myself."

D. K.

___________________

3: On the Plains

Ernest Favenc

1845-1908

Mataura Ensign,  New Zealand, 7 April 1898

THE SUMMER SUN of tropical Queensland had done its best, or rather its worst. On the great, boundless, western plain stood a horse in all the agonies of a coming death from thirst. The staring, projecting eyes, pinched flanks, and quick, panting breath told that it would not be long before death came to release it of its pain. It still kept its legs, and owing to that fact the occupants of a buckboard buggy on the road about a mile or so distant caught sight of the dying animal, magnified by the deceptive heat mirage to about the dimensions of an elephant.

An elderly but tall and tough-looking man and a young girl were in the buggy; the girl was driving a pair of smart-looking nuggety little horses. She pulled up when they caught sight of the horse, and the man stood up.

"A knocked-up horse left out there," he said; "either knocked up or lame, or it wouldn't stop out there on the plain in the sun at this time of day."

"Let's drive over, dad," said the girl; "perhaps we can get the poor brute on to the water."

Her father nodded assent, and she turned the horses off the road, and they were soon with the unfortunate animal. The girl, with a cry of pity, impetuously jumped out of the buggy, and was hastening to the back of the vehicle, where a substantial-sized water-bag was swinging, when the end came. The horse staggered to his knees, rolled over on one side, and after a struggle, and beating its head once or twice on the ground, lay still—dead.

"Too late, Bertie," said the man, "all the water in North Queensland would be no good now; but we have other work before us."

A saddle and a saddle- cloth were lying on the, ground, and on the front of the saddle was strapped a valise.

"Somebody's got bushed," he continued; "We must go after him."

"Not more than a mile from the road, and within five miles of water," remarked the girl.

"A new chum evidently," he replied, pointing to the cruel marks of the spurs on the dead horse's ribs. "No bushman would have punished a dying horse like that."

"But so close to the road!" repeated the girl. "You don't know what these plains are like to a greenhorn, particularly now, in the middle of the day, with the sun straight overhead," answered her father. "But we must track him up; he can't have gone far. Put the saddle in the back of the buggy, and then drive slowly after me."

And Graham— or Long Graham as he was more popularly called— strode off on the foot-tracks leading from the dead horse. His daughter Bertha put the saddle, bridle, and valise in the buggy and drove slowly after him. After a while Graham stopped, and when the buggy reached him got into it.

"I can follow them easily now," he said, taking the reins. "He's not far off by the look of the tracks."

He was not far off. In about ten minutes Bertha, who had been standing up holding on by the back of the seat, called out that there was something like a man lying on the ground ahead. Graham roused the horses up, and they were soon at the prostrate form. The man was not dead, but he was terribly flushed in the face, and he groaned heavily at times. In his hand he still grasped an empty water-bag.

The exertions of the two and the application of water to his head and chest roused him somewhat, and he was able to drink a little, but he was not restored to consciousness.

"We must get him on the buggy somehow, Bertie," said Graham, " but he's not a light weight to lift."

Between them they managed to dispose of the helpless body across the front of the buggy.

"You'll have to perch up behind Bertie," said her father. "I'll drive and hold him in. We'll have to camp at the Lily Lagoon tonight instead of going home. Fortunately we have got the tent and some rations with us."

The strange-looking caravan proceeded slowly over the plain for about an hour, when a clump of timber became visible above the horizon, and presently the buggy pulled up at a broad lagoon fringed with the beautiful pink lilies that stand up high out of the water. Round the banks grew some crooked coolibah trees and some shady bauhinias. The road ran past the place, and it was evidently a standing camping-place.

Getting their patient out of the buggy, they made him comfortable under the shade of one of the bauhinia trees, and then Graham and his daughter turned the buggy horses out, and fixed their camp.

It was after dark before the stranger showed signs of returning consciousness, and after a while he was able to drink soma tea and eat some bread soaked in it.  Somewhat revived, he was presently able to sit up and talk.

He was a man of about seven or eight and twenty, well made, and  good-looking, but evidently new both to Australia and the bush, as shown by his clothes. He informed them that he was a doctor, and was proceeding to the district township of a Brookford, where he intended to start a practice. His "traps" had gone on by a carrier, and he himself had ridden round by the different stations.

"How did you come to get bushed?" asked Graham,

"I left Valdock yesterday morning; they told me that if I kept due south I should strike the road leading past Haughton Downs, a station belonging to Long Graham—"

"I am Long Graham," said the owner of the name quietly.

"I beg your pardon."

"Not at all; I don't object to the name as I am over six foot two."

"I kept on until I thought I must have passed the road with out noticing, so I turned back, and then back again; and at last got completely confused. I was riding best part of the night, and at about 12 o'clock my confounded horse knocked up."

"I should think he did, when you had been riding him continuously night and day without water. But you should not abuse the poor brute, for if he had died ten minutes sooner we should not have seen him from the road, and you would by now have learned the great secret. You rode your horse to death man, and the sooner you drop wearing spurs as those you've got on, the better."

The man glanced uneasily at the long-necked "rakers" that decorated his heels, and then said somewhat shame-facedly: "Was I so close to the road, then?"

"About a mile from it," said Bertha.

The young doctor looked at her rather earnestly, then said that he was tired and would try to go to sleep.

ii

"Dad," said Bertha the next evening when her father and she were alone, "it's my opinion Dr Vernon is  a humbug."

"Rather a hasty opinion to form. I think he's a bit of a muff myself,  but that will wear off as he gets experience."

"Oh, it's not his innocence of the bush that l am alluding to, but his character apart from that. You see if I'm not right. He is not what we up here call a 'white man.' "

"Well, have it your own way. As soon as he is. well enough to go on to Brookford we shall not see much more of him."

"Unless in your character as J.P  you have to commit him to take his trial before our friend Judge Fortescue."

"Come, come, Bertie; you're going too far. You're forgetting yourself."

Bertha shook a preternaturally wise head, but held her tongue, and Graham changed the subject.

The western climate had dealt kindly with  Bertha Graham. It had not shrivelled her up into a sallow, parchment-faced mummy, but had given her cheeks healthy touch of brown that was rather an improvement to he piquant style of beauty. Her figure was perfection, and, like a  sensible girl, she had taken good care of her hands.

Vernon noticed this, and, being a rather susceptible sort of man where female charms were concerned, and moreover with a past reputation as a lady-killer had considered the feasibility of getting up some sentimental passages. The fact that it was evident that the girl regarded him with a sort of pitying contempt as a poor creature who could not be trusted off a main road did not at all deter him. In fact he reckoned on his rescue from death as a groundwork of interest to start upon.

Graham had hospitably asked him to spell a week on the station; then he would himself drive him over to Brookford and help him to make the acquaintance of the local magnates. So for a week Vernon ogled and sighed without any response. If at times Bertha felt inclined to amuse herself with his openly-expressed admiration, the natural antipathy she felt for the man stopped her at once.

BROOKFORD was not celebrated for a large population ; but, being the centre of a thriving pastoral district, it was a busy place. The general verdict on Dr Vernon after a few weeks, was that he did not drink hard enough to be a clever man. A doctor who not require shepherding to keep sober when he had a case on hand was nowhere in the estimation of the Brookfordians. Still it seemed probable that Vernon would make up a good enough practice to compensate  him for what he considered his exile in the backblocks.  Haughton Downs was only fifteen miles. from Brookford, so Vernon often found opportunities to ride over and strive to win a smile from the unresponsive lips of Bertha Graham.

"Look here, old man," said an acquaintance to him one day with all frank familiarity of the west, "it's no good you're hanging your hat up at Long Graham's place; don't you know the girl's engaged?"

"No, I did not," said Vernon.

"Yes, and to one of the smartest fellows out here, who'd think nothing of twisting your neck if he caught you trying to poach on his preserve."

The doctor sniffed derisively at the idea,

"I tell you," said the candid friend, rather nettled, "Charley Hawkshaw is expected back every day. He's been away west of the Georgina. Take my advice and drop it. You're not Miss Graham's style. Better get, up a spoon with the new barmaid, Flossie."

And, with this disinterested advice his affectionate friend left  him.

But he had sown evil seed in a good soil to bring forth a crop. Vernon was a man who had already ruined himself in England by giving way to his passions, and he seemed likely to repeat the process in Australia. Certainly he had persuaded himself that he was madly in love with Bertha Graham, and was resolved to win her despite all rivals.

He was in this moody state when he heard that Hawkshaw had returned seriously ill with malarial fever. Vernon chuckled at the idea of being called in to treat his rival.

Yes, the man who had started out strong and healthy, fit to tackle the  whole of the continent, had come back worn and wasted, racked by fever, and scarcely able to sit on his horse. Sick or well, Bertha welcomed her lover back with joy. She got her father to try to persuade him to come to Haughton Downs to be nursed, but with the obstinacy of an invalid he insisted on remaining on his own place, saying there were lots of things wanted doing that he could still look after. So he remained there, and Dr Vernon was called in to attend him.

Hawkshaw had been ill nearly a fortnight, and there was no perceptible change, for the better in his state, and both Bertha and her father were urging him to go down South, while he had yet sufficient strength, when Dr Vernon called at Haughton Downs on his way to Hawkshaw's place, which was only five miles further. Bertha was alone, and it was the doctor's opportunity, and he seized it. To Bertha's cold inquiry, after his impassioned declaration, as to whether he was not well acquainted with the fact of her engagement to Hawkshaw, he replied that he was, but that only urged him on to attempt to win her for his wife. Just as Bertha was going to give him his dismissal, and him in her father's name from entering the house again, he said—

"Your engagement is only a farce, Hawkshaw is a dying man; nothing on earth can save him. The fever is in his system; if you marry him you marry  a husband you will have to bury in a week or two."

He left the room without another word, leaving Bertha speechless between anger and grief. She heard the horse's steps die away, and then ages seemed to have passed before she heard her father's voice speaking to someone. She roused herself and went out.

"Bertha, don't you remember our Old friend Twisden?" asked her father.

"Of course, but you have been away nearly four years," she said as she greeted their old-time neighbor. "Where are you from last?"

"From a little village just a trifle larger than Brookford— London. I've been there for the last year."

Twisden was an inveterate gossip, and as such a welcome break to the monotony of the bush. At dinner he remarked: "I seem to have got on the track of a man you had best take care of. I believe he has settled at Brookford under the name of Dr Vernon."

"Isn't he a doctor?" asked Graham, not noticing the sudden pallor of  Bertha.

"Oh, he's a doctor right enough. His real name is Dr Vernon Rushley, and he only escaped being tried for life by the skin of his teeth."

"The deuce! Why, Bertha and I picked him up on the point of death, and brought him back to life again. Seems a pity we did it."

"There was no moral doubt about his guilt, but it could not be proved. Anyhow, he was professionally ruined, and had to leave England. Why, Miss Graham, how white you are!"

"I'm not very well, and I think I'll get you to excuse me Mr. Twisden," said Bertha, rising. Twisden rose also and opened the door, and spoke a few words of sympathy as she went out.

"I say, Graham," he said as he returned to the table. "I hope I didn't put my clumsy foot in it. Miss Bertha's not got a liking for the doctor has she?" Graham burst out laughing.

"Quite the reverse; she took an instinctive dislike to him from the first. What were the particulars of the case?"

"Patient was the husband of a pretty woman, between whom and Rushley tender passages had long been suspected. Rushley was accused of helping him to a better world, where there are no marriages, and consequently no unfaithful wives. But there were no grounds for a committal."

Bertha had halted just outside the door. She had suspected that Twisden would say more after she left the room, and stopped and heard every word.

iii

BERTHA felt that there was need of action. She had lost her mother when young, and had grown up since then as her father's sole companion, and, having had a boy's education grafted on to a girl's she was thoroughly self-dependent. If she spoke to her father he would put it off until the morning, and she felt that action was imperative; she would go herself. Every minute that passed her lover's life was in danger.

She hastily put on her habit, strapped on her pretty revolver— a birthday present, a toy to look at, but anything but a toy in reality— and before long was cantering along the short five-mile road that divided the two stations. Taking the precaution of dismounting some distance from the house, she tied her horse up and advanced cautiously. Reaching the veranda, she took the extra precaution of taking her boots off, and then stole silently to the French light of the room where she knew Hawkshaw was lying, and looked through the glass.

VERNON, or Rushley, rode on to see after his patient with murder ripening in his heart. No thought of his narrow escape in the past troubled him, for the man who has successfully , evaded the punishment of his crime once thinks he will be always immune. Hawkshaw was no better; Vernon had taken care of that, but the means he was employing were not quick enough for his purpose, and this night there was going to be a change of medicine.

Arrived at the station he dismissed the woman who was acting as nurse, , saying that a crisis was impending, and he would remain all night; then, when his patient had fallen into a restless kind of stupor, he sat down and commenced to brood, a miserable man.

Strange to say, his anger was mainly directed against the girl who, with her father, had helped to save his life. Why could she not have had the sense to return his love without driving him to the necessity of putting this fellow out of the way? Handsomer women than she had been glad to have him as a lover. Who was this bush-bred girl to flout and despise him? So the thoughts of his warped brain ran on for an hour or more, when, glancing at the clock, he saw it was past 8 o'clock and time to act. He arose and looked at the sleeper; he was quieter now, and his lips wore a smile.

"He's dreaming of her," mused the watcher with a look of hate. "Well, dream on, old man, while you can." He opened his medicine case and took out a bottle, rinsed a glass out, and, holding it up, began to drop some of the fluid from the bottle into the glass. He counted twenty, put the glass down, and re-corked the bottle. As he did so a draught of air smote his cheek. Looking round to see if the door had blown open, a dark figure suddenly snatched the bottle from his hand, and stood between him and the bed.

Aghast he started back and gazed at the apparition in terror— Bertha Graham, with all the fury of a woman protecting a helpless loved one blazing in her eyes.

"Dr Rushley," she said in a low voice, "I will give you a chance of your life. I know all about your past, and how near you escaped the penalty of the crime you were about to repeat. Your horse is in the stable; mount, and go back to Brookford, and leave it at once. After twenty-four hours from now I will put the police on your tracks if you are not gone."

"What hysterical nonsense is this?" said Rushley, recovering himself a little. "Give me back that bottle, girl, at once," and he took a stop towards her.

"Stop, if you're wise," she said, raising the revolver. "What this bottle contains I do not know, but I feel certain it will convict you of attempted murder. Now, go while you have the chance. One cry from me would bring men here who would tie you up with a green hide rope till the police came for you."

"Then you will not give me back that bottle?"

"I will not. It is well said that if you save a man's life he will do you some injury, and my father and I saved the life of a murderer. Go quickly, or some of the men will be over directly. By to-morrow afternoon you must be gone from Brookford."

Rushley turned to leave.

"It would only have expedited matters," he said with a vindictive sneer; "he will die whether or no."

He passed out of the door and out of Bertha's life.

DR VERNON had been suddenly called way. Rumor said that a wealthy relation had died and left a large fortune and a title. Anyhow, he had packed up his traps to come on by carrier, and had started for the terminus on horseback early in the morning.

He reached the Pink Lily Lagoon, where he had been brought back to life, just as the sun set; he hobbled, his horse out, brought out some food and a bottle of spirits, and tried to eat. Always a temperate man, the unaccustomed use of alcohol soon mounted to his brain, and he spent half the night wandering up and down the bank of the lagoon uttering impotent threats of vengeance against Bertha and her lover. What galled him most was the knowledge that his parting gibe was an empty throat, and that left to Nature and his own strong constitution Hawkshaw would soon recover.

Towards midnight he thought he would start on again, and after listening for some time he imagined he heard the clink of the hobble-chain in a certain direction, and taking his bridle started in that direction, first filling the half emptied bottle of whisky with water, and taking it with him.

On he went, the clinking hobble chain of his excited fancy always ahead of him. Every time he stopped to listen the sound always seemed the same distance off. He cursed the horse at last and determined to sit down and wait for daylight. He took a long drink from the bottle, and was soon asleep on the spongy soil of the downs.

The sun blazing in his face awoke him. He sat up and tried to get his scattered wits together. Then he arose and looked around him. He was alone on a wild treeless expanse of country. The timber surrounding the lagoon was no longer visible, nor was there any signs of his horse. He was once more lost, hopelessly lost, and he recognised the fact with terror. He sat down again and tried to reason things out and arrive at the direction he ought to go, and, having at last made up his mind, he arose and started.

There was still something left in the bottle, and he took a long drink, and then threw it away. Hotter grew the day, but no welcome timber appeared in sight, and he concluded he had made a mistake, and tried another direction. And so throughout the day— aimless wanderings in every direction, till night closed on a tired-out, despairing man on the brink of madness. And through it all there was ever before him the picture of Bertha nursing her lover back to health.

Night, peopled with phantoms of the past, who through the long hours came and talked with him, brought no solace. In the morning he was delirious, and staggered on, raving and talking incoherently. When the sun smote him down for good he fell near the dried skin and skeleton of a horse that had lain roasting there since he abandoned it months before.

_______________

4: Paint Me as I Am

Kenneth Barber

fl. 1930s

Barrier Miner (Broken Hill, NSW) 11 March 1939

LADY MILBOURNE was a beauty; and as beauty is a perishable fortune, it was right that Lady Milbourne's measure should be laid to canvas. Her eyes had an air of insolent amusement, which discomforted the timorous and rewarded the bold with promises of boldness in return.

Her lips were fresh and their smile provocative. In the manner of her carriage was a superb— at times contemptuous— assurance. And with it all a coloring, both in herself and the clothes she wore, to tempt any painter's brush.

" 'Tis settled, then," said Lord Milbourne.

"Devil take. it! There seems to be no pleasing you at all. Sir Oliver Barton's the best man in London. He's asking fifty guineas. That's a fortune!"

"He's a bore," said Lady Milbourne with a sigh.

"I suppose it's this fellow MoberIey," he sneered. "No doubt you would prefer him to paint your portrait!"

He was goaded to indignation by her silence.

"A common gutter rat! A knave! He took Lord Abney's patronage, and would have run away with his wife if someone hadn't opened Abney's eyes.

"Abney threw him back in the gutter where he came from. And now they say he has put his name to a bill and will go to Newgate if he can't find funds to meet, it. Confound it!" he exploded suddenly; "What do you see in the fellow, anyway?"

"He is young," she answered, cruelly.

Lord Milbourne was cut short in his tirade by a servant at the door, who announced:

"Sir Oliver Barton, milord!"

lt was easy to see what had caused Lady Milbourne her doubts about the pleasure of sitting to Sir Oliver.

"Lord Milbourne, your servant! Lady Milbourne, your admirer! I dare swear, as beautiful as ever!"

He accepted her brief acknowledgment, too concerned with his own importance to notice its lack of warmth. " 'Twill be an honor, to paint such beauty," he added magnanimously.

"On the contrary, it is I who am honored with two painters to picture me at once!"

"Two!"

"Why, yes!" She seemed surprised that Sir Oliver did not know. "Young Mr. Moberley has asked me to sit for him."

"But— but that is impossible!"

" 'Tis a misunderstanding,  Sir Oliver, I beg you—"  Lord Milbourne interrupted anxiously.

"He begged me," she said. "I had not the heart to refuse. But, of, course, it is your portrait which is commissioned. It is your portrait which all the world of fashion is waiting to see."

She played very cleverly not only on his conceit, but also on his fear of losing a single sitter who could add to his reputation.

THERE was no mistaking her meaning, and although he had the best of reasons for wishing to avoid the younger painter, he yielded with as good a grace as he could.

The meeting between them was difficult; but Lady Milbourne handled it with skill.

Moberley watched her sardonically. His lean figure and irregular features gave him a grim appearance, which was heightened by a forbidding sense of humor.

Sir Oliver tried at first to be friendly, but soon gave it up. He busied himself arranging his position and his easel and, anxious to make some show of his superior importance, started very fussily to pose Lady Milbourne.

MOBERLEY had already taken up his stand some distance from the other, where the light fell equally well; and Sir Oliver's intention was to leave him, like one of a row of students, to take whatever view was i left to him.

But Moberley was not in the least perturbed.

"I am painting a woman, not a statue," he said. "I shall catch my likeness when she forgets to pose."

At the first sitting both the painters were preoccupied with their beginnings, and had little to say either to Lady Milbourne or to each other. They finished together, and covered their canvases, Lady Milbourne assuring Sir Oliver, who seemed a little anxious, that they would not on any account be touched.

"I have no desire to see myself in the making," she said with a laugh.

At later sittings Moberley became more talkative. He seemed dissatisfied with what he had painted; and hoped, perhaps by talking to her, to find some new aspect which would heln him with his picture.

Once he said to Lady Milbourne bluntly : "You are not in love with your husband. Lady Milbourne. .... It would be revealing to know why you married him."

SIR OLIVER was shocked into prortest. Lady Milbourne, on thc other hand, did not seem to be perturbed at all. She shrugged her shoulders, and answered lightly:

"Why does any woman marry? Position; wealth; insecurity—"

"Or love?"

She laughed at such an ingenuous suggestion; and Moberley said drily:  "If love has no place in your marriage, Lady Milbourne, at least vou do not deny its place in your life?"

"On the contrary, I am doing my. best to invite it."

This was too much for Sir Oliver. It was true that all London, including Lord Milbourne, knew of her flirtations. But here— in front of him! He spluttered indignantly. This was outrageous! This was intolerable!

Moberlev found amusement watch-ing Sir Oliver's concern, but he paid no heed to his protests.

He spared Lady Milbourne nothing. He seemed to gain a savage pleasure in laying bare her soul. He forced her in front of Sir Oliver to show herself for what she was forced her openly to offer her love to a man who treated her only with contempt.

Sir Oliver put down his brushes. "This is too much!"

For answer, Moberley laughed gratingly. ''You should find it illuminating. Barton. A great painter, and yet you are frightened to see the souls of the men and women you paint."

HE himself seemed at last to have found an end to his searchings. He had changed his position and taken a new canvas. He must start again; not just adapt what he had already begun.

"The light is harder from here," he said grimly. "Besides, I can watch Sir Oliver's indignation; it gives me an understanding of my subject."

Although he had started so much later, Moberley finished before Sir Oliver. He had worked quickly and boldly at each sitting, overtaking the other's stolid progress, and then, just as suddenly as he had started, laid his brushes aside.

Lord Milbourne was brought in to see the result of his commission. Moberley watched the three figures grouped around the easel: the painter, smug and self-satisned as ever; Lady Milbourne, revealing nothing in her smile; and Lord Milbourne, unable to lose his harassed expression while he strove to make the appropriate remarks.

The portrait was exactly as he had expected, and intended— a fashionable picture, fashionably done, which would be seen and admired by all London.

"And now," said Sir Oliver, after he had received their congratulations, "let us see what Mr. Moberley has done."

There was more than a little malice in his words; for Moberley's picture was still covered in a corner of the room, as if he were not anxious to exhibit it to Lord and Lady Milbourne:

"By all means," Moberley turned to his easel. But before he took the cover away he had something to say to them.

"Sir Oliver there has given you line for line and color for color. Lady Milbourne's beauty. Very excellent. In the best traditions of English portrait painting!" He spoke with, biting contempt. "As vapid, meaningless, empty and shallow, as Lady Milbourne. herself!"

"How dare you!" shrieked Lord Milbourne.

Sir Oliver strode to the easel and pulled the cloth away from Moberley's canvas. Then he stood back in astonishment. It revealed only a few lines and some desultory color; a framework of a portrait quickly abandoned.

His astonishment gave way to satisfaction. "I should hardly have thought,'he said sarcastically, "that your portrait gaye you cause to sneer at mine."

Lord Milbourne's shrill treble rose as his indignation increased. "How dare you insult me? How dare you come into my house on such pretences?"

MOBERLEY faced the three of them, his lips drawn with the  uncompromising contempt in which he held them.

"I came because Lady Milbourne begged me to. If you wish to know why, I will tell you— because I had refused to make love to her, and she does not like to see her whims denied. I accepted because I needed money, and by painting her portrait hoped to find others who would come to me in tum."

They waited in silence, and Moberley said grimly: "I looked for her soul, but I found it was commonplace. To paint you must either love or hate. Lady Milbourne was not worth either."

Sir Oliver Barton had been thinking.

"This is the portrait you put aside," he said slowly. "Where is the one you finished?"

"You would like to see it?"

Sir Oliver Barton hesitated.

"You shall," promised Moberley. "But first I have something to say to you."

Sir Oliver looked at him apprehensively; but Moberley showed no mercy.

"You hated me, Barton, because I painted things as I saw them, and because I saw them truly. You were jealous because I stood alone, instead of kneeling with you in the mud to paint lies for eager fools who dare not see the truth. You hated me, so you waited for your chance."

He over-rode Sir Oliver's protests "I fell in love with Lady Abney. Her  husband was my friend and my benefactor; so for three years I lived in their house and never asked a favor which I dared not show the world.

"I kissed her once. And on that kiss you built a tower of hideous lies to turn the world against me."

Sir Oliver started uneasily.

"Perhaps you think I did not know your part. You killed Lady Abney with your slander. You murdered Abney's soul, and made a petty credulous fool out of what was once a man. And you threw me back to the gutter, with my reputation damned till not a decent man or woman dared sit to me."

Moberley laughed abruptly, as if at himself for taking such a world of fools with such a serious air. His humor came back to him as hi quickly uncovered his second canvas

LADY MILBOURNE realised then, and Sir Oliver Barton, too, why Moberley had changed his position to paint the second picture. For it was not of Lady Milbourne at all.

It was a damning, merciless portrait of all that was miserable and pompous and ridiculous in the man he so despised. It was painted with savage enjoyment and skill. It seized upon everything that was foolish, and made the picture a damning caricature. A caricature that the whole of London would laugh at, but which none could find unjust.

"It must be destroyed!" cried Sir Oliver in alarm.

"If you buy it," said Moberley drily, "it is yours to use as you please."

"How— how much do you want?"

"Shall we say fifty guineas?"

Sir Oliver dared not do otherwise than accept. But he did so protesting vigorously.

"This is outrageous! It means I have painted Lady Milbourne for nothing!"

"In that case," said Moberley with sardonic humor, "you have painted her for exactly what she is worth. Let us say I take the fifty guineas for leaving her unpainted. The portrait of yourself I did for pleasure."

_________________

5: Haunted by a Bard

H. F. Lester

1853-1896

The Argosy, March 1895

YES; before I got this city living, I was Rector of Stow Poppleton.

It was a college living. A good house, but not much stipend. I remember arriving there, at night-time, as my train had been delayed, I drove the three miles from the station, and the first thing that impressed me was the fact that in order to reach the rectory front- door, I had to walk through part of the churchyard. The church-yard was all dark, and in the gloom a colossal figure on a stone pedestal rather startled me. However, inside the rectory everything was bright and cheerful enough. At that time I was a bachelor, fond of a quiet rubber, and not ashamed to be seen out with the hounds now and again.

"One advantage of a village living like this," I said to myself, "is that there won't be too much to do in the way of clerical duty."

I had not at that time the smallest idea that Stow Poppleton possessed any title to fame on account of any event that had ever taken place in it. I was destined soon to become wiser.

On the following day, before luncheon, the neighbouring squire called onme. I knew that I should have to depend on him a great deal for society, dinners, rubbers, and so on, and I was anxious to stand well with him. He had literary tastes, of which he was proud, and a correspondingly feeble physiognomy.

It was in the study that I received this important parishioner— my study that looked straight across to the church that was also to be mine. One of his first observations was that I was fortunate to come to a place "consecrated by so many memories." What on earth could he mean? I asked myself.

"He must often have sat in this room," he went on.

I assented, under the impression that he referred to my immediate predecessor, the Reverend Samuel Bodkin, just deceased. But I was mistaken.

"Yes," he proceeded meditatively, "this is all hallowed ground. It's interesting, isn't it, to feel that the ground on which we are standing is— in fact, that it is hallowed?"

Now the reports that I had heard regarding the late Mr. Bodkin, represented him as anything but a credit to his cloth. If rumour lied not, he tippled. Still, he might have had compensating virtues.

"Why, yes," I rejoined, as cordially as I could, "no doubt Mr. Bodkin was an estimable man, but I had not the pleasure of his acquaintance," The squire started, and then laughed, rather rudely, I could not help thinking.

"Ha! Ha! Did you think I meant Bodkin! No, no; a much greater than Bodkin, who— between ourselves— was an ass. The great poet Grabbe has sat in that very chair you are now sitting in!"

The squire looked as though he expected me to be overwhelmed by the announcement. But I had suffered from a neglected poetical education, and I could not for the life of me recollect any bard named Grabbe. I did what most people would have done— I tried to conceal my ignorance.

"Indeed?" I said, heartily. '' Then Grabbe, I suppose, must have— er— visited the rectory once?"

"Visited the rectory!" exclaimed the squire. "He's buried here! He lived close by for thirty years. His most famous poem was written in the belfry of your church. His monument's here. Why, Stow Poppleton would be unknown but for Grabbe! Do you mean to say that you didn't know of the association when you accepted the living?"

It was useless to attempt dissimulation. I admitted the fact.

" 'Pon my soul!" was all that the squire was able to reply, and walked out of the house, snorting. I felt at the time that it was an inauspicious beginning of my incumbency. The hatred for Grabbe, his memory, and all his works, which I admit with sorrow that I still cherish, had its origin in that interview.

No sooner had the squire departed than I began to realise that Grabbe and his ghost would evidently demand a considerable portion of my time and attention as rector, and that I had better find out all about him. I accordingly despatched my coachman to the country town to procure me a copy of all Grabbe's writings at the local bookseller's.

When he came back, I sat down and dipped into the poems. I found the one on the belfry. I read it and re-read it. There were, I could see, some pretty turns of expression in it, but it could hardly be called a cheerful composition. It was, in fact, distinctly melancholy, and, I even ventured to whisper to myself, maudlin.

A walk about the churchyard soon showed me what the colossal monument which had startled me on the previous night really was. It was Grabbe! There he sat, fifteen feet above the ground at least, in his habit as he lived. The stone book from which he read had been chipped by Time or village boys, perhaps both. The stone folds of his cloak were green with damp. He and his pedestal were far the largest things in the churchyard, and quite the gloomiest. They seemed to dominate it. All round the pedestal were graven extracts from his poetry— especially from the eternal Ode "written in the belfry of a village church."

Next I wandered into the church itself. It was a decayed old place, in need of thorough restoration. Here too Grabbe pursued me. A tablet to his memory was the most conspicuous object on the walls. In the vestry my eye was at once struck by a fine oak chest, with a brass plate let into the lid. On this plate were the words— "This chest was once in the possession of the poet Grabbe. After his death it was presented to this church by his heir."

My thoughts— of a gloomy cast— were interrupted by the appearance of the sexton, who was also the village bootmaker. He introduced himself most deferentially, and I was quite pleased to notice that he was not a venerable relic, like most of the other objects about the church, but a middle-aged healthy-looking man, evidently with his wits about him.

Our conversation was chiefly about church matters. Towards the end, however, I felt that I must allude to my new-found enemy, Grabbe. Perhaps the sexton would show a fellow-feeling with me, He, too, must by this time have been bored to death by the associations of this poet-haunted spot.

"I suppose now," I casually observed, "you must have been quite a child when Mr. Grabbe lived here?"

"Poet Grabbe, sir"— the sexton evidently thought the "Mister" too familiar, while " Grabbe" alone might have sounded disrespectful— Oh, yes: I don't remember aught about him. But there's some as does in the village still."

"Oh! What do they say about him?"

" Well, sir, they says that if they'd knowed he was goin' to be so much thought on now he's dead, they'd have made a deal more of him when he was alive."

"But do they remember what he looked like— what he did?"

"Oh, they remembers a lot— when the folk comes round askin' them questions, and they can get something out of it."

I laughed at this, but the reference to "folks coming round asking questions" was disquieting.

"Are there— er— many pilgrims— people who come to sec his grave, and so on?"

The sexton's reply was startling.

"Hundreds of them, sir! They comes from Bingham (our country town and station) in vans sometimes. Law! the place swarms wi' them on a 'oliday."

I retired to the rectory to drown my sorrows in tobacco. It was painfully apparent that the college authorities, who had presented me with this living (and who had said not a word about Grabbe), had decoyed me to a kind of literary Mecca, where I must endure the penalties of Grabbe's disquieting fame.

I began to experience what it was like at once. Some parties would lunch at the village ale-house, and explore church and churchyard afterwards, in uproarious spirits. Other parties did their worshipping first, and afterwards camped out (in the rectory fields) for a picnic. There were visitors who lunched off sandwiches in the churchyard, using the gravestones as tables, and the turf as a waste-paper basket. There were other pilgrims whose nourishment appeared to be exclusively liquid, and who deposited empty bottles jocularly just inside the rectory gate. There were devout pilgrims, and fashionable pilgrims, and inquisitive pilgrims, and mere holiday-making pilgrims. But they all wanted relics. Bits of mortar from the belfry, flowers from the rectory gardens, surreptitious splinters from the oak chest— anything and everything came in handy.

There was another point in which they all agreed. Of course they wanted to see the inside of the famous belfry, but that is not what I now refer to. Grabbe unhappily had been a close friend of the rector of fifty years back, and so had used the rectory study very much as if it were his own. One bedroom in the rectory, too, was called "Grabbe's Room." Pilgrims therefore thought that they had a right to wander all over my house. If I demurred, they grumbled. If I fixed one hcur in the day when the rooms might be seen, I was liable to find a string of pilgrims kicking their heels outside my front door for an hour or two previously Their enthusiasm was most creditable. But this did not prevent their bringing barrowfuls of mud from their boots on to my new carpets.

I vividly remember my first batch of Americans. They were three— all males. The first that I heard of them was their talking in loud voices to a new servant in the hall. They "wanted to see the parson," I heard them say. The girl lost her head, forgot instructions, and showed them into the study.

The tallest, a grizzled man, with a face like a horse, at once said:

"You're the boss here?"

I replied that I was the rector.

"Wal," he went on, "we want to see round your place— remains of the great poet, and all that. Likely you've a pile of 'em somewhere."

I mildly answered that in the vestry they would be able to inspect a chest that had once belonged to him, and I incautiously added: "This chair, too, is the one in which he is supposed to have sat."

No sooner had I uttered the words than they all three made a dash at the chair! They were filled with a simultaneous desire to sit in it. One of the three, a shortish, stout person, who happened to be nearest, won, but the grizzled man and a third, who looked like an overgrown boy, ran him close. As he plumped on to the seat, I heard the arm give an ominous and protesting crack.

They were not in the least degree abashed after their undignified scramble. The grizzled man said :

"Wal, I declare that's mean! I had first call. If I'd known that chair was Grabbe's I'd have anchored in it when I first got into the room, and you'd have had to prise me out, you bet."

After that they began to quote lines from Grabbe, and asked me if I thought he had written them in that room. They seemed astonished and pained at my inability to fix the particular spot where each poem was produced. They said that in America "the person in charge" would have been able to tell them a little thing like that. To get rid of my visitors, I took them into the church and showed them the belfry. This roused their enthusiasm to fever-heat. They said he must have been looking at the bell when he wrote the "Ode." Then they all looked at it too, touched it, sounded it, fondled it, and seemed as though they would willingly have carried it away with them to America.

Yet all the time they exhibited a curious irreverence for their idol.

"Threw off his little things right here, did he?" said one of them as I showed a grassy bank in the garden where he was popularly supposed to have often reclined.

The monument in the churchyard seemed to attract their attention chiefly by its ponderousness.

"Folk about here afraid he'd escape, hey?" was one of the questions put to me. The stout man read all the stanzas on the monument out loud, and then observed that the writer of the epitaph didn't hold much stock in any other poet, or he wouldn't have put such a powerful lot of Grabbe on the stone.

They came in a carriage, and in that carriage were three cameras. The last peep that I had at my uninvited guests was when each of them was planted in a different corner of the churchyard, taking a view of the church tower.

My nearest neighbour was the village doctor, who lived within a stone's throw. I soon made acquaintance with him, and found him a rather cynical, silent person, and a great smoker. Tobacco was the agent that thawed him, and we soon became pretty friendly. He was not a believer in Grabbe. He laughed at his poetry, calling it '' sentimental gibberish." At first I confess that I thought this rather too severe a criticism ; but it was astonishing how many new faults I discovered in his poems after a day spent in keeping the pilgrims at bay. And at the close of such a day it was a positive comfort to be able to step across to the doctor's commodious bungalow, and indulge in vitupera- tion of our common foe.

"I wouldn't be rector here, not for worlds," the doctor confided to me at a very early period after my arrival.

I asked him why.

"Why?" he replied; "because it isn't your Oxford College that has the patronage. Not a bit of it. Grabbe is the patron of Stow Poppleton. What's more, Grabbe's ghost is the incumbent, and the deity worshipped here is Grabbe. It ought to be called Saint Grabbe's." And he laughed grimly— the kind of laugh that a man would give who enjoyed the spectacle of another's misery, secure from invasion himself.

One day I had a call from two offensive cads who rode over from ingham on cycles. My only reason for mentioning them is that they acted as a kind of last straw, which finally decided me to get relief either by resigning the living, or in some other way.

The cyclists were quite as impudent as the Americans, and more vulgar, They rang at the rectory bell, and as bad luck would have it my servants were out, and I had to answer the bell myself. They wanted, as usual, to see over the house, and when I had shown them the study, one of them, who I think had been drinking a little, coolly asked for refreshment in the form of soda-and-brandy; and then they both laughed long and boisterously, and I found it difficult to get rid of them.

Only two courses presented themselves— when I meditated on my position in solitude that evening— as being possible of adoption. One was to fly from the pesterings of pilgrims, perhaps to some desert island with the Grabbe-bored sexton as my companion, if he would come. 'The other plan did not involve any surrender of my stipend as rector, but afforded the delightful prospect of keeping the poet's worshippers at a convenient and respectful distance. I chose the last.

In carrying out my design I was obliged to become, for the time being, a votary of Grabbe myself. All the lore about him and his habits on which I could lay my hands was diligently perused, and my position as rector of course aided me greatly in the search.

My object was, if possible, to explode the theory that Grabbe was a frequent visitor at the rectory, and to transfer the hideous legend to the doctor's house. If I could only send the pilgrims over to drive the doctor out of his wits and his cynicism, I should for ever be rid of the nuisance! Such was my dark plot, which nothing could have excused except the desperate position in which I found myself.

My investigations led to the discovery that the bard had really once occupied lodgings at some house not far from the church. If so, then why not at the doctor's, which had been in the possession of the family of a small yeoman before the doctor's time? It seemed a reasonable theory, and I wrote a paper in a magazine upholding this view, which was called "learned" and "illuminating" by some critics, and sent a copy to each of the county papers, so that soon the matter became the talk of the neighbourhood. I sent a copy also to the doctor himself, and as a final stroke I presented him with Grabbe's chair from my own study. A sacrifice, certainly, but I preferred to sacrifice the chair rather than my own mental comfort. The sexton was told (and tipped) by me to send all pilgrims inquiring for the house where Grabbe lived and the room wherein he concocted his verses to the doctor's house in future, and not to the rectory.

Just at this time it so happened that I was called away to visit a relative who was dangerously ill. So that what happened during the next fortnight— the fortnight after my attempted transference of the Grabbe nuisance from my own doors to those of the doctor— I really cannot precisely say.

I confess that when I returned to my rectory, at the close of the fortnight, I was very curious to know how the doctor had taken the affair. As a Grabbe-despiser he was not likely to approve very heartily of a daily incursion of Grabbe-adorers. Even my gift of the sacred chair might have failed to mollify him, and I felt that it was quite on the cards that he had revolted, sent the chair back again, warned the pilgrims off his premises, and left them no alternative but to seek for relics and associations at the rectory as before.

Therefore I was distinctly pleased to find, during the whole first morning after my return, that not a single pilgrim knocked at the rectory portal. There was a train from London that arrived at Bingham about 11 A.M., and this was one of the favourite pilgrim trains, which—aided by carriages in waiting at the station— landed the devotees at Stow Poppleton about twelve. But twelve came, half-past, one— not a solitary worshipper had come to molest my repose.

Then it occurred to me that one of the bedroom windows commanded an excellent view of the doctor's cottage. It might be worth while just to see if the pilgrims had. been choked off altogether by the doubts that had been aroused by my magazine article, or whether one or two were favouring the doctor with their undesired presence.

One or two! The doctor's front garden was simply alive with excursionists, There they were, filing into his gate by dozens, Surely the doctor himself could not be at home! When he came back, I trembled to think what his feeling would be at the sight of this mob of well-dressed importunates. Not in the least should I have been surprised if I had beheld him suddenly emerge from indoors armed with a stick, and do fearful havoc among the tourists. But no such event occurred, and I could see that every now and then the front door did open, and admitted a batch of visitors, and then closed again. And then what added to the mystery was, that not one of them came out again. Was the doctor murdering them by relays indoors, actuated by a horrible spirit of revenge? It was all most inexplicable. I was determined to seek the sexton, and ask an explanation of the rather awful occurrences that I had witnessed. But the sexton was not at home.

The only course open to me seemed to be to wait till the late afternoon, when no more sightseers might be expected, and then go over to the cottage and receive a solution of the puzzle from its tenant.

It somewhat surprised me, when I paid my visit, to be ushered into a small room at the back of the house instead of into the doctor's library and smoking-room combined, where he usually welcomed me. But he soon explained the matter.

"You see," he said, "ever since you wrote that wretched essay of yours, these idiots of Grabbites have been besieging my cottage. What was I to do? A happy thought occurred to me that if I was doomed to be pestered in this way, I might as well turn it to practical account. So that's what I have done. I charge 'em a shilling for admission, and I let Eliza, my maid, take a commission of threepence for the trouble of showing 'em over the place. Come and see my library. It'll astonish you."

It certainly dd astonish me. There was the Grabbe chair from the rectory, with a label on it stating that Grabbe was supposed to have written his "Ode" in it. There was an ink-pot, also Grabbe's, a bookcase, books, picture, writing-table, sofa, and old Dutch clock, all looking the worse for wear, and all "Once the property of the poet Grabbe."

"Where on earth did you get this collection from ?" I inquired.

The doctor winked knowingly.

"I've been poking about a bit, and if Grabbe did not use this identical table, at all events it's old enough to have been his. The pilgrims want relics, and I give 'em relics. It doesn't matter two-pence to them if they are all spurious. Besides, I don't know that they are spurious. I'm thinking of writing a magazine essay to prove them genuine, and increasing the price of admission to two shillings ahead. I believe the pilgrims are fools enough to pay it."

"But," I could only reply feebly, 'I thought— I understood you to say that you detested the Grabbe craze, and yet here you are, welcoming the lunatics to your house !"

"Quite so," he replied coolly. "It would bore me to death to have to show the donkeys the relics and talk rubbish to them, and I don't do any of that. Eliza does it all, and enjoys it. I sit in the other room, when I'm at home, and smoke there instead of here, and have the satisfaction of feeling that the pilgrims' shillings find me in tobacco, and are laying up a handsome little retiring pension for Eliza as well. I'm really very much obliged to you for turning them over to me."

There was nothing to be said. The doctor continued to fool the visitors to the top of their bent; and I had a serious quarrel with the squire for parting with the chair, which, he said, "went with the living." Altogether Stow Poppleton failed to suit me, and I soon exchanged the living for another, taking the precaution to make quite certain beforehand that in my new sphere of labour I should not be obliged to "take over," among other fixtures, either the tomb or the fame of a dead poet.

_______________

6: Nominated for Murder

Roger Torrey

1901-1946

Private Detective Stories Oct 1940

The first chapter didn't have a number or title, but the rest did. Not unusual in the pulps.  I made one up

1:  Carmen

I WAS on all fours picking up some paper clips I'd spilled when I saw her  feet through the knee-hole of the desk. I stopped swearing and stood— and I'll give her credit for not laughing. But her face was red, trying to keep from it.

She must have thought I'd been playing hide-and-seek with somebody because she looked around the office to see who else was lurking behind furniture, before she held out her hand and said, a little doubtfully:

"Is it you are Mr. Malone? I am Miss Costello."

She had an accent thick enough to braid and she had show girl written all over her, but I wanted to make sure.

"The Miss Costello?" I asked. "From the Frolics?"

"That is right. Carmen Costello. Only I am not Carmen Costello— I am Mrs. Harbin."

It wasn't making sense very fast but I told her to sit down. She waved toward the outside office and said: "I looked; there was nobody. It was alone. So I just walk in like I am announce."

Joe Smith was at the bank, checking on the overdraft, but I couldn't see any reason for bringing that up. It was almost three, but I said something about it being lunch hour and all the help being out for it. Then Miss Costello fished around in a purse that was as gaudy looking as she was herself and finally brought out two letters. She handed them over and said:

"It is I am being scared like hell now. You see? The letters! They tell you. All the time it is I am being scared now."

The letters looked like something held over from the Black Hand days. Each of them had a dagger at the top, drawn in red ink. Black ink in block letters was used, in the first, to say ten more days you will live. The second read eight days left you to live. Each was signed with another red ink dagger, and if there was anything about either that would scare a ten year old child I couldn't see it. But there are plenty in show business so dumb a ten year old could give them cards, spades, five free draws from the deck, and still win with nothing but little Casino, so I said:

"Ah-h-h-h, that's bad! Whom do you suspect?"

"What is it you mean, suspect?"

"Who's got it in for you? Who's mad at you?"

"Everybody is mad," she said, and started marking off on her fingers. "There is my manager. There is the theatre manager. There is the stage manager. There is the dance director— he say my feet they do not track. There is my maid. There is the hotel manager— he say too much noise all the time too much noise. There is Harbin— he say flirt, flirt, flirt, all the time."

"Now wait a minute. What's the maid mad at you for?"

MISS COSTELLO shrugged her shoulders and looked sad. "All the time she say she want a raise. And Harbin, too. All the time money. First one hundred dollars. Two hundred dollars. Five hundred dollars. One thousand dollars. All the time money, money, money."

"What's he do with all of it?"

She looked as though her heart was breaking and came out with the stinger. She said: "I don't know— I never give it to him."

I'd been just about certain but that made it no mistake. The accent had sounded like something off the stage. She'd been rolling her eyes like they were on casters. She'd been waving her hands far too much. And slamming that whiskery old gag back at me capped it. I handed her back her letters and nodded toward the door.

"I don't know what the bet was, sister," I told her, "but you won it in a walk. Now look, I'm a busy man, even if I don't look it. Go bother somebody else, before I start telling you just what a phony you are. Your act stinks, in other words."

Miss Costello started laughing, but it was an American laugh, rather than Spanish. There's a lot of difference, even if it's hard to describe. And then she brought out a very tiny handkerchief and wiped her eyes and said:

"Okey! Okey, Malone! The ten percent that thinks he owns me body and soul insists on me putting it on. And Lord, Honey, it'd surprise you how much fun it is sometimes."

"That would be your manager?"

"Yeah, sure. George Kampoulis. And believe it or not, he is mad at me. He's sore as a goat. And so are the rest of them, just like I told you. But I wrote the notes myself— I was going to tell you I had enemies from the old country who'd been on my track for years."

"You really want to hire a cop?"

"I really do."

I sat back and told her to tell me about it. I didn't know whether I was going to believe the yarn after Pd heard it, and I didn't know if it was anything I'd want anything to do with if I believed it, but I did know it was going to be fun listening to. She was that kind of girl— the sort that could make a Mother Goose rhyme sound like drama if she wanted it that way. She was small and very dark and she looked as Spanish as one of those highcrowned hats with the silver bells hanging from the brim. She was so pretty it was almost painful. She made you wonder why one girl should have so much and all the others so little. Her voice was cute, even without the faked accent, and it turned out the eye rolling and the hand waving were either natural or such a habit she couldn't stop them. And her story was excellent.

THE first place her name had been Nora Costello; she was one of the Irish so black they can pass for Spanish any time. She'd just started in show business when she'd married a guy named John Harbin, and that had been five years ago. She was vague about just where this had happened and I couldn't see that it made any difference and so didn't press her. But she said she was still nuts about him and she wasn't the least bit vague about that. Only it seemed she wasn't exactly living with him— she was still married to him but she was keeping him out of sight and just seeing him now and then.

I said: "That seems funny. If you're so crazy about him, why aren't you working at it?"

She made a face and said: "That's George Kampoulis' fault. You see Jack and I were separated for a while and I started going good. George had me built up as a South American wonder from a convent who hadn't ever even looked crosseyed at a man. I just knew 'em from pictures, according to the press stuff. So when Jack and I made up, George made him stay out of sight. And George has got me on that kind of a contract and he's the kind of louse that would make it stick. It is good sense— the newspaper boys would kid the pa—raise hell with me if they knew how George had put one over on them the way he did."

It seemed she'd climbed fast under this George Kampoulis, and that while she didn't like him or any part of him she still had brains enough to realize he could make or break her.

He'd finally landed her in the top spot in the Frolics, which was the bawdiest if not the best show in town.

And he'd managed it so she was getting top money for the spot.

I said: "I still don't see just what you want a private cop for? Is it that you want this Jack you're married to tagged? D'ya think he's cheating on you?"

"Not Jack!" she said, looking as though I'd been slandering one of the Lord's angels. "Jack isn't that kind. He isn't that smart. It's the funny things that have been happening. Or rather, almost happening."

I heard the outside door slam and Joe Smith head over to his desk, so I said: "Wait a minute!" I went out, making sure the door was closed after me, and said to Joe:

"How do we stand there?"

HE finished putting the bank book away and said: "Hagh! Why didn't you put down the fifty dollar check you drew to cash, last Saturday? That's what threw me off. I can't keep the checkbook straight if you draw checks and don't mark them down. You know the check I mean; it's a wonder to me the bank accepted it. From Wolmer's Bar and Grill. It looked like you wrote it with your left hand. Or maybe somebody was holding you up on your feet."

I made motions with my head toward the inside office and Joe got the idea. He finished softly but just as violently. "I'm getting sick and tired of you raising hell because we don't balance with the bank when it turns out to be your fault. We're seventeen ninety-six in the red."

Joe is my Aunt Kate's oldest and has a lot of leeway because of Aunt Kate having a little money in the business. I went back inside my own office and left him muttering to himself.

Miss Costello gave me an inquiring look and I said: "It's just my secretary, back from lunch. Now maybe you'd better tell me about those accidents."

Instead, she opened her purse and took out a checkbook and said: "Maybe I'd better give you something on account? So you can cover your overdraft."

It was funny and I laughed. I said: "Oh damn that Joe! He didn't know anybody was here or he wouldn't have spoken."

"What will it be?"

"I usually charge twenty a day and expenses."

She started to put the checkbook away.

"Of course in this case I'd charge only ten."

She said: "I'll make it for a hundred and I want every dime I'm charged for expenses marked down what for. I came up the hard way, Malone. I'm no fool about money, anyway. Just about men."

I said: "I'm not arguing it."

The accidents had been too regular and too often to suit her. I didn't blame her. First, a sandbag used to balance one of the drops on the stage had fallen and landed within a couple of feet of her. It was dark up in the loft where it had fallen from, and by the time she'd shaken away the crowd that came running to tell her what a narrow escape she'd had, there's been no-one up there. Nobody had noticed a thing out of the way.

The second one was as bad. She'd met her husband somewhere and was with him in a cab, riding up to her hotel. A car had jammed the cab into the curb and a couple of guys had stuck them up and taken what money she had and what jewelry she'd been wearing. All told, the loss wasn't a hundred dollars. But one of the hold-up men had slammed at her with a gun barrel and she'd been knocked out for almost an hour. If it hadn't been for her hat, and the way she'd had her hair tucked up under it, she'd probably have had a broken head,

That was the first thing I'd ever heard in favor of the new hats.

Hubby had gotten slammed on the jaw but not as hard. Neither of them had been arguing about the hold-up and there'd been no reason for the rough stuff.

The third time somebody had doctored a bottle of whiskey she'd had in her rooms but her maid had taken the dose. Also this was the first that Miss Costello had known about her maid sneaking drinks of the Costello whiskey, it seemed. She'd rushed the maid to a hospital and had her stomach pumped out and it hadn't done the girl much harm, but the doctor had told her that only prompt action had saved the maid's life.

All this had happened within ten days. I said: "It looks like somebody's gunning for you and no mistake. I'm supopsed to find out who it is, eh?"

"Certainly. And see that nothing else happens like that."

"Now look, Miss Costello. If I was you, I'd go to the police. Honestly, I would. And 'it isn't that I don't want to work for you. But Pd go to the cops and in a hurry."

She looked at me as if I was crazy, and in a way I was. I needed the money and she knew it. But at the same time I didn't want it under false pretenses, even if it did give me a chance to stick around with the girl... and I was already taking an interest there.

"I don't want to go to the police," she said. "If I had, ld have gone there instead of coming here. I don't want the police to know anything about it."

I said: "It's just this. If somebody's gunning for you, and it looks as though there is, there's a good chance of me being no good to you. I'd come in a bad second and seconds don't count in a thing like this. I'd maybe get the one that had already got you but that wouldn't help you. It'd be too late—that's what I'm trying to say. Suppose it's a shooting—the guy'd get first shot and that might be the one that counted. Suppose it's a thing like that sandbag— I can't watch everything. I'm trying to play fair."

"Let's say you start now," she said. "I've got to go up to the hotel and meet George Kampoulis. You come with me— you'll have to meet him sometime. I'm going to tell him you're my brother, from the Coast. He knows I'm from there and he don't know a hell of a lot else about me,"

"Then you want me to work for you?"

She stood up and said: "Look, Malone! If you're that stupid, maybe I don't. What d'ya suppose I came in here for? To hire you, that's why. All right, you've got my money— you're hired. Now come on."

I said: "Okey!"

We went out, and I said to Joe Smith: "T'll give you a ring, Joe, either here or at your house. Look after. things."

Joe gave Miss Costello an up-and-down look that didn't miss a thing and I knew he was getting data stored up to give Aunt Kate.  It was that kind of a look, and I knew I could expect a visit very soon from Aunt Kate.

Aunt Kate had a theory that women were bad for business. She even claimed she had proof of it.

2: No Blood Let

GEORGE KAMPOULIS was dark and swarthy and wasn't much over five feet up. But he was that much wide and almost that much through. I don't think there was an ounce of fat on him— and I hated his guts the second I saw him.

For no reason— just one of those things. Or maybe there was a little jealousy back of it.

The Costello girl sailed in, carrying it over fast, and said: "Oh, George! What d'ya think? It's my brother, Pat. Pat, this is George Kampoulis."

Kampoulis didn't put out his hand. He gave me a sour look and pointed his cigar at the girl and said:

"You Irish hell-cat! What you think you're doing I don't know. I won't ask— you'd lie like hell to me.

But it won't work. You can't get away with a guy."

I decided that ifI was supposed to be a brother I'd better act like one. I bristled up and said: "Hey, you! You can't talk to my sister like that when Pm around."

"Get out then," he told me, not even bothering to look at me. "Look, Nora, it won't work. He ain't your brother— look at the dope. You claim you're Irish but you don't look it. So I build you up as a Spanish broad? But this bum's Irish and looks it. So it won't work." If you want him, you got to keep him out of sight. And what the hell d'ya want him for?"

She'd told me that Kampoulis was tough and she hadn't lied. She also had told me that she could handle him most of the time— and she hadn't lied about that, either.

She called him all the names I'd ever heard a man called in my life and some that were new to me. She sounded as though she meant them. She took off her hat and jumped up and down on it. When she'd worked herself up to the proper point she took off a shoe with a heel on it almost as sharp as a spike and started trying to bat him with it, and he held her off with one hand, not even bothering to take the cigar out of his mouth. He growled past this:

"Okey, okey— So he's your brother, you say. Okey, okey! Only you got to keep him out of sight, just like this guy you say is married to you. This Jack Harbin."

"So he's my brother, then," said Miss Costello, breathing hard, but putting the shoe back on. "So what d'ya want to sce me about anyway, you...."

She'd thought of some more names for him.

Kampoulis put on his hat and gave me the second look he'd given me since I'd walked in. He said: "Aghghh, it can wait. You and your brother will want to talk about what kind of a thing you think you're smart enough to put over on me. But that you ain't smart enough to put anything over on me in a thousand years or a million either."

He waddled over to the door and turned there and pointed the cigar at her. He grinned, for the first time. eee

"Ha-ha," he said. "And what's Harbin going to think of your brother? Hey, my smart young dope? Hey? What's dear Jack going to think of this big clown? Hey?"

She started to take off her shoe again and he went out— but he didn't hurry. We heard the door slam and she said:

"By God! I didn't think of that. Maybe I should have got somebody that looks like me? Jack's got a jealous heart."

I was sore about Kampoulis. I don't claim to be a pretty man, but most kids don't run for shelter when they see me coming. I look kind, even if my nose has been broken. I don't like to be called a bum and a clown.

"Maybe you should have gotten some chorus lady," I said. "There's a few of them carry a private license, though." on.

She laughed then. And said it wasn't her fault if I took after her father while she resembled her mother. Then the door opened again and in came a dark, sullen looking wench who was pretty in spite of it. She gave me one of the who- the-hell -are-you looks and who said to the Costello girl:

"I had to go down to the corner. Kampoulis was here when I left."

"That's fine, Marie," said Miss Costello. "This is my brother Pat. He's going to visit me for a while. That is, he'll be in town for a while, anyway."

Marie nodded at me. She didn't look at all as theugh she cared for me. She went into another room, which I took to be the bedroom, and Miss Costello said:

"Call me Nora, like Kampoulis does. Marie knows I'm not Spanish. And act like you're my brother. And if you make a pass at her I'll crown you."

Marie came back and I started to act brotherly right away. There was a stand with bottles and glasses, and I headed for this and picked a bottle and poured a drink. I drank it and told Nora she was a chump to get that brand—that it was lousy. I smoked cigarettes out of the box on the stand. I thought she was paying too much for the suite— and said so. I brothered around like I owned the place and I could see Miss Costello going into a slow burn.

And when Marie went back in the bedroom she said: "You don't have to be so damned brotherly. After all, it's only an act."

I told her I lived a part when I played it, which got her over the mad.

And then she went in the bedroom to put on fresh make-up. We were going back downtown and get something to eat before she had to go to the show; and we were supposed to meet friend husband when that was over.

I had another couple of drinks while I waited... and wondered if the maid, Marie, was as mad at me as she'd acted.

IT WAS probably a good thing I hadn't taken more to drink. We rode the elevator down and Nora stopped at the desk to tell the clerk something. Then we went out the door, and while the doorman was whistling up a cab, somebody jostled me from behind and said:

"Look where you're going!"

I hadn't been expecting action that soon but this was so crude I couldn't miss it. If I'd turned, I'd probably have got sapped in the face. Instead, I kicked back as hard as I could and got somebody on the shin with my heel.

There'd been three of them and they'd apparently followed us out of the hotel, moving fast so they'd catch us right in front. One of them had been behind me, but he was falling when I turned. The other two were on each side of Nora Costello, and one of them was holding a regulation sap— the kind the cops carry. Shot loaded and with a spring handle. I hit him in the belly, just as hard as I could, and when he doubled up I jerked at the gun under my arm. Nora grabbed at my arm and held it, and the guy on the far side of her swung his fist and caught her on the side of the cheek. A car that had been parked right next the cleared spot in front of the hotel swung in then and the guy Pd kicked in the shin started hobbling toward it. I was wrestling with Nora, trying to get clear, and Nora was screaming:

"No! No! No!"

The one who'd smacked Nora in the cheek reached down and got his arm under the arm of the one I'd hit in the belly, and lifted him up and the two of them started toward the car, also.

Then I broke free from Nora and got the gun clear, with Nora sort of sliding down me as I did.

The man with the bad shin was just climbing in the car and the other two were still five feet or more from it. I got the gun pointed in their general direction and said:

"Hold it, you guys!"

Then Nora jerked an ankle out from under me and I fell down on top of her.

And while I was getting clear the car went away from there fast.

It was quite a job getting away from Nora because she was hanging on for dear life with everything she had to work with. She was holding me with both hands and she had a scissors hold on my left leg with both of hers and I couldn't break it without mussing up her clothes more than they already were... which was no small item. She was a sight, and there were plenty of people to look at it. A hold like that isn't a dignified looking thing at best... and when it's a pretty girl putting it on, with her skirt up around her waist, it's really something for the book.

The doorman was back with us by that time. So were at least twenty other people, who must have been hiding in the cracks in the sidewalk to have appeared so soon, because we'd been all alone when the fracas started.

"Ugh, ugh, ugh," said the doorman, trying to say something and sounding like a horse with the heaves.

"Its all right, Jerry," said Nora, smiling up at him. "They were trying to grab my purse, but my brother stopped them."

I got my gun back under my coat where it belonged— and not more than a dozen people saw me doing it. One dizzy looking woman started telling the crowd to call a cop because I'd been trying to shoot somebody, and I decided right there was no place to be.

"Let's get out of here," I said to Nora.

And she said: "Here's our cab, now. I've just been waiting for you to stand up and help me do the same thing."

So that was that.

WE HAD dinner in a little place near the show and she told me why she'd kept me from using the gun. It didn't make sense.

"You see one of them was one of the men who held Jack and I up," she said. "I recognized him."

"So-o-oo. If I'd nailed him, you'd be out of trouble. He'd have told me what it was all about."

"You'd have killed him."

"Like hell! I'd have taken him through the ham."

"Then the paper would have gotten it."

"So what if they did?"

"There'd have been that notoriety."

"Advertising, they call it."

"The police would have held us both."

"Not for long."

She shut up then and started feeling her cheek. She had a black and blue mark there and it was swollen a little, but it wasn't bad.

"If the guy with the sap had hit you in the face, it would have broken your face in," I told her. I was quite serious.

"But he didn't. I wasn't hurt."

"You will be if this keeps up."

"I don't understand it."

I didn't either—and said so. I was more than half sore at her and didn't feel like talking, anyway. Here she was, hiring me to look after her. The first chance I had to do it she stopped me. There was something funny about it and I didn't know enough about what was going on to put my finger on the sore place. i

It was a cinch that she was in danger. Even if she'd been lying about what had happened before. The business in front of the hotel had been a straight out and out slugging party and it couldn't be explained in any other way. There isn't one lady client in ten that will tell a cop all the truth, and I could see this one was no exception; there was just plenty she hadn't come out with.

So I ate my dinner and kept quiet. And then we went to the show.

3: Wrong Protection

FROM the wings it was like any other big musical. There were a flock of comics, most of whom told dirty jokes. On the line stuff and definitely. There were a flock of pretty girls who didn't look quite so cute when you saw them up close and sweating. Their costumes had been used for some little time and weren't in quite as good shape as when the show had started. There were the usual chorus boys, with the usual percentage of little darlings among them, if the camping back and forth was any indication. There was the usual crew of bored electricians and bossy stage men. There was the usual hysterical second lead who dashed around screaming he couldn't find this and that, and who was called "Dearie" by some of the other boys and "that so-and-so" by some of the others. There was the usual call boy, running around with a watch, a cracked voice, and a tired hopeless look.

I spent my time just outside Nora's dressing room, while she and Marie were getting her ready to go on— and the rest of the time in the wings trying to spot anything wrong. A show is nothing but confusion from there at best, even if you know what's coming next, and so, for all the good I did, I might as well have been down in the corner bar where I wanted to be.

Nora sang half a dozen songs that were well on the shady side; but she sang them in that faked accent and as if she didn't know what the words meant— and that put them over with a bang. I could see why she was tops. She did a couple of dances too, getting the same idea over.

The show was built around her anyway— she was supposed to be an innocent child who repeated just what she was told to say. A child of nature. The little princess of some lost tribe who'd been found and brought out into wicked civilization by an intrepid explorer, who was of course the male lead— and who had a tenor voice that tore me. The wrong way.

It finally ended— I took up my post outside her dressing room while she changed to meet friend husband— and then we were out of the theatre and heading straight for the rendezvous.

And it's no fun taking a girl to meet another guy . . . even if she is married to the stupid.

"How'd you like it?" she asked, but not as if it made any difference to her. And I told her it was just fine in the same kind of voice. Then she put her hand over mine and said:

"Look, Malone! Don't be sore. There's a lot going on I can't tell you about. Maybe by and by. I'm going to have it tough enough tonight, without you grouching on top of it. PII make it up to you."

We pulled up in front of the 4rlisienne and I handed her out, feeling better about the thing.

At least she'd finally admitted she was holding out on me... and from what else she'd said I thought I had something to look ahead to and it was more than just information.

The place was nice but not too nice. Not the kind of place where you have to dress, but where if you did you weren't out of order. Quiet, and sort of confidential. Soft music and good service. The right hand side of the menu reading like telephone numbers. We got a booth, clear in the back, and she looked around and said:

"Jack and I meet here often. It's quiet, and most of the show crowd give it a miss. I think I'd better tell him who you really are or he'll think you're a new sweetie."

"It's an idea," I told her, looking over the card for something that wasn't in French.

And then, when I looked up, a big blond bird had her by the arm. and was dragging her out of the booth. He wasn't saying a word. He had her with his left hand and he had his right all cocked and ready to smack her when he got her in position.

So I picked up the glass ash tray, which was a little hefty and slammed it in his face.

Down he went, falling backward and with blood pouring from his nose before he even hit the floor.

Nora hadn't made a sound and neither had he, except for the bump he made when he landed. But now she stared down at the guy and let out a screech that sounded like a fire siren.

Just an E-E-E-E-EEE-EEEE! that went on and up.

"And that's that!" I said. "By and by these guys are going to get tired of heaving you around."

She said: "My God! That's my old man!"

I figured it would be either the end or the start of a perfect evening. And it was my fault; I should have pegged the guy as her husband. After all, we were there to meet him.

There was merry hell to pay all around. The manager was there, talking about sending for the cops. I showed him my card and explained things. Nora gave him money and explained things. Friend husband snapped out of it but didn't say a word. He must have thought plenty. We finally all ended back in the private office with a doctor, who put splints on the broken nose, and after he'd left, Nora kept trying to talk to the guy and he kept brushing her away and watching me. I'd patted him all over during the time we were giving him the first aid and so I wasn't worried much about the glare.

I knew he wasn't carrying a gun.

There was still the call to make to Joe Smith, though I knew Pd catch hell for calling at that hour from Aunt Kate. I also knew Pd catch more hell if I didn't call, because she didn't think I should back up and spit without consulting her and I knew she'd want to talk about the new case. And the new girl.

And I had a notion Nora Costello wanted to explain to her wounded papa just who I was and what I was doing there. If she could make a story that would hold up.

I got the manager on his feet and moving out to the bar, the first thing I saw there was George Simpson, who works for the Donovan Agency.

"Well, well, well, Paddy Malone," he said, looking surprised. "What brings you into cafe society?"

"Just spearing a drink," I said, going on past toward the phone booths. "I'll pop for one, as soon as I make a call."

He said: "I've waited for this day."

The Donovan Agency is a cheap outfit and has that kind of help. I had no use for Simpson and he knew it. He liked me the same way, but I was a little curious to know what he was doing there. I got on the phone, and Aunt Kate said: "Hello!" almost before it had quit ringing at her house.

I said: "This is Pat."

"Such a time to call me!" she said, sounding plenty mad about it. "Its a quarter after one. Isn't it bad enough to say you'll call without making me stay up till an hour like this waiting for it. Who's this woman you're with... and can't she keep you busy?"

"I thought you'd want to know I'm still with our client."

"That woman?"

"Of course."

She gave a dirty laugh.

"That's right. So far I've protected her twice. Only the last time it was against her husband."

I got the laugh again.

"So I don't know what time I'll be down in the morning. Tell Joe to open up, just as if I wasn't coming down at all."

"He's used to it."

"She's paying us, Aunt Kate."

"I'll bet!"

"For sure. A hundred, already."

"I'll believe that when I see it."

I promised she'd see the hundred the next day and hung up and went back to the bar. Simpson gave me an evil wink and said: "Hagh! She was supposed to meet you here and she stood you up."

"By God! You are a detective," I told him, and ordered drinks. "And you, George? What brings you here?"

He played with his drink and sounded a little vague. "Oh just running around. You know how it is—"

Right then I saw my client coming out of the manager's office with her head in the air and looking as though she could chew nails. I told George Simpson I'd be seeing him around, and followed her to the check room, and there she turned and blazed at me with:

"You see what you did? You see?"

"You hired a guard, didn't you? Am I supposed to sit there and see somebody cuff you around?" I was a little sore.

"He's jealous, is all. You're a fool. Couldn't you wait?"

"Okey, okey! Maybe you had it coming then. Maybe I should have let him go ahead."

She grabbed at her coat and got into it without even giving me a chance to help her with it. "I'm going home. Come on."

I GOT into mine and we caught a cab in front and got to the hotel with no more trouble. But when she started to leave me at the elevator bank, I said:

"You'd better let me go up with you and look around your place. You never can tell— you might as well play it safe."

"Marie's home by now. She's up there."

"So-o-o-o. If somebody walked in on her and wanted to wait for you, then what? Could she throw them out?"

I rode up with her and found Marie waiting and looking mad about having to. There was no one else in the suite— and I made sure of it.

"You'd better not open your door for anybody you're not sure of," I said. "And I mean sure. I can't very well camp in the hall outside your door all night. What time should I be here tomorrow, or d'ya want to hire somebody else to take on the job?"

She made her eyes big and her voice surprised. "Why should I hire somebody else?"

"Well, you called me a fool and I did slap your old man down, after all."

"You certainly did," she said, and didn't look too unhappy about it. I imagine he'd done the beating up business with her before. "Jack should have waited and let me explain. He just goes crazy when he gets excited. Suppose you call me about eleven?"

I said eleven would be fine so far as I was concerned.

"At eleven sharp then, Pat," she said.

Marie was in the other room and there was no need of the Pat and Nora stuff to put the act over. I said so.

She said: "After all, you've been trying. Lets leave it between us at Pat and Nora from now on, shall we?"

I told her that was fine with me and said good night. Enough had happened for one day.

4: Murder and Motives

JOE SMITH nodded when I went in, and jerked his head toward the inside ofice. He had a smug look on his face which I knew came from Aunt Kate telling him just what she was going to tell me. I asked if there was any mail, making it sound very brisk, and he said: "No, Mr. Malone. A Mr, Kampoulis is waiting." And then, under his breath: "How's the client? How'd you make out?" I ignored it. Kampoulis was sitting across from my desk and he looked even bigger in the morning light. His beard was so dark his face looked like a pen and ink drawing. It was a cinch he was wise to me, so I said:

"Ha, ha, Mr. Kampoulis. Caught on, did you?"

He pointed his cigar at me and said: "You young dope! Thinking you could put something over on George Kampoulis. As if I didn't know what was going on."

I didn't have to keep on with the brother act and for that reason I didn't have to put up with that kind of talk. The man was smart, or he'd never have put Nora Costello on the top of the heap, but that still didn't make me like him. I had no reason not to— it was just one of those personal things you can't help.

"You fat slob," I said. "You open that puss of yours again to me like that and I'll bust you in it. Who the hell d'ya think you are? Don't think you're coming in my office and throw your weight around— you don't weigh enough. If you want to keep a civil tongue in your head and sit there and tell me what you want, why all right. If not, get out. And I'd like to throw you out."

"A speech, no less. And to me, George Kampoulis."

"To me, a louse."

This time he grinned and showed me a bunch of bad teeth. He waved the cigar and said, with a sort of grudging good nature: "Okay, okay, my young friend, I'm wrong, you're right. Old George's always wrong, the other guy's always right, but old George always comes out ahead. Now what does that little dope think she is putting over, that's what I want to know? Hey? Is it a new man is worth that much trouble to her?"

"Ask her."

He pointed the cigar at me again. "I should ask her and get lied to. Nuts! Im coming to you— I can talk sense to you."

"Well, start."

He dragged a wallet out and acted as if this wasn't a habit. He looked pained. "It's this, my young friend. I built that girl up. All the way. I work her publicity— I get her bookings. Where they count I get her bookings. I go all the way with her. I know she is married to a louse husband and I think I can take care of him when he shows up."

"How'd you know he'd show up?"

THIS time he waved both the cigar and the wallet— the last not very far. He really had a clutch on it. "Don't they always show up when they smell dough? I ask you."

"So-o-o-o?"

"So he shows up. And the dope goes for him again, just as bad as ever. She won't learn. I make her keep him out of sight but she's got him around her all the time. Then I see you and I know damn' well you're not her brother. She's going again, and so what should I do about it? I say this to her and she jumps down my throat. So I come to you to talk sense."

"You said that before," I reaed him. "Why don't you begin?"

"Look, my friend. I got her primed for a job in the pictures. They are already talking contract with me. It's the big money for her. Its the big money for me. This now? Pagh! Chicken feed. Pictures is the big money."

"All right, I won't argue it."

"There is no argument. I have worked for this."

"So what d'ya want?"

"I want to know what kind of a game it is she is playing with me."

"Ask her."

This time he opened the wallet and started fishing out money. He'd pull out a bill and look at me and I'd keep my face straight. He'd pull out another; Id still dead pan. Finally he had out a hundred and a half, spread fan wise on the desk in front of him. He said:

"That's as far as I'll go."

"That's enough. She's scared and she wants protection. A sandbag almost fell on her. She was held up and sapped. Somebody doped some whiskey she had in her place. She's afraid, and she came to me for protection. Give me the dough."

He put his hand on the money and screwed his face up until I could barely see his eyes. He laughed, but he didn't make any noise doing it.

"She makes those things up," he said. "I don't pay for a story like that."

"The hell you don't. She isn't making anything up. You know what the story is and what isn't. Three guys tried to rough her up when we left her hotel last evening, and they'd have done it if I hadn't broken it up. Now tell me I'm lying and collect that smack in the puss."

"No fooling?"

"No fooling on both."

HE STILL kept his hand on the money but he'd stopped laughing. He said, very thoughtfully: "She tells me about this and I think she's dopey. Like the sandbag would be an accident. See? And like the holdup guys would be smacking her so she couldn't open her face and call the cops loud at the top of her voice. See? And I figured the maid got poisoned on something for dinner. See? The maid is definitely tramp, so what should I think. No fooling about guys trying to beat her up?"

"You heard me."

He pointed the cigar at me and said: "It will be her louse husband. It will be him. A louse, you understand. In spades. All the time she gives him her money. He won't work."

"Well, there's no sense in both of them working."

He looked suspiciously at me. "Don't rib me, my friend. I am serious. I am thinking. If she dies he gets her money. Her insurance. Everything."

"It wouldn't pay him to kill her. She'd be worth more to him after she's in pictures."

"But now! It's money now! He has to have money now."

"Why?"

He shrugged his shoulders and stood up without answering. He gathered the money up and held it in his hand and said.

"This makes it different. I will have to talk to her now that I think | she is just not being a dope about being scared. Of course I will not pay you for what you said— I was paying to hear of something she was trying to run over on me."

I said: "If you think you're not paying, you'd better start running. And [ll catch you before you get to the door. That dough's mine and I want it."

He sighed and handed the money over. He waddled to the door and turned there and said: "I'll see you again, my young friend! I have to think this over. It is her husband back of this. I know it."

And out he went, with me counting his money. He didn't have to tell me to say nothing to Nora Costello about his call— that had been tacitly understood from the first. I had other things to talk with Nora about, anyway.

JOE SMITH perched on the desk and swung a leg back and forth as he stared down at the hundred and a half. He said: "That's going to help the bank account a lot; Aunt Kate's going to like this. It's 'going to make her feel a lot better. Go on— and then you busted the girl's old man with the ash tray and broke his face. What kind of a guy is he? The kind that makes it tough for you?"

"Tall and blond and handsome," I said. "Curly hair and with a little mustache. It's the spiked kind, but it doesn't make a pansy out of him if you're old enough to understand what I mean. Weighs about two-twenty I'd say and he's built like a football player. About thirty. Good looking and the type that knows it. A louse. A tough baby."

"He sounds it."

"He's the kind not to meet up an alley if it's dark and he's behind you. He's the kind that wouldn't pass up an edge. She says he's a jealous, which is why he started raising hell last night."

"But he wouldn't have started to beat her up if he hadn't been crazy about her. And if he's crazy about her why both you and this Kampoulis are wrong. You both think he's the one back of these accidents that have been happening to her."

"Him being crazy about her has nothing to do with him knocking her off if it paid him enough. It's being done every day. He's the kind that could get another girl in a hurry. Easier than he could get money."

Joe Smith argued: "But he'd get more money from her after she gets in pictures. She'd start in at big money, going there from the lead in a hit show."

That's what had been bothering me— I'd said the same thing to Kampoulis. I told Joe to run along and put the money in the bank before I spent it on a great big piece of drinking, and he said, seriously:

"You couldn't do that. Aunt Kate wouldn't like it. Nor spending back on the wench."

He wasn't telling me a thing.

Joe was just getting back from the bank when the phone rang.

I told him Id take it. It was my client and there was sheer mad panic in her voice.

She said: "My God, is it you, Malone?"

I said it was.

"You've got to meet me at the Albright Apartments, that's at the corner of Ninth and Chestnut, right away. Right away, I say. Oh hurry, hurry, hurry."

"Are you there now?"

"I'm not home yet."

"Then I'll be there as soon as you are," I told her. Joe came to the door and raised his eyebrows, and I said:

"I'm going out. To the corner of Ninth and Chestnut and don't ask why. I don't know."

"Then why go?" he asked. He sounded a little bit like Aunt Kate does when she's just getting a start on laying down the law. "It looks silly to me to go someplace where you don't know why you're going. If it's a date, why don't you say so?"

"Its duty, Joe," I said: ."It's calling. Calling loud."

"But Aunt Kate's coming down."

"The joke will be on her then, won't it? She'll waste the trip."

He said gloomily: "She will like hell. She'll talk to me instead of to you."

I went out thinking this was all to the good. His family thought it was cute of him to call his mother "Aunt Kate" the same as I did— and I couldn't see anything cute about it. Nor about him. Nor about Aunt Kate, for that matter. She wasn't built that way. I caught a cab, hoping Aunt Kate would take out her spite on him in spades— and knowing Aunt Kate I figured the percentage was all with me.

We pulled in front of the Albright and I got out just as Nora Costello came from the other direction in another cab. She crossed the street, not looking to right or left, and if there'd been any traffic she'd have been a gone goose. She caught me by the arm and turned me into the Albright without stopping, and I said:

"Now what's all this?"

"Oh, hurry, hurry," she said, pulling me toward the elevator. It was one of those self-serve things and it was at the ninth, and while we waited for it to come down she broke down a little.

"Its Jack! I called him— I always call him in the morning. Even if I'm with somebody else. We talked a little and then he said to wait a minute because there was somebody at the door. Then the phone made a crashing noise and there was a lot more noise like it and I couldn't get any answer. Something's happened to Jack."

WE GOT in the elevator and she punched the button for the sixth, and when we got there she hurried down the hall. I figured it would be a false alarm, but I took the gun from under my arm and put it in a side coat pocket, just in case. She knocked at a door lettered 6-B, almost breaking it down, and then she grabbed at her arm and said: "Oh my God! I just grabbed up change from the desk. I didn't take my purse. I haven't the key. I keep the key to his room... after all he's still the old man." I reached past her and tried the door. It was locked, but it was a cheap apartment house and a cheap door and it didn't look too tough.

"Will you back me up on it if I break it down?" I asked. "I don't want any charges of breaking and entering put against me— I'm in enough of a daze."

"Hurry, hurry," she said. "Of course! Oh, break it!"

By that time I was getting excited. That stuff's contagious. I backed up and measured off and landed my heel just above the latch, and the door slammed back so hard it banged against the holding wall. She started to dash in and I got her by the shoulder and jerked her behind me and got the gun from my pocket.

"Don't be a sap," I said.

Then we walked in.

There was no doubt about trouble. Trouble was all over the place. The phone was still off the hook and was making clicking noises from the floor. There was a mangy looking rug and blood all over it. More blood was splashed on the edge of a couch affair. More was on a stand by this. There was what had been a chair and it looked as though it had been bashed over somebody's head. There was a whiskey bottle, half full and with the cork in, on the floor, and there were two glasses that hadn't broken and two that had Byte

"You stay here," I said, figuring I'd find the body in either the bedroom or the bath.

She probably had the same thought. She said: "To hell with you!" and raced past me.to the door on the right, with me trying to catch her just in case she should be running into something that needed heavy artillery for backing.

The bedroom hadn't been disturbed, though the bed showed signs of having been slept in.

And the bath was as clean, though somebody had shaved and there was a stick of mustache wax on the basin rim, along with shaving things.

THE kitchenette was so small nobody could have been killed in it—you couldn't even turn around in it.

"So there you are, lady," I said, waving around. "Something's happened, but just what?"

She started to cry, not putting her hands up to her face like most women do, but leaving them limp at her side. Her face looked like a kid's, and she was crying like a kid does when it's hurt.

"They've killed him, they've killed him," she wailed. "I knew it, I knew it. He said they would."

"Who are 'they'?"

Her face started to quiver then, first one cheek and then the other, and then her mouth. Her eyes got a glassy look and she started to tighten up. I took a step ahead and spatted her across the cheek with the flat of my hand—and hard enough to sting.

"Don't do it, kid," I said. "You can't blow up now. If something's happened, let's find out what it is."

She kept crying but she lost that hysterical look and I didn't think she was going to crack up in little pieces, which was what I didn't want.

"I'm going to call the cops," I said, and started toward the phone, putting the gun back under my arm where it belonged.

She caught me and almost screamed: "Oh, don't! Don't! You mustn't!"

Then the door opened and in came Harbin. He saw me and never hesitated. He was after me before the door had slammed behind him, coming in with his head low and his hands out in front of him like a wrestler going into action. He came fast, with a sort of sliding rush, and when he came past the girl he just slammed an arm out to the side and knocked her into the wall. He Reached for a gun

5: He Reached for a Gun

I KNEW it was going to be bad and I didn't have time to go after my gun. He was on me too fast.

He had me outweighed by thirty or more pounds, and he was that kind of big man who moves like a cat for all his bulk.

I put out my hands to fend him off, and he caught one wrist and yanked me toward him— and I did the only sensible thing I could do. I went right with him instead of bracing against the pull the way he'd figured I would, and that threw him off balance. It tipped his upper body back.

We hit chest against chest, and I shoved with my free hand and got a foot behind his at the same time— and over he went.

With me on top of him because he was still holding my wrist.

He'd landed easy but so had I. And I was on top with a free hand that could reach out and reach out I did. I got the half full whiskey bottle and swung it up, and he went slack under me flat on the floor.

"You win," he said.

I broke free— still holding the bottle and making sure he didn't get a chance to kick me on the break. When I was in the clear I traded the bottle for my gun. I was sick and tired of wrestling; there was too much chance of him winning the next fall.

"You crazy!" I said.

Nora said: "Jack! Jack! Are you all right?"

Jack was far from all right so it was a silly question and no mistake. He had blood all over him, and while he'd gotten some of it on him while he and I were scuffing, the bulk of it had been there before. One of his cheeks were bruised, the bruise running from the top of the bone clear down to the angle of his jaw. This was swollen, and made his face lopsided. His nice spiked mustache was all over his lip, instead of being neat and natty. He'd either been cut on the upper lip or he'd bled from the nose—though I figured that last was still swollen from the smack I'd put on it before. He was favoring the hand he hadn't grabbed me with and I thought the thumb would be out of joint from the angle it was pointing. His hair was every which way and there was a cut starting high on his forehead and running back overvhis head. He had a bleeding ear, to cap the rest of the damage.

"What the hell you doing here?" he snarled at her. He never took his eyes away from me.

"I... I heard you fighting over the phone."

"Why drag this monkey in?"

"Why Jack!"

He looked away from me and turned to her then. He was shaking all over, either from anger or excitement or both. I could hardly understand him when he said:

"Get the hell out! Fast! Get him out too! Fast! Move, I tell you."

"Come on, Nora," I said. "There's liable to be trouble here."

"If you stay," he said, "there's sure to be."

I had the gun and the top hand with it, but I wasn't pressing the advantage one little bit. There was too much I didn't know and what I did was all cockeyed. And the set-up in that apartment didn't look like anything I wanted any of.

"Come on, Nora," I said again.

He said to her: "I'll call you. Go on back where you belong. And watch yourself— this thing's going all to pieces— it'll be trouble for you."

She started toward the door, repeating, "You'll call me?" and Harbin said to me: "Look, Mister Nosey. I don't know who you are but keep an eye on her. There's going to be trouble. She's mixed in it. It's going to be bad, maybe."

I said: "I've figured that out."

ON THE way back to the hotel I said: "I don't get this. He saw me and made a dive for me. He didn't know whether I was friend or foe. Is he nuts?"

"He's a terrible fighter when he's mad," she said.

"That isn't it. Don't he have to have a reason? Or is he just screwball?"

She said: "I don't know, honest I don't. He seems sometimes to go sort of crazy like that. As if he lost his head for a minute. Gee though, he's nice when you know him."

I thought Heaven forbid such a thing happening to me and started trying to figure where all the blood on that apartment floor had come from. Some of it from friend hubby, of course, but not all. Not nearly . all. i

The way he'd warned me about the girl being in danger badn't been at all nice., It was no surprise— it wasn't that— but I didn't like the | way he'd said it. He'd meant it too much.

I parked her at her place, after checking it over to see nobody was there but Marie, and then went back to the office.

And I leaned forward three times to tell the cabby to take me to the police station instead of to my office building and three times changed my mind. I had a hunch the whole thing was something for the cops— and at the same time I didn't want to doublecross the girl and kill her picture career before it started by blowing the head off some of her private business. I knew the pictures didn't take anybody mixed in a big scandal anymore and, after all, she'd hired me to try and keep things quiet.

I didn't know what to do— and ended by doing nothing. I didn't even have the satisfaction of hearing about Aunt Kate descending on the office and raising hell in my absense either— she'd changed her mind and put off the trip Joe told me.

THE show went the same that night as it had the night before. I'd picked Nora up at her hotel and taken her directly to the theatre because she'd had dinner in her rooms, and afterward, she said:

"I want to go right straight home. Marie is staying and mending that costume I wore in the finale."

"I couldnt see anything wrong with it," I said.

"I almost came out of it, is all. It split."

"Did you hear from Jack tonight?"

"No. Not a word. So I guess everything's all right, whatever was wrong."

Now this was sour. When Td left her at the hotel, after we'd just seen him all cut and bleeding, and after seeing the mess his apartment was in, he'd said he'd call. When I asked her if he had, she'd said he hadn't. But she hadn't seemed worried so I knew she'd lied; if he hadn't called she'd have been crazy.

That was the first lie.

When she'd gone in her dressing room and ld stood outside on guard Pd heard the dial click on her dressing room phone, and heard her say: "Ts that you, dear?"

So when she said she hadn't heard from him again it made two lies in the same place— and I started burning about it. On the way to the hotel I decided that when I'd seen her safely home I'd tell her I didn't want any more of it. Nor any part of her. That if she didn't want to tell me what it was all about, why she could get another boy.

I even had my going away speech made up.

And then we rode the elevator up and I saw somebody just leaving her suite.

There was no mistake. He was just backing out of her door as we stepped from the elevator.

I said: "Stay here, Nora," and heard one of the other elevators whine to a stop at our floor as I did. I heard the elevator door open as I called down the hall to the prowler:

"Hey, you! Wait a minute!"

He had his back to me but he stopped... he knew who I was talking to all right. He stood there a second and then turned.

"Who? Me?" he asked.

I was about thirty feet from him by then. I'd been walking up to him. I had a hand up to the gun under my coat, just in case, but the guy sounded anything but war-like.

"Yes, you," I said. "What were you doing in Miss Costello's room?"

He didn't answer but he reached for his back pocket. And I thought of all that had happened and was likely to happen, and jerked down on my gun and freed it from its clip.

I said: "No! No! No!"

He didn't stop but kept reaching for his pocket. I could see the gun there as plain as if it was in sight.

HE STARTED to bring his hand out from under his coat tails then and I shot him, trying to catch him in that shoulder. When the slug hit him he spun half around, falling but trying to catch his balance. He crashed into the wall with his back flat against it and started to slide down, now with both hands back against it as if he was trying to put on the brakes.

"You asked for it," I said, moving up a little closer.

He sat there on the floor staring up at me, bracing his back against the wall with his empty hands. Some body moved up beside me and said, "You'd better not move in on him, guy! He's still dangerous."

I said: "Keep away! Keep away! I know it!"

The man on the floor reached up and felt his shoulder with his left hand, moving it up there in little jerks. The man by me said:

"Keep the gun on him and I'll circle and take his. Watch him now."

"Go ahead," I said.

He did. He was a medium sized sort of bird and dressed in the same way. Just medium. A sort of gray suit that didn't actually seem gray. The same kind of hat and the same kind of face to match.

And he seemed familiar.

And then the door beside me opened and some woman stuck her head out and saw the man sitting on the floor and saw me with the gun in my hand. She yelped once and slammed her door so fast it cut the yelp half in two.

I moved over to the front while my helper kept to the side. I didn't want to shoot the man on the floor any more. "Hold steady, guy," I said. "Don't make me do it again."

He looked up at me and began to moan, each noise he made coming out a little louder. The man in the gray suit kept well over to the side and reached for the guy's hip pocket then looked up at me with a puzzled stare.

"No gun there," he said.

When he spoke it dawned on me where I'd seen him. He'd been in the bar when I'd been talking with George Simpson— the first night I'd been with Nora Costello. The night I'd slapped her old man down with the ash tray. I'd seen him two or three times in the lobby of her hotel and he'd ridden the elevator with us twice.

I said: "Look again. It must be there."

He looked again.

The man on the floor stopped his moaning long enough to say: "I got no gun! I'm clean!"

The cops were just getting out of the elevator by the time we'd made sure he was telling the truth. We couldn't find any gun.

And the cops couldn't, either— and they spoke of this little matter several times while I rode down to the station with them.

The man in the gray suit went along too.

6: The Cops Are Nice

THEY didn't book me when we first went in, but that didn't mean a thing. They could do it any time during the next twenty-four hours. Officially, I was being held for investigation. And a private license hurts instead of helps when you're stuck with something like that because they figure it's gone to your head and you got careless with a gun. They let me use a phone, of course with them listening in, and I got Nora Costello.

"Look, Miss Costello," I said, making it careful because of the other big ears on the line, "I'm sorry but there's only one thing I can do. I've got to tell them why I was with you. There'll be no newspaper stuff given out if I play ball with them. If I don't, they charge me right away and it'll be on the books where the newspapers can get at it, and then it'll be out in the open for fair. So what about it?"

"D'ya want a lawyer?" she asked. "I'll get George Kampoulis to go down with one. You were working for me, weren't you— you were protecting me, weren't you?"

Which meant she realized the cops were listening in. "I won't need one," I told her. "Not if I tell them the whole thing."

She hesitated a second and I knew what she was thinking. She didn't want friend hubby dragged in the picture.

"I'll have to tell them about your hiring me and all," I said. "That'll clear me— they can check on why you needed a bodyguard. They'll find about the sandbag business from the show people and about the holdup from their own records. And about Marie being poisoned from the hospital. The doorman at your hotel will tell them about the three guys attacking you. How was J to know this wasn't another of the things; the guy reached for his pocket and I can prove it.'

She got the idea. I hadn't said a word about Harbin, her husband.

"Do what you think best," she said. ;

I was in one of the general offices with a detective-sergeant named Delancey listening over my shoulder and another one named Mierz listening in on an extension.

MIERZ said. "All right, go ahead and tell us. It had better be good. We can book you right now on unprovoked assault with intent to kill. The guy will be all right, unless his lung was tipped, or we could make it murder. You might get it cut to manslaughter but that would be the best you could do."

"Its tough enough without spreading it," I said. "After all, I've got a witness that the guy reached for his pocket, and I caught the guy leaving my client's room. And somebody's after her. That's what I was hired for."

"To shoot people?"

"To look after Miss Costello."

"Who was the guy you shot?"

"I never saw him before I saw him backing out of her place."

"Whats his name?"

"I don't know."

"Had he threatened her?"

"I don't know."

That was the way it went. First Delancey and then Mierz would ask me something, trying to make me admit something that didn't jibe with my story. The man in the gray suit had left, along with a couple of cops, and I had a notion they were putting him through the same performance. I told them everything the Costello girl had told me and left out everything about her husband. I also left out about George Kampoulis coming down to my office.

As soon as I'd tell them anything, like about the sandbag thing that had happened to Nora, they'd send somebody out to check it. They even got somebody from her bank to verify the fact shed given me a check for a hundred. I told them everything the Costello girl had told me and left out everything about her and me.

They were clever about it. They weren't sore. There was none of the rubber hose stuff. But they'd word their questions in such a way the answer could be taken two ways, and they had a police stenographer taking down questions and answers in a notebook.

Right at the start they'd asked me if I wanted to get in touch with my lawyer and I'd told them I didn't need one— that I'd done the shooting in what I thought was self defense, and that a Grand Jury would back me up in it if the D. A. ever tried for an indictment.

We'd gone on like this for a couple of hours when the man in the gray suit came in with a cop. Delancey went over and talked to them. He came back and said:

"All right, Malone! The guy's name is Halstead. The slug didn't touch his lung, so you beat a possible murder charge. Now who's Halstead?"

"Never heard of him."

"Recognize these?" he asked, and came out with two of the pictures police make when bodies are found. The first showed a man doubled up behind an ash-can, but his head was tipped to the side and back so his face was in sight. There was a lot of blood on it but it was still recognizable.

A short, dark, tough looking bird of around fifty. The other was of a man flat on his back and sprawled out as if crucified. The camera had been pointing down at this honey. The man was tall and very thin and well over sixty— and he had a little chin beard as well as a mustache. Both white. His hair was streaked with blood and there was a lot more on the white shirt he wore.

I SAID I'd never seen either of

them before in my life, and Delancey went back and talked with the man in the gray suit and with the other cop for awhile.

Then those two left and the questioning went on.

By that time it was after three and I was all in.

Delancey said finally: "I'm going to let this rest for awhile. We'll take it up again in the morning."

"You been giving this same sort of workout to Miss Costello?"

They both laughed, which meant somebody had.

The whole thing wasn't right. They'd been treating me too damned well. They hadn't harped too long on any one thing. There'd been no rough stuff nor sign or threat of any.

And any time a city cop gets a chance to toss a private cop around he takes it. Delancey said: "Okay, Malone! I'll take you back and show you your new home. For the night, at least."

Then another cop came in with another picture. This one came from the morgue and after a P.M. had been made on the subject. The subject was all washed and cleaned and stark naked, and there was a neat row of stitches up his middle, where he'd been put together after his insides had been taken out. They sew them cross-wise, like a shoe is laced. This one was bald-headed but still looked to be in his early thirties. He was as hairy as an ape everywhere but on the top of his head, but three little holes showed through the fur alongside the hem-stitching.

"I don't know him either," I said.

"You haven't got many friends, have you, Malone?" Mierz said, laughing. "Ah, well, maybe you'll get out of this and even keep your ticket. There's always a chance."

"Or maybe trade the ticket for a number upstate," Delancey said. "Let's go."

I went back to the cell they gave me, wondering just what it was all about. Most of their questioning had been done in that half-kidding way. Which didn't make sense, rhyme, or reason. All I knew was that the man I'd shot was named Halstead. They hadn't told me the names of any of the three dead men they'd showed me pictures of. Nor said a word about them. They hadn't questioned me about them— they'd acted as though they believed me when I said I didn't know them.

And while both of them kept talking about booking me for attempted murder, neither of them acted as though they meant it.

It gave me something to think about before I went to sleep.

A UNIFORMED cop took me up to Delancey about ten the next morning. Delancey handed me over an envelope with the things they'd taken from me the night before, and he grinned at me very pleasantly.

"I signed for this with the property clerk for you," he said. "I've got a man over at Ballistics, picking up your gun. He'll be back in just a minute."

"That means I'm clear?" I asked curiously.

He nodded and he said I was as free as the air, and I thought it over while he put in his joke. "You and the air are about the only free things in town," he said.

"Don't I have to put up bail?"

"No bail."

"How much of it got in the papers?"

He tossed me the one that usually made the most of any possible scandal and told me to see for myself. There was just a squib, saying that a crook named Halstead had been shot by police while prowling the Stratford. And that Halstead was a known crook with a record.

Delancey watched me read it. "I thought it would sound better if we made it a cop job all the way through," he said. "This way it keeps both you and the Costello girl entirely out of it. That's better for both of you. The newspapers don't know a thing except what's there."

"That's swell."

"We don't believe in hurting anybody that shouldn't be hurt," he said. "Sit down a minute. I'm afraid we put you out of a job, Malone— but you had no business being on it in the first place. Maybe it's fair."

"I don't get that."

He said: "Your reason for being on that job was that Miss Costello was in danger. Naturally, we checked, too. Most of it was accident, we found out."

"I still don't get it."

"We worked on the stage hands at the theatre, and one of them admitted dropping the sandbag. He was scared about it and kept his mouth shut so he wouldn't get the gate. He was careless, but you can't hang a man for that."

"Go on."

"The hold-up was the usual thing. The same gang has been working town for three months. They always slug the customers out after they rob 'em. Weve had a dozen cases, just the same. We can discount that."

"How about her getting slugged a lot harder than the guy that was with her?"

He laughed. He said: "She'd been making quite a flash and they were probably sore because they didn't get more from her than they did. That was just temper on their part, Malone."

HE COULD have been right— I'd read about some of the same kind of stuff in the papers and knew there were those kind of operators working in town.

"Then what about the maid being poisoned? She was poisoned. She did drink Miss Costello's whiskey. She did go to the hospital and have her stomach pumped out."

Delancey laughed again. "She took a couple of slugs of that whiskey and right about that time started getting an attack of ptomaine. We talked to the doctor who worked on her, last night. Miss Costello just jumped to the conclusion that it was her whiskey that had done the poisoning. It was some clams the gal had had for dinner, instead. Or so says the medico, and he should know."

I agreed the doctor should know. A cop came in with my gun, and Delancey handed it over and I broke it and saw they'd even left me the five live shells that should have been in it.

"No beef about the gun business then?"

"No beef."

I tried once more. "Now look, Delancey! I saw this myself. We came out of the hotel, Miss Costello and myself, and three guys started trouble. One of them had a sap— I saw it with my own eyes. The trouble was headed Miss Costello's way— not mine. The sap was for her, not for me."

He was waiting for me to mention that; I could tell by the way he leaned back in his chair and put on the know-all- the-answers look.

"Thats it, Malone," he said. "It's things like that that people should go to the police with. We've got ways of breaking those things, and a private cop hasn't. Now on that, we've got the Costello maid, Marie Berle, in jail. We've got her boy friend, a man named Myers. And we're picking up three of his boy friends, well have them sometime during the day or I miss my guess. I'll ask you to come down and identify them, after we've got them, so you can expect a call. The girl was mad because Miss Costello rode her about drinking the whiskey— and just between you and me, I don't think Costello's any cinch to work for. Call it temperament or call it temper, she's got a lot of it. You should know. And this maid is a screwball wench that holds a grudge and she's got a boy friend with no more sense. So they were going to work over the Costello girl in the good old-fashioned way. Were going to slap her around some."

"You're sure of that?"

"Both the girl and the man confessed. You can read the confessions, if you want to."

"Miss Costello said one of the men looked like one of the men who'd held her up."

Delancey just laughed and I don't blame him. The girl had been excited both times, and all that had happened was she'd picked the same type of man. Probably both men looked similar in a dim fashion— that is, they were probably about the same age, build, and coloring.

I said: "Well, thanks! I won't be running away—you can always get me at the office."

"No hard feelings then," he said, shaking hands. And, "No hard feelings,' I told him, and got away from the police station in a hurry.

There was always a chance of him changing his mind.

7: Too Easy

IT WAS getting screwier by the minute. I didn't doubt but that Delancey was right when he said things that had happened to Nora Costello, were accidents. They'd checked, and when the cops check a thing like that they make sure. So that was that. Of course they didn't know about her husband and whatever grief she was carrying on her shoulders because of him— or at least they hadn't said anything about it. Nor about me playing around with the girl.

That was something else.

Nothing made sense. My part in the thing particularly. I'd shot a guy who'd been prowling the Costello suite and nothing had been done about it. There'd been nothing said about what the guy had been looking for and it was a good bet the cops knew just what that was. The man was in a hospital and flat on his back, but if the cops want to find out anything they'll go to a hospital or any other place to ask. questions. It wasn't as though questioning would put this man Halstead in any danger of his life; he wasn't shot badly enough to make excitement an issue with the doctors working on him.

That was all passed over. And here I was, free and clear, not even with a cent of bail up, and I was the one who'd done the shooting.

They hadn't questioned me in the way they would have if things had been kosher. They'd been too nice. It ended up in one answer— I was out of jail when I should have been in. At least for a while. Miss Costello was in and sent word for me to go right up. She'd been crying; I could see that the second I went through the door. "It was tough for you," I said, "but there wasn't anything I could do about it. At least there wasn't anything in the papers. Did they raise much hell with you?"

"Not any," she said. "George Kampoulis and my lawyer were here before they even started in. I just told them about the accidents and then they went away. Then they came back and took Marie away— they've got her in jail and want me to swear out a charge against her."

"You going to?"

"Lord, no! The darn fool! She'd just been seeing too many tough movies. There's trouble enough, without me making it for somebody else. And before I forget it, that fellow in your office called and wants you to call back. He called me."

I got Joe Smith on the phone and he said: "Where have you been —Aunt Kate has been worried sick and she's been raising hell with me about it. You didn't call her and you didn't go home. She thinks you were with that woman. How'd you make out ?"'

"Why Joe! Miss Costello' s married."

"So what! That's what Aunt Kate says."

"Let it go. I was at the police station. You tell her."

"You there now?"

"No."

"So that's it," he said, sounding relieved. "Two cops were waiting here for me this morning. They went through the office and your case files and everything."

"They didn't have any right to do that."

"They acted as if they did. I couldn't argue it. You in trouble, Pat?"

"The cops say no," I told him, "but I'm not so sure. But you tell Aunt Kate everything is okay. Keep quiet about the other."

I hung up and Nora Costello said: "Jack's gone again. I can't find him. He hasn't been home and he hasn't called since early this morning. About five. He sounded frantic."

This explained the signs of crying. Her voice was dull and sounded all washed out. Her eyes looked blank and a little staring and she'd put on ten years since I first saw her, if appearances counted for a thing.

I said: "I could look for him."

She asked where, which settled that.

By and by she said she was sure Jack was dead. I made a drink for both of us. She said that if he was, she was surely going to join a convent if she could find one that would take her. I said that people got over everything and she said that people didn't get over things unless they wanted to get over them. I then thanked her for offering to send Kampoulis and a lawyer down to the jail to help me out and she said that was nothing and to forget it.

She brightened a little about there and said: "George told me about going down to see you. That must have been funny— you clipping him for a hundred and a half. It hurt him worse than losing an eye— he said so himself."

I said: "A smart guy! You gave him the brother stall and he didn't go for it but put George Simpson from the Donovan Agency on me. Simpson tailed us to the Arlisienne and I saw him there, but I didn't catch wise until I saw Kampoulis the next morning. That Kampoulis isn't taking any chances on losing his meal ticket."

She said it looked that way. And that she was going to lose her mind and therefore lose George Kampoulis his meal ticket unless she heard from Jack very soon.

ABOUT then I started telling her about what had happened at the station the night before, thinking it would take her mind off her trouble— in other words, away from Jack Harbin. And when I got to where I was describing the picture of the old fellow in the alley, the one that had been wearing the chin whiskers and the mustache, she straightened up and said:

"What's that? What's that? Say that again." I described the man again.

"That's the Deacon," she said. "Now listen! Did they show you a picture of a man that looked like this? About five feet five and about as heavy as you are."

"One eighty-five?"

"About that, I guess. Very dark and with a little cut up by his left eyebrow that makes it quirk up a little bit? Very white teeth? About thirty-five? Very well dressed, though I don't suppose that means anything."

I said I'd seen no pictures of anybody like that and described the man behind the ash can and the one-in the morgue again. She shook her head and lost interest and said, "Neither of them fit. It wouldn't be them. Oh, if Jack would call! If I'd hear anything."

And this after being so specially nice to me!

I d been thinking, after she'd spoken of Kampoulis and after I'd thought of Kampoulis putting George Simpson on me for a tag. There was nothing sure about it but it was worth taking a chance with, I thought. If I was right about George Kampoulis, he wouldn't have been taking any chances with having Jack Harbin mess up his private affairs, either.

"I've got an idea that might find him," I said, "but it would cost money. Quite a bit, maybe. It might cost a guy his job and he'd want pay for it."

She stood and ran for her purse so fast it startled me. "I haven't much with me but I can give you a check. How much will I make it for?"

"Five hundred should do it. Maybe not that much— it's a cheap guy we'll be buying."

She made me a check and had to write three before she got one that would pass the bank. Her hand was shaking that much. I took it and my hat and said:

"I'll call you as soon as I know anything. Yes or no, that is."

"My God, yes," she said.

So I took a cab to the Donovan Agency.

GEORGE SIMPSON was in the corner bar, just as the office girl had said he'd be. I went in fast, and he gave me a scared look and put his hand up in front of his face for a guard and said:

"Its okay, Pal! It was a job. They told me to find out who the guy was with the Costello dame and it was you. That was all; I swear it,"

I took him over to a booth and tried to keep things sounding normal. He was open to a proposition and smelled one before we even sat down.

"Look, George," I said. "I'm trying to find a guy and I think your agency has a tag on him. How about it? The same guy that put you on me is behind this other."

"I couldn't do that, Paddy," he said, with an expression on his face that said different. "It wouldn't be honest— it would be doublecrossing the agency. Who's the guy?"

I started talking business without beating about the bush any longer.

JOE KING was in a fruit store, across from a dirty looking string of flats. Stores below and apartments above. He was eating an apple. He was a fat, sloppy looking bird that I barely knew by sight, and there was no more expression on his flat face when he saw me than there is on a blank wall.

"Hi, boy," I said. He grunted and finished the apple.

"Came out to see you."

"Whatever it is, I don't want to buy any of it," he said. He gave the  fruit store man a dime for two bananas and didn't bother to even offer me the other one.

"I'm buying, not selling."

"Buying what?"

"Where's Harbin?"

"Don't know him."

I said: "Now look! It's worth money to you. I've paid money to find out where you were staked out and it's worth a hundred to find out where Harbin is. I know you're on him."

"Who told you where I was?"

"Who cares? I got it the same way as this and you know it."

He finished the first banana and started peeling the second while he thought this over.

"Two hundred," he said, "and I'll throw in something extra."

I carefully counted out the two hundred.

I'll give him credit— he knew his job. He said: "Harbin's upstairs, over that cleaning place right across the street. The room number's eleven. He's been there for a little over two hours."

"And what's the extra?"

King grinned then. "He ain't alone. He picked up a guy with a busted arm, over on North Avenue, and they both came here. The guy with the bum wing is named Charley Johnson and he's a two-time loser or more. I saw him in Folsom, in California, and they don't put first-termers there."

"What were you doing in Folsom?"

"You paying for that, too?"

I said thanks and went across the street. If Joe King had done time in Folsom, and if the Donovan Agency wanted to hire him in spite of it, that was their business. Not mine.

8: The Trouble Women Make

THE stairs leading up over the cleaning place were steep and not over three feet wide. The place was filthy dirty and smelled that way. The sign on the door advertised rooms for twentyfive cents and it was that kind of place. I got to the top and saw a bell with a sign by it that read Ring— Landlady, but I passed it and went down the hall. I had to be going the right way because that was the only way— the hall kept going straight on from the stairs.

Number eleven was the sixth door on the right, and I stopped by it and finally figured there was just one thing to do. I did it. I left my gunwhere it was, under my arm, and knocked... and I had a hunch I was wrong at the time.

Harbin opened the door for me so fast it was as if I was expected. He saw me and stepped back, without saying a word.

"Hello, Jack," I said. I knew that Nora had told him who I was and that I was working for her and I thought that by that time he'd have decided I was on his side. I had to act as though the welcome sign was out, anyway. And it seemed to work because he took a step back and said:

"Now you're here, come in."

I did. And sitting on the bed was the man Nora Costello had described to me. About my weight but shorter. Very dark. A twisted eyebrow that made him look as though he saw a joke that no one else did. And very well dressed, even to the white sling that held his right arm and bandaged hand across his chest. He smiled at me, showing me the white teeth Nora had spoken of.

"Nora says that this is her brother, Charley," Harbin said. "She said it. Catch?" He winked at his friend.

Charley said: "Catch!" and reached out his left hand to me. He said to me, still with the grin:

"Excuse it. The other one's busted."

Harbin had just told his pal that I was a phony, but that was none of my business. I was still working for his wife, not him. I said:

"You should phone Nora. She's worried sick about you. She thinks something terrible's happened to you."

Charley Johnson laughed but Harbin didn't. Johnson said: "You'd better call in, boy. She's keeping cases on you. Next thing she'll have the Marines out."

THE walls of the place were thin and I could hear a sort of dragging set of footsteps coming down the hall. And Harbin said: "That's him now, Charley!" and Johnson nodded.

Then Harbin picked up a gun that had been hidden under a folded paper and showed me the front of it.

"Get back out of the way," he said, and I moved fast. He had that sort of a look on his face and I was praying he'd forget he hadn't taken my own gun. I was at the back of the room, up against the wall, when the footsteps stopped in front of the door, and Harbin didn't give whoever it was a chance to knock.

He threw the door open and said: "Come in out of the wet, Angie."

That made four of us in that small room. Angie was a tall, blond, weedy looking bird and he dragged one foot behind him. He looked at the gun in Harbin's hand and laughed, but there was nothing funny in the sound. He looked over at Charley Johnson, and the laugh stopped as though it had been chopped off.

"Ugh, you, Charley!" he said. "So it's like that!"

"It's like that!" said Johnson, very softly.

Everybody stood still, with me back against the wall and out of the center of things. But Charley Johnson's black eyes would flick over my way about every other second, and I had a notion Harbin was listening to every move I made, though he kept the gun pointed at the one called Angie.

Then, without a sound of footsteps for warning, there was another knock on the door and it was loud and firm and heavy. Harbin twisted his head toward Johnson and Johnson shook his head in a puzzled way.

Harbin said to Angie: "I'm putting this in my pocket but it's point ing your way. Were just sitting here having a drink. Play it that way."

He was almost whispering this.

"Sure, Jack," said Angie.

Harbin said: "Then open the door."

ANGIE did and there was George Kampoulis with a gun in his hand, the muzzle tipped up a little so that he could swivel it in any direction. He had a cigar in his mouth as usual, and he was bracing himself against the door casing with his free hand. The only expression on his face was when he saw me and then he seemed to tighten a little.

"I'm in time, I see," he said.

And then the party started.

Harbin, without another word being said, shot at Kampoulis. Through his pocket, which is a foolish thing to do. A gun held there is at a bad angle, and nobody in the world can hit what he aims at, shooting like that, unless luck's on his side.

It wasn't fully on Harbin's side. Kampoulis flinched a little bit and tipped his gun barrel down and let go. Harbin sat down on the floor as though somebody had hit him behind the knees. I'd yanked for my gun when Harbin shot, without any idea of who I was going to use it on as yet, and I'd just got it clear when the long tall Angie went into action. I don't know where he'd been carrying the gun, but it was in his hand when I saw it and it was lined on Charley Johnson, who was heaving himself back and sidewise on the bed.

Then Harbin shot again, from the floor, and Kampoulis spat his cigar out and shot him again. This time Harbin went back so hard his head thudded when it hit the floor. Angie shot at Johnson and I shot Angie through the knees, figuring he wasn't playing fair shooting at a cripple. Johnson had that broken arm in the sling and I thought that should give him king's X.

You couldn't hear yourself think by then. The room was small and a gun in an enclosed place like that makes a deafening racket. And nobody was using a baby gun— everything there was in a grown-up calibre. I was watching Angie, who was down on the floor and flopping like a fish in the bottom of a boat and trying to watch Kampoulis at the same time.

They both still held guns and I didn't want one of them turned my way. Angie was rolling on the floor and pounding up and down on it with his, but he could have tipped it up in my direction if the thought came to him. Kampoulis was holding his at his side and pointing at the floor, but that didnt mean he couldn't get back in action with it. He wasn't thinking about the gun though. He was sliding down the door casing, trying to hold himself up with the hand he had against it. Both shots of. Harbin's had connected because I'd seen him shiver when both landed. He was just so big and bulky that he could stand a lot of lead. Angie wiggled himself my way about then and I kicked the gun ont of his hand, and then Kampoulis' knees hit the floor and he stayed there. Kneeling like that. Charley Johnson said: "That damn' Jack Harbin! Always like that! Just crazy! Blows up when it gets tight!"

His voice was steady enough but it was up in the air above where it belonged. He rolled himself from the bed and took a step toward the door, watching me and watching Kampoulis, who was on his knees in the doorway. He kept turning his head from one to the other of us.

I said: "Stick around, Johnson!"

"Oh, you!" he said, and gave all his attention to me, swinging so his feft side was facing me. "I'm getting out."

And then he shot me, the slug coming out of that mess of bandages on his right arm. It landed high but on bone, and the shock put me back against the wall and made me sick to my stomach. He turned toward the door again, and the man in the gray suit, the one who'd been in the hotel: when I'd shot the prowler, stepped into sight and stood behind Kampoulis, who now had his head down.

"Don't do it, Charley," he said.

He had a gun in his hand and he was braced as though expecting to have to shoot. Johnson shrugged and said:

"All right, all right."

He started to turn, so as to bring his bandaged gun to bear.

"Watch it," I said. "He's got a gun in that phony bandage."

The gray-suited man said: "I know it! Into the wall, Charley!"

Kampoulis tipped over from his knees then, sliding out across the floor and giving a great sigh as he did. Johnson went to the wall and faced it, and as he did he said to me: "I might have known it would be a punk like you that'd blow the top off the whole thing."

I passed out just as two more men came in the room, along with the man in the gray suit.

I CAME to in the middle of a crowd, but it was a different one. There was a doctor working on my shoulder and he was doing plenty of damage to me if the pain meant anything. I turned my head and he said:

"Almost through, son!"

Angie wasn't on the floor, nor Harbin, nor Kampoulis. Johnson was sitting on a chair, but the bandage was off his arm and he had handcuffs on his wrists. The man in the gray suit was talking to him and he was grinning back at him and answering everything asked.

"He's out of it," the doctor said. The man in the gray suit came over to the bed, letting one of the others with him look after Johnson. He said: "And now, Malone! We sent the others away, but I thought you might want to pick your own hospital. You've got a broken shoulder."

"The Polyclinic," I said. "And who the hell are you?"

"Government."

"Hows Kampoulis?"

He shrugged. "He's still alive. Not a chance, though. Harbin's dead, and Angie Meadows went to the police hospital."

"What's it all about?"

"Well, Harbin was head of the Harper gang. You've heard of the Harper gang? He always worked under that name instead of his own."

I'd heard of the Harper gang. A really hot outfit that specialized in banks and mail trains, with a little assorted kidnaping on the side.

The doctor said: "I'm going to give this man a sedative. So he can be taken to the Polyclinic."

"I'll see you up there, Malone," the man in the gray suit said. The doctor bunched up the skin on my arm and went to work with a needle, and after that I got sleepier and sleepier.

In fact, I didn't even know when I rode to the hospital.

AUNT KATE had brought me fruit and the man in the gray suit brought cigarettes. It turned out his name was Severts.

"So it was like that," he said. "We lost Harbin and had a notion his wife would tell you where he was. You seemed to be going along all right with her. That's why they let you out of the station— we put a little pressure on there. When you found him we were right behind you."

"And Kampoulis was trying to cut in on the money?"

"Thats right. He'd hired the Donovan Agency to keep track of Harbin, so Harbin wouldn't make any trouble for him with the Costello girl. He was playing around there, too. He found out that Harbin was head of the Harper gang and that he still had the money from the mail truck job in San Francisco. He wanted to cut in on it. We never could prove that Harbin's bunch did that job but we were sure of it. Most of them went to jail after it, on various counts, and we had to wait for them to get out and go after the money."

Aunt Kate is a  grim-looking woman. She clicked her false teeth and said: "So that's why the Costello girl and he were separated. I couldn't understand it if she was so crazy about him. He was in jail, eh?"

"Both he and Johnson," said Severts. "State charges only, though. A nd only Johnson and Harbin knew where the money was hidden. The rest of the gang was waiting for their cut but they had to wait for Harbin and Johnson to get released. You saw their pictures in the station, Malone. They were a bunch of small-timers and Harbin and Johnson were afraid they'd tip off the cops in a jam, so they started putting on a campaign to clean them out. And then, also, there'd have been less shares to cut. One of them Johnson killed with his hidden gun trick— that's why he wore his arm in the sling. That was the man in the morgue. Deacon Smith and Toughy Edwards were killed in Harbin's apartment— you walked in right after the job was done— he and Johnson had just carted out the bodies. We found them in the alley back of the building. Harbin came here just to do that murder job."

"And they were going to kill this Angie, too?" Aunt Kate asked. "That's just terrible. And to think my nephew picked that time to call on them. That shows how a woman can make a fool of a man."

"They'd have killed him, too," Severts assured her. "They were fighting for big money. Enough to retire on. They didn't want a soul left alive that had a thing on them."

Aunt Kate said firmly: "That was just silly. Why didn't they just go and take the money and let the others whistle for their shares?"

"The others would have whistled to the cops, if they'd done that. Let's talk about something else. How long are you in for, Malone?"

I said the doctor thought I'd be out in a week and that I was getting along fine. Lots of company and a good rest. Aunt Kate made a remark about the kind of company I was getting and  that referred to Miss Nora Costello. Severts said he'd be running along... and did.

"Its all over now," I told Aunt Kate. "Nothing to do but sit back and try to collect a reward for my part in the thing. I probably won't get anything, but it's a nice thought."

"You should get something," she said.

"I was just the stooge. Severts did all the work. You see they thought Nora Costello knew where the money was hidden— thought that Harbin had told her. He had, but she wouldn't say a word. Not even to me! She was so crazy about the guy it hurt. As soon as he was dead she told them all about it."

"I know that."

"Well, Severts had to wait for Harbin and Johnson to get the money from the cache. It was from a Government mail truck, almost three hundred dollars worth of registered mail, and the Government keeps after a thing like that forever. I just butted into the thing through Nora Costello being scared, and Severts used me for a stooge. He let me work for Nora and just followed me— he knew she'd be in constant touch with her old man. And through him with the money. They didn't want to pick up the gang until they got their hands on that. They knew Harbin was a little nuts and always went bad in a tight place, but they also knew he wouldn't talk."

"And the man you shot in the hotel was just a prowler?"

"That's all. It was lucky he had a record. And it was lucky Severts needed me for his fall guy— I'd have been in plenty of trouble if it hadn't been for that."

"All because of that terrible woman!"

"She was paying the fee, wasn't she?"

Aunt Kate looked stern but didn't argue it. Money means something to her, after all. The nurse bustled in then and said:

"Miss Costello is downstairs to see you."

"Send her up," I said.

Aunt Kate waited until the nurse was gone. And then she said: "I'm not going to leave until after she does. She's not a client any more, Patrick, and she's a dangerous woman. I don't want you to see her any more, Patrick."

"Why not?" I asked.

Aunt Kate said firmly: "The first thing you know she'll get you into trouble."

And so help me, she still hasn't figured out why I laughed.

_______________

7: Oysthers!

Gordon Young

1886-1948

Adventure,  30 Sep 1923

PATRICK O’FLYNN DELANEY had red hair and his whiskers were red; but when I came to know him better I found that one eye was often blacker than the other. He was a sailorman, and had the immemorial gift of speech that the sea bestows upon her sons so that they tell tales of the strange things they have seen and done. His gift in this respect was blurred somewhat by a brogue that was thick as the San Francisco fog on the night we met across a table in the Harpoon Oyster House.

Our spoons had rattled in the emptied bowls at almost the same instant.

I said—

“Shall we have another?”

“Shure,” said he. “An’ we’ll be afther tossin’ up to see who pays for it.”

I tossed a dime. He called heads, and heads it came.

“Lucky thing for you that Oi win, because Oi haven’t the money to pay for two more bowls of oysther soup. An’ shure as Oi ’m here, ’t was less than six month ago that Oi was one of the richest men in the whole South Seas— f’r ten minutes, but no longer. Aye, wealth flies. Me an’ Buck O’Malley, we were both rich as nabobs. ’T was oysthers as did it."

IT'S NOT necessary (he continued) to explain as how me an’ Buck O’Malley come to be there on that little island of Rigoro, where was only a Dutch trader an’ lots of naygurs; for that’s a story of itself that Oi’ll keep to meself till Oi know you better.

But Buck O’Malley he borrow’d the Dutchman’s schooner widout asking for it. And though he had one of his own, he borrow’d the Dutchman’s naygur wife the same way. Oh, Buck O’Malley had a way wid womin!

Him bein’ no sailorman Oi went along to show him how to run the thing, ’r else he’d av gone an’ drowned hisself, which Oi wish to Hivin he had done in his cradle. Yis, many ’s the time Oi av wisht O’Malley ten fathoms deep in for ever bein’ born. An’ he ’s there now, praise Hivin; for if it hadn’t been him that went, ’t would av been me. One of us had to go. An’ it’s always better for the worst man to go first, f’r don’t he av to roast longer than a good one? Shure he do.

Well, we got to where we was goin’, and O’Malley ’d propppd hisself up agin the deckhouse, pipe in hand, an’ watched for the oysthers the womin ’d bring up out of the lagoon.

Me— Oi couldn’t endure the sight of such laziness in a full-growed man, so Oi ’d go sleep up in the bows till it was time to ate.

Both of them womin was in love wid O’Malley for his teeth was filled wid chips of the blarney stone. An’ they work like Trojans, each a-thinkin’ to get a little more of his love than th’ other by pullin’ up the oysthers. There was sharks big as th’ divils ye can’t see but are afraid of when you are knee-high to a grasshopper an’ some old Oysthers!

77

grandmother scares the stuffin’ out of you wid witch-tales. But them sharks didn’t trouble O’Malley f’r he couldn’t swim.

Now Oi ’m a Christian, an Oi don’t love

naygur womin. They’re too handy

wid knives an’ ugly in other ways.

An’ when Oi wasn’t sleepin’ Oi cursed meself for bein’ the fool to help a man steal a boat an’ go off wid a pair of wives, neither of which was mine, thank Hivin.

Oi ’m afther telling you it was hot there

in that eddy of wid nothin’ to do but

to wisht Oi hadn’t done it; an’ Oi told O’Malley he was more of a fool than meself for he expected to get rich.

Them oysthers was the biggest oysthers that ever growed on an oysther-tree down in the Divil’s garden. Sometimes it ’ud take O’Malley and his two womin to lift one from the water afther it was brought up.

One of these womin he was callin’ Kate, and the other were Betsy. And he always was a-tellin’ of Kate on the quiet that she were his true love; an’ bless you, but ever chanct he got he was a-tellin’ of the same thing to Betsy. And a swearin’ to each that he loved her dearer than his own soul, which were ondoubtedly true for he didn’t care any more about his soul than Oi do for an empthy bottle of whisky.

Oi knew no good ’ud come of it and told him so, for it’s bad luck to love one womin, an’ O’Malley were busy wid two. He said they were sweet little things wid no harm in ’em.

“Childers of nathure,” he called ’em.

Says Oi, “Look at their skins and ye can see who their father is. They’ve got coal- dust on ’em and smell of sulfur.”

“That ’s coconuts-oil,” says he.

“But the coal-dust, O’Malley?”

“Kisses from the sun,” says he.

“Oi like ’em the color that shows when they’ve took a bath,” says Oi.

“An’ don’t you know,” says he, “all wo- min look alike in the dark?”

“You ’re a liar, O’Malley,” says Oi.

“Oi wouldn’t be gettin’ on wid the ladies if Oi wasn’t,” says he.

“The heat in this blasted place makes me meditative,” says Oi. “An’ we been here six weeks a-ready, an’ me reshpect for Eternithy is increasin’ wid each day.”

“The last bottle of whisky is gone, and it ’s hard to kill time on an empthy stomick. That’s what ’s the matter wid ye,” says Buck O’Malley.

And maybe it was.

We were moored in mongst a patch-work of reefs wid some palms an’ bushes hanging for dear life to the rocks, an’ the tide come in through the channel like the winds of

a-wafting sinners south’ard. But them

womin ’ud slip down, each wid a knife in her hand an’ a net on her back, and some- times Oi ’d watch ’em wid the water-glass, an’ see one of them slidin’ gentle-like down mongst the coral an’ wavy weeds — a heavin’ over oysthers for the love of Buck O’Malley.

And one day it happens. Buck splits into an oysther shell half as big as the main hatch, and there’s the big lump of a wart wrinkled over wid mother-of-pearl the size of my fist. ’Tis true as Oi ’m telling you!

“Give me a chisel an’ a hammer,” says Buck O’Malley. “Oi ’m goin’ to av a look.”

“Ye ’ll be spoilin’ a fine blisther,” says Oi.

“Go to ,” says he.

“Oi ’ll do that some day. Shure. But the same brand ’s on both of us so when the ’s looking f’r one he’ll be sathisfied to find the other one.”

“Then fetch th’ chisel,” says he.

“You av laigs as long as mine,” says Oi. “Besides, Oi don’t want my share in that blisther spoiled.”

Truth to tell, Oi was curiouser than him to see what might be under the wrinkle of that blisther, but ’t wouldn’t av done to agree wid him in anything. Them naygur womin was watchin’, an’ ugly Betsy in particular f’r it was her that had brought it up.

An’ Buck, carefuller than if he ’d been afther opening of a bottle wid Solomon’s seal on it, cut round that blisther an’ pries it off— an’ Hivin hear me! Out comes a pearl wid the shape of a hen’s egg an’ as big. And widout a spot or wrinkle on it!

Oi couldn’t speak. Me knees got quivery an’ me mouth was like somebody’d filled it full of brick-dust.

Buck O’Malley he stood there wid the thing in his two hands and his nose a-touching of it, mutthering over an’ over—

“We ’re rich— we ’re rich— we ’re rich!”

“It means ye’ll be goin’ back to the white-white lan?” says that bushy-head Kate who had been the Dutchman’s wife. Her black eyes were on Buck O’Malley’s face, and he seen the look too.

“No, no,” says O’Malley. “Oh never ’ud I leave you, Kitty darlint.”

“How about me?” says Betsy.

She had a face like somebody that didn’t know how very well had made one out of mud and give it to her; but it was a better face than Kate’s at that.

“How about me?” says Betsy, a-pushin’ of the other woman aside.

O’Malley he looks up, a-thinkin’ of something to say that ’ud smooth out the fool slip he’s made when Kate puts her knife clear into the naked breasth of the naygur girl. “That for you, pig-woman,” she says.

“Ow-ow,” says Betsy, and sets down on the deck, a-bending over like she had the cramps. “Ow-ow-ow,” she says. Then dies.

“Husband of mine,” says Kate to O’Malley, wid the red-drippin’ knife in her hand, “have Oi not done well?”

“Yis,” says O’Malley, eying that knife. “Yis, sweetheart.”

“Then throw that pig-born to the sharks,” says Kate. And Oi understood why maybe the Dutchman was glad to lose his ship since we had took his wife away wid it.

“Pat,” says he, “Pat, give me a hand wid this corpse.”

“—a hand, Buck O’Malley, will Oi ever touch to that poor haythen.”

And looking over the side Oi see a dozen sharks wid their noses right up agin the bilge as if the word had been passed to stan’ by. Queer how they know, them sharks. But know they do. Ax any man that ’s followed the sea.

“Here then, hold this,” says he, putting out the pearl to me, big as the great eye of God, and all shiny-bright like an angel’s cheek.

“Nay, Buck O’Malley. Oi’d rather be a poor man like Oi been than mix wid the curse that’s come upon us. Oi’ll have no share in this thing!”

“So much the better f’r me then,” says Buck O’Malley wid a laugh that made the flesh of me shrivel up wid chills, and Oi that minute wisht good Father O’Flynn, afther who Oi was named, had thrashed me harder than ever he did for bein’ the worst boy in the parish.

“Hold it, Kitty sweet,” says O’Malley.

He was that afraid to put it down any place for there never was a pearl half so big as the size of this one; and it were alive as if asleep an’ breathin’. Oi couldn’t keep me eyes off of it as it lay there in the black hand of that naygrus— that pearl white and alive as the heart of a saint.

Says she to me—

“This buy much-much gin, tembac, calico, an’ womin in your land?”

“Hivin yis!” says Oi. “It ’ud buy a crown off a king’s head!”

“Heave-oh!” says O’Malley, him drunker wid pearl madness than ever he’d been on whisky, as he pushed that poor haythen girl head first over the side where the sharks was a-waitin’ all in a row, grinnin’. It was her that had fetched up the shell wid the blisther that had the pearl, which made the other woman jealous and knife her. “Heave- oh,” said O’Malley to the poor corpse. “It was Kate that I love best anyhow.”

Oi cross meself three times, and Oi says —

“Buck O’Malley, that naygur girl will be standin’ right there where God A’mighty can hear her on Judgment Morn!”

Says he:

“If ye knowed womin as well as me, you ’ud know they’ll lie for you on Judgment as well as any other morn if ye give ’em the twitch of an eye an’ a bit of a smile. Ain’t it so, Kitten darlint?”

“Keep off,” says Kitten darlint, pointin’ the end of that knife at him. “Keep off till Oi ’ve had a word wid you.”

“Ye black haythen,” says O’Malley. “Oi ’ll beat your head off! What ye mean— Ow Kitten darlint, what ye mean pullin’ a glint of steel on yez own Buckie-boy?”

“Me own father was a white man,” says the girl, though she didn’t look it. “And are ye ever going to be a-leaving me an’ going back to your own land?”

“Never, darlint! Never!”

“An’ will ye ever be gettin’ of another woman to crowd me off my bed?”

“Never, Kitten girl. Never! How could you be askin’ of such!”

“Ye ’ll be happy to stay right wid me, here on this island?” says she.

“Oi ’ll stay anywhere wid ye, Katey sweet— forever! Now be lettin’ me av the pearl again an’— ”

“Ye haven’t been telling of a lie to me?”

“Never!”

“Ye ’ll stay right here wid me? Ye promise that?”

“Oi’d stay in wid you, sweet. Now be a-givin’ ”

Then says that black girl who had heard from her mother the ways of a white man —

“You’ll not be needin’ of this then, to tempth yez away from me!”

And wid a swing of her arm — Ow! Oi Oysthers !

79

saw a twinkle of white shimmer through the sun, then the soft splash where it hit; an’ we was poor again as old Satan afther Gabriel had pulled out all his tail-feathers an’ kicked him down the stairs.

O’Malley he stood there gaspin’ for air; then wid a yell he jumps, an’ the fist of him took her in the jaw an’ she fell over the skylight and her laigs quivered like a frog’s that ’s dyin’.

“Ye black dirt, into the water wid yez an’ find that pearl— Oi ’ll kill ye! Don’t ye come up widout it!”

He was grabbin’ her by the hair when Oi says —

“Buck O’Malley, do you be thinkin’ the dead girl that’s in there ’ud be givin’ up that pearl?”

But he ’s clear crazy wid deaf ears. “Over ye go,” says he to her, dragging her over the deck by the hair.

She’s no more than half-alive, but is whisperin’—

“Sharks— there be sharks!”

“Buck O’Malley,” says Oi, “ ’twould be murther, an’ a-ready there’s been one dead woman this ’s day!”

“Ye put her up to it!” says he, wid the mad look in his eyes. “ ’Twill be murther, an’ yez are it!”

Wid that he leaped at me, an’ Oi throwed him aside for there was no blood-thirst in me that black day. He was as big a man as Oi, wid madness in his heart.

Says Oi —

“Oi told her nothin’— ’twas the wise woman of a mother as told her everythin’ ”

And we come together an’ by the heat of his mouth on me face Oi knew it was one of us had to die ; and Oi says to myself —

“The takes the one he wants most!”

Then from wheel to knightshead we fought, rakin’ me shoulder on the mainmast as we passed, an’ jammin’ of his head agin the foremast fife rail as Oi snatched f’r a pin an’ missed. From capstan to skylight we fought back again, reelin’ like drunk men, wid his arm around me neck, and me teeth in his wrist. An’ of a sudden somethin’ sharp takes me in the back, an’ gives me such fear-strength Oi up an’ heaves, so O’Malley stumbles backward an’ the two of us pitch over the rail wid nothin’ in me ears but the screech of the black girl as had knifed me!

’Twas a fair show for us both, an’ the —— took his choice, or maybe as Oi sometimes think, ’t was the black Betsy girl, for something I couldn’t see tore O’Malley loose from around me, an’ Oi climbed in over the mizzen chains wid nary a scratch but the drippin’ gash of a knife.

An’ there was that Black Kate bendin’ over the rail an’ starin’ down like she was watchin’ of her own heart bein’ tore to pieces.

When she looks up and sees me, she gives a yell an’ falls down like Oi’d bashed her wid an ax— but never a hand did Oi touch to her, not the whole three weeks Oi was beatin’ back wid her an’ the schooner to where her husband was, for Oi was wanting to clean my hands as much as Oi could.

An’ then what does she tell to that village an’ her Dutch husband but that the other woman died of fever, an’ that in a quarrel over herself Oi took O’Malley in the back wid an ax; an’ that she keep me off from touchin’ her wid a knife, an’ got me to come back by swearin’ she ’d fix it all up fine f’r me if Oi ’d only bring her home.

Yis, she fix it up fine, that sweet child of nathure!

But Dutchy was so glad to av his schooner again that he hid me away in his own store- room till a trader come off-shore; then he sneaked me o’ board— an’ here Oi am— an’ here Oi am, a tellin’ of shameful deeds on me head to pay for a bowl of oysther soup.

Some day we’ll have a real dinner, wid radishes an’ beer, an’ then Oi ’ll tell ye a story worth two of this an’ ivery bit as true!

__________________

8: The Purple Emperor

Robert W Chambers

1865-1933

The Mystery of Choice, Appleton, 1897

Un souvenir heureux est peut-être, sur terre,

Plus vrai que le bonheur.

[A happy memory may be, on earth,

More true than happiness.]

—Alfred de Musset

THE PURPLE EMPEROR watched me in silence. I cast again, spinning out six feet more of waterproof silk, and, as the line hissed through the air far across the pool, I saw my three flies fall on the water like drifting thistledown. The Purple Emperor sneered.

"You see," he said, "I am right. There is not a trout in Brittany that will rise to a tailed fly."

"They do in America," I replied.

"Zut! for America!" observed the Purple Emperor.

"And trout take a tailed fly in England," I insisted sharply.

"Now do I care what things or people do in England?" demanded the Purple Emperor.

"You don't care for anything except yourself and your wriggling caterpillars," I said, more annoyed than I had yet been.

The Purple Emperor sniffed. His broad, hairless, sunburnt features bore that obstinate expression which always irritated me. Perhaps the manner in which he wore his hat intensified the irritation, for the flapping brim rested on both ears, and the two little velvet ribbons which hung from the silver buckle in front wiggled and fluttered with every trivial breeze. His cunning eyes and sharp-pointed nose were out of all keeping with his fat red face. When he met my eye, he chuckled.

"I know more about insects than any man in Morbihan— or Finistère either, for that matter," he said.

"The Red Admiral knows as much as you do," I retorted.

"He doesn't," replied the Purple Emperor angrily.

"And his collection of butterflies is twice as large as yours," I added, moving down the stream to a spot directly opposite him.

"It is, is it?" sneered the Purple Emperor. "Well, let me tell you, Monsieur Darrel, in all his collection he hasn't a specimen, a single specimen, of that magnificent butterfly, Apatura Iris, commonly known as the 'Purple Emperor.'"

"Everybody in Brittany knows that," I said, casting across the sparkling water; "but just because you happen to be the only man who ever captured a 'Purple Emperor' in Morbihan, it doesn't follow that you are an authority on sea-trout flies. Why do you say that a Breton sea-trout won't touch a tailed fly?"

"It's so," he replied.

"Why? There are plenty of May-flies about the stream."

"Let 'em fly!" snarled the Purple Emperor, "you won't see a trout touch 'em."

My arm was aching, but I grasped my split bamboo more firmly, and, half turning, waded out into the stream and began to whip the ripples at the head of the pool. A great green dragonfly came drifting by on the summer breeze and hung a moment above the pool, glittering like an emerald.

"There's a chance! Where is your butterfly net?" I called across the stream.

"What for? That dragonfly? I've got dozens— Anax Junius, Drury, characteristic, anal angle of posterior wings, in male, round; thorax marked with—"

"That will do," I said fiercely. "Can't I point out an insect in the air without this burst of erudition? Can you tell me, in simple everyday French, what this little fly is— this one, flitting over the eel grass here beside me? See, it has fallen on the water."

"Huh!" sneered the Purple Emperor, "that's a Linnobia annulus."

"What's that?" I demanded.

Before he could answer there came a heavy splash in the pool, and the fly disappeared.

"He! he! he!" tittered the Purple Emperor. "Didn't I tell you the fish knew their business? That was a sea-trout. I hope you don't get him."

He gathered up his butterfly net, collecting box, chloroform bottle, and cyanide jar. Then he rose, swung the box over his shoulder, stuffed the poison bottles into the pockets of his silver-buttoned velvet coat, and lighted his pipe. This latter operation was a demoralizing spectacle, for the Purple Emperor, like all Breton peasants, smoked one of those microscopical Breton pipes which requires ten minutes to find, ten minutes to fill, ten minutes to light, and ten seconds to finish. With true Breton stolidity he went through this solemn rite, blew three puffs of smoke into the air, scratched his pointed nose reflectively, and waddled away, calling back an ironical "Au revoir, and bad luck to all Yankees!"

I watched him out of sight, thinking sadly of the young girl whose life he made a hell upon earth— Lys Trevec, his niece. She never admitted it, but we all knew what the black-and-blue marks meant on her soft, round arm, and it made me sick to see the look of fear come into her eyes when the Purple Emperor waddled into the café of the Groix Inn.

It was commonly said that he half-starved her. This she denied. Marie Joseph and 'Fine Lelocard had seen him strike her the day after the Pardon of the Birds because she had liberated three bullfinches which he had limed the day before. I asked Lys if this were true, and she refused to speak to me for the rest of the week. There was nothing to do about it. If the Purple Emperor had not been avaricious, I should never have seen Lys at all, but he could not resist the thirty francs a week which I offered him; and Lys posed for me all day long, happy as a linnet in a pink thorn hedge. Nevertheless, the Purple Emperor hated me, and constantly threatened to send Lys back to her dreary flax-spinning. He was suspicious, too, and when he had gulped down the single glass of cider which proves fatal to the sobriety of most Bretons, he would pound the long, discolored oaken table and roar curses on me, on Yves Terrec, and on the Red Admiral. We were the three objects in the world which he most hated: me, because I was a foreigner, and didn't care a rap for him and his butterflies; and the Red Admiral, because he was a rival entomologist.

He had other reasons for hating Terrec.

The Red Admiral, a little wizened wretch, with a badly adjusted glass eye and a passion for brandy, took his name from a butterfly which predominated in his collection. This butterfly, commonly known to amateurs as the "Red Admiral," and to entomologists as Vanessa Atalanta, had been the occasion of scandal among the entomologists of France and Brittany. For the Red Admiral had taken one of these common insects, dyed it a brilliant yellow by the aid of chemicals, and palmed it off on a credulous collector as a South African species, absolutely unique. The fifty francs which he gained by this rascality were, however, absorbed in a suit for damages brought by the outraged amateur a month later; and when he had sat in the Quimperlé jail for a month, he reappeared in the little village of St. Gildas soured, thirsty, and burning for revenge. Of course we named him the Red Admiral, and he accepted the name with suppressed fury.

The Purple Emperor, on the other hand, had gained his imperial title legitimately, for it was an undisputed fact that the only specimen of that beautiful butterfly, Apatura Iris, or the Purple Emperor, as it is called by amateurs— the only specimen that had ever been taken in Finistère or in Morbihan— was captured and brought home alive by Joseph Marie Gloanec, ever afterward to be known as the Purple Emperor.

When the capture of this rare butterfly became known, the Red Admiral nearly went crazy. Every day for a week he trotted over to the Groix Inn, where the Purple Emperor lived with his niece, and brought his microscope to bear on the rare newly captured butterfly, in hopes of detecting a fraud. But this specimen was genuine, and he leered through his microscope in vain.

"No chemicals there, Admiral," grinned the Purple Emperor; and the Red Admiral chattered with rage.

To the scientific world of Brittany and France the capture of an Apatura Iris in Morbihan was of great importance. The Museum of Quimper offered to purchase the butterfly, but the Purple Emperor, though a hoarder of gold, was a monomaniac on butterflies, and he jeered at the Curator of the Museum. From all parts of Brittany and France letters of inquiry and congratulation poured in upon him. The French Academy of Sciences awarded him a prize, and the Paris Entomological Society made him an honorary member. Being a Breton peasant, and a more than commonly pig-headed one at that, these honors did not disturb his equanimity; but when the little hamlet of St. Gildas elected him mayor, and, as is the custom in Brittany under such circumstances, he left his thatched house to take up an official life in the little Groix Inn, his head became completely turned. To be mayor in a village of nearly one hundred and fifty people! It was an empire! So he became unbearable, drinking himself viciously drunk every night of his life, maltreating his niece, Lys Trevec, like the barbarous old wretch that he was, and driving the Red Admiral nearly frantic with his eternal harping on the capture of Apatura Iris. Of course he refused to tell where he had caught the butterfly. The Red Admiral stalked his footsteps, but in vain.

"He! he! he!" nagged the Purple Emperor, cuddling his chin over a glass of cider; "I saw you sneaking about the St. Gildas spinny yesterday morning. So you think you can find another Apatura Iris by running after me? It won't do, Admiral, it won't do, d'ye see?"

The Red Admiral turned yellow with mortification and envy, but the next day he actually took to his bed, for the Purple Emperor had brought home not a butterfly but a live chrysalis, which, if successfully hatched, would become a perfect specimen of the invaluable Apatura Iris. This was the last straw. The Red Admiral shut himself up in his little stone cottage, and for weeks now he had been invisible to everybody except 'Fine Lelocard who carried him a loaf of bread and a mullet or langouste every morning.

The withdrawal of the Red Admiral from the society of St. Gildas excited first the derision and finally the suspicion of the Purple Emperor. What deviltry could he be hatching? Was he experimenting with chemicals again, or was he engaged in some deeper plot, the object of which was to discredit the Purple Emperor? Roux, the postman, who carried the mail on foot once a day from Bannelec, a distance of fifteen miles each way, had brought several suspicious letters, bearing English stamps, to the Red Admiral, and the next day the Admiral had been observed at his window grinning up into the sky and rubbing his hands together. A night or two after this apparition, the postman left two packages at the Groix Inn for a moment while he ran across the way to drink a glass of cider with me. The Purple Emperor, who was roaming about the café, snooping into everything that did not concern him, came upon the packages and examined the postmarks and addresses. One of the packages was square and heavy, and felt like a book. The other was also square, but very light, and felt like a pasteboard box. They were both addressed to the Red Admiral, and they bore English stamps.

When Roux, the postman, came back, the Purple Emperor tried to pump him, but the poor little postman knew nothing about the contents of the packages, and after he had taken them around the corner to the cottage of the Red Admiral, the Purple Emperor ordered a glass of cider, and deliberately fuddled himself until Lys came in and tearfully supported him to his room. Here he became so abusive and brutal that Lys called to me, and I went and settled the trouble without wasting any words. This also the Purple Emperor remembered, and waited his chance to get even with me.

That had happened a week ago, and until today he had not deigned to speak to me.

Lys had posed for me all the week, and today being Saturday, and I lazy, we had decided to take a little relaxation, she to visit and gossip with her little black-eyed friend Yvette in the neighboring hamlet of St. Julien, and I to try the appetites of the Breton trout with the contents of my American fly book.

I had thrashed the stream very conscientiously for three hours, but not a trout had risen to my cast, and I was piqued. I had begun to believe that there were no trout in the St. Gildas stream, and would probably have given up had I not seen the sea trout snap the little fly which the Purple Emperor had named so scientifically. That set me thinking. Probably the Purple Emperor was right, for he certainly was an expert in everything that crawled and wriggled in Brittany. So I matched, from my American fly book, the fly that the sea trout had snapped up, and withdrawing the cast of three, knotted a new leader to the silk and slipped a fly on the loop. It was a queer fly. It was one of those unnameable experiments which fascinate anglers in sporting stores and which generally prove utterly useless. Moreover, it was a tailed fly, but of course I easily remedied that with a stroke of my penknife. Then I was all ready, and I stepped out into the hurrying rapids and cast straight as an arrow to the spot where the sea trout had risen. Lightly as a plume the fly settled on the bosom of the pool; then came a startling splash, a gleam of silver, and the line tightened from the vibrating rod-tip to the shrieking reel. Almost instantly I checked the fish, and as he floundered for a moment, making the water boil along his glittering sides, I sprang to the bank again, for I saw that the fish was a heavy one and I should probably be in for a long run down the stream. The five-ounce rod swept in a splendid circle, quivering under the strain. "Oh, for a gaff-hook!" I cried aloud, for I was now firmly convinced that I had a salmon to deal with, and no sea trout at all.

Then as I stood, bringing every ounce to bear on the sulking fish, a lithe, slender girl came hurriedly along the opposite bank calling out to me by name.

"Why, Lys!" I said, glancing up for a second, "I thought you were at St. Julien with Yvette."

"Yvette has gone to Bannelec. I went home and found an awful fight going on at the Groix Inn, and I was so frightened that I came to tell you."

The fish dashed off at that moment, carrying all the line my reel held, and I was compelled to follow him at a jump. Lys, active and graceful as a young deer, in spite of her Pont-Aven sabots, followed along the opposite bank until the fish settled in a deep pool, shook the line savagely once or twice, and then relapsed into the sulks.

"Fight at the Groix Inn?" I called across the water. "What fight?"

"Not exactly fight," quavered Lys, "but the Red Admiral has come out of his house at last, and he and my uncle are drinking together and disputing about butterflies. I never saw my uncle so angry, and the Red Admiral is sneering and grinning. Oh, it is almost wicked to see such a face!"

"But Lys," I said, scarcely able to repress a smile, "your uncle and the Red Admiral are always quarreling and drinking."

"I know— oh, dear me!— but this is different, Monsieur Darrel. The Red Admiral has grown old and fierce since he shut himself up three weeks ago, and— oh, dear! I never saw such a look in my uncle's eyes before. He seemed insane with fury. His eyes— I can't speak of it— and then Terrec came in."

"Oh," I said more gravely, "that was unfortunate. What did the Red Admiral say to his son?"

Lys sat down on a rock among the ferns, and gave me a mutinous glance from her blue eyes.

Yves Terrec, loafer, poacher, and son of Louis Jean Terrec, otherwise the Red Admiral, had been kicked out by his father, and had also been forbidden the village by the Purple Emperor, in his majestic capacity of mayor. Twice the young ruffian had returned: once to rifle the bedroom of the Purple Emperor— an unsuccessful enterprise— and another time to rob his own father. He succeeded in the latter attempt, but was never caught, although he was frequently seen roving about the forests and moors with his gun. He openly menaced the Purple Emperor; vowed that he would marry Lys in spite of all the gendarmes in Quimperlé; and these same gendarmes he led many a long chase through brier-filled swamps and over miles of yellow gorse.

What he did to the Purple Emperor— what he intended to do— disquieted me but little; but I worried over his threat concerning Lys. During the last three months this had bothered me a great deal; for when Lys came to St. Gildas from the convent, the first thing she captured was my heart. For a long time I had refused to believe that any tie of blood linked this dainty blue-eyed creature with the Purple Emperor. Although she dressed in the velvet-laced bodice and blue petticoat of Finistère, and wore the bewitching white coiffe of St. Gildas, it seemed like a pretty masquerade. To me she was as sweet and as gently bred as many a maiden of the noble Faubourg who danced with her cousins at a Louis XV fête champêtre. So when Lys said that Yves Terrec had returned openly to St. Gildas, I felt that I had better be there also.

"What did Terrec say, Lys?" I asked, watching the line vibrating above the placid pool.

The wild rose color crept into her cheeks. "Oh," she answered, with a little toss of her chin, "you know what he always says."

"That he will carry you away?"

"Yes."

"In spite of the Purple Emperor, the Red Admiral, and the gendarmes?"

"Yes."

"And what do you say, Lys?"

"I? Oh, nothing."

"Then let me say it for you."

Lys looked at her delicate pointed sabots, the sabots from Pont-Aven, made to order. They fitted her little foot. They were her only luxury.

"Will you let me answer for you, Lys?" I asked.

"You, Monsieur Darrel?"

"Yes. Will you let me give him his answer?"

"Mon Dieu, why should you concern yourself, Monsieur Darrel?"

The fish lay very quiet, but the rod in my hand trembled.

"Because I love you, Lys."

The wild rose color in her cheeks deepened; she gave a gentle gasp, then hid her curly head in her hands.

"I love you, Lys."

"Do you know what you say?" she stammered.

"Yes, I love you."

She raised her sweet face and looked at me across the pool.

"I love you," she said, while the tears stood like stars in her eyes. "Shall I come over the brook to you?"

ii

THAT NIGHT Yves Terrec left the village of St. Gildas vowing vengeance against his father, who refused him shelter.

I can see him now, standing in the road, his bare legs rising like pillars of bronze from his straw-stuffed sabots, his short velvet jacket torn and soiled by exposure and dissipation, and his eyes, fierce, roving, bloodshot— while the Red Admiral squeaked curses on him, and hobbled away into his little stone cottage.

"I will not forget you!" cried Yves Terrec, and stretched out his hand toward his father with a terrible gesture. Then he whipped his gun to his cheek and took a short step forward, but I caught him by the throat before he could fire, and a second later we were rolling in the dust of the Bannelec road. I had to hit him a heavy blow behind the ear before he would let go, and then, rising and shaking myself, I dashed his muzzle-loading fowling piece to bits against a wall, and threw his knife into the river. The Purple Emperor was looking on with a queer light in his eyes. It was plain that he was sorry Terrec had not choked me to death.

"He would have killed his father," I said, as I passed him, going toward the Groix Inn.

"That's his business," snarled the Purple Emperor. There was a deadly light in his eyes. For a moment I thought he was going to attack me; but he was merely viciously drunk, so I shoved him out of my way and went to bed, tired and disgusted.

The worst of it was I couldn't sleep, for I feared that the Purple Emperor might begin to abuse Lys. I lay restlessly tossing among the sheets until I could stay there no longer. I did not dress entirely; I merely slipped on a pair of chaussons and sabots, a pair of knickerbockers, a jersey, and a cap. Then, loosely tying a handkerchief about my throat, I went down the worm-eaten stairs and out into the moonlit road. There was a candle flaring in the Purple Emperor's window, but I could not see him.

"He's probably dead drunk," I thought, and looked up at the window where, three years before, I had first seen Lys.

"Asleep, thank Heaven!" I muttered, and wandered out along the road. Passing the small cottage of the Red Admiral, I saw that it was dark, but the door was open. I stepped inside the hedge to shut it, thinking, in case Yves Terrec should be roving about, his father would lose whatever he had left.

Then, after fastening the door with a stone, I wandered on through the dazzling Breton moonlight. A nightingale was singing in a willow swamp below, and from the edge of the mere, among the tall swamp grasses, myriads of frogs chanted a bass chorus.

When I returned, the eastern sky was beginning to lighten, and across the meadows on the cliffs, outlined against the paling horizon, I saw a seaweed gatherer going to his work among the curling breakers on the coast. His long rake was balanced on his shoulder, and the sea wind carried his song across the meadows to me:

St. Gildas!

St. Gildas!

Pray for us,

Shelter us,

Us who toil in the sea.

Passing the shrine at the entrance of the village, I took off my cap and knelt in prayer to Our Lady of Faöuet; and if I neglected myself in that prayer, surely I believed Our Lady of Faöuet would be kinder to Lys. It is said that the shrine casts white shadows. I looked, but saw only the moonlight. Then very peacefully I went to bed again, and was only awakened by the clank of sabers and the trample of horses in the road below my window.

"Good gracious!" I thought, "it must be eleven o'clock, for there are the gendarmes from Quimperlé."

I looked at my watch; it was only half-past eight, and as the gendarmes made their rounds every Thursday at eleven, I wondered what had brought them out so early to St. Gildas.

"Of course," I grumbled, rubbing my eyes, "they are after Terrec," and I jumped into my limited bath.

Before I was completely dressed I heard a timid knock, and opening my door, razor in hand, stood astonished and silent. Lys, her blue eyes wide with terror, leaned on the threshold.

"My darling!" I cried, "what on earth is the matter?" But she only clung to me, panting like a wounded sea gull. At last, when I drew her into the room and raised her face to mine, she spoke in a heart-breaking voice:

"Oh, Dick! they are going to arrest you, but I will die before I believe one word of what they say. No, don't ask me," and she began to sob desperately.

When I found that something really serious was the matter, I flung on my coat and cap, and, slipping one arm about her waist, went down the stairs and out into the road. Four gendarmes sat on their horses in front of the café door; beyond them, the entire population of St. Gildas gaped, ten deep.

"Hello, Durand!" I said to the brigadier, "what the devil is this I hear about arresting me?"

"It's true, mon ami," replied Durand with sepulchral sympathy. I looked him over from the tip of his spurred boots to his sulphur-yellow saber belt, then upward, button by button, to his disconcerted face.

"What for?" I said scornfully. "Don't try any cheap sleuth work on me! Speak up, man, what's the trouble?"

The Purple Emperor, who sat in the doorway staring at me, started to speak, but thought better of it and got up and went into the house. The gendarmes rolled their eyes mysteriously and looked wise.

"Come, Durand," I said impatiently, "what's the charge?"

"Murder," he said in a faint voice.

"What!" I cried incredulously. "Nonsense! Do I look like a murderer? Get off your horse, you stupid, and tell me who's murdered."

Durand got down, looking very silly, and came up to me, offering his hand with a propitiatory grin.

"It was the Purple Emperor who denounced you! See, they found your handkerchief at his door—"

"Whose door, for Heaven's sake?" I cried.

"Why, the Red Admiral's!"

"The Red Admiral's? What has he done?"

"Nothing— he's only been murdered."

I could scarcely believe my senses, although they took me over to the little stone cottage and pointed out the blood-spattered room. But the horror of the thing was that the corpse of the murdered man had disappeared, and there only remained a nauseating lake of blood on the stone floor, in the center of which lay a human hand. There was no doubt as to whom the hand belonged, for everybody who had ever seen the Red Admiral knew that the shriveled bit of flesh which lay in the thickening blood was the hand of the Red Admiral. To me it looked like the severed claw of some gigantic bird.

"Well," I said, "there's been murder committed. Why don't you do something?"

"What?" asked Durand.

"I don't know. Send for the Commissaire."

"He's at Quimperlé. I telegraphed."

"Then send for a doctor, and find out how long this blood has been coagulating."

"The chemist from Quimperlé is here; he's a doctor."

"What does he say?"

"He says that he doesn't know."

"And who are you going to arrest?" I inquired, turning away from the spectacle on the floor.

"I don't know," said the brigadier solemnly; "you are denounced by the Purple Emperor, because he found your handkerchief at the door when he went out this morning."

"Just like a pig-headed Breton!" I exclaimed, thoroughly angry. "Did he not mention Yves Terrec?"

"No."

"Of course not," I said. "He overlooked the fact that Terrec tried to shoot his father last night, and that I took away his gun. All that counts for nothing when he finds my handkerchief at the murdered man's door."

"Come into the café," said Durand, much disturbed, "we can talk it over, there. Of course, Monsieur Darrel, I have never had the faintest idea that you were the murderer!"

The four gendarmes and I walked across the road to the Groix Inn and entered the café. It was crowded with Bretons, smoking, drinking, and jabbering in half a dozen dialects, all equally unsatisfactory to a civilized ear; and I pushed through the crowd to where little Max Fortin, the chemist of Quimperlé, stood smoking a vile cigar.

"This is a bad business," he said, shaking hands and offering me the mate to his cigar, which I politely declined.

"Now, Monsieur Fortin," I said, "it appears that the Purple Emperor found my handkerchief near the murdered man's door this morning, and so he concludes"— here I glared at the Purple Emperor— "that I am the assassin. I will now ask him a question," and turning on him suddenly, I shouted, "What were you doing at the Red Admiral's door?"

The Purple Emperor started and turned pale, and I pointed at him triumphantly.

"See what a sudden question will do. Look how embarrassed he is, and yet I do not charge him with murder; and I tell you, gentlemen, that man there knows as well as I do who was the murderer of the Red Admiral!"

"I don't!" bawled the Purple Emperor.

"You do," I said. "It was Yves Terrec."

"I don't believe it," he said obstinately, dropping his voice.

"Of course not, being pig-headed."

"I am not pig-headed," he roared again, "but I am mayor of St. Gildas, and I do not believe that Yves Terrec killed his father."

"You saw him try to kill him last night?"

The mayor grunted.

"And you saw what I did."

He grunted again.

"And," I went on, "you heard Yves Terrec threaten to kill his father. You heard him curse the Red Admiral and swear to kill him. Now the father is murdered and his body is gone."

"And your handkerchief?" sneered the Purple Emperor.

"I dropped it, of course."

"And the seaweed gatherer who saw you last night lurking about the Red Admiral's cottage," grinned the Purple Emperor.

I was startled at the man's malice.

"That will do," I said. "It is perfectly true that I was walking on the Bannelec road last night, and that I stopped to close the Red Admiral's door, which was ajar, although his light was not burning. After that I went up the road to the Dinez Woods, and then walked over by St. Julien, whence I saw the seaweed gatherer on the cliffs. He was near enough for me to hear what he sang. What of that?"

"What did you do then?"

"Then I stopped at the shrine and said a prayer, and then I went to bed and slept until Brigadier Durand's gendarmes awoke me with their clatter."

"Now, Monsieur Darrel," said the Purple Emperor, lifting a fat finger and shooting a wicked glance at me, "Now, Monsieur Darrel, which did you wear last night on your midnight stroll— sabots or shoes?"

I thought a moment. "Shoes— no, sabots. I just slipped on my chaussons and went out in my sabots."

"Which was it, shoes or sabots?" snarled the Purple Emperor.

"Sabots, you fool."

"Are these your sabots?" he asked, lifting up a wooden shoe with my initials cut on the instep.

"Yes," I replied.

"Then how did this blood come on the other one?" he shouted, and held up a sabot, the mate to the first, on which a drop of blood had spattered.

"I haven't the least idea," I said calmly; but my heart was beating very fast and I was furiously angry.

"You blockhead!" I said, controlling my rage, "I'll make you pay for this when they catch Yves Terrec and convict him. Brigadier Durand, do your duty if you think I am under suspicion. Arrest me, but grant me one favor. Put me in the Red Admiral's cottage, and I'll see whether I can't find some clue that you have overlooked. Of course, I won't disturb anything until the Commissaire arrives. Bah! You all make me very ill."

"He's hardened," observed the Purple Emperor, wagging his head.

"What motive had I to kill the Red Admiral?" I asked them all scornfully. And they all cried:

"None! Yves Terrec is the man!"

Passing out of the door I swung around and shook my finger at the Purple Emperor.

"Oh, I'll make you dance for this, my friend," I said; and I followed Brigadier Durand across the street to the cottage of the murdered man.

iii

THEY TOOK me at my word and placed a gendarme with a bared saber at the gateway by the hedge.

"Give me your parole," said poor Durand, "and I will let you go where you wish." But I refused, and began prowling about the cottage looking for clues. I found lots of things that some people would have considered most important, such as ashes from the Red Admiral's pipe, footprints in a dusty vegetable bin, bottles smelling of Pouldu cider, and dust—oh, lots of dust!—but I was not an expert, only a stupid, everyday amateur; so I defaced the footprints with my thick shooting boots, and I declined to examine the pipe ashes through a microscope, although the Red Admiral's microscope stood on the table close at hand.

At last I found what I had been looking for, some long wisps of straw, curiously depressed and flattened in the middle, and I was certain I had found the evidence that would settle Yves Terrec for the rest of his life. It was plain as the nose on your face. The straws were sabot straws, flattened where the foot had pressed them, and sticking straight out where they projected beyond the sabot. Now nobody in St. Gildas used straw in sabots except a fisherman who lived near St. Julien, and the straw in his sabots was ordinary yellow wheat straw! This straw, or rather these straws, were from the stalks of the red wheat which only grows inland, and which, everybody in St. Gildas knew, Yves Terrec wore in his sabots. I was perfectly satisfied; and when, three hours later, a hoarse shouting from the Bannelec Road brought me to the window, I was not surprised to see Yves Terrec, bloody, dishevelled, hatless, with his strong arms bound behind him, walking with bent head between two mounted gendarmes. The crowd around him swelled every minute, crying: "Parricide! parricide! Death to the murderer!" As he passed my window I saw great clots of mud on his dusty sabots, from the heels of which projected wisps of red wheat straw. Then I walked back into the Red Admiral's study, determined to find what the microscope would show on the wheat straws. I examined each one very carefully, and then, my eyes aching, I rested my chin on my hand and leaned back in the chair. I had not been as fortunate as some detectives, for there was no evidence that the straws had ever been used in a sabot at all. Furthermore, directly across the hallway stood a carved Breton chest, and now I noticed for the first time that, from beneath the closed lid, dozens of similar red wheat straws projected, bent exactly as mine were— bent by the weight of the lid.

I yawned in disgust. It was apparent that I was not cut out for a detective, and I bitterly pondered over the difference between clues in real life and clues in a detective story. After a while I rose, walked over to the chest and opened the lid. The interior was wadded with the red wheat straws, and on this wadding lay two curious glass jars, two or three small vials, several empty bottles labeled chloroform, a collecting jar of cyanide of potassium, and a book. In a farther corner of the chest were some letters bearing English stamps, and also the torn coverings of two parcels, all from England, and all directed to the Red Admiral under his proper name of "Sieur Louis Jean Terrec, St. Gildas, par Moëlan, Finistère."

All these traps I carried over to the desk, shut the lid of the chest, and sat down to read the letters. They were written in commercial French, evidently by an Englishman.

Freely translated, the contents of the first letter were as follows:

London,

June 12, 1894.

Dear Monsieur (sic): Your kind favor of the 19th inst. received and contents noted. The latest work on the Lepidoptera of England is Blowzer's How to catch British Butterflies, with notes and tables, and an introduction by Sir Thomas Sniffer. The price of this work (in one volume, calf) is £5 or 125 francs of French money. A post-office order will receive our prompt attention. We beg to remain,

Yours, etc.,

Fradley & Toomer

470 Regent Square, London, S. W.

The next letter was even less interesting. It merely stated that the money had been received and the book would be forwarded. The third engaged my attention, and I shall quote it, the translation being a free one:

"Dear Sir: Your letter of the 1st of July was duly received, and we at once referred it to Mr. Fradley himself. Mr. Fradley being much interested in your question, sent your letter to Professor Schweineri, of the Berlin Entomological Society, whose note Blowzer refers to on page 630, in his How to catch British Butterflies. We have just received an answer from Professor Schweineri, which we translate into French—(see inclosed slip). Professor Schweineri begs to present to you two jars of cythyl, prepared under his own supervision. We forward the same to you. Trusting that you will find everything satisfactory, we remain,

Yours sincerely,

Fradley & Toomer

The inclosed slip read as follows:

Messrs. Fradley & Toomer,

"Gentlemen: Cythaline, a complex hydrocarbon, was first used by Professor Schnoot, of Antwerp, a year ago. I discovered an analogous formula about the same time and named it cythyl. I have used it with great success everywhere. It is as certain as a magnet. I beg to present you three small jars, and would be pleased to have you forward two of them to your correspondent in St. Gildas with my compliments. Blowzer's quotation of me, on page 630 of his glorious work, How to catch British Butterflies, is correct.

Yours, etc.,

Heinrich Schweineri,

P.H.D., D.D., D.S., M.S.

When I had finished this letter I folded it up and put it into my pocket with the others. Then I opened Blowzer's valuable work, How to catch British Butterflies, and turned to page 630.

Now, although the Red Admiral could only have acquired the book very recently, and although all the other pages were perfectly clean, this particular page was thumbed black, and heavy pencil marks inclosed a paragraph at the bottom of the page. This is the paragraph:

Professor Schweineri says: "Of the two old methods used by collectors for the capture of the swift-winged, high-flying Apatura Iris, or Purple Emperor, the first, which was using a long-handled net, proved successful once in a thousand times; and the second, the placing of bait upon the ground, such as decayed meat, dead cats, rats, etc., was not only disagreeable, even for an enthusiastic collector, but also very uncertain. Once in five hundred times would the splendid butterfly leave the tops of his favorite oak trees to circle about the fetid bait offered. I have found cythyl a perfectly sure bait to draw this beautiful butterfly to the ground, where it can be easily captured. An ounce of cythyl placed in a yellow saucer under an oak tree, will draw to it every Apatura Iris within a radius of twenty miles. So, if any collector who possesses a little cythyl, even though it be in a sealed bottle in his pocket— if such a collector does not find a single Apatura Iris fluttering close about him within an hour, let him be satisfied that the Apatura Iris does not inhabit his country."

When I had finished reading this note I sat for a long while thinking hard. Then I examined the two jars. They were labeled "Cythyl." One was full, the other nearly full. "The rest must be on the corpse of the Red Admiral," I thought, "no matter if it is in a corked bottle—"

I took all the things back to the chest, laid them carefully on the straw, and closed the lid. The gendarme sentinel at the gate saluted me respectfully as I crossed over to the Groix Inn. The Inn was surrounded by an excited crowd, and the hallway was choked with gendarmes and peasants. On every side they greeted me cordially, announcing that the real murderer was caught; but I pushed by them without a word and ran upstairs to find Lys. She opened her door when I knocked and threw both arms about my neck. I took her to my breast and kissed her. After a moment I asked her if she would obey me no matter what I commanded, and she said she would, with a proud humility that touched me.

"Then go at once to Yvette in St. Julien," I said. "Ask her to harness the dog-cart and drive you to the convent in Quimperlé. Wait for me there. Will you do this without questioning me, my darling?"

She raised her face to mine. "Kiss me," she said innocently; the next moment she had vanished.

I walked deliberately into the Purple Emperor's room and peered into the gauze-covered box which had held the chrysalis of Apatura Iris. It was as I expected. The chrysalis was empty and transparent, and a great crack ran down the middle of its back, but, on the netting inside the box, a magnificent butterfly slowly waved its burnished purple wings; for the chrysalis had given up its silent tenant, the butterfly symbol of immortality. Then a great fear fell upon me. I know now that it was the fear of the Black Priest, but neither then nor for years after did I know that the Black Priest had ever lived on earth. As I bent over the box I heard a confused murmur outside the house which ended in a furious shout of "Parricide!" and I heard the gendarmes ride away behind a wagon which rattled sharply on the flinty highway. I went to the window. In the wagon sat Yves Terrec, bound and wild-eyed, two gendarmes at either side of him, and all around the wagon rode mounted gendarmes whose bared sabers scarcely kept the crowd away.

"Parricide!" they howled. "Let him die!"

I stepped back and opened the gauze-covered box. Very gently but firmly I took the splendid butterfly by its closed fore wings and lifted it unharmed between my thumb and forefinger. Then, holding it concealed behind my back, I went down into the café.

Of all the crowd that had filled it, shouting for the death of Yves Terrec, only three persons remained seated in front of the huge empty fireplace. They were the Brigadier Durand, Max Fortin, the chemist of Quimperlé, and the Purple Emperor. The latter looked abashed when I entered, but I paid no attention to him and walked straight to the chemist.

"Monsieur Fortin," I said, "do you know much about hydrocarbons?"

"They are my specialty," he said astonished.

"Have you ever heard of such a thing as cythyl?"

"Schweineri's cythyl? Oh, yes! We use it in perfumery."

"Good!" I said. "Has it an odor?"

"No— and, yes. One is always aware of its presence, but really nobody can affirm it has an odor. It is curious," he continued, looking at me, "it is very curious you should have asked me that, for all day I have been imagining I detected the presence of cythyl."

"Do you imagine so now?" I asked.

"Yes, more than ever."

I sprang to the front door and tossed out the butterfly. The splendid creature beat the air for a moment, flitted uncertainly hither and thither, and then, to my astonishment, sailed majestically back into the café and alighted on the hearthstone. For a moment I was nonplussed, but when my eyes rested on the Purple Emperor I comprehended in a flash.

"Lift that hearthstone!" I cried to the Brigadier Durand; "pry it up with your scabbard!"

The Purple Emperor suddenly fell forward in his chair, his face ghastly white, his jaw loose with terror.

"What is cythyl?" I shouted, seizing him by the arm; but he plunged heavily from his chair, face downward on the floor, and at the same moment a cry from the chemist made me turn. There stood the Brigadier Durand, one hand supporting the hearthstone, one hand raised in horror. There stood Max Fortin, the chemist, rigid with excitement, and below, in the hollow bed where the hearthstone had rested, lay a crushed mass of bleeding human flesh, from the midst of which stared a cheap glass eye. I seized the Purple Emperor and dragged him to his feet.

"Look!" I cried; "look at your old friend, the Red Admiral!" but he only smiled in a vacant way, and rolled his head muttering; "Bait for butterflies! Cythyl! Oh, no, no, no! You can't do it, Admiral, d'ye see. I alone own the Purple Emperor! I alone am the Purple Emperor!"

And the same carriage that bore me to Quimperlé to claim my bride, carried him to Quimper, gagged and bound, a foaming, howling lunatic.

THIS, THEN, is the story of the Purple Emperor. I might tell you a pleasanter story if I chose; but concerning the fish that I had hold of, whether it was a salmon, a grilse, or a sea trout, I may not say, because I have promised Lys, and she has promised me, that no power on earth shall wring from our lips the mortifying confession that the fish escaped.

_________________

9: Bones!

Richard Dehan

Clotilde Graves, 1863-1932

A Sailor's Home, 1919

ONE week-end house-party had motored away, the men masked like conspirators, the women veiled like house-maids' brooms enveloped in cobwebs. The next batch was not due until Saturday. One, two, three, four days of téte á téte loneliness for Her and for Him.

He had, with the inane persistency of the speeding host, remained upon the doorstep even after the tuff-tuff of the last motor had grown thin upon the ear. She had retreated into the Jacobean carved-oak hall, on the strength of which they had paid eighteen thousand— a bargain, the sleek Haymarket agent said, omitting to mention whose— for this desirable country residence. The newly varnished, recently acquired ancestors upon the walls looked at her with such glittering contempt that she lowered her eyes. And then she saw a curious-looking, narrow, long box upon the marble console— or what looked like a long box, enveloped in brown paper and string.

"It must have come by parcel post just now," she said, pouncing on it eagerly. "How frightfully punctual of Taillette et Cie! Just when I wanted something to do, too." She rang the hall bell twice, which meant the Swiss maid upstairs, and began to strip off the tightly tied string. Then a large masculine hand reached over her shoulder and grabbed the parcel.

"Look here, that's mine, you know!"

"Rubbish! It's for me"

"I beg your pardon," He said, with some acerbity; "if you will look at the address you will see my name."

"I don't want to look at the address."

"You've tom it off," he said angrily.

The address being on a label gummed over the knot of the string, she had, in fact, tom it off and tossed it into the fire, which had been lighted because Jacobean halls have a trick of smelling mouldy even on a rainy day in September, and of feeling damp. Now He went down on his hands and knees, grovelling under the console table in a curiously ardent search for it.

"Do get up," she snapped; "you look so awfully apoplectic about the neck and ears, and I can hear you puffing."

He obeyed with unusual celerity. "I'm afraid I am getting a little bit crummy," He said, surveying the generous curve described by his watch-chain across a waistcoat of fatally large-patterned tweed. .

"Afraid!" She echoed, with a high little hysterical laugh that He had learned, within two years of wedded happiness, to regard as the weatherwise regard the inky cloud-castles bannered with streamers of coppery vapour that presage the bursting of a thunderstorm.

"Look here, my dear," He said, with meekness, "are you absolutely certain that parcel was meant for you?"

"Were you expecting one," She asked, with icy disdain, "of this shape and size?"

"I don't see why I shouldn't be." He was fiery sunset red and breathed through the nose, always a sign with him of impending inflammation of the temper.

"Will you tell me," She asked, facing him, the disputed parcel tucked under one arm, the outraged feelings of a wife palpitating visibly under the discreet indiscretions of her open-worked cambric blouse, and one little buckled patent-leather shoe tapping the shiny bottom step of the Jacobean staircase— "will you tell me what you think— what you believe— to be inside this?" She rapped lightly on the parcel with the hand that wore his wedding ring and the keeper that had cost him such a thundering lump. Our civilised women are no better judges of jewels than their savage sisters, thought He. Anything that is big enough and sufficiently shining does for all, and they sport a five-hundred guinea string of pearls with a rope of blue-glass Venice beads, and diamond bracelets with Indian glass bangles, the sort of thing the ayahs and low-caste women wear at Lahore. And these are the creatures that prate of sex equality and clamour for franchise! thought He.

"No, I'm dashed if I do!" He thundered suddenly.

She cast a glance of scorn upon him, turned, and swept upstairs to her boudoir. She heard the door of the smoking-room bang, disturbing swarms of Jacobean echoes, as she cut the string of the parcel, neatly removed the brown paper, dropped it into the wastepaper basket, and opened the long box. Then she uttered a cry of triumph and dashed into her bedroom, calling Marie Louise.

"Undress me quick; don't lose a minute. Taillette has kept her word, and I'm dying to try them on. Dites-moi done, Marie Louise, do you think the new-shaped figure will suit my style? Candidly, now, speaking as though you were at confession."

"It is trying, without doubt, to those ladies who are not tall. But Madame has such grace to carry it off." Marie Louise was, of course, speaking as if she were at confession. "Madame will look ravishing. Alas! my Heaven, what is this?"

Marie Louise was quite pale as they unrolled wider and wider in her trembling hands.

"Made of webbing, no embroidery, and with such huge wide bones!" gasped her mistress. "And thirty-five inches— forty, if one. What can have possessed Taillette? Put them back in the box at once, Marie Louise. Take them away to your room, tie them up in the paper, and send them back to Wigmore Street by the next parcel-post. I'll write a letter and say there has been some hideous mistake. No, don't dress me again. I'll put on a kimono and go to bed till dinner-time. Does it rain still?"

"Des hallebardes, Madame."

"You may go. Take those awful things with you, and bring me tea at half-past five."

''Madame has already had the aftemuti!"

"I'll have it again, then."

Marie Louise shut the bedroom door noiselessly, and skipped across the boudoir, hugging in her neat black silk apron the long box and its extraordinary contents. She made a grimace of triumph at her own rather plain face in the mantel-mirror, and slid downstairs instead of up, with the air of a feminine Mephistopheles. She was not a bad sort of young woman, but chance had delivered a man into her hands, and he was going to bleed for it. She knocked softly at the smoking-room door.

"Come in," He bellowed. He was lying on his back on a big leather divan, smoking a cigar and studying the pictorial advertisements in a ladies' weekly illustrated paper.

"Monsieur permits?"

"Certainly." He dropped the paper adroitly between the divan and the wall, and sat up with rumpled hair and a heightened complexion, which deepened to tomato when he saw the apron's contents. "A message from Madame?"

"It is but of the box. The box contained nothing that was intended for Miladi. I come but to bring Monsieur—"

He blurted out: "Take the things away. You don't suppose I'd order or wear such things, do you? Send 'em to the devil. Pack 'em back. Put 'em in the fire. Why bring 'em to me?"

She tittered inwardly, for she had not unrolled her apron or opened the compromising box. Now she began to weep; the black silk apron went to her eyes, the box tumbled down upon the Daghestani carpet, and the contents of course, rolled out "I beg Monsieur to pardon me. I entreat Monsieur not to be offended. Miladi— Madame— does not know that I brought the box to Monsieur. She commanded me to smd it back to the corsetiére in Vigmore Street, and I cannot write the English address. Ah, heaven! and Monsieur is angry!"

Monsieur said with an uncertain voice, looking at the contents of the long box with a mingled expression of guilt, fear, and greed: "You're wrong, my good girL I'm not in the least angry. Leave the box with me. I'll pack it up and direct it properly." He added, slipping a sovereign into the unconsciously ready hand of Marie Louise, "And— you needn't mention anything about it"

"But if Madame should ask?"

Another sovereign went to keep the first one warm. And those things in the long box had cost him four pounds ten, and he didn't know whether he would ever be able— able to—

"If Madame should ask, say that the-"

"The corsets, Monsieur!"

"The— a— humphs!"— He could not bring himself to utter the word— "have arrived at their proper destination."

"But certainly, Monsieur."

Marie Louise vanished. He rang the smoking-room bell three times impatiently— that meant master's man upstairs, and look sharp about it— and went to try them on. He ate less dinner than usual that night, and sighed frequently. But even to the wifely eye, which is not always the most flattering medium in which a man may be reflected, he looked less "crummy."

_____________________

10: The End of the Path

Newbold Noyes

1892-1942

Every Week  12 July 1915

Set far back in the hills that have thrown their wall of misty purple about the laughing blue of Lake Como, on a sheer cliff three thousand feet above the lake, stands a little weather-stained church. Beneath it lie the two villages of Cadenabbia and Menaggio; behind and up are rank on rank of shadowy mountains, sharply outlined against the sky,— the foothills leading back to the giant Alps.

The last tiny cream-colored house of the villages stands a full two miles this side of the tortuous path that winds up the face of the chrome-colored cliff. Once a year, in a creeping procession of black and white, the natives make a pilgrimage to the little church to pray for rain in the dry season. Otherwise it is rarely visited.

Blagden climbed slowly up the narrow path that stretched like a clean white ribbon from the little group of pastel-colored houses by the water. There was not a breath of wind, not a rustle in the gray-green olive trees that shimmered silver in the sunlight. Little lizards, sunning themselves on warm flat stones, watched him with brilliant eyes, and darted away to safety as he moved. The shadows of the cypress trees barred the white path like rungs of a ladder. And Blagden, drinking deep of the beauty of it all, climbed upward.

When he opened the low door of the little chapel the cold of the darkness within was as another barrier. He stepped inside, his footsteps echoing heavily through the shadows, though he walked on tiptoe. After the brilliant sunlight outside he could make out but little of the interior at first. At the far end four candles were burning, and he made his way toward them across the worn floor.

In a cheap, tarnished frame of gilt, above the four flickering pencils of light, hung a picture of the Virgin. Blagden stared at it in amazement. It had evidently been painted by a master hand. Blagden was no artist; but the face told him that. It was drawn with wonderful appreciation of the woman's sweetness. Perhaps the eyes were what was most wonderful,— pitiful, trusting, a little sad perhaps.

The life-sized figure, draped in smoke-colored blue, blended softly with the dusky shadows, and the flickering candlelight lent a witchery to blurred outlines that half deceived him,— at moments the picture seemed alive. She was smiling a little wistful smile.

And the canvas over the heart of the Virgin was cut in a long, clean stroke— and opened in a disfiguring gash. Beneath it, on a little stand, lay a slim-bladed, vicious knife, covered with dust.

Blagden wonderingly stooped to pick it up— and a voice spoke out of the darkness behind him.

"I would not touch it, Signor," it said, and Blagden wheeled guiltily.

A man was standing in the shadow, almost at his elbow.

He was old, the oldest man Blagden had ever seen, and he wore the long brown gown of a monk. His face was like a withered leaf, lined and yellow, and his hair was silver white.

Only the small, saurian eyes held Blagden with their strange brilliance. The rest of his face was like a death mask.

"Why not?" said Blagden.

The monk stepped forward into the dim light, crossing himself as he passed the picture. He looked hesitatingly at the younger man before him, searching his face with his wonderfully piercing eyes. He seemed to find there what he was searching for, and when he spoke Blagden wondered at the gentleness of his voice.

"There is a story. Would the Signor care to hear?"

Blagden nodded, and the two moved back in the shadows a short distance to the front line of little low chairs. Before them, over the dancing light of the four candles, stood the mutilated picture of Mary, beneath it the dust-covered dagger.

And then the withered monk began speaking, and Blagden listened, looking up at the picture.

"It all happened a great many years ago," said the old man; "but I am old, so I remember.

"Rosa was the girl's name. She lived with her father and mother in a little house above Menaggio. And every day in the warm sunlight of the open fields she sang as she watched the goats for the old people, and her voice was like cool water laughing in the shadows of a little brook.

"She was always singing, little Rosa; for she was young, and the sun had never stopped shining for her. People used to call her beautiful.

"And there was Giovanni. Each morning he would pass her home where the yellow roses with the pink hearts grew so sweetly, and always she would blow him a kiss from the little window.

"Then Giovanni would toil with all the strength of his youth, and he too would sing while he toiled; for was it not all for her?

"Often Rosa's goats would stray toward Giovanni's vineyard as dusk came, and they would drive them home together, always laughing, always singing, hand in hand, as the sun slipped golden over the top of the hills across the lake. Sometimes they would walk together in the afterglow, and Giovanni would weave a crown of the little flowers that grew about them, and his princess would wear it, laughing happily.

"They were like two children, Signor. There were nights spent together on the lake, when he told her of his dreams, while the gentlest of winds stirred her curls against his brown cheek, and the moon's wake stretched like a golden pathway from shore to shore.

"They were to be married when the grapes were picked, people used to whisper.

"And then one day a new force came into the girl's life. The Church, Signor!

"No one understands when or why this comes to a young girl, I think. She was torn with the idea that she should join her church, go into the little nunnery across the lake, and leave the sunshine.

"She did not want to go, and it was a strange yet a beautiful thing. This young, beautiful girl who seemed so much a part of the sunshine and the flowers was to close the door of the Church upon it all!

"You are thinking it was strange, Signor.

"Giovanni was frantic— you can understand.

"He had dreamed so happily of that which was to be, that now to have the cup snatched from his lips was torture. He took her little sun-kissed hands in his and begged on his knees with tears streaming down his cheeks. And Rosa wept also— but could not answer as he begged. I think she loved the boy, Signor. Yet there is something stronger than the love of a boy and a girl.

"She asked for one more night in which to decide. She would come up here to this little church and pray for Mary to guide her. He kissed her cold lips and came away.

"He was a boy, and he never doubted but that she would choose his strong young arms.

"The girl came here. All night she knelt on the rough stone floor, praying and— weeping; for she loved him. And the Virgin above the four candles looked down with the great, wistful eyes you see— and bound the girl's soul faster and faster to her own.

"And when morning came she entered the white walls across the lake without seeing her lover again.

"Giovanni went mad, I think, when they told him. He screamed out his hate for the world and his God, and rushed up the little white path to where we are sitting now, Signor.

"Once here, he drew the dagger you see beneath the Virgin and stabbed with an oath on his lips. That is why I did not let you touch it."

Blagden nodded, and the old monk was silent for a moment before he went on.

"Giovanni disappeared for two days. When he came back his face was that of a madman still. He was met by a white funeral winding up the little path. You understand, Signor,— a virgin's funeral. Giovanni was hurrying blindly past when they stopped him.

"There was no reproach spoken for what he had done, no bitterness; only a kind of awe— and pity.

"Rosa had died on her knees in the nunnery at the exact time he stabbed yonder picture. And they told him months afterward that her face was strangely like that of the Virgin when they found her,— beautiful and pleading and sad. There was no given cause for her death— there are things we cannot understand. She was praying for strength, the sisters said."

The monk ceased speaking, and for a long moment they sat silent, Blagden and the withered, white-haired man, staring mutely up at the beautiful face above them. It was Blagden who broke the silence.

"What do you think happened?" he asked slowly.

"I do not know," said the monk.

There was another pause, then Blagden spoke again.

"Anyway," he said, brushing his hand across his eyes, "she paid in part the debt Giovanni owed his God."

"Yes?" said the monk softly. "I wonder, Signor! For I am Giovanni."

_________________

11: The Unknown Masterpiece

Frederick Irving Anderson

1877-1947

The Saturday Evening Post, 5 June 1915

ON THE first Thursday in November, as was his custom, Jacoby did not rise until one hour after noon. He had passed the night in his own bed. It stood on the meridional line, backed against the jambs of two windows screened with heavy brocade lined with green silk from ceiling to floor; these windows faced north. There were two other windows in the room, facing east; these, too, were hung with heavy brocade lined with green silk from ceiling to floor. The doors were hung likewise— for silence. No sound penetrated here except the indefinite, inextinguishable overtone of the city— which seemed miles and miles away, like the surge of the sea in a conch shell.

The walls and the ceiling were of vellum, which soothed the gaze with fine lines of beauty that might have been etched with a dry point. The hangings were familiar everyday things to him, as were the walls and ceiling; the old furniture, smoky and translucent like wild honey, was his own. The bed, a gorgeous contraption fit for the accouchement of a queen, the carpets on which his feet must rest, the chair with the wry arm that gave under his exploring fingers— all were intimate parts of his life. But the room was not his own. Jacoby's room was miles and miles away. Once a year, on the first Thursday in November, he woke in this room; and it was always dressed with his personal belongings for the occasion. That was his clock on the chimney piece; those were his pictures on the wall; his mute clavier stood in the shadow; his bell cord hung at the head of the bed.

The clock whispered the hour in mellow tones. The curtains parted, and Rosa, his wife, appeared, as though she had been waiting for this moment. She set slippers, so that his feet might find and welcome their pleasing warmth. She was tall and willowy, and clothed in soft laces. Jacoby opened his eyes, closed them again, and languidly permitted himself to be drawn into his dressing gown— an eccentric creation.

"This is your day, Ernest," she said as she helped him to rise. "Your good friends will be waiting for you."

Deliberately— almost like a blind man to whom all familiar things are charted soundings— he paced to one of the east windows and drew aside the hangings. The sight that met his eyes should have been a dun-colored lawn splashed with dry leaves and edged with bare thickets; in the middle distance the Hudson rolling to the tide; and beyond, through the mist of the river, the yellow Palisades of the Jersey shore as a falling sky line. Within were his familiar surroundings, a room dressed to be in perfect tune with the man and the day. Outside was a city street filled with life— cars, motors and pedestrians; an occasional hansom, or a hostler's boy parading a stylish blanketed hunter.

Jacoby raised his eyes to the opposite wall, which shut out the sky like a curtain. It was of soiled terra cotta, blank and stolid, almost devoid of architectural adornment to relieve its plainness— merely a blank wall separating the street from something within that rose scores on scores of feet from the ground. On the street level at one corner was a door, little more than a crevice in the huge barrier.

A handful of workmen in gingham blouses were erecting an iron framework that extended from the arch of this door to the edge of the curb. They were drawing over the framework an awning of weather-stained canvas, striped red and white like a flag. It transformed the entrance into a tunnel, shutting out the sky, which promised for this afternoon to take on that rare tint of Italian blue sometimes seen in this latitude. The sides, of canvas, which were securely buttoned to the pavement, cut off the view of curious passers-by.

Now they were laying a strip of carpet; and, this done, the handful of workmen vanished— all except one who, industriously plying a broom, shunted pedestrians into the gutter if they would pass at all. The strip of carpet was of soft nap, fit for a lady's slipper.

For whom was the awning spread— the carpet laid? The little tunnel attacked the great brick wall like a mousehole at the foot of a mountain. It was obviously designed for somebody who would avoid the out-of-doors and the public gaze. Passers-by smiled indulgently. Evidently musicians, like laying hens, stopped functioning if their sensitive feet touched the cold, bare earth. They had their answer at the other corner. It was a large white poster in a gilt frame nailed fast to the wall. It announced in large letters:

JACOBY

Below, in smaller letters were the words:

ANNUAL RECITAL— MANAGEMENT OF ORSON MERLIN.

If you had stepped up to the box-office window and offered your money for tickets, they would have been profoundly shocked at your presumption. The poster was not to attract business to the box office; it was to warn it away. On the first Thursday in November of each year Jacoby— the great Jacoby; the master of masters of the pianoforte— the same yellow-skinned, somewhat frowsy looking person who was at this moment peering out into the street with a wry face— came like a comet in its predestined course, flashed into perihelion for his brief hour on earth— and then was gone.

There are comets that, even in perihelion, are beyond the range of ordinary telescopes. Therefore, for the multitude, they do not exist. So with Jacoby; for lesser mortals he did not exist— except possibly as an incredible myth. Jacoby was an artist only for artists— and for a fringe of elite Pharisees who arduously sought to attune their understanding to his close harmonies. Of all masters, he alone had succeeded in surmounting the pitiful mathematical imperfections of the pianoforte. Others might be content to accept the tempered harmonies of the keyboard with a grain of salt. Not so Jacoby! He had contrived a double keyboard to overcome the divergent intervals in the ascending and the descending chromatic scales. His tones were as pure as those of a violin or the human voice; his sonatas became symphonies, singing with a hundred strings.

In front, a camera man and a moving-picture operator were setting up their machines behind carefully prepared blinds to catch the image of celebrities who would shortly begin to arrive in humble procession at the shrine of the first Thursday in November. Inside, in a little cubby-hole off stage, specialists in the art of imprisoning the image of sound, and preserving it for future generations, were surreptitiously preparing their properties for a rash adventure— to bottle in wax the melody and harmony of Jacoby.

Orson Merlin, the impresario, had an eye to both sides of the medallion of art— especially to the obverse side, stamped with the dollar sign. If, with wile or guile, he could procure a Jacoby record— speculation carried him afar in the realms of space! He had even dared to erect a special sounding board for this occasion, cleverly masking it. Jacoby played in a dim light; this would aid materially.

Jacoby dropped the brocade on the unfamiliar street scene. Felipe, his man, took the maestro in hand, laid him out on a marble bath slab as gingerly as though those precious bones were a basket of eggs. Jacoby's back was plaited with quivering little knots of muscle; his brawny arms were woven of thongs fit to play at an anvil. Every muscle, every tendon, every cord, must be picked out from its fellows by the shuttlecock fingers of Felipe— thumped and kneaded, made free and pliable, after the torpor of sleep. It was no simple task to be a Jacoby! After the kneading and thumping, the maestro was put through waters and vapors, and dried with a care usually bestowed only on a pet dog. When he had been drawn into silks and fresh linen he was conveyed to his armchair, the chair with the creaky arm, which he tested to reassure himself.

Then Rosa came with a tray on which lay a single thin wafer and a bowl of broth. Of the wafer he might nibble one corner; and of the broth a few drops in the heel of the spoon was his portion. He was hungry, very hungry; but this was to be a day of fasting— that was his edict in the sanity of yesterday. He might choke her now, but Rosa would not yield; should she yield, tomorrow he would beat her.

Toward three o'clock that afternoon a procession of gorgeous equipages began forming a line at the Fifty-seventh Street portico— sedans, berlins, coupes, victorias, limousines, betraying an extravagance of design and variegation of hue fit to grace the remote though no less spendthrift period of a Louis Quatorze levee.

As though actuated by some unseen mechanism the line moved forward notch by notch to deposit its burden. This spectacle would unroll itself like an endless film for another hour. There was Viliska, whose fingers, it is said, are listed on the Bourse and traded in as shares; Wenceslaus, whose leonine mane is famous through a Burne-Jones portrait; Max Arnult, who in one brief season had become all American— even to his hair and shoes; Flora Cameron; Webber; John Darling; Solveja— looking like a bank clerk on a holiday; the brothers Capelli— everybody!

Cameras and picture machines, from their machine-gun embrasures, clicked and whirred. Merlin, beaming, was returning salutes in a dozen tongues and dialects as he stood at the brass rail inside, checking off the twenty-four carat names on his list. Tonight he would begin putting together another list for the forthcoming first Thursday in November, twelve months away. This was a sorry occasion for the speculators, who stood outside in the front ranks of the gaping street crowd, assuring each other confidently that Paradise itself would never house such a sublimated essence of genius as Carnegie Hall this day.

Merlin had a special reason to be happy. These, his children, with whose petulances he was schooled to struggle, were for today humble, almost timid, simple souls coming into their heart's desire. They were so much easier to manage when they came in by the Fifty-seventh Street portico than when the little mousehole awning was laid especially for them.

The house was seating itself. It was filling from pit to dome, with its dull half circle of boxes and loges. Virtuosi who would shrug their shoulders at the command of a potentate were climbing the alpine heights to the top gallery, with light hearts, content— because they must be today— with a place on a hard bench in that remote region, so far removed from the pit that they seemed to be looking at the stage through the wrong end of a telescope. Groups were passing back and forth, embracing, whispering— the air was filled with the murmur of these thousands of suppressed voices, a sound like waves breaking over a flat beach.

As the hour of four approached, Merlin left his place by the rail, giving his precious list to the care of an underling. He went behind the stage. In passing he opened the door of the cubby-hole on a crack and looked in, inquiring whether all went well— significantly. There must not be so much as a mote of dust to mar the records; the diamond pointed needles must be highly polished.

All was in readiness for the maestro's appearance. At his desk Merlin picked up his telephone. Jacoby's man Felipe answered his ring.

"Prepare him! I come!" said Merlin in a manner which suggested that Jacoby was to be hermetically sealed for the journey across the avenue.

"The master will not play this afternoon," said Felipe.

"Prepare him! I come!" repeated the impresario in the same tone as before, without altering a muscle. He was accustomed to mercurial humors of these great ones of the earth.

"The master will not play this afternoon," persisted Felipe's soft monotone.

Merlin hung up the receiver as tenderly as though it bristled with fulminating caps that might detonate in his very fingers. He drew a deep sigh. He reached into the corner for his walking stick— a very cudgel— and shook it at an imaginary adversary. If these wax disks, so surreptitiously preparing, proved even passable records, most assuredly he would retire from this despicable profession of cajolery on the profits.

A Jacoby record! It would be worth an annuity. Merlin had bullied and fawned on them all in his time. He knew when to lash or cringe— none better. He adjusted his hat and rose. On the way out he stopped at the cubbyhole and whispered through the crack of the door:

"That diamond point is going to be too hard, I am afraid. Better try what a blunt point on Number Two machine will do."

A few seconds later he was in the elevator on his way to Jacoby's apartments. As he entered he pricked up his ears and permitted himself a smile. A familiar patter struck his ear. Jacoby was at his clavier, the mute keyboard on which the master limbered up his rare fingers and his fidgety soul. The dull thudding of the felted hammers in their voiceless sockets sounded like raindrops on a leaden ocean.

Merlin drew a huge sigh of relief. Cats and dogs! To gather such a house as he had boxed up across the street, from the ends of the earth, only to walk out and tell them to disperse quietly and go home! He began to sweat at the thought of the averted catastrophe.

Rosa was kneeling on a chair in the anteroom, peering through the curtains at her lord and master. So intent was she that she did not hear the soft-stepping Merlin enter; nor did she realize his presence until he was at her very shoulder, peering through the opening in the brocade with her.

There sat Jacoby at his clavier, his lithe, graceful body swaying; his head slightly inclined; his eyes fixed on some remote point in outer space. His fingers— which could span fourteen full intervals in a contortion that seemed fairly to dislocate them— were falling on the keys as lightly as dry leaves dancing in the breeze. They were weaving the closest harmonies— harmonies unheard by all ears except his own.

Merlin caught the picture in a fluttering glimpse. The next instant the fingers of Rosa crushed the curtains together. Her quick movement suggested that she was prepared to bar his passage into the room if he attempted to enter.

"Ah, Merlin! What shall we do? What shall we do?" she cried passionately.

Merlin's look said as plainly as words that she was talking one of the very few languages extant with which he was not familiar. Evidently it was Rosa and not the master himself who was struggling with an attack of nerves. He smiled reassuringly and said soothingly:

"It's all right, child— it's all right. They are waiting for him. Never— never has there been such a house before! They are waiting for him. Come!"

He reached out to part the curtains and enter; but she thrust him fiercely back. He stared at her in astonishment.

"Hush! He is asleep!" she said. "Sound asleep!"

"Asleep?" repeated Merlin incredulously. "Asleep! Bah! What folly is this, Rosa?" He pushed her roughly aside and strode in through the hangings. He came to a halt at the clavier. "Ernest!" he cried sharply.

Jacoby gave no sign. The head inclined lower; he was smiling, as though enthralled with the ghostly harmonies his flying fingers were fabricating. His dull eyes were still staring into the same uncertain distance. Merlin bent over the clavier, brought his face directly into the line of sight of the performer— but the eyes did not see him. On this day of days, the first Thursday in November, the soul of the master was a million miles away.

The impresario, aghast at the situation, fell back slowly, his eyes glued to the figure at the instrument.

"But he plays— he plays!" he said, unbelieving; and then sharply, and with a note of irritation in his voice: "Ernest! Ernest!" he cried. But the automaton at the keys gave no heed. His phantom music held the dreamer fast. For a moment Merlin was overpowered by the strangeness of the situation. "But he plays— he plays!" he insisted; and then, turning on the woman, who had now fallen limply into a chair, his eyes gleaming, he demanded: "What does he play? What does he play, Rosa? Tell me that!"

"It is— it is the sonata," she whispered.

Now the great Merlin fairly rose on his toes, his eyes blazing.

"The sonata! The sonata?" he repeated.

And, without a second glance at the limp figure of poor Rosa, he went back to the clavier. There was a tradition about this sonata— the sonata of Jacoby. This was its only title— the sonata. That described better than anything else the awe and reverence in which this master of masters was held by his following. No one had ever heard it. It existed only in Jacoby's brain— the brain in his head and the brain in his fingertips. No one who ever saw him play would deny that his fingers were capable of cerebration. And now the sonata was being played before the very eyes of Merlin! But not before his ears. Merlin was clever at the keys. Now he was studying those flying fingers like a hawk. Cats and dogs! What sprite of the devil had contrived this outlandish keyboard, with its pure intervals! Even to the trained eyes of the impresario, these interpretative fingers spoke only in cryptograms. Merlin could decipher the tempo— even something of the phrasing.

"How long will this go on?" asked Merlin, finally going back to Rosa. He shook her roughly, made her sit erect and listen to him. "They are waiting for him. It is rank idiocy! How long will it go on?"

"For hours and hours— till finally he is exhausted."

"Felipe! Go to my office. Tell my secretary to bring Doctor Vossberg. Take care! No word of this— remember!"

Thus dispatching the valet, Merlin went back to the clavier. He rested his elbows on the case, as his hawklike eyes resumed their study of the fingers.

Doctor Vossberg might have been a virtuoso had he not chosen medicine instead. Now, in his advanced years, he consorted with the people who lived the profession he had denied himself. He was sitting silent in his box when they found him; and, with practiced dissimulation— lest the impatient house catch the infection of alarm— he rose after a few seconds and followed them out. When he entered the anteroom Merlin acquainted him with the circumstances; they whispered together for some time; later they took Rosa aside. Steadied by the presence of the old physician she grew more coherent.

"It is not sleep," she cried, much moved. "It is— as though he were translated— by this strange music. It carries him far from us— he is no longer here."

"No," said the old doctor, studying the performer narrowly; "it is not sleep. It is an amazing form of psychosis."

"He will tear his soul to rags if this goes on," began Merlin. "If we could get him over there— to his own piano— the sound of the strings might cause him to come back quite naturally, without shock."

Strive as he would, Merlin could not mask the excitement and eagerness in his tones; the others, however, were too absorbed to note this. As they talked together in hushed voices at his very elbow, the unconscious pianist, with unseeing eyes, continued to pursue his theme.

"Rosa, think!" commanded the physician. "Let us seek some impulse stronger than all else. It may be the key to unlock his senses. A great grief— a great happiness! Is there not some all-powerful emotion in his life that you can call back by some simple act?"

Rosa suddenly sat erect, her eyes bedewed with happy tears. She drew them to her and whispered.

It was an intimate confidence.

"Do you remember, at his first Thursday, years and years ago, I had to come to lead him off— he was so overcome with the ovation? He has never forgotten the scent of the violets I wore. Could that not rouse him now?"

It was a desperate expedient, fantastic at the best. The doctor nodded eagerly. There is nothing more powerfully hypnotic than a perfume to awaken recollection. The invasion of the physical sense reacts on the mental; the association of ideas is immediate.

"Violets!" commanded the doctor; but Merlin was already at the door. When Felipe returned with a great bunch of the purple flowers the doctor ruthlessly crushed them in his hand until the air was heavy with the scent. He thrust them into the lace of the woman's dress.

The dreamer at the clavier was now beating the keys with arms that swung like flails. Suddenly his hands fell to his side. He sat back, staring at the wall, his lips moving as though he were counting. It was the pause between movements of the ghostly sonata.

"Quick, Rosa! Now! Before he begins again!" cried Vossberg. "Put your arms about him; speak to him— as though he were awake— gently. Take his hand as you did on that first Thursday long ago."

And Rosa, her lips quivering, tears coursing down her cheeks, gently took him in her arms.

"How your friends love you, Ernest! We will go now! Come!" she whispered softly, as she put his head to her breast.

A slight shiver ran through the frame of the musician. She took his hand and he rose, with the simple obedience of a child. The old physician was now at his other hand. And Jacoby, yielding to the tender urging of familiar hands, started forward.

THE auditorium was booming like a hive of angry bees when Merlin walked out on the stage. At his appearance the hum of impatient voices ceased and he was greeted with applause. He raised a hand for silence; then he said haltingly as he sought to control his breath:

"Good friends, we must crave your utmost indulgence. Let me ask of you one great favor: When the maestro comes out let there be no demonstration. As you love him, be silent— be as silent as death itself. It is imperative. Let there be no sound, I beg of you!"

A murmur of surprise followed the strange words of the impresario. To the true virtuoso the tone of his house is almost as vital as the tone of his instrument. And they were asked, in all earnestness, to sit mute before their master!

The clusters of lights illuminating the vast auditorium disappeared one by one until there remained only the tiny red bulbs at the emergency exits to spot the darkness. The murmur faded into absolute silence. The pendent chandelier on the stage, its scores of glowing bulbs screened with yellow silk, was dimmed to twilight; so that even the great piano itself loomed misty and indistinct.

The house took to watching the small door on the left through which the great man must enter. Shortly the door opened; and against the light from within appeared the silhouetted figures of Jacoby and Rosa his wife. The musician was leaning heavily on her arm and she was helping him up the short flight of steps to the stage. He walked like a blind man. As the little door closed behind them the hush of the house became tense. Now— if ever— these three thousand throats should acclaim him; but they kept their faith with Merlin and sat rigid.

The two people advancing on the stage seemed like pygmy creatures lost in the vast defiles of some enchanted island, so oddly did the dim lights dwarf them in the broad setting. They moved slowly, the maestro once or twice putting out a hand, as though to pierce the darkness.

Finally, they reached the piano; his wife seated him on the bench and laid his hand on the keys. Then she did a very odd thing— she turned to the great house and laid a warning finger on her lips; then stole away.

The house settled itself. This was the first Thursday in November! Jacoby sat motionless. His eyes were fixed on some indefinite spot in the shadows. He sat thus for a full minute— an eternity to the house, which began shifting uneasily; and, most of all, an eternity to the three who watched him off stage. Jacoby had permitted himself to be brought across the street like one under a spell— physically obedient but, to all appearances, with his mind still in the abyss.

"We have lost!" murmured Rosa despairingly. Merlin tore his eyes loose from the odd figure on the stage, as though to make sure that he himself was not dreaming. Cats and dogs! Had they succeeded in rousing the dreamer, only to lose him again in full view of this staring throng? They were not here to exhibit a somnambulist. An idea arrested him.

"Georges!" he cried and his secretary— faithful shadow— was at his elbow. "In my office, on the safe, is Richard Spurling's violin. Bring it to me!" And when it was brought he said: "Open it! What! What! Locked! Smash the lock— so! Now— Georges! Severine is out in front— the aisle seat, fourth row, left center. Bring him to me."

In a trice little Severine, the violinist, had been dragged from his seat and taken behind the stage.

"He is asleep— in a trance?" said the little man as he came in.

Merlin, at the table, was scribbling on a scrap of paper. Over his shoulder he growled:

"Yes— asleep! And you are to waken him. Play this!"

Merlin thrust the violin into Severine's hands and held up the sheet of paper, on which were half a dozen bars of a strange melody.

"Here is the tempo— so!" Merlin was saying as, with his hand, he swung an imaginary baton. "Do you get it? Now play!"

"But —" began the puzzled violinist.

"But nothing! Play, you fool! So— take it slowly to the rise— the merest hum— so! Now begin!"

He opened the door to the stage a little wider and motioned for the lights to be extinguished behind him so that he might not make himself conspicuous to the audience. This audience, if he knew it, was dangerously near the exploding point.

"Once more— a little louder— more free— so! Gad! Vossberg, look!"

Jacoby was bending forward, searching the uncertain depths of the stage as though seeking to surprise the echo of some familiar cadence. The violin sang though its half dozen bars as softly as a breath of air. Jacoby was smiling now. He began to caress the keys with his fingers— to explore them.

Then suddenly the air began to vibrate. So gently did the felted hammers fall on the tense strings of his instrument that, for a moment, the sustained tone seemed to come less from the piano itself than from the very atmosphere. The air became saturated with throbbing sound— hung heavy under it, as under the stress of distant thunder on a summer day. The tone became more firm; it divided itself into inarticulate phrases. Through it there came a voice, calling. It was trying to speak, to sing— the voice grew, faltered, was gone— came again; until finally it found itself, burst crystal clear on the ears, singing the song that the violin in the trembling fingers of Severine had been whispering.

No sooner did the theme burst forth than it seemed to be taken up by scores of voices near and far— calling, answering each other, laughing, echoing; twisting and turning the thin little motif into myriad fantastic shapes. The musician at the keys began to sway from side to side with the rhythm— for there was rhythm, in spite of the inextricable tangle of counterpoint.

The song of the multitude grew faster and faster; the volume of tone rose measure by measure, until it became a mighty, sustained diapason which swept the whole instrument. And then, like a rocket curving through its zenith, the thing burst into a shower of glittering sparks, which glowed for a moment and died away.

The silence was so abrupt that it left the house fairly gasping for breath. Little Severine was listening, almost terrified; it was beyond his power to conceive what the master had done with that ragged little theme he had scraped off on the strings. Rosa was silent, her head buried in her arms.

Merlin threw open the door and was on the stage in one bound. He sprang forward on tiptoe, waving his arms wildly in the air, his face going through the most grotesque contortions. There was no sound from his lips; but with all his might he was impressing silence— silence!— silence!— before the storm should break. The performer at the keys had let his hands fall; his head moved and he seemed to be counting.

The youthful violinist stole away and found his place again, out in front.

"He is in a dream!" he whispered to his neighbor; and, like a spark in tinder, the whisper flashed across the house from row to row, from tier to tier— to the very topmost gallery.

The master was playing in a dream! Hush! Not a sound! What does he play? They looked at each other timidly. What does he play? Could there be any question? What should Jacoby— their great Jacoby— play when he dreamed? The sonata— the sonata!

Jacoby raised his hands again. The fingers fell on the keys. The allegro movement began. It was like the opening of a flower, its lifetime of color and fragrance compressed into a few precious moments.

"Cats and dogs! They are under the spell— every mother's son of them!" muttered Merlin to himself.

He was staring out at the house. The impresario was not insensible to the wizardry of sound the master was weaving on his amazing instrument, with its pure intervals; but, like the sailors of Ulysses, he was stopping his ears to it lest he fall under its magic and forget the business at hand.

With a conscious effort he tore himself loose; he tiptoed cautiously to the rear door, making a passing appraisal of Rosa, who was watching the maestro in awed reverence. Merlin slid down the corridor to the little cubby-hole, opened the door and thrust in his head.

"How goes it?" he cried in a half whisper.

The two mechanicians did not take their eyes from the revolving disks which were imprisoning the exquisite vagaries of the unconscious musician. They nodded their heads impatiently, waving their hands in mute answer; they were blowing industriously on their needles, so that not so much as a fleck of dust, not a mote, should mar the project of stealing the tangible image of the unknown sonata.

It might very well have been that those three thousand listeners were asleep. When the allegro ended there was just the suggestion of a drawn breath of relief among them; and in another moment the deep, sonorous chords of an andante, introducing a variant theme, began to pervade their senses. Merlin did not know which fascinated him more— the dreaming performer or the house struggling under the spell he cast. It was well, thought he, that he had provided for this windfall. Never again would such music be heard from human hands.

The new theme, translating itself from key to key with uncanny modulations, sounded the depths of pain as the tempo slackened to the largo, like a chant through an echoing cathedral. Then, silence. Blank silence! And the scherzo broke like the rays of warm sunlight through the clouds.

Faster and faster the fingers flew, weaving together the two themes that had gone before. A moment ago and the house seemed dissociated from its body; now the physical predominated. The deathly stillness was gone. It was as though a magician with mere facile fingers had steeped their senses in every phase of emotion— love, beauty, sorrow— leading them down into the depths step by step until it became numb pain to listen.

Then, with a wave of the wand— the wand of the sprightly, capricious scherzo— Jacoby was saying:

"See! It is all a trick— I do it with my fingers; I do it with my piano— my wonderful piano, with its two sets of black keys! Pain and sorrow, love and beauty— they reside in my fingertips, not in my soul! There is nothing not subject to motion and number. Mind is mathematics— tone is merely the sums and divisions on a child's slate! It is I— I— I— Jacoby! Not Jacoby's heart, but his fingers, his piano!"

Merlin was conscious of a strange pricking sensation in the back of his neck. An electric thrill was in the air. The thing outside ended in a wild, shrieking crash. Then silence.

Then the storm broke. The vast auditorium became a hollow cone, within the imprisoning sides of which bedlam broke loose. Every man of the three thousand was on his feet now— waving his hands, tearing his hair, stamping his feet, clapping, shouting— anything to make noise; noise that battered itself back and forth between the walls, which seemed to shake the very rafters of the edifice.

Cries of Bravo! Bravo! and Jacoby! Jacoby! rent the air. They were crowding into the aisles, surging in struggling lines toward the stage. They banked themselves just beyond the rail, the din becoming louder and louder as they gave way more and more to their exultation.

"Fools! What becomes of the finale? Cats and dogs! Why couldn't they be still to the end!" Merlin was snarling as he rushed to the front.

He started out on the stage again, imploring them to be still— to return to their chairs. He signaled frantically. The crowd neither saw nor heard him. Another thing had checked them. The tumult of acclaim ceased as suddenly as though choked by some gigantic hand. Jacoby had raised his head and was looking about him in a dazed way. His querulous voice broke the taut silence.

"Rosa! Rosa!" he was calling. Rosa was by his side in an instant, her hand on his "What is it? Who are all these people?" And he indicated with a wave of his hand the bank of upstaring faces.

Merlin was equal to the occasion. He sprang forward.

"This is your day, Ernest! Have you forgotten? These are all your good friends— who love you. This is the first Thursday in November."

Merlin waved the house back to their chairs. Jacoby rose. He gently pushed his wife aside.

"Am I a child, that you must lead me? Begone!"

He bowed stiffly to the house; then he began to play. It was a rhapsody of insurmountable technical difficulties— the first number on his program for the afternoon. He blazed through it like a skyrocket. It was six o'clock when the house emptied itself into the street. He had played through his set program, denying, as was his custom, all encores.

MERLIN some time later took his priceless master record from its fireproof vault and presented himself in Jacoby's drawing room. Rosa was frightened at his advent, for he had confessed to her the existence of this record and that it awaited only the master's signature and approval to be given to the world.

Everything was arranged with the utmost care. The machine was started when Jacoby was in conversation with Doctor Vossberg and Severine, the violinist. The maestro looked up quickly.

"Who plays Jacoby's piano?" he demanded in the middle of that wonderful introduction.

Merlin came forward.

"Who should play your piano— who but Jacoby?" said he, eying the musician sharply.

The master listened through to the end of the third movement of the unfinished masterpiece. He clapped his hands in ecstasy and cried:

"Again! Again! Once more, Merlin! 'Tis wonderful!"

Merlin chuckled and went back to the beginning. The musician sat spellbound.

"Who plays?" he asked when it was finished.

"Who but Jacoby?" answered Merlin.

"I? Jacoby? Do you laugh at Jacoby, Merlin? Eh, Merlin? At last we have somebody greater than Jacoby! This man is as much greater than Jacoby— as Jacoby is above the rest of the world. Who is it, I say?"

The little group looked at Jacoby, dashed.

"But, maestro," persisted Merlin, who was breaking into a sweat, "this is your sonata— the sonata— your unpublished masterpiece!— with which you began your day— your first Thursday. They went mad! Listen! You can hear them calling your name at the end of the scherzo."

"Silence!" cried Jacoby. "My sonata? You blaspheme! This is the music of a prophet. Here are such close harmonies as I have dreamed of, but never attained."

"But there are millions in it— for you and me, Jacoby!" cried Merlin, aghast as he saw a fortune slipping through his fingers. "Here are millions— if you will only sign the record!"

"Millions to steal!" thundered Jacoby. Then suddenly, his face changing: "You have been imposed on, my good Merlin. That is not my sonata— the sonata. I have never played it. No one has heard it. The sonata"— he whispered with a rapt look as he tapped his forehead— "it is still here."

THERE the matter rests. The priceless record of the unknown masterpiece still remains in Merlin's safe.

______________

12: According To The Evidence

Hugh Pendexter

1875-1940

Adventure,  March 1913

THE CONTEST over the will of Reuben N. Asher had been followed closely by the reading public for many days, until it had aroused more than state-wide interest. The general attention given the litigation resulted largely from the personnel of those concerned in the outcome.

The decedent died at the advanced age of eighty-seven, having drawn up his last will and testament about a year prior to his decease. He was a man of long and honorable life, ripe with wholesome activities and philanthropies, though he was now assailed as mentally incompetent.

Professor Roscoe Quell, a nephew and the contestant in the case, had won enviable recognition both at home and abroad by his scientific researches, and was the author of more than one authoritative text-book. He was a man in the prime of life and already had reaped substantial rewards from his scholarly endeavors.

But perhaps the most interesting character in the little drama was the proponent, Miss Alice Asher, a niece of the testator, who received the million-dollar estate under the terms of the will, the nephew being cut off for the reason that he possessed an ample fortune while his cousin was penniless. But if the niece was bankrupt in pocket unless she profited by the provisions of the will, she was most generously endowed with beauty and, so far as her personality during the contest could be gauged, with an extremely attractive and womanly nature. Up to the time of the testator's death the relations between uncle and nephew had been most friendly, the latter often being a visitor at the Asher mansion.

Last, but possibly not least, in focusing the attention of the press was the fact that Walter Riggsley, celebrated in surrogate's practice for successful assaults on wills where large estates were involved, appeared for Professor Quell, while the fair proponent was represented by that veteran of eccentric practice, Ezra Stackpole Butterworth, founder of the Bureau of Abnormal Litigation, whose advent in a case licensed the expectation that the ordinary routine of the law would be ignored. The appearance of Mr. Butterworth in any suit was sufficient to set the press-table to buzzing.

At the opening of the contest the Surrogate experienced a sensation of uneasiness, for he had been annoyed several times by the old lawyer, whose unexpected methods and shrewdness had more than once resulted in a reversal of the court's ruling by a higher tribunal. But as the hearing progressed and Mr. Butterworth, now the champion of normality, was compelled to confine his efforts to normal lines of proof, the court relaxed in his forebodings and at the end of the second week was wearing his official black robe with complacency.

Immediately after the formal proof of the will was offered, Mr. Riggsley began his battering attacks upon the competency of the testator, calling witness after witness to testify to the decedent's peculiar actions, and conducting himself so confidently that more than once Mr. Butterworth had warned his tall, angular assistant.

"Jethuel, our friend has something up his sleeve. Watch for it."

As the testator's roomy country mansion was somewhat isolated, the gist of the contestant's proof was based on the evidence furnished by the domestics and a few of the more immediate neighbors. For two weeks men and women took the stand and swore to the old man's unusual deportment, baldly declaring that his behavior in each sample of his alleged eccentricity had impressed the witness as being irrational. With forceful insistence and great skill Mr. Riggsley had piled up his accumulative proof until, from sheer weariness, the Surrogate burst forth,

"I do not think it is necessary to call more witnesses of this class at present, Mr. Riggsley. We are simply accumulating repetitions of what aleady has been received."

Mr. Riggsley smiled exultingly in the direction of his client and rejoined,

"I consider the evidence is quite conclusive as it stands, but as I have but one more witness of this class, I desire to heap up the measure."

"Very well; proceed," consented the court.

"Miss Tubbs, take the stand, please," said counsel.

Miss Tubbs, a short, heavy woman with a masculine face, slowly advanced to the witness chair and composed her features grimly. After saying that she had been the decedent's housekeeper for two years and had observed his behavior daily, she said she had not noticed anything peculiar about his actions until some three months prior to his making his will. To be exact, it was on Christmas Eve her suspicions were first aroused that his mental faculties were failing him.

"Explain the circumstance," gently prompted Mr. Riggsley, while Professor Quell fingered his short iron-gray beard eagerly and never shifted his gaze from the witness's face.

"He appeared to be very much excited and told me to ring for the stableman," said the witness.

"Were you present when the man answered the summons?" asked Mr. Riggsley, staring benignly at the ceiling.

The witness replied in the affirmative and repeated,

"Mr. Asher seemed much excited-"

"I allowed the witness's first speculation as to the condition of the testator's mind to pass without entering an objection," drily broke in Mr. Butterworth. "And while I know her characterizations will have no weight with your honor, I suggest that she confine herself to what she saw and heard, and leave it for the court to supply the constructions."

Being instructed accordingly, the witness sullenly resumed, "Mr. Asher told the stableman to hitch three horses tandem into the jaunting-car and drive over to the junction, some three miles, and get his nephew and a friend the Professor was bringing down for the week-end."

Mr. Riggsley drew a deep breath of satisfaction and softly inquired,

"What was the weather at that time, Miss Tubbs?"

"It was snowing hard that day, with two feet of snow on the ground."

"What did the stableman say or do?"

"Do you intend calling the stableman?" asked Mr. Butterworth.

"He is out of the State and can not be located," explained counsel. "Go on, Miss Tubbs."

"The stableman swore that master was crazy, and wound up by driving to the junction in a sleigh."

"Whom did he bring back?"

"No one. He was mad clear through when he returned. He said no one was at the junction, and that master must have dreamed it all."

"Please ask her if Professor Quell did not arrive the next morning," obtruded Mr. Butterworth.

"Don't worry; you shall have it all," chuckled Mr. Riggsley.

The witness next said that the contestant did arrive Christmas morning in a hired rig, and that her employer was delighted to see him and that the two passed a happy day together, the nephew departing on the next day.

"What was the next incident about Mr. Asher that struck you as being peculiar?" urged Mr. Riggsley.

Darting a triumphant look at the old lawyer, whom she now considered her personal enemy, the witness related,

"Shortly after Professor Quell had left, I heard a booming sound in Mr. Asher's room. I knocked on the door and asked what was the matter. He told me to enter. I found him fully dressed and seated by the table, holding on his knee a drum."

"A bum?" exclaimed the court, suddenly popping into an upright posture.

"A drum, if it please your honor," corrected Mr. Riggsley, bowing deeply.

The court frowned heavily as if the disclosure did not please him a bit, and motioned for the witness to proceed.

Much elated with the effect of her statement the housekeeper eagerly added,

"Before I could say anything, he gave the drum several loud taps and explained that was the signal I was to always answer. Then he called in other servants and instructed each as to what signals he or she was to heed."

"Did he use the drum, as you've described, up to and after the time the will was drawn up? "

"He did," replied the witness, whereat Mr. Riggsley announced he had no further questions.

Mr. Butterworth, after whispering briefly with his assistant, took up the cross-examination, first asking,

"For all you know to the contrary, witness, Professor Quell was at the junction the night your master sent a rig for him?"

"The man didn't bring him back and said he wasn't there," stiffly answered the witness.

"But for all you know he might have been there that night?" persisted Mr. Butterworth.

"I would like to ask counsel what he means by this line of inquiry?" warmly demanded Mr. Riggsley. "His questions smack of the unwholesome and constitute a veiled attack on the integrity of my client."

"I make no veiled attacks, sir!" hotly rejoined Mr. Butterworth. "But I openly aver that on the afternoon before Christmas Day Reuben Asher received a telephone communication from the junction, the speaker purporting to be his nephew and asking that the tandem rig, wheels and all, be sent, as a good joke on a friend who was visiting in this country for the first time."

Pounding the table vehemently, Mr. Riggsley declared,

"This is an insult, your honor! I demand that counsel produce his witnesses to substantiate his statement, or else withdraw it."

"Do you expect to offer proof in this connection?" severely inquired the court, upon whom the contestant's grisly beard had made a favorable impression.

Mr. Butterworth sighed and said,

"The telephone operator who was on duty at the junction that day has disappeared, and I have been unable to locate him. He has vanished like the stableman."

As he said the last he turned and smiled grimly into the red face of his adversary.

"Your honor, this— this is an infamous innuendo!" choked counsel. "He is intimating that I have spirited a witness away. I demand that he retract his words."

"Surely I am not in fault for stating a simple fact," softly said Mr. Butterworth. "The operator has disappeared; so has the stableman!"

"Gentlemen, we'll pass on to the facts connected with this case," uneasily warned the court.

Mr. Butterworth turned to the witness and gravely asked,

"Isn't it a fact that on the day he sent the stableman to the junction he had a telephone conversation with someone? On your oath, yes or no."

Before Mr. Riggsley could frame any objection, the witness wilted perceptibly and replied in the affirmative. "And isn't it a fact," thundered the old lawyer, shaking an admonitory finger at the perturbed witness, "that you overheard his end of the conversation?"

"I didn't!" loudly denied the witness.

"And didn't he say he would send the car and three horses because he agreed it would be a good joke on the newcomer, leading him to believe that wheels were used the year round in the Asher neighborhood?"

"No, he didn't!" warmly replied the witness.

"But how do you know he didn't if you didn't hear any of the conversation?" asked the old lawyer, dropping his voice to a gentle key.

"Well, because— because I don't believe he did," faltered the witness.

"That's better, although it's immaterial," smiled Mr. Butterworth. "Now for the drum. Don't you know that Mr. Asher was passionately fond of music, that he played the snare-drum in his younger days, and even in after years that he spent much time rehearsing with the village band?"

"I knew he was fond of music," admitted the witness after some hesitation.

"And don't you know that Professor Quell, his nephew, brought him the drum as a Christmas present and suggested to him that he use it in summoning the servants instead of ringing the bell?"

"Your honor," broke in Mr. Riggsley in his most dramatic voice, "I resent this cowardly attack upon my client. Counsel practically charges him with plotting to gain possession of this property, whereas he appears here only to establish his rights against this young woman, who, tempted by the bait of gold-"

"We mask none of our charges, your honor!" exploded Mr. Butterworth. "We openly assert that Reuben N. Asher was surrounded by oddities and eccentricities by that person who hoped to profit by his seemingly irrational conduct and gain control of this estate! We insist that the testator never displayed the least trace of irrationality except after some visit from his loving nephew, and that his intellect was as clear as mine when he did those things which the servants and outsiders, not knowing what had prompted him, construed as symptoms of a failing mind."

"This is strong language, gentlemen," sternly cried the court, pounding his gavel loudly. "I insist that you abandon this unworthy exhibition of temper and proceed with the hearing."

As the old lawyer took his seat, Mr. Riggsley, now angry in earnest, ex-pressed a desire to put another question to the witness.

"Tell us about the letter, Miss Tubbs."

"One day I found him in tears, holding a piece of paper in his hand. He said he had just got word from a hospital that his niece was there, seriously injured. I took the paper from his hand, and it was blank! There wasn't a word on it. I showed it to him and he was greatly upset, but insisted he had just read it."

"Would you like to question the witness further?" jeered Mr. Riggsley.

"No," slowly replied Mr. Butterworth, "but I am very glad to receive the last bit of information. However, I suppose it would be useless to ask the witness if she believes that an expert chemist could prepare a paper, or an ink, so that a written communication would be but transient in its legibility if exposed to the light."

"We rest our case, your honor," said Mr. Riggsley.

"I ask for an adjournment until to-morrow, when I will call our principal witness, Dr. Elisha W. Pinkey, who is now out of town and will not return till to-night," said Mr. Butterworth.

"Court will take a recess till to-morrow morning," announced the Surrogate.

ii

IT WAS generally believed by those who had followed the evidence that the calling of Dr. Pinkey was the pivotal point in the case. Miss Asher would win or lose as the result of his testimony. Dr. Pinkey was celebrated the length of the land as an alienist, and his testimony had been determinative in many a similar contest. It was obvious that Mr. Butterworth would be unable to substantiate his charges that there had been a plot to surround the decedent with every semblance of mental weakness, because of the disappearance of two or more witnesses.

And while the old lawyer had cleverly combated the various points scored by his opponent, he had offered no corroboration of his suspicions. But if the alienist took the stand and came out flat-footed in favor of the proponent, the contestant would be hard-put to maintain any advantage accruing to him through the recitals of the domestics. For Dr. Pinkey was one whose word could not be impeached and whose opinion could not be purchased.

Ordinarily Mr. Butterworth and his taciturn assistant would have relied implicitly upon this witness and would have considered all that had gone before as so much skirmishing, if it had not been for the deportment of Mr. Riggsley at the opening of court in the morning. The contestant's counsel moved to and fro inside the enclosure continuously, yet his whole bearing was one of exulting expectancy rather than of uneasiness. The founder of the Bureau read his mood in a glance, and nodded shortly when Jethuel whispered,

"Riggsley seems very confident, sir."

After a moment's meditation the old lawyer observed,

"He believes he's fooled us in some manner, and yet he knows the strength of our witness. I wonder what he's up to. I wonder!"

The Surrogate now entered the bench and after a brief conference with the clerk nodded to Mr. Butterworth to proceed.

"I am waiting for our witness to arrive, your honor. His office informed me he would be here promptly at ten."

"Here he comes now," hoarsely informed Jethuel in great relief.

Dr. Pinkey was a stout, choleric appearing person, whose incisive bearing bespoke a man who had his own way in the world. He knew he was the dread of lawyers appointed to cross-examine him. As a result of this realization, he entered the crowded court-room with a slight smile of cynicism on his strong face, and eagerly cast about to learn who was the opposing counsel.

With no delay Mr. Butterworth ushered his witness to the stand, where the Surrogate warmly greeted him. The court's wealth of cordiality should have caused Mr. Riggsley to squirm uneasily, but the gentleman simply smiled in a good-natured manner and turned a whimsical countenance to his opponent. Professor Quell, from his obscure corner, leaned forward with glistening eyes, as if waiting for something sensational to happen. The press- table rapidly resharpened pencils and motioned for their messenger-boys to stand ready for the first batch of copy.

Dr. Pinkey answered the preliminary questions in short, sharp barks, as if annoyed at queries concerning his name, age, occupation, and was quite haughty as he qualified as an expert. Then with the court beaming upon him, with the spectators staring at him in mingled awe and admiration, he told in jerky sentences how he called on Mr. Asher the day before the will was drawn up. As the servants had been given a holiday to spend in merry-making at certain maple-sugar camps on the estate, the witness arrived early in the morning and took the testator for a long drive, remaining out all day with the exception of the lunch hour spent at the Country Club.

From his professional observations on that day he was able to pronounce the decedent absolutely qualified to draw up his will, or transact any business, being complete master of his faculties.

"Would it have been possible for him to have undergone a change in his mentality overnight, serious enough to have incapacitated him for drawing up his will?" asked Mr. Butterworth, trailing one eye to scan the cheerful Mr. Riggsley.

"No, sir," boomed the witness; "not unless he suffered from a shock. I will add that I remained overnight at his home, and found him perfectly rational in the morning. I saw him two days later, and he was entirely compos mentis."

The press-table wrote frantically, and Mr. Butterworth said,

"I believe that is all I care to ask."

As Mr. Riggsley rose, notebook in hand, the witness stiffened and smiled grimly. He was used to such encounters and hugely enjoyed them. He believed that counsel, following the usual mode of procedure, had been cramming up for the cross-examination under the tutelage of some other alienists. Lawyers had essayed to trip him at his own game before, and he hungered for the fray.

"Returning to the day when you brought Mr. Asher home from his delightful sleigh-ride," began Mr. Riggsley, "did you go to bed early, or did you remain up several hours after Mr. Asher had retired?"

The witness gave the slightest perceptible start, and after a moment's hesitation coldly answered,

"I remained in the smoking-room several hours after my host had retired."

"The windows of that room look out on a field, do they not?" next asked counsel.

"The witness has not qualified as an architectural expert," reminded Mr. Butterworth, studying his rival keenly.

"I do not see the relevancy, but the witness may answer if he knows," directed the puzzled court.

"They do," answered the witness, his defiant eyes becoming worried.

"And as you smoked you stood at the window and gazed out on the landscape, did you not?" persisted counsel.

"Dr. Pinkey was called here as an alienist," gravely rebuked Mr. Butterworth.

"What do you expect to show?" curiously asked the court.

"I expect to establish the fact that this witness is not competent to give expert testimony as to the mental condition of Reuben N. Asher!" boldly informed Mr. Riggsley.

Had the tower on the city hall walked across the square and invited the statue of justice over the front entrance of the courthouse to go a-strolling, the court and others could not have been more astounded. Mr. Butterworth was the first to recover from the attack and, as there was but one course for him to pursue, he blandly said:

"I am keenly desirous to have my friend attempt to establish his fact. I shall be greatly interested in studying his mode of procedure."

But despite the assurance expressed in this mocking challenge, the old lawyer was rather disturbed. For some inexplicable reason Dr. Pinkey was shrinking from the ordeal.

"Then, with the court's permission, I will proceed to gratify my friend," observed counsel. In a low, even voice he next asked, "Doctor, I want you to tell me what you saw when you gazed from the window. Anything that impressed you as being unusual, extraordinary?"

The witness licked his dry lips for a few moments while the court-room strained in amazed attention, and in a husky voice finally replied,

"I thought I saw an ostrich lying on the snow."

The Surrogate slumped back in his chair and plucked vaguely at the hem of his gown. At last he managed to direct,

"Stenographer, read the answer."

" 'I thought I saw an ostrich lying on the snow,' " complied the stenographer.

"Lord bless me!" gasped the dazed court.

"An ostrich?" murmured Mr. Riggsley, as calmly as if it were the most natural object in the world to behold in a winter landscape. "What else, pray?"

"I saw the figure of a man, with arms outstretched," mumbled the witness, wiping beads of sweat from his brow. "Near him was a large heart — that is, something of the shape of a heart, such as we see on valentines."

"Do I understand the witness to say he saw a valentine?" exclaimed the bewildered court.

After counsel and the stenographer had put his honor right, the former coaxed,

"And what else did you see?"

The witness shuddered and with great difficulty confessed,

"I next noticed the word 'Insane', printed in tall letters across the snow."

The gaze of the court became glassy as it rested on the witness. Only Mr. Riggsley and Mr. Butterworth seemed entirely composed. The former again prompted,

"And what did you do?"

"I was much upset," muttered the witness. "I procured a lantern from the stable and went out to investigate."

"Tell us all about it," urged Mr. Riggsley. "What did you find?"

"Nothing," groaned the witness. "The snow was unbroken, except for a few tracks. There was nothing on the snow." Without waiting to be questioned he rapidly stated that he returned to the house and on entering the servants' door met Professor Quell, who had arrived at the mansion after Mr. Asher left the house on his sleigh-ride. Professor Quell asked what had taken him abroad at such an hour, and remarked on his show of agitation. "I asked the Professor to accompany me to the smoking-room, where I again saw the same objects on the snow. I called him to the window and requested him to tell me what he saw. He displayed much surprise and said he saw nothing but snow."

"Isn't it probable that the objects you believed you saw were the result of shadows?" hopefully inquired the court.

"There was no moon at that hour and there were no shadows," wearily replied the witness.

"That's all," said Mr. Riggsley. "I now ask that the entire testimony of this witness be eliminated from the record, as by his own evidence he is incompetent to give expert testimony in this case."

"Wait a bit," mildly requested Mr. Butterworth. "I wish to ask the witness if he has any explanation for this experience."

"I can only set it down to a phantasm, an optical illusion," sadly confessed the witness. "I never experienced it before or since."

"After being deceived by your visual sense, when your mind should have been tranquil and composed, do you mean to say you were not grossly deceived in your estimate of Mr. Asher's mental condition?" demanded Mr. Riggsley.

"I must have been the victim of some passing mental disorder," wildly cried the witness. "But I still insist that Mr. Asher was sane and competent to transact any business."

"I insist that the testimony be allowed to stand, as it is a matter of record that a man may be deceived by his senses in one instance without his whole mentality being tainted," earnestly argued Mr. Butterworth. "No two eyewitnesses can give a similar description of any street scene. Objectively we are constantly being tricked. Dr. Pinkey's eyes deceived him for the moment, but his mind was as acute as ever and he instantly detected the trick, evidencing a higher degree of perception than the average man possesses."

"Yet very few persons, at liberty, see ostriches and hearts and printed words on March snowbanks," interrupted Mr. Riggsley curtly.

"Mr. Butterworth, this is a very serious matter," sorrowfully observed the court. "Have you any witnesses to corroborate what this witness has told us concerning the mental condition of Mr. Asher?"

"I have not, your honor," sorrowfully admitted Mr. Butterworth. "This evidence came as a great surprise to me, as I have not talked with the witness for several weeks. I simply knew he was a friend of Mr. Asher and had observed him closely."

"Then I fear I must strike out the evidence as being untrustworthy," regretted the court. "Ahem. Had he believed he had seen the figure of a man skulking about the premises, or a— a sled— something attuned to the lonely— huh— environment— huh — and the season of the year. But— huh— an ostrich!"

"I ask the court to adjourn the hearing one week, postponing any decision till the return day," requested Mr. Butterworth. "It is possible that in the meanwhile counsel and I may reach some agreement, tending toward a composition of the entire matter, and making unnecessary the need of taking further evidence."

"I shall be pleased to have the court convenience Brother Butterworth to that extent," readily assented Mr. Riggsley, rubbing his hands joyfully as he read a complete surrender in the old lawyer's petition.

As the veteran was gathering up his papers, Jethuel whispered,

"Do you suppose they'll agree to a compromise, or will they demand their full half?"

"Hum!" grunted Mr. Butterworth, frowning heavily as he wrote on a desk pad. "On your way to the office stop at the reference library and get me Ganot's 'Elements de Physique,' Atkinson's translation. Also, all of Professor Quell's works on chemistry which you can find."

iii

THE ensuing week was a busy one for Mr. Butterworth, although so far as his anxious assistant could discover his activities consisted largely in trotting about on mysterious errands at unseasonable hours. Among other things he directed his servants to prepare a cozy dinner for a few of his friends, to be served at his country place. Jethuel could not recall another instance when the country place was thrown open in winter.

Miss Asher had come to the office once to discuss the advisability of taking the witness-stand, but the old lawyer did not inform his assistant what he had decided on this point. In fact, he did not mention the will except as he observed on the afternoon preceding the return day,

"His eyes registered falsely, he insists, but he rejected their testimony. If he is rational enough to detect a flaw in his visual sense, how can he be put down as being incompetent to give expert testimony?"

"Do you remember the case of Hiram Tanker's third personality?" grimly reminded Jethuel. "Your stand in that litigation established a precedent that would now be cited against you. But why didn't he inform us of his uncanny experience?"

"He was ashamed," replied Mr. Butterworth. "He hoped he would not be questioned on that point. He had to tell the truth when questioned because he is an absolutely honest man, and because Roscoe Quell knew of his experience. Anyway, I'm glad there's no bad blood between Professor Quell and me. We're good friends now, thanks to the mediation of Riggsley."

This information was far from soothing to Jethuel's outraged mind, and he sullenly shifted the conversation by asking,

"Any orders about to-night's dinner?"

"No orders, except be there at six-thirty sharp. It will be very informal. The Surrogate, Mr. Riggsley and Professor Quell will be among the guests. It will be a good time to patch up all our differences."

Once alone, Jethuel growled,

"If the old chap thinks this little dinner will soften the demands of the opposition any he's awfully mistaken. I wonder if he knows how Riggsley has publicly boasted his client will not accept less than half of the estate."

Whatever may have been Mr. Butterworth's motive in giving the dinner, his guests acknowledged it as being an amiable one by presenting themselves prompt to the minute, wreathed in smiles. The Surrogate was happy, as the invitation evidenced the old lawyer bore him no ill-will, although informed that to-morrow's decision must go against him. Mr. Riggsley was in excellent spirits, as Mr. Butterworth had assured him he would seek no compromise, but would abide by the ruling of the court. Professor Quell was quite fascinated by his host's cordiality, and it almost appeared as if the dinner were given in honor of the learned litigant.

In a lull in the conversation, after the soup, Mr. Butterworth directed a servant to run up the window-shades, whimsically remarking,

"By a coincidence this room faces toward the north, as does the smoking- room in the Asher mansion. It happens that the atmospheric and climatic conditions tonight approximate those of that other night a year ago. I wonder if Dr. Pinkey were here if he would see more visions in the snow."

Professor Quell and his counsel laughed heartily at what appeared to be proof of Mr. Butterworth's resignation to the inevitable, while the Surrogate smiled feebly, undecided whether to maintain his official role, or compromise on a semi-serious demeanor. The other guests whispered their admiration of the old lawyer's graceful surrender.

As the conversation lapsed again, Mr. Butterworth abruptly addressed Professor Quell,

"By the way, Professor, would you be kind enough to inform me to how many causes the various phenomena of phosphorescence may be referred?"

Professor Quell, suspending his fork in mid-air, opened his eyes in surprise and then narrowed them and intently gazed at the speaker, and replied,

"Five."

"That's what I had in mind," murmured Mr. Butterworth. "You class them as what, if you'll good-naturedly condescend to teach me?"

"I class them as Ganot does," quietly returned the professor. "There is spontaneous phosphorescence, such as in certain vegetables and animals. Phosphorescence by elevation of temperature, as best observed in species of diamonds, and particularly in chlorophane, a variety of fluorspar, which, when heated to three or four hundred degrees, suddenly becomes luminous, emitting a greenish-blue light."

"Thank you, thank you," cried Mr. Butterworth, while the other guests politely counterfeited an interest. "You have refreshed my recollection greatly. The next in order is phosphorescence by mechanical effects, such as by friction, percussion and cleavage, as seen when two quartz crystals are rubbed together in the darkness, or when a lump of sugar is broken. My aith, it seems only yesterday I was deep in my books! Let's see, phosphorescence by electricity is the fourth cause, such as results from the friction of mercury against the glass in a barometric tube. By George, Surrogate, I'll wager you can't recall so much of your chemistry, eh?"

"No, no; hardly," laughed the Surrogate. "But come, you're a boaster. You haven't finished yet. The professor said five causes. Name the fifth, huh."

Mr. Butterworth fumbled his chin in perplexity, to the great enjoyment of his guests, and finally surrendered,

"I know it, but I can't recall it. The Professor will have to come to the rescue again."

Professor Quell stroked his short, stubby beard with thoughtful deliberation and was silent for some moments before he said,

"The fifth cause is phosphorescence by insolation, or exposure to the sun."

"An example, please," challenged the Surrogate playfully.

In a class-room voice the Professor continued,

"A large number of organic substances, after being exposed to the action of the solar light, or of the diffused light of the atmosphere, emit in darkness a phosphorescence, such as dry paper, silk, cane-sugar, milk-sugar, amber, and the teeth."

"Bravo!" applauded Mr. Butterworth. "Do you know I love chemistry and have always regretted I did not turn to it instead of the law. There's nothing prosaic in chemistry, no ruts, no routine, no beaten path of precedent. Every chemist is an explorer. But, Professor, I observe you've left out one of the most universal phosphorescent effects under the fifth cause."

"I did not assume to be exhaustive," hastily obtruded the Professor.

"But what one does our host refer to?" rallied Mr. Riggsley.

"I referred to snow!" slowly replied Mr. Butterworth, in a loud voice.

Professor Quell bent a mathematical stare upon the speaker and settled back in his chair. The intensity of his gaze would have been commented upon had not the white-haired butler at this juncture thrown the party into confusion by crying out,

"Oh, come to the windows at once, gentlemen, I beg of you! Look! look!"

With a muttered exclamation Mr. Butterworth pushed back his chair and the others quickly followed his example and rushed to the windows.

"What is it? Make room for the court! I'll hand down an opinion. Bless my soul!" exploded the Surrogate, backing from the window and blinking rapidly and then flattening his nose against the pane.

A volley of ejaculations and excited queries radiated from the clustered heads as the guests stared forth incredulously into the night. Then the butler turned off the lights so that the men might see the better. What astonished and filled the gazers with wonder was the figure of a gigantic ostrich just beneath the windows and apparently in pursuit of a huge human skeleton. Farther away, sharply outlined in black against the soft gray whiteness of the snow, was the startling interrogation, "Are we all insane?" And what caused new conjecture was the boldly printed direction, "Read Quell on 'Winter Phenomena.' "

"What kind of a joke is this?" exclaimed Mr. Riggsley, his heart sinking as he feared the dinner had been planned for a wide-reaching purpose.

"Bless me! An ostrich!" babbled the Surrogate, rubbing his eyes.

"Great Scott!" bawled a young assistant corporation counsel from the end window. "Come down here. Here's an elephant!"

"There's an alligator chasing a rabbit!" shouted a third.

"Can it be possible!" stuttered the Surrogate. "Upon my soul, I believe this is a trick!"

"You're more suspicious than poor Dr. Pinkey was," laughed Mr. Butterworth, switching on the lights. "He believed he was the victim. Why, where's Professor Quell?"

A hasty scrutiny of the room failed to discover that learned gentleman.

"Now that's too bad— he's taken fright and run away. As I got my hint from his book on 'Winter Phenomena' it's no more than right he should be here to take the credit."

"What does this mean, Mr. Butterworth?" hoarsely demanded Mr. Riggsley, who was utterly dumfounded by the disappearance of his client.

"Professor Quell's work informs us how the action of sunlight on the snow creates a phosphorescence," blandly replied Mr. Butterworth. "Snow is one of the substances that becomes phosphorescent in darkness after insolation, or exposure to the solar light. Professor Quell suggests that one take a blanket and spread it on the snow during a sunshiny day and then remove it at sundown. The square of snow thus shut off from the solar light will retain its shape accurately at night, having no phosphorescence, and will show up in sharp contrast with the surrounding phosphorescent areas. Should you approach the dark square it will not disappear. It would be the same as if you were gazing at a black shadow. You could make accurate measurements of it. But, of course, should you approach with a lighted lantern it would vanish and you'd find nothing but white snow."

"This foolery leads to what, sir?" harshly demanded Mr. Riggsley, pale with passion as he began to believe he had been thoroughly duped.

"It gives a rational explanation of Dr. Pinkey's irrational testimony," quietly answered Mr. Butterworth. "It explains how he saw things in the snow, yet found the surface unmarred when he investigated. In short, someone, desirous of impeaching his testimony in some instance like the Asher will contest, took advantage of the servants' absence from the mansion, plus Mr. Asher's absence, and placed figures, probably made of cardboard or paper, on the snow beneath the smoking-room windows. The figures were removed before anyone returned home. Then, sir, as evening advanced and the great snow areas responded with the ghostly light stored up in their cold bosoms during the day, the patches covered by the cardboard or paper had no phosphorescence to throw off, and as result the doctor saw things and even reached the point of condemning his own intellect."

"Is it possible!" ejaculated the Surrogate.

"Not only possible, but deplorable that Professor Quell should use his great talent in a miserable attempt to defraud a girl!" emphatically denounced the old lawyer. "What's more, I have located the telephone- operator and stableman. By them I can prove Quell telephoned from the junction in person, suggesting the tandem hitch and the jaunting-car; that he brought the drum to Mr. Asher, and that it was Quell who wrote the letter informing the old man his niece was at death's door in the hospital. He used a dilute solution of chloride of cobalt, which was invisible when dry and in a normal temperature. He bribed the stableman, who carried the mail, to heat the letter in the oven so that it would be perfectly legible when presented to Mr. Asher. By the time the housekeeper reached the room it had faded out again."

"This is monstrous—" weakly began Mr. Riggsley.

"It is monstrous, and I am pleased to state that Mr. Riggsley believed his cause an honest one," announced Mr. Butterworth. "But let us take the lanterns and make the test Dr. Pinkey did. He must be thoroughly exonerated from his self-accusation and be put right with the public."

"The court finds that the evidence of Dr. Pinkey is wholly reliable, and must stand. The clerk will furnish the gentleman of the press with a state-ment of some interest, given out in justice to Dr. Pinkey. Have you any further evidence to offer, Mr. Riggsley?"

"None, your honor," sadly replied Mr. Riggsley.

"Then the court rules that the objections are not substantiated by facts and are hereby overruled, and that the will of Reuben N. Asher is duly admitted to probate. Call the calendar, Mr. Clerk."

_________________

13: The Wonderful Tune

Jessie Douglas  Kerruish

1884-1949

At Dead of Night, 1931

IT SEEMED such an innocent little thing when Larssen rehearsed the details. Besides, it was Magic; ergo, Bosh.

"What is the Huldra King's Tune?" asked Iris.

"It is the crowning piece of Huldra music; and there is a spell attached to it," said Larssen.

"As long as it is played in its entirety all present must dance to it," he further informed her. "Also the player cannot stop playing it—however he wishes to..."

Heaven knows he himself wished to stop playing it that night! I'd like to forget it myself—get that tune out of my head, and the sound of the beastly thuds, the disgusting pad, padding! If I set it out in words perhaps they may not come into my reluctant memory so often.

THIS HAPPENED a good while ago, when it meant rough travelling if you wanted to get from Davos to Italy in winter. But I can only tell the tale now, by arrangement with Einar Larssen, because years have steeled Madame Larssen's nerves, and it will not upset her for life if she comes across this account and recognizes, behind the substitute names, what she missed in the Fasplana Inn.

A telegram summoned Mrs. Walsh and Iris to the bedside of a relative who was in extremis, for the tenth time in three years, in a North Italian health resort. Iris and I had only been engaged a week, so even strong-minded Mrs. Walsh had to stretch a point and let me escort them. We set off from Davos comfortably enough, and it was a matter of carriages until late afternoon.

Twilight shut down on us negotiating an uncommonly trying pass of the Rhaetic Alps. Snowflakes big as one's joined thumbs coming down thick, the landscape blotted into unstarred greyness, only the ashy reflection of the nearer snow showing that we were on earth and not jolting over derelict worlds in an infinitude of blank space. At the Hospiz at the top of the pass we changed to a sledge and the driver removed all the horse bells before starting. The chime of them might start off some delicately poised mass of snow from the heights on top of us.

So, hushedly, we drove over a snow floor, coming at times on the top of a telegraph pole just over the surface, the wires making a slow Aiofian harping level with our feet. The snow was falling its thickest when the accident occurred.

A bad spill over a buried obstruction. The women fell into the snow, I landed against a telegraph post and sustained all the casualties—a right wrist that began to swell and pain abominably and a left shoulder that appeared to be shrivelling and losing all feeling. The rest of the drive was nightmare, the wires playing the deuce's own melody, and myself almost fight-headed before the flicker of lanterns came suddenly into view.

When my senses were really at my beck and call again we were in a big timber-built hall, a fire crackling in the chimney and an enormous number of Swiss of all ages and sizes acting sympathetic chorus while Iris and her mother attended to my injuries, aided by a slim young man with a mop of tow- coloured hair.

"Allow me to introduce myself, Monsieur, and then you will perhaps fulfil the formality, so beloved in your country, by introducing me to the ladies with whom I have had the pleasure of working for some time." Thus the yellow-haired man, when I was propped in a chair. His French was good, but not of France. "I am your fellow guest, forced to stay for the night through the blocking of the farther road. My wife is here also, but at present she is resting in her own apartment. And my name—I have no card on my person— is Einar Larssen."

We three started in unison—"The violinist?" exclaimed Iris, and he bowed and pushed back a straggling lock selfconsciously.

I made the necessary introductions. The landlord interposed nervously, "It is perhaps advisable to inform the ladies—" he began. Larssen interrupted. I distinctly saw him bestow a warning frown on the man, and the Switzer's face expressed the comprehension of one who receives secret orders. "Our host would impress on you that the 'Four Chamois' has but little accommodation to offer at the best of times, Madame Walsh," the violinist said smoothly. "I hear Madame coming, she will arrange with you for a fair division."

Madame Larssen appeared now, a frail, pretty little woman in the early twenties, and bustled Mrs. Walsh and Iris off. I saw all the Swiss, the landlord and his wife, the several servants, and our driver exchange looks as the trio departed.

"It is most awkward, Monsieur Lambton," said Larssen, suddenly become businesslike. "Madame Larssen is of a nervous temperament, and for her sake we have been forced to a certain concealment and we might as well extend the concealment to Madame Walsh and Mademoiselle; they will rest the easier for not knowing about it."

I could not imagine what the fellow was driving at. Infectious disease? Robbers? "It is behind that door they rest. Monsieur," the landlord volunteered, indicating one at the side of the hall. "Three corpses."

"Most ladies are averse to such house-fellows," Larssen proceeded gently. "We will all be on our way in the morning; there is no need for them to know, eh?"

I agreed. "They will rest the easier for knowing nothing. Three corpses? Three at once?"

The landlord waxed voluble. They were the aftermath of an avalanche. There are several kinds of avalanche, and the nastiest is the dirt avalanche. It's like the tipping out of a titanic dustcart; a filthy tide of mud and shingle, slabbed together with half-melted snow, packed with the trees, turves, rubbish heaps, and corpses it has gathered in its course. The snow avalanche enfolds you dead in its chaste whiteness; the dirt variety pinches, chokes, and suffocates you slowly, then acts threshing-machine and steam-roller combined to the mortal part of you, until its force is spent and it settles with you interred somewhere in it.

Such an abomination had trickled its way down the valley hard by the Inn of the Four Chamois early that winter, three men were lost in it, and that day diggers had found their remains. "Caspar Ragotli is entire,'' said mine host, with a nod at the door; "Melchoir Fischer—" He told us, detailedly, how this Melchoir was in pieces, most of them there, while of the third, Hans Buol, only one hand had been discovered, "But we know it for Buol's, by the open knife grasped in it,'' our entertainer proceeded, gloatingly. "A fine new knife from your Sheffield, Monsieur Lambton; and the hand being the right it sufficed for the whole, as the gentlemen will know-"

I felt thankful for Larssen's concealment when the ladies reappeared, prepared to make the best of things. We were merry enough over our mishap, now that food, fire, and four walls were our portion, with sounds of storm brushing up louder and louder without to add zest to enjoyment. The most awkward thing was that, with my injuries, I was limited to the stiff use of one hand alone and could scarcely lift that. I would stay up, if only to convince Iris there was nothing much the matter. If it had not been for my crocking I knew she would have been enjoying everything in this small adventure enormously, from the unexpected company to the robustious dog and severe cat who slipped in when a servant was sent to bring wood from the outhouse where they had been banished.

"But what makes them fidget round that door?" she asked innocently.

Larssen was behind her. Under fear of his eye the landlord answered composedly: "There is in that room a— a stock of meat, Madame.''

Now came the son of the house with the bag of an afternoon's hunt: a pair of marmots to be stuffed against the next tourist season. He placed them on a chest by the lethal door while his father took him aside for a word of caution. We made the three, host, hostess and son, sup with us; and all was so comfortable that I forgot the other guests until" Larssen whispered apologetically:

"It is not really disrespectful, Monsieur Lambton."

WE KEPT shocking hours for a Swiss inn, the eight of us, after the tired servants had been packed off to their quarters.

"This is like home," said Larssen dreamily, when we were all basking round the fire. "I come from a farm— up in the wilds beyond Romsdal— and it was even so in the old hall. The big fire in the big fireplace— the cats and dogs going crackle, crackle, over the supper bones— the wind whistling— the clatter of voices—"

"The one thing missing is the scraping of thy violin, my Einar," his wife put in. "Come, thy fingers twitch; I know it; and our friends here would not, perhaps, object— eh?"

"A recital by Herr Larssen, free, and without the trouble of sitting still in a stuffy concert hall!" said Mrs. Walsh, and the ensuing chorus of rapturous assent sent Madame Larssen running for her lord's instrument.

"You have heard of my Da Salo?" Larssen inquired, as he lifted the violin from its travelling case. "My Cavalancti Da Salo? It is said Cavalancti sold his eternal welfare for the power to make a certain number of instruments that should approach as near the God-given perfection of Stradiaurius's work as devilry could accomplish."

He tilted the violin to show the play of light sinking in the amber lustre of it. "We will have no set pieces," he added, "but such old tunes as I played in our farm kitchen so far away and long ago!"

Tucking it under his chin, he swept us with the first notes right into the faery realm of sound. A realm of tingling frost that whipped the blood along the veins racingly, of icy wind that sang of the Elder Ice at the Back of Beyond: a very vocalization of the eternally young, eternally pure spirit of the Northland.

Ending with a queer suggestion of a lit farmhouse at night, the loneliness of stars and ice and snow crowding to it outside and inside fire and company, and the family spirit concentring round the holy hearth and stretching out invisible strands of love to absent ones far out in the frozen whaling fields, or at mean work in foreign cities, or dead and cherishing in the other world memory of home.

Then he plunged into another tune, and another; snatches all, all singing of the North, and the Northern chasteness that is fierce and passionate as the foulest vice of all other quarters of earth.

"You will not hear these at a paid-for concert— God forbid! " he observed, his dreamy voice filling a pause between two melodies. "You are hearing, my friends, what few but children of Norway ever hear, scraps of the Huldrasleet. The melodies of the Elf-Kind— the Huldra Folk we name them— no less. Snatches that bygone musicians overheard on chancey nights out in the loneliness of fiords and fells, and passed on down the ages. The Huldra Folk are the musicians of all time."

"You would like to hear them?" asked Mrs. Walsh quizzically.

"I have heard them, 'dear Madame. Five times have I heard the Elf-Kind, invisible but audible, holding revels out in the empty winter nights and summer early mornings on the heights of the Dovrefeld— I, Einar Larssen."

Mrs. Walsh started a little; but the rest of us were not much surprised, if I can speak from analysis of my own feelings and a glance in the eyes of the others.

"There was one tune," Larssen went on meditatively. "It was a dark and windy night— like this one. I was searching for a strayed sheep. I found it in a field. Then, over a hedge, the melody began to flow. It was a tune! It got into my fingers and toes; I began to dance to it. There in the snow I danced, and my senses flowed out of my body in sheer ecstasy, while my emptied heart and head were filled with the tune."

His face queerly lit by firelight, his yellow mane tossing as he gesticulated illustratively, he carried us all on by the conviction of his voice over the monstrosity of his relation.

"Then the stark pines on the slope beyond the hedge bent and waved their branches—in time to the tune. The snow was swished about in powder, as the frozen grass-blades beneath waked and waved— to the tune. The stars began to glide about in the sky, and to bow themselves to and from the earth; growing bigger as they approached it and shrinking as they swirled back in the mazes of the dance— to the tune. Then, if you please, I woke. Woke, with the moon much farther across the heavens than she had been when the first note of the tune came to me, and the sheep I had come to find lying exhausted in a patch trampled flat and muddy by its hoofs. And I, also, lay in the middle of a bare trampled patch in surrounding snow. That is the truth."

He drew breath and proceeded:

"I did not remember the tune entirely, though I had heard it repeated many times. A short tune; very short. When the Huldra fiddler reached its end he began again, round and round in a circle of music. The middle part I remember, but of the end and beginning only certain detached notes. I tried often by playing what I recollect to make the forgotten parts slip into their places, but unavailingly—"

He went to the main door and opened it. The wind swept in steadily, but the snowfall had stopped and a big moon looked down on piled white mountains and glaring snowfields. "It was so; clear, windy, and white, when I heard the tune," he said thoughtfully.

"Similarity of outward circumstances will revive a train of emotion or thought experienced long ago," Mrs. Walsh nodded.

He closed the door, and came back to the fire. Then his eyes lit and he drew the bow across the strings with a large gesture. Followed a few bars of melody. "The middle part," he explained.

Madame Larssen gave an abrupt little cry. "Einar, can it be you heard the Huldra King's Tune? Then thank Heaven you cannot play it!"

"Why, my beloved?" he lifted his eyebrows gently.

"In my district there was a tradition that one man once played it through and something happened."

"What happened?"

"Nobody quite remembered. But it was dreadful."

"What is the Huldra King's Tune?" asked Iris.

"It is the crowning piece of Huldra music, and there is a spell attached to it. An enchantment, Mademoiselle," Larssen elucidated.

"...As long as it is played in its entirety, all who are present must dance to it," he further informed her, after reflection.

"That does not sound very dreadful," she laughed.

"There's something further." He became thoughtful. "Ah; it is that the player cannot stop playing, whether he would or not. He can only stop if— let me consider— yes, if he plays it backward or, failing that, if the strings of his violin are cut for him."

"You could safely play it now, Monsieur," said the landlord. "So far as I am concerned. My rheumatics would stop my dancing, however magically you played."

"And we"— Mrs. Walsh's gesture indicated the other ladies— "are resting to summon energy enough to crawl to bed. So, Herr Larssen, we are a safe audience if you can remember your wonderful tune."

"There was one more detail," he went on. "Ah, it is that if the tune is played often enough, inanimate things must dance, too."

"That's danger for us, as we are all nearly inanimate!" Mrs. Walsh yawned frankly now.

He leant against the carved mantel and for a little while he played absently, his subconscious mind busy with reconstruction, fumbling amidst its orderly lumber, connecting, paring, arranging. Then he straightened himself and swept the bow purposefully across the strings.

Slowly at first, then with added lilt and swing, there rippled forth the complete, horrible tune.

I KNEW IT, for between a chiming start and a clattering last bar the broken chords he had first remembered fitted in followingly. It was not very long, that tune; he reached the end, leapt, as it were, to the beginning, played it through again, and so to a third repetition.

Then the wonder began. During the second repetition a movement like the passing of a breeze had run round our little assembly. Sleepy eyes opened, heels beat time, figures stiffened. At the third we were on our feet.

It seemed perfectly natural. Though I was almost too tired and shaken to stand, the tune ran into my feet; I made a step towards Iris and almost fell, fetched up against the wall, and so fell to dancing. Dancing calmly and solemnly all by myself.

Iris made a step towards me, too; paused and shook her head. "Poor boy, you must sit and rest," she murmured, and paired off with the Swiss lad.

Somehow one knew the steps on first hearing the music. It was, perhaps, the Dance Primitive, holding in itself the potentialities of all saltatory art. Mainly it consisted of a mazy circling with a little crossing and up-and-down work, going on, over and over; monotonous yet tirelessly fascinating, like some Eastern music.

I repeat, it seemed perfectly natural. The landlord led off with his wife; they danced with decorous determination. Mrs. Walsh and Madame Larssen were footing it with all the abandon two women paired together could be expected to indulge in. Larssen himself had begun to dance, playing conscientiously the while. I circled about, a little uncertain on my feet, my slinged arm for partner, and Iris and the lad sailed amongst us, light as thistledown.

Those clumsy-looking Swiss boys are amongst the best dancers in the world. Whenever she passed me, Iris smiled, her eyes full of far-away ecstasy.

The music quickened and took a richer tone; it rang back from the walls, it melted and echoed in the timber ceiling; the floor-boards hummed with it; every nerve in us was tingling, laughing, almost crying with too much rapture of sound and motion.

Time, weariness, place, all were not. The dead beyond the door were forgotten, there was no Earth, no more Time, nothing but a ringing emptiness of melody, a singing storm of tunefulness on which one could lean and be carried like an eagle down the wind.

Yet, through all the intoxication of it, I was dimly aware that we were in a homely Swiss inn-parlour, at the same time that we were in the Fourth Dimension of music. I was rapt out of my shaken body, yet saw my surroundings clearly; saw, presently, the cat and dog rise and, on their hind legs, join in, keeping time and threading the maze unerringly.

That appeared neither wonderful nor laughable, only natural; but my dazed senses half-awoke when the two dead marmots slithered off the chest, rose on their hind feet, and, with pluffed-out tails swaying in time to the tune, and a queer little pit-a-pat of tiny feet, that I seemed to hear through the other noises, set to one another and circled with the best of us. They swung past me, their heads level with my knees, and vanished amidst the other dancers. I noted their furry little faces, dropped jaws, frothy teeth, and glazed eyes. Dead, most undoubtedly dead, and dancing!

The cat and dog passed me again, and the marmots chanced to be near at the same time. The dog wrinkled his upper lip, disgusted at the deadness of them; the cat snapped at them in passing. The queerest thing was the others, with one exception, did not seem to notice the four small additions to the company. Only Larssen, figuring solemnly with his fiddle for partner, saw. His eyes protruded as they squinted along the Da Salo at the quartette. "Dead," he gulped.

"Stop now, man!" I called. "This fooling—"

"I cannot," he cried back hoarsely, and began the melody over again for the fifteenth time at least. "The tradition is true—"

Then, as the opening movement rippled forth again, in the inner room three crashes sounded.

Two almost simultaneously, yet singularly distinct from one another, the third a few seconds later. Loud, resonant, wooden crashes. Then silence in that room, and in ours the swell and swing of the infernal melody and the pat of dancing feet.

The sound had been too pronounced for even enthralled senses to disregard. All looked at the door for a moment. The others forgot the interruption at once and danced on, eyes blank with ecstasy; only Larssen's face went white and the landlord's mottled grey. "Stop, Monsieur!" the landlord cried.

"I cannot!" wailed Larssen, his voice shrill with horror. "I cannot! For Heaven's sake, Monsieur Lambton, come and cut the strings!"

"My hands are useless—" I began, and stopped at a new sound.

You must understand that I had danced nearer to the door by that time. The new sound behind it was one of scuffling and scrambling, half a dozen sounds merged in one, then— pat, pat, patter, patter, pat— was a noise of steps keeping time to the tune.

Soft steps, you'll understand, not the click of shod feet, like ours. I went round, came in range again, and listened.

A fairly heavy thumping— like a man on stockinged feet— was approaching the door. "What's the matter, Cyril?" asked Iris, swaying by, still rapt, as the boy and the three other women were. She did not wait for an answer. The latch of the door rattled. The latch inside the other room, you understand.

"I'll play it backwards when I can!" gasped Larssen, as we crossed each other's track. The noises in the fatal room circled away from the door, then approached, and the latch was unhasped this time before the horrible soft-falling thumps retreated. You see how it was: as we were compelled to circle round our room so, whatever it was in the other room had to circle likewise, making an attempt whenever the door was in reach to open it and join us and the tune.

Larssen was fiddling desperately. "Backwards now!" I implored.

"I cannot— yet. But if I repeat it a few more times, I shall be able to reverse it," he called back.

A few more rounds would be too late. The inner room noises reached the door and it opened a crack. If— what was striving to come— joined us, would even ecstasy blind the women? And when the waking came—? I flung myself against the door in passing; it snapped to again. "A few more repetitions!" panted Larssen.

Inspiration came to me. The others, dancing in a hypnotized state, circled widely, but I could do the steps within a small compass: in front of the door.

I could do it. I did it. Larssen made an attempt to reverse the melody. He failed.

Two more repetitions. Iris and her partner, passing me, smiled at the quaint figure I must have cut, dancing by myself in narrow circles before the door. Larssen's ashen face was running with sweat that dripped from his chin and trickled, like the slack of a tide, over the amber glory of the Da Salo. The padding steps approached the door; it was jerked a little ajar. I drove it back with my sound shoulder; but a new danger arose. They— the dancers within— were imitating my tactics. They danced in a circumscribed space that grew smaller as the minutes passed If only we could have got the women out of the way! I gyrated, as well as I could, before the door all the time, driving it back with my shoulder as it was thrust ajar, again and again.

Picture it. See me, one arm in a sling and the other nearly powerless, prancing and twirling before the door, trying the while to keep a temperate expression on my sweat-drenched features for the benefit of the women. The landlord only kept from dropping with fear by the magic of the tune. Larssen stepping it absurdly, trickling features set like a Greek tragic mask, his long yellow tresses bobbing about, matted into rats'-tails, his eyes glaring down at the flooded, humming Da Salo. The women and the lad, unconscious of everything save the melody, dancing with the introspective gaze of the drugged.

The door was thrust ajar once more. I dashed it back, but not before a soft padding had pattered from the bottom of the opened crack into our room.

I almost collapsed. Cat and dog and dead marmots— oh, they were respectable beside the latest addition to our company!

The people circled on; the dog, the cat, the dead marmots, they all circled; and circling with them— but keeping ever a course that drew it nearer and nearer to Larssen all the while— was a little dark shadow with a long, thin, tarnished white gleam sticking from it. I beat back the door and what more was pressing against it, and fought with nausea.

Round and round Larssen's feet, nearer and nearer, the little shadow hopped, leapt, and pattered. Leaping and springing. It jumped higher and higher, always in time to the music— higher and higher— high as Larssen's elbow. In another minute I knew even the enraptured dancers could not fail to see it. The door was now beaten on, beaten with soft-falling, fierce thuds. I could not keep it shut much longer-

Up sprang the little shadow and the tarnished gleam, clear over Larssen's shoulder. A series of twangling, discordant snaps, that seemed to prick one's brain physically, and the tune stopped dead.

Thud! It sounded behind the door— very heavy. Then a succession of smaller thuds. I leant against the wall, panting. The dancers stopped, every face dazed and stupefied, and in an automatic way each dropped into the nearest seat.

LARSSEN dashed his handkerchief over his face. I contrived to throw my own on the floor behind him before he staggered to the fireplace. With my most usable hand I also managed to pick up my property again and place it on the seat, behind me, as I sat down on the chest by the door. The marmots were on the floor near my feet; I was enabled to hide my face for a few seconds, and to compose it, as I picked them up.

The eyes of the others cleared and became intelligent. "I really think I've been asleep," said Mrs. Walsh.

"I believe I have," Iris rubbed her eyes.

"I think I have too," laughed Madame Larssen.

The landlord had made himself scarce at once, probably doubting his histrionic powers at such short notice. His wife followed him. The boy sat dazed.

"I had a dream, a ridiculous dream, too ridiculous to repeat," Mrs. Walsh proceeded.

"I had a dream, likewise too absurd to relate," said Madame Larssen.

"I had—" Iris checked herself, and looked sudden apology at Larssen, who had arranged himself with the light at his back.

"Do not fear to hurt my feelings," he said blandly, his voice still a little unnatural. "You were all tired before I began. In brief, Mademoiselle, I am not broken at the heart because my music had a soporific effect on you all."

"It wasn't as if you had been playing one of your own compositions," she apologized. "I am sleepy, mother; I vote we make a move."

"Yes, we will tuck up our drowsiness in bed before it has a chance to insult anyone further," Madame Larssen chimed in gaily.

They trooped off; Larssen kept his face in shadow, I stood carefully before the chest, while bidding them good night. When they had gone, the landlord came back. For a little while we four men stared at one another. ''Surely I have had a dream, gentlemen," said the landlord imploringly.

We said nothing. He hesitated, then, with the haste of dislike, snatched a candle and flung open the inner door. "Oh, Holy Virgin!" he cried.

Three coffins lay as they had tumbled from their trestles. About the room was spilt and tangled the coarse linen that charity had contributed—

The landlord reeled against one doorpost. Larssen clung, limp, to the other. ''I'll burn the Da Salo before I'll play that tune again!" he whispered hoarsely.

I stepped back into the large room, brought my handkerchief, and from its folds replaced in one of the coffins a shrivelled hand grasping the tarnished knife that had cut the violin strings. The boy, most composed of us all, said stolidly:

"Ah, Messieurs, it appears that the dead do not enjoy being disturbed!"

_________________

14: Rats

Michael Annesley

F. A. M. Webster 1886-1949

At Dead of Night, 1931

THE LIGHT of a camp-fire revealed a pleasant scene. Two big, white caravans and three cars stood parked, up to their hubs in lush meadow grass. Behind lay the hills and the long white road, in front was a swiftly-flowing stream in which the caravaners had washed the dust of the road from their bodies at the end of a long hot day.

Mike Halliday lit his pipe and uttered a sigh of sheer satisfaction, as he lay back in a battered old Rorkee chair. A giant of a man, home from East Africa on leave, this was the sort of life he knew and loved. From the water's edge a chorus of frogs croaked discordantly; upon the steps of a caravan Mary Halliday sat, and, in her arms, lay her year-old son, Hector, kicking and crooning contentedly as, with solemn eyes, he regarded a big yellow moon, across which a wrack of black-bellied clouds raced continually.

Sir Edward Fanshawe, flannel-clad and tidy, emerged from his tent, a sardonic smile upon his features as his eyes encountered the spectacle of his old school-friend, whose sun-bleached khaki-shorts and bush-blouse furnished a sharp contrast to his own immaculate attire. Lady Fanshawe peered out over her husband's shoulder.

"Rain before morning, Mike," suggested the baronet, with a glance for the cloud-obscured moon. "I fancy you'll be sorry you did not bring some thicker clothing."

"I love my old khaki and the freedom of movement it gives me," Mike answered, stretching his limbs. "There's no adventurous risk in England, but one likes to 'dress the part'."

"Even to the hunting-knife," Sir Edward chuckled. "Do you carry a revolver as well?"

Mike's cheeks flushed, as his hand stole beneath the skirt of his bush-blouse, which hid a small holster, buckled to his belt.

"It's sheer force of habit," he apologized.

"Do be careful, Mr. Halliday," interposed Lady Fanshawe nervously, "I am scared to death of firearms."

"Jolly useful things where I come from," growled Mike, "and, even in England, well— one never knows."

A squeak and a scurry in the rushes, close at hand, attracted their attention, and little Hector ceased staring at the moon to listen.

"Rats, that's another sign of bad weather," pronounced Mike Halliday indifferently.

"Rats, how horrible! I simply loathe rats!" exclaimed Lady Fanshawe, with difficulty repressing a scream.

Mary smiled quietly. The years she had spent with her husband, far beyond the fringes of civilization, had driven out fear. Baby Hector continued to croon contentedly to himself.

Soon after midnight the storm burst. Mike Halliday was awakened by the sound of the rain lashing down on to the roof of his canvas lean-to and, for some moments, lay listening to the exultant croaking of the frogs, so loud that it rose above the fury of the storm. Outside, in the darkness, the river bank was alive with voles, and in every old house in Burford, half a mile away, rats were stirring; for rodents have a peculiar prescience where bad weather is concerned.

Striking camp the next morning was not a pleasant business. Merciless rain had turned the beauty of the lush-green meadow into a veritable quagmire; there were wet tents and sodden bedding to be stored away; Sir Edward's once immaculate flannels clung to his long thin limbs, and Lady Fanshawe never ceased grumbling. Only Mike and Mary remained cheerful, although they were as completely drenched as their companions. Baby Hector howled dismally. The poor mite of humanity, bom in tropical sunshine, was not enjoying his first taste of an English summer.

By dint of much man-handling, and with the aid of half a dozen farm labourers, the cars and caravans were at last disinterred from the now muddy field and got on to the highway. Half-way up the hill through Burford town, however, Mike Halliday's car jibbed at the weight of the caravan behind it and could not be moved until further manual aid was enlisted.

"Commend me to England for a happy holiday," he growled, as, flopping down into the pool of water which filled me driving-seat, he took the road to Gloucester.

"Perhaps the weather will break presently," said Mary, seeking, hopefully, to find grounds for offering consolation to her very cold and wet husband.

But the weather did not break. All day long the wind- driven rain lashed at the windows and side-curtains of the caravans and cars. A cold lunch was prepared and eaten in damp discomfort, and did nothing to raise the spirits of the disgruntled wayfarers. Mike and Maiy were dourly determined to go on. Sir Edward was openly doubtful about the wisdom of doing so, and Lady Fanshawe, totally unaccustomed to any form of hardship, was almost tearful. Baby Hector continued to howl dismally and, down in the valleys, where the rivers already were overflowing their banks, legions of rats, storm-wise in their generation, were beginning to desert their ancient homes, in the hope of finding safer and drier quarters.

"I vote that we stop at the next town and put up for the night at a decent hotel," Sir Edward suggested diffidently.

"That be damned for a tale," Mike answered. "If you come caravaning, you've got to take the rough with the smooth, else where's the pleasure in looking back upon the hardships afterwards?"

"I should prefer a little civilized, Christian comfort at the moment," said Lady Fanshawe tartly, as she sought to straighten her sodden and dishevelled hair.

"Right-o!" answered Mike, seeking a satisfactory compromise, "we'll push on until we find a dry bam to sleep in. How will that do?"

Sir Edward and his wife agreed grudgingly, and the caravans proceeded on their way down the wet, white road. Meantime, the dusk was falling and, along field-paths and drains, up the declivity of muddy by-ways and even along the edges of main roads, thousands upon thousands of bedraggled rodents were making their way toward the heights, fleeing quietly and swiftly from the flood-waters that were rising behind them.

At Berkeley the caravaners found the sort of place they were seeking, an ancient, grey-stone hay bam standing in its own yard. The ground surrounding the building was waterlogged already, but the bam itself was delightfully dry and fragrant. And into the bam, by dint of a good deal of manoeuvring, they managed to back and manhandle both caravans. The cars were, perforce, left out in the open, which meant that the electric installation run from the engines could not be used. Hurricane lanterns proved but a poor substitute, and no cooking on Primus stoves was possible on account of the surrounding hay.

But, despite the fact that their supper had to come out of tins, and that everything was wet in the Hallidays' caravan, which had sprung a leak in several places, the bam was, at least, dry and warm, so that the whole party felt decidedly more cheerful as they settled down.

After supper Lady Fanshawe, less thoughtful than Mary, shook the crumbs from the table out on to the floor of the bam. A moment later a big brown rat appeared to gamer this unexpected harvest. Like a flash of lightning, Pongo, Michael Halliday's Sealyham terrier, shot out of the caravan and made short work of the intruder.

"Oh, a rat! a rat!" squealed Mona Fanshawe. "For Heaven's sake let's get out of this place. I'm simply terrified of the beastly things."

"You might well be scared if we were in Africa," grinned Mike, "for, where there are rats, there are also snakes— in Africa— eh, Mary?"

His wife shuddered, for her husband's words had raised an unpleasantly vivid picture of life as she had lived it in an African grass hut. None the less her voice was steady as she answered:

"Pongo will look after any vermin that are likely to trouble us in this place. Won't you, old fellow?"

And the dog, hearing his name, lifted his gory muzzle and wagged his stump of a tail.

"Well, what are we going to do about sleeping?" interrupted Sir Edward, anxious to turn his wife's mind to other matters, and added: "I suppose, Mike, that you and I had better put up our camp beds among the hay, and then Mary and Mona can have our caravan."

"Do you think Hector will disturb you. Lady Fanshawe?" asked Mary doubtfully.

"Not a bit, my dear."

"Just listen to the rain, b'gad!" exclaimed Sir Edward. "I bet the yard will be knee deep in water by the morning. We're right under the shoulder of the hill and it looked like a water-shed when I shut the doors."

"Please goodness the magnetos on the cars won't be flooded when we want to start," Mike answered.

"Do you think there are many rats in this place?" Sir Edward queried, when the womenfolk had turned in.

"There are always a few in every barn," his friend answered, "but they've probably cleared out already, or will keep to their holes. Pongo has been busy ratting most of the evening. Good night."

"Good night," came the answer.

And down the narrow, manure-covered lane which led to the grey bam, a living stream came flowing, which looked, in the fitful light of the moon, like a black tidal wave. It was accompanied by eerie squeaks and angry twitterings and, so great was the pressure of that flitting, every moment some rodent, weaker than his fellows, was squeezed up on to the surface of the slowly-moving tide of rats.

Soon, save for the thresh of the rain upon the slate roof and the howling of the wind, interspersed by the snap and crackle of falling branches, silence reigned supreme. But still the living tide of rats flowed on towards the bam.

Once, during the night, Michael Halliday started up on his bed, startled from sleep by a long-drawn-out, slithering "Whoosh", which culminated in a dull thud and seemed to shake the building. He leaned over and shook his sleeping companion.

"Did you hear anything, Ted?" he queried.

"No, what was it?"

"I thought I heard a thud and that the building shook."

"Nonsense, man, that tinned lobster has given you indigestion."

Michael Halliday, half-convinced that he had been dreaming, lay down and went to sleep again. Had he but known it, a great slice of the hill overshadowing the barn, washed from its ancient rock foundation, had slid down until stopped by the wall and door of the barn, which it had closed most effectually.

And still the black tide of rats, water-driven from the valleys, flowed on, seeking refuge from the storm.

Towards dawn the first fringes of the flitting flowed about the bam. The fact that the only door was blocked by a solid, immovable barrier of earth presented nothing worse than a temporary hindrance to them; there were plenty of holes and crannies through which so small a creature as a rat could enter. None the less, no more than one or two could find shelter from the storm immediately; and, indeed, the pressure of the rodents whose mass overflowed the yard and still stretched far back up the muddy lane, tended to frustrate the efforts of the first wave to effect an entry.

The Sealyham, even in his sleep, caught the scent of his hereditary enemies and awoke instantly to furious, barking life. The dog was chained to his master's bed and his sudden spring forward awakened Michael.

"Lie down and shut up, you old fool," he admonished, for he was annoyed at being awakened. The dog sank down, cowed by the anger in his master's voice.

Halliday fell once more into an uneasy sleep, for the dog lay trembling beside him, with half-suppressed growls rumbling continually deep down in his chest. The poor brute, in fact, was hard put to it to restrain his desire to bark, for the rats were pouring in faster and faster, and now the sleeping caravaners were, literally, ringed in by beady, watching eyes that glowed redly.

Then "something" fell with a dull "plop" from the roof ventilator to the floor of the caravan; a second and a third thud followed. Little Hector screamed as something scurried across his body, and instantly the two women in the caravan awakened.

Mary saw the red eyes first and she screamed and screamed again. There were dozens of these pin-points in the caravan already, while, in the bam itself, indescribable squeakings and rustlings in the hay had broken out immediately her scream was heard.

The dog started barking again, Mike Halliday sprang up with a savage oath, and Sir Edward awakened trembling. Both women were screaming now, the child was crying hysterically, the squeaking and squealing of the rats grew louder, over all rose the shrieking of the gale, backed up by the dull, incessant bourdon of the falling rain.

Then the man from overseas saw the circle of evil red eyes that was closing in upon them— slowly, inch by stealthy inch.

"The door, Ted," he shouted. "Get that damned door open. By Godl the place is full of rats!"

For an instant the bright beam of an electric torch stabbed through the darkness. A solid black and brown wall of rats was creeping relentlessly forward from every angle of the building. The creatures in front strove frantically to retreat, as the white light focused and blinded their eyes; but there were millions of rats in that flitting. More and more rats poured into the bam every instant, fighting furiously to escape from the lashing rain and the rising water outside, so that sheer weight of numbers from the back drove the front ranks pitilessly forward.

Mike's hand dived beneath his pillow, and the staccato chatter of the automatic pistol he snatched up let pandemonium loose, for dozens of bats that lived among the dusty roof's beams overhead were disturbed and fluttered wildly to and fro.

Lady Fanshawe, leaping from the caravan, added maniacal screams and hysterical laughter to the general uproar when a bat became entangled in her hair and she felt her bare feet treading upon living rats, which bit cruelly into her bare ankles with needle-sharp teeth.

Mary, with her son in her arms, stood stock still, unable to move a step towards her husband, for she was literally engulfed to the knees by the tide of rodents. Then Pongo broke his lead and leapt to the aid of his mistress. In a moment she was free and moving towards Michael. But that was the end of the unfortunate dog. The rats literally flowed over him, squeaking, worrying, biting, and, within a minute, not a fragment, beyond his bones, was left.

"The door, why the hell don't you open the door, Ted?" Michael shouted.

"I can't, it's stuck fast," the answer was gasped back.

Then, in a rising scream: ''Oh, God! I'm up to my waist in rats. I'm being eaten alive!"

Again Mike's hand forraged beneath his pillow, found a new clip and slipped it into the butt of his automatic. And, if the eight shots availed not at all against the rats, the quick series of explosions did, at least, serve to awaken a number of farm-hands and villagers, living in cottages close at hand.

They came to the rick-yard, armed with lanterns, and fled away again in search of dogs and sticks and shotguns, for they had seen two things: firstly, that the yard was literally carpeted with the remains of a great flitting of rats, such a flitting as men had never known before; and, secondly, that a low hill, standing in the yard, had subsided, owing to the rain, completely blocking the only road of escape for the unfortunate caravaners who were thus imprisoned in the bam.

By this time the screams of the baronet had given place to silence, for the rats had pulled him down and he would scream no more. Lady Fanshawe, fainting from sheer terror, had felt her knees sag and had sunk into that living black tide from which there could be no rescue.

But Mike Halliday, big game hunter and explorer, who had faced a hundred perils clear-eyed and fearless in his time, put out all his mighty strength and, heaving up his whole light bedstead, literally flailed his way to a spot where he could get his back against a wall, with space enough behind him for Mary to crouch in, holding Hector.

The light of his torch was growing dim now, his last clip of cartridges was finished, but he wedged the base of his torch into a crevice of the wall, twisted the legs of his broken bed into a serviceable weapon for his great hands and fought on so long as the light lasted.

Meanwhile, the men outside had purged the yard, and willing hands were digging frantically to clear the door, while shouts of encouragement came to the ears of the man who was fighting grimly for his own life and the lives of his wife and child.

Already a mat of dead rodents lay deep about his feet, but, ever and ever, as he fought, fresh rats swarmed over the corpses of their kind to attack him. Rats sprang at him from either side and even dropped from the roof and walls on to his limbs, until there was hardly an inch of the man that was not bleeding.

Then, in ones and twos at first, and then in dozens, they stole past him, as his strength began to fail.

Mary knew their case was hopeless and made no attempt to fight. This brave woman crouched down, with her body covering her child, and let the foul brutes work their will upon her. The quiet fortitude of that mother is something to marvel at. Long before her husband was finished, the thin pyjamas were literally eaten from her body, and then tiny, razor-sharp teeth began nibbling tentatively at her living flesh. The temptation to scream, to kick and strike, anything to drive away that awful agony and the loathsome touch of small, furry bodies, was almost irresistible. But Mary knew that any overt act upon her part would bring the whole swarm of the rats surging over her. And so she endured the last, utmost limit of agony in silence and stillness. For already the heavy blows of axe-strokes were falling upon the door, which the caravaners' own hands had barred that night upon the inside, and every second that she endured brought nearer the fulfilment of her hope that Hector might be saved unharmed, for, covered as he was by his mother's body, the child had, as yet, received no injury.

But rats are swift workers. The blood, flowing freely from the woman's many wounds, the red "meat" they had already eaten, inflamed, to the last degree, their carnivorous passions, while the smell of blood set the rear-most ranks, that, as yet, had had no share in the fearful feast, surging forward; and, before the great double doors were beaten in, the last shred of that once beautiful woman and most faithful mother, Mary Halliday, had disappeared.

And the child? The rats had fed red, too, upon his little body when the eager rescuers broke in, and already the flitting was fading away, as such comings do mysteriously pass, through crack and cranny and crevice; and, outside, men killed rats until their arms ached from wrist to shoulder with striking. But still the noxious creatures fled away, leaving behind them no trace of the victims they had slain, save little heaps of bones, two deserted caravans, and a broken camp bedstead.

At the coming of the dawn the rain ceased and the sun shone out, but all was gloom in Berkeley. And, when the Coroner had finished his inquiries, the farmer bade his men pull down the grey bam, stone by stone, and bum the hay. For, as he said, after such a happening the place, if it was allowed to stand, must be for ever after both haunted and accursed.

_________________

15: The Floating Island of Madness

Jason Kirby

fl 1933

Astounding Stories of Super-Science, Jan 1933

This seems to be the only story by this otherwise unknown author.

ABOVE US curved the pale, hot bowl of cloudless sky; below us stretched the rolling, tawny wastes of the great Arabian Desert; and away to the east, close to the dipping horizon, scudded the tiny speck we were following. We had been following it since dawn and it was now close to sunset. Where was it leading us? Should we go on or turn back? How much longer would our gas and oil hold out? And just where were we? I turned and saw my questions reflected in the eyes of my companions, Paul Foulet of the French Sureté and Douglas Brice of Scotland Yard.

"Too fast!" shouted Brice above the roar of our motors. I nodded. His gesture explained his meaning. The plane ahead had suddenly taken on a terrific, unbelievable speed. All day it had traveled normally, maintaining, but not increasing, the distance between us. But in the last fifteen minutes it had leaped into space. Fifteen minutes before it had been two miles in the lead; now it was barely visible. A tiny, vanishing speck. What could account for this burst of superhuman speed? Who was in that plane? What was in that plane?

I glanced at Foulet. He shrugged non-committally, waving a courteous hand toward Brice. I understood; I agreed with him. This was Brice's party, and the decision was up to him. Foulet and I just happened to be along; it was partly design and partly coincidence.

TWO DAYS before I had been in Constantinople. I was disheartened and utterly disgusted. All the way from the home office of the United States Secret Service in Washington I had trailed my man, only to lose him. On steamships, by railway, airplane and motor we had traveled— always with my quarry just one tantalizing jump ahead of me— and in Constantinople I had lost him. And it was a ruse a child should have seen through. I could have beaten my head against a wall.

And then, suddenly, I had run into Foulet. Not ten days before I had talked to him in his office in Paris. I had told him a little of my errand, for I was working on the hunch that this man I was after concerned not only the United States, but France and the Continent as well. And what Foulet told me served only to strengthen my conviction. So, meeting him in Constantinople was a thin ray of light in my disgusted darkness. At least I could explode to a kindred spirit.

"Lost your man!" was his greeting. And it wasn't a question; it was a statement.

"How did you know?" I growled. My humiliation was too fresh to stand kidding.

"Constantinople," said Foulet amiably. "You always lose them in Constantinople. I've lost three here."

"Three?" I said, "Like mine!"

"Exactly," he nodded. Then he lowered his voice. "Come to my hotel. We can talk there."

"Now," he continued fifteen minutes later as we settled ourselves in his room, "you were very circumspect in Paris. You told me little— just a hint here and there. But it was enough. You— the United States— have joined our ranks—"

"You mean—"

"I mean that for a year we, the various secret service organizations of the Continent— and that includes, of course, Scotland Yard— have been after— Well, to be frank, we don't know what we're after. But we do know this. There is a power— there is someone, somewhere, who is trying to conquer the world."

"Are you serious?" I glanced at him but the tight lines of his set mouth convinced me. "I beg your pardon," I murmured. "Go ahead."

"I don't blame you for thinking it was a jest," he said imperturbably, "But, to prove I know what I'm talking about, let me tell you what this man has done whom you have been pursuing. He has done one of two things. Either he has proved himself a dangerous revolutionary or he has engineered the failure of a bank or chain of banks—"

"We can't prove it," I interrupted.

"No," said Foulet, "Neither can we. Neither can Scotland Yard— or the secret services of Belgium or Germany or Italy or Spain. But there you are—"

"You mean that in all these countries— ?"

"I mean that for a year— probably longer— these countries have been and are being steadily, and systematically, undermined. The morale of the people is being weakened; their faith in their government is being betrayed— and someone is behind it. Someone who can think faster and plan more carefully than we— someone whose agents we always lose in Constantinople! I'll wager you lost your man from a roof-top."

I nodded, my disgust at my own stupidity returning in full force. "There was a lower roof and a maze of crisscross alleys," I muttered. "He got away."

"Was there an airplane anywhere around?" asked Foulet.

I glanced at him in surprise. What good would an airplane have been on a roof-top ten feet wide by twelve feet long? Then I remembered. "There was an airplane," I said, "but it was a long way off, and I could scarcely see it; but the air was very still and I heard the motor."

Foulet nodded, "And if you had had a pair of glasses," he said gently, "You would have seen that the airplane had a glider attached to it. There is always an airplane— and a glider— when we lose our men from the roofs of Constantinople."

"But that must be coincidence!" I insisted. "Why, I was on that roof right on the fellow's heels— and the airplane was at least five miles away!"

Foulet shrugged, "Coincidence— possibly," he said, "but it is our only clue."

"Of course," I murmured thoughtfully, "you have never been able to follow—"

Foulet smiled, "Can you imagine where that airplane would be by the time we climbed down off our roofs and got to a flying field and started in pursuit?"

WE DESCENDED for dinner. Foulet's story had restored my self-confidence somewhat— but I was still sore. Of course Foulet connecting my vanishing man with that disappearing airplane was absurd— but where had the man gone? Was my supposition that he had jumped to a lower roof, climbed a wall and run through the maze of alleyways in half a minute in any way less absurd?

We were halfway through dinner when Brice appeared. Brice was one of the best men in Scotland Yard and I had known him many years. So, evidently, had Foulet, for his eyes flickered faintly with pleased surprise at the sight of him. Brice came directly to our table. He was bursting with victorious joy. I could feel it somehow, although his face, carefully schooled to betray no emotion, was placid and casual.

All through the remainder of the meal I could feel the vibrations of his excitement. But it was only at the very end that he confided anything— and his confidence only served to make the excitement and sense of impending thrill greater.

Just as he was rising to leave he shoved a tiny strip of paper across the table to me with a sidelong glance at Foulet. "Another roof-top," I read scrawled in pencil. "If you like, meet me at the flying field before dawn." If I liked! I shoved the paper across to Foulet who read it and carelessly twisted it into a spill to light his cigar. But his hand shook ever so slightly.

Needless to say we went to the flying field shortly after midnight. Bruce was there, pacing up and down restlessly. Near him was a huge tri-motored biplane, its motor humming in readiness.

"I've put a man on the trail in my place," Brice told us briefly. "Somebody else is going to lose the scent on a roof-top— and I'm going to watch."

WE SETTLED to our wait. To me it seemed absurdly hopeless. The flying field was on a slight rise. Below us spread the dark shadow that was Constantinople. There was no moon to give it form and substance— it was just a lake of deeper darkness, a spreading mass of silent roof-tops and minarets. How did Brice expect to see his quarry escape? Suppose he fled during the night? And even with daylight—

The first streaks of dawn found us still waiting, our ears strained for the hum of an airplane motor. But hardly had the golden rim of the sun appeared over the horizon when it came. It came from the east— straight out of the golden glory of the sun. Nearer and nearer it came; an airplane— alone.

"It hasn't got the glider," muttered Foulet and his tone was tinged with disappointment. But hardly had he spoken when, from one of the myriad roof-tops below us, rose a swift streak of shadow. So fast it flew, with such unbelievable speed, that to our eyes it was little more than a blur; but—

"The glider!" Brice gasped. "My God! How did he do it?" We stared, silent with amazement. The airplane, that only a second before had flown alone, now was towing a glider— a glider that had arisen, as if by magic, from the housetops!

Another instant and we had piled into the cockpit of the tri-motored plane and were off on our pursuit. That pursuit that led us on and on till, as the sun sank behind us, we found ourselves above the illimitable, tawny wastes of the great Arabian Desert.

And now— what? All day long, as I have said, the plane we were pursuing had maintained, but never increased, the distance between us. Each hour had brought us renewed hope that the next hour would bring capture— or at least some definite clue, some shred of information. But the plane, still towing its glider, had gone on and on, steadily, imperturbably. And we dared not open fire and attempt to bring it down for fear of destroying our one meager chance of following it to its destination.

And now it had vanished. Suddenly, unaccountably it had taken on that terrific burst of speed which I have described. In ten minutes it had become a speck on the far horizon— in another instant it was gone. We were alone. Night was falling. If we turned back our gas might bring us to safety. If we went on— what?

I turned to my companions. Foulet still maintained his non-committal attitude, but Brice was deeply disappointed and worried. His ruddy English face was knotted in a scowl and his blue eyes were dark. Quickly he jerked his head back. We understood. Of course, turning back was the only thing to do; to go on was absurd. Our quarry had totally disappeared. But it was heart-breaking. Once again we had been fooled and outwitted. Our disappointment filled that tiny cockpit like a tangible mist. Brice threw over the stick with a gesture of disgust. In response our right wing lifted a bit, seemed to shake itself, then settled— and the plane continued on its course. Brice's eyes flickered with surprise. He shoved the stick back, threw it over again, but toward the opposite side. Obediently our left wing lifted as if to bank, a shudder passed through it, it dropped, the plane leveled, and went on.

Foulet leaned forward, his eyes were gleaming, his face flushed and eager. "Climb!" he yelled above the roar of the motors. "Up!" Brice nodded— but it was no use. That plane was like a live thing; nothing we could do would swerve it from its course. We stared at one another. Were we mad? Were we under a hypnotic spell? But our minds were clear, and the idea of hypnosis was absurd, for we had tried to turn back. It was the machine that refused to obey.

Again Foulet leaned forward. "Drop!" he shouted. Brice nodded, but the plane refused to respond. On and on, straight as a die, it sped.

"Try slowing the motor," I yelled into Brice's ear and both Foulet and I leaned forward to watch results.

The motors slowed. Gradually the roaring, pounding hum lessened, and our speed continued! The whine of the wind in the wires abated not one whit! The speedometer on our instrument board climbed!

Brice turned. His face, in the deepening dusk, was a blur of pasty white. His hands hung at his sides. The motors purred, pulsed, were silent. The plane, unaided, unguided, flew alone!

WE SAT hushed and unbelieving in that terrible, deathlike silence. Our ears, attuned all day to the deafening roar of the motors, felt as if they would burst in the sudden, agonizing stillness. There was not a sound save the whine of the wind in the wires as the plane sped on. Above us curved the illimitable arch of darkening sky. Below us lay the empty stretch of blank desert.

We didn't speak. I know that I, for one, could not bring my voice to break that ominous stillness. Silently we sat there, watching, waiting.... The quick darkness of the desert fell like a velvet curtain. The stars burst forth as if lit by an invisible hand. Foulet stirred, leaned forward, gasped. My eyes followed his gaze. Before our plane spread a path of light, dull, ruddily glowing, like the ghost of live embers. It cut the darkness of the night like a flaming finger— and along it we sped as if on an invisible track!

"The speed of that other plane," muttered Brice, breaking that utter silence, "This was it!"

Foulet and I nodded. Well could I imagine that we were travelling at that same terrific, impossible speed. And we were helpless— helpless in the clutch of— what? What power lay behind this band of light that drew us irresistibly toward it?

The ruddy pathway brightened. The light grew stronger. Our speed increased. The whine of the wires was tuned almost past human hearing. The plane trembled like a live thing in the grip of inhuman forces. A great glowing eye suddenly burst from the rim of the horizon— the source of the light! Instinctively I closed my eyes. What power might that eye possess? The same thought must have struck Brice and Foulet for they ducked to the floor of the cockpit, pulling me with them.

"Take care!" Brice muttered, "It might blind us."

We sat huddled in that cockpit for what seemed an eternity, though it couldn't have been more than two minutes. The glare increased. It threw into sharp, uncanny relief every tiny detail of the cockpit and of our faces. The light was as powerful as a searchlight, but not so blinding. It had a rosy, diffused quality that the searchlight lacks.

IN THAT eternity of tense waiting I tried to collect my thoughts. I told myself that I must keep steady, that I must keep my mind clear. I struggled to get a grip on myself; the light, the steady flying without power, the boundless, horrible silence had shaken me. But there was more to come. I knew it. We all knew it. And it was not physical strength that would pull us through— it was wits. We must hold steady. Thank God we all had years of training— war experience, peace experience, countless life-and-death adventures— behind us. It would all count now. It would all help us to keep out brains clear and cool. Wits, I thought again, only our wits would stand between us and— what?

The ground wheels of the plane struck something solid; rolled; stopped! The light snapped off. The sudden blackness, falling like a blanket of thick fur, choked me. In that first dazed, gasping instant I was conscious of only one thing. The plane was no longer in motion. But we had not dropped; of that I was sure. We were still, as we had been, close to two thousand feet above the earth!

Then came the sound of running feet and a confused blur of voices. The door of the cockpit was thrown open. A man leaned in, his hand on the jamb.

"Inspector Brice," he said quietly. "Monsieur Foulet. Lieutenant Ainslee. We are glad to welcome you." His words were courteous, but something in his tone sent a tingling chill down my spine. It was cold, as soulless as the clink of metal. It was dull, without life or inflection. But there was something else— something I could not name.

I was nearest the door and scrambled out first. To my surprise it was not dark. We were enveloped by a radiance, rosy as the broad ray had been, but fainter, like the afterglow of a sunset. By this light I could make out, vaguely, our surroundings. We seemed to be on a plateau; a great flat space probably an acre in extent, surrounded by a six-foot wall. Behind us there was a wide gateway through which our airplane had just come and across which workmen were dropping bars made of some material like cement. Before us, dotting this acre or so of plateau, were small, domed structures made of the same cement-like material. In the center of the plateau rose a larger domed building with a segment of its roof open to the stars and through this opening I could see the shadowy suggestion of a great lamp. There was the source of that powerful magnetic ray!

Foulet and Brice scrambled out and stood beside me. They said never a word, but I knew that every sense was alert.

"If you will follow me," that same cold, expressionless voice murmured. I turned to look at the man. He was not bad looking, clean shaven, well tailored. He swung his eyes to meet my gaze and as he did so that same chill fled along my spine. His eyes— what was the matter with them? They were dark— brown or black— and as shiny as shoe buttons. But there was no gleam of expression in them. Their shine was the glitter of polished glass.

Without a word we followed him across the small cleared space where our airplane stood, past a row of the small, domed structures to a low door cut in the white wall of the great central building. At the doorway he turned.

"I am taking you to the Master," he said; then, over his shoulder he added. "There is no means of escape— we are two thousand feet above the earth!" And he laughed— a quick, short cackle of crazy laughter. I felt the breath catch in my throat and the short hairs prickle at my neck. Foulet gripped my arm. Through my coat I could feel the chill of his fingers, but his grasp steadied me.

We walked on, following our guide. Down a narrow passageway, through a low arched door into a small room, evidently an ante-chamber to a larger room beyond. Without a word our guide left us, passing through another door which he closed after him.

Brice and Foulet and I exchanged looks, but we were silent. It might be we were watched. It might be that the very walls had ears. We could trust nothing.

Our guide returned. "The Master," he said and flung open a wide door.

We found ourselves in a large room filled with paraphernalia of all sorts: wires, lights, laboratory tables cluttered with test tubes and apparatus— and in the midst of this ordered chaos stood a man, his gleaming eyes watching us fixedly.

At first I was conscious of nothing but his eyes. Large, coal black and shiny with that peculiar, expressionless gloss I had noted in the eyes of our guide. Later I realized that he was of slight build, meticulously neat, with a tiny black waxed mustache and a carefully trimmed Van Dyke beard.

"Welcome to my floating island," he said gravely, never swerving those shiny eyes for an instant. "We have hoped long for your coming." He paused, noiselessly rubbing his hands, and watching us. We stared back, fascinated by that glossy, fixed gaze. "There is much to tell you," he went on, "and to ask you." He permitted himself a slow smile that spread his lips but failed to reach his eyes. "During your stay here," he continued, "which I hope will be both long and profitable, you will become my slaves and will know me as Master. But before you come under my domination you may know my name."

For the first time he moved his eyes. His glance swept the room as if to assure himself we were alone. He stepped, as swiftly and softly as a cat, over to the door through which we had entered, opened it, spoke to our guide who was waiting in the ante-room, closed it and returned. He faced us, his lips smiling and his eyes as blank as polished agate.

"My name," he said softly, "is Algernon— Frederick— Fraser!" He paused and watched us. Behind me I felt Foulet start; I heard Brice's quickly suppressed gasp. My own throat closed on words that might have been fatal. Algernon Frederick Fraser! Was it possible? Could it be?

Five years before Fraser had suddenly burst on the world of science. He had made some amazing discoveries regarding the power of light; discoveries that would reorganize the living conditions of the world. For a week or two the papers were filled with the man's amazing genius; then no more was heard of him. Had he died? What was the story?

TWO YEARS passed and even the name of Fraser was forgotten. Then suddenly it burst forth again in the headlines of the world. Fraser had disappeared! Fraser had vanished! But not as a brilliant genius of science; he had gone as an escaped lunatic! After his amazing burst of fame his mind snapped. Somehow the story had been kept out of the press.

Fraser was incarcerated in a quiet, very private asylum, and that was all. All— until he escaped. When that happened the story couldn't be hushed any longer. The press was informed, the people were warned. He became known as the Mad Menace. The police and secret service organizations of the world searched for him. His name became a byword. Where had he gone? What would he do? What was his scheme? For he was still the astounding scientific genius. That portion of his mind was untouched. At the time of his escape the physicians in charge of the case assured the press that Fraser's scientific mind was every bit as sound as ever.

And that was all. Aside from his god Science he was a maniac— inhuman, cruel, unreasoning. What would such a man do loosed in the world? What might he not do? Was it possible that it was this man who stood before us now with his eyes fastened upon us so intently and his lips spread in that little, empty smile? Suddenly I knew! Those eyes! Those eyes were the shiny, vacuous, soulless eyes of a madman!

"I see," he said softly, "that you have heard of me. But it is three years since your world has seen me— yes?" He laughed— a low laugh that seemed to freeze the air around him. "They call me mad." His smile faded, his eyes bored through us like steel needles. "I am not mad! No madman could do what I have done in three years!" For the first time an expression flickered in his eyes— a crafty gleam of vanity that flared instantaneously. "Would you like to see?" He leaned toward us. We bowed, but it was Brice who spoke.

"Very much, Doctor Fraser—"

"Don't call me that!" The man whirled like a tiger ready to spring. "Don't call me that! I am Master here! Call me Master! Say it." His voice rose to a shriek. "Say it— Master!"

I clamped my teeth against the bloodless horror of that maniacal voice. It chilled my veins. Again I felt the hair rise on my scalp. Brice bowed quietly; and his eyes, serene and blue, met Fraser's fairly.

"Of course, Master." His low English voice soothed the bristling silence. "I am sure I speak for Monsieur Foulet and Lieutenant Ainslee when I say that we would be most deeply interested in your achievements."

Fraser was placated. He relaxed. He softly rubbed his hands while a smug, crafty smile flitted across his lips. "You will follow me," he murmured.

He led the way back through the ante-room and down the passageway till we stood again under the stars, and again I was struck by the strange light, warm and faint and rosy like a sunset afterglow. As if he read my thought Fraser turned to me.

"I will show you first the source of this rosy light; that, I believe, will explain a great deal." He led the way down one of the narrow pathways between the low, domed houses— if they could be called houses, for they were little larger than kennels. At the six-foot wall that surrounded this plateau he paused. "Would you like to look over the wall?" he asked.

For the space of a breath we hesitated. Was this a trap? Through my mind flashed the words of the man who had guided us to Fraser. "You are two thousand feet above the earth," he had said. Was that true? And if it were, might not Fraser push us over the wall? But instantly logic came to my rescue. Fraser had brought us here, and he could have brought us for but one thing: to question us. Would he be apt to do us harm before those questions were asked? And besides, would Fraser's brilliantly subtle mind stoop so low as to destroy enemies by pushing them over a wall?

"Thank you," we murmured simultaneously. "This whole achievement is of tremendous interest to us," Foulet added.

Fraser chuckled. "It will be of greater interest— later," he said, and his blank, glittering eyes rested on first one of us, then another with a cold, satisfied gleam. Then he lifted his hand and opened a square door in the wall about the size of a port-hole. To my surprise the little door swung back as lightly as a feather and made scarcely a sound as it slammed against the wall itself. Again Fraser answered my unspoken thought.

"It has only substance," he said with his vain smirk. "No weight whatever. This entire platform together with its huts is lighter than air. If I should tear loose this little door it would float out of my hands instantly and go straight up to the stars. The substance— I have called it Fleotite— is not only lighter than air but lighter than ether."

"But we are not floating," said Brice; "we are stationary. Is the lightness of your Fleotite counteracted by the weight of the men and machines?"

Fraser shook his head. "Not entirely," he said. "But first look through this little window. Then I will explain."

Eagerly we pressed forward. Our danger was almost forgotten in our interest. This was amazing— stupendous! Together, shoulder to shoulder, we gazed through the aperture. We were suspended in space! Above us shone the blue-black Arabian night, and beneath us— far, far beneath— lay the sands of the desert looking rosy and warm in that same dull red glare of light that, to a fainter degree, gave us the effect of afterglow. But we were not floating; we were anchored as securely as a ship riding in a calm harbor.

We turned back to Fraser, amazed, awed, bursting with questions. Madman he might be, but he had wrought a miracle.

"I will explain," he said and his eyes gleamed with pride. "Of course you know of my tremendous discoveries connected with the power of light. At any rate, five years ago, the scientific world on earth thought they were tremendous. In reality that was nothing to my amazing strides in the past three years. There is nothing that cannot be done with light! Nothing!" For the first time Fraser's eyes became alive. They were illumined. His whole body seemed to radiate light and fire and genius. We listened, fascinated.

"Take, for instance," he continued eagerly, "that ray with which I drew you and your plane to me. That ray is the pure power of magnetism. At full strength it will draw anything to it instantly. Fortunately the power can be regulated: I can switch a lever in my laboratory and draw things to me, via the ray, at any speed I wish— one hundred, two hundred, a thousand miles an hour."

"How far can you throw the ray?" asked Foulet, and I knew he was thinking of that glider that rose from the roof-tops of Constantinople. Fraser also knew he was thinking of that.

"I did not draw the glider," he said quietly. "The airplane I sent did that. My airplanes carry batteries of this ray. In the beginning I found gliders to be more practical for my purposes than airplanes. For one thing they were silent. My only problem was that of getting them off the ground. Once they were in the air I could manage everything. It was this problem that inspired this discovery and perfection of the ray. But, you asked how far I can throw the ray? This main lamp, that I operate myself from here, is effective at two hundred miles. At one hundred miles it enjoys its full power."

"And you can draw anything to you," asked Brice, "within the radius of the magnetic ray?"

"Anything in the air," answered Fraser. "But of course I must use caution. Great caution. If I drew planes to me indiscriminately I would draw attention to myself; my secret and my location here would leak out. No. That must not be. So the only planes I bring are my own— and yours." He paused and his black eyes, again glassy, swept over us. "It is a compliment I pay you," he said finally. "You have become too troublesome. You know too much. Sooner or later the time would come when you would combine your forces. That would be a nuisance. So I decided to bring you here."

"Suppose," asked Foulet curiously, "we hadn't fallen into your trap? Suppose we had turned back before reaching the point where your ray is effective?"

Fraser shook his head and that smug, offensive smile appeared again. "You were trapped from the beginning, though you didn't know it," he said. "The plane you were following was equipped with batteries of the ray which, while not as powerful as the lamp I have here, were still powerful enough to hold you to the course we choose you to run. But enough of the ray," he added impatiently. "There are one or two other things I want to explain and then—" he paused and the pause, somehow, was alive with menace. What was he going to do after he had finished treating us as honored guests? For the third time he answered my unspoken question. His eyes narrowed till they were black, glittering slits. His voice, as he leaned toward us, was no more than a hissing whisper.

"Slaves!" he said, and his lips twisted. "How will you like to be slaves of Mad Algy Fraser?" He laughed— a chuckle that started in his throat and rose and rose till it seemed to shatter my ear-drums. I felt my teeth grinding together and my nails bit my palms in my effort to control my nerves against the strain of that maniacal glee. Suddenly he sobered. His laugh died instantly like a radio that had been snapped off. "Listen and I will tell you. I will tell you everything because it is necessary for you to know so that you may work for me intelligently and you will remember better and be of greater use to me if I tell you now while you are yet— sane!"

"Sane!" The exclamation sprang from the three of us simultaneously. I felt a cold chill start between my shoulder blades. For an instant my breath choked in my throat. My heart paused— and then raced. What did he mean? What was he going to do to us? What scheme had he evolved in his crazed brain?

"I have perfected a serum"— his tone was professional, cold; he might have been talking to a class in a lecture room—"a serum that robs the patient of every vestige of human emotion— and therefore sanity. All his intellect, his memories, however, remain, to serve him in carrying out my orders. He loses all his will to live and resist, and becomes nothing but an automaton, whose complete mental equipment is at my command."

There was silence. His glassy black eyes, blank and soulless, swept over us. His mouth curled in that smug, complacent smile. He had us with our shoulders to the floor. He knew it— and he knew we knew it. There was no possible way we could escape. We were two thousand feet above the earth. Our plane wouldn't get a quarter of a mile before the magnetic ray would bring it back. Parachute? Even supposing we could get parachutes where would we go? Drop two thousand feet into the middle of the Arabian Desert?

My brain raced. Never before had I been in such a tight place. And soon— if Fraser had his way— I wouldn't even have a mind to think with! I felt choked, stifled. Was there no way out? It seemed to me that a blanket— a soft, terrible blanket of uncontrollable circumstance— was being folded around me, robbing me of the use of my limbs, paralyzing me, numbing me. And out of this terrible helplessness came again Fraser's voice.

"I have told you enough," he said suavely, "so that you may have a faint idea of my power. I will send you now to Doctor Semple who will administer the serum and place you under the 'nourishment ray.' This is another of my discoveries," he added casually. "It is a ray which allows the patient to absorb, through the shell of the skin, sufficient nourishment, both solid and liquid, to last for twenty-four hours."

FIVE MINUTES later we stood in a small room that might have been the office of an up-to-date physician anywhere in the world. Across the polished top of a mahogany desk Dr. Semple stared at us, his eyes, like the eyes of our guide and Fraser, polished and expressionless. But now we understood. Those eyes were expressionless because there was nothing to give them expression. I tried to force my mind to comprehend the almost incomprehensible. We were among men who were not men! We were fast in the power of human beings who possessed no trace of humanity, who had become nothing but scientific Robots even though they still had bodies of flesh and blood! It was unbelievable! My hands grew cold and my brain hot at the thought. Yet, gazing into the bright, enamelled eyes of Dr. Semple, I knew it was true.

Carefully, scientifically, we were prepared for our injections. And with every mechanical move of the doctor my mind seemed to take on fresh speed as it raced toward some solution to our terrible problem. My eyes flew around the tiny office searching for some means of escape. Doctor Semple turned to prepare the syringe. Behind his back Brice gestured frantically. Somehow I understood. In my pocket was a flask— a flask I had filled with drinking water in Constantinople. Bewildered, I handed it over to him.

The doctor turned, swabbed a patch of iodine on our arms, reached for the syringe. As he leaned over, Foulet thrust forward a foot. The doctor tripped, sprawled full length on the floor. Foulet and I quickly stooped to pick him up, standing between him and Brice— shielding his eyes so that he could not see. We fumbled to give Brice time. We apologized and soothed. Out of the tail of my eye I could see Brice working like lightning— emptying out the syringe of that villainous liquid, filling it with clear water.

IT WAS DONE! We raised the doctor to his feet; gave his clothes a final brush. But as we stood back I know my hands were trembling and I had to clamp my teeth to keep them from chattering. Were we out of danger yet? Would the doctor discover our ruse? And, if we got out of his office without receiving the terrible injection, could we successfully fool Fraser and his "slaves" into believing we were mad? Fool them until we got a chance to escape? Could we simulate that glassy stare? Were we sufficiently good actors to get away with it? The questions pounded and raced through my brain in that instant when Doctor Semple turned again to his desk and picked up the syringe.

But the miracle happened! Mechanically he gave us the injection— never suspecting that it was not the devilish liquid he had put in, but only clear water! Then he stepped back and watched us. Cold chills raced up and down my spine. What were we supposed to do now? What was the action of the serum? Did it act at once or slowly? Was it supposed to make us sick? Did it send us to sleep? How could we simulate symptoms when we had no idea what these symptoms were supposed to be? But the cold voice of the doctor cut sharply across my agonized questions.

"You will lie down here," he said, opening a door into a room whose trails were lined with bunks, like an opium den. "In half an hour I will come for you. By that time—" His lips spread in that same travesty of a smile Fraser had employed.

We filed into the room and the door closed behind us. Obediently we lay down on the narrow bunks. We dared not speak. We scarcely dared glance at each other. We must act, at all times, as if we were observed. Might not Fraser have a ray that could penetrate walls? Might he not, even now, know that we had outwitted the doctor and had not received the fatal injection? And what then? Suppose Fraser himself superintended another injection? I pulled my thoughts back from the terrible supposition. One thing at a time. So far all had gone well. I lay down on the bunk and closed my eyes.

Half an hour later we heard the door open. Now, I, thought, when I look up, I am supposed to be mad! I struggled to make my mind a blank. I tried to force into my eyes that peculiar, brilliant, shiny, vacant expression I had noticed. Would I succeed?

I raised my eyes. The doctor was standing before us. With a gesture he bade Foulet go to him. I watched beneath lowered lids. Thank God he had called Foulet first. Foulet had dabbled in the psychology of insanity. Foulet would know how to act, and I would ape him. Coldly, mechanically Doctor Semple ran him through a few tests. I watched with bated breath. The doctor nodded. Foulet had passed!

It was my turn. I did exactly as Foulet had done— and succeeded! I had to turn away swiftly so that the doctor wouldn't see the gleam of triumph in my supposedly mad eyes.

He motioned to Brice. But just as Brice stepped forward the door opened and Fraser came into the room. For an instant everything reeled. We were gone! But even in that terrible instant of despair I remembered to keep my eyes blank. No trace of expression must appear or we were lost. I stretched my lips in that travesty of a smile I had seen the others use. Fraser stared at us, one after the other. He nodded.

"It is well," he said slowly and distinctly as if he were talking to small children. "Your names will still be as they were." We stared at him blankly and again he nodded. "You have forgotten your names— ah! Yours," he pointed to me, "was Ainslee, and it still is. And you are Monsieur Foulet. But Brice—" he paused. My heart hung in my breast, suspended there with terror. What was the matter with Brice? What did Fraser suspect— or know? He turned to the doctor. "You will give Inspector Brice another injection," he said. "The Inspector has a strong mind, and a clever one. A normal injection would not be enough."

It seemed to me that my blood froze. In that terrible instant it ran, like tingling ice, through my veins. Brice! The brainiest man in Scotland Yard! For Fraser was right. Brice had more brains than Foulet and I together. And in another half hour Brice would be no better than an idiot! For I didn't fool myself. Even Brice couldn't outwit Doctor Semple twice.

"You will follow me," said Fraser, turning to Foulet and me. "I will put you under the nourishment ray while Doctor Semple attends to Brice." Obediently, with slightly shuffling, gait and vacant eyes we followed him into an adjoining room, leaving Brice behind. I didn't even trust myself to glance at him as we left. But my heart was in my boots. When would we see him again? And what would he be?

The room we entered was dark, but instantly Fraser switched on a mellow, orange-colored light, that flooded the room with a deep, warm glow.

"Strip yourselves and sit down," he said, pointing to deep lounging chairs that filled the room. "You will do nothing. Relax and allow the light to bathe you. In half an hour I will come back with instructions."

We obeyed, I imitating blindly every vague, mechanical movement of Foulet's. We settled ourselves in the comfortable chairs and Fraser left us. He had told us to relax— but to do anything else would have been impossible. The light soothed us, eased us; gave us, somehow, a penetrating sensation of peace and complete comfort. It flowed around us, warming us, lulling us to a delicious dreamy state that was neither waking nor sleeping. It wiped out danger; it wiped out Time; nothing existed but this warm and relaxing sense of utter satisfaction and peace.

Through this mist of contentment came Fraser's voice, "That is all!" The light faded gradually, and as gradually we came to ourselves. "You will dress," directed Fraser in the same clear, clipped manner, "and you will come to me in my laboratory."

Fifteen minutes later we stood before him, vacant-eyed and solemn. Fraser fastened his black, polished eyes upon us. "You will tell me," he said distinctly, "all you know."

We were silent. How could we tell him all we knew when we were supposed to have forgotten everything? Was this a trap? Or did our inside secret service information come under the general head of Science? But before these questions had actually formed in my mind I remembered that several times Fraser had answered my questions before they were asked. Might he be a mind reader? Best to take no chances! I made my conscious mind as blank as possible and gazed back at him. At my side Foulet made a vague and uncertain noise in his throat.

"Your countries are afraid of me?" Fraser leaned forward, that smug, vain smile curling his lips. "Your countries know there is a power abroad stronger than they? They feel that between the twin horns of economic pressure and the red menace they will be tossed to destruction?

"Destruction?" repeated Foulet with all the vacant inflection of idiocy.

"Tossed?" I asked imitating Foulet. But instantly I wondered if we were taking the right tack for Fraser's eyes grew red with fury.

"Answer me!" he raged. "Tell me that your countries know that soon I shall be master of the world! Tell me they are afraid of me! Tell me that in the last three years I have slowly gained control of commerce, of gold! Tell me that they know I hold the economic systems of the world in the hollow of my hand! Tell me that not a government on earth but knows it is hanging on the brink of disaster! And I— I put it there! My agents spread the propaganda of ruin! My agents crashed your Wall Street and broke your banks! I! I! I! Mad Algy Fraser!" He stopped, gasping for breath. His face was scarlet. His eyes glowed like red coals. Suddenly he burst into a cascade of maniacal laughter, high, insane, terrible.

It took all my control to keep my eyes blank, my face devoid of expression. Out of the tail of my eye I saw Foulet smiling, a vague, idiotic smile of sympathy with Fraser's glee. But suddenly the glee died— as suddenly as if a button had snapped off the current. He leaned forward, his black eyes devouring our faces.

"They are afraid of me?" It was a whisper, sharply eager. "The world knows I am Master?"

"Master," repeated Foulet. It wasn't quite a question, yet neither was it sufficiently definite as an answer to arouse Fraser's suspicions. To my relief it satisfied him. The congested blood drained out of his face. His eyes lost their glare. He turned and for several minutes tramped up and down the laboratory lost in thought. At last he came back to us.

"I have changed my mind," he muttered. "Come with me."

Without a word we followed him, out through the door and down the passageway. Out of the building he led us. The air was stirring with the first breath of dawn and along the horizon glowed a band of pure gold where the sun would soon rise. When he had walked some thirty yards from the laboratory Fraser paused. With his toe he touched a spring in the platform. A trap door instantly yawned at our feet. I suppressed a start just in time, but through my body shot a thrill of fear. My muscles tensed. My heart raced. What now? Where could a trap door, two thousand feet above the earth lead? Was he going to shove us into space because we refused to answer his questions?

"Go down," Fraser ordered.

For the space of a breath we hesitated. To disobey meant certain and instant death at the hands of this soulless maniac. But to obey— to drop through this trap-door— also meant death. I took a step forward. Could we overpower him? But what if we did? There were others here beside Fraser. How many others I had no idea, but surely enough to make things impossible for Foulet and me. Yet we dared not even hesitate. To hesitate implied thinking— and a man robbed of his brain cannot think! There was no way out. Together Foulet and I stepped to the brink of the yawning hole....

For an instant we were almost blinded by a glare of rosy light that seemed to burst upon us from the earth so far below. Here was the source of that strange afterglow! Away beneath us, evidently on the sands of the Arabian desert, glowed four red eyes sending forth the rosy rays that converged at the center of the floating platform. Instantly I comprehended Fraser's scheme. The Fleotite he had invented, and of which the platform and buildings were made, was lighter than air. It followed, therefore, that if it were not anchored in some way it would instantly rise. So Fraser had anchored it with four of his magnetic rays! He had told us that he could regulate the pulling power of the ray, so what he had obviously done was to calculate to a nicety the lift of the Fleotite against the magnetism of the rays.

But instantaneously with this thought came another. Fraser was urging us into the glow of the magnetic ray! If once our bodies came entirely within the ray we would be yanked from the platform and dashed to death— sucked to destruction on the sands below.

In my ear I heard Fraser's fiendish chuckle. "The instinct of fear still holds, eh? My serum can destroy your conscious mind— but not your native fear? Cowards! Fools! But I am not going to push you off. Look!" With his foot he pressed another lever which, while it did not shut off any of the light, seemed to deflect the ray. "Fools!" he said again scornfully. "Go down!"

THEN it was I saw where he was sending us! Thirty feet below the platform there swung a small cabin, attached by cables and reached by a swinging steel ladder. As I looked a door in the roof slid back. "Climb down!" ordered Fraser again. There was nothing to do but obey. Accustomed as I was to flying, inured as I had become to great heights, my head reeled and my hands grew icy as I swung myself through that trap door and felt for a footing on the swinging ladder. Suppose Fraser turned the ray back on us as we climbed down? Suppose he cut the ladder? But instantly my good sense told me he would do neither. If he had meant to kill us he could have done it easier than this. No, somewhere in his mad head, he had a reason for sending us down to this swinging cabin.

Five minutes later Foulet and I stared at each other in the cramped confines of our prison. The tiny door in the roof, through which we had dropped, was closed. The steel ladder had been pulled up. We were alone. Alone? Were there no eyes that watched us still, or ears that listened to what we might say? Foulet evidently shared my sense of espionage, for, without even a glance at me, he lay down on the hard floor of our bare little cabin and, to all intents and purposes, fell asleep.

For a few minutes I stood staring at him, then followed his example. As I relaxed I realized I was tremendously weary. The cumulative exhaustion of the past thirty-six hours seemed to crowd upon me with a smothering sense of physical oppression. I looked at my watch and wound it. Five o'clock. Through the narrow slits near the roof of our swinging cell I could see the changing light of dawn, melting in with the rosy glow from the magnetic rays. My eyelids drooped heavily....

When I awoke Foulet was standing near me, his arms folded across his chest, scowling thoughtfully. He nodded as he saw my open eyes, but when I started to speak he shook his head sharply. With his gesture there flooded back to me the feeling that we were watched— even through the walls of our aerial prison and the floor of the platform above us.

I sat up and, clasping my knees with my hands, leaned against the wall. There must be a way out of this for us! All my life I had worked on the theory that if you thought hard enough there was a way out of any difficulty. But this seemed so hopeless! No matter how hard we thought the mad mind of Fraser would always be one jump ahead of us! And maybe we didn't dare even think! If Fraser were able to read minds— as I was nearly sure he was— then hadn't we better keep our minds blank even down here? But an instant's thought showed me the flaw in my logic. Fraser could, without much doubt, read minds— when those minds were close to him. If he could read minds at a distance then he wouldn't need to ask us for information.

But why had he put us here? I burrowed around for the answer. Had he guessed we had outwitted Doctor Semple and not taken the mad serum after all, and was this punishment? No, if Fraser had guessed that he would simply have given us more serum, as he had Brice. Brice! Where was poor Brice now? Was he an idiot, with blank face and shiny, soulless eyes? My mind shuddered away from the thought, taking refuge in my first question: Why were we here? What was Fraser going to do with us?

We lost all track of time. In spite of my winding it my watch stopped and the hours slipped by uncounted. Night came, and another dawn and another night. Twice our roof was lifted and our tiny swinging cell filled with the orange light of the nourishment ray. But we saw no one nor did anyone speak to us. The third day passed in the same isolated silence. Occasionally Foulet or I would utter a monosyllable; the sound of our voices was comforting and the single words would convey little to a listener.

But as the hours of the third night slowly passed the atmosphere in our tiny swinging cell grew tense. Something was going to happen. I could feel it and I knew by Foulet's eyes that he felt it too. The air was tight, electrical. Standing on tiptoe, I glued my eyes to the narrow slit which was our only ventilation. But I could see nothing. The brilliant rosy glow blinded me. I couldn't even see the huge platform floating above our heads.

Then, suddenly, our roof slid back. The magnetic ray was deflected. Above us, in the opening of the trap-door, leered the bright, mad eyes of Fraser.

"Good evening," he said mockingly. "How do you feel?" We smiled hesitantly. Something in his voice made me feel he was addressing us as sane men and not idiots. But why? Weren't we supposed to be idiots when he put us down there?

"You ought to feel all right," Fraser went on critically. "The first dose of that serum lasts only three days. It's cumulative," he added with his professional air. "In the beginning an injection every three days. Then once a week and so on. There's a man who has been with me for three years who needs treatment only once every three months. Well, are you ready to talk?"

So that was it! He had put us down here till the supposed effects of that serum had worn off; and now we were to talk; tell him everything his agents had been risking their lives to find out! We were to sell out our countries to him; betray all the secrets we had sworn by eternity to keep! If we did as he demanded both France and the United States would be at his mercy— and he had no mercy! He was not a man; he was a cruel, power-loving, scientific machine. I clamped my teeth. Never would I talk! I had sworn to protect my country's secrets with my life— and my vow would be kept!

"You will talk?" Fraser asked again, his voice suddenly suave and beseeching. "For those who talk there are— rewards."

"Let down the ladder," said Foulet, in a quiet, conversational tone. "It will be easier to discuss this—"

Fraser's eyes narrowed to gleaming slits. He smiled craftily. "The ladder will be let down— when you talk."

"And if," suggested Foulet, "we don't wish to talk?"

Fraser's lips stretched in a wider grin. His white teeth gleamed. His shiny black eyes glittered. In that warm, rosy light he looked like a demon from hell. He held out his hand. In it shone a long, slender instrument.

"This knife," he said softly, "Will cut the steel cables that connect you to this platform— as if they were cheese! You will talk?" Beside me I heard Foulet gasp. Swiftly my imagination conjured up the picture of our fate. Our determined refusal to divulge the secrets of our respective countries; the severing, one by one, of the four cables holding us to the platform; the listing of our swinging cell; the tipping, the last, terrible plunge two thousand feet. But it would be swift. The power of the magnetic ray would give us no time to think— to suffer. It would be a merciful end....

"Let us up," bargained Foulet. "We will talk." Fraser laughed.

"None of that," he said slyly. "You talk from there and if your information doesn't dove-tail with what I already know—" he flourished the steel knife suggestively.

We were caught! No amount of bluff would save us now. Fraser demanded that truth, facts, actual information— and he wouldn't be fooled by anything spurious. Foulet's shoulder touched mine as we peered up through the roof of our cell at our mad captor. We spoke together:

"There is nothing to say."

The assured smile left Fraser's lips. His eyes glittered red. His whole mad face was contorted with fury. A volley of oaths poured through his twisted mouth. With a gesture of insane rage he pulled the nearest cable to him and slashed it with the knife!

Our cell tilted. Foulet and I were thrown in a heap on the floor. We sprang up to face Fraser again through the roof. His mad eyes glared down at us, soul-chilling, maniacal.

"Talk!" he snarled. "Talk— or I'll slice another!" He drew the second cable to him, holding it in readiness.

I clenched my teeth. Beside me I could see the muscles of Foulet's jaw working. Talk? Never!

"Talk!" screamed Fraser. "Talk!" Our silence and our white faces were his only answer. There was a gleam of the knife in the rosy light. Our cell lurched, quivered, then caught. Would it hold with only two cables? It was hanging on its side. We were standing on what had been the wall. Through the opening in the roof we could see nothing but rosy light and distant stars. How strong were the cables? Could they hold against the pull of the magnetic ray? We could feel the pull now; feel the strain on the cables above us. If Fraser cut the third one—

"Talk!" his voice came, hoarse with fury. "Talk now! You can't see me," he went on; "but I'm pulling the third cable toward me. I'm raising the knife. Will you talk?"

Standing on that quaking wall Foulet and I stared at each other. How long would it be? One second? Half a minute? Thank God it would be quick! This was the worst now. This eternity of waiting.... "I'm cutting it!" yelled Fraser— and with his words the cell lurched, swung, whirled like a spinning top. Foulet and I were tossed around like dried peas in a pod.

Suddenly the thing steadied. Two steel hooks were clamped on the edge of the opening in what had been the roof, and Brice stared at us through the aperture!

"Quick!" he gasped. "There's not a second to lose. Don't stare! Quick, I say. I've got the ladder here. It's steel and it'll hold. Climb up."

Dumbly we obeyed. Our heads were whirling, our bodies bruised and mashed by the shaking up. Blindly, dizzily we climbed up the ladder, scrambled out on the platform. Solid footing again! As Brice loosed the ladder and pulled it up, there was a snap. The last cable had gone! The cell shot down to earth with a speed that must have reduced it to a powder. Foulet and I stared after it, dazed, unbelieving. Brice's whisper hissed in our ears.

"Listen carefully," he gripped our shoulders. "I'm not mad. They shot the stuff into me, but I found an antidote in Semple's office and used it right away. Now listen to me! Our plane is over there," he pointed across the platform. "It's all ready to take off. They think they're sending me off on an errand for them at dawn. It's ready for a long trip. Go there; get in; and if any one questions you tell them it's orders. They won't, though. No one gives orders here but Fraser." Brice nodded toward a dark heap beside the trap-door.

"You killed him?" asked Foulet.

"Stunned him," said Brice. "He may come to at any moment and if he does—"

"Suppose we bind him and take him in the plane?" I suggested.

Brice shook his head. "Leave him here. It's safer. Now go. Get in the plane and take off—"

"And not wait for you?" I gasped, "You're crazy—"

"I'll be there. You can pick me up later. There's no time to explain— but you'll know. Take off; then circle around and come back. But watch out!" He gave us both a shove toward the plane, the dim shadow of which we could see across the platform.

We took a step toward it, and then turned back. How could we go without Brice? But he had vanished. And in the shadow of the trap door Fraser groaned.

We waited no longer. To hesitate was to court death. Deliberately, as if we were acting under orders, we walked toward the plane. As Brice had said, it was in readiness. Evidently he was to have started at once. We climbed in, our hearts in our throats. A mechanic stepped forward. The propeller roared. But, above the roar of the propeller we heard a yell of fury— and Fraser, dazed and reeling, came stumbling across the platform toward us!

Foulet took the controls. The plane taxied across the platform, swooped into space. But it was not till it had risen and steadied that I realized the complete idiocy of our forlorn hope of escape. What fools we were! And Brice— Brice must, in truth, be mad! How could we get away? How could we ever escape the terrific power of the magnetic ray? That ray that Fraser worked himself from his laboratory— the ray that had drawn us first across the desert to this floating island of madness! It would be a matter of seconds before Fraser would reach it and turn it on us. There was no escape— none!

In despair I looked back at the platform. To eyes ignorant of its horror it would have been an amazing and gorgeous sight. The crimson lamps of the magnetic ray bloomed like huge desert flowers on the sand two thousand feet below us; the rays flamed up with the glory of an Italian sunset and, poised in space like a dark butterfly, floated the huge platform bathed in its rosy light. It was beautiful. It was unbelievable. It was horrible. I gazed, fascinated. When would Fraser reach the lamp? When would he turn it on? I stared at the dark shadow that I knew was the laboratory building. My eyes strained through the growing distance. When would the glow come? That glow that meant our death!

Suddenly I gasped. The light had gone! The great lamps down on the desert floor were out! Darkness, swift, comforting, wrapped us in velvet folds.

"Brice!" I yelled. "Brice has cut off the lamps— he's released the platform. God! Look— Foulet!" My voice tore through my throat; my eyes burned with sudden, blinding emotion. In the soft darkness of the starry night I could see the platform waver, topple, rise! It rose straight up, tilting and swaying in the light breeze. What was it Fraser had said? If it was released it would go straight to the stars! It was on its way!

But Brice! Where was Brice? Was he on that terrible rising island? I strained my eyes through the darkness. Already Foulet had banked the plane— we were circling; turning back. A tiny white speck took shape beneath the rising island. A parachute! Brice was safe!

TEN MINUTES later we slid along the hard desert sand and came to a stop. Brice came running over toward us. Foulet and I climbed out of the plane to meet him. Silently we gripped hands. It was a solemn moment. Beside us reared the great plane that would take us back to safety— back to the familiar life we knew and loved. Around us stretched the trackless wastes of the Great Arabian Desert— and above, somewhere between us and the stars, soared the floating island of madness.

"They believed I was mad," said Brice as we climbed back into the plane. "I watched Fraser. I spied on the men. There were about thirty up there, and finally I saw where they regulated those lamps. The rest was easy— all except the minute when I found Fraser kneeling beside that trap-door slicing the cables. For a second I thought it was all up."

"You got us just in time," I muttered. But you can't be grateful with an Englishman. They won't stand for it.

"Oh, bosh," Brice murmured, as the plane swung its nose toward that far distance that was home. "Well, it's all over— but it's a story that can never be told. The fate of Mad Fraser will have to remain a mystery— for no one would believe us if we told them!"

___________________

16: Ship of the Golden Ghoul

Lazar Levi

fl 1939-41

Mystery Novels and Short Stories, Sep 1939

BLOOD-DRENCHED twilight crept stealthily over the wind-rippled waters. Bleak islands lifted skeleton ribs to hide the ocean from the bay. Craggy cliffs, darkling at the base and peaked with gore, hemmed in a foaming welter of surf. A narrow channel led through toothed rocks to the doubtful shelter of the cove.

The small boat with its single mast drove furiously through the incarnadined sea. The white sail fluttered like a wounded bird.

The helmsman swung his tiller with a practiced hand. His keen tanned face was strained and anxious; his eyes were all for the tortuous stretch of still water ahead. On either side lay death. He dared not look behind.

But the girl, crouching aft, peered fearfully back at the islands they had just rounded. Her oval face, enshrined in windswept, blue-black hair, was drained of blood, her eyes were wide and staring, her curved red lips parted. The spray roared over the boat, drenched her slacks and close-fitting jersey. The wool clung to her young form, and lifted into prominence the tumultuous heaving of her firm breasts.

"There it is again," she screamed suddenly. "What?" Bruce Howell flung into the wind.

"The schooner!" Julia Hunt forced through clenched lips.

"You've got a bad case of jitters, Julia," Howell said with an attempt at lightness. "After all, that boat has as much right on the seas and in this bay as we have. Ten to one it's a yachting party."

But his face, carefully averted from the girl, belied his words. He swung heavily on the helm to catch the last ounce of wind. The craft heeled, righted itself, and went on with a rush.

"Hurry! Hurry!" Julia moaned. "It's been chasing us for half an hour. If it catches us! A ghost ship with a dead man for a pilot!"

Bruce set his teeth. He, too, had caught that dread glimpse when the strange schooner seemingly materialized out of thin air to bar their path to the outer sea.

Only skillful handling avoided imminent collision. Howell shouted angrily as the gaunt hull slid noiselessly by, a boat's length away. The words gurgled in his throat, died suddenly.

For the two-master, every sail set and bellying in the wind, was deserted. Not a man leaned over the rail at his shouted objurgations. Not a man? Had the ship been entirely deserted, Julia would not have screamed and cowered; he lost momentary control of his boat.

For, standing stiffly at the wheel, grasping the spokes with rigid fingers, staring straight ahead with hideous eyeless glare, was a corpse.

The clothes that covered his bony frame were dripping and slimy with mold, as though they had rotted in the depths of Davy Jones' Locker. Lank, straight hair plastered close against the shapeless face of one who had been drowned a long time. The flesh was ripped away from the gaunt stark arms.

A dead man steering a dead ship!

The sinister ship swerved, swung in a foaming circle as no sailship manned by human hands had ever been able to do, and bore down swiftly on them again.

The dead man at the wheel leered hideously ahead as he missed, this time by inches.

Then began a nightmare chase through narrow rock-filled channels, around one island and behind another, a game with death. Only Howell's superb seamanship had kept them thus far ahead. It was a gruesome ending to the pleasure sail they had joyfully planned.

Now they were in open water again, the shore ominously in front, barred by foaming reefs, and the schooner driving headlong behind.

On it came, every sail set; black, funereal, sinister, cleaving the water with silken deadliness. The corpse pilot grinned at them with eyeless sockets, his shapeless features bloody in the last darts of the sun.

"It's gaining on us," Julia moaned.

Bruce raced for the safety of the channel. The surf caught and lifted them high. It dropped them struggling into a trough.

Julia shrieked. Half a length away, driving down on them with the blackness of doom, was the ghostly schooner. The corpse grinned with shapeless laughter. Bruce saw death approaching with express speed, flung the boat wallowing to one side.

It was too late!

Crash! C-r-r-ash! A ripping, rending sound. Bruce felt a violent blow on his leg, and went down into an angry welter of waters, down until his lungs were bursting with pressure.

With a violent effort he heaved against the sucking whirlpool, shot gasping to the surface.

White caps, snarling and foaming at his first escape, lapped at him. He fought them off, breasted a billow.

"Julia!" he called, pounding anguish in his veins. Where was she? What had happened to her? The welter of foam, the slash of tumbling waters, brought back no encouraging cry. The dark was heavy on surf and rocks. No sign of their boat, no sign of anything. He swam desperately in circles, calling, seeking.

Suddenly there was an answer. High above the roar of the surf it came. Laughter, full-throated, mocking, fled over the waters. Laughter from a woman's throat, melodious with strange overtones, yet sinister, horrible.

A wave slapped Bruce around, raised him high, facing the ocean. Then it dropped him into wallowing fury. In that instant he had seen.

Far to the northwest, driving for the islands, was the schooner. Its black hull and blacker sails were silhouetted against the last agonies of the expiring sun. Red dripping gore filtered through gossamer canvas, framed the ghost ship in a bloody frame. The corpse pilot was hidden by cabin and masts.

But in the stern, arms outstretched, stood a woman!

The last shafts of frame bathed her curving, voluptuous figure, penetrated the single thin black garment that made little pretense of covering her.

Her face was beautiful and white, the drained white of snow and paper and death's grim mask. Her long, free hair was yellow with the yellow of molten furnaces, and lit with glinting red. Her rounded arms were bare, and the lines of her body, white, yet glowing behind the filmy covering, made sensuous, provocative allure.

It was from her lips that the siren, mocking laughter came.

A vision— of hell, or of heaven, Bruce did not know which. Dark came with a rush, the stars pricked out, and it was night! The schooner was swallowed up in blackness.

Bruce shook his head to clear his bewildered brain, struck out again, crying: "Julia! Julia!" Despair clutched at him.

A huge wave reared high, swarmed at him. It caught him, struggling, gasping, smashed him over pointed rocks and foaming reefs, further, further, until, crash! thought and feeling went out with a rush. The last thing he heard, or thought he heard, was a voice faintly calling for help.

BRUCE groaned, and put his hand to his head. It came away sticky; there was a lump on his temple that dripped. The universe seemed to revolve in ceaseless gyrations about him, but gradually it slowed. He looked around.

Frowning cliffs made blacker masses against the night; glimmering white marked the line of beating surf. He was lying on a beach. Anguish tore at him. Julia was dead, drowned. That solitary fact beclouded the vision he had seen, the ghastly vessel with its ghastlier crew.

Faint weeping came to him, drifting through the night. He sprang to his feet, hurts, pains, disregarded. "Julia!" he shouted frantically.

"Bruce!" The sobbing ceased, unbelieving joy in the exclamation. "Where are you?"

He ran stumbling over shifting pebbles to the dim white figure. He caught the girl in his arms. Her supple form, drenched, molded by jersey and slacks, lay limp for a moment, then she gently disengaged herself.

"I thought you were dead!" he said.

"And I was sure I'd never see you again," she answered. "I was flung into the quiet channel, and it was easy to swim to shore." She clung to him again. "What was that horrible ship that ran us down, and that dead man at the wheel?"

Howell stroked her dripping hair, laughed uneasily. "I suppose we've seen the Flying Dutchman," he tried to jest, "and we're the first mortals to get away alive."

He said nothing of that final vision of the siren woman.

Julia looked around. "Where are we? How shall we get back?"

"I don't know," he confessed. "There may not be a village within twenty miles."

"And our boat?"

"Sunk— without a trace."

She stood close. "I'm afraid of this place," she shuddered. "I feel as if we're being watched."

"Nonsense!" he said with forced lightness. "There isn't a living person within miles." But he, too, had felt the impact of invisible eyes. A strange dread swept over him. Something was terribly wrong with this beach.

Julia let out a startled cry. "Did you hear that?"

Bruce whirled. "What?" he demanded.

"A slithering of pebbles, as if someone were creeping stealthily. Oh, Bruce, I'm so afraid!"

"It's nothing," he said, and knew that he lied.

FOR NOW, unmistakably, came the soft slow grind of stone against stone. Someone was moving out there.

He tensed, cursing the fact that he had no gun. Nothing could be seen. There it was again, that grinding noise— nearer.

Bruce catapulted through the darkness, arms outspread. A flailing left arm contacted solid form, whirled his own body around. He smacked into the ground, right hand swinging.

A startled cry, a savage oath, and he was grappling furiously with a man. A blow thudded in his face. He lashed out with his fist. It crunched solidly into bone. A grunt of pain was the response. A hand broke free, slashed along his side. Fire seared his flesh. The hand held a knife. Bruce clutched blindly, caught the wrist, and twisted. There was a clatter of steel on stone and a curse.

"Okay, brother," Bruce said coldly. "Who the devil are you?"

A scream blasted the night, a scream of terror. It was Julia's voice, choked off into horrible silence.

Howell flung his captive from him, sprinted toward the sound. Someone was running ahead, padding with sure feet over the loose terrain.

"Halt, or I'll shoot!" Bruce shouted. The moon tore the obscuring clouds to shreds, flung its wan light down on the beach. A dim figure, bowed over, humped gigantically in wavering white mist, fled before him. It dropped its hump with a dull thud to the ground, and melted into deep-pooled shadows.

BRUCE checked his fierce pounding. He could never catch the fugitive now. That shapeless bundle, flung from shoulders to the beach, lying limp, immovable, brought him to a stop. He dropped to his knees, caught a white, wan hand. "Julia, are you hurt?"

The girl opened her eyes, terror-filled. There were bruises on her throat, where fingers had choked off screams; one white shoulder gleamed through a rent in the jersey.

"He— he's gone?" she whispered.

"Yes." Bruce nodded.

"He came on me— suddenly. He almost strangled me; his grip was like steel."

Bruce helped her to her feet. Her slim form shivered, and her naked shoulder pierced the semi-darkness disturbingly.

"You're all right, now," he assured her. "But— but what does it all mean?"

"That's what I'm going to find out," he said grimly. His mouth was a hard line. He retraced his steps, looking for the man he had knocked out.

The man was gone!

Bruce circled around. There was no trace of the prowler. He had melted into nothingness just as Julia's assailant had done. Even the knife had disappeared.

The cliffs vaulted them on three sides, beetling, terrifying. The fog was thicker on the sea; only the surge of the breakers could be heard. But something like a blob against the precipice, one hundred yards back from the beach, caught his eye.

"That looks like a house," he said. "We're going there, Julia."

The girl shrank back. "Who could live in a spot like this?" she whispered fearfully. "It might be—"

"It might be anything," Bruce said with a certain tightness.

Together they stumbled over rocks and sank into wet sands. The mist swirled and played tricks on their eyes. At last, the house loomed solidly before them.

In the wan, fog-distorted light it looked gigantic. A rough-timbered place three stories high, with rambling wings that faded indistinguishably into the cliffside. Heavy wooden shutters barred the windows.

Bruce marched boldly to the blank-eyed door. Julia said in hushed tones, "Don't go, please. It looks deserted, but I feel eyes watching us from inside."

His balled fist thudded heavily against solid panels.

"Open up!" he shouted.

"Come away," Julia cried, tugging at his arm. Bruce slammed against the timbers.

"I know there's someone inside," he commanded. "Open up, I say."

Strange padding noises within, the creaking of bolts. The door swung slowly open. A man stood silhouetted, holding a lantern. His other hand clutched a huge revolver.

He scowled. He was of medium height, but powerfully built, and his dress was the dress of the Maine woods— khaki shirt and khaki pants tucked into heavy boots.

"Stand where you are," he growled.

"Lower that gun!" Bruce snapped. "There's a girl with me. Our boat was sunk out in the bay, and we just managed to make the shore."

The man seemed startled. His gun hand jerked. "You came from the bay side? Then, by God…!"

A peevish voice shrilled from above. "What's all the palaver about, Jerry?"

Jerry's face went respectful. "There's a couple out here, Mister Stapleton, man an' woman. They claim t' come from the bay."

The unseen voice went shriller.

"Don't let them in, Jerry. Bar the door— quick." Jerry thrust out his gun hand. But Bruce was too fast He shoved his foot inside the door, backed against the door lintel.

"No, you don't," he said calmly. "We're not murderers. We've been cast ashore, I tell you, and Miss Hunt can't sleep out in the open."

A new voice spoke from within the house. It was genial, hearty.

"Don't let your crazy fears get the better of you, Cuthbert," it boomed. "I'll bet these folks are normal humans like ourselves."

Light flooded the interior, illumined the great main room with stone fireplace and luxurious equipment of a millionaire's hunting lodge. It also etched out the huge curving staircase, and the two men peering down.

They descended together; one with confident thumping stride and the other cautiously.

The big confident man was ruddy of face and cold of eye. He flicked his gaze appreciatively over the girl, rested a second too long on the half-disclosed breast, and boomed humorously:

"Welcome to our humble dwelling. I'm George Kober, owner and stuck with this hunting lodge. I bought it sight unseen from Stapleton here, and would sell it back to him for half the price. But he's smart; he had the nerve to offer me just a quarter of what I paid him."

Stapleton flushed angrily. He was small and wiry, with a predatory nose and a shrill voice.

"Damn you, Kober!" he said thickly. "I wouldn't take it back as a gift now. It was you who came to me with the proposition to buy it. I hadn't been near the place for two years."

The big man eyed him curiously. "You knew about that ghost ship? Maybe that's your game; selling the place to honest folk at fancy prices and then scaring them off so they'll give it back to you for a song. Better'n the jewelry racket, eh?"

Stapleton laughed shrilly: "Honest, folks! That's a good one. Retired bootlegger, or maybe not so retired, ha! ha!"

The false geniality fled from Kober's face. Murder peeped from his unwinking eyes. The men glared at each other.

Jerry shifted his revolver slightly. It held a bead on Kober's belly.

"We still ain't heard what brought these here two to Sutter's Point."

Kober swiveled, saw the carelessly pointed gun. He took a deep breath. He said quickly: "That's right, Dunn."

Bruce, dripping wet, said calmly: "You haven't given us a chance." Julia clung to his arm. "I'm Bruce Howell and this is Julia Hunt. We were spending our vacation sailing along the coast. We saw this bay and thought we'd explore. But someone else thought differently. A black schooner with black sails and a dead man for a pilot deliberately ran us down."

Stapleton let out a groan. Kober's jaw went slack; he took a step backward.

Dunn's face was a bitter mask. "The Black Ship!" he breathed. He swerved on the others. "I told you I saw it again, sailing down the islands without a breath o' wind stirring. Mister," he said to Bruce, "you're lucky. Ain't anyone ever escaped the Black Ship afore."

Stapleton moaned softly. "I'm going back to Boston."

Kober snarled: "You sold me a bill of goods, Cuthbert, an' you're staying as my guest."

Bruce stared slowly from man to man. There was strange tension here. Nor had the mystery of the double attack been explained. He had been careful not to mention it. Yet, none of them could have been the man with whom he had fought.

"What about the Black Ship?" he asked.

Jerry's brows were a straight gash. "Once, mister, this here cove was a fishing village. Mr. Stapleton had this place built five years ago for a huntin' and fishin' lodge. I was his caretaker an' guide. I kinda know these woods pretty well. Then the Black Ship came, last summer. No one on board, only a dead man. It ran down our boats, one by one. Not a man ever got away to say how. An' each time the dead pilot changed. The body of a fisherman what had been drowned from the last boat. So those what was left quit cold. Ain't another soul within twenty miles of this place."

"You remained," Bruce pointed out.

Jerry's face twitched. "Not me," he said emphatically. "I wrote Mr. Stapleton an' lit out with the rest. Only came back now 'cause he wired me he sold the place, an' was coming out with the new owner. Wanted me t' fix things up a bit. But I'm a going."

Kober fixed him with a cold, fishy eye. "You're staying, Dunn."

The woodsman turned on him snarling; relaxed suddenly.

Another man entered the room, a pasty-faced, gaunt individual. His hand rested in his coat pocket, and a suspicious bulge snouted directly at Jerry.

"Okay, Mr. Kober," said Dunn.

Bruce started. His eyes and the eyes of the newcomer clashed. There was baleful hatred in the other's glance.

The left side of his face was puffed up, and one eye was rimmed with black and half-closed.

Kober grunted with a satisfied air, "That's fine.

You can go now, Slim." Then, for the first time, he caught sight of the man full-faced. "For the love o' Pete, Slim, what happened to your mug?"

"Fell down stairs," the man answered unwillingly.

Bruce thought it was time to interrupt. "Miss Hunt is soaked through; so am I. Suppose we get a chance to dry our clothes and get some sleep."

Kober said: "Sure! Jerry, get these folks comfortable, and I mean comfortable, see?"

Dunn's face twisted into a mask.

Kober tapped his teeth thoughtfully with a pencil. "And to make sure you don't get ideas, you or Cuthbert, your old boss, let's have your gun."

The guide's eyes flamed. Without a word he turned his weapon over.

Kober pocketed it, and spoke jovially to Bruce, the while his eye fastened on Julia with a speculative luster. "Good fellow to have around, Slim is. As a matter of fact, he's to blame for my buying this joint Was up here last year— on private business of his own."

Slim's face, puffed as it was, went white.

Bruce was abnormally wakeful on that night. He lay quietly, listening. Julia, exhausted from the terrors of the day, lay asleep in the next room. Their clothes had been dried before a log fire. Some faint precautionary instinct caused him to go fully clad to bed.

Each of the four men who occupied this house had something on his mind, something that boded no good for the other three, nor, for that matter, for their unwilling guests. And Kober's eye had lurked too long on Julia's beauty, so had Slim's slinking side glance.

Slim, without question, was the man who had followed them on the beach. Who, though, was the other, the one who tried to abduct Julia? He determined to stay awake. His last thoughts were of the murderous Corpse Ship and that strange, seductive yellow gold woman. Then fatigue and anxiety claimed him.

He awoke to a woman's terrified scream, to the scuffling of bodies. He cleared the bed, raced to the door, flung it wide, slammed down the darkened corridor, crashed heavily against the door of Julia's room. It gave way with a splintering sound.

The moon cast ghastly shadows on the rumpled, unoccupied bed, the papered walls. A great fear pounded in Bruce's veins. Outside, silhouetted against the dull gleam of the night, was a face, half-turned to peer inside. One instant it was there, grotesque, mustachioed, broad, thick lips bared back from fang-like teeth, then it was gone.

Bruce leaped forward, only to swivel at a repetition of the scream. Julia, white and scantily clad in the dim shadows of the farther corner, crouched with arms upthrust, as if to ward off a horrible vision.

Feet pounded down the corridor, smacked into the room with a jitter of scared tongues. Stapleton, spare body faultless in bright silk pajamas, Jerry in khaki pants and shirt, Kober in a long dressing gown beneath which Bruce, for all his tension, did not fail to notice the peeping trousers. Kober had not yet gone to bed.

"What's the matter, Julia?" Bruce cried.

She pointed with fear-trembling arm to something that made a dark blob on the floor. Then her eyes went wide, to see the clustered men, her own bareness. With a moan she plunged for the bed, dragged the sheets up around her chin, and sat there, shuddering.

Jerry said: "Good God!" Stapleton leaned against the bedpost as if his knees were giving way. Bruce and Kober reached the sprawled body.

It lay in a splash of silver moonlight, but the widening pool around it was a dark, frightful red. A man stared sightlessly up at them, flat on his back. He was gutted open. From chin to navel the huge slash carved through breast bone and ribs, to reveal a bloody heart that pumped feebly with expiring life and geysered bubbling, gurgling spouts of blood. "Slim!"

Kober, legs astraddle, ruddy face knotted into a ferocious mask, stared down at the horrible remains of his henchman. Then he turned, with a speed surprising in a big man, and an ugly automatic muzzled at Bruce.

"You did this, fellow?" Howell shook his head.

"I heard Miss Hunt scream, and I got here an instant before you did."

Kober swerved on Julia, half-fainting against the heaped pillows, her wide-open eyes clinging as if fascinated to the dead man.

"Speak your piece, girlie," he snarled.

"He— he crept into my room while I was asleep," she faltered. "He— he caught hold of me. I tried to fight him off, but he was too powerful. Then I cried out."

Kober took in the outlines of her slender figure through the revealing sheet, and licked his lips stealthily. "Slim tried it once too often, eh?" he grimaced.

Julia shuddered. "He had dragged me half out of bed when someone— something caught him by the shoulder and pulled him away. There was a great swish and a thud; then I must have fainted. When I came to, he was lying there, like— like that, and someone was hammering at the door. There was no one else in the room."

Kober towered over her. "Who did it?"

"I didn't see."

"Look here, Kober," said Bruce, stepping forward. "I saw a face disappearing through the window when I broke in. It wasn't anyone of us; it was a savage, horribly distorted face."

"A swell story," Kober sneered. His gun covered them all, his eyes were watchful. "I don't give a damn about Slim. He had it coming to him. He tried to doublecross me. But I take care of my own jobs. Don't think, Stapleton, I'm not wise to you."

The small spare man shrank back. "What do you mean?" he quavered shrilly.

Kober's laugh was hard and rasping.

"Just this. Slim dug it out of a jane last time he was up here. A jane with yellow hair and a face like nobody's business. She fell for him, the flossie did, and she put him wise to Mr. Cuthbert Stapleton, the big Boston jeweler. How he was sneaking diamonds in through this God-forsaken hole without taking the trouble to divvy up with his Uncle Sam.

"That's why I bought this dump and got you to come up. I checked up on you and your mysterious trips half a dozen times a year— on business south, you told your wife."

Stapleton fell back. His face was the color of ashes.

"I did go south," he said desperately. "I— I had another establishment in Richmond. I didn't come here, I swear. I had nothing to do with that yellow devil. She lied if she said—"

Kober hit him with the gun barrel across the mouth. "I want the jewels. Where are they parked? Slim knew, and held out on me. He's dead now."

Stapleton raised a silk clad hand to shield his face.

"It's all a lie; I never—"

Jerry said brutally: "That yellow-haired girl disappeared right after Stapleton and Slim left the village. She ain't been seen since. She ratted with them both. I had my suspicions about the boss's racket. He usta visit the cellar a lot."

"Okay," Kober grinned triumphantly. "I'll give you a cut for that, Dunn. Come on, Stapleton, show me."

He shoved the wretched man out of the room, turned, said in threatening tones: "None of you move till I get back." He slammed the door. They heard the key turn in the lock.

Bruce looked at the woodsman with loathing. "You sent Stapleton to his death," he said coldly.

Julia feverishly dressed herself underneath the sheet.

Jerry smiled queerly: "Stapleton's safe enough. Kober won't dare kill 'im until he finds the jewel cache. An' that's what I'm gunnin' for. I'm a Federal Investigator; been after this diamond smuggling fer quite a while."

"Oh!" Bruce gulped. "Then you'd better give the orders."

"Right!" Jerry snapped. His gaze flicked to Julia, who, fully dressed now, except for the torn jersey, was standing beside Bruce. "You two stay here, while I trail 'em. Stapleton will tell Kober sooner or later. Then I'll grab 'em both."

He took a key out of his pocket, and unlocked the door. His black-browed, weather-beaten face peered back at them. The door shut, there was a faint click, and the sound of retreating footsteps.

Julia clung to Bruce. "He locked us in."

Bruce frowned. "Wants to keep us out of harm's way, I suppose," he said, masking his thoughts. He went to the window, looked out. A wisteria vine clambered up from the soil beneath, flung leafy branches past the casement. It would have been easy for an active man to reach the room and drop back to the ground.

Something moved in the mist-swollen moonlight, something shadowy and sinister. In an instant Bruce was out on the vine, making his way swiftly down. That, he had no doubt, was the killer, dark-skinned, mustachioed.

Julia ran panic-stricken to the window, leaned out.

"Bruce! Bruce!" she cried softly. "Don't leave me."

He looked up at her pale, lovely features. "I'll be right back," he assured her. "You're safe enough in the meantime."

The mist swallowed him up. He dropped lightly to hard earth, ran in the direction he had seen the figure disappear. The trail led around to the extension right wing of the sprawling house, to an open cellar door.

A horrible strangled screeching lanced through the dark, a man's voice bursting with agony. Then it guttered out. It came from the dank reaches of the cellar.

BRUCE DIVED headlong down the stairs, slammed through weltering darkness toward the last echoes of that screech. Other feet clattered in broken step with his.

A stream of radiance split the solid black, bobbed up and down over the cement floor. Bruce slithered warily to a halt.

"Who's that?" he demanded sharply.

The flash caught him full in the face, blinded him. Then a voice, edged with impatience.

"Hell! I thought I left you upstairs." It was Jerry Dunn.

Bruce exhaled. "I saw someone skulking outside and climbed out of the window to investigate. Then I heard that screech."

"So did I," Dunn said grimly. "Come on; we'd better trace it." Together they went cautiously over the cement, the beam of the flash showing whitewashed walls, around an angle into the cellar underneath the main house.

There they found the body.

Sprawled on his back, staring sightlessly into the yellow flare, split open from chin to navel, heart and lungs exposed and ebbing away in a welter of bright, bubbly blood, lay— George Kober!

Of Cuthbert Stapleton not a sign. A wall safe, set in the cement-block wall, its door camouflaged to resemble concrete, swung open. Nothing was in it Jerry swore bitterly. "Stapleton had confederates. They did Kober in, an' then they all lammed with the diamonds. That was their cache."

He turned suddenly, and went slamming through the cellar, out into the mist-laden night.

Bruce, with the light withdrawn, was left groping.

He hesitated. Should he follow Dunn or get back to Julia? The thought of her loveliness exposed to the hideous prowlers left him sick. He cursed himself for a fool.

Just as he bumped his shins against the upward-leading stairs, he heard the last departing shriek of this crowded night of terror. It sent him crashing recklessly up the rickety steps. Horrible anguish held him in a vise.

Julia had called his name in an ecstasy of despair! Then sudden silence.

"I'm coming!" he shouted and crashed into her room. The moonlight, irradiated by the driving globules of fog, made pearly opalescence on the bed, dissolved the terrible travesty on the floor that had once been a man.

Howell brought up short. Julia was gone. The casement window, wide-open, mocked him with its knowledge of what had happened.

He sprang to it. The fog rolled in from the sea. He shouted despairingly. No answer but the muffled echoes of his own voice. Then, far off, as if from an unfathomable distance, so faint it seemed more like the pounding of blood in his own veins, came laughter— mocking, luscious laughter.

Bruce started and swore at himself. In the blind swelter of events he had forgotten about the Black Ship, and its dead pilot and yellow gold siren. He went rapidly down the vine, padded across the rubbly beach. At the water's edge he kicked off wet shoes, clothing that was still damp.

The moon was an obscure shadow. The thunder of the breakers came to him, but they were invisible. Nor was there any sign of the Ghost Ship.

Yet he staked everything on his intuition that the solution to this devilish night lay outside the reef. He plunged into the cold water, clad only in shorts, and swam with long powerful strokes; an unarmed man pitting himself against desperate killers, against the lure of a yellow gold unearthly woman.

WITH THE last embers of his strength, Bruce caught feebly at the anchor chain. For almost an hour the wild surf had buffeted and pounded at him; jagged rocks of the reef gouged long slashes in his aching sides; whirlpools plucked at him with irresistible fingers. Then, with leaden weights for arms and every stroke a nightmare, he caught sight of the sinister loom of the Black Schooner.

He rested, fighting for breath, allowing strength to flow sluggishly through sodden, weary limbs. The Ghost Ship was silent as a grave.

He swung his cramped body up the chain, hand over hand, until he stood on the gently pitching deck. His legs were weak, and he grabbed at the nearest object for support.

It was cold, clammy, yielding to the touch, nauseating. He snatched his hand away with a shudder of repulsion. There, horrible, fetid, staring crazily at him out of eyeless sockets, was the dead pilot, upright, lashed to the wheel with strong lashings.

Bruce staggered away. The deck was bare, black. Then momentarily the fog lifted, and eerie moonshine flooded the ship. The two masts rose starkly into the sky, the black doomful sails idle on the poles.

Some instinct caused him to tilt his head sharply. A low smothered gasp escaped him.

High up, dangling from the outstretched yardarm, treading nothingness with desperate fantastic steps, was the dark figure of a man. A man with a noose around his neck, and a lolling, gaping head at a broken angle to the stretched-out neck.

One quick terrible glance and then the fog rolled in soft billowing folds to shield the racked eyes from the sight. Bruce groaned. There had been something familiar about that half-seen shape. Was it Jerry Dunn?

He took a tentative step forward, and whirled. His ears had caught the stealthy slither of feet. But it was too late. He felt his neck clutched in a strangling grip. Fog gave way to exploding stars.

BRUCE HOWELL moaned and moved uneasily. His head ached and his tongue was a furred animal. He opened his eyes. He blinked unsteadily, wonderingly, closed them again.

Laughter floated to him in his unbelieving daze; luscious, mocking laughter.

"You're not dreaming, man out of the sea," said a throaty, overripe voice.

He opened his eyes again, and stared. His shorts had been removed and a dragon robe of flaming red, silken, soft to the skin, enveloped his otherwise nude body. He was fastened to a chair with shackles that held hands and feet.

He was in the cabin of the Ghost Ship, of that he was certain, yet it seemed more like a scene out of the Arabian Nights. Fantastic silken coverings hid the wooden walls, damask couches of rarest workmanship, piled high with soft voluptuous cushions, were scattered in careless profusion, and the gilt figure of a writhing snake-like god sat in a little shrine to one end. The single eye of the god was a flaming, blood red ruby of gigantic size.

Two men stood, straight and stern, on either side of the enshrined god. Swarthy of hue, sullen-browed, broad thick lips curled back from long yellow fangs, mustachioed, wearing black turbans on coarse black hair, inhuman in the cruelty smoldering in their eyes. Each held in sinewy hand a broad-bladed, razor-edged curving weapon. Bruce recognized it with a shudder; the terrible kris of the Malays, that could slash a man open from chin to navel with a single powerful stroke. The weapon that had killed in fiendish fashion Slim and his boss, George Kober.

But it was the woman who claimed his immediate and fascinated attention. She sat on a gorgeous damasked couch, supporting herself with one perfectly molded arm against the cushions.

Her hair, flowing free over half-bared shoulders, was a glittering cascade of spun yellow gold. Her face, white, devoid of any tint, was a lure and a snare. Her blood-red lips parted voluptuously to disclose tiny regular teeth, and the slumberous, smoldering eyes, heavily lashed in black, invited and mocked simultaneously.

But it was her body that made the blood rush faster through his veins. A thin transparent gossamer enshrouded yet did not conceal her voluptuous charms. Whitely glowing, every warm curve a desperate seduction to the glance, thighs rounded and creamy, breasts like ripe melons, smooth legs whose bare toes matched fingers in the dark red of their manicured tints.

She stirred sensuously under his gaze, and little ripples traveled over her tinted flesh. Her Mona Lisa-like smile lingered approvingly on his lithe sinewy figure, the chiseled handsomeness of his face.

"I am glad they did not kill you," she purred. Her gossamer robe drooped from one bare shoulder. She did not try to replace it.

"Who are you?" he asked hoarsely.

She rose from her couch in a single sinuous movement and came close to him. Her eyes bored unfathomably into his, her breasts heaved with slow seductive movements, the perfume of her amorous body enveloped him, made him dizzy with its fragrance.

"Call me Thyra," she said slowly, parting her luscious red lips. She swayed toward him. "I like you," she breathed.

The blood pounded in his eyes at her nearness; for the moment he forgot where he was, everything. Her warmth enfolded him, made him feel…

"You and I—" she murmured throatily, "we'll leave this little hole, we'll leave that stupid fool gaping vainly on the beach, and sail to the East.

There, with jewels enough to buy a kingdom, you will be emperor, and I an empress."

Howell's head cleared. She had talked too much. He twisted his face away from the sight of her glowing, semi-clad body.

"What have you done with Julia— Miss Hunt?" he demanded harshly.

Thyra moved sharply back. Her dead-white features, a moment before suffused with tempting allure, snarled into venomous fury. Her dark eyes lashed fire, her ripe red lips retracted to show sharp white teeth. Her very hair writhed and glittered like whipping snakes.

"You— unutterable fool," she screeched. "I offer you myself— wealth beyond your dreams— and you ask for that whey-faced chit, a mere bag of bones, a milk and water whimpering baby. Very well, she is here. Muhammed and Ahmad saw to that. And you shall see what I, Thyra, do to my rivals."

She clapped her hands. The immobile Malays sprang to life, moved forward. The deadly kris glittered wavily in their hands. She spoke rapidly to them. The tongue was Eastern.

They bowed and left the cabin.

"Don't you dare harm her," Bruce cried frantically.

She smiled at him mockingly, her eyes heavy-lidded. She moved undulatingly back to her couch.

THE TWO Malays returned, dragging between them the stumbling, half-limp form of Julia Hunt.

Her face was drained to paper whiteness, her eyes were round with terror. They went wider at the sight of Bruce, shackled to the chair. She gave a little gasping cry. Howell strained with every muscle against his bonds, his heart hammering in his bosom.

"If you hurt her; just one little hair of her head, I'll— I'll kill you," he said thickly. "Even if I have to come back from the dead!"

Thyra said contemptuously: "You love that little chit, that bit of ice, enough to pass me by, do you?" Her smoothness changed, her face distorted. She rose like a spitting, snarling cat arching on a backyard fence. "I'll mar that precious body of hers until you'll shudder away from it with loathing. Muhammed! Ahmad!" She clapped her hands. "Strip her to the waist!"

Bruce cried desperately: "No! No! Leave Miss Hunt alone. Let her go— safely, unharmed; and I'll do anything!" His voice lowered. "I'll go with you— to the East."

Thyra laughed— and there was only the fury of a woman scorned in that devilish laughter. "Too late!" she mocked. "I do not take leavings, the scum of another woman's party. But she shall suffer for being more desirable to you than I. Strip her, I say!"

The Malays, bestial faces smirking cruelly, reached simultaneously, ripped downward in a single flowing motion.

The torn jersey gave with a rending sound, came apart in pieces that were flung into a corner. Julia's firmly molded body emerged, quivering and mantling red in its exposure to alien eyes.

The poor girl turned mute imploring gaze on her bound companion, clapped covering arms over her breasts, and stood, head bowed, waiting, bravely waiting for whatever was in store for her. Not a sound, not a whimper, left her clenched lips.

Thyra laughed insanely. "A bag of bones!" The blood dripped from her lip, where she had bitten through in the violence of her passion. "Run your krises over her shameless skin, slash her up and down and sideways, leaving marks that will heal to hideous scars. But do not kill her. Oh, no! do not kill her. I want her lover to see her hideous, deformed. Then he will realize what he has missed."

With stealthy licking lips the Malays lifted their sinister wavy weapons. Bruce did not know it was he who yelled imprecations, commands, implorements, oaths, at the yellow gold woman, her Oriental minions. He strained every muscle to the bursting point; a red haze clouded his vision, but the shackles held.

The cruel kris flashed in air, descended. Julia, head still bowed, unmurmuring, awaited the first slicing slashes. Thyra watched, gloating, avid. Bruce locked eyes tight.

Hot words lanced his shrinking flesh, brought his eyes wide again, unbelieving.

"Drop them, you black sons of…"

The wavy-edged swords went down with a thud into the soft-piled rug. The Malays swerved, saw who it was that stood in the doorway, and swarthy skins went sallow with fright. They groveled on the floor, ejaculating streams of foreign syllables.

Thyra froze where she stood, shrank against the couch, stumbling.

"You!" she breathed.

Bruce cried out: "Jerry! Jerry Dunn! I thought you were hanging from the yardarm."

The Maine woodsman, Federal Investigator, whatever he was, bent bitter black brows in a solid line. He scowled sardonically: "Not I, though no doubt pretty Thyra would have been willing."

He advanced slowly into the room, eyes all on the voluptuous figure of the yellow-gold woman, gun snouting at the whole room. She fell on the couch, shrieking, bare arm upthrust to avoid a blow.

"Jerry!" she cried. "I didn't do anything; I swear I…"

"Stop your damned lying mouth," he said brutally. "I heard enough back in the lodge, and I heard enough outside the cabin before I came in. Your ratting days are over! Can't keep your filthy paws off any man what comes along, can you? You ratted to Slim, trying to make him. You ratted to this guy, this Bar Harbor dude. You betrayed me with Ahmad and Muhammed— don't tell me, I know. Yuh figured to get all the diamonds on board and beat it, leavin' me on the beach to take the rap. But when yuh stole the boat, you didn't know I had another one hid under the cliff a ways, did yuh? Me, what made a queen out of a village streetwalker!"

Thyra rose from her couch, faced him defiantly. Two red spots shone on her dead-white cheeks. Her eyes had a baleful, half-mad glare.

"Okay, Jerry, you called the turn." She laughed shrilly. "You're right; I never had any use for you, a cheapjack backwoodsman, a guide, a caretaker. Bah! You were only a tool— for everybody. For the syndicate in Amsterdam that hired you to run the smuggled stones from Sutter's Point to their man in Portland. This ship was their idea, not yours. It picked up the stones from their yacht on the high seas. Its Diesel engines that made it sail as no schooner could, its dead black color, the touch of the drowned corpses for pilots, scared all the superstitious oafs out of the cove, and made it easy to run in the jewels.

"And whose idea was it to win over Ahmad and Muhammed and get away with the whole swag ourselves. Not yours! You didn't have guts enough to think that up. Of course I was going to doublecross you. Why not? You tried to two-time me too, didn't you? Grabbing that skinny girl on the beach. With the jewels in my hands, what did I need you for; a poor fool of a country yokel! Look!" She reached feverishly behind her, pulled out a casket, snapped open the lock in a single movement. Diamonds, rubies, emeralds, millions in precious gems cascaded out.

SHE WAS mad now. She plunged her hand in, sent the coruscating jewels tossing in the air, scattering in a shower of broken light. Her mouth was wide and her eyes glared. Her red lips foamed with mingled spume and blood. The robe had fallen to her waist. She looked like the goddess of madness.

Bruce forgot his situation in the sheer insanity of it all. Julia stood as one sculptured in marble. The Malays lifted their heads stealthily, awed, afraid. Dunn stared with the stare of a bird hypnotized by a snake. He did not seem to know he had a gun in his hands. He licked his lips with unconscious movements.

"Mine, all mine!" she screamed. "Not yours, dupe, yokel! You an emperor! Bah! Rather a chambermaid to pigs!" She swerved suddenly. "Ahmad, Muhammed! Kill! Kill!"

They had been waiting for that signal. They were on their feet as if steel springs had pushed them. Dunn started. The hypnotic sway of Thyra's assumed madness vanished. His thick brows bent in savage snarl; he mouthed indistinguishable oaths. He raised his gun. Its muzzle roared flame and steel.

Thyra took a quick step forward and her eyes went wide. A round red hole appeared suddenly under her right breast. The red widened. She staggered and fell sprawling. Julia shrieked and fell fainting across a couch.

The Malays were already upon him, kris slashing downward. Dunn pivoted like lightning. His gun spat death for a second time. The bullet ploughed through Ahmad's cheek. Face a gory mess, the Malay dropped like a stricken ox.

Dunn pivoted again. But fast as he was, Muhammed was faster. The kris, a wavy snake of steel, chopped down. Jerry screamed shrilly. His left hand fell with a hideous plop to the reddening carpet, and blood geysered from the severed wrist. The bullet smacked into a tapestry.

Muhammed raised the deadly kris for the finishing rip from chin to navel. Dunn gathered all his strength, heaved his gun across the Malay's snarling countenance. The high-bridged nose caved in and smeared in sodden pulp. The kris whistled aimlessly into the carpet.

Animal sounds came from Muhammed through squashed lips. He leaped tigerishly upon his prey. Jerry, still clutching his gun in his good hand, went down, the Malay rolling over him like a cat. Over and over they went Blood spattered over couches, over walls, over Bruce himself. Whoever won would kill him, would do worse to Julia.

Jerry's good hand rose suddenly, came down with a thud of steel upon the Malay's smashed-in nose. An inhuman screech followed. Muhammed sagged. Dunn half-rose to his knees, and smashed blow on blow into the shapeless face. He had eyes only for his victim.

He did not see the slow, torturous, writhing progression of Thyra, her magnificent body half-nude, across the carpet. It was terrible, like the convulsive movements of a dying snake.

Bruce watched her progress, fascinated by her will power, shrinking from the hate in her pain-swept eyes. She was at his shackled feet, raising her head with infinite effort. Life was leaving her fast.

"You—" she mouthed with difficulty, "are good looking. Never mind— your Julia. Kill that— Jerry. He— killed me. Here!"

She fumbled with uncertain hand in a fold of her dress, brought out with stiffening fingers— a key. It fell with a plop to the rug; her eyes glazed, and she dropped back— dead!

Wild hope surged through Bruce, gave him superhuman strength. Dunn brought his gun down smashing for the last time. Muhammed quivered and lay still. Bruce jerked himself over, chair and all, squirmed his fingers toward the precious key. He caught it just as Jerry, aroused by the noise, was turning slowly.

Snarling, Jerry raised the gun. Bruce saw the slow movement, worked with frantic haste. The click of the key in the lock was heavenly music. One hand was free. He went for the other. Dunn, eyes aflame with the lust to kill, staggered to his knees, swayed, his gun describing an arc.

The other hand went free just as there was a crashing concussion of sound. Bruce's shoulder rocked with a searing fire. Unmindful of the pain, he clawed desperately at the locks on his legs.

At last he was a free man. But the muzzle was this time unwavering, centered on his heart.

Bruce sprang, and Dunn, half-dead, pulled the trigger. As he did so, the smeared mass beneath him stirred suddenly; a corpse-like hand reached up, pushed. Jerry stumbled, fell back against the upright edge of the kris. His shriek lanced through the cabin, as his skull sliced in twain against the wavy steel. The bullet smashed into the snake-like god, brought him crashing. The Malay collapsed again.

Bruce ran for Julia and picked her up in his arms, stumbling over the gory dead out into the clean sweet air of the night. The mist had cleared, the moon was a kindly disk of silver, and death and madness and lustful cruelty seemed far away. Until his eye went up, toward the mast, toward the body that jittered in the gentle breeze. He recognized it now. Cuthbert Stapleton, Boston jeweler, and, unknown to Dunn, but not to Thyra, respectable fence for the smuggled fortunes in gems.

Bruce covered Julia's semi-nudity with a strip of sail; he gently massaged her arms and cheeks. His thoughts were busy. That fabulous sum in jewels must be turned over to the Customs authorities. There was a substantial reward in the offing. Enough for marriage.

Julia opened her eyes, saw him bending over. Her arms went up, closed with shuddering embrace about his neck.

End

Table of Contents

1: The Order of the Bath / Irvin S. Cobb

2: The Legend of Sleepy Hollow / Washington Irving

3: On the Plains / Ernest Favenc

4: Paint Me as I Am / Kenneth Barber

5: Haunted By A Bard / H. F. Lester

6: Nominated for Murder / Roger Torrey (novelette)

7: Oysthers! / Gordon Young

8: The Purple Emperor / Robert W Chambers

9: Bones! / Richard Dehan

10: The End of the Path / Newbold Noyes

11: The Unknown Masterpiece / Frederick Irving Anderson

12: According To The Evidence / Hugh Pendexter

13: The Wonderful Tune / Jessie Douglas  Kerruish

14: Rats / Michael Annesley

15: The Floating Island of Madness / Jason Kirby

16: Ship of the Golden Ghoul / Lazar Levi