5

TABLE of CONTENTS

A GAME OF DRAUGHTS

THE ORPHEUSIA

THE BLACK CAT

THE HEART OF THE ANARCHIST

THE OTHER MAN'S STORY

THE NORTHERN LIGHT

UNBIDDEN GUESTS

THE LAST DRIVE

THE TWO BON-BONS

THE STRANGER WITHIN THE GATE

A GAME OF DRAUGHTS

Published in The Windsor Magazine, December, 1903 to May 1904 edition.

I.

Clifford Steele quietly remarked that the game was over, which patent fact his opponent admitted cheerfully, with the rider that there was more in the game of draughts than people imagined. The two were playing comfortably between their cigarettes in the luxurious lounge of the Brema Castle Hotel. A band was playing somewhere in the distance, there was a crescendo of chattering voices, the soft swish of draperies. A tall girl, with a white, sad face, passed along as Steele was packing up the draughtsmen. She paused suddenly.

"Perhaps you would like to play, Miss Denbury?" Steele hazarded. His late antagonist had strolled away. "If so——"

"I loathe the game," Angela said almost passionately. "To my mind, there is something so horridly weird——Mr. Steele, are you a good player?"

The girl paused, and her manner changed suddenly. The keen-eyed, shrewd young barrister was regarding her intently. Surely mere dislike for an innocent pastime could not have touched her passions so deeply. Angela Denbury was more beautiful than she had been when Steele first met her at Davos Platz some eighteen months before, but then the white sorrow of her face had been the glowing happiness of irresponsible youth. The passing months had made sad history for Angela Denbury lately. She sat down by Steele's side and commenced to fan herself gently.

"Mr. Steele," she said abruptly, "do you remember Raymond Hare?"

Steele nodded. He was beginning to understand. Raymond Hare had been at Davos Platz at that time. .. . Certainly a handsome, healthy young fellow, with everything good on his side. There was a flush on Angela's face now.

"If I can help you," Steele suggested, "pray command me."

"Yes, yes. You are very good. When I met you in the corridor yesterday, it occurred to me that you might be disposed. .. . Raymond liked you; indeed, you were very friendly at Davos. Do you know that Hare Park, Raymond's place, is not far from here?"

"Then I shall certainly ride over and call," said Steele. "I hope he's well. But that class of athlete is never sick or sorry."

"Indeed, you are quite wrong," Miss Denbury replied. "Raymond is dying. He is dying of a broken heart. And it will be merciful if he is taken away before he loses his mind altogether."

Steele was deeply shocked. Something told him that he was to hear more, but he had too much tact and delicacy to ask questions. With the dreamy murmur of the band and the smiling faces about him, it seemed hard all at once to grapple with the tragedy hanging over two lives.

"It seems almost farcical," Angela went on—"at least, in one way. You were surprised a minute or two ago at an outburst of mine over a simple question about a game of draughts. If that game had never been invented, I should be a happy girl to-day with—with——"

"Raymond Hare," Steele murmured. "Won't you take me into your confidence? Anything that lies in my power to do I will do gladly."

It was some moments before Angela replied. Her dark eyes were fixed upon space.

"Do you believe in warnings and banshees and occult things?" she asked suddenly.

"Not in the least," Steele replied. "I have found the air of the police-courts wonderfully efficacious in solving mysteries of that kind."

"Then you would look with suspicious eyes upon a game of draughts played by invisible hands in an old castle at mid-night."

"I should indeed. That is all very well in the pages of Christmas fiction."

"Mr. Steele, I have seen it myself; I have felt the icy draught; I have heard the clash of steel; I have seen the red and white men moved. And when the game has been played for the fifty-second consecutive Saturday night, Raymond Hare will die—if he does not go out of his mind first."

The last few words were uttered with the deepest sadness. They were none the less sad because they sounded so strangely out of place there.

"The fulfillment of a legend," Steele murmured. "Please tell me the story. You have no idea how deeply I am interested. Those spectral antagonists are playing for the life of a living man. As a champion performer, I should very much like to be present at one of those contests. Does one invariably win?"

"Oh, no! Sometimes one player, and sometimes the other. If red is successful in the majority of cases, then Raymond's life is spared. Otherwise—oh, Mr. Steele! is it possible that such things can really be?"

The man of the world smiled sceptically. Those family legends were generally very interesting. He intimated that he would much like to hear this one.

"I can tell you in a few words," said Angela. "The Hares and the Monks have ever been bitter rivals; and when the War of the Roses broke out, the heads of the two houses took different sides. After the disaster of Bosworth Field, Alyward Monk fled home, and Amyas Hare betrayed him. The former surprised the latter at dead of night over a curious draughtsboard in the big hall. Then there was a scene. They were neither of them armed, but there were plenty of rapiers about. Monk swore that he or Hare should die. Then they played each for the life of the other across the draughtsboard, and Alyward Monk won. Amyas Hare handed a rapier to the victor, who stabbed him to the heart under the very eyes of the unhappy man's wife, who had come down to see why her husband had not gone to bed. And ever since then, for a year before the death of the head of the Hare family, that ghostly game is played every Saturday night. No doubt you have heard many similar legends, but I have seen the working of this one for myself. Sometimes the curse misses a generation, but it is working for Raymond Hare now as it worked for his father. The latter knew his end was coming, and it did. Within a week of the end of his year he broke his neck out hunting."

"It might have been a coincidence," Steele suggested.

"Oh, I grant you that!" Angela exclaimed.

"More especially as ever since that dreadful discovery by the distracted wife, the Hares have been a highly strung, emotional, imaginative race. But the thing is going on now, and Raymond will never be able to stand the strain. If he is not driven to suicide, his mind must give way. And we were so happy together; we loved one another so dearly. And now, and now——"

The girl paused, with the tears brimming on her lashes like diamonds. The deep sadness of her face touched Steele to the heart.

"Let me ask you one practical question," he said. "In the event of Raymond Hare's death, who comes into the property?"

Angela Denbury did not quite know. There was an elderly second cousin, a very nice kind of man who lived with Hare, who she imagined was next-of-kin. George Minton had once been marked out as a great geologist, or something of that kind, before he gave up his career for the sake of Hare. Steele nodded carelessly, but he made a note of the same.

"Now tell me something about the phenomena," he asked. "When and under what circumstances did you see it for yourself?"

"Well, of course I have known all about it for years," Angela replied. "Raymond told me how the thing had acted in his father's case. But that was some five years ago, and, after all, it rested on the evidence of servants. Moreover, Raymond's father was a very hard-living man, and in any case could not have survived long. Raymond had never seen those metal draughtsmen move till shortly after we were engaged, and then there was a big house-party at Hare Park. I shall never forget his face the next morning. At my urgent request the secret was kept from everybody but Mr. Minton. At the same time I could not quite bring myself to believe in the phenomena. I decided to see for myself the following Saturday night after the house was quiet.

"A little after midnight I came down into the great flagged hall. It was a warm night and I felt no inconvenience. I reached the place where the queer metal draughtsboard stood with the metal men ranged upon it. I had a queer feeling that somebody was watching me. One or two electric lamps were always left burning in the hall, so that I took courage. Then, with a kind of feeling that it was all so much nonsense, I hid behind a curtain."

"At the end of ten minutes an icy draught swept along the hall. There were murmurs like the sound of strife, a little pause, then, to my horror, one of the draughtsmen moved! It was only by a great effort that I kept myself from yelling aloud.. .. . Well, I watched that clever, weird game played till white won—white, the colour of the House of York, whose cause Alyward Monk had espoused. If the material fingers of two champions had been on the table, it had been no better played. I saw the taken pieces rise in the air and fall on the table with a dull clink, then I heard the thud of a body and the clatter of a rapier, as the victor carelessly tossed it on the floor. If you ask me what happened after that, I frankly say that I don't know. When I came to myself again, I was lying on my bedroom floor, and the stable clock was striking three."

The girl paused with a long-drawn sigh; her dark eyes were full of pain. She half glanced at her companion to see if he were smiling at her. But there was no smile on Steele's keen, clean-shaven face.

"Can you find it possible to believe my story?" Angela asked.

"Every word of it," Steele said promptly. "I feel sure that your eyes did not deceive you. Also I feel pretty sure that there is some explanation. And now I am going to help you if I possibly can. In the first place, you are not to let anybody know what you have told me—not even Raymond Hare. He must be led to understand that the family secret is intact. In the next place you must contrive for me to become a guest at Hare Park for a few days. Does Hare come here at all—to see you, I mean?"

"Two or three times a week; indeed, I am in this hotel so as to be near him. He has insisted upon our engagement being broken off; but so long as there is life, there is hope, and I shall never give Raymond up, never!"

"Indeed, I hope there will be no reason," Steele said warmly. "Write and ask Hare to come and see you to-morrow. Say I am leaving for Scotland in the morning, and my room is already engaged. Under pretence that I cannot stay here, I am going to ask Mr. Hare to put me up for a day or two."

"He will be delighted. The face of an old friend distracts him from——"

"Then that is settled," Steele said cheerfully. "I'm going to my own room now, where I can think the matter out over a quiet cigarette. Also I shall have to write one or two important letters. Good night."

He pressed the girl's hand warmly, leaving her with a glow and a feeling of happiness to which she had long been a stranger. He sat down beside his own window till the noise and clatter of the hotel had ceased; he looked out into the darkness with a cigarette glowing between his teeth. Gradually something like a theory began to shape itself in his mind. Then Steele switched on the light and wrote a couple of letters, which he decided to post personally. One was addressed to a well-known firm of private detectives. There was nothing in it besides a single person's name, written across the middle of the page, with a query after it. Steele smiled grimly as he fastened down the flap and sealed it; after which he dismissed the subject from his mind and went to bed.

II.

With a post-prandial cigarette well alight, Steele was thoughtfully regarding his host. There was another man present—a slight, tall man, with a pleasant face and open smile, who had been introduced to Steele as Minton. Raymond Hare himself was making pictures on the tablecloth with his breadcrumbs. He was deadly pale, fitfully silent, and feverishly gay. His dark eyes expanded strangely, the lids twitched in a quick, nervous way. Steele knew two men who had been all through the siege of Kimberley, and he recognised the same symptoms—nerves of the worst type.

"You ought to be a happy man here," he said. "I never saw a more perfect specimen of a Tudor house. A man who possesses seven Romneys could not possibly be miserable. What do you think, Mr. Minton?"

Minton smiled in his pleasant manner. Hare started. He seemed on the verge of an outburst, but checked himself.

"I am never quite happy on a Saturday night," he said, as if speaking more to himself than anything else. "What nonsense I am saying!"

Steele's air of polite bewilderment was perfect, Minton's expression was one of annoyance. On the far side of the electric flower-stand Steele could study the features of the other two. Electric lights in old copper fittings were everywhere. The night was a little chilly, so that an electric radiator gleamed in the deep, old-fashioned fireplace. Raymond Hare rose from his seat, muttering that he had forgotten something. His face was ghastly pale, and there were heavy drops on his forehead, though Steele affected to see nothing of this.

"My nephew is not quite himself lately," Mr. Minton said.

"Not enough to do," Steele laughed. "It is a favourite axiom of mine that the man who has everything is never really happy. Now, the change from a hotel to a house like this is a great treat to me. How wonderfully well the electric lights blend with these old walls! Do you run your stoves on the same set of wires?"

Minton explained that there was practically a second set for the stoves. If the ordinary lights went wrong, then they had always the stoves to fall back upon. The scheme was his own, though he did not profess to know anything of the technical part of the business.

"You have not studied electricity, then?" Steele asked carelessly.

"I am ashamed to say that I know nothing whatever about it," Minton laughed. "Take a cigar and come and play a game of billiards. I dare say Raymond will be down again presently."

On the whole, it was an exceedingly dull evening, and more than once Steele wished himself at the hotel again. Hare was distrait and uneasy, and Minton appeared to be keeping an anxious watch over him. Steele put up his cue after the third game and refused to play any more.

"I am afraid that we are neither of us up to championship form," he said. "As it is just eleven o'clock, I dare not play, lest the game should carry us into Sunday, which is one of the drawbacks of Saturday night."

"To-night is Saturday," Hare said suddenly. "Ugh! somebody is walking over my grave. I hope I shall be better to-morrow."

Steele murmured something appropriate. Personally he would have liked to have suggested sending for the doctor, and the advisability of having somebody to look after his host, but that was out of the question. Outside the walls of an asylum, he had never seen anything like the face his friend turned to him just for the moment. No mind could stand a strain like that for long.

The house grew quiet presently; there was a faint light or two in the hall and corridors. For the best part of an hour Steele sat in his room smoking. A few minutes before midnight he put down his cigarette and crept out into the corridor. It looked very dim and lonely, despite the specks of light here and there. The black walls, with their strong portraits, the ghostly figures in armour, all appealed to a strong imagination. Well in hand, as he usually held himself, Steele was conscious of an extra heartbeat or so as he crept downstairs. He stood presently on the polished oak floor close by where stood the fatal draughtsboard, with the men neatly arranged thereon.

Steele proceeded to examine the curiosity carefully. The board stood on a slim iron leg fantastically decorated with beaten copper. The foot was ornate with the same rich scroll-work; the top was a perfect specimen of the ironworker's art. The foot was bolted into the floor, as it was liable to topple over. The twenty-four draughtsmen were made of some kind of metal; the tops were enamelled in red and white. Altogether it was the kind of graceful work of art that one might see at Christie's, and which might fetch anything up to a thousand pounds. As Steele stood there, the clock struck midnight.

Almost instantly the corridor was filled with an icy current of air. Steele looked round, expecting to find an open window somewhere; but there was no sign of that, and the cold air continued. There was a faint moaning sound that came from somewhere overhead, a weird sound calculated to fray a set of nerves not too highly tempered. Steele was feeling the influence of it.

He stepped back for a moment, and as he did so, one of the red draughtsmen moved a square. Steele could distinctly hear the slide of metal on metal. A curious sensation shot up his spine, there was a queer tingling at the roots of his hair. Just for a moment he had a wild impulse to rush back to his room and lock himself in there.

"I'm not surprised at Hare," he muttered. "Seen unexpectedly, it would try the nerves of the strongest man."

The phantom game continued. Steele crushed down the fear that held him. He was watching with a vivid curiosity that almost amounted to pain. Not only was a ghostly contest in progress, but it was a masterly one. A man would be pushed forward and taken, it would rise with a little quick motion in the air, and fall with a dull click on the side of the table. Steele watched the whole thing with eyes that fairly started from his head. He saw the skill of attack and parry, and saw that gradually the unseen white foeman was getting the best of the contest. At the end of a quarter of an hour the game was won. White had two men left. It was a strange feature of the game that neither antagonist ever made the smallest effort to get a king. The contest was a cutting down one from start to finish. Perhaps the king at draughts was an innovation since the early Tudor days. The game was over. Almost immediately upon its termination came a dull sound like the falling of a body, then the rattle of steel, as if somebody had carelessly tossed a rapier on the oak floor.

The sound brought Steele out of his waking dream. He felt that he had had quite enough of it for one night. There was bound to be some explanation for this uncanny performance; but all the same, Steele felt that he could work it out better in the light of his bedroom. As he turned, he ran into something soft and yielding. It was Raymond Hare, standing petrified and absolutely unconscious of the fact that he was not alone.

"White won!" he whispered hoarsely. "White again! That is three Saturdays in succession—nearly two to one against me. God be good to me!"

He was swaying from head to foot in terror. As he suddenly realised Steele's presence, he opened his lips for a cry of despair. Steele's hand was over his mouth instantly.

"Not a sound," he commanded sternly. "Come up to my room with me, and I'll give you some brandy from my flask."

The strong mind bore down the weaker one. With a shaking hand, Hare began to place the draughtsmen in order again. He whispered something about the servants, and that they must have no opportunity to gossip. Perhaps he was not so far gone, after all, Steele thought. He was bound to admit to himself that he should not have cared for the task.

With a feeling of pleased satisfaction he found himself in his room again. A spoonful of brandy brought a little colour into Hare's cheeks.

"How long has this been going on?" Steele asked.

"Getting on for a year," Hare replied. "I suppose you found out. Well, I am not sorry, Steele; if I don't tell somebody, I shall go mad. Sometimes white wins and sometimes red wins, but always the balance against me. And when this year is up, I shall die, as my father did before me."

"I hope not, old fellow. Was your father's case authenticated?"

"I suppose so," Hare said hopelessly. "Not long before he died, an old servant said she came down one morning and found the draughtsmen lying on the side of the table, as if somebody had been playing a game."

"That's a coincidence, of course. At the same time, a careless servant may have swept them off by accident in passing. Personally, I refuse to believe that there is anything occult about this business at all. Let's talk about something else. I was saying to your uncle how well those electric fittings go with the old house. Have you had them for very long?"

"The light was first used on December 19 of last year," said Hare.

"Well, there's nothing the matter with your memory, anyway," Steele smiled—"if a man can recollect things like that."

"But, my dear fellow, I have the best possible reasons for remembering," Hare broke in. "It was on the third day after that that the ghosts came back again to play their hideous game for my life."

"In that case you would recollect," Steele said thoughtfully. "Did you see the game for yourself, or did one of the servants?"

"The servants know nothing of the present trouble. My uncle saw it first. He was so fearfully upset and agitated that I guessed what had happened, and taxed him with it. As a man of honour he was bound to tell the truth. And for many a weary Saturday since then have I watched the game. God only knows why I am sane to tell the story now."

There was a deep pity in Steele's heart, a pity steeped in a more violent emotion. He was beginning to see his way. Meanwhile he wanted to be alone to think. Most part of the next day he wrote letters. Two long telegrams he despatched, and waited for the reply personally. Later on in the evening he called at the post-office for letters, receiving one small parcel that looked like a bottle of some kind. It was a tiny phial of white liquid that he slipped into the pocket of his dress waistcoat as he sat down to dinner. If there were anything in his theory, Steele was determined to put it to the test before long; and if he were right, he promised himself a pretty piece of comedy before the week had elapsed.

It was a quiet evening and a quiet dinner, like the others. Steele, pleading that he had letters to write, retired early, as did the others. But the letter-writer must have been quick over his work, for a little later, in his shirt-sleeves, he marched boldly out into the corridor and thence into the hall. In his hand he carried a hammer, a pair of pliers, and a screwdriver. He let the hammer fall with a loud clang in the corridor. Not a sound followed. Then he made his way down into the hall and proceeded to turn on an extra light or two.

One o'clock was striking as Steele returned to his room again. There was a smile in his eyes, but his lips were grimly set. On the whole, he had the air of a man who is satisfied with himself.

"If I were a novelist," he said, "I would make a rattling good thing out of this."

III.

The great clock over the stables boomed the midnight hour. Before the second stroke had sounded, Steele was out of the room and into the corridor. There was no disguise about his movements now. He reached the door leading to Mr. Minton's room and rapped sharply. He waited for no reply, but entered without ceremony.

The lights were up, and as yet Minton was fully dressed. There was just the shade of annoyance on the elder man's face. He was coldly demanding to know the meaning of Steele's intrusion when the latter cut him short.

"It is a very pressing matter," he said. "I want you to be good enough to come with me without delay. I have made a discovery."

"Ah! so you have found out the secret of the house! Did you ever hear of anything so distressing, so—so—you know what I mean?"

"I know what you mean perfectly well," said Steele drily. "And I can quite understand why this thing is never mentioned to a stranger. Meanwhile, it seems to me I have found a way to save your unhappy nephew. Will you come this way?"

Minton nodded. He seemed to be swallowing something hard. Steele's request sounded more like a command. Down below in the hall, Raymond Hare was standing watching that infernal game of draughts in dazed, sick fascination. No murderer waiting for the verdict could have had a more agonised look in his eyes. He was absolutely unconscious of the other two, he had no gaze for anything but the ghastly shifting pieces. The game went on; red made his last fatal move; it was obvious to the meanest understanding that the contest was finished, though a piece or two stood on the table. Then came the sound of the falling body, the clash of steel on wood.

Steele touched Raymond Hare on the shoulder. He looked up with a start. Minton would have hurried him away, but Steele interfered.

"I am not quite satisfied," he said quietly. "Personally, I have yet to be convinced that there is no material reason in this thing. I am going to put the men on the board again, and when I have done so——"

"For Heaven's sake," Minton said hoarsely, "be careful! This is no time——"

"I know it; but I am not in the least afraid. I set the men out so; I am going to challenge the spirit of the House of York to a little game. Now, sir, if you are quite ready."

Steele bowed mockingly. He just reached forward and touched the board, and a white piece moved of its own volition. Immediately a red man jumped from one square to another. Steele turned with a smile to his deeply interested audience. A queer, shaky cry came from Hare's lips.

"It is a new game," he said—"the moves are different. Heaven knows I should be able to tell, seeing that they are burnt into the very matter of my brain!" He was trembling from head to foot with a sudden, sickening hopefulness. The moves of the new game were terribly one-sided. Almost before it had commenced, white's men were slaughtered right and left, and the conflict over.

"We have brought the science up to date," Steele said flippantly. "The shade of your departed ancestor has evidently been attending a tournament or two. A coup or two like that will always give him the best of his old antagonist. Really, my dear Hare, you need have no further anxiety in future. Stay quietly tucked up in your bed Saturday nights, and at the end of the year white will find himself in a hopeless minority as regards wins. Again!"

Once more he placed the men, and once more they started of their own volition. This time the moves were slightly different from the last, but after half-a-dozen squares were covered white was once more in difficulties. The weird element seemed to have dropped out of the situation almost. The white, drawn agony had left Hare's face; he was looking on with the air of a man who sees something new and strange in the way of machinery for the first time.

"Come away," Minton said hoarsely. "There is something almost blasphemous in this. And in any case, this flippancy——"

He moved over towards the wall, and immediately the place was in darkness. The electric lights had suddenly failed. Hare cried in affright, his nerves all frayed out at once, and fearful of some ghostly visitation. But Steele took one step near to the draughts-board and waited. Presently he felt a hand just creeping past his own fingers. He fastened on it at once. He uttered no sound, he only held on with a vice-like grip. It was useless for his unseen antagonist to struggle.

"Switch on the stove in the fireplace," he said. "I'm told that's on a separate current, and it will give us plenty of light. Aha! I thought so."

A dull red glow from the big radiator filled the hall and disclosed the figure of Minton on the other side of the board. His wrist was firmly grasped by Steele, his pleasant face was pallid, dark, and scowling.

"He's pulled away the 'cut out' fuse," said Steele coolly. "Mr. Minton, kindly give me a fragment of copper wire, so that I can restore the circuit again. I know you usually carry some in your pocket. Your uncle is a clever man, Hare; he is quite a specialist in electrical matters."

Minton muttered something. All the same, he produced what Steele required. It was only a moment's work to restore the circuit again, almost as easy as a child knots two pieces of string. Hare looked from one face opposite to the other. A light was dawning upon him.

"I have been fooled," he said. "Some infernal jugglery——"

"To the top of your bent," Steele replied. "So far as Mr. Minton is concerned, the thing is finished. So much for a family carefully nurtured on old superstitions. Your ancestors before you have told that story till they came to believe it. Your father's death looked like a case in point. And that gave the wicked uncle yonder his cue. I did not really suspect him till he assured me he knew nothing whatever about electrical matters. When I ascertained that it had been a study with him, I began to put two and two together. See here."

Steele took a strong screwdriver from his pocket and proceeded to release the quaint old draughtsboard from its fastenings. Under the floor there were a score or more of fine electric wires running up the hollow stem of the table.

"The top of the table is hollow," Steele explained. "Hence the little arrangement was rendered all the easier. If you will examine the top of that board with a strong glass, you will find a tiny copper disc has been let into each of them. This once being done, the rest is easy. You only wanted a certain combination of moves to be arranged, and the electric agency does the rest. There is a little time-clock attached, so that the apparatus could be made to work at a given hour, and there you are. Night after night you have stood watching the thing with fascinated horror, whilst all the time it has been merely mechanical. And yet I was quite able to understand your feelings."

"What were your own the first time you saw it?" Hare asked hoarsely.

Steele freely admitted that the thing had touched his nerves.

"The icy draught was easy," he continued. "It was easy to open a skylight window in which was placed an electric fan. One of those things will soak that air all through the house in less than thirty seconds. As to the clash of steel, a flat piece of metal under the floor attached to one of these wires would do that. The whole thing has been most ingeniously arranged and carried out. You had an utterly unscrupulous rascal to deal with, and everything fitted most beautifully into his hands. If I were in your place, I should not prosecute; I should merely kick him out of the house in the morning. And if ever a scoundrel deserved to be hanged——"

Hare turned round passionately. But already Minton had discreetly disappeared. The sullen bang of his door could he heard, and the quick, grinding rasp of the key in the lock.

"Exit Minton," said Steele grimly. "If you are not too tired——"

"Tired!" Hare cried. "Tired! I feel as if I should never want to sleep again. If you could but faintly imagine what a load has been removed from my heart, if you could only understand the rush and joy of life, and know that the curse——"

"The curse never existed at all," said Steele. "But come to my room, and over a cigarette I'll tell you everything, from the moment that Miss Denbury confided in me and I promised my assistance."

Hare followed eagerly enough. He lay back, puffing his cigarette with exquisite enjoyment. Already there was a healthier tinge on his sallow cheek.

"First of all, I had to suspect somebody," said Steele. "I gave your uncle first choice; as a matter of fact, there was nobody else. I took the trouble to inquire into his antecedents. They were very bad; he was deeply in debt, and trading upon what might happen if you died. If you died, he came into everything. If you lost your reason, he would only be a little worse off than a wholesale inheritance. Then I found that your relative was an electrical expert. Also I found that the vision of the draughts-players had never been actually seen till the introduction of the electric light into the house.

"After this my case was pretty clear. I read up the subject, I drugged your dear uncle's whisky-and-soda one night, and then set to work. I took that said draughts-board to pieces, and before daylight had not only mastered all its secrets, but reset the mechanical part to a problem of my own. I was going to have a certain amount of fun at your uncle's expense, but he got frightened, and so I had to act on the spur of the moment. Did you see his face when he saw the new combination move under a touch of my hand? No? I dare say you had no room for any thought but your own."

"He wanted to drive me mad!" Hare whispered.

"I fancy he wanted to drive you to suicide," Steele replied. "And when I saw you the first time I came here, he was not far off the accomplishment of his design."

A bright wave of colour came into Hare's cheeks. He seemed to have some little difficulty in getting out his words.

"Very nearly," he said in a low voice. "But for the fact that there is a girl who loves me and who would have so keenly felt the disgrace and sorrow of it, more than once I was on the verge—but why speak of that now? Steele, how can I possibly thank you? How can I——?"

He broke down utterly; then presently his eyes grew bright and sunny as they had been in the old days at Davos. He rose and came across to Steele with outstretched hands.

"Let this be a secret between us for all time," he said.

"Granted, on one condition," Steele laughed. "It is for me to make conditions."

"Of course; but I fancy I can guess what it is. You want to be——"

"Your best man," Steele said quietly. "It is my right, I fancy."

THE END

THE ORPHEUSIA

Published in the Western Mail (Perth W.A.), Saturday 19 December, 1903

I

"There's something very pleasant in a new sensation," the man in the fur coat remarked. "You're in luck, sir. To be attacked by thieves in Grosvenor Square before midnight is something to boast about.

"Not if you hadn't come up so suddenly--and silently," Sir Gordon Lane replied

The man with the fur coat smiled. The attempt at robbery had been an impudent one. The would-be thieves had offered violence to their victim. Lane had not called for assistance; he was not of that class of man. All the same, the shade of odds had been against him. Then the man with the fur-coat had turned up silently and scientifically, and the fight was over. It had come and gone with the rapidity of a dissolving view

"I always wear rubbers over my evening shoes," the new-comer said. "I am a martyr to rheumatism, and I have got to be careful. These rubber goloshes are light and not ungraceful. Moreover, they are useful on occasions, as you have seen. But that is a nasty bump over your right eye; if you'll come as far as my rooms in Mount-street, I'll doctor it for you.

Sir Gordon murmured his thanks. A bit of a globe-trotter himself, he was never very nice in the making of new acquaintances. Moreover, his companion was a gentleman

His air and manner, the cut of his clothes testified the fact. And the lining of his coat was a modestly dark, but genuine, sable

Lane's further conclusions were verified by a glance at Julius Duckworth's sitting-room. There were prints of price in old frames, rare bronzes, an antique oak sideboard bearing date 1579; the silver was Jacobean. A Steinway grand piano filled a recess beyond a Gobelins tapestry curtain

"Musical, I see," Lane said, sketchily

"My passion, sir," Duckworth exclaimed. "The piano, however, is the only instrument I play. Once I sit down to that in an evening I forget everything. I was coming back from Queen's Hall when I ran against you. A cigarette?

Lane nodded. His host produced whisky and soda and a flat tin box hermetically sealed. The band of which he proceeded to peel off as one removes the strip of tin from a high-class tobacco

"There you are," he said. "I import my own cigarettes in small boxes, sealed as you see. Each box holds ten. To my mind, directly the air touches delicate tobacco, it begins to lose flavour. Hence the little dodge of mine.

The cigarettes were poems, the whisky soft and mellow. Lane lay back in a long armchair dreamily speculating as to the manner of man he had found. An educated American probably. But Duckworth was not American. He was a Duckworth of Anerley, and the last of his family. Hedley Duckworth had emigrated to Australia, and the present deponent was his son. Lane nodded again. He had known Hedley Duckworth as a small child

"Funny thing," he said, "and shows how small a place the world is. I'll get you to come and dine with me to-morrow night in Belgrave place. I believe I'm just as musically mad as yourself and I fancy I can give you a few yards start in the way of old plate and canvas.

"You've got me on a tender spot," Duckworth cried. "Eight o'clock? Just cast your eye over this intaglio.

It was a fine piece of work in cornelian. Lane replaced it upon the mantelpiece. Just below his elbow stood a photograph of his host taken with another man, or, rather, with a reduplication of himself

"Didn't you say you were the last of the family?" Lane asked

"Well, yes," Duckworth admitted

"Oh, that photograph. That fellow taken with me is the plague of my life. He's my double. No relation, mind you. A cosmopolitan scoundrel who lives on passing as me. I first heard of him eight years ago. Once in Paris and twice in St. Petersburg he got me detained by the authorities. If they had not caught the rascal the second time, hang me if I don't think I should have found myself in Siberia. On that occasion I compelled the fellow to be photographed with me, and now when I travel I always carry that in my kit-bag. It's a proof that I have I got a double, you see.

"A most amazing likeness," Lane murmured

"And a most troublesome one," said Duckworth, with a look of annoyance on his good-humoured face. "That chap copies my dress. Once when suspected he contrived to get hold of one of my boxes of cigarettes. He keeps them now for emergencies; so if you find me some night rifling your Apostle spoons and Charles II. pepperpots, it won't be me, but the other fellow.

The conversation fluttered butterfly-like from one subject to another till it finally settled on music. Hereon Duckworth was with him. His features glowed with a fine inspiration; he passed backwards and forwards to the piano, playing a bar here and there with flattering interest. He also was an enthusiast, but not an authority like his host. Duckworth rattled off a heavily-scored work of Brahms brilliantly. The whole world seemed to be flooded with the music

"I hope the other people here are as keen," Lane said

Duckworth smiled as he dropped into a chair and took a cigarette

"I am the only lodger," he said. "My landlady, Mrs. Manly, runs a high-class bonnet business and other feminine fripperies. She's quite a lady, widow of an Indian colonel, or something of that kind, and says she could listen to me playing all night, which is a great convenience, as well as a compliment. Very good to me, too. When I get absorbed, I hate to have anybody in the room; so if I don't ring my bell, the table is not cleared till the morning. You won't get many people to cater for a genius like that.

Lane admitted the virtues of this model landlady. He half rose to go, but easily allowed himself to remain. There was a fascination about his companion that attracted him. On the whole, he had never smoked cigarettes with quite so exquisite a flavour, and the full mellowness of the whisky was beyond praise. Moreover, Duckworth was familiar with many lands that Lane knew

"Really, I must be off," he said, as a quaint bracket clock struck three. "I'm very glad to have met you, Duckworth; a pleasanter two hours I've never spent. Come to 95a, Belgrave Place to-morrow at eight, and we'll inspect my treasures. There's a complete set of Apostle spoons----

"The Rubini set," Duckworth said absently; "valued for probate at eleven hundred and fifty pounds when your father died. I remember reading of it in the 'Times.' Shall we be alone?

"Oh, I'm not afraid of you," Lane laughed, "though I am living en garcon just now, with a butler and two maidservants. I've got another man coming, but he will be after your own heart. He also is ready for an all night sitting on musical matters, though he can't play a note.

"A critic, eh? Do I know him?

"By name probably. It's Hartley Mason, the novelist. Now I really must be going. Good-night, and many thanks to you, old chap.

II

Sir Gordon Lane's dinner was quite a little romance in its way. He held that three was the ideal number for a bachelor dinner--a thoughtfulness that Julius Duckworth thoroughly appreciated, specially as Hartley Mason proved to be a brilliant and entertaining talker

Dessert had been trifled with, there was a blue drift of cigarette smoke across the dusky red-panelled walls of the small dining-room. Duckworth lay back in his chair, thoughtfully sipping champagne and apollinaris water. In a rapt way he contemplated the Rubini Apostle spoons. He discoursed in a scholarly expert way on silver hall-marks. "I can only look on and envy," Hartley Mason laughed. "I should like to live in an atmosphere of Apostle spoons and Queen Anne teapots, if I could afford it. I have to content myself with collecting specimens of humanity.

In the smoking-room the conversation drifted on to music. Once more the agile little novice professed to speak as a novice. He was passionately fond of all kinds of music, but he didn't know a note. He had heard of some ingenious arrangement whereby it was possible to play the piano without knowledge. Some good critics were quite enthusiastic about it

"Mechanical," Lane snorted. "A thing call the Orpheusia. Sort of superior barrel-organ. All rubbish.

"Not quite," Mason said, mildly. "Quite out of curiosity, you know--well, I had quite half a mind to buy one. There are testimonials from great pianists like----

"Testimonials!--Your artist as a rule is the most good-natured man in the world. Fancy having to listen for Salviati's Requiem, for instance, filtered through a mechanical device attached to a piano!

"I've done--I mean, I've heard it," Mason said stoutly, "and its splendid.

Lane walked to his piano

"Then you shall hear it again and confess yourself beaten," he said

"Duckworth plays it perfectly, as testified by snatches last night. He shall humble you to the dust, friend Mason. Come along, Duckworth.

Duckworth declined hastily and with some confusion. The novelist was watching him through his eyeglasses keenly. It was the confusion of the idle boaster who knows nothing of an art on which he has prated as an expert. He coloured slightly. If a judge like Lane had not heard the Anglo-Australian perform, Mason would have set him down without hesitation as a vapouring liar

"Fact is, I don't feel like it to-night," he said. "I'm afraid I've got one of my ague fits coming on. My feet are like ice. Ring the bell, my dear fellow, I really must get you to allow me to put my rubbers on.

"No ceremony here, my dear chap," Lane laughed. "The servants have gone to bed. You will find your goloshes in the hall.

Duckworth reappeared presently, avowing himself to be better

"I popped into the dining-room for my spare box of cigarettes," he said. "Your case of Apostles is still on the table. Isn't that tempting Providence?

"Lock 'em up before I go to bed," Lane said carelessly. "Now sit down and make yourself comfortable, Mason, you're not going?

"I am afraid I must," the little novelist said, with marked regret. "There are some proofs I faithfully promised to deliver in the morning. As it is I shan't be in bed before daylight.

It was shortly after midnight when Duckworth rose in his turn. Lane lay deep down in his armchair with his feet near the fire. He protested gently that the evening was being spoilt

"Hang me if I'm going to get up." he said

"My dear fellow, I should be sorry for you to do anything of the kind," Duckworth cried eagerly. "I can let myself out. Good-night.

He stole away noiselessly in his goloshes, the door opened and closed with a dull sound. It occurred to Lane that the latch was up, but he did not move. He lay there looking into the glowing core of the fire for an hour or more. He should have secured the front door, he told himself indolently. But still---

He sat up alert and vigorous. His wonderfully quick ear caught a sound of somebody moving in the dining-room. He kicked off his slippers, and with a bound was in the hall. The dining-room door was wide open. Within, under the soft light of the shaded electrics stood Julius Duckworth conveying the priceless Apostles to his pocket

"You infernal scoundrel," Lane cried. "But I shall know how to deal with you.

Duckworth never even started. There was a suggestion of gentle regret on his face

"I was too eager," he said. "And I forgot that quick ear of yours. When I opened the door just a while ago I merely closed it again and waited. And now----

"And now I am going to send for a policeman, Mr. Duckworth.

The other man smiled. He sat down with an unopened tin of cigarettes in his hand

"In justice to my friend Duckworth," he said, deliberately, "I must correct you. It matters nothing what my real name is, but I am not Julius Duckworth.

"The point is too subtle for me," Lane said grimly

"There is no point at all. I am the other man.

"The other man! What the deuce do you mean by that?

"Precisely what I say. Nobody could remain long in Mr. Duckworth's company, without hearing of the other man, the alter ego, who has so frequently gotten him into trouble. I am that other man.

"You are nothing of the kind," Lane replied. "There is no other man. The alter ego was evolved out of your ingenious brain for certain reasons of your own. Seeing that I have you safe here, the scheme fails. Or perhaps you would like the second Duckworth to be your bail.

"The likeness is wonderful," the other man said, cheerfully. "But I beg to assure you most sincerely that the real Duckworth is at his rooms this very moment. He had a touch of fever this afternoon, and he wrote you that he couldn't dine with you to-night.

"Which letter I need not say I never got.

"But you will the first post in the morning. This afternoon I had occasion to call on my twin brother, so to speak. I wore glasses and a beard. For obvious reasons I was going to get Duckworth to advance me money to go to Australia. He had done so once before to get rid of me.

"He was in his bedroom. On his table was a letter to you saying that he was sorry the fever would keep him confined to his room. I knew you by repute, and here was my chance. You would never detect the difference. And I came with my goloshes and my choice cigarettes--commandeered this afternoon, as a matter of fact--and I got your Apostles. If I had not been quite so anxious I should have got clean away.

"But that does not explain the letter not coming.

"Ah! I had forgotten that. If the letter could be delayed I had nothing to fear. On second thought I decided not to wait and see my other self. Instead of that I hung about the house until the page boy came out with the letters. I handed him a packet addressed in pencil to a house in Brook-street, and offered him half-a-crown to deliver it for me in five minutes. I also offered to post his letters. The guileless innocence of youth saw nothing but half-a-crown and a benevolent stranger. The letter to you I posted too late for the 9 o'clock delivery.

Lane listened, not quite sure whether he was awake or dreaming. The story was glib and convincing. Duckworth had actually shown him the photograph of his double, and yet when the rascal was face to face it seemed impossible to believe that he was anyone but Duckworth. Still, the speech was a little thicker; there was a certain furtiveness in the eye---

"We'll go round to Mr. Duckworth's rooms and settle it," Lane said. "And don't you try any tricks on with me, my friend.

"I am not a fighter," the other man said. "Personally, I prefer finesse. I am quite ready to accompany you to Mount-street. Do you know that you very nearly found me out to-night? And I'm quite sure your astute friend Mason suspected something. It was when you asked me to play that Requiem. Now I know quite as much about old silver as Duckworth does. I find that knowledge valuable. Also, to play Duckworth's part well, I have rigged up the musical art patter. But I can't play a note. When you asked me to play to-night I was taken off my guard, and was within an ace of blurting out the fact. With that shrewd little beggar glaring at me behind his glasses I very nearly turned tail and bolted. Have a cigarette?

"No thanks," Lane said curtly

"Not one of my friend Duckworth's specials?" the other man asked persuasively. "Well, let me have just one. By the way, here are your spoons. It is with much regret that I am compelled to part with them.

He tumbled the precious Apostles out upon the table. Half suspecting some trick, Lane locked the door before proceeding to count and carefully examine his treasure. But they had not been changed, or anything of that kind

"All correct," said the other man, genially. Lane could hear the patent tin band being peeled off the fresh box of cigarettes. There was a faint perfume as the lid was raised, and the other man extracted, not a cigarette, but a thick cotton pad soaked with something pungent. Then, like a flash, a knee was inserted into Lane's back, his head was forced over by a powerful grip, and before he knew what was happening, the pad was pressed and held securely over his mouth and nostrils. Mechanically he gave a quick gasping breath, and in a second, the darkness of night closed in upon him, and he sank like an empty sack to the floor

The other man surveyed his work with calm approval

"On the whole, I'll take the spoons," he said. "Might as well be hanged for a sheep as a lamb. How pleased Duckworth will be when our prostrate friend calls upon him in the morning! And what a lot of convincing he'll take! Bye bye, Lane.

Lane came to his senses at length. He had no feeling of anger in his heart, nothing but a grim determination to get to the bottom of things. At 8 o'clock the next morning he had pretty well planned out his line of action

"I'll go and call on Julius Duckworth," he said to himself, "and I'll call before he's up. Pshaw! what nonsense! It's a plant from start to finish. I shall find no Duckworth at Mount-street. And I think--egad, hang me if I know what to think!

III

Sir Gordon repaired to Mount-street in a strange frame of mind. Like most men of intellect, he was not in the habit of doubting the evidence of his own senses. Morning had convinced him that he had come across in Julius Duckworth a brilliant and original adventurer. When he reached Mount-street he would hear that Mr. Duckworth had been suddenly called abroad, or something of that kind. But the whole thing was bewildering

Mr. Duckworth was dressing, a smart maid informed Lane. If the gentleman liked to walk in, as his business seemed pressing, she would tell Mr. Duckworth. The sitting-room fire was not yet lighted, but still---

Lane pushed his way resolutely, upwards. There might be some clue here. The remains of a small dinner were still on the table, an ash tray on the piano was filled with cigarette ends. A tall, pleasant-looking lady appeared to be superintending domestic operations. Lane began to wish that he had not come

"I am Mrs. Manley," the lady said quite calmly. "I am sorry, but Mr. Duckworth is to blame for all this confusion. Not being very well, he dined at home last night. And when that happens, and Mr. Duckworth sits down to his beloved piano afterwards, he hates to be disturbed.

"He promised to dine with me last night," Lane said

"Oh! then you are Sir Gordon Lane. Mr. Duckworth wrote to you.

'"Unfortunately, I only received the letter this morning," Lane said drily

"That was my page boy's fault entirely," Mrs. Manley said. "Mr. Duckworth was most anxious about that letter. The poor fellow was shivering over the fire a few minutes before 8 last night wrapped up in a quilted dressing-gown, and even then he asked about the letter.

Lane felt just a little queer. It looked as if the story of the alter ego was true after all. Otherwise Duckworth would never have had the audacity to stay coolly here after the events of last night. On the piano lay the substantial score of Salviati's Requiem. It inspired a question

"Mr. Duckworth felt equal to his piano last night?" he asked

"Oh, yes; he was playing all the evening. He went through that Requiem twice. I enjoy the performances immensely; I believe I could listen to a brilliant artist like Mr. Duckworth all night. I was an academy student in my younger days. I tell Mr. Duckworth that if he had gone on the concert platform he would have been a formidable rival to the great performers.

Lane's suspicions were fading. Here was a lady in the best sense of the word who was prepared to testify to the fact that at a few minutes to 8 her lodger had been crouching over the fire quite unable to go out. He had dined at home, as the table testified; he had smoked numerous cigarettes, as the ashtray proved; he had played a long Requiem twice over. When the musical mood was on him, Duckworth never allowed himself to be disturbed. An adroit question elicited the fact that it was about 9 when Duckworth went to the piano. He had played Salviati's masterpiece twice; in other words, he must have sat down to his piano till practically midnight. There could be no suggestion of hiring an accomplice here, for brilliant pianists are not found at every corner; besides the whilom academy student, in the form of Mrs. Manley, would have noticed the change of touch at once. No; Duckworth's 'double' story was true. The latter's anxiety that the letter of regret should be posted in time clenched it

A minute or two later, Duckworth yawned into the room, cuddled up in a bear skin and shiveringly cursing the vagaries of the English climate

"I'm sorry about last night," he said; "but you got my letter. What a fool I was ever to have sampled that infernal Mosquito Coast!

"I didn't get your letter," Lane said pithily. "But I had the pleasure of entertaining your double, who subsequently drugged me and levanted with my Apostle spoons.

Duckworth was properly sympathetic and properly angry. He listened to Lane's story with many outbreaks. At the same time he could not but admire the audacity and neatness of the scheme. His evident concern soothed Lane

"But I was within an ace of spoiling the play," Duckworth cried. "Once last night I felt so much better that I half dressed to come and see you after dinner. But prudence prevailed. I wish I had followed my impulse.

"I wish you had, too," Lane said pathetically

"It would have been splendid. Did you find the likeness amazing?

"So amazing that I feel half inclined to doubt the evidence of my own senses and a strong desire to ring for a policeman and give you in custody.

Duckworth shook his head sadly. It was no laughing matter. Sooner or later, he felt sure, that confounded double of his would get him into serious trouble. He declared that he had no appetite for breakfast, but if Lane would join him---

Lane declined. No, he would not put the matter in the hands of the police; he rather inclined to consult a private detective. This would be far more pleasant for all parties. Duckworth not only applauded the decision, but he was in a position to furnish the address of the very man

Lane walked off at length, chewing the cud of mixed reflection. Perhaps Hartley Mason would be able to make some suggestions. The wily brain of the novelist might prick a way to a more or less satisfactory conclusion

Mason rose from his chair somewhat hurriedly and pulled a cloth over his piano. He kept that instrument, he explained, for the benefit of his friends. He gleamed with all the virtue and alertness of the man who has done a lot of early work

"I have come to give you the plot for a story," Lane said

Mason nodded without enthusiasm. Most novelists suffer in that way from their friends. But as the story unfolded his eyes gleamed. It was a psychogical problem after his own heart. It was a long time before he spoke

"Julius Duckworth is your man, after all," he said

"You mean to say that Duckworth is the real thief?" Lane demanded

"Precisely," Mason said coolly. "The story of that amazing double is all hanged nonsense. It was invented and patented in case of accidents.

"But, my dear chap, I have seen the two men taken on one photograph plate.

"So you may imagine. But that can be easily faked. Why, years ago, in one of the 'Bits' type of paper, I saw the photograph of one man telling another story--a man telling himself a story, in fact. Photographers can easily manage that.

"Well, suppose I grant your point. How do you get over the fact that Duckworth actually wrote me a letter saying that he couldn't come, and that he insisted upon the letter being posted so that I should get it in time?

"As a man, I cannot say. But, as a novelist, suppose a blank envelope was addressed in some fugitive ink--the ink that conjurers and spiritualists use and which entirely disappears in a few minutes. There's the letter mystery solved for you. After you caught Duckworth out he posted the real letter on his way home. That's why his so-called 'double' told you the story of the letter.

"Another score to you. Now let's go a little further. Duckworth was at home playing his piano all the evening. An expert witness will swear to his touch. At ten minutes to 8 he was huddled over the fire in his dressing-gown.

"Having all his war paint on underneath," Mason said crisply. "As soon as his dinner was up he slipped out of the room and house unobserved. You see how carefully he guarded against anybody entering his room by all that nonsense about the interruption of inspiration, and all the rest of it. Am I right so far?

"You may be, but what about the piano, my astute friend?

A queer smile trembled on the lips of the pianist as he glanced in the direction of his piano. He looked like the man who tries to conceal that he is holding up the ace of trumps or a great coup

"As a novelist," he said slowly, "I often have to scheme a way for a man to be in two places at once. I wanted an original idea for a new alibi, and your friend Duckworth has given me one. A little weakness of my own has supplied the key. Now, didn't Duckworth say last night that Halliwell the numismatist had asked him to dinner on Friday?

"He did say so. And, as a matter of fact, I am going too.

"Don't. Write regretting at the very last moment. Then come round here a little after nine and I will show you things, as the Americans say. Now, I must turn you out. But I am going to solve your problem.

Lane retired somewhat ungratefully

Mason crossed over and pulled the rug away that covered his piano. The smile was not in deprecation of himself

"Very neat," he murmured; "a plan to be in two places at the same time. Splendid!

IV

"Now we are going to work up to the climax," said Mason, as he rose from his seat before the fire. "We assume that Duckworth has gone to dine with old Halliwell to-night.

"Which is doubtful," Lane interrupted. "Duckworth had a touch of ague to-day.

Mason chuckled. He seemed to be pleased about something

"A safeguard," he said. "Now you will be so good as to go as far as Hans Place and call on Halliwell. You must make some excuse for calling--ask if Fox is there, or something of that kind; but ascertain if Duckworth has arrived. You can easily get all that from the footman who answers the door. You will find that Duckworth is there. Then come back to see me here.

Lane went off in a state of mystery and a hansom cab. He returned presently with the information that Duckworth had arrived in due course, and that at the present moment he was smoking a cigar with Clement Halliwell, C.B., in his library. Mason chuckled in the previous irritating manner, and began to smoke. At half-past 10 he rose and donned his overcoat

"Halliwell is an early bird," he said. "We must start now, unless we want to lose our little bird, too. Come along. We are going to call and see Duckworth.

"Who, as I told you, is not at home.

"What's that got to do with it? You'll see some fun presently; also your Apostle spoons.

Arrived at Mount-street, Mason asked the sprucely-starched parlour-maid for Mr. Duckworth. With mild amazement, Lane heard that Mr. Duckworth was far from well; that he had dined at home and could see nobody. As a matter of fact, he was playing the piano at the present moment. The exquisite strains of Saviati's Requiem filled the house

"We'll go up," Mason said casually. "Mr. Duckworth is expecting us. No, you need not trouble to announce us. I'm afraid we're rather late.

Mason pushed his way upstairs followed by Lane mechanically. The latter was utterly and entirely bewildered. Could Duckworth be in two places at the same time? And how wonderfully well he was playing the Requiem

Mason held the door of the sitting-room open for Lane and then closed it behind him. The curtains over the alcove containing the piano were drawn. The unseen musician appeared to have his soul in his work

"What execution!" Lane murmured

"What time! What brilliancy of touch! A little more soul, perhaps. But still, there are not five pianists in Europe----

He paused, utterly at a toss for words. With a dramatic gesture Mason drew back the curtains, the wide end of the piano appeared in sight, but where was the executant? The alcove was empty! Lane gasped. Nobody was there, and yet the marvellous music went on. The room was flooded with the slow, wailing melody

"Explanations all in due course," said Mason. "The next thing is to catch our hare. He won't come back until the house has gone to bed, which won't be long now. That's what I call a neat dodge to establish an alibi. Even if you take your criminal almost red-handed, and he can wriggle back to his den here, he's pretty safe. Once that is done, and the people here swear that he never left the house, he turns on the artistic story of the double, and there you are. Bet you anything more than one Continental police bureau is prepared to testify to the double.

"But that wonderful plaything?" said Lane

"Ah, we shall come to that presently. Musicians are very conservative. On the whole, we had better step inside Duckworth's bedroom. He is sure not to be long now, especially as I heard the servants going to bed. Duckworth has his latch-key. Probably it is an understood thing that he fastens the front door.

Half an hour passed, the wailing music gradually grew slower and then stopped altogether. Then the sitting-room door opened, and Duckworth crept in. There was a serene smile on his face as he slipped off his great coat. From an inner pocket he took a small flat case, and laid it on the table

"The earlier Saxon coins," he murmured. "It will be a sad loss to Halliwell. I fear he will be greatly cut up over it. These shall gladden the heart of another collector, who may surmise where they come from, but who will show them to nobody. Your born collector has no conscience. I wonder----

"A good Wulfric," Mason said, laying a gentle hand on the speaker's shoulder, "and a remarkably fine specimen, I understand that there are only two others in existence. But Mr. Halliwell is not going to lose his coin this time.

Duckworth looked up swiftly. Just for a moment his eyes blazed. There was a cruel snarl on his lips. Then he reached for a cigarette with a steady hand

"You are quite right to take it quietly," Mason said, "though I should be very sorry to be alone with you. Where are Sir Gordon's spoons?

"I'll get them for you," said Duckworth with smiling alacrity

"You'll do nothing of the kind," Mason said crisply. "If you attempt to rise, I shall lay you out with this life preserver. Your keys! The spoons are in that big safe yonder? Very good. Lane will you get them and see that they are correct? Good again. Also place that case of coins in your pocket. That being successfully accomplished, what are we going to do with the polished rascal?

"Don't hit a man when he's down," said Duckworth, deliberately blowing a spiral of smoke down his nostrils. Sir Gordon Lane suggested. "Our interesting friend's same slightly feminine weakness. How did you find me out?

He lay back in his chair perfectly at ease. Like a true philosopher, he recognised the inevitable. Perhaps it was not the first time

"Might just as well say all about it," Lane suggested, "Our interesting friend's double was a figment of his imagination, of course.

"It was part of an exceedingly ingenious scheme," said Mason. "I need not go into the way it worked, seeing that it entirely deceived you. When you told me about it the other night I felt pretty certain that there was no double existing in the flesh. You told me all about the piano playing and the story Mrs. Manley had to tell. Also you challenged me to devise some scheme where, to all practical purposes, a man could be in two places at the same time

"Well, by a little bit of good fortune, I solved that problem. I am as passionately fond of music as either of you, but I can't play a note. A little time ago a friend showed me that marvellous invention the Orpheusia. I was charmed with it. Paderewski says it exceeds anything the most brilliant performer can accomplish. Other great musicians bought one. I bought one. And I claim that I can, with the aid of it, far exceed the efforts of either of you. I was a little ashamed to speak of it when I was dining with you the other night because you were so contemptuous of the Orpheusia. But you heard it here tonight.

"So that was the Orpheusia?" Lane cried. "Mason, I take it all back.

"I knew you would, conservative as you are. Well, my Orpheusia gave me the first idea. Here was a way that Duckworth could be in two places at once. Here was his ingenious alibi. He had an Orpheusia. I made inquiries of the makers. Sure enough, one of these instruments was delivered here a few weeks ago, packed ready to go abroad. It is behind that curtain at this moment, plus an ingenious little arrangement for working it mechanically, and to reverse the action so that a piece can be played twice or three times over. Hence the selection of a long score like Salviati's Requiem. There you have it in a nutshell. Any mechanical affair like the Orpheusia could do this thing. And all the time the people here deemed this clever fellow to be shooting his soul with a sweet strain, he was elsewhere. The puzzle is solved. It looked dreadfully difficult at first, but, like all things of the kind, it is absolutely prosaic when you know how it's done.

Lane slipped behind the curtain for a moment. He found things pretty much the same as Mason had prophesied that they would be. He had heard of the wonderful possibilities of the Orpheusia, but he had scoffed at the suggestion hitherto. Duckworth smiled with the air of a man whose modest worth has been discovered

"Simple and ingenious," he said. "The only time when I have known artistic simplicity to fail. And now I suppose there is nothing for it but to call a cab?

"Out of the window," Mason said. "No going to the door. I have too much respect for your ability to give you the ghost of a chance. If you open the window and whistle. Lane, you are pretty sure of your catch.

"You little demon!" said Duckworth, with a flash of his white teeth. "I was a bit afraid of you from the very first.

"On the score of phrasing," Mason said coolly, "your compliment is crude. But of its sincerity there is not the shadow of a doubt.

THE END

THE BLACK CAT

Published in the Sunday Times (Perth, W.A.), Sunday 6 September, 1903

I

From the "East Kent Standard":-

A tragic affair, resulting in the death of Mr. Mortimer Colles, the well-known scientist, took place at Reculvers on Monday. It appears that the deceased gentleman and his friend, Mr. Philip Lyne, Professor of Physics at University College, were making a series of experiments on heat with the aid of magnifying glasses. Whatever the peculiar nature of the experiment might be matters little. In the course of the proceedings it became necessary for the two gentlemen to separate, Mr. Colles proceeding some six hundred yards away from his companion in the direction of the sea, the whole business taking place on the cliff

Nobody appeared to be moving, the cliff line thereabouts being particularly flat, sterile and uninteresting. It would have been difficult for a rabbit to pass without notice. On the verge of the cliff towards which Mr. Colles made his way stand the ruins of a martello tower. The tower is not more than six feet high, and nothing but the bare circular walls remain. At this moment the passing of the sun behind a cloud checked the progress of the trifling experiment. Doubtless in a fit of idle curiosity, Mr. Colles peered into the tower. Ten minutes elapsed, and he failed to emerge. Naturally Mr. Lyne grew somewhat impatient. After hailing his friend without avail, he entered the tower, and thereupon was horrified to find Mr. Colles lying there dead, his throat cut from ear to ear in three distinct places. The clothes of the deceased were torn from his shoulders, or rather cut off in some strange fashion. Death must have been instantaneous. An inquest will be held in due course

The inquest connected with the above case was held at the Lion Hotel, Reculvers, on Tuesday evening. After evidence of identification and the usual official routine, Mr. Philip Lyne was called

Questioned by the Coroner, he said that he had known deceased many years. He had always been regarded as a genial and entertaining man, and one, moreover, of great physical and mental strength

The Coroner: Was Mr. Colles as cheerful lately as usual

The witness replied that he was bound to say no. He had every reason to believe that the deceased gentleman was worried over a knotty problem of considerable scientific importance, and that he had complained of want of sleep. The nerves of an imaginative man were easily upset

Dr. Heather was the next witness called. He deposed to the nature of the wounds, and was emphatic in his declaration that they could not have been self-inflicted

By the Coroner: Were they all fatal wounds

Witness: Undoubtedly. The cartoid artery was severed in three places. The deep slashes across the throat might have been planned out with a ruler and compass, so mathematically regular were they

The Coroner: Done with some sharp instrument, doubtless

Witness: Not particularly sharp. The wounds gave me the impression of having been inflicted by a dull razor handled by some one who possessed great muscular force. More I cannot say. I am strongly of opinion that this is a case of murder, and that this is not the first time an attempt to take the life of the deceased has been made

The Coroner: You see the importance of proceeding further

Dr. Heather: Quite so, sir. On examining the body the right breast of the deceased reveals three longs scars, healed some time ago, but evidently the remains of deep scars. There are three of them and the lines have the same mathematical regularity of those which subsequently resulted in death

The Coroner: Can you tell us any more

Witness: Unfortunately no. I am as hopelessly fogged as anybody else

At the conclusion of the inquiry, which lasted upwards of four hours, the jury brought in a verdict of wilful murder against some person or persons unknown

II

Two years passed away, and the public had forgotten the tragic death of Mortimer Colles; indeed, I trust I shall not be accused of callousness when I confess that I had almost forgotten it myself. It remained for Benham Carter to bring the matter back vividly

He had written to me proposing a visit, with a corollary to the effect that the offer was off provided I had taken to myself a wife in the meantime. The proper assurances being vouchsafed, Carter came in due course. On the very first evening over the walnuts and the wine Colles's name came up

"It was a great shock to me when I heard it in Paris," said Carter. "I was very fond of Colles. And the poor fellow died before his great discovery could be made public. What a thousand pities!

"Did you know anything of it?" I asked eagerly

"No I didn't, I'm sorry to say. Colles promised to tell me everything when he had worked it out to his satisfaction. He dragged me from Wady Halfa to Paris by way of Rome and Berlin searching for Stemitz, the eminent authority on bacteria, whom he desired to see. Give me the details of his death.

I responded at considerable length. Long before I had finished Carter had moved from his seat and was pacing up and down the room

"Phil," he asked suddenly, "how far is it from here to Reculvers? Could we drive over to-morrow and inspect the scene of the murder?

"We could--certainly; but what good would that do?

Carter came over and tapped me significantly on the shoulder

"To-morrow night," he said impressively, "if things are as I assume them to be, I shall tell how and by what means our friend Colles met with his death.

"You mean to say you know the man?" I cried

"I am practically certain. I have been face to face with the murderer," said Carter. "No wonder the police have failed to solve the problem. This thing is outside their ken entirely.

Carter's eyes sparkled, and he laughed in a creepy kind of way vastly unpleasant to the ordinary listener. Then he turned to me abruptly

"The more I think of it the more certain am I that I have solved the mystery," he said. "To-morrow I shall know definitely. Still, so sure of my ground am I, that if you like I will tell you the first volume of the romance this evening. What do you say?

That my reply was an eager affirmative goes without saying

"Then I will begin," said Carter, as he proceeded to light one of his peculiar ill-flavored cigars. "It is some two years and odd months ago that Colles came to me with the information that he had made a discovery. We had pushed on some way up the valley of the Nile--we were quite alone--in fact we were prospecting in the idle fashion of men taking a holiday. Colles had wandered off alone from our little camp only to return in the evening in a state of considerable excitement

"'Carter,' he said, 'I have found the tomb of King Ramin.

"Now, as you are probably aware, Colles was not in the habit of making rash statements. Neither need I enlarge to you upon the importance of the discovery. The next morning found us in the little valley where stood the pyramids--a miniature copy of the great pyramids--after which Colles proceeded to adduce reason why the pile contained the ashes of King Ramin. The arguments were cogent enough to convince any Egyptologist

"'And what do you propose to do now?'" I asked

"'Make the best of our opportunity and explore the place,' Colles responded. 'We'll burgle the tomb and ask permission afterwards if necessary.

"At the end of an hour we had loosened the stones that sealed the entrance, Colles's unerring judgment picking this out at once, and then we proceeded to crawl along the dark tunnel leading to the heart of the pyramid. Instead of being close and stuffy, the air was quite fresh and sweet

"When we reached the central chamber the reason for this became apparent. The apex of the pyramid had been left open, so that a circular shaft of light struck down and faintly illuminated the place. On a raised stone pile was a kind of brazen cage, and under this there rested, swathed and bandaged what is known to be the body of King Ramin. What a find! Colles' eyes fairly blazed as he regarded the illustrious mummy

"'We must have these at any cost!' he muttered

"Meanwhile I was gazing somewhat curiously around me. One thing that struck me as peculiar was the number of rats creeping like brown shadows over the floor. How did they get there, and still more pregnant question, how did they manage to exist? I could only account for it by the suggestion that there were small unseen egresses from the pyramids which we had not noticed

"I could get Colles to take no interest in anything but the illustrious mummy inside the brazen cage. Already he had commenced a vigorous attack upon the stonework into which the metal was welded, and in a short time it was possible to move the brazen sarcophagus from its place

"I was bending forward to assist in this operation when with a loud hiss something big and black and furry shot past me with the force of a catapult, and landed lightly on the summit of the cage

"It was a huge black cat, Lyne, the biggest I have ever seen. It was certainly as large as a collie dog, and then I recognised that the mystery of the skeleton was solved. The animal that confronted us with almost devilish menace must have been born and bred in the pyramid, the descendant of a pair doubtless placed there thousands of years ago

"'A dangerous and repulsive brute,' said Colles. 'Just as well to see if there are any more before proceeding further.

"A careful investigation failed to discover another cat. As we returned to our charge, the brute on the cage hoisted her tail and swore horribly. Colles shot out his arm, and like lightning she was upon it. I was fairly quick with my knife which I promptly buried in the creature's body, but not before she had torn Colles' coat into ribands as if severed with scissors. Then the creature dropped with an almost human cry of pain and vanished into the darkness

"At the end of an hour the tablets were in Colles' possession. They were indeed a precious find, far the most important ever discovered. In the excitement of the moment, I had almost forgotten that fiend of a cat, and as I live, at the minute Colles laid hand on those tablets, a long howl came out of the darkness, and I saw two great eyes glow like coals

"'Clap the stone to, and shut the brute in,' said Colles, when at length we emerged from the tomb. 'It seems to have got on my nerves. We'll just do our best to make the place look as if it had not been disturbed. This find is too precious to be spoken of this side of Cairo.

"Needless to say I heartily agreed. At the end of an hour we removed all traces of our work, and well pleased turned towards our camp. By this time we had forgotten all about the black cat when Colles happened to give an involuntary glance behind him.

"'Look here,' he said, 'give the beast one with your revolver.' Sure enough some 30 yards behind us was the black cat

"A spasm of rage possessed me. I fired two shots at a fair range, and I saw a black mass of fur bound into the air and roll over into the feather grass along the side of the track

"'He's settled, thank goodness,' said Colles.

III

We drove over to Reculvers the next morning, and there we made a close examination of the scene of the mystery, resulting in Colles' lamentable death. Carter left no stone unturned, he asked a thousand questions, he paced off the distance for some hundred yards round the Martello Tower, after which he finally strode away in the direction of the cliffs

"Are you perfectly satisfied?" I asked

"That everything is correct, yes," Carter responded without hesitation. "I am absolutely certain of it. Can we get down these cliffs?

"Certainly not for quite half a mile either way," I said

"All the same, I'm going to try," said Carter. "These chalk cliffs are a bit dangerous, but I am skilled at this sort of thing. I am a light weight, and I shall come to no harm. Don't be anxious about me.

Still I was anxious till Carter returned. And I was glad to see him safe on terra firma again. There was a subdued but certain triumph on his face that aroused my curiosity. My inquisitional nerve remained on the stretch till after dinner

It was with a feeling of relief almost that I saw Carter light one of his unspeakable cigars and lean back in his Chair

"You are doubtless on tenterhooks to hear the completion, of my story," he began. "I should have confided it to you last night, only I could not be absolutely certain of the facts as I am now.

"Then no doubt any longer exists?" I asked

"None whatever," Carter replied emphatically. "I have solved absolutely beyond question the mystery of poor Colles's death, and the evidence to clinch it I discovered during my climbing expedition this morning.'

"Go on, go on," I cried impatiently

"'Festina lente,' old man. Before going on I shall have to retrace my steps a little; in fact, I shall have to go back to the time in Paris when I joined Colles, when he was hunting Stemitz. We were staying in a small, old-fashioned hotel not far from the Rue de Rivoli, as both Colles and myself have a rooted dislike to the modern 'Caravanserai.

"The place was dark and somewhat gloomy. Indeed, along the corridors and in the big dingy bedrooms a score of murders might have been committed with impunity. Colles and I were going upstairs one evening when we found on the landing a waiter or two with a couple of chambermaids simmering with excitement. The cause of the hubbub was found to be the invasion of the house by a huge back cat, which finally had been driven out on the roof by a courageous garcon

"'But, such an awful brute, monsieur,' said the chambermaid. 'As big as a dog, ma foi, and eyes like pale blue saucers. It must have escaped from the show.

"'We must lay a trap for the creature,' I said, 'and see that next time we don't make a mistake.

"I sat on the edge of my bed a little later, lighted a cigar and fell into a reverie. Just as my cigar had burnt down to my fingers and I was drawing the last fragrant whiff, I was startled by a queer, strangled scream. Almost before I could rise to my feet the sound came again. Then I recognised both the voice and the direction of the cry

"They came unmistakeably from Colles's bedroom

"Like a flash I tore across the corridor and burst open Colles's door. Colles, stripped to his pyjamas, lay upon his bed fighting and clutching at some black object rolled upon his chest

"'For heaven's sake, hurry,' he gurgled. 'You'll find my revolver under my pillow. The brute's throttling me.

"Directly I had that weapon in my hand the cat jumped to the floor, swearing horribly. It came as a great relief to me to find that Colles was not greatly injured

"The loss of blood was not much to speak of, but Colles was shivering and trembling, his face had the ghastly, blue look of one who has received a great shock, and, as you know, Colles was anything but a coward

"Colles was not able to leave Paris for a day or two, and in the intervening hours we discussed the black cat from every point of view. How the brute had contrived to follow Colles to Paris was not so much of a mystery after all. A cat can find its way anywhere. It could travel easily on the axle of a railway engine, in the darkness it could easily slink aboard a steamer, and live on the mice and rats in the ship's hold. That part of the problem we had no difficulty in solving

"I did not accompany Colles to London because you already know I had business elsewhere. I said good-bye to my friend, and his last words were that I should never see him again. I began to fancy so myself when the day before I left Paris I had a brief cable from Colles:-

"'Saw it night Hyde Park. Goodbye, old friend.'

"The black cat killed Colles?" I asked

"Assuredly. The brute had followed you on that fateful morning. It must have been lurking behind the Martello tower. A crouching cat does not occupy much room, you understand. Once Colles entered the ruined tower his fate was sealed. That cat must have dropped right on his shoulders, and with those razor-like claws cut his throat in three places, severing the carotid artery instantly. Don't you remember that there were three parallel cuts, exactly similar to those healed ones on the body.

Mine was the silence of consent, and Carter continued

"At the inquest you stated that you saw, or fancied you saw, a shadow flitting over the cliffs. That shadow was the black cat. To be quite sure of that I made a close investigation of the spot where the murder took place. I even descended the cliffs, and there I was lucky enough to make a remarkable discovery. What do you think it was?

"My dear fellow, how could I possibly tell?

"Well, it was nothing more nor less than the skeleton of the black cat.

The End

THE HEART OF THE ANARCHIST

ILLUSTRATED BY OSCAR WILSON

Published in The Windsor Magazine, Vol. XVIII, Sep 1903, pp 468-476

I

YOUR Majesty," said the Chancellor, "is so pig-head—so headstrong!"

His Majesty replied with some heat that the Chancellor was perilously on the verge of becoming a dreary old—well, fossil. Then Rudolph remembered himself and apologised almost as humbly as he used to do when Count Ferrera was acting Regent over the Kingdom of Farsala.

"You are not a bit like your father, sir," Ferrera said half regretfully.

For Rudolph I. had been a puppet in the hands of this terrible old man with the flashing eyes and white hair. The man of fire and marble had dragged his frightened master after him over the flaming bridge of the reeking, breathless years, to plant him, dazed and bewildered, upon one of the strongest thrones in Europe. Then Ferrera returned to his whist with a comfortable sense of accomplished destiny.

But fire and marble, blood and tears, like dragons' teeth, leave their crop behind them, and thenceforth the Anarchists were a sore thorn in the side of the terrible old Chancellor. He could hold them under, and he did. But this did not tend to save the life of poor Rudolph I., probably the kindest and most amiable monarch who ever sat uneasily on a throne. The story of that senseless, useless, sickening tragedy is fresh in the mind of Europe yet.

And now Rudolph II. stood in the shoes of his murdered father. There was no frightening him. He had the strength of a Hercules and the heart of a lion. He was brave and quick and accomplished, and a rare handful for Ferrera, who was loth to relinquish his power. Rudolph was going to cut his name deep in the granite front of history, only Ferrera had no wish to see it done all at once.

"If your Majesty were less wild and daring!" he murmured.

"0f course I am!" the King cried. "Did you ever know a promising young man who wasn't? Look at your own youth—twice in gaol, once a narrow escape of being shot! There was Madame Le Genlis and the beautiful Bertha—"

Ferrera hastened to change the subject. If his Majesty would only take proper precautions to guard his sacred person, the rest would not matter so much. In sooth, the grim old Chancellor loved the boy as if he had been his own son, though he would have cut off his right hand rather than own it. His Majesty ought to consider his people. Going out hunting alone was all very well, but ill would assuredly come of it. And did his Majesty know that Carl Brema was known to have returned to Farsala again?

"The Anarchist!" the King cried. "The most picturesque outlaw in Europe. Egad, Ferrera! I'd give half of the coal dues to meet him."

"If your Majesty pursues your present life," said Ferrera drily, " you are likely to meet him on far more economical terms."

In spite of all warnings, Rudolph went off with rod and fly-books, with nobody but a favourite groom for company. He had but recently purchased the "cottage" at Farma, some eighteen miles from the capital of Farsala, where the trout-fishing was almost a proverb. And Nello, the groom, knew every inch of the water, for he had been bred and born at Farma, and many a day's poaching had he known on that famous chalk-stream.

"Now we are going to enjoy ourselves," the King said gaily. "The Stadt is up for a month, and there is nobody but Count Ferrera to worry me, unless Carl Brema turns up, which would be annoying. Did you ever hear of Brema, Nello?"

Nello flirted out a shining cast of English-made flies out across the stream dexterously.

"I have seen him and spoken to him lots of times, sire," he said.

"And you never told me! Have you seen him here?"

"He lived here," Nello explained. "The great English artist, from whom your Majesty purchased the cottage just as it stands, in turn bought it from the Government. It belonged to Carl Brema's father, who also was a great artist in his day. The Government forfeited the property on account of the treason of the elder Brema. Carl Brema's mother was turned out at death's door, and died in the garden where the fountain is. Those were bad days, when the sword ruled in Farsala. Carl Brema was a boy then."

His Majesty remarked impatiently that it was a beastly shame—he had been two years at Eton and hoped to marry an English princess; that, upon his honour, he should have turned Socialist himself under the like conditions; and a great many other indiscreet remarks that fortunately could not reach the ears of his sage Chancellor.

"Tell me some more about Carl Brema," he demanded.

But Nello had not much to say. There was a deal of local tradition, for the neighbourhood was proud, in a way, of its Nihilist celebrity. But it was in Russia and Italy that Brema had made his great reputution. Like Stepniak, he had had many adventures. He was a widower, with one beautiful daughter, who was dying of consumption. And years ago, during one of the Nihilist's secret visits to his old home, the girl had been born here.

All of which information his Majesty kept discreetly from the Chancellor what time he returned to dinner in high good humour and with a full creel of trout. He was delighted with his cottage, charmed with its unique old oak and pictures and china. He was going to take up painting again. It was a pity to have so handsome a studio, filled with lay figures and everything to woo the brush, and yet not use it. Ferrera said that was all very well, but he should like to see a few soldiers about the place.

"Not a scarlet coat nor a wisp of gold lace!" the King cried. "No menservants, no lackeys, nor anything besides Nello and the maids. This is freedom, Ferrera; and upon my word, I revel in it."

His Majesty was smoking cigarettes in the studio. He had dined, he was tired, and he was at peace with all the world. Ferrera had gone post haste to the capital on business connected with some laggard diplomacy. He had departed much as an anxious peasant mother might have done who leaves the children alone with a box of matches. And to soothe him, his Majesty had promised not to leave the house.

Presently there was somebody at the telephone. For once, royalty regretted the absence of retinue. Perforce he had to get up from his nest of Persian rugs and answer the call in person. It was Ferrera, calling aloud from the capital for a red despatch-box. Would the King allow Nello to ride as far as Cammes, where a mounted messenger from the capital would meet him?

"Consider it done," his Majesty yawned. "Hi! Nello—the red despatch- box from the Count's writing-table; you are to ride with it as far as Cammes. Get me a fresh box of cigarettes and begone!"

Thus the King was alone in the house, and the women of the household had gone to bed. As a mere precaution, the ruler of Farsala strolled round the house and locked the doors. The blinds were down, save in the studio, where there were no blinds. Shaded lamps had been lighted everywhere. Verily, the cottage was a museum of rare and beautiful things. Rudolph could imagine anybody growing passionately fond of so refined and artistic a home. It seemed almost impossible to imagine this as the birthplace of a bloodthirsty Anarchist. Carl Brema's father had got all this antique oak and china together. His Nihilism had been of a type that even Russia tolerates to-day. It was hard lines, Rudolph thought.

He was thinking it all over as he stood musing in the studio by the dim light of a crescent moon. Carl Brema had seen his mother die outside yonder on the grass. That was the sort of thing that drives headstrong men to crime The lay figure yonder might have been an Anarchist ready to spring. A shadow crossed the bare window—perhaps that was another. But the shadow came again, all in white, and a pair of white hands beat passionately on the long windows opening to the lawn, and a piteous voice begged for admission. Without a minute's hesitation, Rudolph flung back the French sash and caught a faint, light, silked body in his arms. The girl hung there breathlessly for a moment.

"Get me to the light!" she gasped. "Your life depends upon it—quick!"

II

UNDER the streaming lamplight, Rudolph saw a beautiful face like marble, save for the hectic flush on the cheeks; he saw a pair of liquid eyes filled with terror and a fearsome gladness. He poured out a glass of wine and coaxed a little of it past the girl's lips.

"Now tell me who you are, little one?" he asked gently.

"Sire," the girl replied, " I am Enid Brema. Carl Brema is my father. He is close by, and there are two others. It was a mere trick, a tapping of the telephone wire, that deprived you of your servant's assistance. It was here that my father's mother died in his arms. Oh! your Majesty understands?"

Rudolph nodded grimly. He perfectly understood the situation; his imagination grappled with the dramatic scheme of vengeance. Three of the most reckless and dangerous criminals in Europe were close by, and he was alone. The frank, boyish look had gone from his face. He had often pictured some such plight as this. And now the time had come to act.

"I owe you a debt I shall find it hard to repay," he said. "I see you have risked a deal to come and save me. Why?"

"Because I am dying," the girl said simply. "If I had done nothing, I should have been a murderess. I couldn't die like that. And so I came. You look upon my father as a man without heart or feeling?"

"It is the accepted point of view," Rudolph said guardedly.

"Then it is wrong!" Enid cried. "No nobler or kinder man breathes! And he has never soiled his hands in crime. And there are some men who are sane on all points but one. And then to find you here, of all places in the world! It seemed like a foul insult to my father's mother's memory."

"I did not know till yesterday," Rudolph murmured.

"I believe you. They say you are good and kind. I argued with my father, I fell on my knees before him, I asked him to see you, and he laughed me to scorn. And I am afraid, terribly afraid, for both of you if you meet. Listen!"

There came the sound of stealthy feet outside. Rudolph turned down the lamp.

"Which way are they coming?" he asked.

"By way of the studio. There is a patent catch on the window which anyone familiar with can undo. One comes first to make sure of the ground, then the other to guard the exits, and, after him, my father. Let me go and draw them off. Let me go and make a diversion whilst you escape—"

Rudolph shook his head grimly.

"I am not going to escape," he said. "I have a plan. Do you creep upstairs and into the first room you come to. Even if you hear the sounds of firearms or strife, be silent. And if I am successful, there is a reward waiting for you far beyond your wildest dreams. Now go."

The girl obeyed silently. She was tired and weary and worn out. Rudolph heard her laggard steps impatiently, he heard the door close, and then he hastened to the studio. His own coat and smoking-cap were whipped off and hastily huddled on to the lay figure lounging on the sofa. A briar pipe was thrust into the mouth—a pipe filled with damp tobacco, into which a hot fusee was rammed. Swiftly, and yet without hurry, Rudolph looked around him. His eyes fell upon a score or more of fishing-reels holding hundreds of yards of strong salmon-lines. Then he crouched behind a suit of armour close to the couch and waited. There was no fear in his heart, nothing but a deep lust in the joy of the coming strife.

His patience was not unduly tried. Presently there came a crunching footstep on the gravel, a dark shadow fell athwart the floor, a hand was laid upon the catch of the window. After a little time, there came a cold gust of air, that caused the pipe in the lay figure's mouth to glow. The studio was filled with a pungent smell of fresh tobacco.

In the dim moonlight the shadow was coming nearer. Rudolph could hear heavy breathing and a subdued chuckle. Then the intruder became aware of the lay figure and paused. Here was the object of the raid, utterly unconscious of danger, ready for the knife. The Anarchist slipped towards the victim; Rudolph crept out and stood on tiptoe behind him.

The King calculated his distance to a nicety. He jumped forward, and passing his hand over the intruder's shoulder, gripped him by the throat. Once the feeling of utter surprise was past, the Anarchist struggled violently. He might as well have tried to free himself from the grasp of some powerful machinery. And the hold on his throat was bringing the red stars before his eyes.

"If you utter one word," said the King, "you are a dead man!"

But the other had abandoned the useless struggle. He suffered himself to be bent backwards and a handkerchief stuffed into his mouth. His hands and legs were bound in yards upon yards of the fishing-line, until he was trussed up like a silkworm in its slimy net. As if he had been a child, Rudolph picked him up and carried him to the dining-room. The lay figure, with the still glowing pipe in its mouth, seemed to look on with grotesque approval. Rudolph dumped his burden down and rolled him under the table, A long tapestry cover hid that evil fruit of the night from view. With a deeper, fiercer joy in the combat, the King returned to the studio.

So far fortune had favoured him. With strength and prudence on his side, he felt confident of the issue. It would be assumed by those outside that their colleague was guarding one of the exits. It was just as well that the Anarchists were so prudent. And here was another of them coming. The draught came in strongly, there was a deep glow in the dummy's pipe.

The second man displayed a little more caution than the first. There was something more creepy and murderous in his step. Once in the studio, he stopped. Obviously he was scared by the appearance of that still brooding figure with the pipe in its mouth. The first marauder could never have passed that. But then it was just possible that the other man had skulked into the cottage, and that the King had just come here. The new-comer stepped back, hesitated, and stood still for a moment.

If he took real alarm now, Rudolph felt that he had had all his pains for nothing. It would never do to let this fellow escape. The next few moments were anxious ones. What would the intruder do?

Apparently he decided to go on. Probably he reflected that Brema's watchful eyes were near, and that he would see that the victim made no escape. He crept within a few inches of Rudolph, and the next instant half the life was being crushed out of him by a pair of strong arms. The attack was so sudden, so fierce, that the victim could do no more than gasp. In the pallid moonlight the King could see a pallid, shifty, mean face, and he laughed silently. This was not the kind of thing that Anarchists were made of. This fellow had come for nothing more than loot.

"Don't speak," Rudolph said grimly. "If you do, I shall break your neck. What is the signal? Whisper it."

"The big Venetian clock in the hall," the white-faced man gasped. "Calo was to have moved the hands on to midnight and make it strike before its time. Brema can hear the signal outside."

"Um. That is very clever and not in the least likely to excite suspicion. Come this way. And if you make the faintest sound, you will cease to be interested in things mundane any more. Give me your handkerchief."

The trembling man obeyed. Rudolph gagged him as he had done the other. Then his palsied limbs were trussed up like a partridge ready for the spit, and he also was dragged into the dining-room.

"There!" Rudolph exclaimed in high good humour. "You will find yourself in excellent company, although you will not be bored with too much conversation. Now, I am going to make the family party complete by the addition of the most distinguished Carl Brema!"

He passed into the hall, where the great Venetian clock stood. It still wanted some five-and-twenty minutes to the hour. Rudolph opened the face and put the hands on till it pointed close to midnight. In the studio the dummy still sat smoking. The King threw a cloak over it; his decoy was no longer needed. He stood back in the shadow of the window and waited. Something gleamed fitfully in his hand. There was a buzz of wheels, and the silver bells of the great clock chimed twelve.

III

THE vibrating echo of the chimes died away. From a distant somewhere a lamb was bleating. Beyond the village a dog whined. The sounds only served to mark the intense silence. Rudolph was unpleasantly conscious of the beating of his own heart. Brave as he was, he knew the enormity of the task before him. Brema's scouts he had tricked with contempt. Brema himself was a different matter.

He was coming. The King's strained ears told him that. A shadow of a long head and a close-fitting hat crossed the moonlight. Like a shadow himself, Brema crept into the room. Almost instantly the cool rim of a revolver pressed upon his temple.

"Put up your hands, Brema," the King said quietly.

With a gentle sigh, Brema complied. He expressed no emotion; he did not seem in the least surprised or disappointed.

"That was neatly done," he said coolly. "Your Majesty should be one of us. And you are all alone, too!"

"I am all alone, as you say. And your friends are being carefully looked after. Precede me to the dining-room; you know the way."

Brema's teeth clicked together. He caught his breath with something like a sob. He knew the way only too well.

"I am not likely to forget it," he said slowly. "By all rights, divine and human, this place belongs to me. The sight, the scent, the smell turns my heart to water. And then the knowledge of my wrongs?"

His voice was quiet, low, almost caressing. In the hall, Rudolph looked at his victim. He was slight and spare, with a white, gentle face and deep, melancholy eyes. His thick hair was prematurely grey. It seemed almost impossible to believe that here was one of the most dangerous revolutionaries in Europe. And yet it was so.

He stepped back involuntarily half a pace as if to admire a picture. In some magical way his heels crooked in between the King's legs, and they came to the ground in a heap together. Rudolph's revolver was jerked from his hand and kicked to a safe distance.

Then followed a struggle, short but severe. Brema seemed to fight with the strength of a dozen men. He was elusive and slippery as an eel. They fought along the floor and into the dining-room, until by mutual consent they parted breathlessly, sobbing and gasping for air. Swiftly Brema locked the door and dropped into a chair.

"Now we are man to man," he gasped, "we will parley. On the whole, I have rather the advantage of you."

Thinking of the helpless figures so close at hand, the King was discreetly silent. Brema was gazing round the room avidly. Though his eyes were shining with the lust of battle, his lips quivered. He took a little Mazarin-blue spill-cup from a bracket behind him.

"Your Majesty's predecessor showed rare good taste in leaving everything here severely alone," he said. "The pictures and cabinets and china are as they were when I was a boy, with dreams of being a great artist. This cup is the one strange item, and I fear it is a forgery."

He held it at arm's length critically.

"I believe you are right," the King said. "It is out of place here. Therefore, we will dispose of it—thus."

There was a muffled report, a puff of smoke apparently exuding from his Majesty's person, and the spill-cup splintered into a score of pieces. The King lounged smilingly in his arm-chair, his hands deep in the pockets of the shooting-jacket he had donned after dinner. Brema was shaken out of his equanimity now. He regarded the fragments at his feet with an astonishment absolute and complete.

"Your Majesty is not alone, after all!" he stammered.

"Indeed I am," Rudolph smiled. "You thought you had the advantage of me, but you are mistaken. You are covered with my spare revolver at the present moment. It is in my jacket pocket. I learnt that trick of shooting through the pocket in America. I practised it with a perseverance that has been rewarded, as you see. I have only to crook my forefinger slightly, and you are as useless as that bit of Mazarin-blue. If I did so—?"

"Your Majesty would have the applause of the civilised world."

"I know it. And you came here to murder me?"

"I came here with an open mind. Also there were men with me ready to do my bidding. It was I who tapped the telephone wire and imitated Count Ferrera's voice. I had planned this thing out carefully. It seemed like the irony of fate to come and kill you here whence your minions expelled the best of mothers, the woman who died close by of a broken heart. My father was a loyal citizen, sire."

"I am prepared to admit it, Brema. I have been making a careful investigation of your case. Your father's sentiments to-day would be held to be no more than Radical views. But at that date, in the then perilous condition of Farsala, we could not afford too much liberty. Still, Ferrera's servants were wrong. The expulsion of your mother was an act of barbarity—one of many, I fear, in those troubled times. You loved this place?"

A queer spasm of emotion trembled on Brema's lips.

"With my whole heart and soul," he said. "I loved all the treasures here—every inch of the orchards, and cornlands, and vineyards was familiar to me. And it was my dream to be a great artist like my father. And he was a true patriot, sire, as sure as I am a wandering outcast whose life you hold in your hand. I have been driven to this. When I shut my eyes, I can see my mother lying yonder on the grass, with the soldiers thrusting her on with their rifles. She said she was dying, and they laughed. And she died there and then. When I think of that, the red light comes into my eyes and I am mad. Not that I hold with the slaying of rulers—save one."

"Meaning myself, of course?"

"Yes, your Majesty. As your father died before you. But I had no hand in that— violence is no part of my policy. I would have asked pardon ten years ago; I came back to serve my country, but the police ignored my suggestions. It was a bitter pill, but not for myself."

"You are alluding to your daughter now?"

"Yes, sire. A girl as sweet and tender as she is beautiful. And she is dying—dying under my eyes, of consumption. God help me when she is gone! Men call me a wild beast now—what shall I be like then? And the cruel irony of it all is that the doctors say she might recover if she came back to her native air. I—I thought if I could make you my prisoner to-night, if I could stand over you with a revolver to your breast, I might, I might—but that is all a dream now."

Brema's words trailed off to a broken whisper, his head fell upon his breast. The King watched him in a dreamy kind of way. It seemed almost impossible to believe that this slight, white man, mourning upon a half-made grave, could be one whom half Europe held in terror.

"Why?" he asked. "Why should it be a dream? Kings, like Nihilist leaders, are only human, after all. You have been badly treated, Brema—your father was badly treated; and when I think of your mother, I am filled with shame. There!"

From his shooting-jacket he produced his revolver and tossed it on the table. It was magnificent, but it was not war. It touched Brema, it brought the tears into his eyes. Here was a monarch whom he had heard well spoken of. The splendid audacity of it touched the Anarchist to the soul.

"My daughter told me you were a good man," he said. "She warned me for the best. Ah! if you knew, your Majesty; if you could only see her! If you could only give me an amnesty for a day, till I could bring her to your feet."

"Nonsense!" Rudolph cried. "I would kiss her hand. She has done me a service to-night that I can never forget. And as to seeing your daughter, I have had speech with her already."

"Your Majesty is pleased to jest!" Brema gasped.

"On the contrary, I was never more in earnest in my life. As a matter of fact, your daughter is under my roof—this roof—at this very moment."

IV

IT was some little time before Brema spoke. When at length he looked up, there was a curious smile on his face.

"My daughter came to warn your Majesty of your danger?" he asked.

"And at the same time to betray you into my hands. You can imagine the agony and distress of mind of the poor girl. She looks upon you as the best and noblest of mankind. It is your boast that your hands are free from blood "

"Pshaw!" Brema cried. "The brute beast methods are none of mine."

"Yet, my good Brema, you cannot touch pitch without being defiled. Depend upon it, your daughter thought the whole matter out carefully. She would come to me and save my life, and plead for you afterwards. Under the circumstances, she argued—quite logically—that I must be merciful. So she came. I laid a little trap for your confederates, and they fell into it. I set the clock for your benefit also. Your accomplices are under the table. Bring them out."

Brema complied. The King took a knife from his pocket and contemptuously indicated that their bands should be cut.

"Wait!" Brema cried hoarsely. "When I came here to-night, I meant to kill your Majesty! When I crept into the house and saw all the old, familiar objects about me, a madness filled my brain. I should have struck you down without mercy. And now you have me—have all of us in your power. For Heaven's sake don't be rash!—don't place such a hideous temptation in my way!" He spoke as if pleading for some boon. Great drops stood on his forehead.

"Release them!" Rudolph commanded. "I am not afraid of them, seeing that I am not even afraid of you! You will never cut deep with two such poor, pitiful tools as these. Set them free!"

He stood up—big, strong, powerful, with the light of resolution shining in his eyes. Brema slashed the clinging cords away; he pulled the gag from the mouths of his discomfited allies. They looked small and mean enough now, but they would have done murder at the instigation of their chief, and the King of Farsala stood alone in their midst. All the hot anger died out of the Anarchist's heart.

"Bid them go!" Rudolph cried. "Dismiss them!"

They needed no second bidding. They passed like bats into the night. The King's manner changed, a ripple of laughter came from his lips. "Confess it!" he cried —"you are not sorry now that your daughter came here."

"From the bottom of my heart I am glad," Brema cried. "Your Majesty has beaten and humiliated me in every way. Never will I raise a hand against you again. Now call my child, and let us go, before—"

The Anarchist hesitated; he moistened his dry lips. There was a curious gentleness on his face, yet his eyes were troubled as he looked about him.

"The madness will not return," Rudolph said quietly. "Sit down and talk, Brema. I have need of men like you, Brema. Farsala wants you. And they tell me your child may recover in her native air."

"If I could only leave her here!" Brema murmured. "If your Majesty would permit—"

"And why not? The girl saved my life. Incidentally, she has probably saved you from the gallows. She shall stay here; and if you like to take the oath of allegiance, there is a commission in the Army ready for you. And if I come here occasionally—"

"Your Majesty!" Brema said falteringly. "What do you mean?"

"That the place is yours. It was forfeited to the Crown quite unjustly. And I am going to restore it to you just as it stands. Ferrera will laugh at me— oh! he will laugh at me most confoundedly! Brema, shall we show him that the laugh is on our side?"

Brema sat there speechless. His face was all broken up and there were tears in his eyes. Some mumbling words escaped him. He turned to Rudolph. The latter was sniffing like a hound in the air.

"Don't you smell something burning?" he exclaimed. "Egad! it would be a pity to lose the place just as you came into it again, Brema. I know! When I threw that cloth over the lay model, I forgot the lighted pipe—"

There was a little cry outside and the patter of light feet. Without ceremony, Enid Brema dashed into the room.

"Your Majesty!" she gasped, "I dared not stay any longer. A fire has broken out in the house—in the studio... Father!"

"I am here in the service of my King!" Brema cried. "No more wanderings, my child. You have saved my soul to-night, and I have found the one man I can call my master. Come along. Where shall we find water?"

In the studio the fire had gained a good grip. A heap of picture-frames and easels were glowing and flickering, the lay model, cause of all the mischief, one gleaming mass. The place was full of acrid smoke, beyond the veil a series of crocus blue and yellow eyes flared.

"Stand back, child!" Rudolph cried. "I am going into the little fernery to the right yonder. There is a hose and tap there. Brema, do you try and close the window, to keep the draught down."

Rudolph plunged into the smoke with the zest of a schoolboy. At some considerable risk, Brema contrived to close the window. Presently there was a roar of delight from the fernery, followed by a spurt of water and the hiss of steam. At the end of half an hour the flames were beaten flat and dead.

"I hope your Majesty is not hurt," Enid said timidly.

"My Majesty is as jolly as a sandboy!" Rudolph cried. "I never remember enjoying myself more. A perfectly delightful evening of adventures. Farce to tragedy and tragedy to farce. And that is life!"

"Farce enough!" a deep voice growled. "What's the meaning of this? Still, I am only too thankful to find you alive, sire."

"Ferrera!" Rudolph cried. "Why back so soon?"

"Because I have been hoaxed!" Ferrera thundered. "And Nello here was dragged out on the same fool's errand. I came back expecting to find that some ghastly tragedy had been enacted. Brema is close by—"

"At your elbow," Rudolph said coolly. "Brema, this is my devoted and dear old friend and tutor, Count Ferrera. Ferrera— Brema. The house was on fire, and Carl Brema took the risk of getting it under. He has been of the greatest service to me."

"It seems to me that I have arrived in time," Ferrera growled.

"Just in time, Count. Brema has saved the house—he and his daughter between them. And Brema had come all this way to place his services at my disposal, and to— er—become a credit to Farsala. That being so, it is my good pleasure to restore his family property and to ask permission of his daughter to stay here for the present. Ferrera, there is a lady present."

"Perhaps, on the whole, it is a good thing," Ferrera said sotto voce.

There was something bitter in his politeness. Rudolph cast a warning glance at Brema, who understood that the early events of the evening were to remain a secret between his sovereign and himself. He took the King's hand and carried it silently to his lips.

"The man is a dangerous Radical, your Majesty, and will ever remain so," said the Chancellor.

"He was," Rudolph laughed. "Do you remember the story of the Scotch Radical who so suddenly changed his views and became a rigid old Tory? When reproached with his backslidings, he responded that in the old days he 'had nae coo,' which is Gaelic for cow. So soon as he acquired a cow, he became a respectable member of society."

"The moral of which is, your Majesty?"

"That Brema has got his 'coo'"

THE END

THE OTHER MAN'S STORY

Published in The Windsor Magazine, June, 1912.

I.

THERE was a sudden rush of figures, the suggestion of a badly acted quarrel, the gleam of a revolver-barrel or two, and the crowd round the roulette-table realised that a bold attempt to rob the bank was in progress. To add to the dramatic swiftness of it, someone in the conspiracy had cut off the electric light, so that the greater part of the big saloon was in darkness.

The thing had come so unexpectedly that the croupier, old and hard in the ways of the wicked, could only bend over his bank and hug the shining metal there, much as a hen squats over her chickens when a hawk is overhead. An arm shot out of the half-gloom, and the croupier, his head laid open by a heavy blow from a loaded stick, ceased to take any further interest in the proceedings, snoring like a pig. Just for a moment it looked as if the amazing audacity of the proceedings were going to be crowned with success. Two or three revolver-shots rang out in quick succession, women of all kinds clung together and screamed, a shrill whistle trilled somewhere in the distance.

All this about half past six on a rather dark February evening, the hour when the saloons of Monte Carlo are not at their fullest, and an attack like this would be most likely to succeed. The three Englishmen who had just come in looked at one another, doubtful of what to do next. They were not in the least frightened; they would have been capable of anything, had only somebody given them the lead. The lead came unexpectedly from a man who was struggling with a tangled knot of humanity on the floor.

"Hi, there, you look a likely lot," he gasped. "Trip up that chap with the red hair. Get him down and jump on him. I can manage the rest."

Two of the Englishmen moved to the attack. There were no more revolver-shots, seeing that the noise of conflict was likely to do more harm than good. The third Englishman did not move. He was slighter than his companions, and though his mouth was hard and firm almost to the verge of cruelty, he was still palpably in the grip of some lingering illness. He seemed to be fascinated, too, by a queer sight that met his gaze from the floor. Out of the tangled knot struggling there, a hand shot—a nervous, sinewy hand, with a peculiar scar in the shape of a crucifix upon it.

"Come on, Duckworth," one of the other men called. "Twist that fellow's arm behind him."

But the man called Duckworth never stirred. He was like one who sees a ghost. The sinewy hand with the scar upon it was no longer visible, for it had got back to work again; the eager watcher could not discover what body the limb in question belonged to. He was still standing in the same dazed way when the lights came up again, and the saloon filled with men in uniform. The raid was over almost as soon as it had begun, there was a buzz of excited conversation, and pale, fair cheeks began to draw blood again. The other two Englishmen were still breathless from the struggle.

"An American gang," one of them panted. "Headed by a chap who has a bad reputation on two continents. By Jove! that fellow would have made a big name as a soldier. Pretty mad thing to try, all the same. Heart worrying you again, Duckworth?"

"It wasn't quite that, Herries," Duckworth stammered. "Of course, the excitement was trying to anybody in my wretched state of health. After the adventurous life I have lived in America, a little thing like that could not hurt me. But in the middle of that struggle I had a shock that seemed to knock the breath out of my body."

"Saw something unpleasant, eh?" the third man asked. The other two were good average Englishmen of the better type—clean-lived, well-groomed, sportsmen both. "Sight of that croupier with his head cut open?"

"Croupiers are cheap enough," Duckworth said somewhat brutally. "It wasn't that, Gilroy. A hand shot up from the floor where those fellows were struggling—a brown hand, with a scar like a crucifix upon it—the hand, mind you!"

"You don't say so!" Gilroy cried. "Quite sure that you are not mistaken?"

"Perfectly certain," Duckworth replied. "There was the clean mark of the crucifix, exactly as you described it that night in Rome. My dear chap, it is impossible for two men to have a mark like that on the back of a hand. You can imagine the effect that the discovery had upon me, with my nerves in their present condition. That fellow has followed me here, he has got on my track again."

"You mean to say," Herries said slowly, "that the man in question—"

"Is looking for me to murder me. Yes, I do. He tried it in Rome, as Gilroy knows. But for a bit of luck I should have been killed in my bedroom at the Maremma Hotel. It is terrible to be tracked and followed by a merciless, murderous assassin like this. If I only knew the man by sight, if he would only come out in the day-light—"

Duckworth paused and shuddered. Yet he had a justly high reputation for courage.

"Well, anyway, you've got a chance to drag the ruffian into the open now," Herries said cheerfully. "You will be able to recognise your assailant in future. All you and Gilroy have to do is to go before the local police and swear an information—"

"But I tell you I am as much in the dark as ever," Duckworth protested. "Let us go over to Nice and dine at the Gordon Hotel—my nerves call for a private room. I saw the hand and the scar plainly enough, but in the struggle and the semi-darkness it was impossible to identify the particular body to which the hand belonged. All I know is that my enemy followed me here, and that I have had a fortunate warning of the fact."

The speaker looked like a man who has the fear of the rope about his neck. Herries was inclined to make light of the matter. All they had to do was to keep their eyes open for a man with a peculiar scar on the back of his right hand. Once they found him, it would be a very easy matter to hand him over to the authorities. Perhaps he was already in custody, perchance he was one of the gang of captured desperadoes.

"I don't think so," said Duckworth thoughtfully. "The scarred right hand seemed to be on the side of authority; anyway, he had a pretty good grip on the red-haired chap. But for the life of me I could make nothing of his face, or even the colour of his clothes."

"Bet you a fiver I find the chap before twenty-four hours have passed," Herries boasted. "If we buck up, we shall just catch the 7.5 train to Nice, where we will dine at the Gordon Hotel. And we'll humour old Duckworth with a private room."

The colour was creeping into Duckworth's pale cheeks again, his mouth had recovered its hard lines. Herries and Gilroy were old school and college chums, their 'people' were intimate, but of Duckworth neither of them knew much. He alluded to no past, beyond the time when he had gone to California, where he had made a fortune in the goldfields, and where he had met with many strange adventures. But his form was correct, he was well dressed, he gave very good dinners at a small house of his own in Hill Street, he always contrived to get the cream of the Scotch moors and the Norfolk partridge-shooting. A man like that forms a very desirable acquaintance in these days of semi-illiterate financiers and foreign magnates of doubtful origin. In their frank, short-sighted way, both Herries and Gilroy summed Duckworth up as a 'good sort; just a little close, you know, but a dashed good sort, take him all round.' It was the philosophy of the club and the smoking-room, so that Duckworth's position was assured.

He did not look particularly assured as he adjusted his dress-tie in front of the glass in his bedroom before joining the others at the Gordon Hotel. True, he was just getting the better of a most mclassant attack of rheumatic fever, which had left his heart in a sad state, but that did not altogether account for his slackness to-night. His mind went back to that night in Rome, a little more than a year ago, when Gilroy had saved his life from the man with the scarred hand, the same man who was after him now. It came back to him that he had never quite satisfactorily explained to Gilroy why that mysterious and murderous attack had been made. He had said something about a revengeful madman who had some fancied grievance in connection with gold-mining and a disputed 'claim,' a man whose face he had never seen, and Gilroy was pleased to accept the explanation. Gilroy was a gentleman as well as a man of the world, and he had expressed no vulgar curiosity—there were doubled-down pages in the life of everybody, as he knew perfectly well.

The other two were waiting in the lounge of the hotel for Duckworth. Though the house was crowded, they had managed to get a private room, where dinner would be served in a few minutes—a room on the first floor, with a balcony looking out towards the sea. The crowd in the lounge was getting on Duckworth's frayed nerves.

"Let's go up to the room and sit in the balcony," he suggested. "We shall have just time to get through a cigarette there before dinner."

It was cool and fresh on the balcony, and the silence of it was soothing. Presently, from the dining-room came a clear, sharp voice demanding to know things, the apologetic whine of a waiter, and a peremptory order for somebody to go and fetch the manager.

"Some Johnnie trying to commandeer our room?" Herries suggested. "Come on, you chaps. I dare say it's one of those all-devouring Yankees."

A tall man with a beard stood before the fire, addressing the manager. He was perfectly dressed, and his manner seemed to be good. That he was annoyed about something was apparent from the expression of his face.

"If it is a mistake, then it is yours," he said. "I ordered this room this morning—I even arranged for those very flowers. It was settled with the head waiter. As I am a stranger here, I paid for the dinner in advance. The fact that my three friends have been detained in Paris makes no difference. This room is mine."

"But, m'sieur," the hotel proprietor protested, "as you are quite alone, and your friends are not arrived, and as the other gentlemen have ordered dinner here—"

"I am afraid we are out of court, sir," Herries said pleasantly. "We came from the balcony to dispossess you by force of arms, if necessary. But after what you say, we can only bow to the inevitable and resign ourselves to the table d'hote."

"Which is half over by this time, sir," the stranger said. "Moreover, the table d'hote dinner here is frequently open to criticism. Are there three of you?"

"There are three of us exactly," Herries said. "Let me introduce myself by name. This is my friend, Mr. Gilroy. Here also is my friend, Mr. Duckworth, who is an invalid. It was to please him that we engaged this room. But after your recent remark to the landlord, I am afraid that we must retire gracefully."

The stranger smiled and shook his head.

"My name is Harrington," he said—"a cosmopolitan at that. Let me make a suggestion to you. Why not dine here with me? I have ordered a special dinner for four, but my friends have been detained in Paris. You look like getting no dinner at all. Is the suggestion that you should be my guests too inconvenient to you?"

"It's deuced kind of you," Gilroy said warmly. It seemed to him that the metal rang true. "I am sure that my friend Duckworth will make no objection."

"Your friend Duckworth will be confoundedly glad of the opportunity," the latter said. "The suggestion was very kind and thoughtful of you, sir. It's a very odd thing, but I seem to have heard your voice before."

"Same idea occurred to me," Herries remarked. "By Jove, I've got it! Weren't you in the Casino to-night when the row was going on?"

"And didn't you ask us to lay hold of that red-headed chap?" Gilroy cried.

"You have guessed it," Harrington smiled. "Directly the dispute began, I tumbled to what was going to happen. When the first shot was fired, I felt certain of it. And I had some little grasp of the kind of reputation that that red-headed man enjoys. So I just dropped to the floor and clipped as many of the gang by the legs as possible. They were all on the top of me, and it was only now and then that I got a glimpse of anybody. Then I spotted you two gentlemen as being likely fellows in a fight, and I called to you."

"Where did you get to afterwards?" Gilroy asked.

"Oh, I was dragged off with the rest. The fools of police took me for one of the gang, and they were all for clapping me in durance vile, but for the intercession of a French officer who happened to know me pretty well. Audacious thing, wasn't it?"

The rest admitted that it was, and at the same moment the waiter came in with the dinner. The respect entertained for him by Harrington's guests was deepened as the meal proceeded. It had been chosen with care and taste and a nice discrimination, which same remark applied to the wines. The Englishmen felt that their lines had fallen on pleasant places. They sat round the table toying with their liqueurs and cigarettes, quiet and restful now and at peace with all the world. A little colour had crept into Duckworth's pale face, he seemed to have forgotten his fears. Harrington looked at him from time to time with a sympathetic interest.

"You have had a very bad turn, Mr. Duckworth?" he asked.

"Well, yes," Duckworth replied. "I caught rheumatic fever out duck-shooting before Christmas. I had a fearful time of it—in fact, it was touch and go with me. The worse of it is that the malady has affected my heart so dreadfully. I'm a bundle of nerves at present. It seems odd to be like this; because up till lately, when I heard nerves mentioned, I regarded the word as a mere abstract quality. For a man like myself, who has roughed it for years in California, the idea of being a broken-down invalid is terrible."

Harrington's dark face showed distinct traces of interest.

"So you know California?" he said. "I also know the States very well—in fact, I made most of my modest little fortune there. What part?"

"Up along the ridges by Sierra Gradanna principally. Know the region?"

"As well as I know myself," said Harrington. "I nearly lost my life there on one occasion. But we won't talk of hairbreadth escapes to-night, as you look so white and tired. I'm afraid that the shindy in the Casino was too much for you."

Duckworth hesitated as if about to say something.

"It was a shock," he said after a pause; "not exactly the row, but something that happened then. I am to a certain extent a creature of circumstances. It was my fate some years ago to incur the hatred of a lunatic whose name I don't even know; indeed, I should not recognise the man even if he stood before me at the present moment. That fellow followed me to Europe with the full and deliberate intention of taking my life; indeed, he would have succeeded once a while ago, had it not been for my friend Gilroy here. I saw that man in the Casino to-night."

"Indeed," Harrington replied. "This is deeply interesting. But there is one point that I do not quite follow. You say you would not recognise your mysterious antagonist if you met him in the flesh, and yet you say that you saw him to-night."

"Certainly I do. He was on the floor in the melee. I did not see his face; I could not for the life of me tell you what he was wearing. But I recognised him by a peculiarity that would render him conspicuous anywhere. On the back of his hand was a scar in the shape of a crucifix. That is also the mark of the beast on the right hand of the man who has come all these miles to take my life."

A short, queer laugh broke from the lips of Harrington. His dark face changed, then altered again to its normal expression in a dazzling flash. He very quietly apologised for his mirth.

"Pardon me," he said; "I had forgotten how serious—But the strange coincidence! However, we will come to that presently. If Mr. Duckworth—"

"Do you happen to know anything of the man with the crucifix scar?" Gilroy asked at length.

Harrington leant back in his chair and coolly surveyed the company from behind his cigar.

"Yes," he said very slowly and distinctly, "I know the man with the scar very well indeed."

II.

The muscles of Duckworth's thin mouth quivered. He breathed hard, as if he had recently been undergoing some trying physical exertion. The others were deeply interested, but they showed no emotion of any kind—it was to them like the unfolding of the last act of some fascinating play. The stranger was absolutely quiet, too, though a close observer would have noticed the whiteness of his knuckles as his clenched right hand lay on the table. The tendons of the wrist were rigid.

"It is very fortunate that we have met, sir," Duckworth said.

"So it would seem," Harrington replied. "But before I tell my story I should like to hear yours. That comes first in proper sequence, I think. I should like to know whence you derived your information about the star-shaped scar, seeing that you have never been face to face with the owner of it. Are you a good shot?"

The question sounded natural enough, but Duckworth backed from it as if it annoyed him. He was understood to say that he knew something of the use of the gun.

"Oh, that won't do," Herries cried. "My dear chap, why this morbid modesty? You must know, Harrington, that or friend is a marvellous shot, especially with the revolver. Have seen him mark the nine pips on a white card at fifteen paces.'

"What has my shooting to do with it?" Duckworth asked with some irritation.

"I may come in later on," Harrington said quietly. "But first let me know how the secret assassin is identified with the star-shaped crucifix."

"That is where I come in," Gilroy proceeded to explain. "The thing happened in Rome two years ago. It was soon after I had met Duckworth, and we were travelling together at the end of the summer. Duckworth—if he will excuse me saying so—is rather a reticent kind of chap, and not given to confidences. All the same, he hinted to me that he had a something that he was afraid of. I put it down to nerves, and thought no more about the matter for the time. We were staying at the Maremma Hotel, a house which is only on two storeys, as you know, and which has a garden on two sides of it.

"Duckworth had gone to bed fairly early one evening, for we had had a tiring day, and I was preparing to do the same thing in my room, when I heard a scuffle and the noise of blows. Then somebody called for help, and I heard a revolver shot. I don't know why, but the memory of what Duckworth had told me flashed into my mind, and I rushed into his room. It was pitch dark, for the electric lights were out, but I could hear the struggle going on by the bedside. I called out, and a tall figure made for the window. He was outside before I could lay my fingers on the electric light switch, and all that I could see, looking towards the window, was a hand on the ledge. I suppose the fellow was holding on with one hand to steady himself for the drop into the garden below. I could just see that hand for an instant, and no more. On the back of it was a scar in the shape of a crucifix."

Harrington nodded thoughtfully. He appeared to be deeply engrossed in the story, though he did not look once in the direction of Duckworth. He helped himself to a fresh cigarette and poured a little more claret into his glass.

"All this is exceedingly interesting," he said. "The dramatic part appeals to me. Mr. Duckworth has a deadly enemy whom he cannot identify save for the peculiar scar. The man with the scar is the sword of Damocles hanging over his head. The knowledge of that near presence gets astride his nerves. Is not that so?"

"I'll not deny it," Duckworth said gloomily; "especially in my present state of health."

"Let us get on a bit further," Harrington proceeded. "Did you bring the matter before the authorities?"

"No, I didn't; I had no desire for any unnecessary fuss. I don't mind saying that I took a great many precautions to throw my would-be assassin off the track—"

"With the result that there has been no further attempt on your life? You have seen and heard no more of the man with the scar from that day to this?"

"Not till I saw that queer, maimed hand in the Casino to-night. You may argue that this is no more than a strange coincidence, but I know better. That fellow has got on my track again; he has followed me here. There could not be two men with scars like that. But seeing that you know the fellow perfectly well—"

"Stop a minute," Harrington interrupted. "Don't let's go too fast. In the first place, tell me what is the real or fancied grievance that the man with the scar has against you. Didn't you say it had something to do with gold-mining."

Duckworth nodded curtly. Evidently he had no disposition to be communicative. He shuffled about in his chair; he seemed to be uneasy under the gaze of Harrington, which was turned full upon him now for the first time.

"Come," the latter urged. "It is only fair to yourself that you should make your case good. When you have spoken, then I will present the case from the point of view of the man with the scar. And if your story rings true, I will promise you one thing—you will never have cause to fear the man with the scar again."

"You will tell us all about him?" Gilroy asked eagerly.

"Certainly I will," Harrington proceeded, "when Mr. Duckworth has spoken."

"But I assure you there is little or nothing to tell," Duckworth exclaimed. "It was merely a case of diamond cut diamond up in the Sierras yonder. We were not mining in the strict sense of the word; we were placer-hunting—that is, looking for pockets of gold washed down by the water from the snows, or placed there ages ago in the Glacial period. As you know, they were a pretty rough lot in those old days."

"I know that by painful, personal experience," Harrington said gravely.

"Well, I had to take care of myself. I had located a likely spot on the spur of one of the mountains, and I had pegged out my claim. I couldn't work it for a couple of days, for the simple reason that I was down with a touch of fever. When I went back in due course, I found that somebody had taken my place. I found the fellow and ventured to expostulate with him. He threatened me with what would happen when his partner returned. You know how one word leads to another in that quarter, and it soon came to the drawing of weapons. I was quicker on the trigger, and my man went down with a bullet through the lungs. We were fighting on the edge of a narrow plateau, with the valley two thousand feet below us, and he went headlong back over the edge and was seen no more. Nobody could ever have found that body. It would lie there for ever under the snows. But I tell you it was a fair fight."

Duckworth uttered the last words with a snarling challenge in them. His face was deadly pale, and little beads of moisture stood out on his forehead. Nobody spoke, the interest was too great for mere trivial interruption. It was only Harrington who asked a question at length.

"Did the partner intervene?" he suggested.

"Not in a manly, straightforward kind of way, curse him!" Duckworth said. "I tell you the claim was mine, and not a soul in the world could fairly dispute it. I was myself in those days, and feared neither man nor devil. I worked that placer pocket single-handed for a week, and I took out of it over two hundred thousand pounds' worth of gold-dust. So far as I was concerned, I had finished mining. When I had done, the partner came back just too late to meet me, for I had started for San Francisco. This partner was the man with the scar on his hand, though I had never seen him and never heard his name. But another successful man who got to 'Frisco a day or two afterwards brought tidings of the fact that a mysterious ruffian had sworn a bitter oath against me, and that he was going to follow me to the end of the earth. As the fellow did not know me by sight, and had never heard even my people's name, I did not give myself any great thought over the matter until that night in Rome. And if there was anybody who can say that I have not told my story honourably, I should like to meet him face to face. I think that is about all."

"It is certainly your turn now, Harrington," Herries suggested.

"Yes, I fancy it is my turn," Harrington said slowly and distinctly, "especially as I told you that I know the man with the scar on his hand quite well."

"He must be an abandoned scoundrel, a poisonous ruffian!" Gilroy said hotly.

"Well, it sounds odd, but I cannot quite agree with you," Harrington proceeded in the same smooth and even manner. "Let me present the story from the point of view of the other man. When you have weighed the two narratives up, you shall judge between them. And when you have done so, I will undertake to produce the man with the scar on the right hand."

The little audience thrilled; even the two healthy, clean-lived Englishmen were conscious of the fact that their pulses were beating a little faster than usual.

"We will call the man with the scar Clarkson if you like," Harrington proceeded. "He had left the good old country, meaning England, ten years ago, to seek his fortune. No need to speak of his ups and downs, of which he had many. He was a man of few friends; he had left nothing behind him in England but one little girl, of whom he was exceedingly fond. This little girl was delicate and needed more than the man could send her. He worked very hard for her, he led a clean life for her sake. And after many adventures he reached California, and there, together with a partner called Challis, he struck a rich placer of gold. It was an opportune find, for the little girl was ordered to the South of France, and but for the gold she must perforce have remained in England and died. She did die, as a matter of fact, because at the last moment the gold was not forthcoming, and I will tell you why.

"The placer was difficult to work, because it lay on the sheer side of the mountain—it had only been located at all by means of rope. But then it was enough to make the fortunes of more people than one. They decided to rig up a kind of crow's-nest, and procured the necessary timber and ropes. They got the thing going at last, they worked the whole of one day, perhaps the happiest day those two passed in their lives. They were just going to knock off work for the day when they heard a shot at the head of the spur. It was quickly followed by another, there was a sudden jar on the rope, and then they were going headlong into the valley, and both of them fell two thousand feet below. The rope had broken.

"After the first second or two, memory deserted the sole survivor. He recollected nothing more till he woke two or three days later in a shepherd's hut, more dead than alive. He had been lucky enough to be thrown off a cushion of snow into a great bed of dry litter in an old stream, and by a most amazing miracle he escaped altogether. Of his partner the man heard nothing more, he was for ever buried in the snows of the hillside.

"There is no reason to dwell at length on that. As soon as Clarkson could get about again, he tried the hillside once more with some new tackle; at any rate, the gold was still there, and there was no reason why he should not procure it. But the gold was no longer there—somebody had come along and removed the lot of it. It was a startling discovery, for the secret had been well kept, and it struck Clarkson all of a heap at the time. He began to make inquiries quietly; but nothing came of it until the second day, Clarkson got a pointer or two from a man called Mad Billy. Mad Billy had met with an accident in a mine, which had turned his brain. He did odd jobs about the place, and as to the rest, he spent his time gloating over imaginary finds. And Billy had a story to tell."

Harrington paused and lighted a fresh cigarette. He glanced round the table to see that the audience were following the story. There was no need to do anything of the kind. The two Englishmen were looking at the speaker with parted lips, Duckworth's face was pinched and blue.

"Gentlemen, the thing was no accident at all. According to Clarkson, another man had got on the track of the secret. He had watched the rigging up of the crow's-nest, and in his secretive, furtive way Billy had watched him. He had seen the other man spying, and his movements had excited the suspicions of poor Mad Billy. The plan of the stranger was simple in the extreme. He dared not show himself against the edge of the cliff with the snow for a background, because there were other men mining there, and there—he had a better notion than that altogether. He was a fine shot, as fine a shot as our friend Mr. Duckworth here."

Duckworth started slightly and coughed. He seemed to have trouble with his breathing.

"The sound of a revolver would arouse no suspicions there. So the revolver was fired twice from the cover of some shrubs—Mad Billy looking on all the time—fired full at the rope that held the cage where Clarkson and his partner were working. The shots were true and straight so that they cut the rope as clean as a knife. It was a pretty scheme, because, as the rope was shot in two, there would be no suspicions of foul play; the thing looked just as if there had been a flaw in the new rope; and, indeed, I could not tell the difference when the rope was shown to me."

There was a long pause before anybody spoke. All of them seemed to feel that Harrington was coming to the crux of his story.

"You see, this was no madman's chimera," he went on again. "Billy's tale was well backed up. But the gold was gone, and the man had gone also, and the child died, and Clarkson swore a great oath of revenge. A little time after that, Clarkson had the luck that he no longer wanted, so he left California, taking Billy with him. Billy was the only one who could identify the ruffian who had done that thing. For a year or more they hunted Europe in an aimless kind of way. It is rather strange that I should stumble by accident upon the man that Clarkson was seeking."

"But I don't see," Herries cried, "that you have done anything of the kind. So far as I can see—"

"Pardon me," Harrington said, "but your friend Mr. Gilroy gave me the clue by telling me all about that business in Rome. The man with the scar on his hand was Clarkson. Clarkson shall tell the rest of the story in person. Let me produce him."

Harrington's voice had suddenly grown hard and cold. He stretched out his right hand and laid it with force on the limp right hand of Duckworth, who started at the touch.

"Take my serviette," said Harrington in the same cutting voice, "and dip it in the finger-glass. Now rub it across the back of my hand hard—hard!"

In a dazed kind of way Herries did as he was desired. Then a quick, gasping cry arose from all round the table, as a brown stain of paint peeled off Harrington's hand, and the red edges of a scar like a crucifix rose in the place. Duckworth's mouth was trembling: he looked into the face of the man holding him with fearful eyes.

"Behold the man!" Harrington said. "I am Clarkson. It was in Rome that I ran my quarry down, at the Maremma Hotel. Billy spotted him as he entered his bedroom one night. All he would say was that the object of my search was in his bedroom. I asked no questions, I aroused no suspicions, I took Billy's word for it. I had made up my mind that the man should die. His life belonged to me, I was going to take it. Mr. Gilroy knows how I was prevented; the rascal whose hand I hold knows how he baffled me subsequently. And when Billy died six months ago, I decided to abandon my search altogether—it seemed as if Fate had deserted me. But the accident of circumstances is on my side at last; by sheer good luck I have found my man. Had Mr. Gilroy said nothing about that affair at Rome, I should have parted from you all on good terms. Heavens! I might even have become a friend of this fellow!"

Duckworth attempted to say something, but the words clung to his twitching lips.

"What he tells you is a lie," Harrington said. "What I say is no more than the truth. Let him stand up and deny it if he can. Let him try to refute me. One thing is certain, he does not escape me again. Stand up!"

The command was harsh and stern. Mechanically Duckworth obeyed. He rose slowly to his feet, holding on to the table for support. There was no reason to deny the accusation, no reason why the others should not urge him to that course. His guilt was stamped on his face. He pressed his hand to his heart and suddenly sat down heavily again. He had fallen forward with a crash against the glasses there, then lay quite still.

"You are wrong, sir," Gilroy said in a hoarse whisper. "He has escaped you. He is dead."

Duckworth lay there, dead, truly enough. And outside, the stars shone, there was light laughter on the air, and the soft sound of music in the distance.

THE END

THE NORTHERN LIGHT

ILLUSTRATED BY CYRUS CUNEO

Published in The Windsor Magazine, Vol. XX, Oct 1904, pp 562-570

I

"THIS," said Meredith gravely, "is most interesting. Quite a remarkable discovery, in fact. It points to the confirmation of poor Saxon's story. If you will permit me—"

"Oh, shut up!" Gaskell growled. "Shove the confounded thing in your pocket and let us press on. Funny thing that you never use two words when three will do. Look at the sky, man, and the dogs. They are pretty well fagged out, and we're fifteen miles from the ship. If we do get a downfall—well, I don't like to think of it."

"The atmospheric conditions," Meredith said complacently, "according to recent observations—"

The third man, Ottaway, rapped out something like an oath and whipped up the dogs. Meredith was a good fellow and an ardent scientist, but he was a bit of an ass all the same. He could see no danger beyond those tinted spectacles of his. The trio had left the Far North in the ice early in the day, to make some observations round the bend of Cape Ressan—the farthest point reached by any Polar expedition up to date.

It was bitterly cold, and a thin, cutting wind had commenced to blow. It had been sunny and fine enough when the little party started, and two at least of them began to wish they had stayed on the ship. Fifteen miles was no great distance to travel over hard snow with a team of good dogs, but anything like a further fall would have spelt disaster. Gaskell muttered to himself as he glanced at the sky.

"Really this is very interesting," Meredith went on. "I mean this medal, which I have just found. It was struck by James Montgomery, of Greenock, to celebrate his discovery of the North Pole. James Montgomery was a millionaire, you remember."

"No, he wasn't," Gaskell growled. "He was a swindler with a craze for notoriety. After his disappearance he was found to have embezzled trust money on a huge scale. He fitted out a Polar expedition, hoping to get a C.B., or a baronetcy, or something of that kind. I had the offer to skipper the Research, It was never heard of again."

"Aren't you wrong?" Meredith suggested mildly. "A man named Saxon came back. The poor fellow was quite mad; had been living for some time with the Esquimaux, when a whaler brought him home. He told some rambling story as to the way in which Montgomery got the whole of his crew on the ice and sailed off in the Research alone. Said that Montgomery was suffering from chronic delirium tremens, Montgomery was always a crank—nobody but a crank would have had those medals struck. Now, it strikes me as a remarkable thing that I should have just picked up one of those medals."

Meredith babbled on, but the others did not appear to be listening. The sun had disappeared in a red haze, with a curtain of lace whirling before it, the wind grew colder and more cutting. Ottaway, snugging down in his furs, declared that he would cheerfully sacrifice ten years of his pay for a sight of the Far North. From the set expression in his eyes Gaskell seemed fully to realise the danger. Yet when they had set out, the glass was high, with every specious promise of a fine day. The dogs were fretting and whining, too, as if they realised what was before them. Ottaway steered off the ice, and under the shadow of one of the desolate hills they moved a little faster when out of the full swell of that cutting wind. A high crag stood up a mile away, with a black crag on the top, where the white sheet had been torn off it. Suddenly the crag was blotted out as if by the fall of a curtain, instantly a wall of whirling flakes shut in the sledge. Before the occupants had time to draw breath, the white terror was upon them.

It appeared as if all the world had been swept away, that the universe had been dissolved into a grey powder. The snow was overpowering, there was no getting away from it. The dogs clustered together with cry and whimper; they refused to go any further, nor had Ottaway the power to force them on. He could only drop the guiding-reins and bow his head to the storm. Very soon the sledge and its burden was no more than a hummock on the swept plain.

After all, it was only a matter of muscle. All this had happened in the space that it takes to tell the story. Apparently there was nothing to be done but to wait patiently to the end. At the first onrush of the snow fury the sledge had tilted on one side, so that it offered a slight obstacle to the furious charge of the white brigade, and yet affording a slight protection for those inside. The snow curled over them like wave swept in from the sea, and froze as it fell. The men were huddled up in warm furs; they were recently fed and well nourished, so that hope was not altogether abandoned yet. When the reeking fury had passed, there would be an exploring-party sent from the ship, but over those millions of white, gleaming acres it would be as the needle in the proverbial rick of hay.

The snow was piled high over them now; there was warmth with the three human bodies and the pack of dogs all huddled together. It was not sufficiently light to see, but at length Gaskell contrived to get his hand to his watch and press the slide of his repeater.

"Been here nearly an hour," he said. "Wonder if it is snowing still? An hour of this is as good as a week's fall at home. Let's scrape a hole under the side of the sledge."

It was something to do, at any rate, so they went for it with a will. The deeper down they dug, the warmer it became, what with the dogs and the rugs and the reek of their own steaming bodies. But though they were safe for the present, the danger was by no means done. All the old, familiar trails to and from the Far North made by them for months past would be filled up by the new fall. Some of those deep tracks would not be safe for an exploring-party for days. And meanwhile they would have to lie there and slowly starve.

The hours went by and the snow ceased at last. Ottaway burrowed a hole in the side of the drift and crept out, followed by the others, into the open. The whirling, grey desolation had ceased now; the sky was like steel, covered with a powder of brilliant stars. So far us the adventurers could see, they were in the crater of a snow volcano. If the frost held, they would be able to creep out in a day or two, otherwise they were in a prison-house. It was freezing hard enough now, which was one consolation. They crept back again and blocked up the passage once more. There was nothing for it but to huddle together and sleep.

Morning came at length, a dull, opaque light piercing the snow wall. The dogs whined and shivered, with their dark eyes turned on the men, mutely seeking for food. There was a raging pain at the pit of Gaskell's stomach as he came back to consciousness. A born Ishmaelite, he knew quite well what the feeling meant. He had been ravenously hungry before. The others sat up presently and looked about them. Even Meredith was retrospective and absent-minded no longer. It was be who suggested that they should go out and prospect.

It was an utterly dreary prospect at the best —nothing but a deep pit of snow, with high, dazzling walls towering on all sides. They were only fifteen miles from the ship, and yet they might as well have been a million. There were no natives on that thick coast, no chance of food, and they had positively none of their own.

"It's a fine prospect, boy," Gaskell said with a grim irony. "They will send to look for us, of course, but it's like to be a slow job. They may hit npon us right away; they may take a week. And if they do take a week "

"'Subsequent proceedings interest us no more,'" Ottaway quoted. "Still, we've got plenty of baccy, which is one comfort. Talk about Robinson Crusoe, why—"

"He's here!" Meredith shouted. "Robinson and his man Friday! Look for yourselves."

The other two glanced uneasily at each other. Meredith was not an imaginative man, and his nerves were no part of his daily conviction. Nerves and fancies would come surely enough, as Gaskell very well knew, but they were not due for a day or two yet.

"What are you talking about?" he growled. "It seems to me that—Good Heavens!"

It was no chimera of a disordered imagination. There on the snow, close by the impromptu hut, was the track of a small, delicate, human foot.

"'Tell me not in mournful numbers, Life is but an empty dream!'" Ottaway yelled. "We are three utterly sane men—as yet—" Meredith could imagine nothing, even patent facts must be proved to him.—"Therefore I am prepared to swear that those are footprints—six, seven, eight, nine, ten dainty little footprints made by a lady's boot. We are a million miles from civilisation, an eternity from an educated woman, and yet there she has been within recent memory, evidently as much at home as she would be in Hyde Park."

"It's stunning!" Gaskell muttered; "nothing less than stunning! What does it mean?"

It certainly was a most amazing discovery. The Far North was further north than any vessel of discovery had been yet, and the crew of the Far North were proud of the fact. The sledge-party were in grievous danger of their lives, they were in desperate need of food, and yet close by somewhere was a woman, evidently a lady by her footgear, who walked about, as Ottaway put it, much as if she were strolling in the Park.

There could be no doubt about it whatever—there was the shape of the foot, clean-cut as a cameo on the frozen snow—a small foot, in a stout boot with nails on the heels. There were seven footmarks in all, then the print disappeared suddenly, as if a slide of snow had obliterated them. It was nothing more nor less than a miracle; had the sky fallen on them, the pioneers would have been not a whit more astonished.

"Never heard of any hermit up this way, have you?" Ottaway asked grimly. "No family party taken a furnished house here for the sake of the pure air and the fishing? Never heard of anything in the way of a convent in this delightful sylvan glade?"

The others laughed in a constrained kind of way. There was something pathetic as well as startling in this stupendous discovery; the footprints reminded them all of home. But it was not good to dwell upon that kind of thing just then. Gaskell bit his lip.

"Some fine old reindeer reading the fashion plates," he said, with a wild attempt at frivolity that he was far from feeling. "What an ass I am, to be sure! Heaven knows how that woman reached this cursed spot; but here she is! And quite at home, too—there's no sign of hesitation about those footprints. Let's follow them up."

It was quite easy to follow the footsteps as far as they went. It was obvious also that there was some way out of the snow-crater in which the sledge lay, as the owner of the boots could not have vanished so swiftly and mysteriously.

"Can't be natives, I suppose?" Meredith suggested. "Looking at the thing from a matter-of-fact point of—"

"You can't, you fool!" Gaskell cried. "How can there be anything matter-of-fact about a discovery like this? It is an amazing romance, as puzzling to me as the mystery of Creation. And you know there are no natives within a thousand miles."

"So far as we can go by exact scientific data," Meredith began, "we are forced to—"

"Oh, shut up, you idiot!" Ottaway said savagely. "What's scientific data to do with this?"

"It is just possible," Meredith continued, quite unabashed, " that the Research—"

The others laughed a little boisterously. The Research had been lost utterly in the Polar Seas three years before, and only one man, and he an idiot, had lived to tell the tale. Those footprints had another meaning than that.

"Let's track her little footsteps in the snow as far as they go," Ottaway suggested, as he proceeded to suit the action to the word. "Not that one has much to go by... It seems to me that the snow has shifted slightly just at this point. One thing is certain— there must be some way out of this crater. Stand by to give me a hand in case I disappear."

But Ottaway did not disappear. He mounted up the slope, feeling his way as he went, till he had nearly reached the top. Here and there were little, jutting crags of rock which offered a good foothold, and presently he stood on the top of the crater.

"It must have been a tremendous fall of snow!" he shouted. "All our familiar landmarks have utterly disappeared. If I could smell food, I should not know where to go for it. Come up and have a good look for yourselves."

Ottaway stood there, a figure black and clean-cut against the dazzling background. He looked strangely large as he stood there, a statue in the silence. It was deadly silent there—so quiet that the others could hear the blood humming in their ears, all the more intensified by the fierce hunger that was beginning to assail them. Suddenly the silence was broken by a sharp, whiplike crack, and Ottaway jumped in the air with a yell of pain. Then he fell headlong down, till he was brought up sharply at Gaskell's feet.

"In the name of Fortune, what was that?" the latter asked.

"A rifle," Ottaway groaned. "Never saw where it came from, but it's got me through the fleshy part of my arm. It stings like blazes. Doctor, come and have a look at it." Meredith stripped the arm in the shelter of the improvised hut. Sure enough, a bullet had passed clean through the deltoid muscle, leaving a hole a little bigger than a pin-point, so that there was practically no loss of blood. The bullet itself had lodged against a silver tobacco-box, and Meredith examined it eagerly.

"No harm done," he said; "but, on the whole, a lucky escape for you. And as I am a living soul, this is nothing else than a Mauser bullet! Some luxurious individual in these parts has a place of his own here, where everything seems to be quite up-to-date. The hermit of the snowy glen shoots his game with the very latest pattern of small arms."

"And a proper murderous ruffian he must be!" Gaskell exclaimed.

"My dear fellow, are you quite sure that it is a he?" Meredith went on in his crisp, matter-of-fact way. "You don't suggest that we have a colony of educated people here. Is it not just possible that the sharp-shooter who nearly wiped Ottaway's number out might chance to be the lady whose footsteps I found in the snow?"

Gaskell gave a long, low whistle. The point had not occurred to him before. It might turn out exactly as Meredith had suggested. But then that theory only deepened the maddening mystery. Still, whoever the miscreant might be, he or she was plentifully supplied with all the modern of equipment, and food assuredly formed part of it.

"I'll get to the bottom of this, if it costs me my life," Gaskell said between his teeth. "We may as well die fighting as die of hunger. Let us lie low here till it gets dark, and then go and prospect for ourselves. We are three desperate men, and we know the way out of our cage now. Come and lie low, lest worse befall us."

There was nothing else to do but to fall in with this suggestion. The slow, torturing hours crept by, relieved from time to time by the judicious application of tobacco. But even that was partaken of sparingly, for the supply was limited. They were talkative at first, as befits the opening of a remarkable discovery, but they grew cross and moody as the day progressed. Meredith would have talked—he would have talked on his way to the scaffold, as Gaskell rudely reminded him—but the others drove him to silence by snarling epithets. Finally the scientist dropped into an uneasy slumber, with a dog on either side of him, and the others dozed, too.

It was Gaskell who aroused the rest as the darkness commenced to fall. There was a fierce light in his eyes and a sting of colour in his cheeks. He was going to do or die this time. It was freezing hard as the little party stepped into the open; there was a faint light in the sky that just served to pick out the way that Ottaway had tried in the afternoon. They were all at the summit at last and picking their way cautiously down the other side.

"Go easy," Gaskell whispered, as the snow whistled and crunched underfoot. "It isn't as if we had not plenty of time before us. Hallo! unless my eyes deceive me, here are more of those footprints, leading to that queer-looking hummock yonder. Here's a seal-hole, too. We must have found our way on to the water again. What's that?"

A quick, crisp, rippling sound in the near distance, a roll of melody. Ottaway stopped and checked a wild desire to burst into hysterical laughter.

"Don't you recognise it?" he cried. "May I live on bread and water for the rest of my days, if it isn't one of Chopin's Impromptus in F, played on a grand piano!"

II

GASKELL and Ottaway regarded each other uneasily. They had both heard of that strange form of madness that comes from the solitary contemplation of the snow. It seemed to Gaskell that somebody had told him that this form of delusion often occurred to several men at the same time. But a piano up there! The thing was too utterly absurd. Yet they had both assumed to hear it, and even the practical and matter-of-fact Meredith had followed suit. Ottaway repressed the strong desire to laugh that possessed him.

"A piano, sure enough," Meredith said, much as a scientist would speak if he had stumbled upon a rare fossil. "A grand piano, I should say, with one of the notes in the minor very much out of tune. Still, to look for Queen's Hall form up here!"

Ottaway broke out into a cackle of laughter suddenly. It was a relief to Gaskell's feelings to take his friend by the shoulders and shake him vigorously.

"You fool!" he panted. "We're not going out to afternoon tea. There's danger here, as that shot this morning should have told you."

"Upon my soul, I simply couldn't help it," Ottaway whispered contritely. "There is something so ghastly comical about it, if you understand me. There is a girl I know who plays that Impromptu in F, and I was thinking of her mother's drawing-room.... The warmth and the lights, you know, and the firm flesh-tints."

"Oh, Heavens! I understand!" Gaskell groaned. "And we poor wretches here doomed to starvation! Yes, I understand. But for Heaven's sake don't laugh like that again!"

"What are you fellows maundering about?" the practical Meredith asked. "It is a very strange thing, but there is the piano. I dare say the explanation is a perfectly simple one. Where pianos are found, food and light are found also. The sound seems to me to proceed from the centre of the hummock of snow on which we are standing."

"Bless the man! even he has his uses," Ottaway said in a saner tone of voice. "We had better proceed to investigate; only it's a case of festina lente, lest the first hospitable opening take the form of a rifle-bullet. Let us search."

But the search produced nothing, though the music still continued. The air changed presently to Handel's Largo and slid from that into the grand impressiveness of Liszt's Étude in F, but the explorers got no nearer to the mysterious musician.

"What fools we are!" Meredith exclaimed. "Let's put one of the dogs on the trail."

Strange that nobody had thought of it before. One of the dogs were brought up, held by the collar to a trace. The stiff, stocky little creature could smell food, evidently, for he whined and commenced to scratch at what looked like a wall of snow. Something black appeared at length, and the black thing revolved itself into what at one time had been a cabin door.

"Good boy!" Gaskell said approvingly. "Take him back and give him a biscuit, Meredith. We will now proceed to do a little burglary. Civilisation in the Arctic region is progressing! Be as quiet as you can there."

The door was not fastened in any way—it opened with a thong and strap. Inside was a dark tunnel, with a suggestion of dubious warmth breathing from it. It was like the fragrant breath of a beautiful girl on the cheek of an intoxicated lover. There were other odours—more prosaic, perhaps, but equally reeking of Araby the Blest.

"Food!" Ottaway said exultingly. "Hot soup! the magical savour of vegetables! We've struck the back door to the Garden of Eden. I never realised how ravenously hungry I was till this very moment. Let us make a rush for it."

The mouths of the others were literally watering. It was only the cool sanity of Gaskell that held them back now. They fumbled their way noiselessly along the tunnel until Meredith nearly betrayed their presence by stumbling down a ladder, a companion-way, as the three of them versed in the way of ships could tea even in the dark.

"It's a ship bound in the snow," Gaskell whispered; "though what ship it can be. why—"

"The one I told you of," Meredith muttered, rubbing his shin. "It's the Research, for a million. Now we shall be able to see what we are about."

He stood at the foot of the ladder, looking towards the saloon. There were lights now and a fairly good view of everything. Silently Meredith pointed to a lifebuoy that lay on the floor. On it, in white letters, was painted the legend "S.S. Research 1901." The story of the poor, mad sailor who had found his way back to Greenock was true.

The music in the saloon suddenly ceased, and a cabin door opposite flew open. A woman's voice called out that everything was ready.

"So are we," Ottaway groaned. "Good Heavens! so are we. My dear lady, if you only knew how ready we are!... Pretty voice, too!"

It was a very pretty, sweetly modulated voice, evidently the voice of a lady. Then a figure stood out against the light in the cabin. The hungry eyes of the watchers saw a nice-looking girl, partly clad in furs. A certain youthfulness was given to her appearance owing to the fact that she wore her hair in a neat plait down her back. After a year or more in those white solitudes, the sight of a woman at all was in itself a thrilling episode.

"Are you not coming. May?" the girl called. "Everything is quite ready."

May responded from the distance that she was coming at once. There was a crashing chord on the piano, and then the patter of other footsteps. In the distance somebody laughed in a hard, staccato voice that seemed strangely out of harmony. The girl in the cabin started, and a little cry escaped her. There was a shrinking motion about her.

"Oh, May! is he bad again to-night?" she asked, as the other girl came along. "What have we done, to be punished like this? A hideous prison, with the prospect of starvation coming nearer and nearer day by day. My dear child—"

Gaskell stepped forward. At the sound the girls turned round. They were singularly alike, dressed in the same way, both with clear skins and blue eyes. Their eyes were dilated, Gaskell noticed, as with a certain chronic terror. The girl called May would have screamed, only the other one pressed a hand upon her lips.

"Don't be afraid," Gaskell whispered. "We've—we've come to help you, you know. I dare say that you have seen something of the Far Norths

Evidently the Far North was no more than an abstract name to the girls. They clung together as slaves might do who had changed their masters. In any case, the figures of Gaskell and his companions were not exactly calculated to induce confidence.

"We have heard something about you," Gaskell went on hoarsely. "One of the sailors of the Research managed to reach a native settlement. His sufferings deprived him of his senses. People did not believe the story of James Montgomery, and the strange way that he abandoned his crew for—"

"It is as true as Gospel," one of the girls said. "He is coming. If you are not armed—"

The intruders were not armed, save with clasp-knives. Gaskell looked at the girls.

"A dangerous criminal lunatic," one of them said. "We go in terror of our lives. The only wonder is that he has not killed us both long ago. If he sees you—"

A trembling, snarling laugh came from the end of the passage leading to the bows of the great steam-yacht. Though they were not aware of the fact, Gaskell and his companions were standing under the lamp suspended from the roof, and full in the stream of light flung on them through the open cabin door. The queer laugh was repeated, followed by the crack of a rifle and the scream of a bullet. There was a crash of glass and a patter of warm oil on the floor. If the would-be assassin were mad, his aim was true enough, for the lamp overturned and was smashed into fragments.

"How now, you secret, black, and midnight hogs!" the thin, reedy voice screamed. "So the devil has come for me at last. Two years I have fought him—two years, day by day. But I am an old gentleman, and there has been madness in my family for generations."

"Put that rifle down," Gaskell said, with a hard ring in his voice.

The madman laughed aloud. Evidently his moods were subject to lightning changes. The pathetic, personal touch had vanished like a flash.

"James Montgomery!" he yelled, "of Greenock, millionaire—the man who used people's money for his own ends. The benefactor of man, the great explorer. And then to come back and stand in the dock! No, no, no... And then they were all on the ice, with their party and that; and only I and the two engineers, with the captain's children, aboard. It was only a matter of two shots, and the Research was mine. The beautiful engines spoke and laughed with me, and they cursed me from the shore with the white loneliness of the snow coming up behind them. I was free, I tell you—free, free, free, and none left to tell the tale. Till you came. Curse you! take this."

Then came a series of whiplike cracks, followed by the soft splash of bullets on the side of the companion-way. Evidently the maniac had armed himself with a repeating rifle. There was no help for it now; the only chance was to rush for the cabin and close the door behind. Meredith was conscious of a hot, singeing sensation along his scalp. Gaskell was more concerned for the girls. Had the light been less dim, it would have been impossible to say how the story had ended, but by great, good fortune nobody was hurt.

"Well, of all the adventures!" Ottaway gasped. "I'll never disbelieve anything I see in print again, not even in a halfpenny paper. Truth is stranger than fiction."

"Fiction is a prosaic old dowager," Gaskell said, as he removed his outer furs. "Let me introduce myself and my friends, ladies... Your names are?"

"Irene and May Broxwood," the girl who had first appeared said. "We came here with the ship at our own earnest request— you see, we had no mother. My father was the captain of the ship. He was in the Royal Navy at one time—Captain Ernest Broxwood."

"I knew him slightly," Gaskell said. "I was in the service myself; Ottaway, here, is still. But it seems incredible that the story just told by James Montgomery—"

"Is absolutely true," May Broxwood said. "We knew that he was eccentric and very moody, and all that kind of thing. There were frequent quarrels. But nobody ever expected that— The men stood on the beach, with the snow coming up behind them, and my father was with them. I can see the grey light on his face now as he implored that for our sakes—"

Something rose in the throat of the pretty speaker and checked further utterance. A shot splintered the door and spattered the wall like a molten star on the far side of the cabin. There was an oak table in the centre, devoid of a cloth, but the silver on it was beautifully clean. A large tureen of soup smoked on the table; there was meat and hot, tinned vegetables at the other end; the whole place was filled with the delicious perfume of it.

"Oh!" Ottaway muttered, "I can't stand this any longer! The mere sight of that food seems to deprive me of all my manhood. Ladies, if you don't mind "

"We have had nothing since early this morning," Gaskell explained . "We got caught in a snow-storm and lost our bearings. We should have starved and died if Providence had not brought us here. Really—"

Gaskell stood at a loss for further words. He felt dazed, like a man who walks in his sleep; he had eyes only for the table.

"Oh, forgive us!" May cried in deep distress. "We could not possibly know. We imagined, naturally, that your ship was close by. Quick, quick! the danger is not over yet."

The girl pointed to the roof of the cabin, which was partly of glass. Two of the slides had been removed, for the atmosphere of the stove was stuffy, even in that climate. It was easy enough to take in the danger at a glance. If the madman recollected, he would station himself on that coign of vantage and shoot the occupants of the cabin down like dogs.

"We must risk it," Ottaway said between his teeth. "I am like a veritable infant for the want of food. It is no time for ceremony."

They fell to eagerly, wolfishly. They had been saved by a marvellous intervention of Providence; there was a curious feeling amongst them that they could come to no harm now. As they ate of the delicious soup and vegetables, the strength and vigour of manhood came back to them. It was only a matter of moments, for the horrible singing and cackling was going on outside, and presently the madman moved afar off. The men in the cabin grew suddenly grave.

"His cunning brain has taken up the idea," Irene Broxwood said. "Oh, we are well used to scenes like this—they are the portion of our daily life. Thank God it has been no worse! We might have been kitchenmaids, for all the notice James Montgomery has taken of us. There, did I not tell you? I can hear him overhead."

A footstep clanged over the skylight, and the gleam of a rifle-barrel was seen. Ottaway whipped the clasp-knife from his pocket and flung it with all his force at the hanging lamp. The aim was true, for the globe and chimney were shattered; there was a puff of black smoke, and the cabin was in pitchy darkness.

A yell of rage came from the skylight, and the leaden hail began again, accompanied by oaths and curses and snatches of song. They were all down now, by Gaskell's order, against the door. He whispered to Ottaway to open it quietly. Whilst the din from above went on, Ottaway did so, and the four fugitives crept into security.

"Now's our chance," Gaskell said between his teeth. "One of you pretend to be hit. Roll about the floor, and toss your coat inside as if you were in agony. Miss Broxwood, I am going to ask you to attempt a task of some danger. As you know the ship well, I want you to guide me quietly to the place where that murderous old rascal is standing. With this row going on, I shall have no difficulty in securing him. If you are afraid—"

"I am not afraid," the girl said quietly. "I am afraid of nothing that will end a life like this."

They slipped away together into the darkness. For the next few minutes the fusillade into the cabin went on; then there was a yell, wilder and fiercer than any that had come before, followed by a noise of falling bodies, and silence... Gaskell whistled softly.

"Bring some rope," he said. "It's all right. I'm sitting on his head."

Ropes were procured, and irons as well, and presently the madman was secured in a small cabin, where he seemed sullenly resigned to his fate. The lights of the Research were restored; there was smiling content in the warm cabin, where supper had been laid.

"We can finish our supper in peace," Ottaway suggested. "My dear young ladies, what a really dreadful time you must have had! Your story—"

"Is almost incredible," May Broxwood said with a shudder. "Fancy seeing a whole crew of men abandoned to their fate in that cruel way, and we able to do nothing! Then there was the solitude of it—those dreadful outbursts of madness, for James Montgomery is mad indeed. Of course, we had plenty of coal and oil and provisions to last for years, seeing that there were only three of us; and everything we had was of the very best and latest. But think of the monotony of it, and the certainty that, sooner or later, the food and fuel would become exhausted, and that we should have to sit down and die! Can you imagine a worse fate for young girls like us?"

"It beggars imagination," Gaskell said. "Naturally everybody regarded the Research as one of the ill-fated Polar expeditions. But there is going to be an end of this before long. We are quite safe here till the Far North sends out an expedition in search of us. We know that they are only fifteen miles away. It may be a week or two—"

"Not if the Research carries anything in the way of a big gun," the practical Meredith suggested.

"What should we do without our Meredith?" Gaskell smiled. "We will fire a shot or two from the big gun, and that will soon settle matters."

"I cannot understand how you contrived to find us?" Irene Broxwood asked.

Gaskell proceeded to explain all about the footprints in the snow, and the shot which very nearly ended in the unexpected demolition of Ottaway. He noted the change that had come over the girls in the last half-hour; the change was still more noticeable at breakfast the next morning. And when at length the long, black string that formed the search party from the Far North came in sight, even the practical Meredith was bound to volunteer the statement that the Broxwoods were the prettiest girls that he had ever seen.

THE END

UNBIDDEN GUESTS

Published in the Australian Town and Country Journal, N.S.W., Wednesday 15 February, 1905.

CHAPTER I

Heaven and earth seemed blended together in a great whirling wheel. Nurse Clare was conscious of a faint smell of burning wood; in a dreamy kind of way she sat up, and asked what was the matter. Then it came back to her that there had been an accident, and that she was not in the least hurt. The carriage had run off the rails, had pitched sideways down a sloping bank, the feeble oil lamp was out, one frosty star indicated the angled window and the serene silence beyond.

Nurse Clare's first thought was for her patient. A dim black bundle loomed opposite her. The resolute-looking, clear-eyed nurse was herself again. She fumbled for the silver match-box at the end of her chatelaine, and struck a vesta. The carriage had fallen over at an angle of forty-five, the dark bundle opposite with a smaller bundle in its arms was fast asleep.

"There has been an accident," Nurse Clare said. "Our slip coach has run off the line. I haven't the remotest idea where we are, but I fancy that we have the coach to ourselves.

"And I slept through it," the other woman said. "I was utterly worn out. I was up all the night with my boy.

She hugged the bundle in her arms closer.

A few hours before these women had been strangers. They had drifted together half-way through a long railway journey, and gradually the story had been told. It was a tale of struggle and misfortune, a runaway match, and a stern, unforgiving father. Then, when things had been getting better, the young husband had been stricken down with smallpox, and the young wife's last desperate resource was a distant relative in the West of England.

The slip coach had fallen clear of the line. Clearly there was nobody else in it. And there was comfort behind that distant red gleam. Nurse Clare sped rapidly along the sleepers till she could see the great crimson star directly overhead, and the outline of a signal box beneath it.

"There has been an accident," she said. "The slip coach to Longford has gone off the rails. Nobody has been hurt, only I thought----

A big bearded man came rattling down the stairway.

"I was getting anxious, Miss," he said. "My mate, who has just gone off duty, is telegraphing for assistance. Can I do anything?

"We must make use of your box for the present," the nurse said. "Anything is better than the railway carriage. Is not Grinstead Priory close by?

"It's no use you going over to Grinstead Priory," the big man said. "If you crawled up the drive at the last gasp it 'ud just please Squire to set his dogs on you and drive you away.

"That poor little body isn't going to have a case of pneumonia on her hands if I can help it," said Nurse Clare. "And as to his dogs, why I just love them.

Nurse Clare pushed her way along until she came at length to a deserted lodge, a pair of moss-clad gates leading into the throat of an avenue. By the light of a crescent moon Nurse Clare could make out a big sign, "Beware of the Dogs." There was a deep-mouthed baying not far off.

But Clare had little time to picture what might have been. She was suddenly transformed into a female Daniel in a den of lions. The frosty air boomed with the deep baying of hounds. Clare caught herself thinking of Topsy and Eva and Uncle Tom.

The great brutes raced towards her, howling as they came. Clare's heart gave one great bound, and then seemed to stop still. She was honestly and sincerely afraid now; she had fully expected to hear the huge hall door fly open at the first note of danger. But though lights blazed in every window, the house was ominously still and silent.

The little nurse stood rigidly there as the great hounds bounded towards here.

"Come here," Clare commanded. "Come here, sir.

The dog came with a shamed gliding movement. The others followed. Clare could see the lights gleaming on rows of polished tooth. She moved very slowly towards the hall door, she laid her fingers resolutely on the handle. Then she staggered into the hall and closed the door swiftly behind her.

Clare marched resolutely into one of the rooms--a noble dining-room with the table laid for dinner. There were covers for at least a score of guests. There were wines of the finest quality, an elegant repast, but everything, to the dishes on the sideboard, cold.

A fire of ripe acacia logs roared up the wide chimney. Before it there sat a man in a deep beehive chair, one foot resting on a stool. He was a grey man, grey as to his hair and eyes, and hard, clean cut features.

"Good evening!" he said in a deep sarcastic note. "I heard you outside. My hearing is good. You don't lack courage.

"If I had," Clare said; "those dogs of yours would have torn me to pieces. You heard me; and yet you took no steps--oh! shameless!

"I cannot take steps of any kind at present," the man said grimly. "I have sprained my ankle badly. As to servants, there are none in the house. To-morrow a fresh set will arrive. What do you want here?

Clare explained briefly. She would bring her charge there, whether Grinstead liked it or not.

"Mind you it is contraband of war," he said. "If I were not helpless, I tell you frankly I would have none of this. It is my mood at this time of the year to deck my table out as if I had a house full of people. The last happy time I had before I lost all faith in humanity was a Christmas. You see I have been decorating the walls with holly and the like. That is how I slipped and hurt my ankle. In doing so I displaced those pictures that lie on the floor. I shall be greatly obliged if you will replace them on their hooks. No, no, not that way--the face of the portraits to the wall.

Clare propped the portraits against the table. As her eyes fell upon them she gave a gasp of astonishment. They were beautifully painted, and must have been excellent portraits. Evidently, too, they were mother and daughter.

CHAPTER II

Clare hurried her companion up the avenue, and into the house, lest some misfortune should baulk her plans. Grinstead looked up grimly; then the black cloud shut down upon his face again. He would have risen only the pain in his foot brought him down again with a groan. Clare's companion stood there, as if dazed by the light.

"My daughter," Grinstead cried. "If you think to fool me like this----

"Marmion knows me," Mrs. Lestrange said unsteadily. "See how he fawns upon me, and lick's my hand. Father don't send me away to-night. Let me stay here till the morning. Then I will go, and you shall see my face no more. My child----

"Your child is safe," Nurse Clare said. "We shall stay here to-night. Give the boy to me.

Clare took a pillow from a chair, and laid the boy on it before the fire. His cheeks were rosy and flushed, the streaming firelight glistened upon the shining curls. With a sudden curiosity, Grinstead bent down to look. The big hound growled ominously.

"When I was in South Africa, I met a nurse. Head of a special mission, and called Ursula," said Clare, apropos of nothing apparently. "She was the head of a band of nurses equipped and sent out at her own expense. We all knew there was a sad story somewhere, and we all felt that she was not to blame. But we had to work too hard in those dark days to think of anything but our duty. Still, if ever there was an angel, Sister Ursula was one. Then enteric broke out, and she was one of the first to fall.

"I nursed her for a week, but it was obvious what the end would be, and just before she died she told me something of her history. She had married a man that she respected rather than loved, but he proved a good husband so far that she grew very fond of him in time. Then, some time after her little girl came, she made a discovery. By means of a deliberate lie her husband had separated her from the first love of her heart----

"Ah," Grinstead said, hoarsely, "so she found that out?

"Yes, she found it out. And that was why she left her husband and child without a word to go into a kind of convent. It was a dreadful shock to a proud nature like hers, and for years she nursed her sorrow alive. She might have forgiven that man had he sought her out, but he did not do so. And just before she died, before she had time to tell me who she was, she gave me this to give to her husband as a token of forgiveness. I am glad that I can hand it over to him at Christmas time.

From her purse Clare drew a simple wedding ring. "Now what do you think of this man?" Clare went on. "Because his wife leaves him he loses all faith in human nature. He looks upon himself as betrayed. And yet all those years he never thinks of the cruel lie by which he parted a woman from the man of her heart. He had only one point of view, for his own sin he can feel nothing. Why when his daughter gives him a lesson that love is better than all the world besides, he sees nothing in it but another personal grievance.

Grinstead had nothing to say: his sharp tongue was silenced, for all that Clare had said was positively true. He had forgotten that dishonourable lie, he had deliberately ignored everything but his own wrongs. Even after the lapse of years his face flushed as he thought of his wife's feelings when the truth came home to her. It was amazing now to realise that he had never for a moment dreamt that the fault might have been his.

"I should have looked till I found you," Clare said. "As it is I have found you quite by accident. Sir, the play is played out. It is for you to say what situation the curtain shall rise upon.

It was some time before Grinstead spoke. He was cast down and humiliated, a prey to bitter feelings, and yet his heart was lighter than it had been for years. He pointed to the blank pictures on the walls.

"Will you do me a little favour?" he asked. "You were so good as to hang up those portraits for me just now. I shall be very glad if you will please put them in--in a more favourable position.

The words cost Grinstead an effort as Clare could see. Without a word she turned the pictures round and dusted them.

"And now," she said. "We had better see what bedroom accommodation there is for us. I presume there are fires laid upstairs. And when that is all over I will look to your injured ankle. Come along.

She swept Eleanor Lestrange out of the room, leaving Grinstead to his own troubled thoughts. At his feet the boy lay looking up with dreamy eyes. They looked up at him from the floor; they seemed to smile down at him from the walls.

"Ain't you afraid of me?" he said clumsily. The boy rose and climbed on to Grinstead's knees.

"I'm not afraid of anybody," he said, "because everybody loves me.

Clare laid a hand upon Eleanor Lestrange's shoulder and drew her into the shadow. The firelight danced and flickered, and in the centre of it was Grinstead with the boy on his knees and his slim hands in the little fellow's curls.

"Your troubles are over," Clare whispered, "and I fancy I shall be here long enough to see your husband and your father shake hands yet.

And she did.

THE END.

THE LAST DRIVE

Published in The Australian Town And Country Journal, 3 January 1906, pp 33-34

I

THE members of the Royal Crossboro' Golf Club were suffering from a periodical lack of incidents. For instance, nobody had done any holes "in one" lately, the merits and demerits of the "Haskell"* et hoc had been thoroughly thrashed out, so that the select smoking-room company were actually forced back upon quite mundane matters. The afternoon was too wet and windy even for golf, and the half-dozen members round the fire had finished the usual after-lunch abuse of the Green Committee.

"Nor'-west gale for the last week," growled one. "I suppose that's why we are kept on the back tee at the eighteenth hole. Old Seddon to blame, of course."

"Of course," said another of the smokers. "It means that every ball that's fairly well played falls in the Mole brook, and consequently is carried past Seddon's house and into his private grounds, where he collects them all. He hasn't bought a new ball for years."

One of the fathers of the club, smoking gravely in his favourite armchair, smiled meaningly. There was a deadly feud between Mr. Chorsley aforesaid and the wily Seddon, whose residence was quite close to the home green.

"I've stopped that," Chorsley said. "I had a wire grating fixed across the brook just as it passed through the hedge into Seddon's grounds. No more annexed Haskell's now. Did I ever tell you how Seddon served me the last time we played together in the Spring?"

The assembled company shuffled uneasily. They had all heard the story times out of number, how Seddon had played with his opponent's ball, and declared it to be his own. But then Mr. Chorsley was a real good fellow, and widely hospitable to boot, and the old old story was endured in silence. And Seddon was no favourite in the club.

"It's a strange thing," another member said, thoughtfully. "For the last month Frank Bruce has never made one decent drive over the Mole brook at the last hole. He is playing a better game than he has ever played in his life, and yet every time he comes to the last tee he slices his drive over the boundary into the brook, as it passes into Seddon's property."

"And never misses when he drops another ball down for a second drive," added another member.

"One way of getting round old Seddon," a further member remarked. "It's love for Mary Seddon, the old boy's niece, that upsets Bruce's nerve at the last hole. When he is in sight of the house he is thinking of the unattainable and other things."

"Is that really a fact?" Chorsley asked eagerly.

"Absolutely," the last speaker replied. "And whatever may be the faults of old Seddon, his niece Mary is really a nice girl. She'll have a fair amount of money, too, not that Bruce calculates on that. But Seddon's got a sorry nephew who comes down from the City now and again, and he's trying to force the little girl to marry him."

"Why doesn't Bruce take matters in his own hands?" Chorsley growled.

"Well, he can't quite do that. His prospects are good, and he is a really smart fellow, but as yet his income is small. Seddon has put his foot down. There is to be no more intercourse, nothing till Frank can show a clear income of £500 a year. When that comes Seddon magnanimously offers to withdraw all opposition. So it's long odds on the nephew."

Chorsley nodded thoughtfully. He was an easy going kind-hearted old gentleman, but he had a pretty temper of his own, and he hated Seddon heartily. He would have gone a long way to thwart the miserly man who laid traps for golf balls. His eyes twinkled as he looked into the fire. He began to see his way. He was not yet retired from the stockbroking firm from whence he derived a large portion of his big income.

"You'll see Bruce when he comes down to-night, Partridge," he said. "I wish you'd make up a match with him for me on Saturday, if he has nothing else on. Then you can both come afterwards and have dinner with me."

Partridge promised to arrange the matter if possible, and evidently meant it. Chorsley's little dinners were by no means to be despised. And though Frank Bruce was an infinitely better player than his elderly opponent, and though he was consumed by what looked like a hopeless passion for Mary Seddon, he fixed up the match without the slightest hesitation.

They came along well enough till the last teeing ground was reached. It was an interesting match, for at this point the rivals were all square. Everything depended upon the last hole. Below the tee was a broken sloping ground ending into the tiny but swiftly running Mole brook. Beyond was the fair green course and the red flag fluttering in the distance.

"My honour," said Bruce, as he seemed to be selecting a ball with unusual care. "My drive first. I must try and not miss this one. Latterly I can't manage this hole at all,"

He made his tee carefully, and placed a perfectly white new ball upon it. Mr. Chorsley made as if to get out of the way, and in doing so kicked the ball off the tee, so that it rolled into some heather. With a muttered apology, he replaced the dismantled ball.

"Now go on," he said. "Give me a good lead."

Bruce swung very slowly up, then his driver came down with a smashing force. Away went the ball, not straight across the course, but sliced away to the right well over the boundary fence and down till it hopped into the Mole brook in Seddon's grounds.

"Funny thing, isn't it?" Bruce said without the slightest emotion.

"Very," Chorsley said gravely. "But you'll do better next drive. Of course, you can tee up another ball and play three strokes. Go ahead."

Chorsley got a good drive, and Bruce a beautifully long raking shot. But the handicap was too strong, and he lost the hole by a stroke. He bore his defeat with singular philosophy.

"No use getting out of temper," he said.

"Not a bit," Chorsley chuckled. "See you later on at dinner time. Partridge has to leave early, but don't you hurry. I have a word or two for your private ear afterwards."

II

A LONG bubbling glass stood at Frank Bruce's elbow, and a long cigar between his teeth. The smoking-room was comfortably and not too brilliantly lighted; the glowing fire invited confidence.

Partridge had departed, and Bruce and his host were alone together. For a long time the former stared thoughtfully into the fire.

"Why don't you make up your mind to marry her in spite of him?" Chorsley asked.

"It wouldn't be fair," Bryce said, in the most natural manner, and as if there had been a long conversation on the subject nearest his heart. "I couldn't afford it yet, and, confound it, Mr. Chorsley, how could you possibly guess what I was thinking about?"

"So what the fellows at the club house say is perfectly true," Chorsley went on coolly. "Old Seddon plays the magnanimous, and what he'll do when you can show a clear £500 a year. Meanwhile, there is a rival in the path."

"Yes, confound him!" Bruce growled.

"Who has the ears of the wicked uncle. This wicked uncle watches the niece so carefully that she can't get a line out of the house, and you can't get a line into it. And yet you can put her on her guard when the rival is coming down, and if you want an interview when you come down here on Saturdays you know how to arrange it, don't you?"

Bruce looked up anxiously, and Chorsley smiled.

"Oh, I'm not going to give you away," he said. "It's one of the smartest tricks I've ever come across, and that is saying a good deal. A young fellow who can invent a dodge like that is certain to get on in the world, and I can give him a good start. Here is a golf ball. It is the one that you first put upon the last tee this morning. When I kicked it off the tee I replaced it with another. I know your secret, young man, and I congratulate you. Go up to the last tee in the morning, and drive that ball off in the way it should be driven, and when you see Miss Seddon at night ask for an interview with her uncle. Tell him you have your £500 a year all right, and, if he is incredulous, give him this letter. Now finish up your cigar, and be off."

At a quarter past nine the following night Frank Bruce was sitting in a secluded part of Mr. Seddon's grounds, and he was not alone. A pretty girl with dark eyes was by his side, and his arm was about her waist.

"I expected your message last night," Mary said.

"Well, I thought I had sent it," Bruce replied. "Mary, our little scheme has been found out. Mr. Chorsley took the marked ball, and substituted another for it."

"And I saw you drive off, and when I picked the ball up it was quite clean," Mary said, "But surely Mr. Chorsley would never have been so ill-natured--"

"Old Chorsley is a brick. And between ourselves, he would give a great deal to put a spoke in your uncle's wheel. On the whole we shall have no occasion to regret--"

An acid voice breaking in on the lovers' sweet converse thought otherwise. The tall, thin man demanded to know why he had been deceived like this, to which Bruce coolly responded that there had been no deception whatever. There was a stipulation as to an income of £500 a year--

"Which remains to be fulfilled," Seddon said, coldly.

"Perhaps when you read this letter you will think otherwise," Bruce said. "It is intended for you."

Seddon tore open the envelope contemptuously. His face changed as he read, and he bit his lip.

"I suppose you are aware of the contents of this letter," he said with an effort. "But, of course you are. In it Mr. Chorsley informs me that he is going out of the firm of Chorsley and Martin, and that the present manager comes in. Therefore you are offered the managership, with good prospects at a salary of £600 a year."

Bruce nodded coolly. But he was absolutely taken by surprise. All the same his enemy was utterly routed. He dropped the letter on the grass, and walked away with his hands behind him. Mary bent over her lover, and kissed him with delighted tears in her eyes.

"Do explain, Frank," she said, rapturously. "Do tell me how it happened."

"When I've seen Chorsley," Bruce muttered, "but not before, because I'm hanged if I know."

"Easiest thing in the world," Chorsley said, as he waved his cigar in front of him. "Why did you always slice it in the same direction? Why did you always get your ball off so clean? Because you were doing it on purpose. Again why? Because the object of your affection was near at hand. You wanted to signal to her. Then it occurred to me that if you wrote a message in blue pencil on a new golf ball, it wouldn't come out for some time. You do so, and you drive that ball into the brook, and Miss Seddon finds it. I got hold of a ball of yours, and I read the message making an appointment. By Jove, a splendid dodge--never heard of better. And so that's the way you managed your love affairs, eh. Well, If you can do so well with one thing you may do well with another, and that's why I gave you the chance of filling the new opening in our office. No, you need not thank me, I shall have a good servant, and I get even with Seddon at the same time. But there will be two things that I prophesy."

"And what are those?" Bruce asked.

"That you will miss no more drives on the last tee," Chorsley chuckled, "and that you will not be so prodigal with your 'rubbers' in the future."

THE END

THE TWO BON-BONS

ILLUSTRATED BY P.B. HICKLING

Published in The Strand Magazine, May 1906

I

THE little woman clung impulsively to Jim Stacey's hands as if they were buoys in a tempestuous sea and she drowning in the social gulf for want of a friend. And, indeed, Mrs. Arthur Lattimer was in a sorry case, as her pleading eyes would have told a less astute observer than her companion.

As to the scene itself, it was set for comedy rather than tragedy. Down below a new Russian contralto was delighting the ears of Lady Trevor's guests; the rooms were filled with all the best people; the little alcove where Stacey was sitting was a mass of fragrant Parma violets and cool, feathery ferns; the electric lights were demurely shaded; indeed, Lady Trevor always made a point of this discretion in her illuminations. There was no chance for the present of interruption, so that Stacey was in a position to listen to his companion's story without much fear of the inquisitive outsider. Gradually the look of terror began to fade from the grey eyes of Mrs. Arthur Lattimer.

"My dear lady," Stacey said, in his most soothing tones, "I shall have to get you to tell it me all over again. You see, I have been out of town for the last two or three days, and only received your hurried note an hour ago. You will admit that stating a case is not your strong point."

"What did I say?" Mrs. Lattimer asked. "I am half beside myself with trouble. Did I make it quite clear to you that I had lost the great Asturian emerald?"

"I gathered that," Stacey said. "I am also under the impression that the emerald was stolen."

"It was stolen, "Mrs. Lattimer affirmed. "I was wearing it—"

"Wearing it?" Stacey echoed. "Surely that was a little indiscreet. But how came the Empress of Asturia's jewel in your possession at all?"

"I had better explain, "Mrs. Lattimer went on. "As you know perfectly well, my husband is a dealer in precious stones. He is probably the greatest man in this line in Europe. You are also aware that the Empress of Asturia is in London at the present moment. She has a fancy to try to match that priceless stone; in fact, if possible, she wants two more like it. She came very quietly to our house in Mount Street and saw my husband on the subject. Of course, he held out little hope of being able to execute the commission, but he said that he had heard of a couple of likely stones in Venice, and that, if Her Majesty would leave the emerald with him, he would see what he could do. To make a long story short the stone was left with him, and up to three or four days ago was locked away in his safe—a small safe that he keeps in his study."

"Lattimer showed you the stone, of course?"

"I have my husband pretty well in hand," Mrs. Lattimer laughed. "He showed me the emerald the next day, and a sudden fancy to wear it came over me with irresistible force. It was no great matter for me to get possession of the key of the safe. My husband was away, too, for a night, and on Monday evening I went to a bridge party at Rutland House, wearing the emerald as a pin. I was just a little frightened to find my borrowed gem so greatly admired. We were having supper about twelve o'clock—a sort of informal affair at a sideboard in the drawing-room—and I was induced to hand the stone round. Without thinking, I unscrewed it from the pin and stood there laughing and chatting keeping my eyes open all the same."

"Knowing something of the kind of woman who is a professional bridge-player?" Stacey laughed.

"Precisely," Mrs. Lattimer said. "There were one or two present whom I would not trust very far. Well, in some extraordinary way the stone was lost. Nobody seemed to know where it was; nobody would confess to having taken it. I am afraid I lost my head for the moment. I know I said a few hard things; but there it is—that stone is gone, and unless I can recover it by midday to-morrow I am ruined, absolutely ruined."

"Your husband?" Stacey hinted.

"Knows nothing. I have not dared to tell him. I have waited till the last possible moment on chance of the stone being recovered. You see, I stole the key of the safe and made my husband believe that he had lost it. It is a wonderful safe of American make, and no one in London can unpick it. My husband telegraphed to New York to the makers to send a man over, and he arrives by the Celtic to-night. Unless the stone can be found first—"

Stacey nodded sympathetically. He quite appreciated the desperate condition of affairs.

"I see," he said, thoughtfully. "If the stone turns up, you will contrive to find the lost key and restore the gem to its hiding-place. And now I must ask you if you suspect anybody."

The pretty little woman flushed slightly. She glanced about her as if afraid that the Parma violets might become the avenue that leads up to a libel action.

"Yes," she whispered. "It is Mrs. Aubrey Beard."

"Oh!" Stacey muttered. "So the wind sets in that quarter. My dear lady, this is a serious thing. Mrs. Aubrey Beard has a high reputation. She is the wife of a Cabinet Minister, and, so far as I know, has none of the society vices—"

"Oh, hasn't she?" Mrs. Lattimer sneered. "Why, that woman is one of the most inveterate gamblers in London. It is an open secret that her bridge debts amount to over five thousand pounds—at least, they did last night, and I haven't heard that they were paid to—day. But this seems to be news to you?"

"Well, yes," Stacey admitted. "If Beard knew this there would be a separation. Now tell me, what grounds have you for making this accusation?"

"My dear Mr. Stacey, I am making no accusation whatever. I am merely telling you whom I suspect. To begin with, Mrs. Beard hardly touched the stone at all, though I could see her eyes flash strangely when she saw me wearing it. I have very little doubt that she guessed my little deception. You will remember that Mr. Aubrey Beard was in the Diplomatic Service at the Asturian capital, and that his wife would have every opportunity of becoming acquainted with the Royal jewels. At any rate, she hardly touched the gem, and seemed a great deal more interested in a dish of chocolate bon-bons in front of her. She is passionately fond of sweets."

"I suppose, practically, your supper consisted of that kind of thing?" Stacey asked. "Being no men present, you would naturally think very little—"

"Oh, of course," Mrs. Lattimer said, airily. "We had very little else besides a few grapes and a sandwich or two. Mrs. Beard was nibbling at her chocolates up to the very time we left. It was then that she dropped a remark which aroused all my suspicions. She said she hoped that I should find my emerald again, and that if the Empress of Asturia was seen wearing one very like mine I should not accuse her of theft."

"Really, now," Stacey said. "This is most interesting to a society novelist like myself. In other words, Mrs. Beard practically accused you of stealing the very thing that you charge her with appropriating. She let you know quite clearly that she guessed exactly what had happened. It was a hint to you that if you saw anything you would not dare to make it public. You have honoured me with a difficult problem to solve, and I have solved many. Mrs. Beard is a cleverer woman than I imagined; but suppose she has already disposed of the emerald?"

"But she hasn't," Mrs Lattimer whispered, eagerly. "If she had done so, she would have paid her bridge debts. You know how necessary it is to discharge obligations of that kind. I feel quite sure that the emerald still remains in Mrs. Beard's possession."

"Meaning that she has found no way of disposing of it?"

"Not yet. I have had her carefully watched, and I have come to the conclusion that her cousin, Ralph Adamson, is in the conspiracy. Of course, you know he is a great admirer of Mrs. Beard's; there is nothing wrong, but I am certain that he would do anything for her. I know he was at her house for a long time the day before yesterday, and that he subsequently paid a hurried visit to Amsterdam, where, I understand, it is a fairly easy matter to dispose of stolen jewels. If he had been successful with his errand, Mrs. Beard's bridge debts would have been paid by now. But what is the use of our talking like this? You know the whole story; you can see the dreadful position I am in. Is there any possible way of getting me out of the difficulty before to-morrow afternoon?"

"I have worked out some sort of a theme," Stacey said, thoughtfully. "Your letter was very incoherent, but now that I know all the facts I begin to feel sanguine. Tell me—"

"Oh, I will tell you anything. Your very presence gives me courage. I see that you are going to ask me a question of the utmost importance. What is it?"

"It is important," Stacey said, gravely. "I want you to try and remember exactly what sort of bon-bons Mrs. Beard was eating on the night that the robbery took place."

Mrs. Lattimer laughed in a vexed kind of way.

"What a frivolous creature you are!" she said. "As if a trivial thing like that could possibly matter."

"My dear lady," Stacey said, in a deeply impressive manner, "the point is distinctly and emphatically precious. I pray of you not to speak at random. Was it not somewhere in the Far East that the accidental swallowing of a grape—stone changed the destinies of a nation? Think it out carefully."

"You are a most extraordinary man," Mrs. Lattimer said, almost tearfully. "So far as I can recollect, the sweets in question were chocolate fondants filled with almond paste. Yes, I am quite sure that that is a fact, for I remember Mrs. Beard saying that almond paste was her favourite sweet."

"We are getting on," Stacey said. "My education on the head of feminine gastronomy is somewhat limited, but I have a hazy kind of idea that these particular dainties are fairly large in size. They would be nearly as big as my thumb, I suppose?"

"Quite that," Mrs. Lattimer said, gravely.

"Ah! then your humble maker of romances is not to be baffled. My way lies clear before me. Now, one more question. Did I not understand from Lady Trevor that Mrs. Beard is going to put in an appearance here to-night?"

"So I believe," Mrs. Lattimer replied.

"She is giving a dinner to semi—Royalty and will not be here till comparatively late. I feel certain she will come, because I saw Ralph Adamson just now listening to the new contralto."

Stacey rose gaily from his seat and fell to admiring the banks of violets with which the room was lined. He caught Mrs. Lattimer's reproachful eye and smiled.

"À la bonne heure," he said. "Give yourself no further anxiety. The curtain is about to go up, the play will commence. If that emerald is still in the possession of Mrs. Aubrey Beard, I pledge you my word it shall be restored to you before you sleep to-night. Smile as you were wont to smile, and come with me."

II

THE great contralto had finished her song amidst the tepid applause which passes for enthusiasm in society, and for a moment the proceedings seemed to languish. In the great salon some two hundred of the chosen ones had gathered, waiting like children for someone to amuse them. A social entertainer followed, only to be received and dismissed in chilling silence, which it is to be hoped was somewhat compensated by the size of his cheque. Stacey came cheerfully forward and shook hands with his hostess.

"I began to think you were going to throw me over," she said. "So awfully good of you to offer to come here and amuse these people. Upon my word, society nowadays is worse than a set of school-children. What should we do without our society entertainers? You have such clever ideas! Is it possible that you have a new sensation for us to-night?"

Stacey intimated modestly that it was just on the cards. He noticed the reproachful way with which Mrs. Lattimer was regarding him. He sidled up to her presently.

"It is all part of the system," he said.

"Like Mr. Weller's reduced counsels. It is not when I smile that I am at my joyous zenith. I am here to-night exclusively on your business, and if I do play the clown there will be a good deal of the tragedian behind it. I promise you that there is a large percentage of method in my madness."

There was a murmur among the languid audience, a kind of electric thrill which was in itself a compliment to Stacey. Apart from his literary fame, as an originator of novel and frivolous amusements he had a reputation all his own. There was a good score of men and women present who could have told stories of his marvels, and who could have risen up and called him blessed had it been discreet to do so. There were others present who looked upon Jim Stacey as a mere society scribbler and charlatan, but these only added piquancy to the situation.

At the earnest request of Lady Trevor, Stacey proceeded to do a few simple experiments in the way of thought-reading. An immaculate youth, utterly bored and blasé, lounged up to him and remarked with casual insolence that he had seen this kind of thing just as well done, if not better, at a country fair. Stacey smiled indulgently.

"I dare say," he said. "But, you see, I have apparently mistaken the intellectual level of a portion of my audience. If you like I will endeavour to read your thoughts, provided always that you can concentrate your mind long enough upon any given topic."

"Tell me what is in my pocket, perhaps," the other said. "There is a challenge for you, Stacey."

"Which I accept," Stacey said, promptly.

"If anyone will blindfold me, I am prepared to give a strict account of the contents of Mr. Falconer's pockets, only he must promise me that he will think of nothing else during the whole of the experiment"

There was a ripple and stir amongst the audience, a kaleidoscope whirled and flashed on many-coloured vestments, and a sea of white faces turned in Stacey's direction. One of the ladies present emerged from the foam of fashion and whipped a cambric handkerchief across Stacey's eyes. His victim stood a little way off, so that the performer could just touch the tips of his fingers. There was a long, tense silence before Stacey commenced to speak.

"I begin to see," he said, in a thrilling voice, which began to carry conviction to a section of his audience. Whatever the man might have been, he certainly was a consummate actor.

"I begin to see into some of the secrets of the typical gilded youth of our exclusive society. Imprimis, in the vest-pocket, a gold cigarette-case; the cigarette-case is set with diamonds and bears in one corner two initials which are certainly not the initials of the fortunate owner. Inside the case are three cigarettes and half-a-dozen visiting-cards, which also do not bear the impress of the carrier's autograph. If Mr. Falconer likes I will read out the names printed on those cards, beginning at the bottom and working backwards to the top. The first card is that of a lady——"

"Here, I have had enough of this," Falconer burst out in some confusion. "I don't know who has been playing this trick upon me, but I consider it anything but good form, don't you know."

A ripple of laughter ran over the sea of eager faces as Falconer backed away from the table, his face a healthier and rosier red than it had been for some time past. Stacey's challenge to his victim to complete the experiment was met with a direct negative.

"Then you won't go on?" Stacey said, in his most insinuating manner. "Pity to break it off just at the interesting stage, don't you think? I was just about to tell your friends the story of that cheque in your waistcoat-pocket—"

Something like a cry of dismay broke from the unhappy Falconer, and the brilliant red of his face turned to a ghastly white. As he slipped away, Stacey turned to the audience and inquired if anybody else there would like to try the same experiment. Quite a little knot of men came forward.

"Cannot I induce some of the ladies to give me a chance?" Stacey pleaded. "It seems to me manifestly unfair—"

"Fortunately for us we have no pockets," Lady Trevor cried. "We keep all those things in our conscience. Positively, we shall have to send Mr. Stacey to Coventry if he does not hold his wonderful powers a little more in hand. I dare say there are men present who are so marvellously honourable and pure-minded that they have nothing to disclose. If there are any such here, let them come forward for Mr. Stacey to experiment upon."

"My dear Ada, what would be the use of that?" a frisky dowager shrieked at the top of her voice. "We don't want to sit here and listen to the simple annals of the good young man who died, so to speak. Won't someone kindly come forward—somebody with a terrible past——and let Mr. Stacey reveal the scandal for us?"

A frivolous laugh followed this suggestion, and somebody maliciously suggested that the speaker herself might afford information for many piquant revelations. A tall, military-looking man came forward and suggested a new variation of the interesting séance.

"Wouldn't it be much better," he said, "if we changed possessions with one another and gave Mr. Stacey a chance of guessing who the different articles belong to?"

"Wouldn't it be better," another man remarked, "to drop all this nonsense and proceed to something more rational? After all said and done, if Mr. Stacey can do this, he can forecast where things are hidden at a distance."

"Of course I can," Stacey said, with cheerful assurance. "Would you like to try me? Will somebody be good enough to give me a sheet of paper and envelope? I should prefer to have Lady Trevor's own letter-paper, so that there could be no suggestion of confederacy in the business. Will anybody come forward and write a note for me——only just a few words?"

As Stacey spoke he glanced significantly at Mrs. Lattimer, and indicated the man who was standing by her side. She seemed to understand by instinct exactly what he meant, for as the paper and envelope came along she snatched eagerly for it and placed it in the hands of the man by her side.

"You do it, Mr. Adamson," she said. "We can always trust you, because you are so cool and clear-headed, and if there is anything wrong you can easily detect it."

The tall young man with the dark eyes and waxed moustache shrugged his shoulders and smiled. Someone pushed forward a small table, on which stood an inkstand and a pen. The would-be writer gave Stacey a supercilious glance, and intimated that he was ready to begin.

"That is very good of you," Stacey said.

"Just a few words. Write—'It is not safe where it is. Bring it with you to-night.' No; there is nothing more. Lady Trevor, will you be good enough to hand me that little silver basket of sweetmeats which I see on the china cabinet behind you? All I want now is a small box—a cardboard box, about four inches square."

The whole audience was following the experiment breathlessly by now. It was almost pathetic to see the childlike way with which they gaped at Stacey. They watched him with breathless interest as he folded the note and placed it in the cardboard box. Then he very carefully picked out a chocolate fondant from the silver basket of sweetmeats and gravely placed it inside the box.

"This particular confection is not exactly what I wanted," he said, with the greatest possible solemnity. "I should have preferred a fondant tilled with almond paste. This I imagine to be Russian cream, but no matter. I will now proceed to tie up the box and place a name upon it. I will ask Lady Trevor not to look at the name, but to get one of the footmen to take it to the house for which it is intended. That is all, for the present."

Lady Trevor signalled to a passing servant and intimated that Stacey had best give the box into his custody direct.

"You are to go at once," she said, "and deliver this package at the address written on the outside; but perhaps Mr. Stacey would prefer that you placed it direct into the hands of the person for whom it is intended?"

"That was the idea, "Stacey said. "I shall have to crave your patience for half an hour or so, and, meanwhile, I shall be only too pleased to show you another form of entertainment. Before doing that I should like to have something in the way of supper and a cigarette. Surely Mr. Adamson is not going! Oh, come, seeing that you are part and parcel of my experiment I really cannot permit you to go in this way. Come along with me as far as the supper-room and join me in a glass of champagne and a cigarette."

Adamson turned and Stacey took him in a friendly way by the arm. Once in the hall the latter's manner changed and his face had grown stern. His eyes were hard and brilliant.

"Not yet, my friend," he said. "There are many things I can do, and many things I know which would astonish you if I were disposed to betray the secrets of the prison-house. If you are discreet and silent all will be well, but if you elect to defy me—well, there are certain episodes connected with a period of your life which would be just as well—"

III

THE supper had been over for some little time, and most of the guests who were not playing bridge or otherwise frivolously engaged had gathered in the salon intent upon seeing the sequel to Stacey's experiment. Mrs. Lattimer sat there with flushed cheeks and glittering eyes. The suggestion of the military-looking guest that an interchange of pockets should be made had been carried out. If this had been intended, as doubtless it was, to give Stacey a fall, it had been a long way from being successful.

He had snatched the handkerchief from his eyes and was just getting accustomed to the glare of the room when his glance met that of Mrs. Lattimer. She turned her head swiftly in the direction of the doorway, where stood a handsome woman, whose cold, beautiful face was watching somewhat critically the scene in front of her. It did not need a second look on Stacey's part to recognise Mrs. Aubrey Beard. He could see, too, that under that cold surface something in the nature of a volcano was raging. He could see that cold, icy bosom heave tempestuously, for the diamonds on her breast flashed and trembled like streams of living fire. Stacey quickly turned and whispered something in the ear of Ralph Adamson. The latter seemed to hesitate a moment; then, with bent head and lips that trembled, disappeared slowly through a doorway leading towards the conservatories. In the same cold, stately way Mrs. Aubrey Beard came forward and languidly asked the source of all this amusement.

Her glance at Stacey was icy enough—indeed, there was no love lost between them. It seemed hard to believe that this placid, emotionless creature could have been the reckless gambler that Mrs. Lattimer had proclaimed her.

"Ridiculous," she said, in her stately way. "It is preposterous to believe that Mr. Stacey could do these things without the aid of a confederate."

"Oh, they have their uses," Stacey said, airily. "For instance, I don't mind admitting now that some of this business to-night has been what I may be allowed to term a game of spoof. I have half-a-dozen friends here to—night who gave me all the information I wanted and acted as my lieutenants, and very well they did it, too, as you all must admit. But it is not all nonsense, as I am prepared to prove, if Mrs. Beard but challenged me."

"Is it worth while?" the fair beauty sneered. "I don't think anybody would accuse me of being Mr. Stacey's confederate. If he can guess—for it could be no more than guesswork —what is in my pocket he is welcome to his triumph."

Stacey's keen eyes blazed for a moment, then he resumed his normal expression. He asked for someone to blindfold him; he stood with the tips of his fingers touching the shoulders of his victim. The flesh, cold as it looked, seemed to burn under his touch.

He could hear the quick indrawing of the woman's breath. Every nerve in her body was quivering.

"I do not see much, "he said, in a dreamy kind of voice. "Nothing but a handkerchief in Mrs. Beard's corsage. But stop! There is a small object wrapped up in that handkerchief—a small cardboard box. I can see through that cardboard box now. Inside is an oblong object, brown and sweet to the taste; it is nothing more or less than a chocolate, an ordinary common chocolate filled with Russian cream; at least, I suppose it is filled with—Russian cream. Good heavens, some of you will remember—"

Stacey paused abruptly and tore the handkerchief from his face. He seemed to be greatly moved by some overpowering emotion; he glanced almost with horror into the eyes of the cold, stately woman opposite. She had not moved, she had not changed, save for a burning spot on either cheek and a peculiar convulsive twitching of her lower lip.

"This is more or less part of my experiment with the chocolate creams," Stacey said. "You will remember that a chocolate cream was the simple object that I placed in the cardboard box which was to be dispatched to an address known only to mysel£ I was challenged to discover a certain object hidden somewhere at a distance, and in my own mind I decided where that object was and what it was. Presently I will show you. Meanwhile, I ask Mrs. Beard to admit that I have been absolutely successful, and to produce the small box which she has wrapped in her handkerchief.

The speaker turned just for a moment and his eyes flashed a stern challenge into those of the woman opposite. Very slowly and reluctantly she placed her hand inside the bosom of her dress and produced a lace handkerchief in which lay the small cardboard box which Stacey had dispatched by hand of the footman. The breathless audience watched Stacey as he opened the box and took therefrom apparently the same bon-bon which he had placed in the receptacle some half-hour before.

"I see you are all utterly mystified," he said. "Indeed, I am quite sure that Mrs. Beard is as mystified as the rest. Before successfully concluding my little comedy I should like to have a few words with Mrs. Beard alone. I flatter myself that Mrs. Beard is just as anxious for a few words with me."

The woman bowed coldly. Not for an instant had she betrayed herself She led the way in the direction of the library, and once there Stacey closed the door. He wasted no time in words; he raised the chocolate fondant to the light and snapped it in two. From the inside there fell a wondrous green shining stone—none other than the famous emerald belonging to the Empress of Asturia. Stacey spoke no word: he stood there waiting for the inevitable explanation. Then Mrs. Beard began to speak.

"You are a wonderful man," she said, hoarsely. Her breath came fast, as if she had been running far. "I stole that emerald the night of the bridge party at Rutland House. I managed to conceal it, without being seen, in that chocolate fondant. I had my bridge debts to pay; I dared not tell my husband. I pass before the world as a cold, unfeeling woman, but my love for my husband has hitherto been the one passion of my life. I will not ask you how you have discovered all these things, for you would not tell me if I did. You seem to have guessed that my cousin, Ralph Adamson, was in the conspiracy, and you are correct. By what means you tricked him into writing those lines to-night, and getting me to place myself red-handed in the lion's jaws, I cannot pretend to understand, but there is the emerald and here is my confession. I have said a great deal for a proud woman like myself; all I ask you to do is to make it as easy for me as you can. If there is any exposure—"

"My dear madam, it is entirely in your hands to say whether there will be exposure or not," Stacey explained. "If you leave it to me,I will show you the way out. Mrs. Lattimer came to me with the facts, and I carefully engineered this little comedy with a view to saving my fair friend's reputation and sparing you a humiliating scandal. Still, it was not fair of you to try and close Mrs. Lattimer's mouth by letting her know that you were aware to whom this magnificent stone really belongs. By doing so you thought to frighten her and place her in such a position that she dare not accuse you of the theft. What we have to do now is to go back to the salon and make the dramatic announcement that I have been entirely successful in the matter of my experiment. If you could smile a little I should be greatly obliged. Yes, that is better. Now let us pretend to be talking upon quite indifferent topics. Anything will do."

There was a sudden hush in the conversation and a rustling of skirts as Stacey and Mrs Beard entered the salon. Mrs. Beard was smiling now; she beamed quite graciously upon her companion, though the brilliant red spots still burnt upon her cheeks like a stain.

"You will all be glad to know that my experiment has been a perfect success," Stacey said. "I was challenged to-night to say where some object was which was hidden at a distance. It is an open secret to you all that a few nights ago Mrs. Lattimer lost a valuable emerald; it occurred to me that the finding of this stone would be a fine trial for me, and incidentally an exceedingly good advertisement. I cannot betray the secrets of the prison-house and tell you the inner significance of the bon-bons, for that would be revealing my occult science. Sufficient to say I divined the hiding-place of the missing stone. It was carried away quite by accident that night in a fold of Mrs. Aubrey Beard's dress. Perhaps she was coming here to bring it back; at least, I will not insult the lady by any other supposition. At any rate, here is the missing emerald. It may have been a case of mental telepathy; it was very strange that it should occur to Mrs. Beard to search the folds of that dress at the very moment when I turned my will-power in the direction of the hiding-place of the stone."

Not a soul there but believed every word that Stacey uttered. His manner was complete and convincing. He turned towards Mrs. Lattimer and pressed the shining jewel into her hand.

"Not a word," he whispered. "Take it all for granted. If there were not so many fools in the world I could not have carried this thing off as I have to-night. I will call upon you to-morrow and explain everything. Meanwhile, go up to Mrs. Beard and thank her. Gush at her—kiss her, if you are not afraid of being frozen. Above all, be discreet and silent."

Stacey turned away and walked in the direction of the refreshment-room. He found Adamson there, moodily smoking.

"The play is over," he said. "The comedy is accomplished, and you will understand that this is emphatically a case where the least that is said is the soonest that is mended."

THE END

THE STRANGER WITHIN THE GATE

Published in The West Australian (Perth W.A.), Monday, 24 December, 1906

I

The wind howled in the chimney so that the sparks from the wood fire raced upwards like millions of stars to meet the fury of the night. Then the gale was lulled for a moment, a strange white silence followed, and once again the rush of snowflakes on the windows

Hetty Dane drew closer to the fire and shivered slightly. She could find it in her heart to wish that all the girls were back at school now, though term time was by no means a primrose path for her. Yet it was so lonely in the great gaunt house that she would even have welcomed Miss Adela and Julia Grimshaw back to their own fireside again. But those austere ladies were not likely to return just yet. Indeed, so far as Hetty could see, their homecoming was likely to be postponed for some days, seeing that the snow had been falling steadily for twenty-four hours now; and there was a prospect before Hetty of passing an exceedingly solitary Christmas. The Misses Grimshaw had departed leaving many rigid instructions behind them. They had intimated to Hetty that, if the weather did not become more propitious, they would probably stay in Castleford and pass Christmas with a brother who lived there

Well, they would not return. Hetty had made up her mind on that point. As to the solitary Christmas, she cared little or nothing. There had been no festive season so far as she was concerned for some years past. Still, it was just a little unfortunate that the one servant remaining in the house should have sprained her ankle, and thus necessitated a stay in bed. Hetty would have to do all the work, but that she would not mind. She stood there before the fire, dreaming and wondering how many Christmases the old house had seen. It was a grand old place in its way, and at one time had been in the possession of an old county family, whose name was still remembered in the North. Doubtless, in times gone by, many a Yule log had blazed itself away upon that massive hearth, many a time had King Christmas held high revel there. Now it was all prim and bare, as befitted a ladies' school, cold and polished as the hearts of the two women who governed that select establishment

For some time Hetty stood there, until at length she became conscious of the fact that someone was knocking at the front door. It was a somewhat feeble knock, only half heard above the fury of the gale: and, just for a moment, it occurred to Hetty that she was mistaken. Then the knock came again, followed by a groan. Scared and startled, Hetty hastily crossed the hall, and threw the door open. Had not she done this, had she given herself time to hesitate, she would probably have been afraid to do anything of the kind. She forgot all her fears now, as she saw the figure of a man on his hands and knees in the deep snow which had collected on the doorstep. A furious blast of wind set the old house humming, and a fine powder of snow drifted across the polished boards. With sudden strength that quite astonished herself, Hetty dragged the man inside, and pushed the door to again. She had to fight against the strength of the gale before she succeeded. When she turned her attention towards the newcomer, she did not fail to notice how dreadfully pale and drawn his features were. There was an ugly cut on the forehead from which the blood was flowing freely

"You are badly hurt," Hetty said. "Sit down here, will you?

She pushed an armchair up to the fire, and the stranger literally fell into it, without uttering a word. He appeared to be absolutely dazed and overcome; for some moments it was evident that he had not the slightest idea where he was. Then, gradually, as the grateful heat of the fire restored him of something like life again, he turned to Hetty and smiled. It was a pleasant, frank smile, which gave an attractive expression to a countenance which was not exactly handsome, yet pleasing

"I am afraid I am giving you a lot of trouble," he said. "The fact is, I was going on to Castleford for tomorrow, and our train got snowed up in a cutting. There was a bit of an accident, and that was how I came to be hurt. I believe nobody was damaged but myself, so that when the guard came and told us we could get no further, everybody turned out of the train and went off to find accommodation in the village. I suppose I was a bit too much knocked about to keep up with the rest. Any way, I lost touch with them, and when the last breath of the blizzard came on I might have been miles away from help for all I knew to the contrary. I saw your light here, and, more by good luck than anything else, I managed to reach the house. I am sorry to trouble you.

"It is no trouble at all," Hetty said. "If you will sit here by the fire I will get some warm water to bathe your head. I daresay we can manage to make you comfortable for the night, but haven't you a bag or a portmanteau or something of that kind?

The stranger replied that he fancied he must have left it on the doorstep. And, sure enough, there it was when Hetty opened the door again. Before half-an-hour had passed her visitor was quite himself again. He seemed to have a wonderful faculty for obtaining information without asking questions, and before Hetty realised that she had told him anything, he knew all about the Misses Grimshaw, to say nothing of the unfortunate servant, and her sprained ankle. In a calm, assured sort of way, he took the situation in his own hands. He might have been master of the house

"This is a terrible dilemma," he said, with a smile. "It is my plain duty to take myself off at once, but I am not in the least inclined to do anything of the sort. I daresay I shall be able to find some sort of conveyance to-morrow. If you will be good enough to let me have two or three rugs I can make myself quite comfortable before the fire.

Hetty rather demurred to this, but George Barton was quite firm. He would keep up the fire, he said, so that Hetty would not have to light it on the following morning. When she did come down next day, something in the way of a surprise greeted her. There was a roaring fire in the hall, another had been made up in the dining-room, and the kettle was boiling gaily, in the kitchen. Moreover, the breakfast things were laid, and on the old-fashioned hob by the dining-room fire stood a dish of fresh eggs and bacon, flanked by a pile of steaming buttered toast. With a gay smile Barton pointed to his handiwork

"I hope you don't mind," he said. "Of course, I know it is rather a liberty, but when I woke up this morning the fire was out and I was literally frozen. Then I thought of you and your damaged servant, and well, really, there was nothing else for it.

Hetty laughed aloud, such a laugh as the old house had not heard for years. It never occurred to her that her companion was looking at her with frank admiration in his blue eyes. George Barton was enjoying the situation

"I daresay you wonder how I managed it," he said. "But, you see, I am used to this kind of thing. I have been a solitary man all my life, and for the last four or five years it has been a whim of mine to live in a tiny cottage, not far out of London, where I do everything myself. I do all my own housework and all my own cooking, though I daresay you would not approve of some of my methods. At any rate, this is done now, and I sincerely hope you will not think I have been taking a liberty.

"Indeed, no," Hetty cried, warmly. "I think it is exceedingly kind and thoughtful. But don't you think----

"It is a pity to let the breakfast get cold," Barton laughed. "Afterwards I can go and prospect round and see if I can find some avenue to the village.

Barton came back presently with a sufficiently grave face and information to the effect that the snow round the house had drifted to a height of ten or fifteen feet, and that any attempt to get away was absolutely impossible

"I am really afraid you will have to put up with me for a day or two," Barton said. "Of course it is very unpleasant for you.

Hetty replied suitably enough, and so the day wore on. It was cold and clear outside, a severe frost having followed the snow. Strange, as the situation was, it was still stranger how quickly Hetty fell in with the new order of things. Before evening fell she seemed to have known Barton all her life. She could hardly bring herself to believe that he was the cold, reserved man he professed to be. And then, gradually, she told him the story of her life, how both her parents had died when she was young, and how she had drifted into her present surroundings

To all of this Barton listened with a quiet interest and sympathy, which Hetty felt to be very soothing. She was surprised at her own candour; she had no idea that she could talk so well and freely. And, on the other hand, she learnt a great deal about Barton, too. He chatted quite openly as they sat by the blazing fireside

"There really is a great affinity between us," he said. "'Is it not strange that two solitary people like ourselves should drift together in this way? To think that we should be sitting opposite each other like this, chattering just as if we had known one another for years. Don't you think this would make a very excellent short story?

"Do you know I have been thinking of that?" Hetty confessed. "I don't mind telling you that I am very fond of writing stories in my spare time. How glorious it would be to get a living that way and be independent of the Grimshaws for ever.

Hetty's face was grave and thoughtful as she gazed into the fire. Barton watched the pretty profile admiringly. Hetty was all unconscious of his glance; her thoughts were very far away just then

"Unfortunately, many people have the same ambition," Barton said. "It is such a pleasant way of getting a living, and it looks so easy. I suppose your experience has been much the same as other people's?

"I suppose so," Hetty laughed. "Every story but one I have ever written has been rejected, and then the other day I read somewhere that the best thing to do is to write from one's own experience. And I did write a story from my own experience, and sent it to the editor of the 'Imperial Magazine.' I am sure it is the best thing I ever did, and I have great hopes of it; though, as yet, I have heard nothing from the editor I sent it to.

"You wrote from your heart?" Barton asked

Hetty's face flushed slightly, but the eyes which she turned on her companion were quite calm and steadfast

"Yes," she said. "I put it all on paper. At first I was ashamed to say too much, but then, gradually, it became so easy and spontaneous that I knew I had done something good. Oh, if the story were only a success! Oh, if I could only get away from here, and the hard and narrow life! Those women mean well, but they are so cold and unsympathetic. You cannot conceive what a difficult matter it would be for me to explain--Oh! I don't mean that.

"I know exactly what you mean," Barton said. "You mean that my being in the house would place you in a cruel position. Believe me. I have thought of that, and I will set you straight. I would have gone away if I could, but you must see for yourself that such a thing is utterly impossible.

Hetty's face flushed crimson. She was too loyal and kindhearted to have uttered her own thoughts. She was vexed to find that Barton could so easily put them into words

"I think I understand you better than you understand yourself," he said. "Do you suppose I don't know what an effort all this has cost you? Oh, dear, yes. And I shall never forget all your kindness to me. As yet I cannot realise it. I never expected to be talking freely and openly like this with anybody, least of all a woman. But I am allowing my sentiment to get the better of my common-sense. To-morrow I really must make another effort to get away from here. It will be a strange sort of Christmas Day, but, then, during the past ten or fifteen years, the festival has conveyed nothing to me. I only felt a little more remote and lonely than usual. And now let us be practical. Have you enough food in the house to carry us over another day?

"Oh, you need not be afraid about that," Hetty, laughed. "I think we shall be able to manage. I won't vouch for the turkey or the mince pies but apart from those dainties I think we shall get on very well, only you must be careful with the butter.

"I will bear your warning in mind," said Barton gravely. "I am too extravagant with the toast. But, then, what can you expect from a mere average man like myself?

II

Barton stood in the open air drinking in the beauty of the morning and the brilliancy of the sunshine. The world still lay under its white covering, but the hard frost had rendered the snow crisp and firm now, so that it was an easy matter to walk upon it without danger of going through the icy covering. Here was the avenue of escape for which Barton had been wishing. But now it had come he felt strangely reluctant to make the most of his opportunity. He ought to go away--that he knew perfectly well. It was his plain duty to do so. Instead of that, he made his way down to the village, where he found his fellow-travellers ensconced in a comfortable inn of more than average pretensions. When he returned to the schoolhouse again he was so laden with good things that Hetty opened her eyes in astonishment

"I am going to be perfectly frank with you," Barton said. "The frost has rendered it quite an easy matter for me to get into the village. I believe that before the morning is over the line will be clear as far as Castleford. I ought to thank you heartily for all your kindness to me, and to say goodbye. As a matter of fact, I can't do anything of the sort. I feel longing to have one congenial Christmas again, and I was going to ask you to let me pass the day here. See, I have brought all these good things so that we may enjoy ourselves. Don't you think, Miss Dane, that as we have gone so far, we might just as well be hanged for a sheep as a lamb?

"It is all very, very wrong," Hetty murmured. "But, after all, it is good to find that one is still human. We will have a merry Christmas, and you shall stay with me, and help me to cook the dinner. What the Misses Grimshaw will say when they know, I tremble to think. The thought of them makes the situation piquant.

The day crept slowly on, and teatime was past and the lamps lighted. Barton had quite made up his mind what to do. He would stay till the evening was well advanced then he would take his bag and go down to the village inn, where he would stay till the morning. The one romance of his life was drawing to a close now, and the nearer he came to the last page the less he was inclined to close the volume. A quiet, blissful silence had fallen on the two as they sat over the fireside in the dining-room tracing pictures in the glowing coals. Barton stood up at length, and faced his companion. He regarded her flushed face and fair hair admiringly. She seemed to be so different from the quiet, demure little creature who had admitted him into the house not so very long ago. There was a dainty beauty about the girl now, born perhaps, of her unexpected happiness and the companionship of a congenial soul

"Our little story is nearly at an end now," Barton said. "Another hour, and I must be gone. You have told me a good deal about yourself, but I have said little as regards my own life. Now let me make a confession to you. It was an accident that brought me here the other night, but the accident in question only anticipated events. I fully intended to call here this Christmas, and I should have done so in any case.

"But why?" Hetty cried. "Do you know anybody here?

"I was born here," Barton said, quietly. "Time was when my family were people of position about here, but those days have gone for ever. My father was a hard-living, soured man, married to a woman who cared little or nothing for him. In fact, she had expected to wed money, and that was the source of all the trouble. There were three of us, two brothers and myself. My brothers were reckless sportsmen like my father; on the contrary, I cared for none of these things. I was too fond of dreaming and reading, so that gradually I became neglected and deserted, and at times was most cruelly used. I grew up to be solitary and secretive, and yet heaven knows there was never a man who had a more tender heart for the troubles of others. When the time came for me to leave home, I went away without one good-bye, and they were only too glad to get rid of me. Then the end came suddenly. My two brothers were drowned at sea, and my father broke his neck in the hunting-field. I came down here to see my mother, but she refused to have anything to do with me. Shortly before she died she sent me a letter, which I have kept ever since. It was no letter of forgiveness; it was a cold, hard, communication, telling me where I should find all that remained of the family property. Curiously enough, that letter never came into my possession until the other day. I will show it you in a minute or two.

"Yours is a sad story," Hetty murmured

"A tragedy," Barton replied. "But, thank Heaven, it is not yet too late to avert it. I managed to live some way or another. I worked very hard at my writing until I obtained recognition, and finally I got the offer of an editorship, which meant a good, steady income for me, so that now I am practically beyond the reach of poverty. I never had any friends and no inclination to spend money, so that I am in a position--But we will come to that presently.

"But that is not exactly what I am here for. I have been bound to dwell, to a certain extent, upon my solitude and loneliness, so that you should the more fully understand what is coming. A short time ago, out of the dreary rubbish that reaches me in shoals, I picked out a little story, which was a gem in its way. My experience told me at once that the writer was a woman, and that she was writing from her own heart. I pictured her sweet and sympathetic, daintily pretty and loving, and yet surrounded by jealous and sordid natures, which were gradually squeezing from her the light and colour that makes life worth living. I read that story again and again. I took it down to my solitary house and read it once more. Of course, there were faults in the story, but it was the sheer humanness of it that touched me. I did not write to the author: I made up my mind that when this Christmas came, and things were slack, I would go down and see her. It was rather an effort for a shy man like myself, but I am glad now that I made it, glad now that circumstance gave me an opportunity of appearing as my natural self and not as the artificial creature which Fate has made me.

Hetty sat listening, her face half-shaded by her hand, but this did not altogether hide the brilliant tint on her features or the misty look in her eyes

"I think, I understand," she murmured. "There is no occasion for me to ask if you are the editor of the 'Imperial.'

"You have guessed correctly," Barton went on. "I am the editor of the magazine in question, and you are the author of the short story that touched me so deeply. As I said before; I was coming down to see you, and I blundered upon you quite by accident. Very likely I should never have looked at that story at all, if I had not discovered from your notepaper that it came from the house where I was born. Otherwise, I might have handed it over to my assistant, whose sympathies do not at all lie with the sentimental type of narrative. What small things turn the current of our lives, and cause the stream to flow in another direction! But I am glad I came; how glad I am I cannot tell you.

Hetty looked up steadily: the delicate pink flush was still on her cheeks. But her eyes were true and steadfast

"And I am, glad you came too," she said. "'Mr. Barton, I--I really hope you are not disappointed.

"Disappointed?" Barton cried. "It has been the pleasantest time of my life. Thoughtless people call these things coincidences, but there is a deeper significance in our meeting than that. I am going to publish your story, and I am going to pay you for it, though no money could buy the pleasure you have given me. No doubt you will write many other stories in my magazine and elsewhere.

"Do you think that I have the gift?" Hetty asked

"That is one of your gifts," Barton said. "But you have others infinitely more precious; and now let me read my mother's letter, in which she tells me where to find all that remains of the family property..... You see, it is a cold, unfeeling letter, but that may pass for the present. And now to open the treasure-house.

Barton crossed the room and placed his hand upon the centre of one of the oak panels, and a moment later a little cavity stood revealed. In a matter of fact kind of way, he produced three or four shabby looking cases, which he opened and laid upon the table. Hetty gave a little cry of delight, for here were diamonds and sapphires and a beautiful pearl collar the like of which she had never seen before. Her slender fingers played with the gems, whilst Barton watched her as if the picture were pleasing to his eye

"Put them on," he commanded. "I want to see how they look on you. Please don't hesitate.

Hetty smiled as a she clasped the collar about her neck and placed the stars in her fair hair. It was, indeed, a sweet and tempting vision that turned demurely to Barton

"They are lovely," she said. "Once you have made me put them on I shall be sorry to part with them again.

Barton took the two hands in his and held them firmly. There was something about the action that the girl could not resent

"Then why not keep them?" he said. "They are of no use to me; they never will be. You may say that you cannot accept a gift like that; but does it not strike you that there may be a way whereby your scruples can be overcome? Hetty, do you suppose that we came together by mere accident? Do you believe that it was nothing but sheer chance that sent your story to me? We are both lonely, we are both without friends in the world. You hate your life here the same as I loathe my own solitary existence. In the last few hours I have seen more of you than in ordinary circumstances I should have done in a month. I will not ask you to say yet that you care for me, but there will never be another girl in the world but yourself so far as I am concerned. Let us try the future together, and let your Christmas guest be more than a passing acquaintance. But you are silent: I have frightened you----

"Indeed, no," Hetty murmured. "I am a little dazed, a little confused in my mind, and yet my heart tells me that you are pointing the way to happiness, to the new life which up to now I have only dreamt of. I have no doubt in time----

"That is enough," Barton cried. "At least, it is enough for the present. Let me kiss you now and leave you, for it is time that I was gone. But in a few days----

He stopped abruptly, then he bent down and kissed the girl upon the lips. When she turned again he was gone, and the door had closed softly behind him. But Hetty's heart was glad as she thought of the future and the many glorious morrows that lay before her

THE END