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   The WINDOW at the WHITE CAT By MARY ROBERTS RINEHART TRIANGLE BOOKS NEW YORK TRIANGLE BOOKS EDITION PUBLISHED SEPTEMBER 1940 REPRINTED DECEMBER 1940 REPRINTED FEBRUARY 1941 TRIANGLE BOOKS, 14 West Forty-ninth Street, New York, N. Y. PRINTED AND BOUND IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA BY THE AMERICAN BOOK--STRATFORD PRESS, INC., N. Y. C. THE WINDOW AT THE WHITE CAT CHAPTER I SENTIMENT AND CLUES In my criminal work anything that wears skirts is a lady, until the law proves her otherwise. From the frayed and slovenly petticoats of the woman who owns a poultry stand in the market and who has grown wealthy by selling chickens at twelve ounces to the pound, or the silk sweep of Mamie Tracy, whose diamonds have been stolen down on the avenue, or the staidly respectable black and middle-aged skirt of the client whose husband has found an affinity partial to laces and fripperies, and has run off with her--all the wearers are ladies, and as such announced by Hawes. In fact, he carries it to excess. He speaks of his wash lady, with a husband who is an ash merchant, and he announced one day in some excitement, that the lady who had just gone out had appropriated all the loose change out of the pocket of his overcoat. So when Hawes announced a lady, I took my feet off my desk, put down the brief I had been reading, and rose perfunctorily. With my first glance at my visitor, however, I threw away my cigar, and I have heard since, settled my tie. That this client was different was borne in on me at once by the way she entered the room. She had poise in spite of embarrassment, and her face when she raised her veil was white, refined, and young. "I did not send in my name," she said, when she saw me glancing down for the card Hawes usually puts on my table. "It was advice I wanted, and I--I did not think the name would matter." She was more composed, I think, when she found me considerably older than herself. I saw her looking furtively at the graying places over my ears. I am only thirty-five, as far as that goes, but my family, although it keeps its hair, turns gray early--a business asset but a social handicap. "Won't you sit down?" I asked, pushing out a chair, so that she would face the light, while I remained in shadow. Every doctor and every lawyer knows that trick. "As far as the name goes, perhaps you would better tell me the trouble first. Then, if I think it indispensable, you can tell me." She acquiesced to this and sat for a moment silent, her gaze absently on the windows of the building across. In the morning light my first impression was verified. Only too often the raising of a woman's veil in my office reveals the ravages of tears, or rouge, or dissipation. My new client turned fearlessly to the window an unlined face, with a clear skin, healthily pale. From where I sat, her profile was beautiful, in spite of its drooping suggestion of trouble; her first embarrassment gone, she had forgotten herself and was intent on her errand. "I hardly know how to begin," she said, "but suppose"--slowly--"suppose that a man, a well-known man, should leave home without warning, not taking any clothes except those he wore, and saying he was coming home to dinner, and he--he--" She stopped as if her voice had failed her. "And he does not come?" I prompted. She nodded, fumbling for her handkerchief in her bag. "How long has he been gone?" I asked. I had heard exactly the same thing before, but to leave a woman like that, hardly more than a girl, and lovely! "Ten days." "I should think it ought to be looked into," I said decisively, and got up. Somehow I couldn't sit quietly. A lawyer who is worth anything is always a partisan, I suppose, and I never hear of a man deserting his wife that I am not indignant, the virtuous scorn of the unmarried man, perhaps. "But you will have to tell me more than that. Did this gentleman have any bad habits? That is, did he--er--drink?" "Not to excess. He had been forbidden anything of that sort by his physician. He played bridge for money, but I--believe he was rather lucky." She colored uncomfortably. "Married, I suppose?" I asked casually. "He had been. His wife died when I--" She stopped and bit her lip. Then it was not her husband, after all! Oddly enough, the sun came out just at that moment, spilling a pool of sunlight at her feet, on the dusty rug with its tobacco-bitten scars. "It is my father," she said simply. I was absurdly relieved. But with the realization that I had not a case of desertion on my hands, I had to view the situation from a new angle. "You are absolutely at a loss to account for his disappearance?" "Absolutely." "You have had no word from him?" "None." "He never went away before for any length of time, without telling you?" "No. Never. He was away a great deal, but I always knew where to find him." Her voice broke again and her chin quivered. I thought it wise to reassure her. "Don't let us worry about this until we are sure it is serious," I said. "Sometimes the things that seem most mysterious have the simplest explanations. He may have written and the letter have miscarried or--even a slight accident would account--" I saw I was blundering; she grew white and wide-eyed. "But, of course, that's unlikely too. He would have papers to identify him." "His pockets were always full of envelopes and things like that," she assented eagerly. "Don't you think I ought to know his name?" I asked. "It need not be known outside of the office, and this is a sort of confessional anyhow, or worse. People tell things to their lawyer that they wouldn't think of telling the priest." Her color was slowly coming back, and she smiled. "My name is Fleming, Margery Fleming," she said after a second's hesitation, "and my father, Mr. Allan Fleming, is the man. Oh, Mr. Knox, what are we going to do? He has been gone for more than a week!" No wonder she had wished to conceal the identity of the missing man. So Allan Fleming was lost! A good many highly respectable citizens would hope that he might never be found. Fleming, state treasurer, delightful companion, polished gentleman and successful politician of the criminal type. Outside in the corridor the office boy was singing under his breath. "Oh once there was a miller," he sang, "who lived in a mill." It brought back to my mind instantly the reform meeting at the city hall a year before, where for a few hours we had blown the feeble spark of protest against machine domination to a flame. We had sung a song to that very tune, and with this white-faced girl across from me, its words came back with revolting truth. It had been printed and circulated through the hall. "Oh, once there was a capitol That sat on a hill, As it's too big to steal away It's probably there still. The ring's hand in the treasury And Fleming with a sack. They take it out in wagon loads And never bring it back." I put the song out of my mind with a shudder. "I am more than sorry," I said. I was, too; whatever he may have been, he was _her_ father. "And of course there are a number of reasons why this ought not to be known, for a time at least. After all, as I say, there may be a dozen simple explanations, and--there are exigencies in politics--" "I hate politics!" she broke in suddenly. "The very name makes me ill. When I read of women wanting to--to vote and all that, I wonder if they know what it means to have to be polite to dreadful people, people who have even been convicts, and all that. Why, our last butler had been a prize fighter!" She sat upright with her hands on the arms of the chair. "That's another thing, too, Mr. Knox. The day after father went away, Carter left. And he has not come back." "Carter was the butler?" "Yes." "A white man?" "Oh, yes." "And he left without giving you any warning?" "Yes. He served luncheon the day after father went away, and the maids say he went away immediately after. He was not there that evening to serve dinner, but--he came back late that night, and got into the house, using his key to the servants entrance. He slept there, the maids said, but he was gone before the servants were up and we have not seen him since." I made a mental note of the butler. "We'll go back to Carter again," I said. "Your father has not been ill, has he? I mean recently." She considered. "I can not think of anything except that he had a tooth pulled." She was quick to resent my smile. "Oh, I know I'm not helping you," she exclaimed, "but I have thought over everything until I can not think any more. I always end where I begin." "You have not noticed any mental symptoms--any lack of memory?" Her eyes filled. "He forgot my birthday, two weeks ago," she said. "It was the first one he had ever forgotten, in nineteen of them." Nineteen! Nineteen from thirty-five leaves sixteen! "What I meant was this," I explained. "People sometimes have sudden and unaccountable lapses of memory and at those times they are apt to stray away from home. Has your father been worried lately?" "He has not been himself at all. He has been irritable, even to me, and terrible to the servants. Only to Carter--he was never ugly to Carter. But I do not think it was a lapse of memory. When I remember how he looked that morning, I believe that he meant then to go away. It shows how he had changed, when he could think of going away without a word, and leaving me there alone." "Then you have no brothers or sisters?" "None. I came to you--" there she stopped. "Please tell me how you happened to come to me," I urged. "I think you know that I am both honored and pleased." "I didn't know where to go," she confessed, "so I took the telephone directory, the classified part under 'Attorneys,' and after I shut my eyes, I put my finger haphazard on the page. It pointed to your name." I am afraid I flushed at this, but it was a wholesome douche. In a moment I laughed. "We will take it as an omen," I said, "and I will do all that I can. But I am not a detective, Miss Fleming. Don't you think we ought to have one?" "Not the police!" she shuddered. "I thought you could do something without calling in a detective." "Suppose you tell me what happened the day your father left, and how he went away. Tell me the little things too. They may be straws that will point in a certain direction." "In the first place," she began, "we live on Monmouth Avenue. There are just the two of us, and the servants: a cook, two housemaids, a laundress, a butler and a chauffeur. My father spends much of his time at the capital, and in the last two years, since my old governess went back to Germany, at those times I usually go to mother's sisters at Bellwood--Miss Letitia and Miss Jane Maitland." I nodded: I knew the Maitland ladies well. I had drawn four different wills for Miss Letitia in the last year. "My father went away on the tenth of May. You say to tell you all about his going, but there is nothing to tell. We have a machine, but it was being repaired. Father got up from breakfast, picked up his hat and walked out of the house. He was irritated at a letter he had read at the table--" "Could you find that letter?" I asked quickly. "He took it with him. I knew he was disturbed, for he did not even say he was going. He took a car, and I thought he was on his way to his office. He did not come home that night and I went to the office the next morning. The stenographer said he had not been there. He is not at Plattsburg, because they have been trying to call him from there on the long distance telephone every day." In spite of her candid face I was sure she was holding something back. "Why don't you tell me everything?" I asked. "You may be keeping back the one essential point." She flushed. Then she opened her pocket-book and gave me a slip of rough paper. On it, in careless figures, was the number "eleven twenty-two." That was all. "I was afraid you would think it silly," she said. "It was such a meaningless thing. You see, the second night after father left, I was nervous and could not sleep. I expected him home at any time and I kept listening for his step down-stairs. About three o'clock I was sure I heard some one in the room below mine--there was a creaking as if the person were walking carefully. I felt relieved, for I thought he had come back. But I did not hear the door into his bedroom close, and I got more and more wakeful. Finally I got up and slipped along the hall to his room. The door was open a few inches and I reached in and switched on the electric lights. I had a queer feeling before I turned on the light that there was some one standing close to me, but the room was empty, and the hall, too." "And the paper?" "When I saw the room was empty I went in. The paper had been pinned to a pillow on the bed. At first I thought it had been dropped or had blown there. When I saw the pin I was startled. I went back to my room and rang for Annie, the second housemaid, who is also a sort of personal maid of mine. It was half-past three o'clock when Annie came down. I took her into father's room and showed her the paper. She was sure it was not there when she folded back the bed clothes for the night at nine o'clock." "Eleven twenty-two," I repeated. "Twice eleven is twenty-two. But that isn't very enlightening." "No," she admitted. "I thought it might be a telephone number, and I called up all the eleven twenty-twos in the city." In spite of myself, I laughed, and after a moment she smiled in sympathy. "We are not brilliant, certainly," I said at last. "In the first place, Miss Fleming, if I thought the thing was very serious I would not laugh--but no doubt a day or two will see everything straight. But, to go back to this eleven twenty-two--did you rouse the servants and have the house searched?" "Yes, Annie said Carter had come back and she went to waken him, but although his door was locked inside, he did not answer. Annie and I switched on all the lights on the lower floor from the top of the stairs. Then we went down together and looked around. Every window and door was locked, but in father's study, on the first floor, two drawers of his desk were standing open. And in the library, the little compartment in my writing-table, where I keep my house money, had been broken open and the money taken." "Nothing else was gone?" "Nothing. The silver on the sideboard in the dining-room, plenty of valuable things in the cabinet in the drawing-room--nothing was disturbed." "It might have been Carter," I reflected. "Did he know where you kept your house money?" "It is possible, but I hardly think so. Besides, if he was going to steal, there were so many more valuable things in the house. My mother's jewels as well as my own were in my dressing-room, and the door was not locked." "They were not disturbed?" She hesitated. "They had been disturbed," she admitted. "My grandmother left each of her children some unstrung pearls. They were a hobby with her. Aunt Jane and Aunt Letitia never had theirs strung, but my mother's were made into different things, all old-fashioned. I left them locked in a drawer in my sitting-room, where I have always kept them. The following morning the drawer was unlocked and partly open, but nothing was missing." "All your jewelry was there?" "All but one ring, which I rarely remove from my finger." I followed her eyes. Under her glove was the outline of a ring, a solitaire stone. "Nineteen from--" I shook myself together and got up. "It does not sound like an ordinary burglary," I reflected. "But I am afraid I have no imagination. No doubt what you have told me would be meat and drink to a person with an analytical turn of mind. I can't deduct. Nineteen from thirty-five leaves sixteen, according to my mental process, although I know men who could make the difference nothing." I believe she thought I was a little mad, for her face took on again its despairing look. "We _must_ find him, Mr. Knox," she insisted as she got up. "If you know of a detective that you can trust, please get him. But you can understand that the unexplained absence of the state treasurer must be kept secret. One thing I am sure of: he is being kept away. You don't know what enemies he has! Men like Mr. Schwartz, who have no scruples, no principle." "Schwartz!" I repeated in surprise. Henry Schwartz was the boss of his party in the state; the man of whom one of his adversaries had said, with the distinct approval of the voting public, that he was so low in the scale of humanity that it would require a special dispensation of Heaven to raise him to the level of total degradation. But he and Fleming were generally supposed to be captain and first mate of the pirate craft that passed with us for the ship of state. "Mr. Schwartz and my father are allies politically," the girl explained with heightened color, "but they are not friends. My father is a gentleman." The inference I allowed to pass unnoticed, and as if she feared she had said too much, the girl rose. When she left, a few minutes later, it was with the promise that she would close the Monmouth Avenue house and go to her aunts at Bellwood, at once. For myself, I pledged a thorough search for her father, and began it by watching the scarlet wing on her hat through the top of the elevator cage until it had descended out of sight. I am afraid it was a queer hodgepodge of clues and sentiment that I poured out to Hunter, the detective, when he came up late that afternoon. Hunter was quiet when I finished my story. "They're rotten clear through," he reflected. "This administration is worse than the last, and it was a peach. There have been more suicides than I could count on my two hands, in the last ten years. I warn you--you'd be better out of this mess." "What do you think about the eleven twenty-two?" I asked as he got up and buttoned his coat. "Well, it might mean almost anything. It might be that many dollars, or the time a train starts, or it might be the eleventh and the twenty-second letters of the alphabet--k--v." "K--v!" I repeated, "Why that would be the Latin _cave_--beware." Hunter smiled cheerfully. "You'd better stick to the law, Mr. Knox," he said from the door. "We don't use Latin in the detective business." CHAPTER II UNEASY APPREHENSIONS Plattsburg was not the name of the capital, but it will do for this story. The state doesn't matter either. You may take your choice, like the story Mark Twain wrote, with all kinds of weather at the beginning, so the reader could take his pick. We will say that my home city is Manchester. I live with my married brother, his wife and two boys. Fred is older than I am, and he is an exceptional brother. On the day he came home from his wedding trip, I went down with my traps on a hansom, in accordance with a prearranged schedule. Fred and Edith met me inside the door. "Here's your latch-key, Jack," Fred said, as he shook hands. "Only one stipulation--remember we are strangers in the vicinity and try to get home before the neighbors are up. We have our reputations to think of." "There is no hour for breakfast," Edith said, as she kissed me. "You have a bath of your own, and don't smoke in the drawing-room." Fred was always a lucky devil. I had been there now for six years. I had helped to raise two young Knoxes--bully youngsters, too: the oldest one could use boxing-gloves when he was four--and the finest collie pup in our end of the state. I wanted to raise other things--the boys liked pets--but Edith was like all women, she didn't care for animals. I had a rabbit-hutch built and stocked in the laundry, and a dove-cote on the roof. I used the general bath, and gave up my tub to a young alligator I got in Florida, and every Sunday the youngsters and I had a great time trying to teach it to do tricks. I have always taken it a little hard that Edith took advantage of my getting the measles from Billy, to clear out every animal in the house. She broke the news to me gently, the day the rash began to fade, maintaining that, having lost one cook through the alligator escaping from his tub and being mistaken, in the gloom of the back-stairs, for a rubber boot, and picked up under the same misapprehension, she could not risk another cook. On the day that Margery Fleming came to me about her father, I went home in a state of mixed emotion. Dinner was not a quiet meal: Fred and I talked politics, generally, and as Fred was on one side and I on the other there was always an argument on. "What about Fleming?" I asked at last, when Fred had declared that in these days of corruption, no matter what the government was, he was "forninst" it. "Hasn't he been frightened into reform?" "Bad egg," he said, jabbing his potato as if it had been a politician, "and there's no way to improve a bad egg except to hold your nose. That's what the public is doing; holding its nose." "Hasn't he a daughter?" I asked casually. "Yes--a lovely girl, too," Edith assented. "It is his only redeeming quality." "Fleming is a rascal, daughter or no daughter," Fred persisted. "Ever since he and his gang got poor Butler into trouble and then left him to kill himself as the only way out, I have felt that there was something coming to all of them--Hansen, Schwartz and the rest. I saw Fleming on the street to-day." "What!" I exclaimed, almost jumping out of my chair. Fred surveyed me quizzically over his coffee cup. "'Hasn't he a daughter!'" he quoted. "Yes, I saw him, Jack, this very day, in an unromantic four-wheeler, and he was swearing at a policeman." "Where was it?" "Chestnut and Union. His cab had been struck by a car, and badly damaged, but the gentleman refused to get out. No doubt you could get the details from the corner-man." "Look here, Fred," I said earnestly. "Keep that to yourself, will you? And you too, Edith? It's a queer story, and I'll tell you sometime." As we left the dining-room Edith put her hand on my shoulder. "Don't get mixed up with those people, Jack," she advised. "Margery's a dear girl, but her father practically killed Henry Butler, and Henry Butler married my cousin." "You needn't make it a family affair," I protested. "I have only seen the girl once." But Edith smiled. "I know what I know," she said. "How extravagant of you to send Bobby that enormous hobby-horse!" "The boy has to learn to ride sometime. In four years he can have a pony, and I'm going to see that he has it. He'll be eight by that time." Edith laughed. "In four years!" she said, "Why, in four years you'll--" then she stopped. "I'll what?" I demanded, blocking the door to the library. "You'll be forty, Jack, and it's a mighty unattractive man who gets past forty without being sought and won by some woman. You'll be buying--" "I will be thirty-nine," I said with dignity, "and as far as being sought and won goes, I am so overwhelmed by Fred's misery that I don't intend to marry at all. If I do--_if I do_--it will be to some girl who turns and runs the other way every time she sees me." "The oldest trick in the box," Edith scoffed. "What's that thing Fred's always quoting: 'A woman is like a shadow; follow her, she flies; fly from her, she follows.'" "Upon my word!" I said indignantly. "And you are a woman!" "I'm different," she retorted. "I'm only a wife and mother." In the library Fred got up from his desk and gathered up his papers. "I can't think with you two whispering there," he said, "I'm going to the den." As he slammed the door into his workroom Edith picked up her skirts and scuttled after him. "How dare you run away like that?" she called. "You promised me--" The door closed behind her. I went over and spoke through the panels. "'Follow her, she flies; fly from her, she follows'--oh, wife and mother!" I called. "For Heaven's sake, Edith," Fred's voice rose irritably. "If you and Jack are going to talk all evening, go and sit on _his_ knee and let me alone. The way you two flirt under my nose is a scandal. Do you hear that, Jack?" "Good night, Edith," I called, "I have left you a kiss on the upper left hand panel of the door. And I want to ask you one more question: what if I fly from the woman and she doesn't follow?" "Thank your lucky stars," Fred called in a muffled voice, and I left them to themselves. I had some work to do at the office, work that the interview with Hunter had interrupted, and half past eight that night found me at my desk. But my mind strayed from the papers before me. After a useless effort to concentrate, I gave it up as useless, and by ten o'clock I was on the street again, my evening wasted, the papers in the libel case of the _Star_ against the _Eagle_ untouched on my desk, and I the victim of an uneasy apprehension that took me, almost without volition, to the neighborhood of the Fleming house on Monmouth Avenue. For it had occurred to me that Miss Fleming might not have left the house that day as she had promised, might still be there, liable to another intrusion by the mysterious individual who had a key to the house. It was a relief, consequently, when I reached its corner, to find no lights in the building. The girl had kept her word. Assured of that, I looked at the house curiously. It was one of the largest in the city, not wide, but running far back along the side street; a small yard with a low iron fence and a garage, completed the property. The street lights left the back of the house in shadow, and as I stopped in the shelter of the garage, I was positive that I heard some one working with a rear window of the empty house. A moment later the sounds ceased and muffled footsteps came down the cement walk. The intruder made no attempt to open the iron gate; against the light I saw him put a leg over the low fence, follow it up with the other, and start up the street, still with peculiar noiselessness of stride. He was a short, heavy-shouldered fellow in a cap, and his silhouette showed a prodigious length of arm. I followed, I don't mind saying in some excitement. I had a vision of grabbing him from behind and leading him--or pushing him, under the circumstances, in triumph to the police station, and another mental picture, not so pleasant, of being found on the pavement by some passer-by, with a small punctuation mark ending my sentence of life. But I was not apprehensive. I even remember wondering humorously if I should overtake him and press the cold end of my silver mounted fountain pen into the nape of his neck, if he would throw up his hands and surrender. I had read somewhere of a burglar held up in a similar way with a shoe-horn. Our pace was easy. Once the man just ahead stopped and lighted a cigarette, and the odor of a very fair Turkish tobacco came back to me. He glanced back over his shoulder at me and went on without quickening his pace. We met no policemen, and after perhaps five minutes walking, when the strain was growing tense, my gentleman of the rubber-soled shoes swung abruptly to the left, and--entered the police station! I had occasion to see Davidson many times after that, during the strange development of the Fleming case; I had the peculiar experience later of having him follow me as I had trailed him that night, and I had occasion once to test the strength of his long arms when he helped to thrust me through the transom at the White Cat, but I never met him without a recurrence of the sheepish feeling with which I watched him swagger up to the night sergeant and fall into easy conversation with the man behind the desk. Standing in the glare from the open window, I had much the lost pride and self contempt of a wet cat sitting in the sun. Two or three roundsmen were sitting against the wall, lazily, helmets off and coats open against the warmth of the early spring night. In a back room others were playing checkers and disputing noisily. Davidson's voice came distinctly through the open windows. "The house is closed," he reported. "But one of the basement windows isn't shuttered and the lock is bad. I couldn't find Shields. He'd better keep an eye on it." He stopped and fished in his pockets with a grin. "This was tied to the knob of the kitchen door," he said, raising his voice for the benefit of the room, and holding aloft a piece of paper. "For Shields!" he explained, "and signed 'Delia.'" The men gathered around him, even the sergeant got up and leaned forward, his elbows on his desk. "Read it," he said lazily. "Shields has got a wife; and her name ain't Delia." "Dear Tom," Davidson read, in a mincing falsetto, "We are closing up unexpected, so I won't be here to-night. I am going to Mamie Brennan's and if you want to talk to me you can get me by calling up Anderson's drug-store. The clerk is a gentleman friend of mine. Mr. Carter, the butler, told me before he left he would get me a place as parlor maid, so I'll have another situation soon. Delia." The sergeant scowled. "I'm goin' to talk to Tom," he said, reaching out for the note. "He's got a nice family, and things like that're bad for the force." I lighted the cigar, which had been my excuse for loitering on the pavement, and went on. It sounded involved for a novice, but if I could find Anderson's drug-store I could find Mamie Brennan; through Mamie Brennan I would get Delia; and through Delia I might find Carter. I was vague from that point, but what Miss Fleming had said of Carter had made me suspicious of him. Under an arc light I made the first note in my new business of man-hunter and it was something like this: Anderson's drug-store. Ask for Mamie Brennan. Find Delia. Advise Delia that a policeman with a family is a bad bet. Locate Carter. It was late when I reached the corner of Chestnut and Union Streets, where Fred had said Allan Fleming had come to grief in a cab. But the corner-man had gone, and the night man on the beat knew nothing, of course, of any particular collision. "There's plinty of 'em every day at this corner," he said cheerfully. "The department sinds a wagon here every night to gather up the pieces, autymobiles mainly. That trolley pole over there has been sliced off clean three times in the last month. They say a fellow ain't a graduate of the autymobile school till he can go around it on the sidewalk without hittin' it!" I left him looking reminiscently at the pole, and went home to bed. I had made no headway, I had lost conceit with myself and a day and evening at the office, and I had gained the certainty that Margery Fleming was safe in Bellwood and the uncertain address of a servant who _might_ know something about Mr. Fleming. I was still awake at one o'clock and I got up impatiently and consulted the telephone directory. There were twelve Andersons in the city who conducted drug-stores. When I finally went to sleep, I dreamed that I was driving Margery Fleming along a street in a broken taxicab, and that all the buildings were pharmacies and numbered eleven twenty-two. CHAPTER III NINETY-EIGHT PEARLS After such a night I slept late. Edith still kept her honeymoon promise of no breakfast hour and she had gone out with Fred when I came down-stairs. I have a great admiration for Edith, for her tolerance with my uncertain hours, for her cheery breakfast-room, and the smiling good nature of the servants she engages. I have a theory that, show me a sullen servant and I will show you a sullen mistress, although Edith herself disclaims all responsibility and lays credit for the smile with which Katie brings in my eggs and coffee, to largess on my part. Be that as it may, Katie is a smiling and personable young woman, and I am convinced that had she picked up the alligator on the back-stairs and lost part of the end of her thumb, she would have told Edith that she cut it off with the bread knife, and thus have saved to us Bessie the Beloved and her fascinating trick of taking the end of her tail in her mouth and spinning. On that particular morning, Katie also brought me a letter, and I recognized the cramped and rather uncertain writing of Miss Jane Maitland. "DEAR MR. KNOX: "Sister Letitia wishes me to ask you if you can dine with us to-night, informally. She has changed her mind in regard to the Colored Orphans' Home, and would like to consult you about it. "Very truly yours, "SUSAN JANE MAITLAND." It was a very commonplace note: I had had one like it after every board-meeting of the orphans' home, Miss Maitland being on principle an aggressive minority. Also, having considerable mind, changing it became almost as ponderous an operation as moving a barn, although not nearly so stable. (Fred accuses me here of a very bad pun, and reminds me, quite undeservedly, that the pun is the lowest form of humor.) I came across Miss Jane's letter the other day, when I was gathering the material for this narrative, and I sat for a time with it in my hand thinking over again the chain of events in which it had been the first link, a series of strange happenings that began with my acceptance of the invitation, and that led through ways as dark and tricks as vain as Bret Harte's Heathen Chinee ever dreamed of, to the final scene at the White Cat. With the letter I had filed away a half dozen articles and I ranged them all on the desk in front of me: the letter, the bit of paper with eleven twenty-two on it, that Margery gave me the first time I saw her; a note-book filled with jerky characters that looked like Arabic and were newspaper shorthand; a railroad schedule; a bullet, the latter slightly flattened; a cube-shaped piece of chalk which I put back in its box with a shudder, and labeled 'poison,' and a small gold buckle from a slipper, which I--at which I did not shudder. I did not need to make the climaxes of my story. They lay before me. I walked to the office that morning, and on the way I found and interviewed the corner-man at Chestnut and Union. But he was of small assistance. He remembered the incident, but the gentleman in the taxicab had not been hurt and refused to give his name, saying he was merely passing through the city from one railroad station to another, and did not wish any notoriety. At eleven o'clock Hunter called up; he said he was going after the affair himself, but that it was hard to stick a dip net into the political puddle without pulling out a lot more than you went after, or than it was healthy to get. He was inclined to be facetious, and wanted to know if I had come across any more k. v's. Whereupon I put away the notes I had made about Delia and Mamie Brennan and I heard him chuckle as I rang off. I went to Bellwood that evening. It was a suburban town a dozen miles from the city, with a picturesque station, surrounded by lawns and cement walks. Street-cars had so far failed to spoil its tree-bordered streets, and it was exclusive to the point of stagnation. The Maitland place was at the head of the main street, which had at one time been its drive. Miss Letitia, who was seventy, had had sufficient commercial instinct, some years before, to cut her ancestral acres--_their_ ancestral acres, although Miss Jane hardly counted--into building lots, except perhaps an acre which surrounded the house. Thus, the Maitland ladies were reputed to be extremely wealthy. And as they never spent any money, no doubt they were. The homestead as I knew it, was one of impeccable housekeeping and unmitigated gloom. There was a chill that rushed from the old-fashioned center hall to greet the new-comer on the porch, and that seemed to freeze up whatever in him was spontaneous and cheerful. I had taken dinner at Bellwood before, and the memory was not hilarious. Miss Letitia was deaf, but chose to ignore the fact. With superb indifference she would break into the conversation with some wholly alien remark that necessitated a reassembling of one's ideas, making the meal a series of mental gymnastics. Miss Jane, through long practice, and because she only skimmed the surface of conversation, took her cerebral flights easily, but I am more unwieldy of mind. Nor was Miss Letitia's dominance wholly conversational. Her sister Jane was her creature, alternately snubbed and bullied. To Miss Letitia, Jane, in spite of her sixty-five years, was still a child, and sometimes a bad one. Indeed, many a child of ten is more sophisticated. Miss Letitia gave her expurgated books to read, and forbade her to read divorce court proceedings in the newspapers. Once, a recreant housemaid presenting the establishment with a healthy male infant, Jane was sent to the country for a month, and was only brought back when the house had been fumigated throughout. Poor Miss Jane! She met me with fluttering cordiality in the hall that night, safe in being herself for once, with the knowledge that Miss Letitia always received me from a throne-like horsehair sofa in the back parlor. She wore a new lace cap, and was twitteringly excited. "Our niece is here," she explained, as I took off my coat--everything was "ours" with Jane; "mine" with Letitia--"and we are having an ice at dinner. Please say that ices are not injurious, Mr. Knox. My sister is so opposed to them and I had to beg for this." "On the contrary, the doctors have ordered ices for my young nephews," I said gravely, "and I dote on them myself." Miss Jane beamed. Indeed, there was something almost unnaturally gay about the little old lady all that evening. Perhaps it was the new lace cap. Later, I tried to analyze her manner, to recall exactly what she had said, to remember anything that could possibly help. But I could find no clue to what followed. Miss Letitia received me as usual, in the back parlor. Miss Fleming was there also, sewing by a window, and in her straight white dress with her hair drawn back and braided around her head, she looked even younger than before. There was no time for conversation. Miss Letitia launched at once into the extravagance of both molasses and butter on the colored orphans' bread and after a glance at me, and a quick comprehension from my face that I had no news for her, the girl at the window bent over her sewing again. "Molasses breeds worms," Miss Letitia said decisively. "So does pork. And yet those children think Heaven means ham and molasses three times a day." "You have had no news at all?" Miss Fleming said cautiously, her head bent over her work. "None," I returned, under cover of the table linen to which Miss Letitia's mind had veered. "I have a good man working on it." As she glanced at me questioningly, "It needed a detective, Miss Fleming." Evidently another day without news had lessened her distrust of the police, for she nodded acquiescence and went on with her sewing. Miss Letitia's monotonous monologue went on, and I gave it such attention as I might. For the lamps had been lighted, and with every movement of the girl across, I could see the gleaming of a diamond on her engagement finger. "If I didn't watch her, Jane would ruin them," said Miss Letitia. "She gives 'em apples when they keep their faces clean, and the bills for soap have gone up double. Soap once a day's enough for a colored child. Do you smell anything burning, Knox?" I sniffed and lied, whereupon Miss Letitia swept her black silk, her colored orphans and her majestic presence out of the room. As the door closed, Miss Fleming put down her sewing and rose. For the first time I saw how weary she looked. "I do not dare to tell them, Mr. Knox," she said. "They are old, and they hate him anyhow. I couldn't sleep last night. Suppose he should have gone back, and found the house closed!" "He would telephone here at once, wouldn't he?" I suggested. "I suppose so, yes." She took up her sewing from the chair with a sigh. "But I'm afraid he won't come--not soon. I have hemmed tea towels for Aunt Letitia to-day until I am frantic, and all day I have been wondering over something you said yesterday. You said, you remember, that you were not a detective, that some men could take nineteen from thirty-five and leave nothing. What did you mean?" I was speechless for a moment. "The fact is--I--you see," I blundered, "it was a--merely a figure of speech, a--speech of figures is more accurate,--" And then dinner was announced and I was saved. But although she said little or nothing during the meal, I caught her looking across at me once or twice in a bewildered, puzzled fashion. I could fairly see her revolving my detestable figures in her mind. Miss Letitia presided over the table in garrulous majesty. The two old ladies picked at their food, and Miss Jane had a spot of pink in each withered cheek. Margery Fleming made a brave pretense, but left her plate almost untouched. As for me, I ate a substantial masculine meal and half apologized for my appetite, but Letitia did not hear. She tore the board of managers to shreds with the roast, and denounced them with the salad. But Jane was all anxious hospitality. "Please _do_ eat your dinner," she whispered. "I made the salad myself. And I know what it takes to keep a big man going. Harry eats more than Letitia and I together. Doesn't he, Margery?" "Harry?" I asked. "Mrs. Stevens is an unmitigated fool. I said if they elected her president I'd not leave a penny to the home. That's why I sent for you, Knox." And to the maid, "Tell Heppie to wash those cups in luke-warm water. They're the best ones. And not to drink her coffee out of them. She let her teeth slip and bit a piece out of one the last time." Miss Jane leaned forward to me after a smiling glance at her niece across. "Harry Wardrop, a cousin's son, and--" she patted Margery's hand with its ring--"soon to be something closer." The girl's face colored, but she returned Miss Jane's gentle pressure. "They put up an iron fence," Miss Letitia reverted somberly to her grievance, "when a wooden one would have done. It was extravagance, ruinous extravagance." "Harry stays with us when he is in Manchester," Miss Jane went on, nodding brightly across at Letitia as if she, too, were damning the executive board. "Lately, he has been almost all the time in Plattsburg. He is secretary to Margery's father. It is a position of considerable responsibility, and we are very proud of him." I had expected something of the sort, but the remainder of the meal had somehow lost its savor. There was a lull in the conversation while dessert was being brought in. Miss Jane sat quivering, watching her sister's face for signs of trouble; the latter had subsided into muttered grumbling, and Miss Fleming sat, one hand on the table, staring absently at her engagement ring. "You look like a fool in that cap, Jane," volunteered Letitia, while the plates were being brought in. "What's for dessert?" "Ice-cream," called Miss Jane, over the table. "Well, you needn't," snapped Letitia, "I can hear you well enough. You told me it was junket." "I said ice-cream, and you said it would be all right," poor Jane shrieked. "If you drink a cup of hot water after it, it won't hurt you." "Fiddle," Letitia snapped unpleasantly. "I'm not going to freeze my stomach and then thaw it out like a drain pipe. Tell Heppie to put my ice-cream on the stove." So we waited until Miss Letitia's had been heated, and was brought in, sicklied over with pale hues, not of thought, but of confectioners' dyes. Miss Letitia ate it resignedly. "Like as not I'll break out, I did the last time," she said gloomily. "I only hope I don't break out in colors." The meal was over finally, but if I had hoped for another word alone with Margery Fleming that evening, I was foredoomed to disappointment. Letitia sent the girl, not ungently, to bed, and ordered Jane out of the room with a single curt gesture toward the door. "You'd better wash those cups yourself, Jane," she said. "I don't see any sense anyhow in getting out the best china unless there's real company. Besides, I'm going to talk business." Poor, meek, spiritless Miss Jane! The situation was absurd in spite of its pathos. She confided to me once that never in her sixty-five years of life had she bought herself a gown, or chosen the dinner. She was snubbed with painstaking perseverance, and sent out of the room when subjects requiring frank handling were under discussion. She was as unsophisticated as a child of ten, as unworldly as a baby, as--well, poor Miss Jane, again. When the door had closed behind her, Miss Letitia listened for a moment, got up suddenly and crossing the room with amazing swiftness for her years, pounced on the knob and threw it open again. But the passage was empty; Miss Jane's slim little figure was disappearing into the kitchen. The older sister watched her out of sight, and then returned to her sofa without deigning explanation. "I didn't want to see you about the will, Mr. Knox," she began without prelude. "The will can wait. I ain't going to die just yet--not if I know anything. But although I think you'd look a heap better and more responsible if you wore some hair on your face, still in most things I think you're a man of sense. And you're not too young. That's why I didn't send for Harry Wardrop; he's too young." I winced at that. Miss Letitia leaned forward and put her bony hand on my knee. "I've been robbed," she announced in a half whisper, and straightened to watch the effect of her words. "Indeed!" I said, properly thunderstruck. I _was_ surprised. I had always believed that only the use of the fourth dimension in space would enable any one, not desired, to gain access to the Maitland house. "Of money?" "Not money, although I had a good bit in the house." This also I knew. It was said of Miss Letitia that when money came into her possession it went out of circulation. "Not--the pearls?" I asked. She answered my question with another. "When you had those pearls appraised for me at the jewelers last year, how many were there?" "Not quite one hundred. I think--yes, ninety-eight." "Exactly," she corroborated, in triumph. "They belonged to my mother. Margery's mother got some of them. That's a good many years ago, young man. They are worth more than they were then--a great deal more." "Twenty-two thousand dollars," I repeated. "You remember, Miss Letitia, that I protested vigorously at the time against your keeping them in the house." Miss Letitia ignored this, but before she went on she repeated again her cat-like pouncing at the door, only to find the hall empty as before. This time when she sat down it was knee to knee with me. "Yesterday morning," she said gravely, "I got down the box; they have always been kept in the small safe in the top of my closet. When Jane found a picture of my niece, Margery Fleming, in Harry's room, I thought it likely there was some truth in the gossip Jane heard about the two, and--if there was going to be a wedding--why, the pearls were to go to Margery anyhow. But--I found the door of the safe unlocked and a little bit open--and ten of the pearls were gone!" "Gone!" I echoed. "Ten of them! Why, it's ridiculous! If ten, why not the whole ninety-eight?" "How do I know?" she replied with asperity. "That's what I keep a lawyer for: that's why I sent for you." For the second time in two days I protested the same thing. "But you need a detective," I cried. "If you can find the thief I will be glad to send him where he ought to be, but I couldn't find him." "I will not have the police," she persisted inflexibly. "They will come around asking impertinent questions, and telling the newspapers that a foolish old woman had got what she deserved." "Then you are going to send them to a bank?" "You have less sense than I thought," she snapped. "I am going to leave them where they are, and watch. Whoever took the ten will be back for more, mark my words." "I don't advise it," I said decidedly. "You have most of them now, and you might easily lose them all; not only that, but it is not safe for you or your sister." "Stuff and nonsense!" the old lady said, with spirit. "As for Jane, she doesn't even know they are gone. I know who did it. It was the new housemaid, Bella MacKenzie. Nobody else could get in. I lock up the house myself at night, and I'm in the habit of doing a pretty thorough job of it. They went in the last three weeks, for I counted them Saturday three weeks ago myself. The only persons in the house in that time, except ourselves, were Harry, Bella and Hepsibah, who's been here for forty years and wouldn't know a pearl from a pickled onion." "Then--what do you want me to do?" I asked. "Have Bella arrested and her trunk searched?" I felt myself shrinking in the old lady's esteem every minute. "Her trunk!" she said scornfully. "I turned it inside out this morning, pretending I thought she was stealing the laundry soap. Like as not she has them buried in the vegetable garden. What I want you to do is to stay here for three or four nights, to be on hand. When I catch the thief, I want my lawyer right by." It ended by my consenting, of course. Miss Letitia was seldom refused. I telephoned to Fred that I would not be home, listened for voices and decided Margery Fleming had gone to bed. Miss Jane lighted me to the door of the guest room, and saw that everything was comfortable. Her thin gray curls bobbed as she examined the water pitcher, saw to the towels, and felt the bed linen for dampness. At the door she stopped and turned around timidly. "Has--has anything happened to disturb my sister?" she asked. "She--has been almost irritable all day." Almost! "She is worried about her colored orphans," I evaded. "She does not approve of fireworks for them on the fourth of July." Miss Jane was satisfied. I watched her little, old, black-robed figure go lightly down the hall. Then I bolted the door, opened all the windows, and proceeded to a surreptitious smoke. CHAPTER IV A THIEF IN THE NIGHT The windows being wide open, it was not long before a great moth came whirring in. He hurled himself at the light and then, dazzled and singed, began to beat with noisy thumps against the barrier of the ceiling. Finding no egress there, he was back at the lamp again, whirling in dizzy circles until at last, worn out, he dropped to the table, where he lay on his back, kicking impotently. The room began to fill with tiny winged creatures that flung themselves headlong to destruction, so I put out the light and sat down near the window, with my cigar and my thoughts. Miss Letitia's troubles I dismissed shortly. While it was odd that only ten pearls should have been taken, still--in every other way it bore the marks of an ordinary theft. The thief might have thought that by leaving the majority of the gems he could postpone discovery indefinitely. But the Fleming case was of a different order. Taken by itself, Fleming's disappearance could have been easily accounted for. There must be times in the lives of all unscrupulous individuals when they feel the need of retiring temporarily from the public eye. But the intrusion into the Fleming home, the ransacked desk and the broken money drawer--most of all, the bit of paper with eleven twenty-two on it--here was a hurdle my legal mind refused to take. I had finished my second cigar, and was growing more and more wakeful, when I heard a footstep on the path around the house. It was black outside; when I looked out, as I did cautiously, I could not see even the gray-white of the cement walk. The steps had ceased, but there was a sound of fumbling at one of the shutters below. The catch clicked twice, as if some thin instrument was being slipped underneath to raise it, and once I caught a muttered exclamation. I drew in my head and, puffing my cigar until it was glowing, managed by its light to see that it was a quarter to two. When I listened again, the house-breaker had moved to another window, and was shaking it cautiously. With Miss Letitia's story of the pearls fresh in my mind, I felt at once that the thief, finding his ten a prize, had come back for more. My first impulse was to go to the head of my bed, where I am accustomed to keep a revolver. With the touch of the tall corner post, however, I remembered that I was not at home, and that it was not likely there was a weapon in the house. Finally, after knocking over an ornament that shattered on the hearth and sounded like the crash of doom, I found on the mantel a heavy brass candlestick, and with it in my hand I stepped into the gloom of the hallway and felt my way to the stairs. There were no night lights; the darkness was total. I found the stairs before I expected to, and came within an ace of pitching down, headlong. I had kicked off my shoes--a fact which I regretted later. Once down the stairs I was on more familiar territory. I went at once into the library, which was beneath my room, but the sounds at the window had ceased. I thought I heard steps on the walk, going toward the front of the house. I wheeled quickly and started for the door, when something struck me a terrific blow on the nose. I reeled back and sat down, dizzy and shocked. It was only when no second blow followed the first that I realized what had occurred. With my two hands out before me in the blackness, I had groped, one hand on either side of the open door, which of course I had struck violently with my nose. Afterward I found it had bled considerably, and my collar and tie must have added to my ghastly appearance. My candlestick had rolled under the table, and after crawling around on my hands and knees, I found it. I had lost, I suppose, three or four minutes, and I was raging at my awkwardness and stupidity. No one, however, seemed to have heard the noise. For all her boasted watchfulness, Miss Letitia must have been asleep. I got back into the hall and from there to the dining-room. Some one was fumbling at the shutters there, and as I looked they swung open. It was so dark outside, with the trees and the distance from the street, that only the creaking of the shutter told it had opened. I stood in the middle of the room, with one hand firmly clutching my candlestick. But the window refused to move. The burglar seemed to have no proper tools; he got something under the sash, but it snapped, and through the heavy plate-glass I could hear him swearing. Then he abruptly left the window and made for the front of the house. I blundered in the same direction, my unshod feet striking on projecting furniture and causing me agonies, even through my excitement. When I reached the front door, however, I was amazed to find it unlocked, and standing open perhaps an inch. I stopped uncertainly. I was in a peculiar position; not even the most ardent admirers of antique brass candlesticks indorse them as weapons of offense or defense. But, there seeming to be nothing else to do, I opened the door quietly and stepped out into the darkness. The next instant I was flung heavily to the porch floor. I am not a small man by any means, but under the fury of that onslaught I was a child. It was a porch chair, I think, that knocked me senseless; I know I folded up like a jack-knife, and that was all I did know for a few minutes. When I came to I was lying where I had fallen, and a candle was burning beside me on the porch floor. It took me a minute to remember, and another minute to realize that I was looking into the barrel of a revolver. It occurred to me that I had never seen a more villainous face than that of the man who held it--which shows my state of mind--and that my position was the reverse of comfortable. Then the man behind the gun spoke. "What did you do with that bag?" he demanded, and I felt his knee on my chest. "What bag?" I inquired feebly. My head was jumping, and the candle was a volcanic eruption of sparks and smoke. "Don't be a fool," the gentleman with the revolver persisted. "If I don't get that bag within five minutes, I'll fill you as full of holes as a cheese." "I haven't seen any bag," I said stupidly. "What sort of bag?" I heard my own voice, drunk from the shock. "Paper bag, laundry bag--" "You've hidden it in the house," he said, bringing the revolver a little closer with every word. My senses came back with a jerk and I struggled to free myself. "Go in and look," I responded. "Let me up from here, and I'll take you in myself." The man's face was a study in amazement and anger. "You'll take me in! You!" He got up without changing the menacing position of the gun. "You walk in there--here, carry the candle--and take me to that bag. Quick, do you hear?" I was too bewildered to struggle. I got up dizzily, but when I tried to stoop for the candle I almost fell on it. My head cleared after a moment, and when I had picked up the candle I had a good chance to look at my assailant. He was staring at me, too. He was a young fellow, well dressed, and haggard beyond belief. "I don't know anything about a bag," I persisted, "but if you will give me your word there was nothing in it belonging to this house, I will take you in and let you look for it." The next moment he had lowered the revolver and clutched my arm. "Who in the devil's name _are_ you?" he asked wildly. I think the thing dawned on us both at the same moment. "My name is Knox," I said coolly, feeling for my handkerchief--my head was bleeding from a cut over the ear--"John Knox." "Knox!" Instead of showing relief; his manner showed greater consternation than ever. He snatched the candle from me and, holding it up, searched my face. "Then--good God--where is my traveling-bag?" "I have something in my head where you hit me," I said. "Perhaps that is it." But my sarcasm was lost on him. "I am Harry Wardrop," he said, "and I have been robbed, Mr. Knox. I was trying to get in the house without waking the family, and when I came back here to the front door, where I had left my valise, it was gone. I thought you were the thief when you came out, and--we've lost all this time. Somebody has followed me and robbed me!" "What was in the bag?" I asked, stepping to the edge of the porch and looking around, with the help of the candle. "Valuable papers," he said shortly. He seemed to be dazed and at a loss what to do next. We had both instinctively kept our voices low. "You are certain you left it here?" I asked. The thing seemed incredible in the quiet and peace of that neighborhood. "Where you are standing." Once more I began a desultory search, going down the steps and looking among the cannas that bordered the porch. Something glistened beside the step, and stooping down I discovered a small brown leather traveling-bag, apparently quite new. "Here it is," I said, not so gracious as I might have been; I had suffered considerably for that traveling-bag. The sight of it restored Wardrop's poise at once. His twitching features relaxed. "By Jove, I'm glad to see it," he said. "I can't explain, but--tremendous things were depending on that bag, Mr. Knox. I don't know how to apologize to you; I must have nearly brained you." "You did," I said grimly, and gave him the bag. The moment he took it I knew there was something wrong; he hurried into the house and lighted the library lamp. Then he opened the traveling-bag with shaking fingers. It was empty! He stood for a moment, staring incredulously into it. Then he hurled it down on the table and turned on me, as I stood beside him. "It's a trick!" he said furiously. "You've hidden it somewhere. This is not my bag. You've substituted one just like it." "Don't be a fool," I retorted. "How could I substitute an empty satchel for yours when up to fifteen minutes ago I had never seen you or your grip either? Use a little common sense. Some place to-night you have put down that bag, and some clever thief has substituted a similar one. It's an old trick." He dropped into a chair and buried his face in his hands. "It's impossible," he said after a pause, while he seemed to be going over, minute by minute, the events of the night. "I was followed, as far as that goes, in Plattsburg. Two men watched me from the minute I got there, on Tuesday; I changed my hotel, and for all of yesterday--Wednesday, that is--I felt secure enough. But on my way to the train I felt that I was under surveillance again, and by turning quickly I came face to face with one of the men." "Would you know him?" I asked. "Yes. I thought he was a detective, you know I've had a lot of that sort of thing lately, with election coming on. He didn't get on the train, however." "But the other one may have done so." "Yes, the other one may. The thing I don't understand is this, Mr. Knox. When we drew in at Bellwood Station I distinctly remember opening the bag and putting my newspaper and railroad schedule inside. It was the right bag then; my clothing was in it, and my brushes." I had been examining the empty bag as he talked. "Where did you put your railroad schedule?" I asked. "In the leather pocket at the side." "It is here," I said, drawing out the yellow folder. For a moment my companion looked almost haunted. He pressed his hands to his head and began to pace the room like a crazy man. "The whole thing is impossible. I tell you, that valise was heavy when I walked up from the station. I changed it from one hand to the other because of the weight. When I got here I set it down on the edge of the porch and tried the door. When I found it locked--" "But it wasn't locked," I broke in. "When I came down-stairs to look for a burglar, I found it open at least an inch." He stopped in his pacing up and down, and looked at me curiously. "We're both crazy, then," he asserted gravely. "I tell you, I tried every way I knew to unlock that door, and could hear the chain rattling. Unlocked! You don't know the way this house is fastened up at night." "Nevertheless, it was unlocked when I came down." We were so engrossed that neither of us had heard steps on the stairs. The sound of a smothered exclamation from the doorway caused us both to turn suddenly. Standing there, in a loose gown of some sort, very much surprised and startled, was Margery Fleming. Wardrop pulled himself together at once. As for me, I knew what sort of figure I cut, my collar stained with blood, a lump on my forehead that felt as big as a door-knob, and no shoes. "What _is_ the matter?" she asked uncertainly. "I heard such queer noises, and I thought some one had broken into the house." "Mr. Wardrop was trying to break in," I explained, "and I heard him and came down. On the way I had a bloody encounter with an open door, in which I came out the loser." I don't think she quite believed me. She looked from my swollen head to the open bag, and then to Wardrop's pale face. Then I think, woman-like, she remembered the two great braids that hung over her shoulders and the dressing-gown she wore, for she backed precipitately into the hall. "I'm glad that's all it is," she called back cautiously, and we could hear her running up the stairs. "You'd better go to bed," Wardrop said, picking up his hat. "I'm going down to the station. There's no train out of here between midnight and a flag train at four-thirty A. M. It's not likely to be of any use, but I want to see who goes on that train." "It is only half past two," I said, glancing at my watch. "We might look around outside first." The necessity for action made him welcome any suggestion. Reticent as he was, his feverish excitement made me think that something vital hung on the recovery of the contents of that Russia leather bag. We found a lantern somewhere in the back of the house, and together we went over the grounds. It did not take long, and we found nothing. As I look back on that night, the key to what had passed and to much that was coming was so simple, so direct--and yet we missed it entirely. Nor, when bigger things developed, and Hunter's trained senses were brought into play, did he do much better. It was some time before we learned the true inwardness of the events of that night. At five o'clock in the morning Wardrop came back exhausted and nerveless. No one had taken the four-thirty; the contents of the bag were gone, probably beyond recall. I put my dented candlestick back on the mantel, and prepared for a little sleep, blessing the deafness of old age which had enabled the Maitland ladies to sleep through it all. I tried to forget the queer events of the night, but the throbbing of my head kept me awake, and through it all one question obtruded itself--who had unlocked the front door and left it open? CHAPTER V LITTLE MISS JANE I was almost unrecognizable when I looked at myself in the mirror the next morning, preparatory to dressing for breakfast. My nose boasted a new arch, like the back of an angry cat, making my profile Roman and ferocious, and the lump on my forehead from the chair was swollen, glassy and purple. I turned my back to the mirror and dressed in wrathful irritation and my yesterday's linen. Miss Fleming was in the breakfast-room when I got down, standing at a window, her back to me. I have carried with me, during all the months since that time, a mental picture of her as she stood there, in a pink morning frock of some sort. But only the other day, having mentioned this to her, she assured me that the frock was blue, that she didn't have a pink garment at the time this story opens and that if she did she positively didn't have it on. And having thus flouted my eye for color, she maintains that she did _not_ have her back to me, for she distinctly saw my newly-raised bridge as I came down the stairs. So I amend this. Miss Fleming in a blue frock was facing the door when I went into the breakfast-room. Of one thing I am certain. She came forward and held out her hand. "Good morning," she said. "What a terrible face!" "It isn't mine," I replied meekly. "My own face is beneath these excrescences. I tried to cover the bump on my forehead with French chalk, but it only accentuated the thing, like snow on a mountain top." "'The purple peaks of Darien,'" she quoted, pouring me my coffee. "Do you know, I feel so much better since you have taken hold of things. Aunt Letitia thinks you are wonderful." I thought ruefully of the failure of my first attempt to play the sleuth, and I disclaimed any right to Miss Letitia's high opinion of me. From my dogging the watchman to the police station, to Delia and her note, was a short mental step. "Before any one comes down, Miss Fleming," I said, "I want to ask a question or two. What was the name of the maid who helped you search the house that night?" "Annie." "What other maids did you say there were?" "Delia and Rose." "Do you know anything about them? Where they came from, or where they went?" She smiled a little. "What does one know about new servants?" she responded. "They bring you references, but references are the price most women pay to get rid of their servants without a fuss. Rose was fat and old, but Delia was pretty. I thought she rather liked Carter." Carter as well as Shields, the policeman. I put Miss Delia down as a flirt. "And you have no idea where Carter went?" "None." Wardrop came in then, and we spoke of other things. The two elderly ladies it seemed had tea and toast in their rooms when they wakened, and the three of us breakfasted together. But conversation languished with Wardrop's appearance; he looked haggard and worn, avoided Miss Fleming's eyes, and after ordering eggs instead of his chop, looked at his watch and left without touching anything. "I want to get the nine-thirty, Margie," he said, coming back with his hat in his hand. "I may not be out to dinner. Tell Miss Letitia, will you?" He turned to go, but on second thought came back to me and held out his hand. "I may not see you again," he began. "Not if I see you first," I interrupted. He glanced at my mutilated features and smiled. "I have made you a Maitland," he said. "I didn't think that anything but a prodigal Nature could duplicate Miss Letitia's nose! I'm honestly sorry, Mr. Knox, and if you do not want Miss Jane at that bump with a cold silver knife and some butter, you'd better duck before she comes down. Good-by, Margie." I think the girl was as much baffled as I was by the change in his manner when he spoke to her. His smile faded and he hardly met her eyes: I thought that his aloofness puzzled rather than hurt her. When the house door had closed behind him, she dropped her chin in her hand and looked across the table. "You did not tell me the truth last night, Mr. Knox," she said. "I have never seen Harry look like that. Something has happened to him." "He was robbed of his traveling-bag," I explained, on Fred's theory that half a truth is better than a poor lie. "It's a humiliating experience, I believe. A man will throw away thousands, or gamble them away, with more equanimity than he'll see some one making off with his hair brushes or his clean collars." "His traveling-bag!" she repeated scornfully. "Mr. Knox, something has happened to my father, and you and Harry are hiding it from me." "On my honor, it is nothing of the sort," I hastened to assure her. "I saw him for only a few minutes, just long enough for him to wreck my appearance." "He did not speak of father?" "No." She got up and crossing to the wooden mantel, put her arms upon it and leaned her head against them. "I wanted to ask him," she said drearily, "but I am afraid to. Suppose he doesn't know and I should tell him! He would go to Mr. Schwartz at once, and Mr. Schwartz is treacherous. The papers would get it, too." Her eyes filled with tears, and I felt as awkward as a man always does when a woman begins to cry. If he knows her well enough he can go over and pat her on the shoulder and assure her it is going to be all right. If he does not know her, and there are two maiden aunts likely to come in at any minute, he sits still, as I did, and waits until the storm clears. Miss Margery was not long in emerging from her handkerchief. "I didn't sleep much," she explained, dabbing at her eyes, "and I am nervous, anyhow. Mr. Knox, are you sure it was only Harry trying to get into the house last night?" "Only Harry," I repeated. "If Mr. Wardrop's attempt to get into the house leaves me in this condition, what would a real burglar have done to me!" She was too intent to be sympathetic over my disfigured face. "There was some one moving about up-stairs not long before I came down," she said slowly. "You heard me; I almost fell down the stairs." "Did you brush past my door, and strike the knob?" she demanded. "No, I was not near any door." "Very well," triumphantly. "Some one did. Not only that, but they were in the store-room on the floor above. I could hear one person and perhaps two, going from one side of the room to the other and back again." "You heard a goblin quadrille. First couple forward and back," I said facetiously. "I heard real footsteps--unmistakable ones. The maids sleep back on the second floor, and--don't tell me it was rats. There are no rats in my Aunt Letitia's house." I was more impressed than I cared to show. I found I had a half hour before train time, and as we were neither of us eating anything, I suggested that we explore the upper floor of the house. I did it, I explained, not because I expected to find anything, but because I was sure we would not. We crept past the two closed doors behind which the ladies Maitland were presumably taking out their crimps and taking in their tea. Then up a narrow, obtrusively clean stairway to the upper floor. It was an old-fashioned, sloping-roofed attic, with narrow windows and a bare floor. At one end a door opened into a large room, and in there were the family trunks of four generations of Maitlands. One on another they were all piled there--little hair trunks, squab-topped trunks, huge Saratogas--of the period when the two maiden ladies were in their late teens--and there were handsome, modern trunks, too. For Miss Fleming's satisfaction I made an examination of the room, but it showed nothing. There was little or no dust to have been disturbed; the windows were closed and locked. In the main attic were two step-ladders, some curtains drying on frames and an old chest of drawers with glass knobs and the veneering broken in places. One of the drawers stood open, and inside could be seen a red and white patchwork quilt, and a grayish thing that looked like flannel and smelled to heaven of camphor. We gave up finally, and started down. Part way down the attic stairs Margery stopped, her eyes fixed on the white-scrubbed rail. Following her gaze, I stopped, too, and I felt a sort of chill go over me. No spot or blemish, no dirty finger print marked the whiteness of that stair rail, except in one place. On it, clear and distinct, every line of the palm showing, was the reddish imprint of a hand! Margery did not speak; she had turned very white, and closed her eyes, but she was not faint. When the first revulsion had passed, I reached over and touched the stain. It was quite dry, of course, but it was still reddish-brown; another hour or two would see it black. It was evidently fresh--Hunter said afterward it must have been about six hours old, and as things transpired, he was right. The stain showed a hand somewhat short and broad, with widened finger-tips; marked in ink, it would not have struck me so forcibly, perhaps, but there, its ugly red against the white wood, it seemed to me to be the imprint of a brutal, murderous hand. Margery was essentially feminine. "What did I tell you?" she asked. "Some one was in this house last night; I heard them distinctly. There must have been two, and they quarreled--" she shuddered. We went on down-stairs into the quiet and peace of the dining-room again. I got some hot coffee for Margery, for she looked shaken, and found I had missed my train. "I am beginning to think I am being pursued by a malicious spirit," she said, trying to smile. "I came away from home because people got into the house at night and left queer signs of their visits, and now, here at Bellwood, where nothing _ever_ happens, the moment I arrive things begin to occur. And--just as it was at home--the house was so well locked last night." I did not tell her of the open hall door, just as I had kept from her the fact that only the contents of Harry Wardrop's bag had been taken. That it had all been the work of one person, and that that person, having in some way access to the house, had also stolen the pearls, was now my confident belief. I looked at Bella--the maid--as she moved around the dining-room; her stolid face was not even intelligent; certainly not cunning. Heppie, the cook and only other servant, was partly blind and her horizon was the diameter of her largest kettle. No--it had not been a servant, this mysterious intruder who passed the Maitland silver on the sideboard without an attempt to take it, and who floundered around an attic at night, in search of nothing more valuable than patchwork quilts and winter flannels. It is strange to look back and think how quietly we sat there; that we could see nothing but burglary--or an attempt at it--in what we had found. It must have been after nine o'clock when Bella came running into the room. Ordinarily a slow and clumsy creature, she almost flew. She had a tray in her hand, and the dishes were rattling and threatening overthrow at every step. She brought up against a chair, and a cup went flying. The breaking of a cup must have been a serious offense in Miss Letitia Maitland's house, but Bella took no notice whatever of it. "Miss Jane," she gasped, "Miss Jane, she's--she's--" "Hurt!" Margery exclaimed, rising and clutching at the table for support. "No. Gone--she's gone! She's been run off with!" "Nonsense!" I said, seeing Margery's horrified face. "Don't come in here with such a story. If Miss Jane is not in her room, she is somewhere else, that's all." Bella stooped and gathered up the broken cup, her lips moving. Margery had recovered herself. She made Bella straighten and explain. "Do you mean--she is not in her room?" she asked incredulously. "Isn't she somewhere around the house?" "Go up and look at the room," the girl replied, and, with Margery leading, we ran up the stairs. Miss Jane's room was empty. From somewhere near Miss Letitia could be heard lecturing Hepsibah about putting too much butter on the toast. Her high voice, pitched for Heppie's old ears, rasped me. Margery closed the door, and we surveyed the room together. The bed had been occupied; its coverings had been thrown back, as if its occupant had risen hurriedly. The room itself was in a state of confusion; a rocker lay on its side, and Miss Jane's clothing, folded as she had taken it off, had slid off on to the floor. Her shoes stood neatly at the foot of the bed, and a bottle of toilet vinegar had been upset, pouring a stream over the marble top of the dresser and down on to the floor. Over the high wooden mantel the Maitland who had been governor of the state years ago hung at a waggish angle, and a clock had been pushed aside and stopped at half-past one. Margery stared around her in bewilderment. Of course, it was not until later in the day that I saw all the details. My first impression was of confusion and disorder: the room seemed to have been the scene of a struggle. The overturned furniture, the clothes on the floor, the picture, coupled with the print of the hand on the staircase and Miss Jane's disappearance, all seemed to point to one thing. And as if to prove it conclusively, Margery picked up Miss Jane's new lace cap from the floor. It was crumpled and spotted with blood. "She has been killed," Margery said, in a choking voice. "Killed, and she had not an enemy in the world!" "But where is she?" I asked stupidly. Margery had more presence of mind than I had; I suppose it is because woman's courage is mental and man's physical, that in times of great strain women always make the better showing. While I was standing in the middle of the room, staring at the confusion around me, Margery was already on her knees, looking under the high, four-post bed. Finding nothing there she went to the closet. It was undisturbed. Pathetic rows of limp black dresses and on the shelves two black crepe bonnets were mute reminders of the little old lady. But there was nothing else in the room. "Call Robert, the gardener," Margery said quickly, "and have him help you search the grounds and cellars. I will take Bella and go through the house. Above everything, keep it from Aunt Letitia as long as possible." I locked the door into the disordered room, and with my head whirling, I went to look for Robert. It takes a short time to search an acre of lawn and shrubbery. There was no trace of the missing woman anywhere outside the house, and from Bella, as she sat at the foot of the front stairs with her apron over her head, I learned in a monosyllable that nothing had been found in the house. Margery was with Miss Letitia, and from the excited conversation I knew she was telling her--not harrowing details, but that Miss Jane had disappeared during the night. The old lady was inclined to scoff at first. "Look in the fruit closet in the store-room," I heard her say. "She's let the spring lock shut on her twice; she was black in the face the last time we found her." "I did look; she's not there," Margery screamed at her. "Then she's out looking for stump water to take that wart off her neck. She said yesterday she was going for some." "But her clothes are all here," Margery persisted. "We think some one must have got in the house." "If all her clothes are there she's been sleep-walking," Miss Letitia said calmly. "We used to have to tie her by a cord around her ankle and fasten it to the bedpost. When she tried to get up the cord would pull and wake her." I think after a time, however, some of Margery's uneasiness communicated itself to the older woman. She finished dressing, and fumed when we told her we had locked Miss Jane's door and mislaid the key. Finally, Margery got her settled in the back parlor with some peppermints and her knitting; she had a feeling, she said, that Jane had gone after the stump water and lost her way, and I told Margery to keep her in that state of mind as long as she could. I sent for Hunter that morning and he came at three o'clock. I took him through the back entrance to avoid Miss Letitia. I think he had been skeptical until I threw open the door and showed him the upset chair, the old lady's clothing, and the bloodstained lace cap. His examination was quick and thorough. He took a crumpled sheet of note paper out of the waste-basket and looked at it, then he stuffed it in his pocket. He sniffed the toilet water, called Margery and asked her if any clothing was missing, and on receiving a negative answer asked if any shawls or wraps were gone from the halls or other rooms. Margery reported nothing missing. Before he left the room, Hunter went back and moved the picture which had been disturbed over the mantel. What he saw made him get a chair and, standing on it, take the picture from its nail. Thus exposed, the wall showed an opening about a foot square, and perhaps eighteen inches deep. A metal door, opening in, was unfastened and ajar, and just inside was a copy of a recent sentimental novel and a bottle of some sort of complexion cream. In spite of myself, I smiled; it was so typical of the dear old lady, with the heart of a girl and a skin that was losing its roses. But there was something else in the receptacle, something that made Margery Fleming draw in her breath sharply, and made Hunter raise his eyebrows a little and glance at me. The something was a scrap of unruled white paper, and on it the figures eleven twenty-two! CHAPTER VI A FOUNTAIN PEN Harry Wardrop came back from the city at four o'clock, while Hunter was in the midst of his investigation. I met him in the hall and told him what had happened, and with this new apprehension added to the shock of the night before, he looked as though his nerves were ready to snap. Wardrop was a man of perhaps twenty-seven, as tall as I, although not so heavy, with direct blue eyes and fair hair; altogether a manly and prepossessing sort of fellow. I was not surprised that Margery Fleming had found him attractive--he had the blond hair and off-hand manner that women seem to like. I am dark, myself. He seemed surprised to find Hunter there, and not particularly pleased, but he followed us to the upper floor and watched silently while Hunter went over the two rooms. Beside the large chest of drawers in the main attic Hunter found perhaps half a dozen drops of blood, and on the edge of the open drawer there were traces of more. In the inner room two trunks had been moved out nearly a foot, as he found by the faint dust that had been under them. With the stain on the stair rail, that was all he discovered, and it was little enough. Then he took out his note-book and there among the trunks we had a little seance of our own, in which Hunter asked questions, and whoever could do so answered them. "Have you a pencil or pen, Mr. Knox?" he asked me, but I had none. Wardrop felt his pockets, with no better success. "I have lost my fountain pen somewhere around the house to-day," he said irritably. "Here's a pencil--not much of one." Hunter began his interrogations. "How old was Miss Maitland--Miss Jane, I mean?" "Sixty-five," from Margery. "She had always seemed rational? Not eccentric, or childish?" "Not at all; the sanest woman I ever knew." This from Wardrop. "Has she ever, to your knowledge, received any threatening letters?" "Never in all her life," from both of them promptly. "You heard sounds, you say, Miss Fleming. At what time?" "About half-past one or perhaps a few minutes later. The clock struck two while I was still awake and nervous." "This person who was walking through the attics here--would you say it was a heavy person? A man, I mean?" Margery stopped to think. "Yes," she said finally. "It was very stealthy, but I think it was a man's step." "You heard no sound of a struggle? No voices? No screams?" "None at all," she said positively. And I added my quota. "There could have been no such sounds," I said. "I sat in my room and smoked until a quarter to two. I heard nothing until then, when I heard Mr. Wardrop trying to get into the house. I went down to admit him, and--I found the front door open about an inch." Hunter wheeled on Wardrop. "A quarter to two?" he asked. "You were coming home from--the city?" "Yes, from the station." Hunter watched him closely. "The last train gets in here at twelve-thirty," he said slowly. "Does it always take you an hour and a quarter to walk the three squares to the house?" Wardrop flushed uneasily, and I could see Margery's eyes dilate with amazement. As for me, I could only stare. "I did not come directly home," he said, almost defiantly. Hunter's voice was as smooth as silk. "Then--will you be good enough to tell me where you did go?" he asked. "I have reasons for wanting to know." "Damn your reasons--I beg your pardon, Margery. Look here, Mr. Hunter, do you think I would hurt a hair of that old lady's head? Do you think I came here last night and killed her, or whatever it is that has happened to her? And then went out and tried to get in again through the window?" "Not necessarily," Hunter said, unruffled. "It merely occurred to me that we have at least an hour of your time last night, while this thing was going on, to account for. However, we can speak of that later. I am practically certain of one thing, Miss Maitland is not dead, or was not dead when she was taken away from this house." "Taken away!" Margery repeated. "Then you think she was kidnapped?" "Well, it is possible. It's a puzzling affair all through. You are certain there are no closets or unused rooms where, if there had been a murder, the body could be concealed." "I never heard of any," Margery said, but I saw Wardrop's face change on the instant. He said nothing, however, but stood frowning at the floor, with his hands deep in his coat pockets. Margery was beginning to show the effect of the long day's strain; she began to cry a little, and with an air of proprietorship that I resented, somehow, Wardrop went over to her. "You are going to lie down, Margery," he said, holding out his hand to help her up. "Mrs. Mellon will come over to Aunt Letitia, and you must get some sleep." "Sleep!" she said with scorn, as he helped her to her feet. "Sleep, when things like this are occurring! Father first, and now dear old Aunt Jane! Harry, do you know where my father is?" He faced her, as if he had known the question must come and was prepared for it. "I know that he is all right, Margery. He has been--out of town. If it had not been for something unforeseen that--happened within the last few hours, he would have been home to-day." She drew a long breath of relief. "And Aunt Jane?" she asked Hunter, from the head of the attic stairs, "you do not think she is dead?" "Not until we have found something more," he answered tactlessly. "It's like where there's smoke there's fire; where there's murder there's a body." When they had both gone, Hunter sat down on a trunk and drew out a cigar that looked like a bomb. "What do you think of it?" I asked, when he showed no disposition to talk. "I'll be damned if I know," he responded, looking around for some place to expectorate and finding none. "The window," I suggested, and he went over to it. When he came back he had a rather peculiar expression. He sat down and puffed for a moment. "In the first place," he began, "we can take it for granted that, unless she was crazy or sleep-walking, she didn't go out in her night-clothes, and there's nothing of hers missing. She wasn't taken in a carriage, providing she was taken at all. There's not a mark of wheels on that drive newer than a week, and besides, you say you heard nothing." "Nothing," I said positively. "Then, unless she went away in a balloon, where it wouldn't matter what she had on, she is still around the premises. It depends on how badly she was hurt." "Are you sure it was she who was hurt?" I asked. "That print of a hand--that is not Miss Jane's." In reply Hunter led the way down the stairs to the place where the stain on the stair rail stood out, ugly and distinct. He put his own heavy hand on the rail just below it. "Suppose," he said, "suppose you grip something very hard, what happens to your hand?" "It spreads," I acknowledged, seeing what he meant. "Now, look at that stain. Look at the short fingers--why, it's a child's hand beside mine. The breadth is from pressure. It might be figured out this way. The fingers, you notice, point down the stairs. In some way, let us say, the burglar, for want of a better name, gets into the house. He used a ladder resting against that window by the chest of drawers." "Ladder!" I exclaimed. "Yes, there is a pruning ladder there. Now then--he comes down these stairs, and he has a definite object. He knows of something valuable in that cubby hole over the mantel in Miss Jane's room. How does he get in? The door into the upper hall is closed and bolted, but the door into the bath-room is open. From there another door leads into the bedroom, and it has no bolt--only a key. That kind of a lock is only a three-minutes delay, or less. Now then, Miss Maitland was a light sleeper. When she wakened she was too alarmed to scream; she tried to get to the door and was intercepted. Finally she got out the way the intruder got in, and ran along the hall. Every door was locked. In a frenzy she ran up the attic stairs and was captured up there. Which bears out Miss Margery's story of the footsteps back and forward." "Good heavens, what an awful thing!" I gasped. "And I was sitting smoking just across the hall." "He brings her down the stairs again, probably half dragging her. Once, she catches hold of the stair rail, and holds desperately to it, leaving the stain here." "But why did he bring her down?" I asked bewildered. "Why wouldn't he take what he was after and get away?" Hunter smoked and meditated. "She probably had to get the key of the iron door," he suggested. "It was hidden, and time was valuable. If there was a scapegrace member of the family, for instance, who knew where the old lady kept money, and who needed it badly; who knew all about the house, and who--" "Fleming!" I exclaimed, aghast. "Or even our young friend, Wardrop," Hunter said quietly. "He has an hour to account for. The trying to get in may have been a blind, and how do you know that what he says was stolen out of his satchel was not what he had just got from the iron box over the mantel in Miss Maitland's room?" I was dizzy with trying to follow Hunter's facile imagination. The thing we were trying to do was to find the old lady, and, after all, here we brought up against the same _impasse_. "Then where is she now?" I asked. He meditated. He had sat down on the narrow stairs, and was rubbing his chin with a thoughtful forefinger. "One-thirty, Miss Margery says, when she heard the noise. One-forty-five when you heard Wardrop at the shutters. I tell you, Knox, it is one of two things: either that woman is dead somewhere in this house, or she ran out of the hall door just before you went down-stairs, and in that case the Lord only knows where she is. If there is a room anywhere that we have not explored--" "I am inclined to think there is," I broke in, thinking of Wardrop's face a few minutes before. And just then Wardrop himself joined us. He closed the door at the foot of the boxed-in staircase, and came quietly up. "You spoke about an unused room or a secret closet, Mr. Hunter," he said, without any resentment in his tone. "We have nothing so sensational as that, but the old house is full of queer nooks and crannies, and perhaps, in one of them, we might find--" he stopped and gulped. Whatever Hunter might think, whatever I might have against Harry Wardrop, I determined then that he had had absolutely nothing to do with little Miss Maitland's strange disappearance. The first place we explored was a closed and walled-in wine-cellar, long unused, and to which access was gained by a small window in the stone foundation of the house. The cobwebs over the window made it practically an impossible place, but we put Robert, the gardener, through it, in spite of his protests. "There's nothin' there, I tell you," he protested, with one leg over the coping. "God only knows what's down there, after all these years. I've been livin' here with the Miss Maitlands for twenty year, and I ain't never been put to goin' down into cellars on the end of a rope." He went, because we were three to his one, but he was up again in sixty seconds, with the announcement that the place was as bare as the top of his head. We moved every trunk in the store-room, although it would have been a moral impossibility for any one to have done it the night before without rousing the entire family, and were thus able to get to and open a large closet, which proved to contain neatly tied and labeled packages of religious weeklies, beginning in the sixties. The grounds had been gone over inch by inch, without affording any clue, and now the three of us faced one another. The day was almost gone, and we were exactly where we started. Hunter had sent men through the town and the adjacent countryside, but no word had come from them. Miss Letitia had at last succumbed to the suspense and had gone to bed, where she lay quietly enough, as is the way with the old, but so mild that she was alarming. At five o'clock Hawes called me up from the office and almost tearfully implored me to come back and attend to my business. When I said it was impossible, I could hear him groan as he hung up the receiver. Hawes is of the opinion that by keeping fresh magazines in my waiting-room and by persuading me to the extravagance of Turkish rugs, that he has built my practice to its present flourishing state. When I left the telephone, Hunter was preparing to go back to town and Wardrop was walking up and down the hall. Suddenly Wardrop stopped his uneasy promenade and hailed the detective on his way to the door. "By George," he exclaimed, "I forgot to show you the closet under the attic stairs!" We hurried up and Wardrop showed us the panel in the hall, which slid to one side when he pushed a bolt under the carpet. The blackness of the closet was horrible in its suggestion to me. I stepped back while Hunter struck a match and looked in. The closet was empty. "Better not go in," Wardrop said. "It hasn't been used for years and it's black with dust. I found it myself and showed it to Miss Jane. I don't believe Miss Letitia knows it is here." "It hasn't been used for years!" reflected Hunter, looking around him curiously. "I suppose it has been some time since you were in here, Mr. Wardrop?" "Several years," Wardrop replied carelessly. "I used to keep contraband here in my college days, cigarettes and that sort of thing. I haven't been in it since then." Hunter took his foot off a small object that lay on the floor, and picking it up, held it out to Wardrop, with a grim smile. "Here is the fountain pen you lost this morning, Mr. Wardrop," he said quietly. CHAPTER VII CONCERNING MARGERY When Hunter had finally gone at six o'clock, summoned to town on urgent business, we were very nearly where we had been before he came. He could only give us theories, and after all, what we wanted was fact--and Miss Jane. Many things, however, that he had unearthed puzzled me. Why had Wardrop lied about so small a matter as his fountain pen? The closet was empty: what object could he have had in saying he had not been in it for years? I found that my belief in his sincerity of the night before was going. If he had been lying then, I owed him something for a lump on my head that made it difficult for me to wear my hat. It would have been easy enough for him to rob himself, and, if he had an eye for the theatrical, to work out just some such plot. It was even possible that he had hidden for a few hours in the secret closet the contents of the Russia leather bag. But, whatever Wardrop might or might not be, he gave me little chance to find out, for he left the house before Hunter did that afternoon, and it was later, and under strange circumstances, that I met him again. Hunter had not told me what was on the paper he had picked out of the basket in Miss Jane's room, and I knew he was as much puzzled as I at the scrap in the little cupboard, with eleven twenty-two on it. It occurred to me that it might mean the twenty-second day of the eleventh month, perhaps something that had happened on some momentous, long-buried twenty-second of November. But this was May, and the finding of two slips bearing the same number was too unusual. After Hunter left I went back to the closet under the upper stairs, and with some difficulty got the panel open again. The space inside, perhaps eight feet high at one end and four at the other, was empty. There was a row of hooks, as if at some time clothing had been hung there, and a flat shelf at one end, gray with dust. I struck another match and examined the shelf. On its surface were numerous scratchings in the dust layer, but at one end, marked out as if drawn on a blackboard, was a rectangular outline, apparently that of a smallish box, and fresh. My match burned my fingers and I dropped it to the floor, where it expired in a sickly blue flame. At the last, however, it died heroically--like an old man to whom his last hours bring back some of the glory of his prime, burning brightly for a second and then fading into darkness. The last flash showed me, on the floor of the closet and wedged between two boards, a small white globule. It did not need another match to tell me it was a pearl. I dug it out carefully and took it to my room. In the daylight there I recognized it as an unstrung pearl of fair size and considerable value. There could hardly be a doubt that I had stumbled on one of the stolen gems; but a pearl was only a pearl to me, after all. I didn't feel any of the inspirations which fiction detectives experience when they happen on an important clue. I lit a cigar and put the pearl on the table in front of me. But no explanation formed itself in the tobacco smoke. If Wardrop took the pearls, I kept repeating over and over, if Wardrop took the pearls, who took Miss Jane? I tried to forget the pearls, and to fathom the connection between Miss Maitland's disappearance and the absence of her brother-in-law. The scrap of paper, eleven twenty-two, must connect them, but how? A family scandal? Dismissed on the instant. There could be nothing that would touch the virginal remoteness of that little old lady. Insanity? Well, Miss Jane might have had a sudden aberration and wandered away, but that would leave Fleming out, and the paper dragged him in. A common enemy? I smoked and considered for some time over this. An especially malignant foe might rob, or even murder, but it was almost ludicrous to think of his carrying away by force Miss Jane's ninety pounds of austere flesh. The solution, had it not been for the blood-stains, might have been a peaceful one, leaving out the pearls, altogether, but later developments showed that the pearls refused to be omitted. To my mind, however, at that time, the issue seemed a double one. I believed that some one, perhaps Harry Wardrop, had stolen the pearls, hidden them in the secret closet, and disposed of them later. I made a note to try to follow up the missing pearls. Then--I clung to the theory that Miss Maitland had been abducted and was being held for ransom. If I could have found traces of a vehicle of any sort near the house, I would almost have considered my contention proved. That any one could have entered the house, intimidated and even slightly injured the old lady, and taken her quietly out the front door, while I sat smoking in my room with the window open, and Wardrop trying the shutters at the side of the house, seemed impossible. Yet there were the stains, the confusion, the open front door to prove it. But--and I stuck here--the abductor who would steal an old woman, and take her out into the May night without any covering--not even shoes--clad only in her night-clothes, would run an almost certain risk of losing his prize by pneumonia. For a second search had shown not an article of wearing apparel missing from the house. Even the cedar chests were undisturbed; not a blanket was gone. Just before dinner I made a second round of the grounds, this time looking for traces of wheels. I found none near-by, and it occurred to me that the boldest highwayman would hardly drive up to the door for his booty. When I had extended my search to cover the unpaved lane that separated the back of the Maitland place from its nearest neighbor, I was more fortunate. The morning delivery wagons had made fresh trails, and at first I despaired. I sauntered up the lane to the right, however, and about a hundred feet beyond the boundary hedge I found circular tracks, broad and deep, where an automobile had backed and turned. The lane was separated by high hedges of osage orange from the properties on either side, and each house in that neighborhood had a drive of its own, which entered from the main street, circled the house and went out as it came. There was no reason, or, so far as I could see, no legitimate reason, why a car should have stopped there, yet it had stopped and for some time. Deeper tracks in the sand at the side of the lane showed that. I felt that I had made some progress: I had found where the pearls had been hidden after the theft, and this put Bella out of the question. And I had found--or thought I had--the way in which Miss Jane had been taken away from Bellwood. I came back past the long rear wing of the house which contained, I presumed, the kitchen and the other mysterious regions which only women and architects comprehend. A long porch ran the length of the wing, and as I passed I heard my name called. "In here in the old laundry," Margery's voice repeated, and I retraced my steps and went up on the porch. At the very end of the wing, dismantled, piled at the sides with firewood and broken furniture, was an old laundry. Its tubs were rusty, its walls mildewed and streaked, and it exhaled the musty odor of empty houses. On the floor in the middle of the room, undeniably dirty and dishevelled, sat Margery Fleming. "I thought you were never coming," she said petulantly. "I have been here alone for an hour." "I'm sure I never guessed it," I apologized. "I should have been only too glad to come and sit with you." She was fumbling with her hair, which threatened to come down any minute, and which hung, loosely knotted, over one small ear. "I hate to look ridiculous," she said sharply, "and I detest being laughed at. I've been crying, and I haven't any handkerchief." I proffered mine gravely, and she took it. She wiped the dusty streaks off her cheeks and pinned her hair in a funny knob on top of her head that would have made any other woman look like a caricature. But still she sat on the floor. "Now," she said, when she had jabbed the last hair-pin into place and tucked my handkerchief into her belt, "if you have been sufficiently amused, perhaps you will help me out of here." "Out of where?" "Do you suppose I'm sitting here because I like it?" "You have sprained your ankle," I said, with sudden alarm. In reply she brushed aside her gown, and for the first time I saw what had occurred. She was sitting half over a trap-door in the floor, which had closed on her skirts and held her fast. "The wretched thing!" she wailed. "And I have called until I am hoarse. I could shake Heppie! Then I tried to call you mentally. I fixed my mind on you and said over and over, 'Come, please come.' Didn't you feel anything at all?" "Good old trap-door!" I said. "I know I was thinking about you, but I never suspected the reason. And then to have walked past here twenty minutes ago! Why didn't you call me then?" I was tugging at the door, but it was fast, with the skirts to hold it tight. "I looked such a fright," she explained. "Can't you pry it up with something?" I tried several things without success, while Margery explained her plight. "I was sure Robert had not looked carefully in the old wine cellar," she said, "and then I remembered this trap-door opened into it. It was the only place we hadn't explored thoroughly. I put a ladder down and looked around. Ugh!" "What did you find?" I asked, as my third broomstick lever snapped. "Nothing--only I know now where Aunt Letitia's Edwin Booth went to. He was a cat," she explained, "and Aunt Letitia made the railroad pay for killing him." I gave up finally and stood back. "Couldn't you--er--get out of your garments, and--I could go out and close the door," I suggested delicately. "You see you are sitting on the trap-door, and--" But Margery scouted the suggestion with the proper scorn, and demanded a pair of scissors. She cut herself loose with vicious snips, while I paraphrased the old nursery rhyme, "She cut her petticoats all around about." Then she gathered up her outraged garments and fled precipitately. She was unusually dignified at dinner. Neither of us cared to eat, and the empty places--Wardrop's and Miss Letitia's--Miss Jane's had not been set--were like skeletons at the board. It was Margery who, after our pretense of a meal, voiced the suspicion I think we both felt. "It is a strange time for Harry to go away," she said quietly, from the library window. "He probably has a reason." "Why don't you say it?" she said suddenly, turning on me. "I know what you think. You believe he only pretended he was robbed!" "I should be sorry to think anything of the kind," I began. But she did not allow me to finish. "I saw what you thought," she burst out bitterly. "The detective almost laughed in his face. Oh, you needn't think I don't know: I saw him last night, and the woman too. He brought her right to the gate. You treat me like a child, all of you!" In sheer amazement I was silent. So a new character had been introduced into the play--a woman, too! "You were not the only person, Mr. Knox, who could not sleep last night," she went on. "Oh, I know a great many things. I know about the pearls, and what you think about them, and I know more than that, I--" She stopped then. She had said more than she intended to, and all at once her bravado left her, and she looked like a frightened child. I went over to her and took one trembling hand. "I wish you didn't know all those things," I said. "But since you do, won't you let me share the burden? The only reason I am still here is--on your account." I had a sort of crazy desire to take her in my arms and comfort her, Wardrop or no Wardrop. But at that moment, luckily for me, perhaps, Miss Letitia's shrill old voice came from the stairway. "Get out of my way, Heppie," she was saying tartly. "I'm not on my death-bed yet, not if I know it. Where's Knox?" Whereupon I obediently went out and helped Miss Letitia into the room. "I think I know where Jane is," she said, putting down her cane with a jerk. "I don't know why I didn't think about it before. She's gone to get her new teeth; she's been talkin' of it for a month. Not but what her old teeth would have done well enough." "She would hardly go in the middle of the night," I returned. "She was a very timid woman, wasn't she?" "She wasn't raised right," Miss Letitia said with a shake of her head. "She's the baby, and the youngest's always spoiled." "Have you thought that this might be more than it appears to be?" I was feeling my way: she was a very old woman. "It--for instance, it might be abduction, kidnapping--for a ransom." "Ransom!" Miss Letitia snapped. "Mr. Knox, my father made his money by working hard for it: I haven't wasted it--not that I know of. And if Jane Maitland was fool enough to be abducted, she'll stay a while before I pay anything for her. It looks to me as if this detective business was going to be expensive, anyhow." My excuse for dwelling with such attention to detail on the preliminary story, the disappearance of Miss Jane Maitland and the peculiar circumstances surrounding it, will have to find its justification in the events that followed it. Miss Jane herself, and the solution of that mystery, solved the even more tragic one in which we were about to be involved. I say _we_, because it was borne in on me at about that time, that the things that concerned Margery Fleming must concern me henceforth, whether I willed it so or otherwise. For the first time in my life a woman's step on the stair was like no other sound in the world. CHAPTER VIII TOO LATE At nine o'clock that night things remained about the same. The man Hunter had sent to investigate the neighborhood and the country just outside of the town, came to the house about eight, and reported "nothing discovered." Miss Letitia went to bed early, and Margery took her up-stairs. Hunter called me by telephone from town. "Can you take the nine-thirty up?" he asked. I looked at my watch. "Yes, I think so. Is there anything new?" "Not yet; there may be. Take a cab at the station and come to the corner of Mulberry Street and Park Lane. You'd better dismiss your cab there and wait for me." I sent word up-stairs by Bella, who was sitting in the kitchen, her heavy face sodden with grief, and taking my hat and raincoat--it was raining a light spring drizzle--I hurried to the station. In twenty-four minutes I was in the city, and perhaps twelve minutes more saw me at the designated corner, with my cab driving away and the rain dropping off the rim of my hat and splashing on my shoulders. I found a sort of refuge by standing under the wooden arch of a gate, and it occurred to me that, for all my years in the city, this particular neighborhood was altogether strange to me. Two blocks away, in any direction, I would have been in familiar territory again. Back of me a warehouse lifted six or seven gloomy stories to the sky. The gate I stood in was evidently the entrance to its yard, and in fact, some uncomfortable movement of mine just then struck the latch, and almost precipitated me backward by its sudden opening. Beyond was a yard full of shadowy wheels and packing cases; the street lights did not penetrate there, and with an uneasy feeling that almost anything, in this none too savory neighborhood, might be waiting there, I struck a match and looked at my watch. It was twenty minutes after ten. Once a man turned the corner and came toward me, his head down, his long ulster flapping around his legs. Confident that it was Hunter, I stepped out and touched him on the arm. He wheeled instantly, and in the light which shone on his face, I saw my error. "Excuse me," I mumbled, "I mistook my man." He went on again without speaking, only pulling his soft hat down lower over his face. I looked after him until he turned the next corner, and I knew I had not been mistaken; it was Wardrop. The next minute Hunter appeared, from the same direction, and we walked quickly together. I told him who the man just ahead had been, and he nodded without surprise. But before we turned the next corner he stopped. "Did you ever hear of the White Cat?" he asked. "Little political club?" "Never." "I'm a member of it," he went on rapidly. "It's run by the city ring, or rather it runs itself. Be a good fellow while you're there, and keep your eyes open. It's a queer joint." The corner we turned found us on a narrow, badly paved street. The broken windows of the warehouse still looked down on us, and across the street was an ice factory, with two deserted wagons standing along the curb. As well as I could see for the darkness, a lumber yard stretched beyond the warehouse, its piles of boards giving off in the rain the aromatic odor of fresh pine. At a gate in the fence beyond the warehouse Hunter stopped. It was an ordinary wooden gate and it opened with a thumb latch. Beyond stretched a long, narrow, brick-paved alleyway, perhaps three feet wide, and lighted by the merest glimmer of a light ahead. Hunter went on regardless of puddles in the brick paving, and I stumbled after him. As we advanced, I could see that the light was a single electric bulb, hung over a second gate. While Hunter fumbled for a key in his pocket, I had time to see that this gate had a Yale lock, was provided, at the side, with an electric bell button, and had a letter slot cut in it. Hunter opened the gate and preceded me through it. The gate swung to and clicked behind me. After the gloom of the passageway, the small brick-paved yard seemed brilliant with lights. Two wires were strung its length, dotted with many electric lamps. In a corner a striped tent stood out in grotesque relief; it seemed to be empty, and the weather was an easy explanation. From the two-story house beyond there came suddenly a burst of piano music and a none too steady masculine voice. Hunter turned to me, with his foot on the wooden steps. "Above everything else," he warned, "keep your temper. Nobody gives a hang in here whether you're the mayor of the town, the champion pool-player of the first ward, or the roundsman on the beat." The door at the top of the steps was also Yale-locked. We stepped at once into the kitchen, from which I imagined that the house faced on another street, and that for obvious reasons only its rear entrance was used. The kitchen was bright and clean; it was littered, however, with half-cut loaves of bread, glasses and empty bottles. Over the range a man in his shirt sleeves was giving his whole attention to a slice of ham, sizzling on a skillet, and at a table near-by a young fellow, with his hair cut in a barber's oval over the back of his neck, was spreading slices of bread and cheese with mustard. "How are you, Mr. Mayor?" Hunter said, as he shed his raincoat. "This is Mr. Knox, the man who's engineering the _Star-Eagle_ fight." The man over the range wiped one greasy hand and held it out to me. "The Cat is purring a welcome," he said, indicating the frying ham. "If my cooking turns out right I'll ask you to have some ham with me. I don't know why in thunder it gets black in the middle and won't cook around the edges." I recognized the mayor. He was a big fellow, handsome in a heavy way, and "Tommy" to every one who knew him. It seemed I was about to see my city government at play. Hunter was thoroughly at home. He took my coat and his own and hung them somewhere to dry. Then he went into a sort of pantry opening off the kitchen and came out with four bottles of beer. "We take care of ourselves here," he explained, as the newly barbered youth washed some glasses. "If you want a sandwich, there is cooked ham in the refrigerator and cheese--if our friend at the sink has left any." The boy looked up from his glasses. "It's rat-trap cheese, that stuff," he growled. "The other ran out an hour ago and didn't come back," put in the mayor, grinning. "You can kill that with mustard, if it's too lively." "Get some cigars, will you?" Hunter asked me. "They're on a shelf in the pantry. I have my hands full." I went for the cigars, remembering to keep my eyes open. The pantry was a small room: it contained an ice-box, stocked with drinkables, ham, eggs and butter. On shelves above were cards, cigars and liquors, and there, too, I saw a box with an indorsement which showed the "honor system" of the Cat Club. "Sign checks and drop here," it read, and I thought about the old adage of honor among thieves and politicians. When I came out with the cigars Hunter was standing with a group of new arrivals; they included one of the city physicians, the director of public charities and a judge of a local court. The latter, McFeely, a little, thin Irishman, knew me and accosted me at once. The mayor was busy over the range, and was almost purple with heat and unwonted anxiety. When the three new-comers went up-stairs, instead of going into the grill-room, I looked at Hunter. "Is this where the political game is played?" I asked. "Yes, if the political game is poker," he replied, and led the way into the room which adjoined the kitchen. No one paid any attention to us. Bare tables, a wooden floor, and almost as many cuspidors as chairs, comprised the furniture of the long room. In one corner was a battered upright piano, and there were two fireplaces with old-fashioned mantels. Perhaps a dozen men were sitting around, talking loudly, with much scraping of chairs on the bare floor. At one table they were throwing poker dice, but the rest were drinking beer and talking in a desultory way. At the piano a man with a red mustache was mimicking the sextette from _Lucia_ and a roar of applause met us as we entered the room. Hunter led the way to a corner and put down his bottles. "It's fairly quiet to-night," he said. "To-morrow's the big night--Saturday." "What time do they close up?" I asked. In answer Hunter pointed to a sign over the door. It was a card, neatly printed, and it said, "The White Cat never sleeps." "There are only two rules here," he explained. "That is one, and the other is, 'If you get too noisy, and the patrol wagon comes, make the driver take you home.'" The crowd was good-humored; it paid little or no attention to us, and when some one at the piano began to thump a waltz, Hunter, under cover of the noise, leaned over to me. "We traced Fleming here, through your corner-man and the cabby," he said carefully. "I haven't seen him, but it is a moral certainty he is skulking in one of the up-stairs rooms. His precious private secretary is here, too." I glanced around the room, but no one was paying any attention to us. "I don't know Fleming by sight," the detective went on, "and the pictures we have of him were taken a good while ago, when he wore a mustache. When he was in local politics, before he went to the legislature, he practically owned this place, paying for favors with membership tickets. A man could hide here for a year safely. The police never come here, and a man's business is his own." "He is up-stairs now?" "Yes. There are four rooms up there for cards, and a bath-room. It's an old dwelling house. Would Fleming know you?" "No, but of course Wardrop would." As if in answer to my objection, Wardrop appeared at that moment. He ran down the painted wooden stairs and hurried through the room without looking to right or left. The piano kept on, and the men at the tables were still engrossed with their glasses and one another. Wardrop was very pale; he bolted into a man at the door, and pushed him aside without ceremony. "You might go up now," Hunter said, rising. "I will see where the young gentleman is making for. Just open the door of the different rooms up-stairs, look around for Fleming, and if any one notices you, ask if Al Hunter is there. That will let you out." He left me then, and after waiting perhaps a minute, I went up-stairs alone. The second floor was the ordinary upper story of a small dwelling house. The doors were closed, but loud talking, smoke, and the rattle of chips floated out through open transoms. From below the noise of the piano came up the staircase, unmelodious but rhythmical, and from the street on which the house faced an automobile was starting its engine, with a series of shot-like explosions. The noise was confusing, disconcerting. I opened two doors, to find only the usual poker table, with the winners sitting quietly, their cards bunched in the palms of their hands, and the losers, growing more voluble as the night went on, buying chips recklessly, drinking more than they should. The atmosphere was reeking with smoke. The third door I opened was that of a dingy bath-room, with a zinc tub and a slovenly wash-stand. The next, however, was different. The light streamed out through the transom as in the other rooms, but there was no noise from within. With my hand on the door, I hesitated--then, with Hunter's injunction ringing in my ears, I opened it and looked in. A breath of cool night air from an open window met me. There was no noise, no smoke, no sour odor of stale beer. A table had been drawn to the center of the small room, and was littered with papers, pen and ink. At one corner was a tray, containing the remnants of a meal; a pillow and a pair of blankets on a couch at one side showed the room had been serving as a bedchamber. But none of these things caught my eye at first. At the table, leaning forward, his head on his arms, was a man. I coughed, and receiving no answer, stepped into the room. "I beg your pardon," I said, "but I am looking, for--" Then the truth burst on me, overwhelmed me. A thin stream was spreading over the papers on the table, moving slowly, sluggishly, as is the way with blood when the heart pump is stopped. I hurried over and raised the heavy, wobbling, gray head. It was Allan Fleming and he had been shot through the forehead. CHAPTER IX ONLY ONE EYE CLOSED My first impulse was to rouse the house; my second, to wait for Hunter. To turn loose that mob of half-drunken men in such a place seemed profanation. There was nothing of the majesty or panoply of death here, but the very sordidness of the surroundings made me resolve to guard the new dignity of that figure. I was shocked, of course; it would be absurd to say that I was emotionally unstrung. On the contrary, I was conscious of a distinct feeling of disappointment. Fleming had been our key to the Bellwood affair, and he had put himself beyond helping to solve any mystery. I locked the door and stood wondering what to do next. I should have called a doctor, no doubt, but I had seen enough of death to know that the man was beyond aid of any kind. It was not until I had bolted the door that I discovered the absence of any weapon. Everything that had gone before had pointed to a position so untenable that suicide seemed its natural and inevitable result. With the discovery that there was no revolver on the table or floor, the thing was more ominous. I decided at once to call the young city physician in the room across the hall, and with something approximating panic, I threw open the door--to face Harry Wardrop, and behind him, Hunter. I do not remember that any one spoke. Hunter jumped past me into the room and took in in a single glance what I had labored to acquire in three minutes. As Wardrop came in, Hunter locked the door behind him, and we three stood staring at the prostrate figure over the table. I watched Wardrop: I have never seen so suddenly abject a picture. He dropped into a chair, and feeling for his handkerchief, wiped his shaking lips; every particle of color left his face, and he was limp, unnerved. "Did you hear the shot?" Hunter asked me. "It has been a matter of minutes since it happened." "I don't know," I said, bewildered. "I heard a lot of explosions, but I thought it was an automobile, out in the street." Hunter was listening while he examined the room, peering under the table, lifting the blankets that had trailed off the couch on to the floor. Some one outside tried the door-knob, and finding the door locked, shook it slightly. "Fleming!" he called under his breath. "Fleming!" We were silent, in response to a signal from Hunter, and the steps retreated heavily down the hall. The detective spread the blankets decently over the couch, and the three of us moved the body there. Wardrop was almost collapsing. "Now," Hunter said quietly, "before I call in Doctor Gray from the room across, what do you know about this thing, Mr. Wardrop?" Wardrop looked dazed. "He was in a bad way when I left this morning," he said huskily. "There isn't much use now trying to hide anything; God knows I've done all I could. But he has been using cocaine for years, and to-day he ran out of the stuff. When I got here, about half an hour ago, he was on the verge of killing himself. I got the revolver from him--he was like a crazy man, and as soon as I dared to leave him, I went out to try and find a doctor--" "To get some cocaine?" "Yes." "Not--because he was already wounded, and you were afraid it was fatal?" Wardrop shuddered; then he pulled himself together, and his tone was more natural. "What's the use of lying about it?" he said wearily. "You won't believe me if I tell the truth, either, but--he was dead when I got here. I heard something like the bang of a door as I went up-stairs, but the noise was terrific down below, and I couldn't tell. When I went in, he was just dropping forward, and--" he hesitated. "The revolver?" Hunter queried, lynx-eyed. "Was in his hand. He was dead then." "Where is the revolver?" "I will turn it over to the coroner." "You will give it to me," Hunter replied sharply. And after a little fumbling, Wardrop produced it from his hip pocket. It was an ordinary thirty-eight. The detective opened it and glanced at it. Two chambers were empty. "And you waited--say ten minutes, before you called for help, and even then you went outside hunting a doctor! What were you doing in those ten minutes?" Wardrop shut his lips and refused to reply. "If Mr. Fleming shot himself," the detective pursued relentlessly, "there would be powder marks around the wound. Then, too, he was in the act of writing a letter. It was a strange impulse, this--you see, he had only written a dozen words." I glanced at the paper on the table. The letter had no superscription; it began abruptly: "I shall have to leave here. The numbers have followed me. To-night--" That was all. "This is not suicide," Hunter said gravely. "It is murder, and I warn you, Mr. Wardrop, to be careful what you say. Will you ask Doctor Gray to come in, Mr. Knox?" I went across the hall to the room where the noise was loudest. Fortunately, Doctor Gray was out of the game. He was opening a can of caviar at a table in the corner and came out in response to a gesture. He did not ask any questions, and I let him go into the death chamber unprepared. The presence of death apparently had no effect on him, but the identity of the dead man almost stupefied him. "Fleming!" he said, awed, as he looked down at the body. "Fleming, by all that's sacred! And a suicide!" Hunter watched him grimly. "How long has he been dead?" he asked. The doctor glanced at the bullet wound in the forehead, and from there significantly to the group around the couch. "Not an hour--probably less than half," he said. "It's strange we heard nothing, across the hall there." Hunter took a clean folded handkerchief from his pocket and opening it laid it gently over the dead face. I think it was a relief to all of us. The doctor got up from his kneeling posture beside the couch, and looked at Hunter inquiringly. "What about getting him away from here?" he said. "There is sure to be a lot of noise about it, and--you remember what happened when Butler killed himself here." "He was reported as being found dead in the lumber yard," Hunter said dryly. "Well, Doctor, this body stays where it is, and I don't give a whoop if the whole city government wants it moved. It won't be. This is murder, not suicide." The doctor's expression was curious. "Murder!" he repeated. "Why--who--" But Hunter had many things to attend to; he broke in ruthlessly on the doctor's amazement. "See if you can get the house empty, Doctor; just tell them he is dead--the story will get out soon enough." As the doctor left the room Hunter went to the open window, through which a fresh burst of rain was coming, and closed it. The window gave me an idea, and I went over and tried to see through the streaming pane. There was no shed or low building outside, but not five yards away the warehouse showed its ugly walls and broken windows. "Look here, Hunter," I said, "why could he not have been shot from the warehouse?" "He could have been--but he wasn't," Hunter affirmed, glancing at Wardrop's drooping figure. "Mr. Wardrop, I am going to send for the coroner, and then I shall ask you to go with me to the office and tell the chief what you know about this. Knox, will you telephone to the coroner?" In an incredibly short time the club-house was emptied, and before midnight the coroner himself arrived and went up to the room. As for me, I had breakfasted, lunched and dined on horrors, and I sat in the deserted room down-stairs and tried to think how I was to take the news to Margery. At twelve-thirty Wardrop, Hunter and the coroner came down-stairs, leaving a detective in charge of the body until morning, when it could be taken home. The coroner had a cab waiting, and he took us at once to Hunter's chief. He had not gone to bed, and we filed into his library sepulchrally. Wardrop told his story, but it was hardly convincing. The chief, a large man who said very little, and leaned back with his eyes partly shut, listened in silence, only occasionally asking a question. The coroner, who was yawning steadily, left in the middle of Wardrop's story, as if in his mind, at least, the guilty man was as good as hanged. "I am--I was--Mr. Allan Fleming's private secretary," Wardrop began. "I secured the position through a relationship on his wife's side. I have held the position for three years. Before that I read law. For some time I have known that Mr. Fleming used a drug of some kind. Until a week ago I did not know what it was. On the ninth of May, Mr. Fleming sent for me. I was in Plattsburg at the time, and he was at home. He was in a terrible condition--not sleeping at all, and he said he was being followed by some person who meant to kill him. Finally he asked me to get him some cocaine, and when he had taken it he was more like himself. I thought the pursuit was only in his own head. He had a man named Carter on guard in his house, and acting as butler. "There was trouble of some sort in the organization; I do not know just what. Mr. Schwartz came here to meet Mr. Fleming, and it seemed there was money needed. Mr. Fleming had to have it at once. He gave me some securities to take to Plattsburg and turn into money. I went on the tenth--" "Was that the day Mr. Fleming disappeared?" the chief interrupted. "Yes. He went to the White Cat, and stayed there. No one but the caretaker and one other man knew he was there. On the night of the twenty-first, I came back, having turned my securities into money. I carried it in a package in a small Russia leather bag that never left my hand for a moment. Mr. Knox here suggested that I had put it down, and it had been exchanged for one just like it, but I did not let it out of my hand on that journey until I put it down on the porch at the Bellwood house, while I tried to get in. I live at Bellwood, with the Misses Maitland, sisters of Mr. Fleming's deceased wife. I don't pretend to know how it happened, but while I was trying to get into the house it was rifled. Mr. Knox will bear me out in that. I found my grip empty." I affirmed it in a word. The chief was growing interested. "What was in the bag?" he asked. Wardrop tried to remember. "A pair of pajamas," he said, "two military brushes and a clothes-brush, two or three soft-bosomed shirts, perhaps a half-dozen collars, and a suit of underwear." "And all this was taken, as well as the money?" "The bag was left empty, except for my railroad schedule." The chief and Hunter exchanged significant glances. Then-- "Go on, if you please," the detective said cheerfully. I think Wardrop realized the absurdity of trying to make any one believe that part of the story. He shut his lips and threw up his head as if he intended to say nothing further. "Go on," I urged. If he could clear himself he must. I could not go back to Margery Fleming and tell her that her father had been murdered and her lover was accused of the crime. "The bag was empty," he repeated. "I had not been five minutes trying to open the shutters, and yet the bag had been rifled. Mr. Knox here found it among the flowers below the veranda, empty." The chief eyed me with awakened interest. "You also live at Bellwood, Mr. Knox?" "No, I am attorney to Miss Letitia Maitland, and was there one night as her guest. I found the bag as Mr. Wardrop described, empty." The chief turned back to Wardrop. "How much money was there in it when you--left it?" "A hundred thousand dollars. I was afraid to tell Mr. Fleming, but I had to do it. We had a stormy scene, this morning. I think he thought the natural thing--that I had taken it." "He struck you, I believe, and knocked you down?" asked Hunter smoothly. Wardrop flushed. "He was not himself; and, well, it meant a great deal to him. And he was out of cocaine; I left him raging, and when I went home I learned that Miss Jane Maitland had disappeared, been abducted, at the time my satchel had been emptied! It's no wonder I question my sanity." "And then--to-night?" the chief persisted. "To-night, I felt that some one would have to look after Mr. Fleming; I was afraid he would kill himself. It was a bad time to leave while Miss Jane was missing. But--when I got to the White Cat I found him dead. He was sitting with his back to the door, and his head on the table." "Was the revolver in his hand?" "Yes." "You are sure?" from Hunter. "Isn't it a fact, Mr. Wardrop, that you took Mr. Fleming's revolver from him this morning when he threatened you with it?" Wardrop's face twitched nervously. "You have been misinformed," he replied, but no one was impressed by his tone. It was wavering, uncertain. From Hunter's face I judged it had been a random shot, and had landed unexpectedly well. "How many people knew that Mr. Fleming had been hiding at the White Cat?" from the chief. "Very few--besides myself, only a man who looks after the club-house in the mornings, and Clarkson, the cashier of the Borough Bank, who met him there once by appointment." The chief made no comment. "Now, Mr. Knox, what about you?" "I opened the door into Mr. Fleming's room, perhaps a couple of minutes after Mr. Wardrop went out," I said. "He was dead then, leaning on his outspread arms over the table; he had been shot in the forehead." "You heard no shot while you were in the hall?" "There was considerable noise; I heard two or three sharp reports like the explosions of an automobile engine." "Did they seem close at hand?" "Not particularly; I thought, if I thought at all, that they were on the street." "You are right about the automobile," Hunter said dryly. "The mayor sent his car away as I left to follow Mr. Wardrop. The sounds you heard were not shots." "It is a strange thing," the chief reflected, "that a revolver could be fired in the upper room of an ordinary dwelling house, while that house was filled with people--and nobody hear it. Were there any powder marks on the body?" "None," Hunter said. The chief got up stiffly. "Thank you very much, gentlemen," he spoke quietly. "I think that is all. Hunter, I would like to see you for a few minutes." I think Wardrop was dazed at finding himself free; he had expected nothing less than an immediate charge of murder. As we walked to the corner for a car or cab, whichever materialized first, he looked back. "I thought so," he said bitterly. A man was loitering after us along the street. The police were not asleep, they had only closed one eye. The last train had gone. We took a night electric car to Wynton, and walked the three miles to Bellwood. Neither of us was talkative, and I imagine we were both thinking of Margery, and the news she would have to hear. It had been raining, and the roads were vile. Once Wardrop turned around to where we could hear the detective splashing along, well behind. "I hope he's enjoying it," he said. "I brought you by this road, so he'd have to wade in mud up to his neck." "The devil you did!" I exclaimed. "I'll have to be scraped with a knife before I can get my clothes off." We both felt better for the laugh; it was a sort of nervous reaction. The detective was well behind, but after a while Wardrop stood still, while I plowed along. They came up together presently, and the three of us trudged on, talking of immaterial things. At the door Wardrop turned to the detective with a faint smile. "It's raining again," he said, "you'd better come in. You needn't worry about me; I'm not going to run away, and there's a couch in the library." The detective grinned, and in the light from the hall I recognized the man I had followed to the police station two nights before. "I guess I will," he said, looking apologetically at his muddy clothes. "This thing is only a matter of form, anyhow." But he didn't lie down on the couch. He took a chair in the hall near the foot of the stairs, and we left him there, with the evening paper and a lamp. It was a queer situation, to say the least. CHAPTER X BREAKING THE NEWS Wardrop looked so wretched that I asked him into my room, and mixed him some whisky and water. When I had given him a cigar he began to look a little less hopeless. "You've been a darned sight better to me than I would have been to you, under the circumstances," he said gratefully. "I thought we would better arrange about Miss Margery before we try to settle down," I replied. "What she has gone through in the last twenty-four hours is nothing to what is coming to-morrow. Will you tell her about her father?" He took a turn about the room. "I believe it would come better from you," he said finally. "I am in the peculiar position of having been suspected by her father of robbing him, by you of carrying away her aunt, and now by the police and everybody else of murdering her father." "I do not suspect you of anything," I justified myself. "I don't think you are entirely open, that is all, Wardrop. I think you are damaging yourself to shield some one else." His expressive face was on its guard in a moment. He ceased his restless pacing, pausing impressively before me. "I give you my word as a gentleman--I do not know who killed Mr. Fleming, and that when I first saw him dead, my only thought was that he had killed himself. He had threatened to, that day. Why, if you think I killed him, you would have to think I robbed him, too, in order to find a motive." I did not tell him that that was precisely what Hunter _did_ think. I evaded the issue. "Mr. Wardrop, did you ever hear of the figures eleven twenty-two?" I inquired. "Eleven twenty-two?" he repeated. "No, never in any unusual connection." "You never heard Mr. Fleming use them?" I persisted. He looked puzzled. "Probably," he said. "In the very nature of Mr. Fleming's position, we used figures all the time. Eleven twenty-two. That's the time the theater train leaves the city for Bellwood. Not what you want, eh?" "Not quite," I answered non-committally and began to wind my watch. He took the hint and prepared to leave. "I'll not keep you up any longer," he said, picking up his raincoat. He opened the door and stared ruefully down at the detective in the hall below. "The old place is queer without Miss Jane," he said irrelevantly. "Well, good night, and thanks." He went heavily along the hall and I closed my door, I heard him pass Margery's room and then go back and rap lightly. She was evidently awake. "It's Harry," he called. "I thought you wouldn't worry if you knew I was in the house to-night." She asked him something, for-- "Yes, he is here," he said. He stood there for a moment, hesitating over something, but whatever it was, he decided against it. "Good night, dear," he said gently and went away. The little familiarity made me wince. Every unattached man has the same pang now and then. I have it sometimes when Edith sits on the arm of Fred's chair, or one of the youngsters leaves me to run to "daddy." And one of the sanest men I ever met went to his office and proposed to his stenographer in sheer craving for domesticity, after watching the wife of one of his friends run her hand over her husband's chin and give him a reproving slap for not having shaved! I pulled myself up sharply and after taking off my dripping coat, I went to the window and looked out into the May night. It seemed incredible that almost the same hour the previous night little Miss Jane had disappeared, had been taken bodily away through the peace of the warm spring darkness, and that I, as wide-awake as I was at that moment, acute enough of hearing to detect Wardrop's careful steps on the gravel walk below, had heard no struggle, had permitted this thing to happen without raising a finger in the old lady's defense. And she was gone as completely as if she had stepped over some psychic barrier into the fourth dimension! I found myself avoiding the more recent occurrence at the White Cat. I was still too close to it to have gained any perspective. On that subject I was able to think clearly of only one thing: that I would have to tell Margery in the morning, and that I would have given anything I possessed for a little of Edith's diplomacy with which to break the bad news. It was Edith who broke the news to me that the moths had got into my evening clothes while I was hunting in the Rockies, by telling me that my dress-coat made me look narrow across the shoulders and persuading me to buy a new one and give the old one to Fred. Then she broke the news of the moths to Fred! I was ready for bed when Wardrop came back and rapped at my door. He was still dressed, and he had the leather bag in his hand. "Look here," he said excitedly, when I had closed the door, "this is not my bag at all. Fool that I was. I never examined it carefully." He held it out to me, and I carried it to the light. It was an ordinary eighteen-inch Russia leather traveling-bag, tan in color, and with gold-plated mountings. It was empty, save for the railroad schedule that still rested in one side pocket. Wardrop pointed to the empty pocket on the other side. "In my bag," he explained rapidly, "my name was written inside that pocket, in ink. I did it myself--my name and address." I looked inside the pockets on both sides: nothing had been written in. "Don't you see?" he asked excitedly. "Whoever stole my bag had this one to substitute for it. If we can succeed in tracing the bag here to the shop it came from, and from there to the purchaser, we have the thief." "There's no maker's name in it," I said, after a casual examination. Wardrop's face fell, and he took the bag from me despondently. "No matter which way I turn," he said, "I run into a blind alley. If I were worth a damn, I suppose I could find a way out. But I'm not. Well, I'll let you sleep this time." At the door, however, he turned around and put the bag on the floor, just inside. "If you don't mind, I'll leave it here," he said. "They'll be searching my room, I suppose, and I'd like to have the bag for future reference." He went for good that time, and I put out the light. As an afterthought I opened my door perhaps six inches, and secured it with one of the pink conch-shells which flanked either end of the stone hearth. I had failed the night before: I meant to be on hand that night. I went to sleep immediately, I believe. I have no idea how much later it was that I roused. I wakened suddenly and sat up in bed. There had been a crash of some kind, for the shock was still vibrating along my nerves. Dawn was close; the window showed gray against the darkness inside, and I could make out dimly the larger objects in the room. I listened intently, but the house seemed quiet. Still I was not satisfied. I got up and, lighting the candle, got into my raincoat in lieu of a dressing-gown, and prepared to investigate. With the fatality that seemed to pursue my feet in that house, with my first step I trod squarely on top of the conch-shell, and I fell back on to the edge of the bed swearing softly and holding the injured member. Only when the pain began to subside did I realize that I had left the shell on the door-sill, and that it had moved at least eight feet while I slept! When I could walk I put it on the mantel, its mate from the other end of the hearth beside it. Then I took my candle and went out into the hall. My door, which I had left open, I found closed; nothing else was disturbed. The leather bag sat just inside, as Wardrop had left it. Through Miss Maitland's transom were coming certain strangled and irregular sounds, now falsetto, now deep bass, that showed that worthy lady to be asleep. A glance down the staircase revealed Davidson, stretching in his chair and looking up at me. "I'm frozen," he called up cautiously. "Throw me down a blanket or two, will you?" I got a couple of blankets from my bed and took them down. He was examining his chair ruefully. "There isn't any grip to this horsehair stuff," he complained. "Every time I doze off I dream I'm coasting down the old hill back on the farm, and when I wake up I'm sitting on the floor, with the end of my back bone bent like a hook." He wrapped himself in the blankets and sat down again, taking the precaution this time to put his legs on another chair and thus anchor himself. Then he produced a couple of apples and a penknife and proceeded to pare and offer me one. "Found 'em in the pantry," he said, biting into one. "I belong to the apple society. Eat one apple every day and keep healthy!" He stopped and stared intently at the apple. "I reckon I got a worm that time," he said, with less ardor. "I'll get something to wash him down," I offered, rising, but he waved me back to my stair. "Not on your life," he said with dignity. "Let him walk. How are things going up-stairs?" "You didn't happen to be up there a little while ago, did you?" I questioned in turn. "No. I've been kept busy trying to sit tight where I am. Why?" "Some one came into my room and wakened me," I explained. "I heard a racket and when I got up I found a shell that I had put on the door-sill to keep the door open, in the middle of the room. I stepped on it." He examined a piece of apple before putting it in his mouth. Then he turned a pair of shrewd eyes on me. "That's funny," he said. "Anything in the room disturbed?" "Nothing." "Where's the shell now?" "On the mantel. I didn't want to step on it again." He thought for a minute, but his next remark was wholly facetious. "No. I guess you won't step on it up there. Like the old woman: she says, 'Motorman, if I put my foot on the rail will I be electrocuted?' And he says, 'No, madam, not unless you put your other foot on the trolley wire.'" I got up impatiently. There was no humor in the situation that night for me. "Some one had been in the room," I reiterated. "The door was closed, although I had left it open." He finished his apple and proceeded with great gravity to drop the parings down the immaculate register in the floor beside his chair. Then-- "I've only got one business here, Mr. Knox," he said in an undertone, "and you know what that is. But if it will relieve your mind of the thought that there was anything supernatural about your visitor, I'll tell you that it was Mr. Wardrop, and that to the best of my belief he was in your room, not once, but twice, in the last hour and a half. As far as that shell goes, it was I that kicked it, having gone up without my shoes." I stared at him blankly. "What could he have wanted?" I exclaimed. But with his revelation, Davidson's interest ceased; he drew the blanket up around his shoulders and shivered. "Search me," he said and yawned. I went back to bed, but not to sleep. I deliberately left the door wide open, but no intrusion occurred. Once I got up and glanced down the stairs. For all his apparent drowsiness, Davidson heard my cautious movements, and saluted me in a husky whisper. "Have you got any quinine?" he said. "I'm sneezing my head off." But I had none. I gave him a box of cigarettes, and after partially dressing, I threw myself across the bed to wait for daylight. I was roused by the sun beating on my face, to hear Miss Letitia's tones from her room across. "Nonsense," she was saying querulously. "Don't you suppose I can smell? Do you think because I'm a little hard of hearing that I've lost my other senses? Somebody's been smoking." "It's me," Heppie shouted. "I--" "You?" Miss Letitia snarled. "What are you smoking for? That ain't my shirt; it's my--" "I ain't smokin'," yelled Heppie. "You won't let me tell you. I spilled vinegar on the stove; that's what you smell." Miss Letitia's sardonic chuckle came through the door. "Vinegar," she said with scorn. "Next thing you'll be telling me it's vinegar that Harry and Mr. Knox carry around in little boxes in their pockets. You've pinned my cap to my scalp." I hurried down-stairs to find Davidson gone. My blanket lay neatly folded, on the lower step, and the horsehair chairs were ranged along the wall as before. I looked around anxiously for telltale ashes, but there was none, save, at the edge of the spotless register, a trace. Evidently they had followed the apple parings. It grew cold a day or so later, and Miss Letitia had the furnace fired, and although it does not belong to my story, she and Heppie searched the house over to account for the odor of baking apples--a mystery that was never explained. Wardrop did not appear at breakfast. Margery came down-stairs as Bella was bringing me my coffee, and dropped languidly into her chair. She looked tired and white. "Another day!" she said wearily. "Did you ever live through such an eternity as the last thirty-six hours?" I responded absently; the duty I had assumed hung heavy over me. I had a frantic impulse to shirk the whole thing: to go to Wardrop and tell him it was his responsibility, not mine, to make this sad-eyed girl sadder still. That as I had not his privilege of comforting her, neither should I shoulder his responsibility of telling her. But the issue was forced on me sooner than I had expected, for at that moment I saw the glaring head-lines of the morning paper, laid open at Wardrop's plate. She must have followed my eyes, for we reached for it simultaneously. She was nearer than I, and her quick eye caught the name. Then I put my hand over the heading and she flushed with indignation. "You are not to read it now," I said, meeting her astonished gaze as best I could. "Please let me have it. I promise you I will give it to you--almost immediately." "You are very rude," she said without relinquishing the paper. "I saw a part of that; it is about my father!" "Drink your coffee, please," I pleaded. "I will let you read it then. On my honor." She looked at me; then she withdrew her hand and sat erect. "How can you be so childish!" she exclaimed. "If there is anything in that paper that it--will hurt me to learn, is a cup of coffee going to make it any easier?" I gave up then. I had always thought that people heard bad news better when they had been fortified with something to eat, and I had a very distinct recollection that Fred had made Edith drink something--tea probably--before he told her that Billy had fallen off the back fence and would have to have a stitch taken in his lip. Perhaps I should have offered Margery tea instead of coffee. But as it was, she sat, stonily erect, staring at the paper, and feeling that evasion would be useless, I told her what had happened, breaking the news as gently as I could. I stood by her helplessly through the tearless agony that followed, and cursed myself for a blundering ass. I had said that he had been accidentally shot, and I said it with the paper behind me, but she put the evasion aside bitterly. "Accidentally!" she repeated. The first storm of grief over, she lifted her head from where it had rested on her arms and looked at me, scorning my subterfuge. "He was murdered. That's the word I didn't have time to read! Murdered! And you sat back and let it happen. I went to you in time and you didn't do anything. No one did anything!" I did not try to defend myself. How could I? And afterward when she sat up and pushed back the damp strands of hair from her eyes, she was more reasonable. "I did not mean what I said about your not having done anything," she said, almost childishly. "No one could have done more. It was to happen, that's all." But even then I knew she had trouble in store that she did not suspect. What would she do when she heard that Wardrop was under grave suspicion? Between her dead father and her lover, what? It was to be days before I knew and in all that time, I, who would have died, not cheerfully but at least stoically, for her, had to stand back and watch the struggle, not daring to hold out my hand to help, lest by the very gesture she divine my wild longing to hold her for myself. She recovered bravely that morning from the shock, and refusing to go to her room and lie down--a suggestion, like the coffee, culled from my vicarious domestic life--she went out to the veranda and sat there in the morning sun, gazing across the lawn. I left her there finally, and broke the news of her brother-in-law's death to Miss Letitia. After the first surprise, the old lady took the news with what was nearer complacency than resignation. "Shot!" she said, sitting up in bed, while Heppie shook her pillows. "It's a queer death for Allan Fleming; I always said he would be hanged." After that, she apparently dismissed him from her mind, and we talked of her sister. Her mood had changed and it was depressing to find that she spoke of Jane always in the past tense. She could speak of her quite calmly--I suppose the sharpness of our emotions is in inverse ratio to our length of years, and she regretted that, under the circumstances, Jane would not rest in the family lot. "We are all there," she said, "eleven of us, counting my sister Mary's husband, although he don't properly belong, and I always said we would take him out if we were crowded. It is the best lot in the Hopedale Cemetery; you can see the shaft for two miles in any direction." We held a family council that morning around Miss Letitia's bed: Wardrop, who took little part in the proceedings, and who stood at a window looking out most of the time, Margery on the bed, her arm around Miss Letitia's shriveled neck, and Heppie, who acted as interpreter and shouted into the old lady's ear such parts of the conversation as she considered essential. "I have talked with Miss Fleming," I said, as clearly as I could, "and she seems to shrink from seeing people. The only friends she cares about are in Europe, and she tells me there are no other relatives." Heppie condensed this into a vocal capsule, and thrust it into Miss Letitia's ear. The old lady nodded. "No other relatives," she corroborated. "God be praised for that, anyhow." "And yet," I went on, "there are things to look after, certain necessary duties that no one else can attend to. I don't want to insist, but she ought, if she is able, to go to the city house, for a few hours, at least." "City house!" Heppie yelled in her ear. "It ought to be cleaned," Miss Letitia acquiesced, "and fresh curtains put up. Jane would have been in her element; she was always handy at a funeral. And don't let them get one of those let-down-at-the-side coffins. They're leaky." Luckily Margery did not notice this. "I was going to suggest," I put in hurriedly, "that my brother's wife would be only too glad to help, and if Miss Fleming will go into town with me, I am sure Edith would know just what to do. She isn't curious and she's very capable." Margery threw me a grateful glance, grateful, I think, that I could understand how, under the circumstances, a stranger was more acceptable than curious friends could be. "Mr. Knox's sister-in-law!" interpreted Heppie. "When you have to say the letter 's,' turn your head away," Miss Letitia rebuked her. "Well, I don't object, if Knox's sister-in-law don't." She had an uncanny way of expanding Heppie's tabloid speeches. "You can take my white silk shawl to lay over the body, but be sure to bring it back. We may need it for Jane." If the old lady's chin quivered a bit, while Margery threw her arms around her, she was mightily ashamed of it. But Heppie was made of weaker stuff. She broke into a sudden storm of sobs and left the room, to stick her head in the door a moment after. "Kidneys or chops?" she shouted almost belligerently. "Kidneys," Miss Letitia replied in kind. Wardrop went with us to the station at noon, but he left us there, with a brief remark that he would be up that night. After I had put Margery in a seat, I went back to have a word with him alone. He was standing beside the train, trying to light a cigarette, but his hands shook almost beyond control, and after the fourth match he gave it up. My minute for speech was gone. As the train moved out I saw him walking back along the platform, paying no attention to anything around him. Also, I had a fleeting glimpse of a man loafing on a baggage truck, his hat over his eyes. He was paring an apple with a penknife, and dropping the peelings with careful accuracy through a crack in the floor of the platform. I had arranged over the telephone that Edith should meet the train, and it was a relief to see that she and Margery took to each other at once. We drove to the house immediately, and after a few tears when she saw the familiar things around her, Margery rose to the situation bravely. Miss Letitia had sent Bella to put the house in order, and it was evident that the idea of clean curtains for the funeral had been drilled into her until it had become an obsession. Not until Edith had concealed the step-ladder were the hangings safe, and late in the afternoon we heard a crash from the library, and found Bella twisted on the floor, the result of putting a teakwood tabouret on a table and from thence attacking the lace curtains of the library windows. Edith gave her a good scolding and sent her off to soak her sprained ankle. Then she righted the tabouret, sat down on it and began on me. "Do you know that you have not been to the office for two days?" she said severely. "And do you know that Hawes had hysterics in our front hall last night? You had a case in court yesterday, didn't you?" "Nothing very much," I said, looking over her head. "Anyhow, I'm tired. I don't know when I'm going back. I need a vacation." She reached behind her and pulling the cord, sent the window shade to the top of the window. At the sight of my face thus revealed, she drew a long sigh. "The biggest case you ever had, Jack! The biggest retainer you ever had--" "I've spent that," I protested feebly. "A vacation, and you only back from Pinehurst!" "The girl was in trouble--_is_ in trouble, Edith," I burst out. "Any one would have done the same thing. Even Fred would hardly have deserted that household. It's stricken, positively stricken." My remark about Fred did not draw her from cover. "Of course it's your own affair," she said, not looking at me, "and goodness knows I'm disinterested about it, you ruin the boys, both stomachs and dispositions, and I could use your room _splendidly_ as a sewing-room--" "Edith! You abominable little liar!" She dabbed at her eyes furiously with her handkerchief, and walked with great dignity to the door. Then she came back and put her hand on my arm. "Oh, Jack, if we could only have saved you this!" she said, and a minute later, when I did not speak: "Who is the man, dear?" "A distant relative, Harry Wardrop," I replied, with what I think was very nearly my natural tone. "Don't worry, Edith. It's all right. I've known it right along." "Pooh!" Edith returned sagely. "So do I know I've got to die and be buried some day. Its being inevitable doesn't make it any more cheerful." She went out, but she came back in a moment and stuck her head through the door. "_That's_ the only inevitable thing there is," she said, taking up the conversation--an old habit of hers--where she had left off. "I don't know what you are talking about," I retorted, turning my back on her. "And anyhow, I regard your suggestion as immoral." But when I turned again, she had gone. That Saturday afternoon at four o'clock the body of Allan Fleming was brought home, and placed in state in the music-room of the house. Miss Jane had been missing since Thursday night. I called Hunter by telephone, and he had nothing to report. CHAPTER XI A NIGHT IN THE FLEMING HOME I had a tearful message from Hawes late that afternoon, and a little after five I went to the office. I found him offering late editions of the evening paper to a couple of clients, who were edging toward the door. His expression when he saw me was pure relief, the clients', relief strongly mixed with irritation. I put the best face on the matter that I could, saw my visitors, and left alone, prepared to explain to Hawes what I could hardly explain to myself. "I've been unavoidably detained, Hawes," I said, "Miss Jane Maitland has disappeared from her home." "So I understood you over the telephone." He had brought my mail and stood by impassive. "Also, her brother-in-law is dead." "The papers are full of it." "There was no one to do anything, Hawes. I was obliged to stay," I apologized. I was ostentatiously examining my letters and Hawes said nothing. I looked up at him sideways, and he looked down at me. Not a muscle of his face quivered, save one eye, which has a peculiar twitching of the lid when he is excited. It gave him a sardonic appearance of winking. He winked at me then. "Don't wait, Hawes," I said guiltily, and he took his hat and went out. Every line of his back was accusation. The sag of his shoulders told me I had let my biggest case go by default that day; the forward tilt of his head, that I was probably insane; the very grip with which he seized the door-knob, his "good night" from around the door, that he knew there was a woman at the bottom of it all. As he closed the door behind him I put down my letters and dropped my face in my hands. Hawes was right. No amount of professional zeal could account for the interest I had taken. Partly through force of circumstances, partly of my own volition, I had placed myself in the position of first friend to a family with which I had had only professional relations; I had even enlisted Edith, when my acquaintance with Margery Fleming was only three days old! And at the thought of the girl, of Wardrop's inefficiency and my own hopelessness, I groaned aloud. I had not heard the door open. "I forgot to tell you that a gentleman was here half a dozen times to-day to see you. He didn't give any name." I dropped my hands. From around the door Hawes' nervous eye was winking wildly. "You're not sick, Mr. Knox?" "Never felt better." "I thought I heard--" "I was singing," I lied, looking him straight in the eye. He backed nervously to the door. "I have a little sherry in my office, Mr. Knox--twenty-six years in the wood. If you--" "For God's sake, Hawes, there's nothing the matter with me!" I exclaimed, and he went. But I heard him stand a perceptible time outside the door before he tiptoed away. Almost immediately after, some one entered the waiting-room, and the next moment I was facing, in the doorway, a man I had never seen before. He was a tall man, with thin, colorless beard trimmed to a Vandyke point, and pale eyes blinking behind glasses. He had a soft hat crushed in his hand, and his whole manner was one of subdued excitement. "Mr. Knox?" he asked, from the doorway. "Yes. Come in." "I have been here six times since noon," he said, dropping rather than sitting in a chair. "My name is Lightfoot. I am--was--Mr. Fleming's cashier." "Yes?" "I was terribly shocked at the news of his death," he stumbled on, getting no help from me. "I was in town and if I had known in time I could have kept some of the details out of the papers. Poor Fleming--to think he would end it that way." "End it?" "Shoot himself." He watched me closely. "But he didn't," I protested. "It was not suicide, Mr. Lightfoot. According to the police, it was murder." His cold eyes narrowed like a cat's. "Murder is an ugly word, Mr. Knox. Don't let us be sensational. Mr. Fleming had threatened to kill himself more than once; ask young Wardrop. He was sick and despondent; he left his home without a word, which points strongly to emotional insanity. He could have gone to any one of a half dozen large clubs here, or at the capital. Instead, he goes to a little third-rate political club, where, presumably, he does his own cooking and hides in a dingy room. Is that sane? Murder! It was suicide, and that puppy Wardrop knows it well enough. I--I wish I had him by the throat!" He had worked himself into quite a respectable rage, but now he calmed himself. "I have seen the police," he went on. "They agree with me that it was suicide, and the party newspapers will straighten it out to-morrow. It is only unfortunate that the murder theory was given so much publicity. The _Times-Post_, which is Democratic, of course, I can not handle." I sat stupefied. "Suicide!" I said finally. "With no weapon, no powder marks, and with a half-finished letter at his elbow." He brushed my interruption aside. "Mr. Fleming had been--careless," he said. "I can tell you in confidence, that some of the state funds had been deposited in the Borough Bank of Manchester, and--the Borough Bank closed its doors at ten o'clock to-day." I was hardly surprised at that, but the whole trend of events was amazing. "I arrived here last night," he said, "and I searched the city for Mr. Fleming. This morning I heard the news. I have just come from the house: his daughter referred me to you. After all, what I want is a small matter. Some papers--state documents--are missing, and no doubt are among Mr. Fleming's private effects. I would like to go through his papers, and leave to-night for the capital." "I have hardly the authority," I replied doubtfully. "Miss Fleming, I suppose, would have no objection. His private secretary, Wardrop, would be the one to superintend such a search." "Can you find Wardrop--at once?" Something in his eagerness put me on my guard. "I will make an attempt," I said. "Let me have the name of your hotel, and I will telephone you if it can be arranged for to-night." He had to be satisfied with that, but his eagerness seemed to me to be almost desperation. Oddly enough, I could not locate Wardrop after all. I got the Maitland house by telephone, to learn that he had left there about three o'clock, and had not come back. I went to the Fleming house for dinner. Edith was still there, and we both tried to cheer Margery, a sad little figure in her black clothes. After the meal, I called Lightfoot at his hotel, and told him that I could not find Wardrop; that there were no papers at the house, and that the office safe would have to wait until Wardrop was found to open it. He was disappointed and furious; like a good many men who are physical cowards, he said a great deal over the telephone that he would not have dared to say to my face, and I cut him off by hanging up the receiver. From that minute, in the struggle that was coming, like Fred, I was "forninst" the government. It was arranged that Edith should take Margery home with her for the night. I thought it a good idea; the very sight of Edith tucking in her babies and sitting down beside the library lamp to embroider me a scarfpin-holder for Christmas would bring Margery back to normal again. Except in the matter of Christmas gifts, Edith is the sanest woman I know; I recognized it at the dinner table, where she had the little girl across from her planning her mourning hats before the dinner was half finished. When we rose at last, Margery looked toward the music-room, where the dead man lay in state. But Edith took her by the arm and pushed her toward the stairs. "Get your hat on right away, while Jack calls a cab," she directed. "I must get home, or Fred will keep the boys up until nine o'clock. He is absolutely without principle." When Margery came down there was a little red spot burning in each pale cheek, and she ran down the stairs like a scared child. At the bottom she clutched the newel-post and looked behind fearfully. "What's the matter?" Edith demanded, glancing uneasily over her shoulder. "Some one has been up-stairs," Margery panted. "Somebody has been staying in the house while we were away." "Nonsense," I said, seeing that her fright was infecting Edith. "What makes you think that?" "Come and look," she said, gaining courage, I suppose, from a masculine presence. And so we went up the long stairs, the two girls clutching hands, and I leading the way and inclined to scoff. At the door of a small room next to what had been Allan Fleming's bedroom, we paused and I turned on the light. "Before we left," Margery said more quietly, "I closed this room myself. It had just been done over, and the pale blue soils so easily. I came in the last thing, and saw covers put over everything. Now look at it!" It was a sort of boudoir, filled with feminine knickknacks and mahogany lounging chairs. Wherever possible, a pale brocade had been used, on the empire couch, in panels in the wall, covering cushions on the window-seat. It was evidently Margery's private sitting-room. The linen cover that had been thrown over the divan was folded back, and a pillow from the window-seat bore the imprint of a head. The table was still covered, knobby protuberances indicating the pictures and books beneath. On one corner of the table, where the cover had been pushed aside, was a cup, empty and clean-washed, and as if to prove her contention, Margery picked up from the floor a newspaper, dated Friday morning, the twenty-second. A used towel in the bath-room near-by completed the inventory; Margery had been right; some one had used the room while the house was closed. "Might it not have been your--father?" Edith asked, when we stood again at the foot of the stairs. "He could have come here to look for something, and lain down to rest." "I don't think so," Margery said wanly. "I left the door so he could get in with his key, but--he always used his study couch. I don't think he ever spent five minutes in my sitting-room in his life." We had to let it go at that finally. I put them in a cab, and saw them start away: then I went back into the house. I had arranged to sleep there and generally to look after things--as I said before. Whatever scruples I had had about taking charge of Margery Fleming and her affairs, had faded with Wardrop's defection and the new mystery of the blue boudoir. The lower floor of the house was full of people that night, local and state politicians, newspaper men and the usual crowd of the morbidly curious. The undertaker took everything in hand, and late that evening I could hear them carrying in tropical plants and stands for the flowers that were already arriving. Whatever panoply the death scene had lacked, Allan Fleming was lying in state now. At midnight things grew quiet. I sat in the library, reading, until then, when an undertaker's assistant in a pink shirt and polka-dot cravat came to tell me that everything was done. "Is it customary for somebody to stay up, on occasions like this?" I asked. "Isn't there an impression that wandering cats may get into the room, or something of that sort?" "I don't think it will be necessary, sir," he said, trying to conceal a smile. "It's all a matter of taste. Some people like to take their troubles hard. Since they don't put money on their eyes any more, nobody wants to rob the dead." He left with that cheerful remark, and I closed and locked the house after him. I found Bella in the basement kitchen with all the lights burning full, and I stood at the foot of the stairs while she scooted to bed like a scared rabbit. She was a strange creature, Bella--not so stupid as she looked, but sullen, morose--"smouldering" about expresses it. I closed the doors into the dining-room and, leaving one light in the hall, went up to bed. A guest room in the third story had been assigned me, and I was tired enough to have slept on the floor. The telephone bell rang just after I got into bed, and grumbling at my luck, I went down to the lower floor. It was the _Times-Post_, and the man at the telephone was in a hurry. "This is the _Times-Post_. Is Mr. Wardrop there?" "No." "Who is this?" "This is John Knox." "The attorney?" "Yes." "Mr. Knox, are you willing to put yourself on record that Mr. Fleming committed suicide?" "I am not going to put myself on record at all." "To-night's _Star_ says you call it suicide, and that you found him with the revolver in his hand." "The _Star_ lies!" I retorted, and the man at the other end chuckled. "Many thanks," he said, and rang off. I went back to bed, irritated that I had betrayed myself. Loss of sleep for two nights, however, had told on me: in a short time I was sound asleep. I wakened with difficulty. My head felt stupid and heavy, and I was burning with thirst. I sat up and wondered vaguely if I were going to be ill, and I remember that I felt too weary to get a drink. As I roused, however, I found that part of my discomfort came from bad ventilation, and I opened a window and looked out. The window was a side one, opening on to a space perhaps eight feet wide, which separated it from its neighbor. Across from me was only a blank red wall, but the night air greeted me refreshingly. The wind was blowing hard, and a shutter was banging somewhere below. I leaned out and looked down into the well-like space beneath me. It was one of those apparently chance movements that have vital consequences, and that have always made me believe in the old Calvinistic creed of foreordination. Below me, on the wall across, was a rectangle of yellow light, reflected from the library window of the Fleming home. There was some one in the house. As I still stared, the light was slowly blotted out--not as if the light had been switched off, but by a gradual decreasing in size of the lighted area. The library shade had been drawn. My first thought was burglars; my second--Lightfoot. No matter who it was, there was no one who had business there. Luckily, I had brought my revolver with me from Fred's that day, and it was under my pillow; to get it, put out the light and open the door quietly, took only a minute. I was in pajamas, barefoot, as on another almost similar occasion, but I was better armed than before. I got to the second floor without hearing or seeing anything suspicious, but from there I could see that the light in the hall had been extinguished. The unfamiliarity of the house, the knowledge of the silent figure in the drawing-room at the foot of the stairs, and of whatever might be waiting in the library beyond, made my position uncomfortable, to say the least. I don't believe in the man who is never afraid: he doesn't deserve the credit he gets. It's the fellow who is scared to death, whose knees knock together, and who totters rather than walks into danger, who is the real hero. Not that I was as bad as that, but I would have liked to know where the electric switch was, and to have seen the trap before I put my head in. The stairs were solidly built, and did not creak. I felt my way down by the baluster, which required my right hand, and threw my revolver to my left. I got safely to the bottom, and around the newel-post: there was still a light in the library, and the door was not entirely closed. Then, with my usual bad luck, I ran into a heap of folding chairs that had been left by the undertaker, and if the crash paralyzed me, I don't know what it did to the intruder in the library. The light was out in an instant, and with concealment at an end, I broke for the door and threw it open, standing there with my revolver leveled. We--the man in the room, and I--were both in absolute darkness. He had the advantage of me. He knew my location, and I could not guess his. "Who is here?" I demanded. Only silence, except that I seemed to hear rapid breathing. "Speak up, or I'll shoot!" I said, not without an ugly feeling that he might be--even probably was--taking careful aim by my voice. The darkness was intolerable: I reached cautiously to the left and found, just beyond the door frame, the electric switch. As I turned it the light flashed up. The room was empty, but a portiÃ¨re in a doorway at my right was still shaking. I leaped for the curtain and dragged it aside, to have a door just close in my face. When I had jerked it open, I found myself in a short hall, and there were footsteps to my left, I blundered along in the semi-darkness, into a black void which must have been the dining-room, for my outstretched hand skirted the table. The footsteps seemed only beyond my reach, and at the other side of the room the swinging door into the pantry was still swaying when I caught it. I made a misstep in the pantry, and brought up against a blank wall. It seemed to me I heard the sound of feet running up steps, and when I found a door at last, I threw it open and dashed in. The next moment the solid earth slipped from under my feet, I threw out my hand, and it met a cold wall, smooth as glass. Then I fell--fell an incalculable distance, and the blackness of the night came over me and smothered me. CHAPTER XII MY COMMISSION When I came to, I was lying in darkness, and the stillness was absolute. When I tried to move, I found I was practically a prisoner: I had fallen into an air shaft, or something of the kind. I could not move my arms, where they were pinioned to my sides, and I was half-lying, half-crouching, in a semi-vertical position. I worked one arm loose and managed to make out that my prison was probably the dumb-waiter shaft to the basement kitchen. I had landed on top of the slide, and I seemed to be tied in a knot. The revolver was under me, and if it had exploded during the fall it had done no damage. I can hardly imagine a more unpleasant position. If the man I had been following had so chosen, he could have made away with me in any one of a dozen unpleasant ways--he could have filled me as full of holes as a sieve, or scalded me, or done anything, pretty much, that he chose. But nothing happened. The house was impressively quiet. I had fallen feet first, evidently, and then crumpled up unconscious, for one of my ankles was throbbing. It was some time before I could stand erect, and even by reaching, I could not touch the doorway above me. It must have taken five minutes for my confused senses to remember the wire cable, and to tug at it. I was a heavy load for the slide, accustomed to nothing weightier than political dinners, but with much creaking I got myself at last to the floor above, and stepped out, still into darkness, but free. I still held the revolver, and I lighted the whole lower floor. But I found nothing in the dining-room or the pantry. Everything was locked and in good order. A small alcove off the library came next; it was undisturbed, but a tabouret lay on its side, and a half dozen books had been taken from a low book-case, and lay heaped on a chair. In the library, however, everything was confusion. Desk drawers stood open--one of the linen shades had been pulled partly off its roller, a chair had been drawn up to the long mahogany table in the center of the room, with the electric dome overhead, and everywhere, on chairs, over the floor, heaped in stacks on the table, were papers. After searching the lower floor, and finding everything securely locked, I went up-stairs, convinced the intruder was still in the house. I made a systematic search of every room, looking into closets and under beds. Several times I had an impression, as I turned a corner, that some one was just ahead of me, but I was always disappointed. I gave up at last, and, going down to the library, made myself as comfortable as I could, and waited for morning. I heard Bella coming down the stairs, after seven sometime; she came slowly, with flagging footsteps, as if the slightest sound would send her scurrying to the upper regions again. A little later I heard her rattling the range in the basement kitchen, and I went up-stairs and dressed. I was too tired to have a theory about the night visitor; in fact, from that time on, I tried to have no theories of any kind. I was impressed with only one thing--that the enemy or enemies of the late Allan Fleming evidently carried their antagonism beyond the grave. As I put on my collar I wondered how long I could stay in this game, as I now meant to, and avoid lying in state in Edith's little drawing-room, with flowers around and a gentleman in black gloves at the door. I had my ankle strapped with adhesive that morning by my doctor and it gave me no more trouble. But I caught him looking curiously at the blue bruise on my forehead where Wardrop had struck me with the chair, and at my nose, no longer swollen, but mustard-yellow at the bridge. "Been doing any boxing lately," he said, as I laced up my shoe. "Not for two or three years." "New machine?" "No." He smiled at me quizzically from his desk. "How does the other fellow look?" he inquired, and to my haltingly invented explanation of my battered appearance, he returned the same enigmatical smile. That day was uneventful. Margery and Edith came to the house for about an hour and went back to Fred's again. A cousin of the dead man, an elderly bachelor named Parker, appeared that morning and signified his willingness to take charge of the house during that day. The very hush of his voice and his black tie prompted Edith to remove Margery from him as soon as she could, and as the girl dreaded the curious eyes of the crowd that filled the house, she was glad to go. It was Sunday, and I went to the office only long enough to look over my mail. I dined in the middle of the day at Fred's, and felt heavy and stupid all afternoon as a result of thus reversing the habits of the week. In the afternoon I had my first conversation with Fred and Edith, while Margery and the boys talked quietly in the nursery. They had taken a great fancy to her, and she was almost cheerful when she was with them. Fred had the morning papers around him on the floor, and was in his usual Sunday argumentative mood. "Well," he said, when the nursery door up-stairs had closed, "what was it, Jack? Suicide?" "I don't know," I replied bluntly. "What do you think?" he insisted. "How can I tell?" irritably. "The police say it was suicide, and they ought to know." "The _Times-Post_ says it was murder, and that they will prove it. And they claim the police have been called off." I said nothing of Mr. Lightfoot, and his visit to the office, but I made a mental note to see the _Times-Post_ people and learn, if I could, what they knew. "I can not help thinking that he deserved very nearly what he got," Edith broke in, looking much less vindictive than her words. "When one thinks of the ruin he brought to poor Henry Butler, and that Ellen has been practically an invalid ever since, I can't be sorry for him." "What was the Butler story?" I asked. But Fred did not know, and Edith was as vague as women usually are in politics. "Henry Butler was treasurer of the state, and Mr. Fleming was his cashier. I don't know just what the trouble was. But you remember that Henry Butler killed himself after he got out of the penitentiary, and Ellen has been in one hospital after another. I would like to have her come here for a few weeks, Fred," she said appealingly. "She is in some sanatorium or other now, and we might cheer her a little." Fred groaned. "Have her if you like, petty," he said resignedly, "but I refuse to be cheerful unless I feel like it. What about this young Wardrop, Jack? It looks to me as if the _Times-Post_ reporter had a line on him." "Hush," Edith said softly. "He is Margery's fiancÃ©, and she might hear you." "How do you know?" Fred demanded. "Did she tell you?" "Look at her engagement ring," Edith threw back triumphantly. "And it's a perfectly beautiful solitaire, too." I caught Fred's eye on me, and the very speed with which he shifted his gaze made me uncomfortable. I made my escape as soon as I could, on the plea of going out to Bellwood, and in the hall up-stairs I met Margery. "I saw Bella to-day," she said. "Mr. Knox, will you tell me why you stayed up last night? What happened in the house?" "I--thought I heard some one in the library," I stammered, "but I found no one." "Is that all the truth or only part of it?" she asked. "Why do men always evade issues with a woman?" Luckily, woman-like, she did not wait for a reply. She closed the nursery door and stood with her hand on the knob, looking down. "I wonder what you believe about all this," she said. "Do you think my father--killed himself? You were there; you know. If some one would only tell me everything!" It seemed to me it was her right to know. The boys were romping noisily in the nursery. Down-stairs Fred and Edith were having their Sunday afternoon discussion of what in the world had become of the money from Fred's latest book. Margery and I sat down on the stairs, and, as well as I could remember the details, I told her what had happened at the White Cat. She heard me through quietly. "And so the police have given up the case!" she said despairingly. "And if they had not, Harry would have been arrested. Is there nothing I can do? Do I have to sit back with my hands folded?" "The police have not exactly given up the case," I told her, "but there is such a thing, of course, as stirring up a lot of dust and then running to cover like blazes before it settles. By the time the public has wiped it out of its eyes and sneezed it out of its nose and coughed it out of its larynx, the dust has settled in a heavy layer, clues are obliterated, and the public lifts its skirts and chooses another direction. The 'no thoroughfare' sign is up." She sat there for fifteen minutes, interrupted by occasional noisy excursions from the nursery, which resulted in her acquiring by degrees a lapful of broken wheels, three-legged horses and a live water beetle which the boys had found under the kitchen sink and imprisoned in a glass topped box, where, to its bewilderment, they were assiduously offering it dead and mangled flies. But our last five minutes were undisturbed, and the girl brought out with an effort the request she had tried to make all day. "Whoever killed my father--and it was murder, Mr. Knox--whoever did it is going free to save a scandal. All my--friends"--she smiled bitterly--"are afraid of the same thing. But I can not sit quiet and think nothing can be done. I _must_ know, and you are the only one who seems willing to try to find out." So it was, that, when I left the house a half hour later, I was committed. I had been commissioned by the girl I loved--for it had come to that--to clear her lover of her father's murder, and so give him back to her--not in so many words, but I was to follow up the crime, and the rest followed. And I was morally certain of two things--first, that her lover was not worthy of her, and second, and more to the point, that innocent or guilty, he was indirectly implicated in the crime. I had promised her also to see Miss Letitia that day if I could, and I turned over the events of the preceding night as I walked toward the station, but I made nothing of them. One thing occurred to me, however. Bella had told Margery that I had been up all night. Could Bella--? But I dismissed the thought as absurd--Bella, who had scuttled to bed in a panic of fright, would never have dared the lower floor alone, and Bella, given all the courage in the world, could never have moved with the swiftness and light certainty of my midnight prowler. It had not been Bella. But after all I did not go to Bellwood. I met Hunter on my way to the station, and he turned around and walked with me. "So you've lain down on the case!" I said, when we had gone a few steps without speaking. He grumbled something unintelligible and probably unrepeatable. "Of course," I persisted, "being a simple and uncomplicated case of suicide, there was nothing in it anyhow. If it had been a murder, under peculiar circumstances--" He stopped and gripped my arm. "For ten cents," he said gravely, "I would tell the chief and a few others what I think of them. And then I'd go out and get full." "Not on ten cents!" "I'm going out of the business," he stormed. "I'm going to drive a garbage wagon: it's cleaner than this job. Suicide! I never saw a cleaner case of--" He stopped suddenly. "Do you know Burton--of the _Times-Post_?" "No: I've heard of him." "Well, he's your man. They're dead against the ring, and Burton's been given the case. He's as sharp as a steel trap. You two get together." He paused at a corner. "Good-by," he said dejectedly. "I'm off to hunt some boys that have been stealing milk bottles. That's about my size, these days." He turned around, however, before he had gone many steps and came back. "Wardrop has been missing since yesterday afternoon," he said. "That is, he thinks he's missing. We've got him all right." I gave up my Bellwood visit for the time, and taking a car down-town, I went to the _Times-Post_ office. The Monday morning edition was already under way, as far as the staff was concerned, and from the waiting-room I could see three or four men, with their hats on, most of them rattling typewriters. Burton came in in a moment, a red-haired young fellow, with a short thick nose and a muggy skin. He was rather stocky in build, and the pugnacity of his features did not hide the shrewdness of his eyes. I introduced myself, and at my name his perfunctory manner changed. "Knox!" he said. "I called you last night over the 'phone." "Can't we talk in a more private place?" I asked, trying to raise my voice above the confusion of the next room. In reply he took me into a tiny office, containing a desk and two chairs, and separated by an eight-foot partition from the other room. "This is the best we have," he explained cheerfully. "Newspapers are agents of publicity, not privacy--if you don't care what you say." I liked Burton. There was something genuine about him; after Wardrop's kid-glove finish, he was a relief. "Hunter, of the detective bureau, sent me here," I proceeded, "about the Fleming case." He took out his note-book. "You are the fourth to-day," he said. "Hunter himself, Lightfoot from Plattsburg, and McFeely here in town. Well, Mr. Knox, are you willing now to put yourself on record that Fleming committed suicide?" "No," I said firmly. "It is my belief that he was murdered." "And that the secretary fellow, what's his name?--Wardrop?--that he killed him?" "Possibly." In reply Burton fumbled in his pocket and brought up a pasteboard box, filled with jeweler's cotton. Underneath was a small object, which he passed to me with care. "I got it from the coroner's physician, who performed the autopsy," he said casually. "You will notice that it is a thirty-two, and that the revolver they took from Wardrop was a thirty-eight. Question, where's the other gun?" I gave him back the bullet, and he rolled it around on the palm of his hand. "Little thing, isn't it?" he said. "We think we're lords of creation, until we see a quarter-inch bichloride tablet, or a bit of lead like this. Look here." He dived into his pocket again and drew out a roll of ordinary brown paper. When he opened it a bit of white chalk fell on the desk. "Look at that," he said dramatically. "Kill an army with it, and they'd never know what struck them. Cyanide of potassium--and the druggist that sold it ought to be choked." "Where did it come from?" I asked curiously. Burton smiled his cheerful smile. "It's a beautiful case, all around," he said, as he got his hat. "I haven't had any Sunday dinner yet, and it's five o'clock. Oh--the cyanide? Clarkson, the cashier of the bank Fleming ruined, took a bite off that corner right there, this morning." "Clarkson!" I exclaimed. "How is he?" "God only knows," said Burton gravely, from which I took it Clarkson was dead. CHAPTER XIII SIZZLING METAL Burton listened while he ate, and his cheerful comments were welcome enough after the depression of the last few days. I told him, after some hesitation, the whole thing, beginning with the Maitland pearls and ending with my drop down the dumb-waiter. I knew I was absolutely safe in doing so: there is no person to whom I would rather tell a secret than a newspaper man. He will go out of his way to keep it: he will lock it in the depths of his bosom, and keep it until seventy times seven. Also, you may threaten the rack or offer a larger salary, the seal does not come off his lips until the word is given. If then he makes a scarehead of it, and gets in three columns of space and as many photographs, it is his just reward. So--I told Burton everything, and he ate enough beefsteak for two men, and missed not a word I said. "The money Wardrop had in the grip--that's easy enough explained," he said. "Fleming used the Borough Bank to deposit state funds in. He must have known it was rotten: he and Clarkson were as thick as thieves. According to a time-honored custom in our land of the brave and home of the free, a state treasurer who is crooked can, in such a case, draw on such a bank without security, on his personal note, which is usually worth its value by the pound as old paper." "And Fleming did that?" "He did. Then things got bad at the Borough Bank. Fleming had had to divide with Schwartz and the Lord only knows who all, but it was Fleming who had to put in the money to avert a crash--the word crash being synonymous with scandal in this case. He scrapes together a paltry hundred thousand, which Wardrop gets at the capital, and brings on. Wardrop is robbed, or says he is: the bank collapses and Clarkson, driven to the wall, kills himself, just after Fleming is murdered. What does that sound like?" "Like Clarkson!" I exclaimed. "And Clarkson knew Fleming was hiding at the White Cat!" "Now, then, take the other theory," he said, pushing aside his cup. "Wardrop goes in to Fleming with a story that he has been robbed: Fleming gets crazy and attacks him. All that is in the morning--Friday. Now, then--Wardrop goes back there that night. Within twenty minutes after he enters the club he rushes out, and when Hunter follows him, he says he is looking for a doctor, to get cocaine for a gentleman up-stairs. He is white and trembling. They go back together, and find you there, and Fleming dead. Wardrop tells two stories: first he says Fleming committed suicide just before he left. Then he changes it and says he was dead when he arrived there. He produces the weapon with which Fleming is supposed to have killed himself, and which, by the way, Miss Fleming identified yesterday as her father's. But there are two discrepancies. Wardrop practically admitted that he had taken that revolver from Fleming, not that night, but the morning before, during the quarrel." "And the other discrepancy?" "The bullet. Nobody ever fired a thirty-two bullet out of a thirty-eight caliber revolver--unless he was trying to shoot a double-compound curve. Now, then, who does it look like?" "Like Wardrop," I confessed. "By Jove, they didn't both do it." "And he didn't do it himself for two good reasons: he had no revolver that night, and there were no powder marks." "And the eleven twenty-two, and Miss Maitland's disappearance?" He looked at me with his quizzical smile. "I'll have to have another steak, if I'm to settle that," he said. "I can only solve one murder on one steak. But disappearances are my specialty; perhaps, if I have a piece of pie and some cheese--" But I got him away at last, and we walked together down the street. "I can't quite see the old lady in it," he confessed. "She hadn't any grudge against Fleming, had she? Wouldn't be likely to forget herself temporarily and kill him?" "Good Lord!" I said. "Why, she's sixty-five, and as timid and gentle a little old lady as ever lived." "Curls?" he asked, turning his bright blue eyes on me. "Yes," I admitted. "Wouldn't be likely to have eloped with the minister, or advertised for a husband, or anything like that?" "You would have to know her to understand," I said resignedly. "But she didn't do any of those things, and she didn't run off to join a theatrical troupe. Burton, who do you think was in the Fleming house last night?" "Lightfoot," he said succinctly. He stopped under a street lamp and looked at his watch. "I believe I'll run over to the capital to-night," he said. "While I'm gone--I'll be back to-morrow night or the next morning--I wish you would do two things. Find Rosie O'Grady, or whatever her name is, and locate Carter. That's probably not his name, but it will answer for a while. Then get your friend Hunter to keep him in sight for a while, until I come back anyhow. I'm beginning to enjoy this; it's more fun than a picture puzzle. We're going to make the police department look like a kindergarten playing jackstraws." "And the second thing I am to do?" "Go to Bellwood and find out a few things. It's all well enough to say the old lady was a meek and timid person, but if you want to know her peculiarities, go to her neighbors. When people leave the beaten path, the neighbors always know it before the families." He stopped before a drug-store. "I'll have to pack for my little jaunt," he said, and purchased a tooth-brush, which proved to be the extent of his preparations. We separated at the station, Burton to take his red hair and his tooth-brush to Plattsburg, I to take a taxicab, and armed with a page torn from the classified directory to inquire at as many of the twelve Anderson's drug-stores as might be necessary to locate Delia's gentleman friend, "the clerk," through him Delia, and through Delia, the mysterious Carter, "who was not really a butler." It occurred to me somewhat tardily, that I knew nothing of Delia but her given name. A telephone talk with Margery was of little assistance: Delia had been a new maid, and if she had heard her other name, she had forgotten it. I had checked off eight of the Andersons on my list, without result, and the taximeter showed something over nineteen dollars, when the driver drew up at the curb. "Gentleman in the other cab is hailing you, sir," he said over his shoulder. "The other cab?" "The one that has been following us." I opened the door and glanced behind. A duplicate of my cab stood perhaps fifty feet behind, and from it a familiar figure was slowly emerging, carrying on a high-pitched argument with the chauffeur. The figure stopped to read the taximeter, shook his fist at the chauffeur, and approached me, muttering audibly. It was Davidson. "That liar and thief back there has got me rung up for nineteen dollars," he said, ignoring my amazement. "Nineteen dollars and forty cents! He must have the thing counting the revolutions of all four wheels!" He walked around and surveyed my expense account, at the driver's elbow. Then he hit the meter a smart slap, but the figures did not change. "Nineteen dollars!" he repeated dazed. "Nineteen dollars and--look here," he called to his driver, who had brought the cab close, "it's only thirty cents here. Your clock's ten cents fast." "But how--" I began. "You back up to nineteen dollars and thirty cents," he persisted, ignoring me. "If you'll back up to twelve dollars, I'll pay it. That's all I've got." Then he turned on me irritably. "Good heavens, man," he exclaimed, "do you mean to tell me you've been to eight drug-stores this Sunday evening and spent nineteen dollars and thirty cents, and haven't got a drink yet?" "Do you think I'm after a drink?" I asked him. "Now look here, Davidson, I rather think you know what I am after. If you don't, it doesn't matter. But since you are coming along anyhow, pay your man off and come with me. I don't like to be followed." He agreed without hesitation, borrowed eight dollars from me to augment his twelve and crawled in with me. "The next address on the list is the right one," he said, as the man waited for directions. "I did the same round yesterday, but not being a plutocrat, I used the street-cars and my legs. And because you're a decent fellow and don't have to be chloroformed to have an idea injected, I'm going to tell you something. There were eleven roundsmen as well as the sergeant who heard me read the note I found at the Fleming house that night. You may have counted them through the window. A dozen plain-clothes men read it before morning. When the news of Mr. Fleming's mur--death came out, I thought this fellow Carter might know something, and I trailed Delia through this Mamie Brennan. When I got there I found Tom Brannigan and four other detectives sitting in the parlor, and Miss Delia, in a blue silk waist, making eyes at every mother's son of them." I laughed in spite of my disappointment. Davidson leaned forward and closed the window at the driver's back. Then he squared around and faced me. "Understand me, Mr. Knox," he said, "Mr. Fleming killed himself. You and I are agreed on that. Even if you aren't just convinced of it I'm telling you, and--better let it drop, sir," Under his quiet manner I felt a threat: it served to rouse me. "I'll let it drop when I'm through with it," I asserted, and got out my list of addresses. "You'll let it drop because it's too hot to hold," he retorted, with the suspicion of a smile. "If you are determined to know about Carter, I can tell you everything that is necessary." The chauffeur stopped his engine with an exasperated jerk and settled down in his seat, every line of his back bristling with irritation. "I prefer learning from Carter himself." He leaned back in his seat and produced an apple from the pocket of his coat. "You'll have to travel some to do it, son," he said. "Carter left for parts unknown last night, taking with him enough money to keep him in comfort for some little time." "Until all this blows over," I said bitterly. "The trip was for the benefit of his health. He has been suffering--and is still suffering, from a curious lapse of memory." Davidson smiled at me engagingly. "He has entirely forgotten everything that occurred from the time he entered Mr. Fleming's employment, until that gentleman left home. I doubt if he will ever recover." With Carter gone, his retreat covered by the police, supplied with funds from some problematical source, further search for him was worse than useless. In fact, Davidson strongly intimated that it might be dangerous and would be certainly unpleasant. I yielded ungraciously and ordered the cab to take me home. But on the way I cursed my folly for not having followed this obvious clue earlier, and I wondered what this thing could be that Carter knew, that was at least surmised by various headquarters men, and yet was so carefully hidden from the world at large. The party newspapers had come out that day with a signed statement from Mr. Fleming's physician in Plattsburg that he had been in ill health and inclined to melancholia for some time. The air was thick with rumors of differences with his party: the dust cloud covered everything; pretty soon it would settle and hide the tracks of those who had hurried to cover under its protection. Davidson left me at a corner down-town. He turned to give me a parting admonition. "There's an old axiom in the mills around here, 'never sit down on a piece of metal until you spit on it.' If it sizzles, don't sit." He grinned. "Your best position just now, young man, is standing, with your hands over your head. Confidentially, there ain't anything within expectorating distance just now that ain't pretty well het up." He left me with that, and I did not see him again until the night at the White Cat, when he helped put me through the transom. Recently, however, I have met him several times. He invariably mentions the eight dollars and his intention of repaying it. Unfortunately, the desire and the ability have not yet happened to coincide. I took the evening train to Bellwood, and got there shortly after eight, in the midst of the Sunday evening calm, and the calm of a place like Bellwood is the peace of death without the hope of resurrection. I walked slowly up the main street, which was lined with residences; the town relegated its few shops to less desirable neighborhoods. My first intention had been to see the Episcopal minister, but the rectory was dark, and a burst of organ music from the church near reminded me again of the Sunday evening services. Promiscuous inquiry was not advisable. So far, Miss Jane's disappearance was known to very few, and Hunter had advised caution. I wandered up the street and turned at random to the right; a few doors ahead a newish red brick building proclaimed itself the post-office, and gave the only sign of life in the neighborhood. It occurred to me that here inside was the one individual who, theoretically at least, in a small place always knows the idiosyncrasies of its people. The door was partly open, for the spring night was sultry. The postmaster proved to be a one-armed veteran of the Civil War, and he was sorting rapidly the contents of a mail-bag, emptied on the counter. "No delivery to-night," he said shortly. "Sunday delivery, two to three." "I suppose, then, I couldn't get a dollar's worth of stamps," I regretted. He looked up over his glasses. "We don't sell stamps on Sunday nights," he explained, more politely. "But if you're in a hurry for them--" "I am," I lied. And after he had got them out, counting them with a wrinkled finger, and tearing them off the sheet with the deliberation of age, I opened a general conversation. "I suppose you do a good bit of business here?" I asked. "It seems like a thriving place." "Not so bad; big mail here sometimes. First of the quarter, when bills are coming round, we have a rush, and holidays and Easter we've got to hire an express wagon." It was when I asked him about his empty sleeve, however, and he had told me that he lost his arm at Chancellorsville, that we became really friendly When he said he had been a corporal in General Maitland's command, my path was one of ease. "The Maitland ladies! I should say I do," he said warmly. "I've been fighting with Letitia Maitland as long as I can remember. That woman will scrap with the angel Gabriel at the resurrection, if he wakes her up before she's had her sleep out." "Miss Jane is not that sort, is she?" "Miss Jane? She's an angel--she is that. She could have been married a dozen times when she was a girl, but Letitia wouldn't have it. I was after her myself, forty-five years ago. This was the Maitland farm in those days, and my father kept a country store down where the railroad station is now." "I suppose from that the Maitland ladies are wealthy." "Wealthy! They don't know what they're worth--not that it matters a mite to Jane Maitland. She hasn't called her soul her own for so long that I guess the good Lord won't hold her responsible for it." All of which was entertaining, but it was much like an old-fashioned see-saw; it kept going, but it didn't make much progress. But now at last we took a step ahead. "It's a shameful thing," the old man pursued, "that a woman as old as Jane should have to get her letters surreptitiously. For more than a year now she's been coming here twice a week for her mail, and I've been keeping it for her. Rain or shine, Mondays and Thursdays, she's been coming, and a sight of letters she's been getting, too." "Did she come last Thursday?" I asked over-eagerly. The postmaster, all at once, regarded me with suspicion. "I don't know whether she did or not," he said coldly, and my further attempts to beguile him into conversation failed. I pocketed my stamps, and by that time his resentment at my curiosity was fading. He followed me to the door, and lowered his voice cautiously. "Any news of the old lady?" he asked. "It ain't generally known around here that she's missing, but Heppie, the cook there, is a relation of my wife's." "We have no news," I replied, "and don't let it get around, will you?" He promised gravely. "I was tellin' the missus the other day," he said, "that there is an old walled-up cellar under the Maitland place. Have you looked there?" He was disappointed when I said we had, and I was about to go when he called me back. "Miss Jane didn't get her mail on Thursday, but on Friday that niece of hers came for it--two letters, one from the city and one from New York." "Thanks," I returned, and went out into the quiet street. I walked past the Maitland place, but the windows were dark and the house closed. Haphazard inquiry being out of the question, I took the ten o'clock train back to the city. I had learned little enough, and that little I was at a loss to know how to use. For why had Margery gone for Miss Jane's mail _after_ the little lady was missing? And why did Miss Jane carry on a clandestine correspondence? The family had retired when I got home except Fred, who called from his study to ask for a rhyme for mosque. I could not think of one and suggested that he change the word to "temple." At two o'clock he banged on my door in a temper, said he had changed the rhythm to fit, and now couldn't find a rhyme for "temple!" I suggested "dimple" drowsily, whereat he kicked the panel of the door and went to bed. CHAPTER XIV A WALK IN THE PARK The funeral occurred on Monday. It was an ostentatious affair, with a long list of honorary pall-bearers, a picked corps of city firemen in uniform ranged around the casket, and enough money wasted in floral pillows and sheaves of wheat tied with purple ribbon, to have given all the hungry children in town a square meal. Amid all this state Margery moved, stricken and isolated. She went to the cemetery with Edith, Miss Letitia having sent a message that, having never broken her neck to see the man living, she wasn't going to do it to see him dead. The music was very fine, and the eulogy spoke of this patriot who had served his country so long and so well. "Following the flag," Fred commented under his breath, "as long as there was an appropriation attached to it." And when it was all over, we went back to Fred's until the Fleming house could be put into order again. It was the best place in the world for Margery, for, with the children demanding her attention and applause every minute, she had no time to be blue. Mrs. Butler arrived that day, which made Fred suspicious that Edith's plan to bring her, far antedated his consent. But she was there when we got home from the funeral, and after one glimpse at her thin face and hollow eyes, I begged Edith to keep her away from Margery, for that day at least. Fortunately, Mrs. Butler was exhausted by her journey, and retired to her room almost immediately. I watched her slender figure go up the stairs, and, with her black trailing gown and colorless face, she was an embodiment of all that is lonely and helpless. Fred closed the door behind her and stood looking at Edith and me. "I tell you, honey," he declared, "_that_ brought into a cheerful home is sufficient cause for divorce. Isn't it, Jack?" "She is ill," Edith maintained valiantly. "She is my cousin, too, which gives her some claim on me, and my guest, which gives her more." "Lady-love," Fred said solemnly, "if you do not give me the key to the cellarette, I shall have a chill. And let me beg this of you: if I ever get tired of this life, and shuffle off my mortality in a lumber yard, or a political club, and you go around like that, I shall haunt you. I swear it." "Shuffle off," I dared him. "I will see that Edith is cheerful and happy." From somewhere above, there came a sudden crash, followed by the announcement, made by a scared housemaid, that Mrs. Butler had fainted. Fred sniffed as Edith scurried up-stairs. "Hipped," he said shortly. "For two cents I'd go up and give her a good whiff of ammonia--not this aromatic stuff, but the genuine article. That would make her sit up and take notice. Upon my word, I can't think what possessed Edith; these spineless, soft-spoken, timid women are leeches on one's sympathies." But Mrs. Butler was really ill, and Margery insisted on looking after her. It was an odd coincidence, the widow of one state treasurer and the orphaned daughter of his successor; both men had died violent deaths, in each case when a boiling under the political lid had threatened to blow it off. The boys were allowed to have their dinner with the family that evening, in honor of Mrs. Butler's arrival, and it was a riotous meal. Margery got back a little of her color. As I sat across from her, and watched her expressions change, from sadness to resignation, and even gradually to amusement at the boys' antics, I wondered just how much she knew, or suspected, that she refused to tell me. I remembered a woman--a client of mine--who said that whenever she sat near a railroad track and watched an engine thundering toward her, she tortured herself by picturing a child on the track, and wondering whether, under such circumstances, she would risk her life to save the child. I felt a good bit that way; I was firmly embarked on the case now, and I tortured myself with one idea. Suppose I should find Wardrop guilty, and I should find extenuating circumstances--what would I do? Publish the truth, see him hanged or imprisoned, and break Margery's heart? Or keep back the truth, let her marry him, and try to forget that I had had a hand in the whole wretched business? After all, I decided to try to stop my imaginary train. Prove Wardrop innocent, I reasoned with myself, get to the bottom of this thing, and then--it would be man and man. A fair field and no favor. I suppose my proper attitude, romantically taken, was to consider Margery's engagement ring an indissoluble barrier. But this was not romance; I was fighting for my life happiness, and as to the ring--well, I am of the opinion that if a man really loves a woman, and thinks he can make her happy, he will tell her so if she is strung with engagement rings to the ends of her fingers. Dangerous doctrine? Well, this is not propaganda. Tuesday found us all more normal. Mrs. Butler had slept some, and very commendably allowed herself to be tea'd and toasted in bed. The boys were started to kindergarten, after ten minutes of frenzied cap-hunting. Margery went with me along the hall when I started for the office. "You have not learned anything?" she asked cautiously, glancing back to Edith, at the telephone calling the grocer frantically for the Monday morning supply of soap and starch. "Not much," I evaded. "Nothing definite, anyhow. Margery, you are not going back to the Monmouth Avenue house again, are you?" "Not just yet; I don't think I could. I suppose, later, it will have to be sold, but not at once. I shall go to Aunt Letitia's first." "Very well," I said. "Then you are going to take a walk with me this afternoon in the park. I won't take no; you need the exercise, and I need--to talk to you," I finished lamely. When she had agreed I went to the office. It was not much after nine, but, to my surprise, Burton was already there. He had struck up an acquaintance with Miss Grant, the stenographer, and that usually frigid person had melted under the warmth of his red hair and his smile. She was telling him about her sister's baby having the whooping-cough, when I went in. "I wish I had studied law," he threw at me. "'What shall it profit a man to become a lawyer and lose his own soul?' as the psalmist says. I like this ten-to-four business." When we had gone into the inner office, and shut out Miss Grant and the whooping-cough, he was serious instantly. "Well," he said, sitting on the radiator and dangling his foot, "I guess we've got Wardrop for theft, anyhow." "Theft?" I inquired. "Well, larceny, if you prefer legal terms. I found where he sold the pearls--in Plattsburg, to a wholesale jeweler named, suggestively, Cashdollar." "Then," I said conclusively, "if he took the pearls and sold them, as sure as I sit here, he took the money out of that Russia leather bag." Burton swung his foot rhythmically against the pipes. "I'm not so darned sure of it," he said calmly. If he had any reason, he refused to give it. I told him, in my turn, of Carter's escape, aided by the police, and he smiled. "For a suicide it's causing a lot of excitement," he remarked. When I told him the little incident of the post-office, he was much interested. "The old lady's in it, somehow," he maintained. "She may have been lending Fleming money, for one thing. How do you know it wasn't her hundred thousand that was stolen?" "I don't think she ever had the uncontrolled disposal of a dollar in her life." "There's only one thing to do," Burton said finally, "and that is, find Miss Jane. If she's alive, she can tell something. I'll stake my fountain pen on that--and it's my dearest possession on earth, next to my mother. If Miss Jane is dead--well, somebody killed her, and it's time it was being found out." "It's easy enough to say find her." "It's easy enough to find her," he exploded. "Make a noise about it; send up rockets. Put a half-column ad in every paper in town, or--better still--give the story to the reporters and let them find her for you. I'd do it, if I wasn't tied up with this Fleming case. Describe her, how she walked, what she liked to eat, what she wore--in this case what she didn't wear. Lord, I wish I had that assignment! In forty-eight hours she will have been seen in a hundred different places, and one of them will be right. It will be a question of selection--that is, if she is alive." In spite of his airy tone, I knew he was serious, and I felt he was right. The publicity part of it I left to him, and I sent a special delivery that morning to Bellwood, asking Miss Letitia to say nothing and to refer reporters to me. I had already been besieged with them, since my connection with the Fleming case, and a few more made no difference. Burton attended to the matter thoroughly. The one o'clock edition of an afternoon paper contained a short and vivid scarlet account of Miss Jane's disappearance. The evening editions were full, and while vague as to the manner of her leaving, were minute as regarded her personal appearance and characteristics. To escape the threatened inundation of the morning paper men, I left the office early, and at four o'clock Margery and I stepped from a hill car into the park. She had been wearing a short, crepe-edged veil, but once away from the gaze of the curious, she took it off. I was glad to see she had lost the air of detachment she had worn for the last three days. "Hold your shoulders well back," I directed, when we had found an isolated path, "and take long breaths. Try breathing in while I count ten." She was very tractable--unusually so, I imagined, for her. We swung along together for almost a half-hour, hardly talking. I was content merely to be with her, and the sheer joy of the exercise after her enforced confinement kept her silent. When she began to flag a little I found a bench, and we sat down together. The bench had been lately painted, and although it seemed dry enough, I spread my handkerchief for her to sit on. Whereupon she called me "Sir Walter," and at the familiar jest we laughed like a pair of children. I had made the stipulation that, for this one time, her father's death and her other troubles should be taboo, and we adhered to it religiously. A robin in the path was industriously digging out a worm; he had tackled a long one, and it was all he could manage. He took the available end in his beak and hopped back with the expression of one who sets his jaws and determines that this which should be, is to be. The worm stretched into a pinkish and attenuated line, but it neither broke nor gave. "Horrid thing!" Margery said. "That is a disgraceful, heartless exhibition." "The robin is a parent," I reminded her. "It is precisely the same as Fred, who twists, jerks, distorts and attenuates the English language in his magazine work, in order to have bread and ice-cream and jelly cake for his two blooming youngsters." She had taken off her gloves, and sat with her hands loosely clasped in her lap. "I wish some one depended on me," she said pensively. "It's a terrible thing to feel that it doesn't matter to any one--not vitally, anyhow--whether one is around or not. To have all my responsibilities taken away at once, and just to drift around, like this--oh, it's dreadful." "You were going to be good," I reminded her. "I didn't promise to be cheerful," she returned. "Besides my father, there was only one person in the world who cared about me, and I don't know where she is. Dear Aunt Jane!" The sunlight caught the ring on her engagement finger, and she flushed suddenly as she saw me looking at it. We sat there for a while saying nothing; the long May afternoon was coming to a close. The paths began to fill with long lines of hurrying home-seekers, their day in office or factory at an end. Margery got up at last and buttoned her coat. Then impulsively she held out her hand to me. "You have been more than kind to me," she said hurriedly. "You have taken me into your home--and helped me through these dreadful days--and I will never forget it; never." "I am not virtuous," I replied, looking down at her. "I couldn't help it. You walked into my life when you came to my office--was it only last week? The evil days are coming, I suppose, but just now nothing matters at all, save that you are you, and I am I." She dropped her veil quickly, and we went back to the car. The prosaic world wrapped us around again; there was a heavy odor of restaurant coffee in the air; people bumped and jolted past us. To me they were only shadows; the real world was a girl in black and myself, and the girl wore a betrothal ring which was not mine. CHAPTER XV FIND THE WOMAN Mrs. Butler came down to dinner that night. She was more cheerful than I had yet seen her, and she had changed her mournful garments to something a trifle less depressing. With her masses of fair hair dressed high, and her face slightly animated, I realized what I had not done before--that she was the wreck of a very beautiful woman. Frail as she was, almost shrinkingly timid in her manner, there were times when she drew up her tall figure in something like its former stateliness. She had beautiful eyebrows, nearly black and perfectly penciled; they were almost incongruous in her colorless face. She was very weak; she used a cane when she walked, and after dinner, in the library, she was content to sit impassive, detached, propped with cushions, while Margery read to the boys in their night nursery and Edith embroidered. Fred had been fussing over a play for some time, and he had gone to read it to some manager or other. Edith was already spending the royalties. "We could go a little ways out of town," she was saying, "and we could have an automobile; Margery says theirs will be sold, and it will certainly be a bargain. Jack, are you laughing at me?" "Certainly _not_," I replied gravely. "Dream on, Edith. Shall we train the boys as chauffeurs, or shall we buy in the Fleming man, also cheap." "I am sure," Edith said aggrieved, "that it costs more for horse feed this minute for your gray, Jack, than it would for gasolene." "But Lady Gray won't eat gasolene," I protested. "She doesn't like it." Edith turned her back on me and sewed. Near me, Mrs. Butler had languidly taken up the paper; suddenly she dropped it, and when I stooped and picked it up I noticed she was trembling. "Is it true?" she demanded. "Is Robert Clarkson dead?" "Yes," I assented. "He has been dead since Sunday morning--a suicide." Edith had risen and come over to her. But Mrs. Butler was not fainting. "I'm glad, glad," she said. Then she grew weak and semi-hysterical, laughing and crying in the same breath. When she had been helped up-stairs, for in her weakened state it had been more of a shock than we realized, Margery came down and we tried to forget the scene we had just gone through. "I am glad Fred was not here," Edith confided to me. "Ellen is a lovely woman, and as kind as she is mild; but in one of her--attacks, she is a little bit trying." It was strange to contrast the way in which the two women took their similar bereavements. Margery represented the best type of normal American womanhood; Ellen Butler the neurasthenic; she demanded everything by her very helplessness and timidity. She was a constant drain on Edith's ready sympathy. That night, while I closed the house--Fred had not come in--I advised her to let Mrs. Butler go back to her sanatorium. At twelve-thirty I was still down-stairs; Fred was out, and I waited for him, being curious to know the verdict on the play. The bell rang a few minutes before one, and I went to the door; some one in the vestibule was tapping the floor impatiently with his foot. When I opened the door, I was surprised to find that the late visitor was Wardrop. He came in quietly, and I had a chance to see him well, under the hall light; the change three days had made was shocking. His eyes were sunk deep in his head, his reddened lids and twitching mouth told of little sleep, of nerves ready to snap. He was untidy, too, and a three days' beard hardly improved him. "I'm glad it's you," he said, by way of greeting. "I was afraid you'd have gone to bed." "It's the top of the evening yet," I replied perfunctorily, as I led the way into the library. Once inside, Wardrop closed the door and looked around him like an animal at bay. "I came here," he said nervously, looking at the windows, "because I had an idea you'd keep your head. Mine's gone; I'm either crazy, or I'm on my way there." "Sit down, man," I pushed a chair to him. "You don't look as if you have been in bed for a couple of nights." He went to each of the windows and examined the closed shutters before he answered me. "I haven't. You wouldn't go to bed either, if you thought you would never wake up." "Nonsense." "Well, it's true enough. Knox, there are people following me wherever I go; they eat where I eat; if I doze in my chair they come into my dreams!" He stopped there, then he laughed a little wildly. "That last isn't sane, but it's true. There's a man across the street now, eating an apple under a lamppost." "Suppose you _are_ under surveillance," I said. "It's annoying to have a detective following you around, but it's hardly serious. The police say now that Mr. Fleming killed himself; that was your own contention." He leaned forward in his chair and, resting his hands on his knees, gazed at me somberly. "Suppose I say he didn't kill himself?" slowly. "Suppose I say he was murdered? Suppose--good God--suppose I killed him myself?" I drew back in stupefaction, but he hurried on. "For the last two days I've been wondering--if I did it! He hadn't any weapon; I had one, his. I hated him that day; I had tried to save him, and couldn't. My God, Knox, I might have gone off my head and done it--and not remember it. There have been cases like that." His condition was pitiable. I looked around for some whisky, but the best I could do was a little port on the sideboard. When I came back he was sitting with bent head, his forehead on his palms. "I've thought it all out," he said painfully. "My mother had spells of emotional insanity. Perhaps I went there, without knowing it, and killed him. I can see him, in the night, when I daren't sleep, toppling over on to that table, with a bullet wound in his head, and I am in the room, and I have his revolver in my pocket!" "You give me your word you have no conscious recollection of hearing a shot fired." "My word before Heaven," he said fervently. "But I tell you, Knox, he had no weapon. No one came out of that room as I went in and yet he was only swaying forward, as if I had shot him one moment, and caught him as he fell, the next. I was dazed; I don't remember yet what I told the police." The expression of fear in his eyes was terrible to see. A gust of wind shook the shutters, and he jumped almost out of his chair. "You will have to be careful," I said. "There have been cases where men confessed murders they never committed, driven by Heaven knows what method of undermining their mental resistance. Yon expose your imagination to 'third degree' torture of your own invention, and in two days more you will be able to add full details of the crime." "I knew you would think me crazy," he put in, a little less somberly, "but just try it once: sit in a room by yourself all day and all night, with detectives watching you; sit there and puzzle over a murder of a man you are suspected of killing; you know you felt like killing him, and you have a revolver, and he is shot. Wouldn't you begin to think as I do?" "Wardrop," I asked, trying to fix his wavering eyes with mine, "do you own a thirty-two caliber revolver?" "Yes." I was startled beyond any necessity, under the circumstances. Many people have thirty-twos. "That is, I had," he corrected himself. "It was in the leather bag that was stolen at Bellwood." "I can relieve your mind of one thing," I said. "If your revolver was stolen with the leather bag, you had nothing to do with the murder. Fleming was shot with a thirty-two." He looked first incredulous, then relieved. "Now, then," I pursued, "suppose Mr. Fleming had an enemy, a relentless one who would stoop to anything to compass his ruin. In his position he would be likely to have enemies. This person, let us say, knows what you carry in your grip, and steals it, taking away the funds that would have helped to keep the lid on Fleming's mismanagement for a time. In the grip is your revolver; would you know it again?" He nodded affirmatively. "This person--this enemy finds the revolver, pockets it and at the first opportunity, having ruined Fleming, proceeds humanely to put him out of his suffering. Is it far-fetched?" "There were a dozen--a hundred--people who would have been glad to ruin him." His gaze wavered again suddenly. It was evident that I had renewed an old train of thought. "For instance?" I suggested, but he was on guard again. "You forget one thing, Knox," he said, after a moment. "There was nobody else who could have shot him: the room was empty." "Nonsense," I replied. "Don't forget the warehouse." "The warehouse!" "There is no doubt in my mind that he was shot from there. He was facing the open window, sitting directly under the light, writing. A shot fired through a broken pane of one of the warehouse windows would meet every requirement of the case: the empty room, the absence of powder marks--even the fact that no shot was heard. There was a report, of course, but the noise in the club-house and the thunder-storm outside covered it." "By George!" he exclaimed. "The warehouse, of course. I never thought of it." He was relieved, for some reason. "It's a question now of how many people knew he was at the club, and which of them hated him enough to kill him." "Clarkson knew it," Wardrop said, "but he didn't do it." "Why?" "Because it was he who came to the door of the room while the detective and you and I were inside, and called Fleming." I pulled out my pocket-book and took out the scrap of paper which Margery had found pinned to the pillow in her father's bedroom. "Do you know what that means?" I asked, watching Wardrop's face. "That was found in Mr. Fleming's room two days after he left home. A similar scrap was found in Miss Jane Maitland's room when she disappeared. When Fleming was murdered, he was writing a letter; he said: 'The figures have followed me here.' When we know what those figures mean, Wardrop, we know why he was killed and who did it." He shook his head hopelessly. "I do not know," he said, and I believed him. He had got up and taken his hat, but I stopped him inside the door. "You can help this thing in two ways," I told him. "I am going to give you something to do: you will have less time to be morbid. Find out, if you can, all about Fleming's private life in the last dozen years, especially the last three. See if there are any women mixed up in it, and try to find out something about this eleven twenty-two." "Eleven twenty-two," he repeated, but I had not missed his change of expression when I said women. "Also," I went on, "I want you to tell me who was with you the night you tried to break into the house at Bellwood." He was taken completely by surprise: when he had gathered himself together his perplexity was overdone. "With me!" he repeated. "I was alone, of course." "I mean--the woman at the gate." He lost his composure altogether then. I put my back against the door and waited for him to get himself in hand. "There was a woman," I persisted, "and what is more, Wardrop, at this minute you believe she took your Russia leather bag and left a substitute." He fell into the trap. "But she couldn't," he quavered. "I've thought until my brain is going, and I don't see how she could have done it." He became sullen when he saw what he had done, refused any more information, and left almost immediately. Fred came soon after, and in the meantime I had made some notes like this: 1. Examine warehouse and yard. 2. Attempt to trace Carter. 3. See station agent at Bellwood. 4. Inquire Wardrop's immediate past. 5. Take Wardrop to Doctor Anderson, the specialist. 6. Send Margery violets. CHAPTER XVI ELEVEN TWENTY-TWO AGAIN Burton's idea of exploiting Miss Jane's disappearance began to bear fruit the next morning. I went to the office early, anxious to get my more pressing business out of the way, to have the afternoon with Burton to inspect the warehouse. At nine o'clock came a call from the morgue. "Small woman, well dressed, gray hair?" I repeated. "I think I'll go up and see. Where was the body found?" "In the river at Monica Station," was the reply. "There is a scar diagonally across the cheek to the corner of the mouth." "A fresh injury?" "No, an old scar." With a breath of relief I said it was not the person we were seeking and tried to get down to work again. But Burton's prophecy had been right. Miss Jane had been seen in a hundred different places: one perhaps was right; which one? A reporter for the _Eagle_ had been working on the case all night: he came in for a more detailed description of the missing woman, and he had a theory, to fit which he was quite ready to cut and trim the facts. "It's Rowe," he said confidently. "You can see his hand in it right through. I was put on the Benson kidnapping case, you remember, the boy who was kept for three months in a deserted lumber camp in the mountains? Well, sir, every person in the Benson house swore that youngster was in bed at midnight, when the house was closed for the night. Every door and window bolted in the morning, and the boy gone. When we found Rowe--after the mother had put on mourning--and found the kid, ten pounds heavier than he had been before he was abducted, and strutting around like a turkey cock, Rowe told us that he and the boy took in the theater that night, and were there for the first act. How did he do it? He offered to take the boy to the show if he would pretend to go to bed, and then slide down a porch pillar and meet him. The boy didn't want to go home when we found him." "There can't be any mistake about the time in this case," I commented. "I saw her myself after eleven, and said good night." The _Eagle_ man consulted his note-book. "Oh, yes," he asked; "did she have a diagonal cut across her cheek?" "No," I said for the second time. My next visitor was a cabman. On the night in question he had taken a small and a very nervous old woman to the Omega ferry. She appeared excited and almost forgot to pay him. She carried a small satchel, and wore a black veil. What did she look like? She had gray hair, and she seemed to have a scar on her face that drew the corner of her mouth. At ten o'clock I telephoned Burton: "For Heaven's sake," I said, "if anybody has lost a little old lady in a black dress, wearing a black veil, carrying a satchel, and with a scar diagonally across her cheek from her eye to her mouth, I can tell them all about her, and where she is now." "That's funny," he said. "We're stirring up the pool and bringing up things we didn't expect. The police have been looking for that woman quietly for a week: she's the widow of a coal baron, and her son-in-law's under suspicion of making away with her." "Well, he didn't," I affirmed. "She committed suicide from an Omega ferry boat and she's at the morgue this morning." "Bully," he returned. "Keep on; you'll get lots of clues, and remember one will be right." It was not until noon, however, that anything concrete developed. In the two hours between, I had interviewed seven more people. I had followed the depressing last hours of the coal baron's widow, and jumped with her, mentally, into the black river that night. I had learned of a small fairish-haired girl who had tried to buy cyanide of potassium at three drug-stores on the same street, and of a tall light woman who had taken a room for three days at a hotel and was apparently demented. At twelve, however, my reward came. Two men walked in, almost at the same time: one was a motorman, in his official clothes, brass buttons and patches around the pockets. The other was a taxicab driver. Both had the uncertain gait of men who by occupation are unused to anything stationary under them, and each eyed the other suspiciously. The motorman claimed priority by a nose, so I took him first into my private office. His story, shorn of his own opinions at the time and later, was as follows: On the night in question, Thursday of the week before, he took his car out of the barn for the eleven o'clock run. Barney was his conductor. They went from the barn, at Hays Street, down-town, and then started out for Wynton. The controller blew out, and two or three things went wrong: all told they lost forty minutes. They got to Wynton at five minutes after two; their time there was one-twenty-five. The car went to the bad again at Wynton, and he and Barney tinkered with it until two-forty. They got it in shape to go back to the barn, but that was all. Just as they were ready to start, a passenger got on, a woman, alone: a small woman with a brown veil. She wore a black dress or a suit--he was vague about everything but the color, and he noticed her especially because she was fidgety and excited. Half a block farther a man boarded the car, and sat across from the woman. Barney said afterward that the man tried twice to speak to the woman, but she looked away each time. No, he hadn't heard what he said. The man got out when the car went into the barn, but the woman stayed on. He and Barney got another car and took it out, and the woman went with them. She made a complete round trip this time, going out to Wynton and back to the end of the line down-town. It was just daylight when she got off at last, at First and Day Streets. Asked if he had thought at the time that the veiled woman was young or old, he said he had thought she was probably middle-aged. Very young or very old women would not put in the night riding in a street-car. Yes, he had had men who rode around a couple of times at night, mostly to sober up before they went home. But he never saw a woman do it before. I took his name and address and thanked him. The chauffeur came next, and his story was equally pertinent. On the night of the previous Thursday he had been engaged to take a sick woman from a down-town hotel to a house at Bellwood. The woman's husband was with her, and they went slowly to avoid jolting. It was after twelve when he drove away from the house and started home. At a corner--he did not know the names of the streets--a woman hailed the cab and asked him if he belonged in Bellwood or was going to the city. She had missed the last train. When he told her he was going into town, she promptly engaged him, and showed him where to wait for her, a narrow road off the main street. "I waited an hour," he finished, "before she came; I dropped to sleep or I would have gone without her. About half-past one she came along, and a gentleman with her. He put her in the cab, and I took her to the city. When I saw in the paper that a lady had disappeared from Bellwood that night, I knew right off that it was my party." "Would you know the man again?" "I would know his voice, I expect, sir; I could not see much: he wore a slouch hat and had a traveling-bag of some kind." "What did he say to the woman?" I asked. "He didn't say much. Before he closed the door, he said, 'You have put me in a terrible position,' or something like that. From the traveling-bag and all, I thought perhaps it was an elopement, and the lady had decided to throw him down." "Was it a young woman or an old one," I asked again. This time the cabby's tone was assured. "Young," he asserted, "slim and quick: dressed in black, with a black veil. Soft voice. She got out at Market Square, and I have an idea she took a cross-town car there." "I hardly think it was Miss Maitland," I said. "She was past sixty, and besides--I don't think she went that way. Still it is worth following up. Is that all?" He fumbled in his pocket, and after a minute brought up a small black pocket-book and held it out to me. It was the small coin purse out of a leather hand-bag. "She dropped this in the cab, sir," he said. "I took it home to the missus--not knowing what else to do with it. It had no money in it--only that bit of paper." I opened the purse and took out a small white card, without engraving. On it was written in a pencil the figures: C 1122 CHAPTER XVII HIS SECOND WIFE When the cabman had gone, I sat down and tried to think things out. As I have said many times in the course of this narrative, I lack imagination: moreover, a long experience of witnesses in court had taught me the unreliability of average observation. The very fact that two men swore to having taken solitary women away from Bellwood that night, made me doubt if either one had really seen the missing woman. Of the two stories, the taxicab driver's was the more probable, as far as Miss Jane was concerned. Knowing her child-like nature, her timidity, her shrinking and shamefaced fear of the dark, it was almost incredible that she would walk the three miles to Wynton, voluntarily, and from there lose herself in the city. Besides, such an explanation would not fit the blood-stains, or the fact that she had gone, as far as we could find out, in her night-clothes. Still--she had left the village that night, either by cab or on foot. If the driver had been correct in his time, however, the taxicab was almost eliminated; he said the woman got into the cab at one-thirty. It was between one-thirty and one-forty-five when Margery heard the footsteps in the attic. I think for the first time it came to me, that day, that there was at least a possibility that Miss Jane had not been attacked, robbed or injured: that she had left home voluntarily, under stress of great excitement. But if she had, why? The mystery was hardly less for being stripped of its gruesome details. Nothing in my knowledge of the missing woman gave me a clue. I had a vague hope that, if she had gone voluntarily, she would see the newspapers and let us know where she was. To my list of exhibits I added the purse with its inclosure. The secret drawer of my desk now contained, besides the purse, the slip marked eleven twenty-two that had been pinned to Fleming's pillow; the similar scrap found over Miss Jane's mantel; the pearl I had found on the floor of the closet, and the cyanide, which, as well as the bullet, Burton had given me. Add to these the still tender place on my head where Wardrop had almost brained me with a chair, and a blue ankle, now becoming spotted with yellow, where I had fallen down the dumb-waiter, and my list of visible reminders of the double mystery grew to eight. I was not proud of the part I had played. So far, I had blundered, it seemed to me, at every point where a blunder was possible. I had fallen over folding chairs and down a shaft; I had been a half-hour too late to save Allan Fleming; I had been up and awake, and Miss Jane had got out of the house under my very nose. Last, and by no means least, I had waited thirty-five years to find the right woman, and when I found her, some one else had won her. I was in the depths that day when Burton came in. He walked into the office jauntily and presented Miss Grant with a club sandwich neatly done up in waxed paper. Then he came into my private room and closed the door behind him. "Avaunt, dull care!" he exclaimed, taking in my dejected attitude and exhibits on the desk at a glance. "Look up and grin, my friend." He had his hands behind him. "Don't be a fool," I snapped. "I'll not grin unless I feel like it." "Grin, darn you," he said, and put something on the desk in front of me. It was a Russia leather bag. "_The_ leather bag!" he pointed proudly. "Where did you get it?" I exclaimed, incredulous. Burton fumbled with the lock while he explained. "It was found in Boston," he said. "How do you open the thing, anyhow?" It was not locked, and I got it open in a minute. As I had expected, it was empty. "Then--perhaps Wardrop was telling the truth," I exclaimed. "By Jove, Burton, he was robbed by the woman in the cab, and he can't tell about her on account of Miss Fleming! She made a haul, for certain." I told him then of the two women who had left Bellwood on the night of Miss Jane's disappearance, and showed him the purse and its inclosure. The C puzzled him as it had me. "It might be anything," he said as he gave it back, "from a book, chapter and verse in the Bible to a prescription for rheumatism at a drug-store. As to the lady in the cab, I think perhaps you are right," he said, examining the interior of the bag, where Wardrop's name in ink told its story. "Of course, we have only Wardrop's word that he brought the bag to Bellwood; if we grant that we can grant the rest--that he was robbed, that the thief emptied the bag, and either took it or shipped it to Boston." "How on earth did you get it?" "It was a coincidence. There have been a shrewd lot of baggage thieves in two or three eastern cities lately, mostly Boston. The method, the police say, was something like this--one of them, the chief of the gang, would get a wagon, dress like an expressman and go round the depots looking at baggage. He would make a mental note of the numbers, go away and forge a check to match, and secure the pieces he had taken a fancy to. Then he merely drove around to headquarters, and the trunk was rifled. The police got on, raided the place, and found, among others, our Russia leather bag. It was shipped back, empty, to the address inside, at Bellwood." "At Bellwood? Then how--" "It came while I was lunching with Miss Letitia," he said easily. "We're very chummy--thick as thieves. What I want to know is"--disregarding my astonishment--"where is the hundred thousand?" "Find the woman." "Did you ever hear of Anderson, the nerve specialist?" he asked, without apparent relevancy. "I have been thinking of him," I answered. "If we could get Wardrop there, on some plausible excuse, it would take Anderson about ten minutes with his instruments and experimental psychology, to know everything Wardrop ever forgot." "I'll go on one condition," Burton said, preparing to leave. "I'll promise to get Wardrop and have him on the spot at two o'clock to-morrow, if you'll promise me one thing: if Anderson fixes me with his eye, and I begin to look dotty and tell about my past life, I want you to take me by the flap of my ear and lead me gently home." "I promise," I said, and Burton left. The recovery of the bag was only one of the many astonishing things that happened that day and the following night. Hawes, who knew little of what it all meant, and disapproved a great deal, ended that afternoon by locking himself, blinking furiously, in his private office. To Hawes any practice that was not lucrative was bad practice. About four o'clock, when I had shut myself away from the crowd in the outer office, and was letting Miss Grant take their depositions as to when and where they had seen a little old lady, probably demented, wandering around the streets, a woman came who refused to be turned away. "Young woman," I heard her say, speaking to Miss Grant, "he may have important business, but I guess mine's just a little more so." I interfered then, and let her come in. She was a woman of medium height, quietly dressed, and fairly handsome. My first impression was favorable; she moved with a certain dignity, and she was not laced, crimped or made up. I am more sophisticated now; The Lady Who Tells Me Things says that the respectable women nowadays, out-rouge, out-crimp and out-lace the unrespectable. However, the illusion was gone the moment she began to speak. Her voice was heavy, throaty, expressionless. She threw it like a weapon: I am perfectly honest in saying that for a moment the surprise of her voice outweighed the remarkable thing she was saying. "I am Mrs. Allan Fleming," she said, with a certain husky defiance. "I beg your pardon," I said, after a minute. "You mean--the Allan Fleming who has just died?" She nodded. I could see she was unable, just then, to speak. She had nerved herself to the interview, but it was evident that there was a real grief. She fumbled for a black-bordered handkerchief, and her throat worked convulsively. I saw now that she was in mourning. "Do you mean," I asked incredulously, "that Mr. Fleming married a second time?" "He married me three years ago, in Plattsburg. I came from there last night. I--couldn't leave before." "Does Miss Fleming know about this second marriage?" "No. Nobody knew about it. I have had to put up with a great deal, Mr. Knox. It's a hard thing for a woman to know that people are talking about her, and all the time she's married as tight as ring and book can do it." "I suppose," I hazarded, "if that is the case, you have come about the estate." "Estate!" Her tone was scornful. "I guess I'll take what's coming to me, as far as that goes--and it won't be much. No, I came to ask what they mean by saying Allan Fleming killed himself." "Don't you think he did?" "I know he did not," she said tensely. "Not only that: I know who did it. It was Schwartz--Henry Schwartz." "Schwartz! But what on earth--" "You don't know Schwartz," she said grimly. "I was married to him for fifteen years. I took him when he had a saloon in the Fifth Ward, at Plattsburg. The next year he was alderman: I didn't expect in those days to see him riding around in an automobile--not but what he was making money--Henry Schwartz is a money-maker. That's why he's boss of the state now." "And you divorced him?" "He was a brute," she said vindictively. "He wanted me to go back to him, and I told him I would rather die. I took a big house, and kept bachelor suites for gentlemen. Mr. Fleming lived there, and--he married me three years ago. He and Schwartz had to stand together, but they hated each other." "Schwartz?" I meditated. "Do you happen to know if Senator Schwartz was in Plattsburg at the time of the mur--of Mr. Fleming's death?" "He was here in Manchester." "He had threatened Mr. Fleming's life?" "He had already tried to kill him, the day we were married. He stabbed him twice, but not deep enough." I looked at her in wonder. For this woman, not extraordinarily handsome, two men had fought and one had died--according to her story. "I can prove everything I say," she went on rapidly. "I have letters from Mr. Fleming telling me what to do in case he was shot down; I have papers--canceled notes--that would put Schwartz in the penitentiary--that is," she said cunningly, "I did have them. Mr. Fleming took them away." "Aren't you afraid for yourself?" I asked. "Yes, I'm afraid--afraid he'll get me back yet. It would please him to see me crawl back on my knees." "But--he can not force you to go back to him." "Yes, he can," she shivered. From which I knew she had told me only a part of her story. After all she had nothing more to tell. Fleming had been shot; Schwartz had been in the city about the Borough Bank; he had threatened Fleming before, but a political peace had been patched; Schwartz knew the White Cat. That was all. Before she left she told me something I had not known. "I know a lot about inside politics," she said, as she got up. "I have seen the state divided up with the roast at my table, and served around with the dessert, and I can tell you something you don't know about your White Cat. A back staircase leads to one of the up-stairs rooms, and shuts off with a locked door. It opens below, out a side entrance, not supposed to be used. Only a few know of it. Henry Butler was found dead at the foot of that staircase." "He shot himself, didn't he?" "The police said so," she replied, with her grim smile. "There is such a thing as murdering a man by driving him to suicide." She wrote an address on a card and gave it to me. "Just a minute," I said, as she was about to go. "Have you ever heard Mr. Fleming speak of the Misses Maitland?" "They were--his first wife's sisters. No, he never talked of them, but I believe, just before he left Plattsburg, he tried to borrow some money from them." "And failed?" "The oldest one telegraphed the refusal, collect," she said, smiling faintly. "There is something else," I said. "Did you ever hear of the number eleven twenty-two?" "No--or--why, yes--" she said. "It is the number of my house." It seemed rather ridiculous, when she had gone, and I sat down to think it over. It was anticlimax, to say the least. If the mysterious number meant only the address of this very ordinary woman, then--it was probable her story of Schwartz was true enough. But I could not reconcile myself to it, nor could I imagine Schwartz, with his great bulk, skulking around pinning scraps of paper to pillows. It would have been more like the fearlessness and passion of the man to have shot Fleming down in the state house corridor, or on the street, and to have trusted to his influence to set him free. For the first time it occurred to me that there was something essentially feminine in the revenge of the figures that had haunted the dead man. I wondered if Mrs. Fleming had told me all, or only half the truth. That night, at the most peaceful spot I had ever known, Fred's home, occurred another inexplicable affair, one that left us all with racked nerves and listening, fearful ears. CHAPTER XVIII EDITH'S COUSIN That was to be Margery's last evening at Fred's. Edith had kept her as long as she could, but the girl felt that her place was with Miss Letitia. Edith was desolate. "I don't know what I am going to do without you," she said that night when we were all together in the library, with a wood fire, for light and coziness more than heat. Margery was sitting before the fire, and while the others talked she sat mostly silent, looking into the blaze. The May night was cold and rainy, and Fred had been reading us a poem he had just finished, receiving with indifference my comment on it, and basking in Edith's rapture. "Do you know yourself what it is about?" I inquired caustically. "If it's about anything, it isn't poetry," he replied. "Poetry appeals to the ear: it is primarily sensuous. If it is more than that it ceases to be poetry and becomes verse." Edith yawned. "I'm afraid I'm getting old," she said, "I'm getting the nap habit after dinner. Fred, run up, will you, and see if Katie put blankets over the boys?" Fred stuffed his poem in his pocket and went resignedly up-stairs. Edith yawned again, and prepared to retire to the den for forty winks. "If Ellen decides to come down-stairs," she called back over her shoulder, "please come and wake me. She said she felt better and might come down." At the door she turned, behind Margery's back, and made me a sweeping and comprehensive signal. She finished it off with a double wink, Edith having never been able to wink one eye alone, and crossing the hall, closed the door of the den with an obtrusive bang. Margery and I were alone. The girl looked at me, smiled a little, and drew a long breath. "It's queer about Edith," I said; "I never before knew her to get drowsy after dinner. If she were not beyond suspicion, I would think it a deep-laid scheme, and she and Fred sitting and holding hands in a corner somewhere." "But why--a scheme?" She had folded her hands in her lap, and the eternal ring sparkled malignantly. "They might think I wanted to talk to you," I suggested. "To me?" "To you--The fact is, I do." Perhaps I was morbid about the ring: it seemed to me she lifted her hand and looked at it. "It's drafty in here: don't you think so?" she asked suddenly, looking back of her. Probably she had not meant it, but I got up and closed the door into the hall. When I came back I took the chair next to her, and for a moment we said nothing. The log threw out tiny red devil sparks, and the clock chimed eight, very slowly. "Harry Wardrop was here last night," I said, poking down the log with my heel. "Here?" "Yes. I suppose I was wrong, but I did not say you were here." She turned and looked at me closely, out of the most beautiful eyes I ever saw. "I'm not afraid to see him," she said proudly, "and he ought not to be afraid to see me." "I want to tell you something before you see him. Last night, before he came, I thought that--well, that at least he knew something of--the things we want to know." "Yes?" "In justice to him, and because I want to fight fair, I tell you to-night that I don't believe he knows anything about your father's death, and that I believe he was robbed that night at Bellwood." "What about the pearls he sold at Plattsburg?" she asked suddenly. "I think when the proper time comes, he will tell about that too, Margery." I did not notice my use of her name until too late. If she heard, she failed to resent it. "After all, if you love him, hardly anything else matters, does it? How do we know but that he was in trouble, and that Aunt Jane herself gave them to him?" She looked at me with a little perplexity. "You plead his cause very well," she said. "Did he ask you to speak to me?" "I won't run a race with a man who is lame," I said quietly. "Ethically, I ought to go away and leave you to your dreams, but I am not going to do it. If you love Wardrop as a woman ought to love the man she marries, then marry him and I hope you will be happy. If you don't--no, let me finish. I have made up my mind to clear him if I can: to bring him to you with a clear slate. Then, I know it is audacious, but I am going to come, too, and--I'm going to plead for myself then, unless you send me away." She sat with her head bent, her color coming and going nervously. Now she looked up at me with what was the ghost of a smile. "It sounds like a threat," she said in a low voice. "And you--I wonder if you always get what you want?" Then, of course, Fred came in, and fell over a hassock looking for matches. Edith opened the door of the den and called him to her irritably, but Fred declined to leave the wood fire, and settled down in his easy chair. After a while Edith came over and joined us, but she snubbed Fred the entire evening, to his bewilderment. And when conversation lagged, during the evening that followed, I tried to remember what I had said, and knew I had done very badly. Only one thing cheered me: she had not been angry, and she had understood. Blessed be the woman that understands! We broke up for the night about eleven. Mrs. Butler had come down for a while, and had even played a little, something of Tschaikovsky's, a singing, plaintive theme that brought sadness back into Margery's face, and made me think, for no reason, of a wet country road and a plodding, back-burdened peasant. Fred and I sat in the library for a while after the rest had gone, and I told him a little of what I had learned that afternoon. "A second wife!" he said, "and a primitive type, eh? Well, did she shoot him, or did Schwartz? The Lady or the Democratic Tiger?" "The Tiger," I said firmly. "The Lady," Fred, with equal assurance. Fred closed the house with his usual care. It required the combined efforts of the maids followed up by Fred, to lock the windows, it being his confident assertion that in seven years of keeping house, he had never failed to find at least one unlocked window. On that night, I remember, he went around with his usual scrupulous care. Then we went up to bed, leaving a small light at the telephone in the lower hall: nothing else. The house was a double one, built around a square hall below, which served the purpose of a general sitting-room. From the front door a short, narrow hall led back to this, with a room on either side, and from it doors led into the rest of the lower floor. At one side the stairs took the ascent easily, with two stops for landings, and up-stairs the bedrooms opened from a similar, slightly smaller square hall. The staircase to the third floor went up from somewhere back in the nursery wing. My bedroom was over the library, and Mrs. Butler and Margery Fleming had connecting rooms, across the hall. Fred and Edith slept in the nursery wing, so they would be near the children. In the square upper hall there was a big reading table, a lamp, and some comfortable chairs. Here, when they were alone, Fred read aloud the evening paper, or his latest short story, and Edith's sewing basket showed how she put in what women miscall their leisure. I did not go to sleep at once: naturally the rather vital step I had taken in the library insisted on being considered and almost regretted. I tried reading myself to sleep, and when that failed, I tried the soothing combination of a cigarette and a book. That worked like a charm; the last thing I remember is of holding the cigarette in a death grip as I lay with my pillows propped back of me, my head to the light, and a delightful languor creeping over me. I was wakened by the pungent acrid smell of smoke, and I sat up and blinked my eyes open. The side of the bed was sending up a steady column of gray smoke, and there was a smart crackle of fire under me somewhere. I jumped out of bed and saw the trouble instantly. My cigarette had dropped from my hand, still lighted, and as is the way with cigarettes, determined to burn to the end. In so doing it had fired my bed, the rug under the bed and pretty nearly the man on the bed. It took some sharp work to get it all out without rousing the house. Then I stood amid the wreckage and looked ruefully at Edith's pretty room. I could see, mentally, the spot of water on the library ceiling the next morning, and I could hear Fred's strictures on the heedlessness and indifference to property of bachelors in general and me in particular. Three pitchers of water on the bed had made it an impossible couch. I put on a dressing-gown, and, with a blanket over my arm, I went out to hunt some sort of place to sleep. I decided on the davenport in the hall just outside, and as quietly as I could, I put a screen around it and settled down for the night. I was wakened by the touch of a hand on my face. I started, I think, and the hand was jerked away--I am not sure: I was still drowsy. I lay very quiet, listening for footsteps, but none came. With the feeling that there was some one behind the screen, I jumped up. The hall was dark and quiet. When I found no one I concluded it had been only a vivid dream, and I sat down on the edge of the davenport and yawned. I heard Edith moving back in the nursery: she has an uncomfortable habit of wandering around in the night, covering the children, closing windows, and sniffing for fire. I was afraid some of the smoke from my conflagration had reached her suspicious nose, but she did not come into the front hall. I was wide-awake by that time, and it was then, I think, that I noticed a heavy, sweetish odor in the air. At first I thought one of the children might be ill, and that Edith was dosing him with one of the choice concoctions that she kept in the bath-room medicine closet. When she closed her door, however, and went back to bed, I knew I had been mistaken. The sweetish smell was almost nauseating. For some reason or other--association of certain odors with certain events--I found myself recalling the time I had a wisdom tooth taken out, and that when I came around I was being sat on by the dentist and his assistant, and the latter had a black eye. Then, suddenly, I knew. The sickly odor was chloroform! I had the light on in a moment, and was rapping at Margery's door. It was locked, and I got no answer. A pale light shone over the transom, but everything was ominously quiet, beyond the door. I went to Mrs. Butler's door, next; it was unlocked and partly open. One glance at the empty bed and the confusion of the place, and I rushed without ceremony through the connecting door into Margery's room. The atmosphere was reeking with chloroform. The girl was in bed, apparently sleeping quietly. One arm was thrown up over her head, and the other lay relaxed on the white cover. A folded towel had been laid across her face, and when I jerked it away I saw she was breathing very slowly, stertorously, with her eyes partly open and fixed. I threw up all the windows, before I roused the family, and as soon as Edith was in the room I telephoned for the doctor. I hardly remember what I did until he came: I know we tried to rouse Margery and failed, and I know that Fred went down-stairs and said the silver was intact and the back kitchen door open. And then the doctor came, and I was put out in the hall, and for an eternity, I walked up and down, eight steps one way, eight steps back, unable to think, unable even to hope. Not until the doctor came out to me, and said she was better, and would I call a maid to make some strong black coffee, did I come out of my stupor. The chance of doing something, anything, made me determine to make the coffee myself. They still speak of that coffee at Fred's. It was Edith who brought Mrs. Butler to my mind. Fred had maintained that she had fled before the intruders, and was probably in some closet or corner of the upper floor. I am afraid our solicitude was long in coming. It was almost an hour before we organized a searching party to look for her. Fred went up-stairs, and I took the lower floor. It was I who found her, after all, lying full length on the grass in the little square yard back of the house. She was in a dead faint, and she was a much more difficult patient than Margery. We could get no story from either of them that night. The two rooms had been ransacked, but apparently nothing had been stolen. Fred vowed he had locked and bolted the kitchen door, and that it had been opened from within. It was a strange experience, that night intrusion into the house, without robbery as a motive. If Margery knew or suspected the reason for the outrage, she refused to say. As for Mrs. Butler, to mention the occurrence put her into hysteria. It was Fred who put forth the most startling theory of the lot. "By George," he said the next morning when we had failed to find tracks in the yard, and Edith had reported every silver spoon in its place, "by George, it wouldn't surprise me if the lady in the grave clothes did it herself. There isn't anything a hysterical woman won't do to rouse your interest in her, if it begins to flag. How did any one get in through that kitchen door, when it was locked inside and bolted? I tell you, she opened it herself." I did not like to force Margery's confidence, but I believed that the outrage was directly for the purpose of searching her room, perhaps for papers that had been her father's. Mrs. Butler came around enough by morning, to tell a semi-connected story in which she claimed that two men had come in from a veranda roof, and tried to chloroform her. That she had pretended to be asleep and had taken the first opportunity, while they were in the other room, to run down-stairs and into the yard. Edith thought it likely enough, being a credulous person. As it turned out, Edith's intuition was more reliable than my skepticism,--or Fred's. CHAPTER XIX BACK TO BELLWOOD The inability of Margery Fleming to tell who had chloroformed her, and Mrs. Butler's white face and brooding eyes made a very respectable mystery out of the affair. Only Fred, Edith and I came down to breakfast that morning. Fred's expression was half amused, half puzzled. Edith fluttered uneasily over the coffee machine, her cheeks as red as the bow of ribbon at her throat. I was preoccupied, and, like Fred, I propped the morning paper in front of me and proceeded to think in its shelter. "Did you find anything, Fred?" Edith asked. Fred did not reply, so she repeated the question with some emphasis. "Eh--what?" Fred inquired, peering around the corner of the paper. "Did--you--find--any--clue?" "Yes, dear--that is, no. Nothing to amount to anything. Upon my soul, Jack, if I wrote the editorials of this paper, I'd _say_ something." He subsided into inarticulate growls behind the paper, and everything was quiet. Then I heard a sniffle, distinctly. I looked up. Edith was crying--pouring cream into a coffee cup, and feeling blindly for the sugar, with her pretty face twisted and her pretty eyes obscured. In a second I was up, had crumpled the newspapers, including Fred's, into a ball, and had lifted him bodily out of his chair. "When I am married," I said fiercely, jerking him around to Edith and pushing him into a chair beside her, "if I ever read the paper at breakfast when my wife is bursting for conversation, may I have some good and faithful friend who will bring me back to a sense of my duty." I drew a chair to Edith's other side. "Now, let's talk," I said. She wiped her eyes shamelessly with her table napkin. "There isn't a soul in this house I can talk to," she wailed. "All kinds of awful things happening--and we had to send for coffee this morning, Jack. You must have used four pounds last night--and nobody will tell me a thing. There's no use asking Margery--she's sick at her stomach from the chloroform--and Ellen never talks except about herself, and she's horribly--uninteresting. And Fred and you make a ba--barricade out of newspapers, and fire 'yes' at me when you mean 'no.'" "I put the coffee back where I got it, Edith," I protested stoutly. "I know we're barbarians, but I'll swear to that." And then I stopped, for I had a sudden recollection of going up-stairs with something fat and tinny in my arms, of finding it in my way, and of hastily thrusting it into the boys' boot closet under the nursery stair. Fred had said nothing. He had taken her hand and was patting it gently, the while his eye sought the head-lines on the wad of morning paper. "You burned that blue rug," she said to me disconsolately, with a threat of fresh tears. "It took me ages to find the right shade of blue." "I will buy you that Shirvan you wanted," I hastened to assure her. "Yes, to take away when you get married." There is a hint of the shrew in all good women. "I will buy the Shirvan and _not_ get married." Here, I regret to say, Edith suddenly laughed. She threw her head back and jeered at me. "You!" she chortled, and pointed one slim finger at me mockingly. "You, who are so mad about one girl that you love all women for her sake! You, who go white instead of red when she comes into the room! You, who have let your practice go to the dogs to be near her, and then never speak to her when she's around, but sit with your mouth open like a puppy begging for candy, ready to snap up every word she throws you and wiggle with joy!" I was terrified. "Honestly, Edith, do I do that?" I gasped. But she did not answer; she only leaned over and kissed Fred. "Women like men to be awful fools about them," she said. "That's why I'm so crazy about Freddie." He writhed. "If I tell you something nice, Jack, will you make it a room-size rug?" "Room size it is." "Then--Margery's engagement ring was stolen last night and when I commiserated her she said--dear me, the lamp's out and the coffee is cold!" "Remarkable speech, under the circumstances," said Fred. Edith rang the bell and seemed to be thinking. "Perhaps we'd better make it four small rugs instead of one large one," she said. "Not a rug until you have told me what Margery said," firmly. "Oh, that! Why, she said it really didn't matter about the ring. She had never cared much about it anyway." "But that's only a matter of taste," I protested, somewhat disappointed. But Edith got up and patted me on the top of my head. "Silly," she said. "If the right man came along and gave her a rubber teething ring, she'd be crazy about it for his sake." "Edith!" Fred said, shocked. But Edith had gone. She took me up-stairs before I left for the office to measure for the Shirvan, Edith being a person who believes in obtaining a thing while the desire for it is in its first bloom. Across the hall Fred was talking to Margery through the transom. "Mustard leaves are mighty helpful," he was saying. "I always take 'em on shipboard. And cheer up: land's in sight." I would have given much for Fred's ease of manner when, a few minutes later, Edith having decided on four Shirvans and a hall runner, she took me to the door of Margery's room. She was lying very still and pale in the center of the white bed, and she tried bravely to smile at us. "I hope you are better," I said. "Don't let Edith convince you that my coffee has poisoned you." She said she was a little better, and that she didn't know she had had any coffee. That was the extent of the conversation. I, who have a local reputation of a sort before a jury, I could not think of another word to say. I stood there for a minute uneasily, with Edith poking me with her finger to go inside the door and speak and act like an intelligent human being. But I only muttered something about a busy day before me and fled. It was a singular thing, but as I stood in the doorway, I had a vivid mental picture of Edith's description of me, sitting up puppy-like to beg for a kind word, and wiggling with delight when I got it. If I slunk into my office that morning like a dog scourged to his kennel, Edith was responsible. At the office I found a note from Miss Letitia, and after a glance at it I looked for the first train, in my railroad schedule. The note was brief; unlike the similar epistle I had received from Miss Jane the day she disappeared, this one was very formal. "MR. JOHN KNOX: "DEAR SIR--Kindly oblige me by coming to see me as soon as you get this. Some things have happened, not that I think they are worth a row of pins, but Hepsibah is an old fool, and she says she did not put the note in the milk bottle. "Yours very respectfully, "LETITIA ANN MAITLAND." I had an appointment with Burton for the afternoon, to take Wardrop, if we could get him on some pretext, to Doctor Anderson. That day, also, I had two cases on the trial list. I got Humphreys, across the hall, to take them over, and evading Hawes' resentful blink, I went on my way to Bellwood. It was nine days since Miss Jane had disappeared. On my way out in the train I jotted down the things that had happened in that time: Allan Fleming had died and been buried; the Borough Bank had failed; some one had got into the Fleming house and gone through the papers there; Clarkson had killed himself; we had found that Wardrop had sold the pearls; the leather bag had been returned; Fleming's second wife had appeared, and some one had broken into my own house and, intentionally or not, had almost sent Margery Fleming over the borderland. It seemed to me everything pointed in one direction, to a malignity against Fleming that extended itself to the daughter. I thought of what the woman who claimed to be the dead man's second wife had said the day before. If the staircase she had spoken of opened into the room where Fleming was shot, and if Schwartz was in town at the time, then, in view of her story that he had already tried once to kill him, the likelihood was that Schwartz was at least implicated. If Wardrop knew that, why had he not denounced him? Was I to believe that, after all the mystery, the number eleven twenty-two was to resolve itself into the number of a house? Would it be typical of the Schwartz I knew to pin bits of paper to a man's pillow? On the other hand, if he had reason to think that Fleming had papers that would incriminate him, it would be like Schwartz to hire some one to search for them, and he would be equal to having Wardrop robbed of the money he was taking to Fleming. Granting that Schwartz had killed Fleming--then who was the woman with Wardrop the night he was robbed? Why did he take the pearls and sell them? How did the number eleven twenty-two come into Aunt Jane's possession? How did the leather bag get to Boston? Who had chloroformed Margery? Who had been using the Fleming house while it was closed? Most important of all now--where was Aunt Jane? The house at Bellwood looked almost cheerful in the May sunshine, as I went up the walk. Nothing ever changed the straight folds of the old-fashioned lace curtains; no dog ever tracked the porch, or buried sacrilegious and odorous bones on the level lawn; the birds were nesting in the trees, well above the reach of Robert's ladder, but they were decorous, well-behaved birds, whose prim courting never partook of the exuberance of their neighbors', bursting their little throats in an elm above the baby perambulator in the next yard. When Bella had let me in, and I stood once more in the straight hall, with the green rep chairs and the Japanese umbrella stand, involuntarily I listened for the tap of Miss Jane's small feet on the stairs. Instead came Bella's heavy tread, and a request from Miss Letitia that I go up-stairs. The old lady was sitting by a window of her bedroom, in a chintz upholstered chair. She did not appear to be feeble; the only change I noticed was a relaxation in the severe tidiness of her dress. I guessed that Miss Jane's exquisite neatness had been responsible for the white ruchings, the soft caps, and the spotless shoulder shawls which had made lovely their latter years. "You've taken your own time about coming, haven't you?" Miss Letitia asked sourly. "If it hadn't been for that cousin of yours you sent here, Burton, I'd have been driven to sending for Amelia Miles, and when I send for Amelia Miles for company, I'm in a bad way." "I have had a great deal to attend to," I said as loud as I could. "I came some days ago to tell you Mr. Fleming was dead; after that we had to bury him, and close the house. It's been a very sad--" "Did he leave anything?" she interrupted. "It isn't sad at all unless he didn't leave anything." "He left very little. The house, perhaps, and I regret to have to tell you that a woman came to me yesterday who claims to be a second wife." She took off her glasses, wiped them and put them on again. "Then," she said with a snap, "there's one other woman in the world as big a fool as my sister Martha was. I didn't know there were two of 'em. What do you hear about Jane?" "The last time I was here," I shouted, "you thought she was dead; have you changed your mind?" "The last time you were here," she said with dignity, "I thought a good many things that were wrong. I thought I had lost some of the pearls, but I hadn't." "What!" I exclaimed incredulously. She put her hands on the arms of her chair, and leaning forward, shot the words at me viciously. "I--said--I--had--lost--some--of--the--pearls--well--I--haven't." She didn't expect me to believe her, any more than she believed it herself. But why on earth she had changed her attitude about the pearls was beyond me. I merely nodded comprehensively. "Very well," I said, "I'm glad to know it was a mistake. Now, the next thing is to find Miss Jane." "We have found her," she said tartly. "That's what I sent for you about." "Found her!" This time I did get out of my chair. "What on earth do you mean, Miss Letitia? Why, we've been scouring the country for her." She opened a religious monthly on the table beside her, and took out a folded paper. I had to control my impatience while she changed her glasses and read it slowly. "Heppie found it on the back porch, under a milk bottle," she prefaced. Then she read it to me. I do not remember the wording, and Miss Letitia refused, both then and later, to let it out of her hands. As a result, unlike the other manuscripts in the case, I have not even a copy. The substance, shorn of its bad spelling and grammar, was this: The writer knew where Miss Jane was; the inference being that he was responsible. She was well and happy, but she had happened to read a newspaper with an account of her disappearance, and it had worried her. The payment of the small sum of five thousand dollars would send her back as well as the day she left. The amount, left in a tin can on the base of the Maitland shaft in the cemetery, would bring the missing lady back within twenty-four hours. On the contrary, if the recipient of the letter notified the police, it would go hard with Miss Jane. "What do you think of it?" she asked, looking at me over her glasses. "If she was fool enough to be carried away by a man that spells cemetery with one m, she deserves what she's got. And I won't pay five thousand, anyhow, it's entirely too much." "It doesn't sound quite genuine to me," I said, reading it over. "I should certainly not leave any money until we had tried to find who left this." "I'm not so sure but what she'd better stay a while anyhow," Miss Letitia pursued. "Now that we know she's living, I ain't so particular when she gets back. She's been notionate lately anyhow." I had been reading the note again. "There's one thing here that makes me doubt the whole story," I said. "What's this about her reading the papers? I thought her reading glasses were found in the library." Miss Letitia snatched the paper from me and read it again. "Reading the paper!" she sniffed. "You've got more sense than I've been giving you credit for, Knox. Her glasses are here this minute; without them she can't see to scratch her nose." It was a disappointment to me, although the explanation was simple enough. It was surprising that we had not had more attempts to play on our fears. But the really important thing bearing on Miss Jane's departure was when Heppie came into the room, with her apron turned up like a pocket and her dust cap pushed down over her eyes like the slouch hat of a bowery tough. When she got to the middle of the room she stopped and abruptly dropped the corners of her apron. There rolled out a heterogeneous collection of things: a white muslin garment which proved to be a nightgown, with long sleeves and high collar; a half-dozen hair curlers--I knew those; Edith had been seen, in midnight emergencies, with her hair twisted around just such instruments of torture--a shoe buttoner; a railroad map, and one new and unworn black kid glove. Miss Letitia changed her glasses deliberately, and took a comprehensive survey of the things on the floor. "Where did you get 'em?" she said, fixing Heppie with an awful eye. "I found 'em stuffed under the blankets in the chest of drawers in the attic," Heppie shouted at her. "If we'd washed blankets last week, as I wanted to--" "Shut up!" Miss Letitia said shortly, and Heppie's thin lips closed with a snap. "Now then, Knox, what do you make of that?" "If that's the nightgown she was wearing the night she disappeared, I think it shows one thing very clearly, Miss Maitland. She was not abducted, and she knew perfectly well what she was about. None of her clothes was missing, and that threw us off the track; but look at this new glove! She may have had new things to put on and left the old. The map--well, she was going somewhere, with a definite purpose. When we find out what took her away, we will find her." "Humph!" "She didn't go unexpectedly--that is, she was prepared for whatever it was." "I don't believe a word of it," the old lady burst out. "She didn't have a secret; she was the kind that couldn't keep a secret. She wasn't responsible, I tell you; she was extravagant. Look at that glove! And she had three pairs half worn in her bureau." "Miss Maitland," I asked suddenly, "did you ever hear of eleven twenty-two?" "Eleven twenty-two what?" "Just the number, eleven twenty-two," I repeated. "Does it mean anything to you? Has it any significance?" "I should say it has," she retorted. "In the last ten years the Colored Orphans' Home has cared for, fed, clothed, and pampered exactly eleven hundred and twenty-two colored children, of every condition of shape and misshape, brains and no brains." "It has no other connection?" "Eleven twenty-two? Twice eleven is twenty-two, if that's any help. No, I can't think of anything. I loaned Allan Fleming a thousand dollars once; I guess my mind was failing. It would be about eleven twenty-two by this time." Neither of which explanations sufficed for the little scrap found in Miss Jane's room. What connection, if any, had it with her flight? Where was she now. What was eleven twenty-two? And why did Miss Letitia deny that she had lost the pearls, when I already knew that nine of the ten had been sold, who had bought them, and approximately how much he had paid? CHAPTER XX ASSOCIATION OF IDEAS I ate a light lunch at Bellwood, alone, with Bella to look after me in the dining-room. She was very solicitous, and when she had brought my tea, I thought she wanted to say something. She stood awkwardly near the door, and watched me. "You needn't wait, Bella," I said. "I beg your pardon, sir, but--I wanted to ask you--is Miss Fleming well?" "She was not very well this morning, but I don't think it is serious, Bella," I replied. She turned to go, but I fancied she hesitated. "Oh, Bella," I called, as she was going out, "I want to ask you something. The night at the Fleming home, when you and I watched the house, didn't you hear some person running along the hall outside your door? About two o'clock, I think?" She looked at me stolidly. "No, sir, I slept all night." "That's strange. And you didn't hear me when I fell down the dumb-waiter shaft?" "Holy saints!" she ejaculated. "Was _that_ where you fell!" She stopped herself abruptly. "You heard that?" I asked gently, "and yet you slept all night? Bella, there's a hitch somewhere. You didn't sleep that night, at all; you told Miss Fleming I had been up all night. How did you know that? If I didn't know that you couldn't possibly get around as fast as the--person in the house that night, I would say you had been in Mr. Fleming's desk, looking for--let us say, postage stamps. May I have another cup of coffee?" She turned a sickly yellow white, and gathered up my cup and saucer with trembling hands. When the coffee finally came back it was brought grumblingly by old Heppie. "She says she's turned her ankle," she sniffed. "Turned it on a lathe, like a table leg, I should say, from the shape of it." Before I left the dining-room I put another line in my note-book: "What does Bella know?" I got back to the city somewhat late for my appointment with Burton. I found Wardrop waiting for me at the office, and if I had been astonished at the change in him two nights before, I was shocked now. He seemed to have shrunk in his clothes; his eyeballs were bloodshot from drinking, and his fair hair had dropped, neglected, over his forehead. He was sitting in his familiar attitude, his elbows on his knees, his chin on his palms. He looked at me with dull eyes, when I went in. I did not see Burton at first. He was sitting on my desk, holding a flat can in his hand, and digging out with a wooden toothpick one sardine after another and bolting them whole. "Your good health," he said, poising one in the air, where it threatened oily tears over the carpet. "As an appetite-quencher and thirst-producer, give me the festive sardine. How lovely it would be if we could eat 'em without smelling 'em!" "Don't you do anything but eat?" Wardrop asked, without enthusiasm. Burton eyed him reproachfully. "Is that what I get for doing without lunch, in order to prove to you that you are not crazy?" He appealed to me. "He says he's crazy--lost his think works. Now, I ask you, Knox, when I go to the trouble to find out for him that he's got as many convolutions as anybody, and that they've only got a little convolved, is it fair, I ask you, for him to reproach me about my food?" "I didn't know you knew each other," I put in, while Burton took another sardine. "He says we do," Wardrop said wearily; "says he used to knock me around at college." Burton winked at me solemnly. "He doesn't remember me, but he will," he said. "It's his nerves that are gone, and we'll have him restrung with new wires, like an old piano, in a week." Wardrop had that after-debauch suspicion of all men, but I think he grasped at me as a dependability. "He wants me to go to a doctor," he said. "I'm not sick; it's only--" He was trying to light a cigarette, but the match dropped from his shaking fingers. "Better see one, Wardrop," I urged--and I felt mean enough about doing it. "You need something to brace you up." Burton gave him a very small drink, for he could scarcely stand, and we went down in the elevator. My contempt for the victim between us was as great as my contempt for myself. That Wardrop was in a bad position there could be no doubt; there might be more men than Fleming who had known about the money in the leather bag, and who thought he had taken it and probably killed Fleming to hide the theft. It seemed incredible that an innocent man would collapse as he had done, and yet--at this minute I can name a dozen men who, under the club of public disapproval, have fallen into paresis, insanity and the grave. We are all indifferent to our fellow-men until they are against us. Burton knew the specialist very well--in fact, there seemed to be few people he did not know. And considering the way he had got hold of Miss Letitia and Wardrop, it was not surprising. He had evidently arranged with the doctor, for the waiting-room was empty and we were after hours. The doctor was a large man, his size emphasized by the clothes he wore, very light in color, and unprofessional in cut. He was sandy-haired, inclined to be bald, and with shrewd, light blue eyes behind his glasses. Not particularly impressive, except as to size, on first acquaintance; a good fellow, with a brisk voice, and an amazingly light tread. He began by sending Wardrop into a sort of examining room in the rear of the suite somewhere, to take off his coat and collar. When he had gone the doctor looked at a slip of paper in his hand. "I think I've got it all from Mr. Burton," he said. "Of course, Mr. Knox, this is a little out of my line; a nerve specialist has as much business with psychotherapy as a piano tuner has with musical technique. But the idea is Munsterburg's, and I've had some good results. I'll give him a short physical examination, and when I ring the bell one of you may come in. Are you a newspaper man, Mr. Knox?" "An attorney," I said briefly. "Press man, lawyer, or doctor," Burton broke in, "we all fatten on the other fellow's troubles, don't we?" "We don't fatten very much," I corrected "We live." The doctor blinked behind his glasses. "I never saw a lawyer yet who would admit he was making money," he said. "Look at the way a doctor grinds for a pittance! He's just as capable as the lawyer; he works a damn sight harder, and he makes a tenth the income. A man will pay his lawyer ten thousand dollars for keeping him out of jail for six months, and he'll kick like a steer if his doctor charges him a hundred to keep him out of hell for life! Which of you will come in? I'm afraid two would distract him." "I guess it is Knox's butt-in," Burton conceded, "but I get it later, Doctor; you promised." The physical examination was very brief; when I was called in Wardrop was standing at the window looking down into the street below, and the doctor was writing at his desk. Behind Wardrop's back he gave me the slip he had written. "Test is for association of ideas. Watch length of time between word I give and his reply. I often get hold of facts forgotten by the patient. A wait before the answering word is given shows an attempt at concealment." "Now, Mr. Wardrop," he said, "will you sit here, please?" He drew a chair to the center-table for Wardrop, and another, just across for himself. I sat back and to one side of the patient, where I could see Wardrop's haggard profile and every movement of the specialist. On the table was an electric instrument like a small clock, and the doctor's first action was to attach to it two wires with small, black rubber mouthpieces. "Now, Mr. Wardrop," he said, "we will go on with the test. Your other condition is fair, as I told you; I think you can dismiss the idea of insanity without a second thought, but there is something more than brain and body to be considered; in other words, you have been through a storm, and some of your nervous wires are down. Put the mouthpiece between your lips, please; you see, I do the same with mine. And when I give you a word, speak as quickly as possible the association it brings to your mind. For instance, I say 'noise.' Your first association might be 'street,' 'band,' 'drum,' almost anything associated with the word. As quickly as possible, please." The first few words went simply enough. Wardrop's replies came almost instantly. To "light" he replied "lamp;" "touch" brought the response "hand;" "eat" brought "Burton," and both the doctor and I smiled. Wardrop was intensely serious. Then-- "Taxicab," said the doctor, and, after an almost imperceptible pause, "road" came the association. All at once I began to see the possibilities. "Desk." "Pen." "Pipe." "Smoke." "Head." After a perceptible pause the answer came uncertainly. "Hair." But the association of ideas would not be denied, for in answer to the next word, which was "ice," he gave "blood," evidently following up the previous word "head." I found myself gripping the arms of my chair. The dial on the doctor's clock-like instrument was measuring the interval; I could see that now. The doctor took a record of every word and its response. Wardrop's eyes were shifting nervously. "Hot." "Cold." "White." "Black." "Whisky." "Glass," all in less than a second. "Pearls." A little hesitation, then "box." "Taxicab" again. "Night." "Silly." "Wise." "Shot." After a pause, "revolver." "Night." "Dark." "Blood." "Head." "Water." "Drink." "Traveling-bag." He brought out the word "train" after an evident struggle, but in answer to the next word "lost," instead of the obvious "found," he said "woman." He had not had sufficient mental agility to get away from the association with "bag." The "woman" belonged there. "Murder" brought "dead," but "shot," following immediately after, brought "staircase." I think Wardrop was on his guard by that time, but the conscious effort to hide truths that might be damaging made the intervals longer, from that time on. Already I felt sure that Allan Fleming's widow had been right; he had been shot from the locked back staircase. But by whom? "Blow" brought "chair." "Gone." "Bag" came like a flash. In quick succession, without pause, came the words-- "Bank." "Note." "Door." "Bolt." "Money." "Letters," without any apparent connection. Wardrop was going to the bad. When, to the next word, "staircase," again, he said "scar," his demoralization was almost complete. As for me, the scene in Wardrop's mind was already in mine--Schwartz, with the scar across his ugly forehead, and the bolted door to the staircase open! On again with the test. "Flour," after perhaps two seconds, from the preceding shock, brought "bread." "Trees." "Leaves." "Night." "Dark." "Gate." He stopped here so long, I thought he was not going to answer at all. Presently, with am effort, he said "wood," but as before, the association idea came out in the next word; for "electric light" he gave "letters." "Attic" brought "trunks" at once. "Closet." After perhaps a second and a half came "dust," showing what closet was in his mind, and immediately after, to "match" he gave "pen." A long list of words followed which told nothing, to my mind, although the doctor's eyes were snapping with excitement. Then "traveling-bag" again, and instead of his previous association, "woman," this time he gave "yellow." But, to the next word, "house," he gave "guest." It came to me that in his mental processes I was the guest, the substitute bag was in his mind, as being in my possession. Quick as a flash the doctor followed up-- "Guest." And Wardrop fell. "Letters," he said. To a great many words, as I said before, I could attach no significance. Here and there I got a ray. "Elderly" brought "black." "Warehouse." "Yard," for no apparent reason. "Eleven twenty-two." "C" was the answer, given without a second's hesitation. Eleven twenty-two C! He gave no evidence of having noticed any peculiarity in what he said; I doubt if he realized his answer. To me, he gave the impression of repeating something he had apparently forgotten. As if a number and its association had been subconscious, and brought to the surface by the psychologist; as if, for instance, some one prompted a--b, and the corollary "c" came without summoning. The psychologist took the small mouthpiece from his lips, and motioned Wardrop to do the same. The test was over. "I don't call that bad condition, Mr.--Wardrop," the doctor said. "You are nervous, and you need a little more care in your habits. You want to exercise, regularly, and you will have to cut out everything in the way of stimulants for a while. Oh, yes, a couple of drinks a day at first, then one a day, and then none. And you are to stop worrying--when trouble comes round, and stares at you, don't ask it in to have a drink. Take it out in the air and kill it; oxygen is as fatal to anxiety as it is to tuberculosis." "How would Bellwood do?" I asked. "Or should it be the country?" "Bellwood, of course," the doctor responded heartily. "Ten miles a day, four cigarettes, and three meals--which is more than you have been taking, Mr. Wardrop, by two." I put him on the train for Bellwood myself, and late that afternoon the three of us--the doctor, Burton and myself--met in my office and went over the doctor's record. "When the answer comes in four-fifths of a second," he said, before we began, "it is hardly worth comment. There is no time in such an interval for any mental reservation. Only those words that showed noticeable hesitation need be considered." We worked until almost seven. At the end of that time the doctor leaned back in his chair, and thrust his hands deep in his trousers pockets. "I got the story from Burton," he said, after a deep breath. "I had no conclusion formed, and of course I am not a detective. Things looked black for Mr. Wardrop, in view of the money lost, the quarrel with Fleming that morning at the White Cat, and the circumstance of his leaving the club and hunting a doctor outside, instead of raising the alarm. Still, no two men ever act alike in an emergency. Psychology is as exact a science as mathematics; it gets information from the source, and a man can not lie in four-fifths of a second. 'Head,' you noticed, brought 'hair' in a second and three quarters, and the next word, 'ice,' brought the 'blood' that he had held back before. That doesn't show anything. He tried to avoid what was horrible to him. "But I gave him 'traveling-bag;' after a pause, he responded with 'train.' The next word, 'lost,' showed what was in his mind; instead of 'found,' he said 'woman.' Now then, I believe he was either robbed by a woman, or he thinks he was. After all, we can only get what he believes himself. "'Money--letters,'--another slip. "'Shot--staircase'--where are the stairs at the White Cat?" "I learned yesterday of a back staircase that leads into one of the upper rooms," I said. "It opens on a side entrance, and is used in emergency." The doctor smiled confidently. "We look there for our criminal," he said. "Nothing hides from the chronoscope. Now then, 'staircase--scar.' Isn't that significant? The association is clear: a scar that is vivid enough, disfiguring enough, to be the first thing that enters his mind." "Schwartz!" Burton said with awe. "Doctor, what on earth does 'eleven twenty-two C' mean?" "I think that is up to you, gentlemen. The C belongs there, without doubt. Briefly, looking over these slips, I make it something like this: Wardrop thinks a woman took his traveling-bag. Three times he gave the word 'letters,' in response to 'gate,' 'guest' and 'money.' Did he have a guest at the time all this happened at Bellwood?" "I was a guest in the house at the time." "Did you offer him money for letters?" "No." "Did he give you any letters to keep for him?" "He gave me the bag that was substituted for his." "Locked?" "Yes. By Jove, I wonder if there is anything in it? I have reason to know that he came into my room that night at least once after I went asleep." "I think it very likely," he said dryly. "One thing we have not touched on, and I believe Mr. Wardrop knows nothing of it. That is, the disappearance of the old lady. There is a psychological study for you! My conclusion? Well, I should say that Mr. Wardrop is not guilty of the murder. He knows, or thinks he knows, who is. He has a theory of his own, about some one with a scar: it may be only a theory. He does not necessarily know, but he hopes. He is in a state of abject fear. Also, he is hiding something concerning letters, and from the word 'money' in that connection, I believe he either sold or bought some damaging papers. He is not a criminal, but he is what is almost worse." The doctor rose and picked up his hat. "He is a weakling," he said, from the doorway. Burton looked at his watch. "By George!" he said. "Seven-twenty, and I've had nothing since lunch but a box of sardines. I'm off to chase the festive mutton chop. Oh, by the way, Knox, where is that locked bag?" "In my office safe." "I'll drop around in the morning and assist you to compound a felony," he said easily. But as it happened, he did not. CHAPTER XXI A PROSCENIUM BOX I was very late for dinner. Fred and Edith were getting ready for a concert, and the two semi-invalids were playing pinochle in Fred's den. Neither one looked much the worse for her previous night's experience; Mrs. Butler was always pale, and Margery had been so since her father's death. The game was over when I went into the den. As usual, Mrs. Butler left the room almost immediately, and went to the piano across the hall. I had grown to accept her avoidance of me without question. Fred said it was because my overwhelming vitality oppressed her. Personally, I think it was because the neurasthenic type of woman is repulsive to me. No doubt Mrs. Butler deserved sympathy, but her open demand for it found me cold and unresponsive. I told Margery briefly of my visit to Bellwood that morning. She was as puzzled as I was about the things Heppie had found in the chest. She was relieved, too. "I am just as sure, now, that she is living, as I was a week ago that she was dead," she said, leaning back in her big chair. "But what terrible thing took her away? Unless--" "Unless what?" "She had loaned my father a great deal of money," Margery said, with heightened color. "She had not dared to tell Aunt Letitia, and the money was to be returned before she found it out. Then--things went wrong with the Borough Bank, and--the money did not come back. If you know Aunt Jane, and how afraid she is of Aunt Letitia, you will understand how terrible it was for her. I have wondered if she would go--to Plattsburg, and try to find father there." "The _Eagle_ man is working on that theory now," I replied. "Margery, if there was a letter 'C' added to eleven twenty-two, would you know what it meant?" She shook her head in the negative. "Will you answer two more questions?" I asked. "Yes, if I can." "Do you know why you were chloroformed last night, and who did it?" "I think I know who did it, but I don't understand. I have been trying all day to think it out. I'm afraid to go to sleep to-night." "You need not be," I assured her. "If necessary, we will have the city police in a ring around the house. If you know and don't tell, Margery, you are running a risk, and more than that, you are protecting a person who ought to be in jail." "I'm not sure," she persisted. "Don't ask me about it, please." "What does Mrs. Butler say?" "Just what she said this morning. And she says valuable papers were taken from under her pillow. She was very ill--hysterical, all afternoon." The gloom and smouldering fire of the _Sonata Apassionata_ came to us from across the hall. I leaned over and took Margery's small hand between my two big ones. "Why don't you tell me?" I urged. "Or--you needn't tell me, I know what you think. But there isn't any motive that I can see, and why would she chloroform you?" "I don't know," Margery shuddered. "Sometimes--I wonder--do you think she is altogether sane?" The music ended with the crash of a minor chord. Fred and Edith came down the stairs, and the next moment we were all together, and the chance for a quiet conversation was gone. At the door Fred turned and came back. "Watch the house," he said. "And by the way, I guess"--he lowered his voice--"the lady's story was probably straight. I looked around again this afternoon, and there are fresh scratches on the porch roof under her window. It looks queer, doesn't it?" It was a relief to know that, after all, Mrs. Butler was an enemy and a dangerous person to nobody but herself. She retired to her room almost as soon as Fred and Edith had gone. I was wondering whether or not to tell Margery about the experiment that afternoon; debating how to ask her what letters she had got from the postmaster at Bellwood addressed to Miss Jane, and what she knew of Bella. At the same time--bear with me, oh masculine reader, the gentle reader will, for she cares a great deal more for the love story than for all the crime and mystery put together--bear with me, I say, if I hold back the account of the terrible events that came that night, to tell how beautiful Margery looked as the lamplight fell on her brown hair and pure profile, and how the impulse came over me to kiss her as she sat there; and how I didn't, after all--poor gentle reader!--and only stooped over and kissed the pink palm of her hand. She didn't mind it; speaking as nearly as possible from an impersonal standpoint, I doubt if she was even surprised. You see, the ring was gone and--it had only been an engagement ring anyhow, and everybody knows how binding they are! And then an angel with a burning sword came and scourged me out of my Eden. And the angel was Burton, and the sword was a dripping umbrella. "I hate to take you out," he said. "The bottom's dropped out of the sky; but I want you to make a little experiment with me." He caught sight of Margery through the portiÃ¨res, and the imp of mischief in him prompted his next speech. "She said she must see you," he said, very distinctly, and leered at me. "Don't be an ass," I said angrily. "I don't know that I care to go out to-night." He changed his manner then. "Let's go and take a look at the staircase you fellows have been talking about," he said. "I don't believe there is a staircase there, except the main one. I have hounded every politician in the city into or out of that joint, and I have never heard of it." I felt some hesitation about leaving the house--and Margery--after the events of the previous night. But Margery had caught enough of the conversation to be anxious to have me to go, and when I went in to consult her she laughed at my fears. "Lightning never strikes twice in the same place," she said bravely. "I will ask Katie to come down with me if I am nervous, and I shall wait up for the family." I went without enthusiasm. Margery's departure had been delayed for a day only, and I had counted on the evening with her. In fact, I had sent the concert tickets to Edith with an eye single to that idea. But Burton's plan was right. It was, in view of what we knew, to go over the ground at the White Cat again, and Saturday night, with the place full of men, would be a good time to look around, unnoticed. "I don't hang so much to this staircase idea," Burton said, "and I have a good reason for it. I think we will find it is the warehouse, yet." "You can depend on it, Burton," I maintained, "that the staircase is the place to look. If you had seen Wardrop's face to-day, and his agony of mind when he knew he had associated 'staircase' with 'shot,' you would think just as I do. A man like Schwartz, who knew the ropes, could go quietly up the stairs, unbolt the door into the room, shoot Fleming and get out. Wardrop suspects Schwartz, and he's afraid of him. If he opened the door just in time to see Schwartz, we will say, backing out the door and going down the stairs, or to see the door closing and suspect who had just gone, we would have the whole situation, as I see it, including the two motives of deadly hate and jealousy." "Suppose the stairs open into the back of the room? He was sitting facing the window. Do you think Schwartz would go in, walk around the table and shoot him from in front? Pooh! Fudge!" "He had a neck," I retorted. "I suppose he might have turned his head to look around." We had been walking through the rain. The White Cat, as far off as the poles socially, was only a half-dozen blocks actually from the best residence portion of the city. At the corner of the warehouse, Burton stopped and looked up at it. "I always get mad when I look at this building," he said. "My great grandfather had a truck garden on this exact spot seventy years ago, and the old idiot sold out for three hundred dollars and a pair of mules! How do you get in?" "What are you going in for?" I asked. "I was wondering if I had a grudge--I have, for that matter--against the mayor, and I wanted to shoot him, how I would go about it. I think I should find a point of vantage, like an overlooking window in an empty building like this, and I would wait for a muggy night, also like this, when the windows were up and the lights going. I could pot him with a thirty-eight at a dozen yards, with my eyes crossed." We had stopped near the arched gate where I had stood and waited for Hunter, a week before. Suddenly Burton darted away from me and tried the gate. It opened easily, and I heard him splashing through a puddle in the gloomy yard. "Come in," he called softly. "The water's fine." The gate swung to behind me, and I could not see six inches from my nose. Burton caught my elbow and steered me, by touching the fence, toward the building. "If it isn't locked too tight," he was saying, "we can get in, perhaps through a window, and get up-stairs. From there we ought to be able to see down into the club. What the devil's that?" It was a rat, I think, and it scrambled away among the loose boards in a frenzy of excitement. Burton struck a match; it burned faintly in the dampness, and in a moment went out, having shown us only the approximate location of the heavy, arched double doors. A second match showed us a bar and a rusty padlock; there was no entrance to be gained in that way. The windows were of the eight-paned variety, and in better repair than the ones on the upper floors. By good luck, we found one unlocked and not entirely closed; it shrieked hideously as we pried it up, but an opportune clap of thunder covered the sound. By this time I was ready for anything that came; I was wet to my knees, muddy, disreputable. While Burton held the window I crawled into the warehouse, and turned to perform the same service for him. At first I could not see him, outside. Then I heard his voice, a whisper, from beyond the sill. "Duck," he said. "Cop!" I dropped below the window, and above the rain I could hear the squash of the watchman's boots in the mud. He flashed a night lamp in at the window next to ours, but he was not very near, and the open window escaped his notice. I felt all the nervous dread of a real malefactor, and when I heard the gate close behind him, and saw Burton put a leg over the sill, I was almost as relieved as I would have been had somebody's family plate, tied up in a tablecloth, been reposing at my feet. Burton had an instinct for getting around in the dark. I lighted another match as soon as he had closed the window, and we made out our general direction toward where the stairs ought to be. When the match went out, we felt our way in the dark; I had only one box of wax matches, and Burton had dropped his in a puddle. We got to the second floor, finally, and without any worse mishap than Burton banging his arm against a wheel of some sort. Unlike the first floor, the second was subdivided into rooms; it took a dozen precious matches to find our way to the side of the building overlooking the club, and another dozen to find the window we wanted. When we were there at last, Burton leaned his elbows on the sill, and looked down and across. "Could anything be better!" he said. "There's our theater, and we've got a proscenium box. That room over there stands out like a spot-light." He was right. Not more than fifteen feet away, and perhaps a foot lower than our window, was the window of the room where Fleming had been killed. It was empty, as far as we could see; the table, neat enough now, was where it had been before, directly under the light. Any one who sat there would be an illuminated target from our window. Not only that, but an arm could be steadied on the sill, allowing for an almost perfect aim. "Now, where's your staircase?" Burton jeered. The club was evidently full of men, as he had prophesied. Above the rattle of the rain came the thump--thump of the piano, and a half-dozen male voices. The shutters below were closed; we could see nothing. I think it was then that Burton had his inspiration. "I'll bet you a five-dollar bill," he said, "that if I fire off my revolver here, now, not one of those fellows down there would pay the slightest attention." "I'll take that bet," I returned. "I'll wager that every time anybody drops a poker, since Fleming was shot, the entire club turns out to investigate." In reply Burton got out his revolver, and examined it by holding it against the light from across the way. "I'll tell you what I'll do," he said. "Everybody down there knows me; I'll drop in for a bottle of beer, and you fire a shot into the floor here, or into somebody across, if you happen to see any one you don't care for. I suggest that you stay and fire the shot, because if you went, my friend, and nobody heard it, you would accuse me of shooting from the back of the building somewhere." He gave me the revolver and left me with a final injunction. "Wait for ten minutes," he said. "It will take five for me to get out of here, and five more to get into the club-house. Perhaps you'd better make it fifteen." CHAPTER XXII IN THE ROOM OVER THE WAY He went away into the darkness, and I sat down on an empty box by the window and waited. Had any one asked me, at that minute, how near we were to the solution of our double mystery, I would have said we had made no progress--save by eliminating Wardrop. Not for one instant did I dream that I was within less than half an hour of a revelation that changed my whole conception of the crime. I timed the interval by using one of my precious matches to see my watch when he left. I sat there for what seemed ten minutes, listening to the rush of the rain and the creaking of a door behind me In the darkness somewhere, that swung back and forth rustily in the draft from the broken windows. The gloom was infinitely depressing; away from Burton's enthusiasm, his scheme lacked point; his argument, that the night duplicated the weather conditions of that other night, a week ago, seemed less worthy of consideration. Besides, I have a horror of making myself ridiculous, and I had an idea that it would be hard to explain my position, alone in the warehouse, firing a revolver into the floor, if my own argument was right, and the club should rouse to a search. I looked again at my watch; only six minutes. Eight minutes. Nine minutes. Every one who has counted the passing of seconds knows how they drag. With my eyes on the room across, and my finger on the trigger, I waited as best I could. At ten minutes I was conscious there was some one in the room over the way. And then he came into view from the side somewhere, and went to the table. He had his back to me, and I could only see that he was a large man, with massive shoulders and dark hair. It was difficult to make out what he was doing. After a half-minute, however, he stepped to one side, and I saw that he had lighted a candle, and was systematically reading and then burning certain papers, throwing the charred fragments on the table. With the same glance that told me that, I knew the man. It was Schwartz. I was so engrossed in watching him that when he turned and came directly to the window, I stood perfectly still, staring at him. With the light at his back, I felt certain I had been discovered, but I was wrong. He shook the newspaper which had held the fragments, out of the window, lighted a cigarette and flung the match out also, and turned back into the room. As a second thought, he went back and jerked at the cord of the window-shade, but it refused to move. He was not alone, for from the window he turned and addressed some one in the room behind. "You are sure you got them all?" he said. The other occupant of the room came within range of vision. It was Davidson. "All there were, Mr. Schwartz," he replied. "We were nearly finished before the woman made a bolt." He was fumbling in his pockets. I think I expected him to produce an apple and a penknife, but he held out a small object on the palm of his hand. "I would rather have done it alone, Mr. Schwartz," he said. "I found this ring in Brigg's pocket this morning. It belongs to the girl." Schwartz swore, and picking up the ring, held it to the light. Then he made an angry motion to throw it out of the window, but his German cupidity got the better of him. He slid it into his vest pocket instead. "You're damned poor stuff, Davidson," he said, with a snarl. "If she hasn't got them, then Wardrop has. You'll bungle this job and there'll be hell to pay. Tell McFeely I want to see him." Davidson left, for I heard the door close. Schwartz took the ring out and held it to the light. I looked at my watch. The time was almost up. A fresh burst of noise came from below. I leaned out cautiously and looked down at the lower windows; they were still closed and shuttered. When I raised my eyes again to the level of the room across, I was amazed to see a second figure in the room--a woman, at that. Schwartz had not seen her. He stood with his back to her, looking at the ring in his hand. The woman had thrown her veil back, but I could see nothing of her face as she stood. She looked small beside Schwartz's towering height, and she wore black. She must have said something just then, very quietly, for Schwartz suddenly lifted his head and wheeled on her. I had a clear view of him, and if ever guilt, rage, and white-lipped fear showed on a man's face, it showed on his. He replied--a half-dozen words, in a low tone, and made a motion to offer her a chair. But she paid no attention. I have no idea how long a time they talked. The fresh outburst of noise below made it impossible to hear what they said, and there was always the maddening fact that I could not see her face. I thought of Mrs. Fleming, but this woman seemed younger and more slender. Schwartz was arguing, I imagined, but she stood immobile, scornful, watching him. She seemed to have made a request, and the man's evasions moved her no whit. It may have been only two or three minutes, but it seemed longer. Schwartz had given up the argument, whatever it was, and by pointing out the window, I supposed he was telling her he had thrown what she wanted out there. Even then she did not turn toward me; I could not see even her profile. What happened next was so unexpected that it remains little more than a picture in my mind. The man threw out his hands as if to show he could not or would not accede to her request; he was flushed with rage, and even at that distance the ugly scar on his forehead stood out like a welt. The next moment I saw the woman raise her right hand, with something in it. I yelled to Schwartz to warn him, but he had already seen the revolver. As he struck her hand aside, the explosion came; I saw her stagger, clutch at a chair, and fall backward beyond my range of vision. Then the light went out, and I was staring at a black, brick wall. I turned and ran frantically toward the stairs. Luckily, I found them easily. I fell rather than ran down to the floor below. Then I made a wrong turning and lost some time. My last match set me right and I got into the yard somehow, and to the street. It was raining harder than ever, and the thunder was incessant. I ran around the corner of the street, and found the gate to the White Cat without trouble. The inner gate was unlocked, as Burton had said he would leave it, and from the steps of the club I could hear laughter and the refrain of a popular song. The door opened just as I reached the top step, and I half-tumbled inside. Burton was there in the kitchen, with two other men whom I did not recognize, each one holding a stein of beer. Burton had two, and he held one out to me as I stood trying to get my breath. "You win," he said. "Although I'm a hard-working journalist and need the money, I won't lie. This is Osborne of the _Star_ and McTighe of the _Eagle_, Mr. Knox. They heard the shot in there, and if I hadn't told the story, there would have been a panic. What's the matter with you?" I shut the door into the grill-room and faced the three men. "For God's sake, Burton," I panted, "let's get up-stairs quietly. I didn't fire any shot. There's a woman dead up there." With characteristic poise, the three reporters took the situation quietly. We filed through the grill-room as casually as we could; with the door closed, however, we threw caution aside. I led the way up the stairs to the room where I had found Fleming's body, and where I expected to find another. On the landing at the top of the stairs I came face to face with Davidson, the detective, and behind him Judge McFeely. Davidson was trying to open the door of the room where Fleming had been shot, with a skeleton key. But it was bolted inside. There was only one thing to do: I climbed on the shoulders of one of the men, a tall fellow, whose face to this day I don't remember, and by careful maneuvering and the assistance of Davidson's long arms, I got through the transom and dropped into the room. I hardly know what I expected. I was in total darkness. I know that when I had got the door open at last, when the cheerful light from the hall streamed in, and I had not felt Schwartz's heavy hand at my throat, I drew a long breath of relief. Burton found the electric light switch and turned it on. And then--I could hardly believe my senses. The room was empty. One of the men laughed a little. "Stung!" he said lightly. "What sort of a story have you and your friend framed up, Burton?" But I stopped at that minute and picked up a small nickel-plated revolver from the floor. I held it out, on my palm, and the others eyed it respectfully. Burton, after all, was the quickest-witted of the lot. He threw open one of the two doors in the room, revealing a shallow closet, with papered walls and a row of hooks. The other door stuck tight. One of the men pointed to the floor; a bit of black cloth had wedged it, from the other side. Our combined efforts got it open at last, and we crowded in the doorway, looking down a flight of stairs. Huddled just below us, her head at our feet, was the body of the missing woman. "My God," Burton said hoarsely, "who is it?" CHAPTER XXIII A BOX OF CROWN DERBY We got her into the room and on the couch before I knew her. Her fair hair had fallen loose over her face, and one long, thin hand clutched still at the bosom of her gown. It was Ellen Butler! She was living, but not much more. We gathered around and stood looking down at her in helpless pity. A current of cold night air came up the staircase from an open door below, and set the hanging light to swaying, throwing our shadows in a sort of ghastly dance over her quiet face. I was too much shocked to be surprised. Burton had picked up her hat, and put it beside her. "She's got about an hour, I should say," said one of the newspaper men. "See if Gray is around, will you, Jim? He's mostly here Saturday night." "Is it--Miss Maitland?" Burton asked, in a strangely subdued voice. "No; it is Henry Butler's widow," I returned, and the three men were reporters again, at once. Gray was there and came immediately. Whatever surprise he may have felt at seeing a woman there, and dying, he made no comment. He said she might live six hours, but the end was certain. We got a hospital ambulance, and with the clang of its bell as it turned the corner and hurried away, the White Cat drops out of this story, so far as action is concerned. Three detectives and as many reporters hunted Schwartz all of that night and the next day, to get his story. But he remained in hiding. He had a start of over an hour, from the time he switched off the light and escaped down the built-in staircase. Even in her agony, Ellen Butler's hate had carried her through the doorway after him, to collapse on the stairs. I got home just as the cab, with Fred and Edith, stopped at the door. I did not let them get out; a half dozen words, without comment or explanation, and they were driving madly to the hospital. Katie let me in, and I gave her some money to stay up and watch the place while we were away. Then, not finding a cab, I took a car and rode to the hospital. The building was appallingly quiet. The elevator cage, without a light, crept spectrally up and down; my footsteps on the tiled floor echoed and reÃ«choed above my head. A night watchman, in felt shoes, admitted me, and took me up-stairs. There was another long wait while the surgeon finished his examination, and a nurse with a basin of water and some towels came out of the room, and another one with dressings went in. And then the surgeon came out, in a white coat with the sleeves rolled above his elbows, and said I might go in. The cover was drawn up to the injured woman's chin, where it was folded neatly back. Her face was bloodless, and her fair hair had been gathered up in a shaggy knot. She was breathing slowly, but regularly, and her expression was relaxed--more restful than I had ever seen it. As I stood at the foot of the bed and looked down at her, I knew that as surely as death was coming, it would be welcome. Edith had been calm, before, but when she saw me she lost her self-control. She put her head on my shoulder, and sobbed out the shock and the horror of the thing. As for Fred, his imaginative temperament made him particularly sensitive to suffering in others. As he sat there beside the bed I knew by his face that he was repeating and repenting every unkind word he had said about Ellen Butler. She was conscious; we realized that after a time. Once she asked for water, without opening her eyes, and Fred slipped a bit of ice between her white lips. Later in the night she looked up for an instant, at me. "He--struck my--hand," she said with difficulty, and closed her eyes again. During the long night hours I told the story, as I knew it, in an undertone, and there was a new kindliness in Fred's face as he looked at her. She was still living by morning, and was rallying a little from the shock. I got Fred to take Edith home, and I took her place by the bed. Some one brought me coffee about eight, and at nine o'clock I was asked to leave the room, while four surgeons held a consultation there. The decision to operate was made shortly after. "There is only a chance," a gray-haired surgeon told me in brisk, short-clipped words. "The bullet went down, and has penetrated the abdomen. Sometimes, taken early enough, we can repair the damage, to a certain extent, and nature does the rest. The family is willing, I suppose?" I knew of no family but Edith, and over the telephone she said, with something of her natural tone, to do what the surgeons considered best. I hoped to get some sort of statement before the injured woman was taken to the operating-room, but she lay in a stupor, and I had to give up the idea. It was two days before I got her deposition, and in that time I had learned many things. On Monday I took Margery to Bellwood. She had received the news about Mrs. Butler more calmly than I had expected. "I do not think she was quite sane, poor woman," she said with a shudder. "She had had a great deal of trouble. But how strange--a murder and an attempt at murder--at that little club in a week!" She did not connect the two, and I let the thing rest at that. Once, on the train, she turned to me suddenly, after she had been plunged in thought for several minutes. "Don't you think," she asked, "that she had a sort of homicidal mania, and that she tried to kill me with chloroform?" "I hardly think so," I returned evasively. "I am inclined to think some one actually got in over the porch roof." "I am afraid," she said, pressing her gloved hands tight together. "Wherever I go, something happens that I can not understand. I never wilfully hurt any one, and yet--these terrible things follow me. I am afraid--to go back to Bellwood, with Aunt Jane still gone, and you--in the city." "A lot of help I have been to you," I retorted bitterly. "Can you think of a single instance where I have been able to save you trouble or anxiety? Why, I allowed you to be chloroformed within an inch of eternity, before I found you." "But you did find me," she cheered me. "And just to know that you are doing all you can--" "My poor best," I supplemented. "It is very comforting to have a friend one can rely on," she finished, and the little bit of kindness went to my head. If she had not got a cinder in her eye at that psychological moment, I'm afraid I would figuratively have trampled Wardrop underfoot, right there. As it was, I got the cinder, after a great deal of looking into one beautiful eye--which is not as satisfactory by half as looking into two--and then we were at Bellwood. We found Miss Letitia in the lower hall, and Heppie on her knees with a hatchet. Between them sat a packing box, and they were having a spirited discussion as to how it should be opened. "Here, give it to me," Miss Letitia demanded, as we stopped in the doorway. "You've got stove lengths there for two days if you don't chop 'em up into splinters." With the hatchet poised in mid air she saw us, but she let it descend with considerable accuracy nevertheless, and our greeting was made between thumps. "Come in"--thump--"like as not it's a mistake"--bang--"but the expressage was prepaid. If it's mineral water--" crash. Something broke inside. "If it's mineral water," I said, "you'd better let me open it. Mineral water is meant for internal use, and not for hall carpets." I got the hatchet from her gradually. "I knew a case once where a bottle of hair tonic was spilled on a rag carpet, and in a year they had it dyed with spots over it and called it a tiger skin." She watched me suspiciously while I straightened the nails she had bent, and lifted the boards. In the matter of curiosity, Miss Letitia was truly feminine; great handfuls of excelsior she dragged out herself, and heaped on Heppie's blue apron, stretched out on the floor. The article that had smashed under the vigor of Miss Letitia's seventy years lay on the top. It had been a tea-pot, of some very beautiful ware. I have called just now from my study, to ask what sort of ware it was, and the lady who sets me right says it was Crown Derby. Then there were rows of cups and saucers, and heterogeneous articles in the same material that the women folk seemed to understand. At the last, when the excitement seemed over, they found a toast rack in a lower corner of the box and the "Ohs" and "Ahs" had to be done all over again. Not until Miss Letitia had arranged it all on the dining-room table, and Margery had taken off her wraps and admired from all four corners, did Miss Letitia begin to ask where they had come from. And by that time Heppie had the crate in the wood-box, and the excelsior was a black and smoking mass at the kitchen end of the grounds. There was not the slightest clue to the sender, but while Miss Letitia rated Heppie loudly in the kitchen, and Bella swept up the hall, Margery voiced the same idea that had occurred to me. "If--if Aunt Jane were--all right," she said tremulously, "it would be just the sort of thing she loves to do." I had intended to go back to the city at once, but Miss Letitia's box had put her in an almost cheerful humor, and she insisted that I go with her to Miss Jane's room, and see how it was prepared for its owner's return. "I'm not pretending to know what took Jane Maitland away from this house in the middle of the night," she said. "She was a good bit of a fool, Jane was; she never grew up. But if I know Jane Maitland, she will come back and be buried with her people, if it's only to put Mary's husband out of the end of the lot. "And another thing, Knox," she went on, and I saw her old hands were shaking. "I told you the last time you were here that I hadn't been robbed of any of the pearls, after all. Half of those pearls were Jane's and--she had a perfect right to take forty-nine of them if she wanted. She--she told me she was going to take some, and it--slipped my mind." I believe it was the first lie she had ever told in her hard, conscientious old life. Was she right? I wondered. Had Miss Jane taken the pearls, and if she had, why? Wardrop had been taking a long walk; he got back about five, and as Miss Letitia was in the middle of a diatribe against white undergarments for colored children, Margery and he had a half-hour alone together. I had known, of course, that it must come, but under the circumstances, with my whole future existence at stake, I was vague as to whether it was colored undergarments on white orphans or the other way round. When I got away at last, I found Bella waiting for me in the hall. Her eyes were red with crying, and she had a crumpled newspaper in her hand. She broke down when she tried to speak, but I got the newspaper from her, and she pointed with one work-hardened finger to a column on the first page. It was the announcement of Mrs. Butler's tragic accident, and the mystery that surrounded it. There was no mention of Schwartz. "Is she--dead?" Bella choked out at last. "Not yet, but there is very little hope." Amid fresh tears and shakings of her heavy shoulders, as she sat in her favorite place, on the stairs, Bella told me, briefly, that she had lived with Mrs. Butler since she was sixteen, and had only left when the husband's suicide had broken up the home. I could get nothing else out of her, but gradually Bella's share in the mystery was coming to light. Slowly, too--it was a new business for me--I was forming a theory of my own. It was a strange one, but it seemed to fit the facts as I knew them. With the story Wardrop told that afternoon came my first glimmer of light. He was looking better than he had when I saw him before, but the news of Mrs. Butler's approaching death and the manner of her injury affected him strangely. He had seen the paper, like Bella, and he turned on me almost fiercely when I entered the library. Margery was in her old position at the window, looking out, and I knew the despondent droop of her shoulders. "Is she conscious?" Wardrop asked eagerly, indicating the article in the paper. "No, not now--at least, it is not likely." He looked relieved at that, but only for a moment. Then he began to pace the room nervously, evidently debating some move. His next action showed the development of a resolution, for he pushed forward two chairs for Margery and myself. "Sit down, both of you," he directed. "I've got a lot to say, and I want you both to listen. When Margery has heard the whole story, she will probably despise me for the rest of her life. I can't help it. I've got to tell all I know, and it isn't so much after all. You didn't fool me yesterday, Knox; I knew what that doctor was after. But he couldn't make me tell who killed Mr. Fleming, because, before God, I didn't know." CHAPTER XXIV WARDROP'S STORY "I have to go back to the night Miss Jane disappeared--and that's another thing that has driven me desperate. Will you tell me why I should be suspected of having a hand in that, when she had been a mother to me? If she is dead, she can't exonerate me; if she is living, and we find her, she will tell you what I tell you--that I know nothing of the whole terrible business." "I am quite certain of that, Wardrop," I interposed. "Besides, I think I have got to the bottom of that mystery." Margery looked at me quickly, but I shook my head. It was too early to tell my suspicions. "The things that looked black against me were bad enough, but they had nothing to do with Miss Jane. I will have to go back to before the night she--went away, back to the time Mr. Butler was the state treasurer, and your father, Margery, was his cashier. "Butler was not a business man. He let too much responsibility lie with his subordinates--and then, according to the story, he couldn't do much anyhow, against Schwartz. The cashier was entirely under machine control, and Butler was neglectful. You remember, Knox, the crash, when three banks, rotten to the core, went under, and it was found a large amount of state money had gone too. It was Fleming who did it--I am sorry, Margery, but this is no time to mince words. It was Fleming who deposited the money in the wrecked banks, knowing what would happen. When the crash came, Butler's sureties, to save themselves, confiscated every dollar he had in the world. Butler went to the penitentiary for six months, on some minor count, and when he got out, after writing to Fleming and Schwartz, protesting his innocence, and asking for enough out of the fortune they had robbed him of to support his wife, he killed himself, at the White Cat." Margery was very pale, but quiet. She sat with her fingers locked in her lap, and her eyes on Wardrop. "It was a bad business," Wardrop went on wearily. "Fleming moved into Butler's place as treasurer, and took Lightfoot as his cashier. That kept the lid on. Once or twice, when there was an unexpected call for funds, the treasury was almost empty, and Schwartz carried things over himself. I went to Plattsburg as Mr. Fleming's private secretary when he became treasurer, and from the first I knew things were even worse than the average state government. "Schwartz and Fleming had to hold together; they hated each other, and the feeling was trebled when Fleming married Schwartz's divorced wife." Margery looked at me with startled, incredulous eyes. What she must have seen confirmed Wardrop's words, and she leaned back in her chair, limp and unnerved. But she heard and comprehended every word Wardrop was saying. "The woman was a very ordinary person, but it seems Schwartz cared for her, and he tried to stab Mr. Fleming shortly after the marriage. About a year ago Mr. Fleming said another attempt had been made on his life, with poison; he was very much alarmed, and I noticed a change in him from that time on. Things were not going well at the treasury; Schwartz and his crowd were making demands that were hard to supply, and behind all that, Fleming was afraid to go out alone at night. "He employed a man to protect him, a man named Carter, who had been a bartender in Plattsburg. When things began to happen here in Manchester, he took Carter to the home as a butler. "Then the Borough Bank got shaky. If it went down there would be an ugly scandal, and Fleming would go too. His notes for half a million were there, without security, and he dared not show the canceled notes he had, with Schwartz's indorsement. "I'm not proud of the rest of the story, Margery." He stopped his nervous pacing and stood looking down at her. "I was engaged to marry a girl who was everything on earth to me, and--I was private secretary to the state treasurer, with the princely salary of such a position! "Mr. Fleming came back here when the Borough Bank threatened failure, and tried to get money enough to tide over the trouble. A half million would have done it, but he couldn't get it. He was in Butler's position exactly, only he was guilty and Butler was innocent. He raised a little money here, and I went to Plattsburg with securities and letters. It isn't necessary to go over the things I suffered there; I brought back one hundred and ten thousand dollars, in a package in my Russia leather bag. And--I had something else." He wavered for the first time in his recital. He went on more rapidly, and without looking at either of us. "I carried, not in the valise, a bundle of letters, five in all, which had been written by Henry Butler to Mr. Fleming, letters that showed what a dupe Butler had been, that he had been negligent, but not criminal; accusing Fleming of having ruined him, and demanding certain notes that would have proved it. If Butler could have produced the letters at the time of his trial, things would have been different." "Were you going to sell the letters?" Margery demanded, with quick scorn. "I intended to, but--I didn't. It was a little bit too dirty, after all. I met Mrs. Butler for the second time in my life, at the gate down there, as I came up from the train the night I got here from Plattsburg. She had offered to buy the letters, and I had brought them to sell to her. And then, at the last minute, I lied. I said I couldn't get them--that they were locked in the Monmouth Avenue house. I put her in a taxicab that she had waiting, and she went back to town. I felt like a cad; she wanted to clear her husband's memory, and I--well, Mr. Fleming was your father, Margery, I couldn't hurt you like that." "Do you think Mrs. Butler took your leather bag?" I asked. "I do not think so. It seems to be the only explanation, but I did not let it out of my hand one moment while we were talking. My hand was cramped from holding it, when she gave up in despair at last, and went back to the city." "What did you do with the letters she wanted?" "I kept them with me that night, and the next morning hid them in the secret closet. That was when I dropped my fountain pen!" "And the pearls?" Margery asked suddenly. "When did you get them, Harry?" To my surprise his face did not change. He appeared to be thinking. "Two days before I left," he said. "We were using every method to get money, and your father said to sacrifice them, if necessary." "My father!" He wheeled on us both. "Did you think I stole them?" he demanded. And I confess that I was ashamed to say I had thought precisely that. "Your father gave me nine unmounted pearls to sell," he reiterated. "I got about a thousand dollars for them--eleven hundred and something, I believe." Margery looked at me. I think she was fairly stunned. To learn that her father had married again, that he had been the keystone in an arch of villainy that, with him gone, was now about to fall, and to associate him with so small and mean a thing as the theft of a handful of pearls--she was fairly stunned. "Then," I said, to bring Wardrop back to his story, "you found you had been robbed of the money, and you went in to tell Mr. Fleming. You had some words, didn't you?" "He thought what you all thought," Wardrop said bitterly. "He accused me of stealing the money. I felt worse than a thief. He was desperate, and I took his revolver from him." Margery had put her hands over her eyes. It was a terrible strain for her, but when I suggested that she wait for the rest of the story she refused vehemently. "I came back here to Bellwood, and the first thing I learned was about Miss Jane. When I saw the blood print on the stair rail, I thought she was murdered, and I had more than I could stand. I took the letters out of the secret closet, before I could show it to you and Hunter, and later I put them in the leather bag I gave you, and locked it. You have it, haven't you, Knox?" I nodded. "As for that night at the club, I told the truth then, but not all the truth. I suppose I am a coward, but I was afraid to. If you knew Schwartz, you would understand." With the memory of his huge figure and the heavy under-shot face that I had seen the night before, I could understand very well, knowing Wardrop. "I went to that room at the White Cat that night, because I was afraid not to go. Fleming might kill himself or some one else. I went up the stairs, slowly, and I heard no shot. At the door I hesitated, then opened it quietly. The door into the built-in staircase was just closing. It must have taken me only an instant to realize what had happened. Fleming was swaying forward as I caught him. I jumped to the staircase and looked down, but I was too late. The door below had closed. I knew in another minute who had been there, and escaped. It was raining, you remember, and Schwartz had forgotten to take his umbrella with his name on the handle!" "Schwartz!" "Now do you understand why I was being followed?" he demanded. "I have been under surveillance every minute since that night. There's probably some one hanging around the gate now. Anyhow, I was frantic. I saw how it looked for me, and if I had brought Schwartz into it, I would have been knifed in forty-eight hours. I hardly remember what I did. I know I ran for a doctor, and I took the umbrella with me and left it in the vestibule of the first house I saw with a doctor's sign. I rang the bell like a crazy man, and then Hunter came along and said to go back; Doctor Gray was at the club. "That is all I know. I'm not proud of it, Margery, but it might have been worse, and it's the truth. It clears up something, but not all. It doesn't tell where Aunt Jane is, or who has the hundred thousand. But it does show who killed your father. And if you know what is good for you, Knox, you will let it go at that. You can't fight the police and the courts single-handed. Look how the whole thing was dropped, and the most cold-blooded kind of murder turned into suicide. Suicide without a weapon! Bah!" "I am not so sure about Schwartz," I said thoughtfully. "We haven't yet learned about eleven twenty-two C." CHAPTER XXV MEASURE FOR MEASURE Miss Jane Maitland had been missing for ten days. In that time not one word had come from her. The reporter from the _Eagle_ had located her in a dozen places, and was growing thin and haggard following little old ladies along the street--and being sent about his business tartly when he tried to make inquiries. Some things puzzled me more than ever in the light of Wardrop's story. For the third time I asked myself why Miss Letitia denied the loss of the pearls. There was nothing in what we had learned, either, to tell why Miss Jane had gone away--to ascribe a motive. How she had gone, in view of Wardrop's story of the cab, was clear. She had gone by street-car, walking the three miles to Wynton alone at two o'clock in the morning, although she had never stirred around the house at night without a candle, and was privately known to sleep with a light when Miss Letitia went to bed first, and could not see it through the transom. The theory I had formed seemed absurd at first, but as I thought it over, its probabilities grew on me. I took dinner at Bellwood and started for town almost immediately after. Margery had gone to Miss Letitia's room, and Wardrop was pacing up and down the veranda, smoking. He looked dejected and anxious, and he welcomed my suggestion that he walk down to the station with me. As we went, a man emerged from the trees across and came slowly after us. "You see, I am only nominally a free agent," he said morosely. "They'll poison me yet; I know too much." We said little on the way to the train. Just before it came thundering along, however, he spoke again. "I am going away, Knox. There isn't anything in this political game for me, and the law is too long. I have a chum in Mexico, and he wants me to go down there." "Permanently?" "Yes. There's nothing to hold me here now," he said. I turned and faced him in the glare of the station lights. "What do you mean?" I demanded. "I mean that there isn't any longer a reason why one part of the earth is better than another. Mexico or Alaska, it's all the same to me." He turned on his heel and left me. I watched him swing up the path, with his head down; I saw the shadowy figure of the other man fall into line behind him. Then I caught the platform of the last car as it passed, and that short ride into town was a triumphal procession with the wheels beating time and singing: "It's all the same--the same--to me--to me." I called Burton by telephone, and was lucky enough to find him at the office. He said he had just got in, and, as usual, he wanted something to eat. We arranged to meet at a little Chinese restaurant, where at that hour, nine o'clock, we would be almost alone. Later on, after the theater, I knew that the place would be full of people, and conversation impossible. Burton knew the place well, as he did every restaurant in the city. "Hello, Mike," he said to the unctuous Chinaman who admitted us. And "Mike" smiled a slant-eyed welcome. The room was empty; it was an unpretentious affair, with lace curtains at the windows and small, very clean tables. At one corner a cable and slide communicated through a hole in the ceiling with the floor above, and through the aperture, Burton's order for chicken and rice, and the inevitable tea, was barked. Burton listened attentively to Wardrop's story, as I repeated it. "So Schwartz did it, after all!" he said regretfully, when I finished. "It's a tame ending. It had all the elements of the unusual, and it resolves itself into an ordinary, every-day, man-to-man feud. I'm disappointed; we can't touch Schwartz." "I thought the _Times-Post_ was hot after him." "Schwartz bought the _Times-Post_ at three o'clock this afternoon," Burton said, with repressed rage. "I'm called off. To-morrow we run a photograph of Schwartzwold, his place at Plattsburg, and the next day we eulogize the administration. I'm going down the river on an excursion boat, and write up the pig-killing contest at the union butchers' picnic." "How is Mrs. Butler?" I asked, as his rage subsided to mere rumbling in his throat. "Delirious"--shortly. "She's going to croak, Wardrop's going to Mexico, Schwartz will be next governor, and Miss Maitland's body will be found in a cistern. The whole thing has petered out. What's the use of finding the murderer if he's coated with asbestos and lined with money? Mike, I want some more tea to drown my troubles." We called up the hospital about ten-thirty, and learned that Mrs. Butler was sinking. Fred was there, and without much hope of getting anything, we went over. I took Burton in as a nephew of the dying woman, and I was glad I had done it. She was quite conscious, but very weak. She told the story to Fred and myself, and in a corner Burton took it down in shorthand. We got her to sign it about daylight sometime, and she died very quietly shortly after Edith arrived at eight. To give her story as she gave it would be impossible; the ramblings of a sick mind, the terrible pathos of it all, is impossible to repeat. She lay there, her long, thin body practically dead, fighting the death rattle in her throat. There were pauses when for five minutes she would lie in a stupor, only to rouse and go forward from the very word where she had stopped. She began with her married life, and to understand the beauty of it is to understand the things that came after. She was perfectly, ideally, illogically happy. Then one day Henry Butler accepted the nomination for state treasurer, and with that things changed. During his term in office he altered greatly; his wife could only guess that things were wrong, for he refused to talk. The crash came, after all, with terrible suddenness. There had been an all-night conference at the Butler home, and Mr. Butler, in a frenzy at finding himself a dupe, had called the butler from bed and forcibly ejected Fleming and Schwartz from the house. Ellen Butler had been horrified, sickened by what she regarded as the vulgarity of the occurrence. But her loyalty to her husband never wavered. Butler was one honest man against a complete organization of unscrupulous ones. His disgrace, imprisonment and suicide at the White Cat had followed in rapid succession. With his death, all that was worth while in his wife died. Her health was destroyed; she became one of the wretched army of neurasthenics, with only one idea: to retaliate, to pay back in measure full and running over, her wrecked life, her dead husband, her grief and her shame. She laid her plans with the caution and absolute recklessness of a diseased mentality. Normally a shrinking, nervous woman, she became cold, passionless, deliberate in her revenge. To disgrace Schwartz and Fleming was her original intention. But she could not get the papers. She resorted to hounding Fleming, meaning to drive him to suicide. And she chose a method that had more nearly driven him to madness. Wherever he turned he found the figures eleven twenty-two C. Sometimes just the number, without the letter. It had been Henry Butler's cell number during his imprisonment, and if they were graven on his wife's soul, they burned themselves in lines of fire on Fleming's brain. For over a year she pursued this course--sometimes through the mail, at other times in the most unexpected places, wherever she could bribe a messenger to carry the paper. Sane? No, hardly sane, but inevitable as fate. The time came when other things went badly with Fleming, as I had already heard from Wardrop. He fled to the White Cat, and for a week Ellen Butler hunted him vainly. She had decided to kill him, and on the night Margery Fleming had found the paper on the pillow, she had been in the house. She was not the only intruder in the house that night. Some one--presumably Fleming himself--had been there before her. She found a ladies' desk broken open and a small drawer empty. Evidently Fleming, unable to draw a check while in hiding, had needed ready money. As to the jewels that had been disturbed in Margery's boudoir I could only surmise the impulse that, after prompting him to take them, had failed at the sight of his dead wife's jewels. Surprised by the girl's appearance, she had crept to the upper floor and concealed herself in an empty bedroom. It had been almost dawn before she got out. No doubt this was the room belonging to the butler, Carter, which Margery had reported as locked that night. She took a key from the door of a side entrance, and locked the door behind her when she left. Within a couple of nights she had learned that Wardrop was coming home from Plattsburg, and she met him at Bellwood. We already knew the nature of that meeting. She drove back to town, half maddened by her failure to secure the letters that would have cleared her husband's memory, but the wiser by one thing: Wardrop had inadvertently told her where Fleming was hiding. The next night she went to the White Cat and tried to get in. She knew from her husband of the secret staircase, for many a political meeting of the deepest significance had been possible by its use. But the door was locked, and she had no key. Above her the warehouse raised its empty height, and it was not long before she decided to see what she could learn from its upper windows. She went in at the gate and felt her way, through the rain, to the windows. At that moment the gate opened suddenly, and a man muttered something in the darkness. The shock was terrible. I had no idea, that night, of what my innocent stumbling into the warehouse yard had meant to a half-crazed woman just beyond my range of vision. After a little she got her courage again, and she pried up an unlocked window. The rest of her progress must have been much as ours had been, a few nights later. She found a window that commanded the club, and with three possibilities that she would lose, and would see the wrong room, she won the fourth. The room lay directly before her, distinct in every outline, with Fleming seated at the table, facing her and sorting some papers. She rested her revolver on the sill and took absolutely deliberate aim. Her hands were cold, and she even rubbed them together, to make them steady. Then she fired, and a crash of thunder at the very instant covered the sound. Fleming sat for a moment before he swayed forward. On that instant she realized that there was some one else in the room--a man who took an uncertain step or two forward into view, threw up his hands and disappeared as silently as he had come. It was Schwartz. Then she saw the door into the hall open, saw Wardrop come slowly in and close it, watched his sickening realization of what had occurred; then a sudden panic seized her. Arms seemed to stretch out from the darkness behind her, to draw her into it. She tried to get away, to run, even to scream--then she fainted. It was gray dawn when she recovered her senses and got back to the hotel room she had taken under an assumed name. By night she was quieter. She read the news of Fleming's death in the papers, and she gloated over it. But there was more to be done; she was only beginning. She meant to ruin Schwartz, to kill his credit, to fell him with the club of public disfavor. Wardrop had told her that her husband's letters were with other papers at the Monmouth Avenue house, where he could not get them. Fleming's body was taken home that day, Saturday, but she had gone too far to stop. She wanted the papers before Lightfoot could get at them and destroy the incriminating ones. That night she got into the Fleming house, using the key she had taken. She ransacked the library, finding, not the letters that Wardrop had said were there, but others, equally or more incriminating, canceled notes, private accounts, that would have ruined Schwartz for ever. It was then that I saw the light and went down-stairs. My unlucky stumble gave her warning enough to turn out the light. For the rest, the chase through the back hall, the dining-room and the pantry, had culminated in her escape up the back stairs, while I had fallen down the dumb-waiter shaft. She had run into Bella on the upper floor, Bella, who had almost fainted, and who knew her and kept her until morning, petting her and soothing her, and finally getting her into a troubled sleep. That day she realized that she was being followed. When Edith's invitation came she accepted it at once, for the sake of losing herself and her papers, until she was ready to use them. It had disconcerted her to find Margery there, but she managed to get along. For several days everything had gone well: she was getting stronger again, ready for the second act of the play, prepared to blackmail Schwartz, and then expose him. She would have killed him later, probably; she wanted her measure full and running over, and so she would disgrace him first. Then--Schwartz must have learned of the loss of the papers from the Fleming house, and guessed the rest. She felt sure he had known from the first who had killed Fleming. However that might be, he had had her room entered, Margery chloroformed in the connecting room, and her papers were taken from under her pillow while she was pretending anesthesia. She had followed the two men through the house and out the kitchen door, where she had fainted on the grass. The next night, when she had retired early, leaving Margery and me down-stairs, it had been an excuse to slip out of the house. How she found that Schwartz was at the White Cat, how she got through the side entrance, we never knew. He had burned the papers before she got there, and when she tried to kill him, he had struck her hand aside. When we were out in the cheerful light of day again, Burton turned his shrewd, blue eyes on me. "Awful story, isn't it?" he said. "Those are primitive emotions, if you like. Do you know, Knox, there is only one explanation we haven't worked on for the rest of this mystery--I believe in my soul you carried off the old lady and the Russia leather bag yourself!" CHAPTER XXVI LOVERS AND A LETTER At noon that day I telephoned to Margery. "Come up," I said, "and bring the keys to the Monmouth Avenue house. I have some things to tell you, and--some things to ask you." I met her at the station with Lady Gray and the trap. My plans for that afternoon were comprehensive; they included what I hoped to be the solution of the Aunt Jane mystery; also, they included a little drive through the park, and a--well, I shall tell about that, all I am going to tell, at the proper time. To play propriety, Edith met us at the house. It was still closed, and even in the short time that had elapsed it smelled close and musty. At the door into the drawing-room I stopped them. "Now, this is going to be a sort of game," I explained. "It's a sort of button, button, who's got the button, without the button. We are looking for a drawer, receptacle or closet, which shall contain, bunched together, and without regard to whether they should be there or not, a small revolver, two military brushes and a clothes brush, two or three soft bosomed shirts, perhaps a half-dozen collars, and a suit of underwear. Also a small flat package about eight inches long and three wide." "What in the world are you talking about?" Edith asked. "I am not talking, I am theorizing," I explained. "I have a theory, and according to it the things should be here. If they are not, it is my misfortune, not my fault." I think Margery caught my idea at once, and as Edith was ready for anything, we commenced the search. Edith took the top floor, being accustomed, she said, to finding unexpected things in the servants' quarters; Margery took the lower floor, and for certain reasons I took the second. For ten minutes there was no result. At the end of that time I had finished two rooms, and commenced on the blue boudoir. And here, on the top shelf of a three-cornered Empire cupboard, with glass doors and spindle legs, I found what I was looking for. Every article was there. I stuffed a small package into my pocket, and called the two girls. "The lost is found," I stated calmly, when we were all together in the library. "When did you lose anything?" Edith demanded. "Do you mean to say, Jack Knox, that you brought us here to help you find a suit of gaudy pajamas and a pair of military brushes?" "I brought you here to find Aunt Jane," I said soberly, taking a letter and the flat package out of my pocket. "You see, my theory worked out. _Here_ is Aunt Jane, and _there_ is the money from the Russia leather bag." I laid the packet in Margery's lap, and without ceremony opened the letter. It began: "MY DEAREST NIECE: "I am writing to you, because I can not think what to say to Sister Letitia. I am running away! I--am--running--away! My dear, it scares me even to write it, all alone in this empty house. I have had a cup of tea out of one of your lovely cups, and a nap on your pretty couch, and just as soon as it is dark I am going to take the train for Boston. When you get this, I will be on the ocean, the ocean, my dear, that I have read about, and dreamed about, and never seen. "I am going to realize a dream of forty years--more than twice as long as you have lived. Your dear mother saw the continent before she died, but the things I have wanted have always been denied me. I have been of those that have eyes to see and see not. So--I have run away. I am going to London and Paris, and even to Italy, if the money your father gave me for the pearls will hold out. For a year now I have been getting steamship circulars, and I have taken a little French through a correspondence school. That was why I always made you sing French songs, dearie: I wanted to learn the accent. I think I should do very well if I could only sing my French instead of speaking it. "I am afraid that Sister Letitia discovered that I had taken some of the pearls. But--half of them were mine, from our mother, and although I had wanted a pearl ring all my life, I have never had one. I am going to buy me a hat, instead of a bonnet, and clothes, and pretty things underneath, and a switch; Margery, I have wanted a switch for thirty years. "I suppose Letitia will never want me back. Perhaps I shall not want to come. I tried to write to her when I was leaving, but I had cut my hand in the attic, where I had hidden away my clothes, and it bled on the paper. I have been worried since for fear your Aunt Letitia would find the paper in the basket, and be alarmed at the stains. I wanted to leave things in order--please tell Letitia--but I was so nervous, and in such a hurry. I walked three miles to Wynton and took a street-car. I just made up my mind I was going to do it. I am sixty-five, and it is time I have a chance to do the things I like. "I came in on the car, and came directly here. I got in with the second key on your key-ring. Did you miss it? And I did the strangest thing at Bellwood. I got down the stairs very quietly and out on to the porch. I set down my empty traveling bag--I was going to buy everything new in the city--to close the door behind me. Then I was sure I heard some one at the side of the house, and I picked it up and ran down the path in the dark. "You can imagine my surprise when I opened the bag this morning to find I had picked up Harry's. I am emptying it and taking it with me, for he has mine. "If you find this right away, please don't tell Sister Letitia for a day or two. You know how firm your Aunt Letitia is. I shall send her a present from Boston to pacify her, and perhaps when I come back in three or four months, she will be over the worst. "I am not quite comfortable about your father, Margery. He is not like himself. The last time I saw him he gave me a little piece of paper with a number on it and he said they followed him everywhere, and were driving him crazy. Try to have him see a doctor. And I left a bottle of complexion cream in the little closet over my mantel, where I had hidden my hat and shoes that I wore. Please destroy it before your Aunt Letitia sees it. "Good-by, my dear niece. I suppose I am growing frivolous in my old age, but I am going to have silk linings in my clothes before I die. "YOUR LOVING AUNT JANE." When Margery stopped reading, there was an amazed silence. Then we all three burst into relieved, uncontrolled mirth. The dear, little, old lady with her new independence and her sixty-five-year-old, romantic, starved heart! Then we opened the packet, which was a sadder business, for it had represented Allan Fleming's last clutch at his waning public credit. Edith ran to the telephone with the news for Fred, and for the first time that day Margery and I were alone. She was standing with one hand on the library table; in the other she held Aunt Jane's letter, half tremulous, wholly tender. I put my hand over hers, on the table. "Margery!" I said. She did not stir. "Margery, I want my answer, dear. I love you--love you; it isn't possible to tell you how much. There isn't enough time in all existence to tell you. You are mine, Margery--mine. You can't get away from that." She turned, very slowly, and looked at me with her level eyes. "Yours!" she replied softly, and I took her in my arms. Edith was still at the telephone. "I don't know," she was saying. "Just wait until I see." As she came toward the door, Margery squirmed, but I held her tight. In the doorway Edith stopped and stared; then she went swiftly back to the telephone. "Yes, dear," she said sweetly. "They are, this minute." 


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   _MILNE'S EXPRESS SERIES_ A DESPERATE VOYAGE [Illustration: Logo] _THE EXPRESS SERIES_ _Uniform with this Volume_ I. THE ROME EXPRESS BY MAJOR ARTHUR GRIFFITHS BY THE SAME AUTHOR II. A GIRL OF GRIT JOHN MILNE 12 NORFOLK STREET, STRAND, LONDON A DESPERATE VOYAGE BY E. F. KNIGHT AUTHOR OF "THE CRUISE OF THE FALCON" "WHERE THREE EMPIRES MEET" ETC. ETC. JOHN MILNE 12 NORFOLK STREET, STRAND, LONDON 1898 _All Rights Reserved_ A DESPERATE VOYAGE CHAPTER I In Carey Street, Chancery Lane, on the ground floor of a huge block of new buildings facing the Law Courts, were the offices of Messrs. Peters and Carew, solicitors and perpetual commissioners of oaths. Such was the title of the firm as inscribed on the side of the entrance door in the middle of a long list of other names of solicitors, architects, and companies, whose offices were within. But the firm was now represented by Mr. Carew alone; for the senior partner, a steady-going old gentleman, who had made the business what it was, had been despatched by an attack of gout, two years back, to a land where there is no litigation. Late one August evening Mr. Henry Carew entered his office. His face was white and haggard, and he muttered to himself as he passed the door. He had all the appearance of a man who has been drinking heavily to drown some terrible worry. His clerks had gone; he went into his own private room and locked the door. He lit the gas, brought a pile of papers and letters out of a drawer, and, sitting down by the table, commenced to peruse them. As he did so, the lines about his face seemed to deepen, and beads of perspiration started to his forehead. It was for him an hour of agony. His sins had found him out, and the day of reckoning had arrived. One might have taken Henry Carew for a sailor, but he was very unlike the typical solicitor. He was a big, hearty man of thirty-five, with all a sailor's bluff manner and generous ways. His friends called him Honest Hal, and said that he was one of the best fellows that ever lived. We have it on the authority of that immortal adventuress, Becky Sharp, that it is easy to be virtuous on five thousand a year. Had Mr. Carew enjoyed such an income, he would most probably have lived a blameless life and have acquired an estimable reputation; for he had no instinctive liking for crime; on the contrary, he loathed it. But one slight moral flaw in a man's nature--so slight that his best friends smile tolerantly at it--may, by force of circumstance, lead ultimately to his complete moral ruin. It is an old story, and has been the text of many a sermon. The trifling fault is often the germ of terrible crimes. Carew's fault was one that is always easily condoned, so nearly akin is it to a virtue; these respectably connected vices are ever the most dangerous, like well-born swindlers. Carew was a spendthrift. He was ostentatiously extravagant in many directions. He owned a smart schooner, which he navigated himself, being an excellent sailor, and the quantities of champagne consumed by his friends on board this vessel were prodigious. When his steady old partner died, Carew began to neglect the business for his pleasures. Soon his income was insufficient to meet his expenses. Speculation on the Stock Exchange seemed to him to be a quicker road to fortune than a slow-going profession. So this man, morally weak though physically brave, not having the courage to curtail his extravagances, hurried blindly to his destruction. He gambled and lost all his own property; for ill-luck ever pursued him. Even then it was not too late to redeem his position. But he was too great a coward to look his difficulties in the face; therefore, having the temptation to commit so terribly easy a crime ever before him in his office, he began--first, timidly, to a small extent; then wildly, in panic, in order to retrieve his losses--to speculate with the moneys entrusted to him by his clients. He pawned their securities; he forged their names; he plunged ever deeper into crime--and all in vain. When it was too late, he swore to himself, in the torments of his remorse, that if he could but once win back sufficient to replace the sums he had stolen, he would cut down all his expenses, forswear gambling and dishonesty, and stick to his profession. At last it came to this. He sold his yacht and everything else he possessed of value. He realised what remained of the securities under his charge, and then placed the entire sum as cover on a certain stock, the price of which, he was told, was certain to rise. It was the gambler's last despairing throw of the dice. The stock suddenly fell; settling day arrived, and his cover was swept away--he had lost all! So he sat in his office this night and faced the situation in an agony of spirit that was more than fear. For this was no unscrupulous, light-hearted villain. An accusing conscience was ever with him, and every fresh descent in crime meant for him a worse present hell of mental torture. He felt that it was idle to hope now, even for a short reprieve. Clients were suspicious. In a day or two at most all must be known. Disgrace and a felon's doom were staring him in the face. It would be impossible for him to raise even sufficient funds to escape from England to some country where extradition treaties were unknown. Carew realised all this. He had forced himself to look through his papers and discover the total of his liabilities. It was a sum he could by no effort refund. He laughed aloud--a savage, discordant laugh, as might be that of some lost soul. "Yes, it is all over," he thought; "I throw up the cards. But I will not endure the disgrace of a public trial, the ignominy of a convict's life; and after that to come out of jail with my soul eaten out by long years of penal servitude, with the brand of a felon on my name. Oh no--not that! After all, a man has always one last privilege left him; he holds in his own hands the power of terminating his own miserable existence. Yes; I will kill myself, and have done with it all!" In the contemplation of suicide he became calmer. Now that he had determined on death, his terrible anxiety left him, and the heroism of despair supported him. "I feel a peace of mind at this moment such as has not come to me for many wretched months," he said to himself. "There is almost a pleasure in knowing that one has got to the bottom of one's cup of suffering, that there can be nothing worse to come." He meditated quietly for some time as to how he should take away his life. At last he came to a decision, and a strange smile lit up his face. "Yes, that is an admirable plan; now for the means of carrying it out. First, I must have a sovereign or so. I can pawn my watch. Now for the ballast." He glanced round the room. "Yes, that will do." He rose and collected several heavy leaden paperweights from the different desks in the offices and put them into his pockets. "That will be sufficient. Now I will go to Brighton. It is a glorious evening. I will smell the sea-air once more. I will have a last dinner at an hotel; and then at night, when the tide is high, I will throw myself off the pier; this weight of lead will keep me down. And the next morning my creditors may seize my body: they are welcome to it." At that moment a loud knock came at the outer door. He turned pale and nearly fainted at the sound. Was he to be balked of those last few hours of freedom which he had promised himself? Were these the officers of justice who had come to apprehend him? Once more the dew of agony burst out on his brow; he groaned aloud; then, summoning resolution, the desperate man approached the door. But it was only the postman, after all. "Idiot that I am not to have known the knock! but my brain swims to-night. A letter for me. What is this?" He read the letter slowly through; then he put his hand to his forehead. A revulsion of feeling had suddenly come to him that confused and stunned him. "Oh, merciful Heaven!" he said, "is this but a cruel trick of Fortune to tempt me with a vain hope? I had quite reconciled myself to death--and now this comes. Perhaps it is but a short reprieve, and its price will be all that agonising suspense again. No, let me die; and yet"--he glanced at the letter again--"surely I have here a means of escape. If I can but collect my scattered wits and recover my cunning, I can save myself. I can live, but it will mean crime again--always crime! Oh, is it worth it?" After a painful mental struggle, he came to a determination. "Yes, I will live," he said. The letter was as follows:-- "DEAR CAREW,--You have often promised to cruise with me in my boat. I am off to-morrow for Holland. Can you join me? Come and look me up to-night, and arrange it all.--Yours sincerely, "ARTHUR ALLEN." CHAPTER II Arthur Allen, barrister-at-law, was of about the same age as his friend Carew; a man possessed of private means sufficient for his needs, into whose chambers so few briefs found their way that he had for some years dispensed with the services of a clerk. But, as one would have surmised after glancing at the strong, intelligent face, he was a man by no means lacking in energy, and not of idle disposition: as a matter of fact, a scholar, and one who had taken high honours at his university, he still maintained his studious habits, and, having practically abandoned a profession that was uncongenial to him, he devoted himself to literary pursuits; and his thoughtful articles in the reviews and in the newspaper to which he was attached brought him in no insignificant addition to his income. No mere bookworm, he had been an athlete in his youth; but now his one outdoor form of amusement was the sailing of his little yacht, on which, always acting as his own skipper, he had taken many a delightful cruise in home and distant waters. He was an enthusiastic lover of the sea. This was the one taste he had in common with Carew. It was at some yacht club, of which they were both members, that they had become acquainted. It was a lovely August evening. The windows of Allen's bachelor chambers in the Temple were open, and through them could be seen that fair oasis of London's desert of bricks and mortar, Fountain Court, with its stately buildings, ancient trees, and quiet garden with splashing fountains in its midst. Nor was the view confined; for, beyond the chapel and the green, could be perceived the broad, gleaming Thames, and the distant Surrey shore, glorified by a faint mist; a peaceful, old-world spot, with a contemplative air about it, for it is haunted by the memories of much departed greatness. Allen was reclining in a comfortable arm-chair, drawn up to the open window, in whose recesses geraniums bloomed, their vivid blossoms occasionally shaking beneath the breath of the soft south wind that had come directly from the cool river. He smoked his pipe as he looked out upon the sweet sunset scene, his mind happily occupied in planning his coming cruise, when his meditations were interrupted by a knock at the outer door. He rose to admit his visitor, opened the door, and there stood before him Henry Carew in serge suit and yachting cap, a small Gladstone bag in his hand. "Hallo, Carew, old man! you have not been long replying to my letter. I was afraid you would have left the office before it reached you. Come in." "Are you alone?" inquired Carew, in a low voice. "Yes, quite alone. I am smoking a pipe of peace by myself. You have just come at the right time." They entered the room, and then, as the light of the sunset fell upon the solicitor's face, Allen perceived its haggard expression. "How queer you look, Carew!" he exclaimed. "Are you ill?" "Ill--no, not at all; but worried--worried almost out of my life," replied Carew wildly, throwing himself into a chair, and putting his face between his hands. Allen sat in a chair opposite to him, refilled and lit his pipe, and, as he smoked, gazed at his friend with feelings of perplexed compassion. "Have a pipe, old fellow; there is nothing like a pipe for worry." "A pipe?" cried Carew, with contemptuous bitterness. "No; but have you some brandy? Give me some brandy." "Certainly, Carew," and the barrister produced a spirit-case, some glasses, and water. Carew poured a quantity of spirit into a glass and drank it neat. He was usually a temperate man. "That is not the way to clear one's brain for confronting one's troubles," remarked Allen. "No, you are right. It is foolish of me. Allen, I have come to say that I shall be very glad to accompany you on your cruise." "I am delighted to hear that. A good blow in the North Sea will do you good, if your mind is so upset." "Allen," said Carew, pulling himself together and speaking with more self-possession, "I wish I could speak to you of the business that is troubling me, but I am not at liberty to do so. It concerns others." "I don't want to know anything about it, old man; but I am sure you will soon get out of your trouble, whatever it is. With an easy conscience no man is miserable for long. And now that I have secured you as a hand, I have a sufficient crew. So we will start to-morrow morning. Will you be ready by then?" "I am ready now. You see I have brought my baggage with me." "Then, as we have to catch an early train to-morrow, you had better sleep to-night in my chambers; I can put you up. Our destination is the Dutch coast, old man, and we should have a jolly time of it. You have not yet seen my new boat, the _Petrel_--a yawl of twenty-eight tons, yacht measurement; a splendid sea-boat. I would go anywhere in her. She is now lying off Erith." Carew had been listening attentively. "What crew do you carry?" he asked. "Ah, let me tell you that you will have lots of work to do. We shall be but three all told. I have shipped one hand only--Jim, the fisherman, who was with me last year. Another friend was coming with me, but he has disappointed me." "For how long will you be away?" "About a fortnight. I have been a bit fagged of late, and want a holiday. I only made up my mind to take this cruise this afternoon. Not a soul but yourself knows we are going." On hearing this a sigh of relief escaped Carew. Yes, if he were once on board the yacht all trace of him would be lost. He felt almost jubilant as he thought of it; the recent acute tension of his mind had left a sort of hysterical weakness behind, and he alternated easily between exultant hope and profoundest despair. He reflected that if he could but contrive to reach Erith without being observed by any who knew him, he was safe, at anyrate for some time. But how to do so? It was possible that even already detectives had been set to watch his movements. He must take his chance of that, use all his wits, and incur no risk that could be avoided. Fearing to show himself in the streets, more especially in the Strand or Fleet Street, where so many would know him by sight at least, he suggested to Allen that they should send to a neighbouring chop-house for their dinners, and remain quietly in the chambers, instead of dining, as was their wont, at a club. The barrister agreed to this, and therefore had no opportunity that night of meeting any of his friends, and he communicated to no one his intention of sailing on the morrow. He merely left a note for his housekeeper on his table, informing her that he would be out of town for a fortnight, and that his letters were not to be forwarded. * * * * * At an early hour on the following morning a cab was brought round to the door of the barrister's chambers, and the two friends drove off to Charing Cross Station, arriving there but a few minutes before their train started. The chances of anyone who knew him recognising Carew on the way were thus reduced to a minimum. At Erith Allen's man, Jim, was awaiting them with the dinghy. He was a very broad-shouldered, florid-faced man of forty, with a protuberance in one cheek indicating the presence of a quid. He looked exactly what he was--a hardy, North-Sea smackman. Jim pulled them off to the yacht, and when the solicitor, who was thoroughly at home on a boat, a keen lover of the sea, with yachting as his one innocent pleasure, stood on the white deck, and, looking around, saw how glorious was that summer's day, beheld the river sparkling in the sunshine, thronged with stately ships and picturesque barges tacking up with the flood against the soft south-west wind, a delightful sense of freedom rushed upon him. Oh, what a thing it was to have left behind him that accursed city, with its weariness, its anxieties, the endless jangles of the law, the feverish play, the guilt, the terrible dread of detection--to have left it for ever! "Now, Jim, off we go!" cried the skipper. The dinghy was lifted on board, the mainsail was hoisted, then the jib; the moorings were slipt, up went the foresail, and the yacht shot out into the stream; then, obedient to her rudder, bore away, and tore down the river before the freshening breeze on the top of the strong ebb tide. Needless it is to describe that pleasant summer day's sail. Allen was in the highest spirits, and for him the happy hours flew rapidly by. Even Carew, intoxicated with the pure air and sunshine, and the delightful sight of dancing waters, forgot his sin and misery, and felt almost light-hearted for the first time for months; and at last, when the yacht reached the broader water, thinking over his position, he gave a sigh of infinite relief. Now, indeed, he was safe. No fugitive had ever left so little trace behind him. They were well outside the Thames, in the East Swin Channel, before dark. The sun set in a golden haze, ominous of storm on the morrow, and then the wind dropped. The yacht sailed very slowly down the English coast during the night, the three men taking it in turn to steer and sleep. At sunrise they were off the Naze, and the sky looked so stormy and the glass fell so rapidly that there was some discussion as to whether it would not be well to put in to Harwich. But Carew was so earnestly opposed to this that the owner decided to push on, and the vessel's head was turned seaward towards the mouth of the Maas. The English coast loomed less and less distinct; but so light was the wind that it was not till midday that they lost all sight of the land. Then the wind began to pipe up suddenly, and seeing nothing but stormy clouds and heaving water around him, Carew's spirits rose wonderfully; a reaction of wild gaiety succeeded his anxiety. At four it was blowing so hard that they took two reefs in the mainsail and shifted jibs. Shortly before sunset, Carew was taking his turn at the tiller; the others were below. After a while the motion of the yacht became so violent that the owner came on deck to have a look round. "The wind has freshened a lot this last half-hour, and there's a nasty sea getting up," he said. "It will be blowing a gale of wind before the morning. Well, we have a good craft under our feet." "She steers wonderfully easily," replied the solicitor. "She's a beautiful boat. I would not mind crossing the Atlantic in her." "I should think not," said the proud owner. "But look at that vessel across your lee-bow, Carew. What the dickens are they up to on board of her? She's yawing all over the place. First I thought she was on the port-tack; then she seemed as if she was in stays; and now--ah, I see it--she is hove-to." "She is a small brig," said Carew. "Get the glasses up and see what you can make of her." Allen dived below, brought up the binoculars, and scanned the vessel. "By Jove!" he cried, "she's in a nice mess. Her bowsprit is carried away, her foretopmast too, and her jib's streaming away like a flag. Hallo! and part of her stem and bulwarks have gone." "Collision." It was Jim's voice. He had just come on deck, and his quick eye at once realised the brig's mishap. Then he looked at her intently for some moments, and spoke again, in eager tones for him-- "Derelict." "So she is," cried Allen. "We'll get out the boat and board her. Do you think the sea is too high, Jim?" Jim said nothing. He was quite ready to risk his life in a cockle-shell in a heavy sea, as all fishermen of the Doggerbank must be. He was not the man to refuse to do what his employer wished, unless the danger were very great indeed. He looked round at the sea, then nodded his head affirmatively. "I don't think it's safe," said Carew. "In the first place, see how low that brig is in the water; she may go down at any moment, and the sea is very tricky to-day. I grant you it does not seem so very rough just now, but every half-hour or so there have been some rather dangerous rollers. One passed by us just before you came on deck." But Allen's spirit of adventure was up. "Oh, nonsense!" he cried; "I'm going to see what she is. She may be worth standing by for salvage. Run down a bit nearer to her--that's it. Now let's heave-to--so. Now overboard with the dinghy, Jim. You stay behind and mind the yacht, Carew." Jim and Allen waited for a "smooth," seized the dinghy, dexterously launched her, and leaping in nimbly, pulled away from the yacht--a feat that looks easy on paper, but requires nerve and skill to perform in a heavy sea. "If you drift away too far, let draw your jib and sail up to us," shouted Allen, as he went away. Carew stood on the deck of the yacht, which now rose and fell on the seas with the easy motion of a vessel that is hove-to, and watched the tiny boat, so frail and yet so buoyant, so far safer than she seemed, as she leapt from wave to wave. The dinghy was close to the brig. In another moment the men would have boarded her, when Carew perceived, to his horror, a huge roller coming up--a steep mass of water, with overhanging, breaking crest, such as are met with on the edge of shallows. It reached the yacht and hurled her high up; then dropped her again into the trough of the sea with a shock almost as violent as if she had struck a rock. The giant wave thundered by the sturdy little vessel without injuring her. But the dinghy--where was she? Carew strained his eyes in her direction. First the boat was hidden from him by the intervening wave; then he saw her for a moment floating on the top of a sea, some forty yards away, bottom up. He thought, too, he could distinguish a man's head in the water near her. The derelict had disappeared. Waterlogged as she was, it had only needed that last great sea to send her down bodily. But all this while his two companions were drowning. Why did Carew stand there idle? He was sailor enough to know his duty. He could have sailed the yacht close to the men, thrown a life-buoy to them, and have possibly succeeded in dragging them on board. He stood on the deck, as if dazed. Had he lost his head for a time? He only hesitated for two or three seconds, but they were invaluable--then it was too late! A sudden squall of wind and rain swept down upon the sea, and all was obscured in a whirling smoke of spray and vapour. It was impossible to see even a few yards through it; and when the squall had passed, there were no men and no dinghy to be seen. The dark and stormy night settled down upon the waters, and Henry Carew was left alone in the middle of the North Sea! CHAPTER III "Am I a murderer?" So asked of his conscience, in fear and trembling, Henry Carew, as he stood alone upon the deck of the labouring vessel, surrounded by a waste of tumultuous waters. "Not a murderer!" he cried aloud. "Oh no, not that!" Then he argued with himself. "Had I done all that a man could, I think I should have been unable to save them. True, I lost my presence of mind. I did not stir a hand to help them; but that is not murder. Poor Allen! poor Allen! But no; this is a morbid fancy. At least I am innocent of that crime." He looked round at the wild sea, invisible on that starless night save for the white foam that hissed on the tops of the waves. "And now to make the best of my position. How fortune has turned! I, who two days back was surrounded by dangers, have nothing to fear now." Then he broke into a wild laugh, not of merriment or exultation, but a sort of hysterical effervescence that came of a mind that had long been tasked beyond its strength by violent emotions. But he fully realised what a great advantage the loss of his two companions signified for him. Yes, even at that moment when he beheld them drowning before him, the profit their death would bring him had flashed across his brain. Little wonder that he asked his conscience that terrible question, "Am I a murderer?" How simple his course seemed now! It needed little thought to decide on it. He knew that Allen was accustomed to undertake long cruises, and therefore would not be missed for some time. Again, the barrister was somewhat careless in his correspondence; so the fact of his neglecting to write to his friends would surprise and alarm no one. How easy, then, for Carew to impersonate him! He would sail the yacht into some Dutch port--no very difficult task; and once there, he could rely on his wits to make the most of the opportunities chance should throw in his way. Most probably he would sell the yacht and take a passage on some vessel bound for a South American harbour. Like most educated fugitives from justice, he turned to the Argentine Republic as being the safest of sanctuaries. Carew's eyes, accustomed to observe the signs of the weather, told him that the wind was likely to freshen; so he set about making himself as comfortable as possible for the night. He lowered the foresail, and still further reduced the mainsail by tricing up the tack. Then, with jib-sheet hauled to windward and tiller lashed, the yacht lay hove-to. After watching her for a few minutes, Carew saw that she was behaving admirably, and that he could with safety stay below the whole night if he chose, and leave the little vessel to take care of herself. "It will have to blow a good deal harder to hurt her," he thought; "it's only collision I have to be afraid of now. Well, I can considerably lessen the chances of that." So he went below, found the side-lamps, lit them, and fastened them to the shrouds. So dark had become the night that nothing could be distinguished from the yacht's deck, save when, as she rolled from side to side, the port and starboard lights cast an alternate ruddy and sickly green glare on the foaming water. To be out in the North Sea on so small a craft during a gale is terrifying in the extreme to one not inured to the sea; the roaring of the waves and the howling of the wind sound so much louder than on a larger vessel, and the quick, violent motion often confuses the brains even of sailors if they are accustomed only to big ships. But Carew was, as Allen had said, a smart man on a fore-an-after. He felt that, with this good boat under him, he was as safe as if he had been on shore. "She's snug enough," he said. "I'll go below and try to make out from the chart where I am; then I'll turn in and sleep--if I can." He looked at the chart, roughly calculated the distance the yacht had run since Allen had taken his "departure" from the Naze, and found that he was about half-way between the English and Dutch coasts. "That is good," he thought; "I have no lee-shore near me; I have plenty of room. I'll just stay where I am, hove-to, till the wind moderates, then make sail for Rotterdam." He lay down in his bunk and tried to sleep, but all in vain. His brain was too excited with thoughts of what had passed and what was still to happen. Plans to secure his safety, and visions of possible accidents, passed through his mind, weaving themselves in delirious manner into long and complicated histories of his future life--some happy, some terrible with retributive calamity. Unable to stay the feverish activity of his brain, he came on deck at frequent intervals to see that all was well. The vessel plunged and rolled throughout the night, her timbers groaning, and the wind shrieking through her rigging. But towards daybreak the gale began to moderate, and the glass rose slowly. Carew saw that the bad weather was over and that the heavy sea would soon subside. On the shallow German Ocean the sea rises quicker than elsewhere, and with its steep and breaking rollers is more perilous than can be experienced on any other of our home waters, as the fishermen of the Doggerbank know to their cost. On the other hand, here it soon becomes smooth again as the wind drops. An hour or so after dawn the sky was almost cloudless, and only a fresh breeze was blowing. The waves, no longer dangerous, broke into white foam that sparkled in the sunshine. It was a day to gladden a sailor's heart. Carew stood on deck, and under the joyous influences of that bright morning a calm fell on his soul, and his conscience ceased to trouble him. There is a sort of magnetic relation between a man and his surroundings. Out at sea, far away from land, with nothing but pure air and pure water near, even a great villain is wont to forget that he himself is not pure as well. In London, as he walked through the crowded streets, Carew knew that he was constantly jostling against men as bad as himself. In them he saw his own vices and crimes reflected as in a mirror, so that he could never put his guilt out of his mind. Again, fearful as he had been lately that those around him suspected him, he was unable to feel, even for one delusive moment, the sense of innocence. But out here on the great sea, so far removed from human passion, with nothing to remind him of his offences, it was, on the contrary, difficult for him to realise what manner of man he was. He was conscious of what he imagined were virtuous impulses. He began to flatter himself that he was naturally a good man, that he was more sinned against than sinning, and that it was foolish of him to allow a sensitive conscience to torment him about occurrences, regrettable indeed, but the blame of which was scarcely his. The fact was that he mistook the joyous feelings inspired by a sunny day at sea for the reawakening of his better self--a frequent mistake that. His soul was in complete harmony with the Nature around him; and Nature, whatever her actions, knows nothing of crime or remorse. So Henry Carew, in no unhappy frame of mind, began to consider what he should do next; and as he pondered, all his pluck and energy returned to him. "In an hour or so," he said to himself, "the sea will have gone down still more; then I can get the vessel under way again. In the meantime, I will make a thorough inspection, and discover what my resources are; for I must have money, or the means of raising it." He went below, and after lighting a fire in the stove to boil some water for coffee, he looked round the walls of the cabin. Among other valuables were a rifle, a revolver, a clock, and an aneroid; and Allen's gold watch and chain were hanging on a nail. "I can raise fifty pounds on these to begin with," he thought; "and now to see what there is in the lockers and cupboards." He rummaged everywhere; but, with the exception of the sextant, there was no article of any value that could be easily sold. At last, in a small drawer, he found the barrister's money and papers. There were about twenty-five pounds in gold. There was also a cheque-book; and on turning over its pages, Carew found that Allen had made a note of the balance to his credit on the counterfoil of the last cheque he had drawn, showing that he had the sum of fifty pounds at his bank. Then the solicitor glanced at the yacht's Admiralty warrant, which authorised Arthur Allen to fly the blue ensign of Her Majesty's fleet on his yacht, the _Petrel_, of sixteen tons register; a most valuable privilege, as Carew knew, which would serve him as passport into whatever foreign port he should go. He was not altogether satisfied with the result of his search, and, as he sat on the bunk sipping his coffee, the more he thought of his prospects the more gloomy they appeared to him. He felt that it would be very hazardous to attempt selling the yacht in Rotterdam. To do so would require time; and as it was the long vacation, and so many lawyers and others who knew him were taking their holidays, his recognition by someone in so favourite a haunt of tourists as the Dutch city would be a highly probable event. He dared not risk that. He must not stay in Holland a moment longer than was necessary. Then what could he do with so small a fund at his disposal? His eye fell on the open drawer, and he rose to close it. He happened then to notice the barrister's diary among the papers, and though he did not imagine that there could be anything in it of the slightest interest to himself, he took it up in a casual way and opened it at the first page. Suddenly the indifferent look vanished, he started visibly, and read with intense eagerness. "Oh!" he cried, "now it is all plain sailing for me. I know what to do." A triumphant light came into his eyes, and then, putting away the diary, he ran on deck, let the foresheet draw, and as he steered the vessel on her course over the dancing waves, the expression of his face indicated a happy confidence in the future; all doubt and fear had fled. The first page of the diary was devoted to memoranda; and, among other things, the barrister had here written a list of the investments from which he derived his income. The bulk of these consisted of foreign bonds and other easily negotiable securities, which Allen had deposited with his banker. It was the perusal of this list that had suggested to the quick and ingenious mind of the solicitor a scheme not difficult of execution, the very thought of which made his heart beat quick with anticipation. Carew shrank from the peril of forging cheques or letters of instructions to Allen's bankers; but now that he knew exactly how the barrister's account stood, a simpler and safer method of appropriating to himself a large proportion at least of the dead man's fortune occurred to him. Said this accomplished scoundrel to himself: "I have here a stout, seaworthy boat, that can easily take me across the Atlantic. I will ship a crew in Rotterdam, and sail for Buenos Ayres. By selling the watch and chain and one or two other little things I shall have enough money to buy stores and pay all other expenses of the voyage. Once in Buenos Ayres, I will go to the agent of the ---- Bank. There is sure to be one. I will show him my papers. I will prove to his satisfaction that I am Arthur Allen, barrister-at-law, owner of the yacht _Petrel_. I will explain that I have run short of money, and require a considerable sum at once. The agent will telegraph to the bank, learn that I have there securities to a large amount, and then he will be ready to advance to me as much as I want; and I will want a good deal. I will say that I am about to buy land, or tell some such plausible tale, get my money, and away. Oh, most excellent plan! Who on earth is likely to suspect that the yachting barrister is no other than Henry Carew, the defaulting solicitor?" He steered the vessel towards the Dutch coast, and soon the wind fell so much that he was able to shake out all his reefs. At ten he passed through a large fleet of fishing boats that were riding to their nets. He hailed an English smack, asking her skipper if he could tell him his position. "You'll get hold of the land in an hour or so," shouted the man; "and, as you are going now, you'll about fetch Goeree." Carew, after consulting the chart, steered in a more northerly direction. At midday he saw the loom of the land ahead of him; so, as the sky was clear, he brought up the sextant and took an observation of the sun, thus ascertaining his exact position. "Lucky it is that I taught myself navigation," he thought; "it will come in useful now." At last he could plainly distinguish the features of the coast, which was low and flat, with white sand-hills here and there that gleamed like snow in the sunshine. Then he saw a steeple, a lighthouse, and a group of cottages, with bright red roofs, and he knew that he was off the village of Scheveningen, which is a few miles to the north of the Maas. Sailing to the southward, he soon reached the mouth of the river, and at once some of the ever-watchful pilots pulled off to him in a small boat. Carew hove the yacht to, and waited for them. The boat was soon alongside. Four little old men, all fat and rosy, were in her. One who understood English well was the spokesman. Standing up in the stern he shouted-- "Captain, you want pilot, sar?" "Yes; how much do you want to take me to Rotterdam?" Carew felt how necessary it was to husband his funds, and he suspected that Dutch pilots consider a yacht fair prey for extortion. The man named an exorbitant sum. "Nonsense! Too much. I'll sail her in myself." "Right, captain," replied the Dutchman calmly; "that better for me and my mates. You try and go in alone, you sure to run ashore. Then we help you off, and you give us plenty money for salvage instead of small pilot-fee." Carew felt that it might happen as the old man had said. The Maas is encumbered with shoals, and the navigation is difficult for a stranger. "Now, how much you give me, captain?" The solicitor mentioned a moderate sum. "Ah, you rich man with yacht to be hard on poor pilot! Now, I pilot you for the middle price." "Come on board, then," said Carew. The pilot leapt on to the yacht's deck, and the other three pulled away in their boat. "Now, captain. Tide in river running strong, wind is light; so we want all sail, or else we no move. Call up your hands and hoist topsail." "There are no hands below. I am alone," replied Carew. "Alone? What do you mean? You come from England all alone?" exclaimed the man in great astonishment. "Yes; my crew got drunk and were insolent just before I sailed. They thought I could not do without them, and they knew I was in a hurry. But I put them all on shore without hesitation, and I have come across alone." "You a very mad Englishman, but you a brave man. I never hear anything like that." "Pilot," said Carew, later on, as they were sailing up the river, "I don't want to be followed about Rotterdam as if I were a curiosity; so I should like you not to mention the fact of my having sailed across the sea alone." "All right, captain; my mouth close." "I shall want a crew of two or three good, honest Dutchmen, pilot. Can you recommend me any men?" "This very night you shall have one--my cousin Willem--a very good boy, captain." "And there is another thing, pilot. What sort of a berth are you going to put me in in Rotterdam?" "I will moor you along the Boompjees; nice quays them. Plenty good Schiedam shops on shore there. All yachts go there." "I thought so; that's why I asked. Now, pilot, I do not want to be moored along the Boompjees. Take me to some quiet canal, out of the way; you understand--a place where no yachts or foreign vessels go." "Ah, I know, captain, just the place: nothing but Holland schuyts there; no yachts like it, no captains like it; I not think you will like it." "I will go there. But why don't you think I shall like it?" "You no have Dutch nose; and that canal plenty smellful, captain." CHAPTER IV A narrow canal that pierces an out-of-the-way corner of old Rotterdam. MediÃ¦val houses--narrow, lofty, terminating in quaint, pointed gables--overhang the sluggish waters. It is only frequented by the picturesque native canal boats, with their lofty masts and varnished oak sides, so marvellously clean, for all their dirty work. In this quiet spot, with its old-world, decaying look, it is difficult to realise that close at hand are the busy quays of the Boompjees, crowded with vessels from all parts of the world, noisy with the haste of modern commerce. It is a bit of Rotterdam that does not change. The British tourist, unless he has lost himself, never explores the narrow alleys that lead down to the slimy water--a gloomy, dead quarter of the city, pervaded by a smell that is ancient and fish-like and something worse. It was a sultry August midday. No breath of air stirred the water of the canal, which seemed to be fermenting under the fierce sunshine, and foul gases bubbled up on its surface. Only one of the many vessels moored along the quay flew a foreign flag. The blue ensign of Great Britain hung motionless from the mizzen of the yacht _Petrel_. On the deck was a sturdy little man in baggy trousers, who, despite the languid influence of the day, was employed in polishing the brass-work on the vessel with an extraordinary energy. This was Willem, the pilot's cousin, who had entered into Carew's service, and who had, with Dutch diligence, set himself the task of scrubbing the yacht up to his high standard of Dutch smartness as quickly as possible. The owner--by right of undisputed possession--was below, looking over some charts of the South Atlantic, which he had just purchased. The solicitor had been making all his preparations as rapidly but as quietly as possible. But little now remained to be done. So far, honest Willem was the only hand he had engaged; but he knew that he could easily ship as many men as he needed at a moment's notice in so large a seaport as Rotterdam. He told no one of his projected voyage across the Atlantic, knowing that to do so would at once attract attention to him; and he naturally dreaded that publicity should be given to his doings. He showed himself in the streets as little as possible, and he always went forth to make his purchases in the early morning before English tourists were likely to be out of their beds. He had only been in port two days, but he was almost ready for sea. He had some tanks fitted into the cabin, so that he could carry sufficient water for a long voyage; he had filled all the lockers and bunks with a large quantity of tinned meats, biscuits, and other necessary stores; he had procured his charts; and all this had been done in the least conspicuous manner possible. Though he had never before undertaken an ocean cruise of this magnitude, he knew what was requisite, and forgot nothing. There was no chronometer on board the yacht, and he could not afford to buy one; so, as his watch was not to be depended upon, he saw that he would have to navigate his vessel after the fashion of the good old days before chronometers were known. The ancient navigators carried with them their astrolabes--rough instruments, long since superseded by quadrants and sextants--which enabled them to find their latitude accurately enough. But having no timepieces, they were unable to ascertain their longitude by observation of the heavenly bodies, and had to rely on dead reckoning alone. So the mariner of old, after a long voyage across ocean currents of unknown speed and direction, was possibly many hundreds of miles out of his reckoning as regards longitude, though he knew his latitude to within a few miles. Thus, supposing, for instance, he was bound for Barbadoes, he would sail boldly on until, according to his calculations, he was some few days' journey to the eastward of his port. Then he would steer for the exact latitude in which it lay, and follow that line of latitude till he reached his destination; which he was, of course, bound to do sooner or later. Moreover, it was his invariable custom to heave his vessel to every night while running down the latitude; as otherwise he might pass by the island without seeing it in the darkness, and lose himself entirely. It was a slow method of navigation--not to say a risky one. But Carew would not have to encounter so many difficulties as the sailors of old; for ocean currents are better understood in these days, and the opportunities of speaking vessels at sea and ascertaining the exact longitude from them are very frequent. Carew had spent all the money he had found on board the yacht, and there were still some necessary purchases to be made. The most expensive of the articles yet to be bought was a dinghy, to replace the one that had been lost. This very morning he had found his way to the Mont de PiÃ©tÃ© and pawned everything he could well spare: Allen's watch and chain, the rifle, and one of the two binocular glasses. With that easy forgetfulness which was an attribute of his conscience, he had by this time almost come to believe that the barrister's yacht and fortune were rightfully his. The sum he thus raised was not a large one; but he calculated that it would enable him to meet every expense, though he would have to put to sea almost penniless, if not quite so. While Willem was still busy on deck a tall, good-looking gentleman, with an honest but shrewd eye and tawny beard, came along the quay and stood in front of the yacht, inspecting her critically for a few moments. "Is the owner on board?" he inquired of the sailor in Dutch. "The English captain is in his cabin, sir," replied the little man in a solemn, nasal drawl. "I should like to see him. Will you give him my card?" Willem, taking the card, descended to the cabin. "Von man here for see you, captain," he said in his broken English. Carew started. "A man to see me? What sort of man?" he asked. "Him a gentleman man, for him has von tall black hat. Here was his paper," and he handed Carew the card. The solicitor felt the blood forsake his heart. Some English acquaintance had found him out. He looked at the card with dread; then a sigh of relief escaped him; the name was certainly Dutch--Hoogendyk. Carew went on deck and politely invited his visitor to come on board. Mynheer Hoogendyk stepped down from the quay, and introduced himself in excellent English. "I am a resident of Rotterdam," he said, "and I am a leading member of our Yacht Club. I have come to inform you that, with your permission, we shall be highly delighted to make our English _confrÃ¨re_ an honorary member of the club during his stay in our city." "I am very grateful to the club for the honour they confer upon me, and shall gladly avail myself of the privilege," replied the lawyer, who, as he spoke, made a resolve never to put his foot inside the club premises, but to ship his crew and sail from Rotterdam without delay. It was dangerous for him to stay longer, now that his retreat had been discovered. "I only heard of you by accident yesterday," said the visitor, who, unlike most of his countrymen, was garrulous and inquisitive, though a good fellow. "Why have you picked up a berth in this dirty, out-of-the-way hole?" "It is picturesque and quiet." "And filthy and unhealthy. We must move you to a better spot. There is a capital berth just in front of the English church. You'll see lots of your countrymen there. How many hands have you on board? I see you have shipped one Dutchman." "My two men were drunken ruffians, and I discharged them." "I will undertake to get you a good crew of my countrymen if you like. I suppose you are going to cruise about our coasts. Where are you going to from here?" "To Amsterdam," replied Carew, who was on tenterhooks of impatience. He felt how dangerous this man would be with his gossiping habits. "And now, sir," said Mynheer Hoogendyk, drawing out a pocket-book and pencil, "I will take your name and enter it on the club books." "Here is my card." Carew handed to him one of the barrister's cards. "'Mr. Arthur Allen, Fountain Court, Temple!'" read the visitor. "Ah, you live in the Temple! I know it well. Are you a lawyer by chance?" "I am a barrister." "Ah! How delightful! We are chips of the same block, Mr. Allen. I, too, am a barrister, in practice in Rotterdam. Both yachtsmen, both advocates, what a bond of friendship there should be between us! You must come and see my yacht--such a pretty little schuyt--and also our law courts." They sat together in the _Petrel's_ cabin, and the Dutch advocate commenced to question the solicitor on English law, comparing it with that in force in his own country. Carew was hugely bored and weary of his visitor's chatter, but did his best to be civil. "And, by the way," cried the Dutchman at last, "there is a trial now proceeding which I am sure would be of the greatest interest to you; for you say that the criminal law is your particular line." "What is it about?" asked the solicitor indifferently. "Piracy: the seizure of a vessel and the murder of her officers by the crew." All Carew's indifference vanished now. He let the cigar he was smoking drop from his fingers, and, turning his head, he looked at his visitor's face with a steady, fierce look, as of some wild beast that awaits the attack of another, and has strung all its nerves to resist its foe to the death. The Dutchman, whose eyes were directed downwards at that moment, did not observe that look. The slumbering conscience had been awakened again with a rude start by those words. For a moment Carew lost his head and fancied that this garrulous man was a police detective who knew everything and had been playing with his prisoner all this while. Then he looked at his visitor's face again, and felt reassured, realising the absurdity of such a supposition. The advocate, quite unconscious of the perturbation he had caused, continued-- "Yes, it was a terrible story. Perhaps you remember reading in the papers some months ago of an act of piracy in the Spanish Main. A vessel trading from CuraÃ§oa under the Dutch flag was seized by her crew--a lot of Spanish and Mulatto cut-throats. They murdered the captain, the mate, and a few honest Dutch sailors who stood by their officers. Then the mutineers sailed for Puerto Cabello, where, as usual, there was a civil war, with the intention of selling the vessel to the revolutionary party, which was in need of transports. When they arrived there the revolution was over; the Government seized the vessel, but the ruffians contrived to escape up country." "I remember all that well," said Carew. "The story made a great noise at the time." "Now it happens," said the advocate, "that three of these ruffians shipped as sailors in a South American port on board of a vessel bound for Rotterdam. One day a Dutch sailor from CuraÃ§oa enters a drinking shop on the Boompjees, and sees, sitting down at a table over a bottle of schiedam, three men whom he recognises as part of the crew of the ill-fated _Vrouw Elisa_. He calls in the police, and now these gentlemen are being tried for their lives." "To be hanged if found guilty, I suppose?" "I hope so; but I am afraid that they will be acquitted. Everyone is morally sure of their guilt; but, unfortunately, the evidence for the prosecution has been so confused and contradictory that their identity has not been satisfactorily settled. The counsel for the defence is a very able fellow too." "What countrymen are they?" inquired Carew. "Two are Spaniards and one is a Frenchman. I think the Frenchman was the ringleader of the mutineers, for he looks a clever rascal. And now, Mr. Allen, the trial will probably conclude this afternoon. The court is very crowded, but I can get you in. Come along, and you will be able to compare the Dutch and English criminal procedure." Carew would have preferred to decline the invitation, but in ordinary politeness found it difficult to do so; and he accompanied the native lawyer--who undoubtedly possessed the gift of the gab, if no other qualifications for his profession--to the law courts. Carew felt anything but easy in his mind as he walked through the main streets of the town, at this hour of the day crowded with a motley throng, including not a few of his own countrymen, bent on pleasure or business. Pretending to listen to his companion's unceasing gossip, the solicitor looked anxiously about him as he went, fearing at each step to see some well-known face from Fleet Street. The glaring sunshine had rejoiced his soul when he was out on the lonely seas, but in the hives of his fellow-men he shrank from the all-searching light, and experienced guilt's instinct for safe obscurity. But he saw no one he knew on his way, and was much relieved when Mr. Hoogendyk procured for him, after some difficulty, a seat in a remote and dark corner of the court, where he could see and hear, himself unseen. Carew soon became so interested in watching the faces of the three men who were being tried for their lives that, in spite of the advocate's whispered suggestions on the subject, he paid no attention to the procedure, and did not endeavour to compare the Dutch and English legal systems. He took no interest in law now; he was indeed heartily sick of it, and hoped that he had washed his hands of it for ever. Of the three men only one had a really unprepossessing and murderous countenance. A murderer looks much like any other man, though people who take their ideas from waxwork shows think otherwise. That this should be so is obvious enough. A few only of murderers have homicidal proclivities as a part of their nature, and these indeed may betray their character in their physiognomy. All the other passions and vices of disposition can, under certain circumstances, compel the man who has the greatest horror of bloodshed to kill a fellow-being. In the large majority of cases, murder is not a tendency but the result of other tendencies. But one of the three prisoners had indeed a villainous appearance. He was a big, clumsily built Spaniard from the Basque countries, with a heavy, animal face and an evil mouth, indicative of the stupid cruelty of some savage beast. The other Spaniard was a short, stout man, with a jovial face and an enormous black moustache, which he twirled occasionally with a complete _nonchalance_. There was nothing of the murderer in his appearance. Neither of these two men exhibited any signs of fear. The first faced death with the dogged pluck of an animal, the second with a somewhat higher sort of courage. The third man alone, the Frenchman, showed that he was suffering the agonies of acute terror. The little Spaniard, observing this, nodded to him now and then, smiling maliciously, and the big man scowled at him with surly contempt. The Frenchman's face was quite white, and the perspiration poured down it in streams; his lips quivered, and, holding on to the rail of the dock with hands tightly clenched, he listened with intense attention to every word of judge or advocate. The features of this man, though distorted with fear, were delicate and refined. His handsome face was more like that of a ProvenÃ§al gentleman than of a rough sailor. He was a well-knit man of about thirty, with the blue-black hair of the South. Over his fine and expressive eyes were bushy black brows, which almost met on his forehead, giving him a somewhat sinister appearance. Carew found himself taking a strange, morbid interest in watching these three faces. In some way he identified himself with the prisoners. Had not they committed a crime only in degree differing from his own? The day might come when he too would be tried for his life. He wondered whether he would then look like the dogged Basque, the cowardly Frenchman, or the other. He had always flattered himself that he did not fear death; but how difficult to know how he would face it until his time came! At last, amid complete silence, judgment was given. Carew could not understand the words, but he knew their import-- "Not guilty!" The spectators groaned and hissed when they heard this decision. The Frenchman fell back fainting. The big Spaniard glanced boldly round the court with a ferocious scowl, and he made an involuntary motion with his right hand, as if he held his knife in it and was longing to rip up a few of his enemies. The little man smiled, and bowed pleasantly to the court, after the manner of an actor who is acknowledging his tribute of applause. CHAPTER V The attorney and Carew left the court, the former volubly indignant at the miscarriage of justice, the latter moody and thoughtful. "And now," cried the Hollander, "here we are at the best cafÃ© in Rotterdam. Come in, and let us wash out the taste of crime with some beer." They sat down at one of the little round tables, and two tall glasses foaming at the brim were placed before them. "They have all the English papers here," said the advocate. "I will ask the waiter to bring you one." Carew looked round the room, and suddenly his face paled, for he saw sitting at a table at some distance off a fellow-countryman, whom he recognised as a tobacconist in Fleet Street, a man who, no doubt, knew Carew's name and profession well, for the solicitor had often made purchases at his shop. Carew did not lose his presence of mind. The man was reading the _Times_, and had, in all probability, not yet observed him. "Mynheer Hoogendyk," he said, "I am sorry that I must leave you now. I hope you will excuse me. I have an engagement, and in your agreeable company I had forgotten all about it." "You flatter me, sir," replied the advocate with a bow. "I trust that you will honour me by dining with me to-morrow at eight, your English hour, I believe, for that repast. My wife speaks English well, and will be delighted to see you." "I accept your invitation with the greatest pleasure, mynheer." Then they rose to go, and Carew contrived to keep his lively companion between him and the man from Fleet Street as they walked out of the cafÃ©. The solicitor felt ill at ease until he had left behind this bright and crowded portion of the city, and was once again in the region of the gloomy and malodorous slums where the yacht was lying. He saw how necessary it was that he should leave Rotterdam the next day if possible. It was no place for him. His recognition by some one or other must occur sooner or later if he stayed here. So, having dined in a dingy little hostelry on the quay opposite to the yacht, he visited some of the least-frequented streets, and purchased the few necessaries for the cruise which he had not already procured. He came across a fisherman on the canal who was willing to sell him a small, clumsy boat which could serve him as dinghy. After some bargaining in pantomime--for neither understood the other's tongue--Carew secured this for the sum of three pounds. Passing an apothecary's shop, it occurred to him that it would be well to take some of the more necessary medicines with him, seeing that he might be some months at sea without calling at any port. He entered the shop and proceeded to draw up a list of his requirements, to which, as an afterthought, he added some drugs in less common use. "These last are poisons," said the chemist in broken English. "I cannot supply you with these unless you are a doctor." Carew, with bold invention, explained that he was the captain of a vessel, and as such was the ship's doctor, and had a right to any drugs he might choose to ask for; and he produced his Admiralty warrant in proof of his statement. The man was puzzled, perused the warrant without understanding it, and at last, reluctantly waiving his scruples, gave the solicitor all that he required. His vessel was now completely fitted out; nothing was wanting but a crew, and here a difficulty presented itself. He felt that it was highly important that no one in Rotterdam should know that he was sailing for Buenos Ayres, else the report that so small a yacht was about to undertake so long a voyage would spread rapidly, and would soon appear in the English papers. He wished it to be supposed that he was merely taking a few weeks' cruise in Dutch waters. But then, how would his men take it were he only to divulge his destination to them when they were well out at sea? The probability was that they would refuse to obey his orders, and insist upon returning. Professional sailors are not fond of ocean voyages in tiny craft. Evidently his only plan was to prowl about the docks that night, select with care three likely-looking men for his purpose,--men without wives or ties of any sort,--bring them on board the yacht, offer them good pay, and at the last moment tell them where he was bound for. Then, if they still consented to accompany him, he would sail away at once, allowing them no opportunity of gossiping with their friends on shore. Willem, he knew, was not the man for him. The honest Dutchman must be discharged at once on some pretext or other. Carew sat on deck, pipe in mouth, meditating on these matters. He was alone on the yacht, for Willem had gone off on leave for a few hours to visit some of his relatives. The sun was setting into a bank of rosy vapour that promised a continuance of fine weather. The hot day was closing with a sultry eve. On that quiet canal, and on the narrow quay beneath the lofty houses, there was no sound or sign of life. It was almost as if he were in the midst of some dead and long since deserted city. But of a sudden the peacefulness of that mediÃ¦val scene was rudely disturbed. First was heard a confused noise in the distance, as of angry human voices and the trampling of many wooden shoes. Louder, nearer was the sound, and then Carew perceived a man rush out upon the quay from a narrow alley, some hundred yards away, that led towards the principal docks. The man, who seemed frantic with terror, stood still for one brief moment, looked quickly around him, as if uncertain whither to hurry next: whether to plunge into the canal, or run along the quay to left or right. Then arose a loud yell of many voices behind him, as of hounds that at last have caught a view of the hunted creature; and the man, hearing it, darted off again at full speed along the canal bank in the direction of the yacht. Immediately afterwards there poured out of the alley a crowd of nearly a hundred men, women, and children, mostly of the lowest orders; denizens of the slums, though some were of a more respectable class; a crowd of Hollanders who had lost all their native phlegm for the nonce; a crowd gesticulating, howling, execrating, thirsting for the blood of the man they were pursuing; mad and fierce as a mob of Paris in revolutionary days when an aristocrat was scented by the sovereign people. The wretched man was hatless; his coat and half his shirt had been torn from his back; the blood was trickling down his face from the wounds on his head where the stones that had been hurled at him had hit. On he came, running wildly before them, his face livid, his mouth open, his teeth set, eyes starting from his head with mortal terror, panting as if his heart must burst, ready to fall with exhaustion, but still hurrying on for his dear life's sake. When he was close to the yacht his strength failed him; he stretched out his arms wildly, and staggered. With a yell of triumph the cruel crowd was on him. A man struck him over the head with a stick. Then, with one last despairing effort, he threw himself from the quay on to the yacht's deck, and fell a helpless mass at Carew's feet, clutching him by the legs, as if to implore his protection, but unable to speak or move. His pursuers stood on the quay above, muttering angrily to each other, but hesitated a moment or so before they ventured to board the yacht, each waiting for someone else to lead the way. Those few moments saved the hunted man. "Below there!" cried Carew, pointing to the cabin. "Quick, man, or you will be lost." Seeing that the poor wretch was too exhausted to rise by himself, he seized him by the arm, thrust him down the cabin hatchway, closed the cover over him, locked it, and put the key in his pocket. It was all done in a few seconds, and then the solicitor turned round and stood calmly facing the mob. The people had not realised at first that Carew was about to rob them of their victim. Now that they did so, a howl of rage burst from them, and some shouted to him, what were evidently commands to give the man up to them, and menaces of what they would do if he refused, though he could not understand the words. One man began to clamber down to the yacht; but Carew seized his leg and threw him on the quay again, not over-gently. "Silence!" the solicitor called out, leaping back on the hatchway; and the Dutchmen, impressed by the Englishman's resolute bearing, paused and listened to what he had to say. "Does anyone here understand English?" he asked. As might be expected from a crowd in a Dutch city, several men cried out, "Yes, Englishman; yes, we know English." "Then, what is all this disturbance about? Are you all mad?" "We want dat man," replied a surly voice. "You can't have him." "Den ve vill take him." "Oh, will you?" Carew drew from his pocket Allen's revolver, which he always carried about with him now. "Look you here, my friends; I don't want a row, but if any man tries to come on board my vessel without my permission I will shoot him." They were awed by the quiet determination of his manner, and felt that he would carry out his words. "Does you know who you has down dere below?" asked the man who had spoken before. "I don't know, and I don't care; but he is not going to be murdered by you cowards on board my vessel. If he has committed some crime, call the police. I will deliver him over to them only." The passions of the mob had now cooled down considerably, and the men began to light their pipes, and looked once more the staid Dutchmen they naturally were. At this juncture five or six of the sturdy Rotterdam police arrived on the spot, and commenced to disperse the crowd so effectually that in a few minutes not a soul was left on the quay. One of the policemen, who understood a little English, came on board the yacht and inquired from Carew how the disturbance had commenced. Carew told him all that had occurred. "I should like to see the man," said the officer. They entered the cabin, and there, sitting in the corner of the bunk, trembling, haggard, his face still quite white, save where it was smeared with blood, was the French sailor who had that day been tried for murder on the high seas, and been acquitted. "I thought so," said the policeman. "It is the accused, Baptiste Liais. His case caused great excitement. The people are very bitter against him, for they all believe he was guilty. He is not safe in Rotterdam. We must find a way of getting him out of the country." "You can leave him here for the present," said Carew. "I will see that the poor wretch is safe for the night." "It is very generous of you, sir," exclaimed the astonished policeman; "but I think it is very unwise of you"-- "I am not afraid of him," interrupted Carew, in peremptory tones. "Leave him with me." The officer shrugged his shoulders. He had always been taught to believe that Englishmen were eccentric creatures; so he went away and told his comrades that the owner of the yacht was a splendid specimen of the mad island race, and Carew and the Frenchman were left alone in the cabin facing one another. CHAPTER VI For some few moments Carew sat on the opposite bunk, watching the sailor's face musingly. Then, rising, he addressed him in French. "I will fetch you a glass of rum. It will do you good." "I thank you much, sir," said the man, in the same language; "I should like it, for I still feel very faint." He drank a rather large dose of the spirit, and under its influence the colour quickly returned to his cheek, and the scared look left his face. "You can now go into the forecastle and wash yourself," said Carew. "You will find a jersey and a coat hanging up there; put them on." These had belonged to the drowned sailor, Jim. When the Frenchman returned to the cabin cleansed of bloodstains and decently clothed, the solicitor was surprised to see what a respectable-looking fellow he was. He might well have been a gentleman from his appearance, and his hands, though brown and roughened by work, were small and finely shaped. "How do you feel now?" "Thanks to you, sir, I am now quite myself again." After a pause, Carew said, with a smile, "I never before saw such abject terror in a man's face as there was in yours when you were running down the quay." "That bloodthirsty _canaille_ was enough to inspire terror. Ah, if I could but get hold of that man who hit me with the stick! It was horrible, to run down all those streets for life with that yelping pack after me. I had no chance with them, though I am a good runner; for so soon as the brutes wearied and lagged behind, fresh ones joined the crowd at every corner. Ah, monsieur, I think you would have exhibited as much terror yourself." "Not quite as much, I think," said Carew quietly. "Perhaps not, monsieur. I am brave enough in some ways--braver, perhaps, than you would be; but I have not that animal contempt for death that my comrade, El Toro, for instance, possesses. Delicate fibres suffer the most." "Then you are hardly a fit person to be a ringleader of mutineers. Murderers should have no nerves." Baptiste Liais was a very calm person when he was not in fear, and he had now entirely recovered his self-possession. He shrugged his shoulders, and replied carelessly, "There are assassins and assassins, monsieur. There is courage and courage. There is the blind bravery of the soldier, who, shrinking not from bloodshed, risks his life in battle; and there is the cool nerve of the educated man, who, in cold blood, removes with poison those who stand in his way. I suppose you allow that this last is also a species of courage?" "Is that your sort of courage?" The Frenchman shook his head in a deprecatory way, and exclaimed, in tones of playful remonstrance, as if he were only rebutting a charge of one of those offences which are tolerated, and even fashionable, "But, monsieur, monsieur! you speak of me as if I had been proved to be an assassin. You forget that I was acquitted." "You say that you are innocent?" "Certainly. I am sure that I am a very inoffensive fellow." The man spoke with the quiet ease of one gentleman to another. It was plain that he had been used to decent society at some period of his life. "Were you never on board the _Vrouw Elisa_?" "I had never heard of the vessel till they arrested me here." "And your companions, the two Spaniards?" "As innocent as I am myself--no more, no less. But I see that you have some of that excellent English tobacco on the table. Permit me to make myself a cigarette." "You are a cool fellow, Baptiste Liais. I can see that you are a man of education. You were not always a common sailor?" "Your perception flatters me. You have divined the truth," said the Frenchman, bowing. "I am a gentleman by birth and education. My family is one of the most ancient and respected of the ProvenÃ§al aristocracy. I need not tell you that the name I now go by is an assumed one. And I--well I, to be candid, am the scapegrace of the family." He rolled himself up a cigarette, lit it, and, looking up, his eyes met those of Carew in the frankest way possible. And yet the solicitor had no doubt in his own mind that the man had committed the crimes imputed to him; and the Frenchman, on his part, did not imagine for a moment that Carew believed in his innocence. "I suppose you will now look out for another ship?" the solicitor said. "How can I do so in Rotterdam? My face is known here. I am execrated--hunted down. No captain would ship me, no crew serve with me." "Won't your consul assist you?" "I don't think so," replied the Frenchman drily. Neither spoke for some time; then Carew said, "I realise your position, and am sorry for you. Now supposing I were to ship you on board my yacht, I imagine that it would be a matter of indifference to you to what part of the world we sailed?" The Frenchman looked curiously and keenly at Carew out of the corners of his eyes. "I don't care a rap where I go to so long as I get out of this detestable Rotterdam," he replied. "And your friends--would they come too?" "Gladly. I will answer for them." "What sort of men are they?" "The little one, a Galician from Ferrol, is not at all a bad fellow, and he is an excellent sailor; but the big Basque is a savage brute--one of such is enough on a vessel. However, he can't do much harm by himself, unless he makes the rest of your crew discontented. Are they Englishmen?" "I am alone. I have discharged my crew; and there would only be you three and myself on board." "That would be a sufficient number to navigate this little ship. Do you really mean that you wish us to come with you?" "I do," replied Carew, after a slight hesitation; and the Frenchman eyed him with a not unnatural astonishment. The solicitor had rapidly surveyed the situation in all its bearings, and he had decided that it was his wisest and safest plan to engage these ruffians as his crew. Morally weak, acutely fearful of disgrace, and cowardly of conscience as he was, Carew had plenty of physical courage. He was not the least daunted by the idea of venturing across the wide ocean on a small yacht accompanied by these murderers. Here was a crew ready to sail with him at a moment's notice and ask no questions. He felt that he ran but very little risk, after all; for these ruffians would gain nothing by murdering him. Piracy, in the old sense of the term, is almost impossible in these days. These men by themselves could do nothing with the yacht; they could not take her into any civilised port and dispose of her; neither of them could impersonate an English barrister. The seizure of the _Vrouw Elisa_ was a very different matter; for the mutineers then knew that there was a revolutionary party ready to purchase the vessel they had stolen. Again, he would make them acquainted with the fact that he was taking no money with him on the yacht; and he would promise to pay them, on their arrival at Buenos Ayres, a considerably larger sum than sailors ever receive for such a voyage. Under these circumstances, it could not possibly be to their interest to do away with him. On the contrary, it would be to their manifest advantage to serve him faithfully. Unless the men were absolute idiots, they would see all this; and he knew that the Frenchman, at least, was far too intelligent a man to commit a senseless crime that could do him no good. So argued the solicitor; and there was yet another more subtle motive that urged him to engage these three men in preference to honest sailors--a motive of which he himself was only dimly conscious. When a man has a sentimental objection to being a villain, and yet is one, and has no intention of reforming, he likes his surroundings not to be of a sort to reproach him and remind him of his crimes. It is painful to him to associate with good men. He prefers to be in the company of the bad; in their presence he does not feel the shame of his wickedness. So this man, with his strangely complex mind and conflicting instincts, was glad to take unto himself men worse even than himself as his companions across the ocean. "And to what port did you say you were sailing?" asked the Frenchman. "I will not tell you that until we are out at sea." "Oh, very well," said the man, again casting a keen glance at Carew's face, and smiling, as one who should say, "Have you too your secret--have you too committed a crime? If so, there should at once be an agreeable bond of sympathy between us." "How soon do you sail, sir?" he asked. "If you are all on board to-night we will sail at daybreak. I am ready for sea. You need not trouble about getting an outfit, for I have plenty of clothes in the yacht for the lot of you." Carew was thinking of the effects of Allen and his man Jim. "Oh, that is excellent!" cried the Frenchman. "And, excuse me, sir; what pay will you give us?--not that I wish to chaffer with one who has come to my rescue in so generous a manner." "And I do not wish to stint you," replied Carew. "You, as mate, shall have seven pounds a month; your comrades five pounds a month each." "That will do very well; but I should like you not to let the others know that I am receiving a higher pay than they. They might be jealous--not to say dangerous," said the cunning fellow. "Ha! what is that?" The Frenchman started, gripped Carew by the arm, and his cheeks again became white with fear. There was a sound of footsteps on the deck, and the next moment the tub-shaped Willem entered the cabin. When he saw who was sitting opposite to his master he stood stock still, his jaw dropped, and an expression of extreme astonishment, which amounted to horror, settled on his stupid, honest face. "What is the matter with you, Willem?" asked Carew, knowing well what was about to happen. "This is the mate I have engaged for the yacht." "Dat--dat man!" cried the Dutchman, finding his voice with difficulty. "You know who dat man is?" "I do. He has just left the court-house. He was unjustly accused of murder, and has been found innocent." "Vat--you take dat man for mate! Oh, den I go--I go at vonce! I not stay on board vid dat man." The usually stolid Dutchman trembled with excitement, and his broad face was scarlet with indignation. After a few minutes, finding that Carew was obdurate and would insist on engaging the most loathed man in all Rotterdam as mate, Willem rolled up his scanty luggage into a bundle, demanded and received the few guilders that were owing to him, and hurried on shore, grumbling uncouth Dutch oaths to himself as he went. Then the Frenchman, who had been observing the scene with a cynical smile, laughed bitterly. "Had I been the fiend himself that fat idiot could not have been much more terrified at the sight of me. Ah, how they love me--these worthy people of Rotterdam!" For a moment there was a troubled look upon Carew's face. With his usual inconsistency he half regretted, when it was too late, that honest Willem had left him. It seemed to him that he had now broken the last tie between himself and the world of law-abiding men. He felt a vague sense of something lost to him for ever; as if his guardian angel, despairing of him, had forsaken him. But he quickly shook off the feeling as a foolish fancy, and turned his attention to the business he had on hand. "Now, Baptiste," he said, "we must find your two comrades. Do you know where they are?" "I think I can find them. Anticipating a separation, we arranged a rendezvous. But I dare not walk through the streets to look for them; I should be recognised and murdered." "Nonsense! we will soon disguise you. Shave off your moustache and put on a suit of clothes that I will lend you, and your own mother would not know you." The Frenchman obeyed these instructions, and was so satisfied with the change effected in his appearance by a hairless lip and a suit of poor Allen's clothes that he no longer hesitated to go forth in search of his two shipmates. Left alone, Carew pondered, with satisfaction, on his day's doings. All was going on well so far. "Lucky it is for me," he thought, "that there is an Admiralty warrant on the yacht. Provided with that useful document, I sail under the blue ensign of Her Majesty's fleet, and can do pretty well what I like. No authorities in any port will trouble me in the least. I can avoid the formality of taking my crew before the consul to sign articles, and I will dispense with a bill of health from this port. I may get quarantine for a few days in consequence of this last omission; but what is that to the peril of informing our consul here of my destination? And, by the bye, I am engaged to dine with Mynheer Hoogendyk to-morrow. I am afraid I shall keep him waiting, and over the spoiling dinner his cook will lose her temper; for by that time I ought to be well out in the North Sea." After about an hour's absence the Frenchman returned, accompanied by the two Spaniards. They entered the cabin, the little Galician all smiles, the big Basque awkward, vainly attempting not to scowl; but, do all he could, he still looked the brutal ruffian he was. "I have been very lucky," said Liais. "I soon found our lost lambs." "Have you explained my proposal to them?" Carew asked. "I have, and they are quite content with the pay you offer. They don't care a straw where you take them to, so long as it is not to a Spanish port. It seems that the lads are somewhat weary of their native land, and they tell me that they have some officious acquaintances among the Spanish police whom they would prefer not to meet." "I understand. I shall not call at any Spanish port; so they may set their minds at ease. And now I will inscribe your names in this book, if you please." He took Allen's diary out of the drawer. "First of all, there is Baptiste Liais, mate." "No; put me down plain Baptiste. My name is so well known now that I should like to leave half of it out." "Very well," said Carew, as he wrote. "And who is this big fellow?" "His name is Juan Silvas. But he, too, would rather be called by any other name, after the unpleasant publicity of the trial. His nickname among us is El Toro--the bull--because of his goggle eyes, his bull-like features and strength, and his blind, bovine rage. Put him down as Juan Toro." "Good; it is done. And what is the other man's name?" "JosÃ© Rodez, known among his intimates as El Chico, or the little one." "Then, following your system, I will inscribe him as JosÃ© Chico. Will that do?" "One name is as good as another," replied the Frenchman; "but oh, _mon capitaine_, this has been a somewhat trying day for us, and we are all very hungry." "There is plenty of food on board. I will show you where to find it. Give the lads some supper; then turn in, all of you. The tide is early, and we sail at daybreak." The next morning, just as the first slight murmuring sound arose from the big city, telling that the giant was awaking to its restless life, the canal lock was opened, and the yacht shot out into the tideway. Carew, who had taken mental notes of the navigation when sailing up the Maas, refused the assistance of a pilot, and took his vessel safely down the rapid river, across the shoals that encumber the estuary, and out into the open sea. The weather was splendid, and the wind favoured him, as it blew freshly from the south-east. Then Carew's pulse quickened; a wild exultation thrilled him, as the yacht, leaning well over to the steady wind, all her canvas set, rushed with pleasant sound through the smooth water. At that moment he felt happy, even proud of himself. He was safe at last, free from all anxiety. How Fortune had befriended him! That fatal superstition in luck that comes to the criminal and the gambler possessed him. Whom the gods wish to destroy they first make mad. "Baptiste," he said, "I have heard it is a custom of Spain for the captain of a vessel, as soon as she is well outside the harbour, to call all hands aft and serve round grog, so that they can drink to the prosperity of the voyage. Fetch up some rum, and give each a glass." The Frenchman obeyed the order. Carew was steering at the time, and the men stood round him, glasses in hand, awaiting the toast. Then the captain raised his glass in his disengaged hand, and called out in French-- "Comrades, here's to a prosperous voyage--_to Buenos Ayres_!" When the men heard their destination they seemed dumb with surprise for a moment; then they raised a joyful shout. The prospect was evidently an agreeable one to them. "To Buenos Ayres," said the Frenchman, bowing to Carew with a knowing smile, "the land where there is no extradition." CHAPTER VII It was mid-ocean, and no land was in sight. The glassily smooth surface of the sea was not broken by the faintest ripple, but it rose and fell slowly with the long, rhythmical swell of the Atlantic. Gentle now was the massive heaving of the giant's bosom, showing that he was slumbering only, and that the strong, fierce life was there, ready to be awakened at any moment to its energy of cruel destruction. Though the swell must have been of considerable height, yet so gentle was the undulation that no motion whatever would have been perceptible to one on the deck of a vessel, unless he had observed how the horizon was withdrawn from his sight at regular intervals by the intervening hills of water, as the vessel softly glided down the easy slopes into the broad valleys between. The wind was quite still. The sky above was clear and of a deeper blue than is known in northern climes; but on the eastern horizon lay a long, low bank of very dark cloud, seeming almost black in contrast to the elsewhere dazzling glare. The sea, to one looking across it, would have appeared of a beautiful indigo tint; but if one gazed straight down into the water, it seemed opaque in the purple blackness of its profundity, as if the perpetual night that reigned in the mysterious depths below were sending its shadow upwards to the surface. Yet so perfectly translucent was that ink-like water that any bright object, such as a plate, thrown into it would remain distinctly visible as it slowly descended--yes, even till it was so far down that it seemed no larger than a small coin. The yacht _Petrel_ lay becalmed on the tropical sea. All her canvas had been lowered, and she floated idly, while the fierce, vertical sun was blistering the paint on her sides, and the melting pitch oozed from the seams of her decks. For thirteen days she had been drifting thus on a windless ocean, her crew languid and irritable from the stifling heat, which it is impossible to mitigate on a small craft, waiting for the breeze that never came. For thirteen days of unbearable calm, broken only by occasional brief squalls, accompanied by torrential downpour of rain, and thunder and lightning of appalling grandeur--squalls which raised the flagging hopes of the men for a space, and to which they hastily hoisted their canvas, that they might be carried out of this dismal tract of the ocean; but after they had been driven on their way a mile or two only, the wind would suddenly drop again, the dark clouds would clear away, and the sun would blaze down fiercer than ever out of the implacable sky. The _Petrel_ had reached the region of the equatorial calms, the sultry Doldrums dreaded by the sailor, that broad belt of sluggish sea that divides the tract of the north-east trade wind from that of the south-east. Here the aÃ«rial currents neutralise each other and are at rest--a desolate, rainy ocean that lies under an almost stagnant atmosphere of steaming heat, where vessels have lain becalmed for wearisome week after week; even, in many cases, until the supply of fresh water had been exhausted and the men perished of thirst. And yet to the northward and to the southward the fresh trade winds blow perpetually in one direction, across vast stretches of ever-tossing waves. The voyage of the _Petrel_ had been a very prosperous one up to this point. She had met with fair winds for the most part until she reached the limits of the north-east trades, which, blowing right aft, had carried her on her way at the rate of nearly two hundred miles a day. Carew had sighted Madeira and the westernmost islands of the Cape Verde archipelago; but as the yacht was well provided with provisions, he had not called at any port. After having been a little over a month at sea, he had entered the calm region about the equator, and here, as I have said, scarcely any progress was made for a fortnight. By this time the crew had settled down to the regular routine of ship-life, and Carew was, on the whole, well satisfied with the men. The savagery of the big Basque would occasionally assert itself, and he was ever ready to pick a quarrel with his mates. The only one on board whom El Toro respected and feared was Carew himself; for he felt that the Englishman combined a physical courage, at least equal to his own, with a superior education; and the man who possesses these two qualities can always master a merely brute nature. El Toro did not conceal his contempt for Baptiste, who excelled him in mental ability alone; and again, he could not converse ten minutes with the little Galician without an altercation arising; for the latter, who had all the pluck of his big comrade, was fond of wagging his sharp tongue, and could not refrain from malicious banter, despite the long sheath-knife which was always so ready to the Basque's right hand. Carew, who had quickly gauged the character of his companions, took El Toro on his own watch, leaving El Chico to the French mate. Thus, as watch and watch was observed in the regular ship fashion--that is, one watch relieving the other every four hours--the cantankerous Basque had but few opportunities of associating with the other men. But during the fortnight of calm the discipline of the yacht had been relaxed. As there was no need for it, the usual watches had not been set; and, after they had completed the small amount of necessary work each day, the men were allowed to employ the rest of the time much as they liked. A prolonged calm on the line is trying even to the most amiable tempers; so that it is not to be wondered at that, on one occasion, El Toro, being modest as to his own powers of repartee, preferred to reply to a chaffing remark of El Chico's with a practical retort in the shape of a vicious stab, which might easily have diminished the ship's company by one had not the quick-eyed little man, leaping nimbly backwards, escaped with a slight scratch on his arm. For this offence Carew, knowing his man and how best to punish him, informed the Basque that a fine of a fortnight's pay had been entered against his name in the log-book. It was nearly midday, and the heat of the still, moist air was intense. The French mate lay reclined under an awning on the after-deck, rolling up cigarette after cigarette, and smoking them with half-shut eyes as he dreamily meditated. In the bows, under an awning extemporised out of an old sail, were squatting the two Spaniards, playing at _monte_ with a very dirty pack of cards. Now and then would be heard the sonorous oaths of the Basque, as he savagely reviled his bad luck, or the triumphant chuckle of El Chico, whom fortune was favouring. These two had been gambling almost incessantly during the calm, for the money they were to receive from Carew on their arrival at Buenos Ayres. The Galician had already succeeded in winning El Toro's pay for many weeks in advance. Neither of the men could read or write, but they kept a tally of their debts of honour--over which there was much wrangling--by cutting notches on a beam in the forecastle. A few minutes before noon Carew came on deck, sextant in hand, and the mate rose to his feet lazily. Carew's face was now bronzed by the tropical sun, and was fuller than it had been two months back. The haggard expression, the restless anxiety of his eye, had gone. He looked like a man with the easiest of consciences. He glanced at the two card-players forward. "Have you taken the precaution I ordered?" he asked the mate. "I have, captain; here they are," and Baptiste produced two formidable knives from his pocket. Since the incident I have mentioned, Carew had instituted a rule, to the effect that the men should not play at cards or dice unless they had previously delivered their weapons to one of the two officers. El Chico overheard the mate's reply. "Ah, captain," he cried, "you'll have to hand both knives over to me at the end of this game. I shall have won everything El Toro possesses in the world if my luck holds as it is doing now." "_Caramba!_ it is too much; a plague on the cards!" cried the Basque furiously, hurling the pack across the deck. "I'll have no more of them. If I have no knife, I have these hands," and he opened them out with a gesture of rage in front of the Galician. "I could circle your little neck with these, and throttle you in half a minute, El Chico." El Chico said nothing, but shrugged his shoulders with a provoking coolness. "El Toro, come aft," cried Carew, who had acquired enough Spanish to give his orders in that tongue; "come aft, and set up that mizzen rigging; it's as slack as possible." The wild beast acknowledged its master and proceeded to obey his orders in a surly fashion, even as Caliban might have reluctantly carried out some behest of the superior intelligence that had enslaved him. "This calm seems as if it would never end," said Carew to the mate. "It looks black yonder. Another squall, I suppose. Just enough to entice us to hoist our sails, and then to die away again." "I don't see anything like the trade-wind sky about," said Baptiste, who had sailed the tropical seas before. Carew took his midday observation of the sun; then, lowering his sextant, called out, "Make it eight bells, Baptiste," and went below to work out his position. He found that the _Petrel_ had only travelled five miles in the last twenty-four hours. He was seventy miles north of the equator, and his longitude by dead-reckoning (he had, as has been explained, no chronometer on board) was about 30Â° west, so that he was distant some five hundred miles from Cape St. Roque, the most easterly point of the New World. Soon after noon the dark bank of cloud rose rapidly from the horizon and overspread the whole heavens; the rain began to pour down as it only can in these equatorial regions, and a fresh breeze from the south-east cooled the heated atmosphere. The sails were hoisted, and the yacht ran some two or three miles; then the hopeless calm fell again, and there was not a cloud to be seen in the blue vault above. The sails flapped to and fro with a loud noise as the vessel rolled in the swell which the breeze had left behind it. "Oh, this accursed calm!" cried Carew impatiently; "down with all your canvas again." The men obeyed, grumbling at their ill-luck, and then resumed their game of _monte_. In the afternoon the heat became more oppressive than ever, and it was impossible to stay below; so all hands remained under the awnings on deck. The mate, after pondering for some while, said to Carew, "We shall run short of water if this continues much longer." "I have thought of that. We must serve out a smaller allowance." "Buenos Ayres is a long way off yet, captain. Would it not be well to put into some Brazilian port for water and vegetables? This heat is very trying on a small vessel like this. We shall have illness on board if we are not careful." "I do not wish to break the voyage anywhere, unless it is absolutely necessary," Carew replied. "I know these countries," Baptiste continued; "and there is one very good reason why you should call at some port on the way." "What is it?" "You have no bill of health with you. Now in Buenos Ayres the authorities are very afraid of yellow fever, and if you arrive there with no papers to show where you are from, they will take it for granted that you have come from some infected port, and that you have probably lost some hands on the voyage and wish to conceal it. They would, therefore, put you in quarantine for who knows how long. They might, under the suspicious circumstances, refuse even to give you pratique at all, and send you off to sea again." "How will calling at a Brazilian port remedy that?" "Because in Brazil they are not afraid of yellow fever, as they always have it there. At Rio they won't trouble you at all, and your consul will give you a clean bill of health for Buenos Ayres. Then, being satisfied that you have had no illness on board, the Buenos Ayres people will grant you pratique after, let us say, a quarantine of four days, even if yellow fever were raging at Rio." "A queer plan to avoid quarantine for Yellow Jack by calling at the headquarters of the fever!" said Carew; "but I see that you are right. I will put into Rio." After a pause the Frenchman said thoughtfully, "I shall be sorry to leave this vessel, sir. I suppose you still think of selling her in the River Plate. I should like to continue the cruise for another year." "So should I, but I can't afford it. Yachting is an expensive amusement." "Oh, I don't know that. A cruise may be made to pay its way even in these days, especially if one carries a warrant from the Admiralty of one's country like you do. The authorities are always civil to one who sails under the Government blue ensign, and never trouble him with the tedious formalities the common merchantman is subjected to." "I don't know what you mean," said Carew. "There is no money to be made now by legitimate trade at sea. Besides, a yacht is not allowed to trade at all." "I said nothing about legitimate trade," said the Frenchman quietly, as he rolled himself another cigarette. The eyes of the two men met, and they understood each other. The mate had never let drop so broad a hint before; but he knew that he was safe in doing so. There had existed for some time a sort of freemasonry of crime between himself and Carew. They had been thrown altogether upon each other's society of late. Both were educated men, and gentlemen by birth; both were shrewd readers of character; and it is so far easier for the bad than for the good man to recognise a kindred nature. Carew did not exactly entertain a liking for his mate, but he found his companionship far pleasanter than that of any other man could have been. The Frenchman's tolerant way of looking at crime was peculiarly gratifying to the ex-solicitor. It acted as a most soothing salve to his conscience. He liked to hear the man's cynical talk--the superficial philosophy with which he defended crime as being the least hypocritical way of obeying nature's law of the struggle for existence. The very presence of this villain seemed to exert a strange, magnetic influence on Carew's pliable soul, lulling it into a fool's paradise. Such an affinity for evil between two men who are much together will soon destroy any conscience that either of them may happen to possess. So Carew, having become accustomed to an atmosphere of crime, no longer shrank from the thought of it, and, with an amused smile, replied to the mate's remark, "What piece of villainy are you going to suggest now, Baptiste?" "I don't think you ought to use that word villainy," protested the Frenchman, with an air of comic indignation. "As a matter of fact, I was not at that moment thinking of any one particular 'piece of villainy,' but vaguely of a great number of feasible schemes I know of for transferring the wickedly-earned riches of others into our own deserving pockets." "This is highly interesting," said Carew, in a bantering tone. "Explain one of these notable schemes of yours, Baptiste." But the Frenchman did not reply. He looked round the horizon with a puzzled expression, and, putting his hand to his ear, appeared to be listening intently. "Hark, captain! What is that?" he cried. CHAPTER VIII Carew listened, and heard a low, rumbling sound like distant thunder. "Thunder out of a cloudless sky! That is strange." "That is no thunder, captain," said Baptiste, with a scared look, "but what it is I know not." The sound became louder. It did not seem to be approaching from any direction, but to be everywhere--around, below, above--filling all space. Then it swelled to a great roar, as of the rolling of thousands of drums. The air trembled at the sound, and the surface of the sea no longer reflected the blue sky above, but, appearing like a mirror over which one has breathed, vibrated into myriads of wrinkles and gyrating rings. Soon the water began to be greatly disturbed, and raved and foamed about the vessel as if she were floating in a boiling caldron. Then occurred an appalling prodigy. First, louder than loudest thunder, was heard a deafening explosion, and immediately the sea leapt up, not in waves, but in steep pyramids of water, piling itself up in domes, as if some mighty force were thrusting it up from below. The yacht pitched wildly into the confused whirl till she was nigh to break up with the violence of the shocks, and the water poured over her decks in masses, threatening to swamp her. Hollow whirlpools opened out suddenly in front of her, seeking to engulf her: a fearful spectacle to behold, which might make even the bravest men go mad with fright. Then came another explosion, and the superstitious Spaniards, holding on to the rigging for dear life, shrieked with abject terror as they saw the limpid sea suddenly thicken and change its colour to a dark, sulphurous yellow. There was an odour of sulphur in the air, and the sun was shining through a sickly yellow haze. The crew, who would have done their duty with cool courage in a hurricane, were completely unnerved by this alarming portent. The two men forward thought that the fiend himself had opened hell under them to swallow up their sinful souls; they prayed and blasphemed in turns. The French mate, white to his lips and trembling, clutched the rigging, with his eyes closed. Carew alone, though his cheeks were pale, was calm. Holding on to the bulwark to prevent himself from being thrown overboard by the violent leaping of the yacht, he looked around him with a resolute expression. He would fight bravely for his life, but he had no fear of death. In the midst of this turmoil a strong wind suddenly arose. "Hoist the foresail!" he shouted; but none of the terrified men obeyed the order. "Cowardly idiots!" he cried, and scrambling forward as well as he could to the mast, he seized the fore-halyards and set the sail. Then he returned to the tiller, after having been nearly washed overboard by a sea on the way, and steered the vessel dead before the wind. In ten minutes he had sailed, not without danger, outside the circle of raging water; and looking back he saw that the disturbance had already commenced to subside, and the loud roaring had lessened to a distant moaning. "_Locos!_" he cried; "madmen, cowards, hoist the mainsail! Are you women to be so scared by a slight _terremoto_?" "I didn't know that there were earthquakes in mid-ocean," said El Toro, who was the first to recover somewhat from his fright. "But, captain, you are a curious one. I knew you feared no man; but, _caramba!_ it seems you don't fear the devil himself." "Up mainsail," cried Carew again, "and don't jabber, thou great coward! Hurry up. We have a fair wind." The mate was now himself again. "Aha! the _terremoto_ has brought us luck," he cried. "Look yonder, captain," and he pointed to the east, where the sky had become suddenly covered with small fleecy clouds. "I know that sign--that is the trade wind." They put all sail on the vessel, and were soon bowling along before the ever-freshening wind. They had left behind them the dreary region of the Doldrums, with its stifling heat, and the air above the dancing waves was cool and bracing. The mate, who was steering, began to chaff his companions. "Say, El Toro, you thought the authorities below had sent for you when you felt that trembling of the sea." "Trembling?" replied the Basque gruffly. "There was more trembling of thee than of the sea itself, thou white-gilled Frenchman." "So there was," drawled the sarcastic El Chico. "But let us remember that our mate is a man of education--of soul. His nerves are in harmony with Nature. When Nature is merry he is merry; when Nature trembles; he trembles. But that is poetical sympathy, not fear, my friend El Toro." And so these three reviled each other's cowardice, until Carew, fearing bloodshed, called out, "Now, then, stop that discussion, or all of you bring me your knives here." Then this amiable crew smoked and sulked in silence for a while. Shortly afterwards, Carew was below studying a chart of the South Atlantic. To him came down the mate, who looked over his shoulder and asked, "How far are we now from Rio, sir?" "About sixteen hundred miles," was the reply. "That means a run of nine or ten days at the outside with this wind." "You are a man of great nerve," said the mate, filled with a genuine admiration. "I thought the bravest man would have lost his head in that horrid earthquake." Carew laughed. "Mine was only the courage of science at the best, Baptiste. You see, the phenomenon did not take me by surprise. I half expected something of the sort." "Indeed!" "Oh, it is very simple. See here,"--he pointed to the chart,--"read that." The words, "Volcanic region of the Atlantic," were printed across a large tract of ocean in the vicinity of the equator. "Now, if you will turn over the pages of the _South Atlantic Pilot Directory_, you will read that this part of the Atlantic is peculiarly subject to volcanic disturbance; so much so, that mariners are in this book warned on the subject. There are no soundings hereabouts with two thousand fathoms of line, and yet the disturbance is transmitted upwards through all those miles of water; so you can imagine the violent forces that are at work below us. It is rare that a vessel crosses this strange corner of the sea without experiencing some manifestation or other of this nature. Sometimes it may be only a discoloration of the water that is noticed; sometimes a shock is felt as if the vessel had struck a rock, or she shivers till the masts are like to be thrown out of her. It is a region terrible to superstitious sailors; but I believe it is rare that a vessel has sustained any serious damage from these convulsions." "Even if I had known all that I should have lost my nerve; for, say what you like, captain, our danger was a very real one. The _terremoto_ has done one good thing, anyhow: it has inspired El Chico and El Toro with an immense respect for your courage. We won't tell them that you were forewarned by the pilot book. You can do what you like with those men after this, Captain Allen. For the future they are your obedient slaves." The brave trade wind blew without intermission for ten days, and then Carew, being in the latitude of Rio de Janeiro, steered due west for the land, which, according to his dead-reckoning, was not two hundred miles distant. It was night, and the wind having fallen light, the yacht made little progress. At midnight Carew came on deck to relieve the mate. "Look over there," said Baptiste, pointing across the vessel's bows to the westward. "Those are the lights of Rio." "What! so soon?" cried Carew; and turning his eyes in the indicated direction he perceived, not indeed the gleam of a lighthouse or other ordinary sign of approaching land, but an appearance as of a stormy dawn. High above the horizon hung masses of clouds whose lower surface was of a faint red, as if they were reflecting some immense conflagration too far away to be yet visible. "You cannot distinguish any other city in the world from such a distance," said the mate. "When you are one hundred miles--yes, and more than that--away, you can tell the position of Rio de Janeiro by the glare that hangs over it at night. The gaslights there are innumerable. I have heard that it is the best lighted city in the world, and I believe it. At midnight the streets are illuminated as if for a fÃªte; and, what is more, all the roads and paths that lead out into the country and up to the tops of the mountains are better lit than any of the streets in your London. Ah, the capital of the Brazils is a wonderful place!" As Carew discovered later on, Baptiste had not exaggerated the facts. At daybreak Carew was still on deck, being anxious to catch a first glimpse of the New World after so many weeks upon the desert seas. When the sun rose the blue sky was cloudless, but the western horizon was obscured by a white fog, which, Baptiste said, nearly always hovered over this coast at early morning. Of a sudden the upper portion of the mist lifted, and high above them there appeared, as if floating in mid-air, the summit of a huge mountain. It was of cubical shape, with perpendicular sides of bare, smooth stone, like the altar of some giant race--a marvellous sight to thus burst suddenly upon men who had for so long seen nothing but sky and water. "That is the Gavia Mountain," cried Baptiste; "it lies to the left of the entrance of the Bay of Rio." Then the morning breeze came down upon the land, and, as by enchantment, the mist vanished, and all the features of that wonderful coast were revealed to them. Lofty mountains of the most fantastic forms rose sheer from the sea. Some were great pyramids or peaks of ruddy granite gleaming like molten gold in the sunshine; others, sloping more gently, were covered with great forests of tropical vegetation. Along the whole shore extended a white line of foam, where the Atlantic swell, piled up by the fresh trade winds, perpetually thundered at the base of the cliffs. In places the ravines terminated in beautiful bays, where on beaches of silver sand the cocoa-nut trees waved their rustling branches. The tropical seas wash no lovelier a land than this; and at that moment, with the sun still low in the east, there were a softness and translucency in the gorgeous colouring that gave an unreal and fairy-like aspect to the scene. Close under the conical mountain known as the Sugar Loaf a gorge opened out, and through this was seen the vast expanse of the Bay of Rio, which the old navigators, in their admiration for its beauty, likened unto the gates of heaven. The yacht crossed the tumbling waters on the bar, sailed through the majestic gates, and floated on the still, pale green water of the inland sea. The Bay of Rio is considered to be the fairest of all the harbours of the earth, and one who has seen it can well believe that it is so. Imagine a vast lake, some eighty miles in circumference, surrounded by grand mountains, indented with many winding bays, and studded with islands of all sizes, on whose shores are many towns and villages, chief among which is the empire city of South America, the white Rio de Janeiro. A luxuriant vegetation comes down to the very edge of the water, even up to the streets of the city; the varied foliage of many species of palms, the luscious blades of the bananas, the spreading mangos, and bread-fruit trees giving a cool appearance to the torrid land. About a mile from the city of Rio, at the entrance of the bay, is the fortified island of Villegagnon. The yacht was sailing close under its shore, the mate steering. Carew was gazing at the grand scenery around him with deep emotion. Under the influence of this lovely nature, his thoughts became tender and pure; his soul was strangely subdued, and his mind sank into a happy reverie, such as good men who feel secure in their innocence are supposed alone to enjoy. The mate was watching Carew's face; then he said, in a casual manner-- "I know this port pretty well, Mr. Allen, though I have only been here once before; and, by the way, I was sailing then in an English barque. Let me see, what was the captain's name? Captain Grou--no, it was not that--Garou--Carou--oh yes, that was it--Captain Carou." Carew started visibly and looked steadily into the mate's face, but he could read nothing in those impassive features. "It is but a coincidence," he said to himself. "It is impossible that Baptiste can have discovered my real name. There are many Carews in the world, after all." Nevertheless, the sound of the name he had put away from him for ever disturbed him greatly. He was awakened from his pleasant reverie, and the beautiful scenery had no more delights for him. All the evil things which he had done and had yet to do were unpleasantly brought to his mind. Now that he saw the great city before him, he shrank from the idea of mixing once more with his fellow-men. He wished he were out on the open sea again. "Baptiste," he said, "I should like to bring up some way from the quays; it will be quieter." "Certainly, captain. Let us bring up here under Villegagnon; it will be cooler and healthier than farther in. Look yonder at the merchantman anchorage. I see the yellow flag flying from at least a dozen foremasts. The yellow fever is evidently playing mischief at present." Baptiste had not been unobservant of Carew's start and change of expression at the mention of his name. The wily Frenchman had a game to play: he had put down his first card with a result that satisfied him. The anchor was let go under Villegagnon and the sails were stowed; then Baptiste, looking around him, happened to perceive a barque anchored about half a mile off. "Ho, El Toro," he cried; "look at that barque. Is she not the very sister to the old _Vrouw Elisa_?" "Baptiste," said Carew sternly, "you told me that you had never been on board the _Vrouw Elisa_." The mate, not in the least disconcerted, laughed, and replied, "That does not prevent my knowing her by sight, surely, Captain Carou--I mean--how stupid of me!--Captain Allen." CHAPTER IX Shortly after the _Petrel's_ anchor had been let go, under the island of Villegagnon, a galley, manned by brawny blacks, came off to the yacht; a Brazilian gentleman in uniform leapt on deck and introduced himself as the doctor of the port. On hearing that the vessel was an English yacht sailing under an Admiralty flag he raised no difficulties, but granted Carew pratique at once, despite the absence of a clean bill of health from Rotterdam. When the health boat had gone off again, Carew ordered the dinghy to be lowered. "I will go on shore at once, Baptiste," he said. "I will call on the British consul, and ask him for a clean bill of health for Buenos Ayres. We won't stay longer than is necessary in this unhealthy place." "May I suggest," replied the mate, "that you should give the lads a few dollars of their pay, and allow them a run on shore to stretch their legs after having been cooped up so long in this little craft?" Carew remembered the empty condition of the ship's treasury, and did not see his way to paying his crew any portion of their wages at present. "If they go on shore they will drink rum in the sun, and catch Yellow Jack," he said. "Not they, sir. These are sober Spaniards, and they are too acclimatised to run much risk of fever." "I'll think the matter over. But we'll leave the two men in charge this afternoon. You come on shore with me, Baptiste. You know Rio, and can show me the way about." So Carew and the mate got into the dinghy, and the latter, taking the oars, pulled off towards the Mole. They landed on a quay bordered by a negro market, where fish, fruit, rags, and all manner of odds and ends were sold by very fat negresses in huge yellow turbans; a filthy and malodorous spot. After leaving the dinghy in charge of a custom-house officer, they hustled their way through the jabbering crowd of blacks, and entered the chief streets of the city. Baptiste, who evidently knew his way well, brought Carew to the door of the British Consulate. "I will leave you now, captain," he said, "to transact your business. Let me have a dollar or so to amuse myself with, and I will meet you in an hour's time at the corner of the chief street, the Rua Ovidor, in front of the big jeweller's shop." Carew gave him a ten-shilling piece--he only had two more in the world now--and they separated. Having obtained a bill of health from the consul, Carew strolled through the hot streets until the appointed time, when the mate, punctual to a minute, met him at the corner of the Rua Ovidor. "Captain," said Baptiste, "it is stifling in these streets. Let us get on a tram and drive out of the town to the Botanical Gardens. It will be cooler there, and I wish to speak to you in a quiet place where there are no eavesdroppers about. I have made an important discovery since I left you." With a noise of jingling bells the mules carried them rapidly through the suburbs of the city; past fairy-like villas that seemed to be built of delicately tinted porcelain, surrounded by gardens that were paradises of exquisite plants, with cool fountains splashing under the feathery palms; past groves of marvellous trees that bore no leaves, but were covered instead with blossoms of purple and vivid crimson, so that the eye was pained by the excess of glory; past pleasant inlets of the great bay, where the tiny waves dashed on the white sands under the cocoa-nut trees; and around them rose the great amphitheatre of granite peaks and forest-clad mountains glowing under the cloudless sky. They reached the gate of the Botanical Gardens, and the mate led Carew to an avenue of oreodoxas--the most majestic of the family of palms. These rose straight and smooth as marble columns to an immense height, and far overhead their graceful leaves met in regular arches, forming a great aisle as of a cathedral of giants. A solemn spot, fitted to exalt the soul of man and inspire lofty thoughts, but which Baptiste, with an unconscious irony, had selected as a safe place to discuss with Carew a scheme of detestable crime which his lust for gold had suggested to him. They sat down on a bench under the polished trunk of one of the huge palms. Carew was silent. He was impressed by the marvellous nature around. Everything was so unfamiliar to his senses. The rich colouring of the beautiful and sometimes grotesquely shaped vegetation, the birds of brilliant plumage that flashed by him, the metallic lustre and monstrous forms of the beetles and other insects, the shrieking of the paroquets, and other noises of the intense and teeming tropical life--all bewildered his brain. The very air, heavy with the pungent odours of many flowers, seemed intoxicating. He could scarcely realise that this was not all some fantastic dream. But Baptiste, who had important business on hand, cared little for the wonders of Nature. He rolled himself a cigarette, lit it, then, sprawling himself in a lazy fashion on the bench, commenced-- "The other day, captain, we were engaged in an interesting conversation, which was rather rudely disturbed by an earthquake. Have you forgotten the subject of it?" "I remember that you were talking some nonsense about making yachting pay its expenses by smuggling, or something of the sort." "I said nothing about smuggling, captain, and I was not talking nonsense. I said that the master of a yacht sailing under Government papers has many opportunities of putting gold into his pockets; that is, if his liver be sound and he is not troubled with a morbid conscience. Now, I only left you for one hour, captain, and in that time I picked up all the news of the port by calling at one or two rum shops--old haunts of mine; and, as luck would have it, I have discovered an easy way for us all to make our fortunes." "Silence, man!" angrily ejaculated Carew. "I don't wish to hear your rascally plans. You mistake me; I am not one to seek a fortune by illicit methods." Carew meant all he said. He intended to commit one more crime only--to telegraph in Allen's name to the bank for the bulk of Allen's property. After that, sick of sin, he would live an exemplary life, and appease conscience by good works in some far country. But he forgot that he who once starts to run down a steep hill cannot stop himself exactly when he wishes. "What virtue--what righteous indignation!" sneered the mate. "But, captain, you will have to listen to me. Whether you wish it or no, you _shall_ make a fortune in the way I am going to suggest." There was a menace in the man's tone and a malicious twinkle in his eyes. Carew looked at him. "Explain yourself, if you please," he said coldly. "So I will," cried Baptiste, with energy, abandoning his lazy drawl. Then, throwing away his cigarette, he rose from his recumbent position and stood before Carew, who still remained sitting on the bench. "Do you think that I am blind--that I am an idiot, captain? Do you imagine that I don't know who you are and what you have done,--with all your virtuous talk,--eh, Mr. Carew?" As he uttered these words rapidly the mate closely observed their effect upon the Englishman, whose face turned ghastly white, and whose right hand stole round to his back. "No shooting, if you please," cried the Frenchman, in a bantering tone. "Don't draw that revolver. Remember that there's a fine for carrying firearms in Rio. Coward though I may be, you don't frighten me here, captain. I know you dare not kill me on shore. The inquiry afterwards would be fatal to you. Besides, you are wise enough to grasp quickly the fact that our interests are coincident. At sea it was otherwise. There I held my tongue. I was aware that you would have thrown me overboard some dark night had you guessed that I knew so much. Here on shore I am safe." Carew felt that he was in the man's power, and saw the futility of denial. "What do you know?" he asked, in a dry voice, bringing his hand in front of him again. "That your name is not Allen, but Carew." "What else?" "That you are impersonating a man whose property you have stolen." Carew felt as if his heart had stopped; the tall palms swam around him. He closed his eyes, and was only conscious of the cataract of sound raised by the shrieking paroquets and the manifold hum of insects. It was only for a moment; then he recovered himself, and, opening his eyes, again saw before him the cynical face of the Frenchman. "What else?" he asked, with a deep sigh. "Surely that is enough, captain. But, in short, understand that I know all about you." "How have you learnt this?" "Suffice it that I know it. I don't wish to spoil your little game, captain, but you must help me in mine. I will now sit down and silently smoke a cigarette, so that you can ponder a while on what I have said. I perceive that I have somewhat disturbed your mind. Now, as violent emotions are very bad for the health in this hot climate, it will do you good to rest for a few minutes; for I have more exciting news to communicate." The Frenchman resumed his former lazy position, and proceeded to smoke, as he smiled contentedly at his own reflections; while Carew sat with knit brows, the perspiration streaming down his face, unable to collect his thoughts, but terribly conscious in a vague way that he could never extricate himself from the network of crime into which he had voluntarily thrown himself; that for him there was no hope of putting the past away; that one sin would lead irrevocably to another; that Nemesis had made all his future life as one long chain of iniquity, even to the unknown dreadful end of it. The Frenchman was very pleased with himself. He had succeeded beyond his expectations in gaining a hold over Carew, whom he could now compel to subserve his purposes. The mate had played a bold game of "bluff"; he had made Carew believe that he was acquainted with his history, whereas he knew nothing of it, possessed no proofs of what he had so boldly asserted, and had merely made an ingenious guess at the truth. At a very early stage of the voyage, Baptiste had come to the conclusion that the conscience of the Englishman was burdened with some crime, and that he was a fugitive from justice. A variety of circumstances had led him to this belief. That Carew had shipped three men who were known to be murderers, and had sailed away with them across the ocean at a moment's notice, was in itself highly suspicious. So the wily Frenchman, bethinking himself how useful it often is to know another man's disagreeable secrets, set himself to discover all he could of his employer's past. Many a night, when it was Carew's watch on deck, Baptiste employed himself in rummaging the drawers and lockers of the saloon. For a long time he discovered nothing to his purpose; but he was patient and minute in his investigations, and at last he got on the right scent in the following wise. He found that the handwriting in the ship's log-book and on the agreements which the captain had drawn out for his crew was not in the least like that in the diary and in the cheque-book, in which entries had been inscribed at a date prior to the yacht's departure from Rotterdam. Thus it seemed highly probable to Baptiste that his captain was not the Mr. Allen whom he professed to be, and whose name was on the ship's papers. If not Mr. Allen, then, who was he? Baptiste searched diligently night after night without finding any clue to this; but at last one of those slight circumstances which seem to be arranged by Providence to expose the crimes of the most clever and cautious villains, led the persevering Frenchman to the knowledge he was seeking. Baptiste was not a good English scholar; but he proceeded with infinite labour little by little to decipher Allen's diary. A few days before reaching Rio he came to the last page but one, and here he read the following entry: "Wrote Carew, asking him to come with me to Holland." On the next page, under the date of August the 8th, was the final entry: "Sail for Holland with Carew." "It is just possible," said Baptiste to himself, "that this mysterious captain of mine is Mr. Carew. I have no reason to suppose that he is so, but the point is worth testing." The mate applied the test in the manner that has been described, when, on entering Rio, he casually remarked that he had sailed into that harbour before under an English captain called Carew. His employer's sudden start and evident perturbation on hearing this name mentioned convinced Baptiste that he had hit the right nail on the head. The deduction from what he had discovered was natural enough. "If this is Carew," he reasoned, "he must have stolen Allen's yacht. He has in all probability committed other crimes; but this is enough for my purpose. I may be altogether wrong in my conjectures, but I think not. I will tax him boldly with this. If I have guessed his secret, I have the game in my own hands. If I prove to have been on the wrong scent, I shall have made an idiot of myself, but no great harm will have been done." So with a matchless effrontery the Frenchman opened his game under the shade of the great palm trees with the success that has been seen. Having smoked several cigarettes with an expression of great enjoyment, without speaking, Baptiste turned to Carew and said-- "You are looking pale, _mon capitaine_. It is dangerous to walk about on an empty stomach in this climate; the fever fiend is ever watching his opportunity. Come with me. I will take you to a tavern I know of,--rough, but cheap and good,--and we will have something to eat. It is hours after our usual dinner-time. Afterwards I will expound to you the excellent scheme that is in my head--a scheme that will make us all rich men." Carew had by this time recovered his power for cool and rapid thought. He had been in vain cudgelling his brain to explain to himself in what possible way the mate had contrived to discover his secret. "Baptiste," he said firmly, "before moving from here, I wish you to clearly understand that you are not going to be my master because you happen to know something about my affairs; so put aside at once that insolent and familiar manner. If you presume too much on your knowledge and make me desperate, it will be the worse for you. Now tell me how have you acquired this knowledge?" The mate replied in his old respectful tones. "I know you too well to seek to be your master. But I would rather not answer your question at present, captain. I promise you, when you have helped me to carry out my plan, that I will tell you everything." "Does anyone else know as much as yourself concerning me?" "Not a single individual. Have no fears on that score. No one suspects that you are other than you represent yourself to be. You are as secure from discovery as you were before I happened to learn the truth. I alone know what you are, and the price of my silence is a mere bagatelle. All I ask is that you benefit yourself and me by casting away from you some of your foolish scruples. Where is the logic of going so far and no farther? You have committed great crimes for a trifle. A large fortune is now within your grasp; but one little sin more, and you will be rich. Then you can afford to be virtuous for the rest of your life. You can endow churches; you can obtain absolution; you can--but I forget; you are a Protestant, and so must patch your soul up in your own way." Carew shuddered, not in fear of the man before him, but at the thought of the relentless fate that was pursuing him. It seemed to him that this unscrupulous villain was the instrument of an offended Heaven, sent to hasten his destruction. It was vain for him to strive after repentance. A wild despair, a feeling of angry revolt against the powers of good, possessed him. What did it matter now? the man argued, in his reckless mood. Destiny drove him to crime. Why resist in agony? Whatever new wickedness he should have to do, not his the fault, but that of this pitiless and unjust Fate. "Baptiste, what is this plan that you propose?" he asked. "Let us dine before we talk business," replied the mate, rolling himself another cigarette. "I am as thirsty as an Englishman and as hungry as a German." They entered a tram and drove back towards the city; but while they were yet in the suburbs, Baptiste made a sign to Carew to descend, and they walked, the mate leading the way, down a narrow street of negro shanties, each surrounded by its little provision ground of bananas, yams, and cassava. Then they came to a very rough and disreputable neighbourhood, abounding in low grog shops, in which European sailors were courting Yellow Jack, by drinking poisonous rum. They reached a street which skirted the shores of the bay; and here, on the very edge of the water, there stood a stone house by itself. "That is the tavern I spoke of," said the mate. Then assuming his usual bantering tone, "It is a queer place. It will interest you, as an English milord travelling for his pleasure and instruction, to observe the humours of the place. It is the resort of the greatest villains of Rio--robbers, smugglers, and the like. The result is that it is an exceedingly quiet and respectable house. They dare not have rows in there; no drunkenness or thieving or kniving is allowed on those premises. Men frequent this cafÃ© when bent on business, not on pleasure." The interior of the house did not seem to be used for purposes of entertainment, for all the customers were congregated in a large arbour that lay against one side of the building, and faced the sea. They entered this arbour, and sat down at one of the bare deal tables, and the mate, calling one of the waiters, a very evil-looking mulatto with one eye, selected some of the dishes out of the bill of fare. The sun was setting, and the darkness came on with the suddenness of tropical latitudes. Two negroes proceeded to light a number of Venetian lanterns that festooned the cafÃ©, and Carew, while he waited for his dinner, gazed with amazement at the scene before him. A number of men were sitting at the tables, eating, drinking, and smoking. There were negroes, whites, and mulattos. They appeared to be of many nationalities. It would be almost impossible to see elsewhere a collection of more villainous faces. They sat for the most part in silence, as if avoiding each other's companionship; but at some of the tables were small groups, and here conversations were carried on in a low voice. There were no smiles to be seen; there was no noise; there were no signs of hilarity in all this assemblage. An atmosphere of gloom and fear seemed to pervade the place. Occasionally one of these taciturn beings would glance suspiciously at the table where Carew and the mate were sitting. Guilt, dread, and hopelessness could be read on many a face. It might have been a supper of lost souls in the shades of Hades, but then--and it was this that, by its mocking contrast, lent a strange horror to the scene, as if it were some fantastic and dreadful nightmare--the melancholy feast was taking place in a very paradise. The arbour was supported by lofty palms, and the sides of it were formed of a network of the most beautiful creepers, heavy with sweet blossoms and luscious fruits. The glittering sands of the seashore formed the floor. Through the roof of feathery palm leaves the innumerable and brilliant stars of the Southern Hemisphere could be seen glowing out of the depths of night. A number of small tame birds of lovely red and yellow plumage fluttered about the arbour, and alighted on the tables in search of food. Glow-worms and fireflies gleamed like diamonds among the foliage, and outside was heard the splashing of the tiny waves and the shrill cry of the cicala. The lavish tropical nature had made of this a fit palace for a fairy queen, and lo, it was a thieves' kitchen! CHAPTER X Having dined off some very greasy dishes served up with cassava or lentils, and seasoned with hot peppers in the Brazilian fashion, Carew and the mate lit their pipes, and the one-eyed negro brought them cups of black coffee and glasses of white native rum. The table at which they sat was at some distance from any other, so all risk of their conversation being overheard was obviated. "All these men are thieves, you say?" said Carew, looking round at the strange assembly, on whose faces the Venetian lanterns cast a ruddy glow. "Yes, thieves and murderers, all of them," replied the mate, "but well-behaved, quiet folk, as you see. One is safer here than in some of the flash cafÃ©s in the main streets of Rio." "They carry their characters on their faces. I only see one in the whole crowd whom I would not instinctively distrust. Who is that tall, handsome old man with the long white hair and beard?" "That is our worthy host," said Baptiste. "He looks like a mild, mediÃ¦val saint, but there is much blood on his hands. I must introduce him to you, for he is a celebrated character in his way." Baptiste caught the old man's eye, and beckoned to him to approach the table. "Good-evening to you, Father Luigi. I think you understand French?" The old man nodded an assent. "I don't suppose you remember me? I have not been here for a very long time." "I never forget a face that I have seen in my cafÃ©," replied the host in French, with a strong Italian accent. "This, Luigi, is my present captain, an English milord, travelling in his yacht; and this, captain, is the once well-known Roman brigand, Luigi Querini. Oh, an awful cut-throat in his time, I assure you." Querini shook his head sadly. "But not so now, signor. I am getting old. Heigh-ho, but those were grand days we had in the Abruzzi Mountains before Victor Emmanuel's gendarmerie spoilt Italy." "Sit down and have a glass with us, Luigi," said the mate. "_Salud y pesetas_--health and dollars to you; that's an old River Plate toast. Luigi knows Buenos Ayres well, captain. He'll tell us all about it." "Yes, I know it too well," said the old man. "I was a soldier of the Argentine Republic, and lived on mare's flesh on the Indian frontier for four years." "What made you do that?" asked Carew. "I see you are a stranger to South America, sir. Understand, I was not a volunteer. I had a misfortune, and therefore was pressed into the army for punishment." "To have a misfortune is a Pampas euphemism for having murdered a man," explained the mate. "There is, as you know, no capital punishment in the River Plate," continued the Italian; "if a man kills another the penalty is so many years' service in the army." "What a respectable army it must be," remarked Carew. "It is so," said Baptiste. "They are wise people, those Argentines. If a man is addicted to homicide for his private ends, they turn him into a wholesale homicide for the public good. That may be called the homoeopathic treatment of murder; like curing like." Carew laughed boisterously at the mate's witticism, and the silent men at the tables round, hating the sound of merriment, turned their faces towards him and scowled savagely. A species of intoxication had come to Carew. The strange sights and strong emotions of the day, the grotesque contrast presented by this lovely bower of pure blossoms and the foul and evil men who sat beneath it, confused his brain. His surroundings seemed so fantastically inconsistent--so unreal--that he felt as if he were some irresponsible being in a land of dreams, that it mattered not what he did. He was filled with a reckless joviality. The mate had been watching him with his keen eyes. He knew what this exaltation of spirits indicated, and divined that the moment was opportune for the mooting of his diabolical scheme. In the present condition of his mental faculties, the captain's obstructive conscience would be partly paralysed, and he would be able to listen to the mate's proposals without overmuch shrinking horror. So the shrewd Frenchman, losing no more time, hinted to the host that his presence at the table was no longer needed, and Querini took himself off to hobnob with another acquaintance. Baptiste then stretched out his legs and said-- "This is very comfortable after having been cramped up so long on board that little boat of yours; but I hope, sir, to see you captain of a much larger vessel in a week or so at the latest." "So we are coming to your wonderful scheme. Let me hear all about it." "You remember, sir, that as we sailed into the bay this morning I pointed out a small barque to El Toro, and remarked how much she resembled the old _Vrouw Elisa_." "I remember your words perfectly. You betrayed yourself." "Intentionally, captain. We understand each other now; there are no secrets between us. Away with hypocrisy! Of course El Toro, El Chico, and myself formed part of the crew of the _Vrouw Elisa_. But it is unnecessary to recount to you our adventures on board that vessel." "They do not interest me." "I don't think you'd care to hear them," said Baptiste, showing his white teeth with a grim smile. "Well, to proceed. When you were at the consul's this morning, I entered a little drinking shop on the Mole, and there I overheard some sailors speaking about their vessel, which I soon made out to be the barque lying near us under Villegagnon, the one like the _Vrouw Elisa_. Said one man to the other in French-- "'I suppose she's got the most valuable cargo on board of any vessel in Rio.' "I pricked up my ears on hearing this. "'She'd be a fine prize for a pirate,' replied the other man. "'If there were pirates nowadays,' said the first. "Feeling interested, I made inquiries about this vessel--Waiter, stand off another few yards. I am talking over some private business with this gentleman." The negro, not unused to such commands, promptly removed himself. "I discovered that the barque comes from a little harbour down the coast, near Santa Catharina. It seems that some prospectors have discovered gold in the neighbouring mountains. The quartz is exceptionally rich; the cost of importing the necessary machinery would be great. They are consequently shipping a large quantity of this quarts to Europe to be crushed. That barque, sailing under the French flag, is bound for Swansea with a cargo of this: no ordinary auriferous quartz, let me tell you, but containing a hitherto unexampled percentage of gold. She has put in here for some slight repairs, and will sail in two days. The barque is a new vessel, and is worth a lot of money; but the value of the cargo is enormous. Now, my little plan is that we four, the crew of the _Petrel_, seize this vessel and make our fortunes." Carew laughed scornfully. "Idiot!" he said; "is this your precious scheme? I took you for too clever a man to talk such nonsense. Even if we did succeed in seizing this vessel, what could we do with her? In what port could we dispose of her cargo? Piracy is impossible in these days. Don't you know that?" "Who talked of piracy? Surely, captain, you know me by this time. Am I not a coward? Am I one to commit a risky crime? I would break no law unless I felt that I was absolutely secure from detection; and when I do feel that, upon my soul, I don't know what villainy I would shrink from; for, as for conscience--bah! I have none. Now please follow the outlines of my scheme. I will leave it to your ingenuity to fill up the details." Carew, in his present mood, felt a reluctant admiration for the cool and cynical ruffian before him. "Piracy, in the ordinary sense of the term, is of course out of date," continued the mate, as he sipped his fiery rum; "but the intelligent man adapts his method to the age he lives in. I will now tell you a little story. An English yacht, manned by four worthy fellows, sails out of Rio one fine day. In the night, when she is some leagues from the land, a dreadful accident of some kind happens--say she runs into a large fragment of wreckage, and staves herself in. Anyhow, she founders. Happily, her crew have time to lower the boat, and getting into it they pull away, weeping to behold the vessel, that has been their home for so long, go down. But they feel happier and dry their eyes when their brave captain tells them that the yacht is well insured. Providence assists them, for at daybreak they sight a French barque. They signal to her, are seen, are soon taken on board, and the barque resumes her voyage to Europe. After some days our four shipwrecked mariners, who have been watching their opportunity, and who are well armed, surprise the crew, take possession of the vessel, sail her into the nearest port, and claim salvage for the derelict which they have had the luck to pick up; and their lives for the future are happy, wealthy, and respectable. Do you follow my story, captain? Hi! waiter, bring us some more rum and some Bahia cigars." Carew sat quite motionless for some time, looking downwards, so that Baptiste could not see the expression of his face. The black brought the rum to the table and went away again. Then Carew raised his head. "I follow your story," he said, in a low, husky voice; "but you did not mention what became of the crew of the barque." "Ah, yes! What did become of them?" exclaimed the mate in an airy way. "I forget. They were lost somehow, I imagine--were disposed of in some convenient fashion--who knows? But that is a detail." Carew's face had turned fearfully white. "Thou devil!" he cried passionately, between his set teeth. "Not that--not that! Speak no more of this. It is impossible." "Understand me, captain," said the mate, abandoning his bantering tone for one of serious determination. "You are not going to have everything your own way. I must have money, and plenty of it. El Chico and El Toro must have money. Join us in carrying out this scheme, and we will share the spoil between the four of us. If you don't agree to this, I will expose you at once, Mr. Carew, and you will know what a nasty hole a Brazilian prison is. I am sorry to use this language, but business is business, captain." Carew looked down again, and Baptiste, furtively watching him, saw that his mouth was twitching and the perspiration breaking out on his forehead. The wretched man endeavoured to think his way out of the terrible dilemma before him. He had to choose between the commission of a crime more atrocious than any he had ever conceived, and a disgrace and punishment infinitely worse than death. He tried to realise his position, but his brain seemed numbed. The two alternatives kept crossing and recrossing his mind in rapid succession. He was conscious of them, but he could not reason upon them. He was incapable of consecutive thought for the time. Suddenly a discordant brass band in a low dancing saloon hard by burst out into a triumphant march, as a prelude to the night's riot of drunken sailors. It was a fragment of some French opera-bouffe, suggestive of feverish joy heedless of the morrow, of mad and reckless orgie. The sound was in accord with the man's distracted state. It at once awoke his mind from its lethargy. A wild and fierce impulse rushed upon him. Blindly he abandoned himself to what he considered to be his destiny, and a tempter seemed to whisper to him, "Trust to your luck. See how luck has been with you so far. Fortune will certainly find some way of relieving you of the crew of the barque, so that it will not be necessary for you to have their blood on your head. Arthur Allen stood in your path. He was removed from it; yet you were not his murderer. So will it be now. Trust to chance." Then Carew looked up. His features were calm and rigid, but had a ghastly expression. He opened his mouth as if to speak, but appeared to be unable to articulate. He poured himself out a quantity of the white rum into a glass and swallowed it. "And the other two men?" he whispered hoarsely. Baptiste understood his meaning. "El Chico and El Toro can be relied upon for this business. I know them," he said. The eyes of the two men met. There was a long pause. Then Carew muttered the two words-- "I consent!" CHAPTER XI Carew and the mate left the cafÃ©, traversed the brilliantly lighted city, and returned to the yacht. At an early hour on the following morning, Carew, too restless to sleep, came on deck. The sky was cloudless and the rising sun illumined the romantic scenery of the bay. A cool breeze blew seaward from the wooded mountains, odorous of spices and tropical blossoms. The sight of a world so glad and fair, so fresh and ever-young, might well make the saddest soul feel the joy of mere existence and look to life as a treasure worth the possessing. A few months before this Carew had contemplated suicide--had regarded death as a welcome deliverance from his troubles. Now it was otherwise; he set a value on his life. The causes of this change were commonplace enough, as are most of the motives that decide the momentous crises of a man's history. A healthy life in the open air at sea tends to develop the instinct of self-preservation and banishes morbid meditations. Again, the longer one has been contesting some keen game of chance and skill, the more anxious one is to come off the victor. This man had been playing a clever and desperate game for freedom--which for him meant life--ever since he had left England. Fortune had favoured him so long that he would not abandon hope and acknowledge defeat now. The ultimate victory had become so dear to him that he was not likely to be very squeamish as to the means he should employ to obtain it. So Carew had hardened his heart, or rather, having resolved on a course of action, he closed the avenues of his mind to certain unpleasant thoughts on the future. Not being as unscrupulous as his French associate, he found it necessary to employ an immense amount of self-deception. He allowed himself to drift, as it were, from one crime to another, trying to believe that his fate was compelling him; but he carefully avoided looking beyond the immediate present. He would not think of the far greater iniquities to which he was committing himself by the action he was now taking. He wilfully closed his eyes, and let the morrow take care of itself. When Baptiste joined the captain on deck he was exceedingly surprised to find him in a cheerful mood, and anxious to arrange as quickly as possible the plan for the seizure of the barque. Carew found a relief in the active employment of his brain, and he now exhibited considerable ingenuity. He described his views in detail to the mate, who looked with wonder at this inconsistent Englishman, whose complex nature he felt that he was very far from understanding. With all his vacillation, when Carew had made up his mind one way or the other, he acted promptly and with energy. "Baptiste," he said, "in the first place, we ought to be armed. We all have knives, but there is only one revolver on board. I want you to take my watch and chain on shore, pawn or sell them, and buy three revolvers and some ammunition. You can take charge of your weapon at once, but I will keep those of the two men until the time comes." "That is right," said the mate; "those children are not to be trusted with firearms. The first time they played at _monte_ they would be scattering each other's brains over the cards. I know a slop shop where there are generally some good six-shooters on sale. I will barter your watch there." "Also ascertain the hour of the barque's departure," said Carew. "This is what I suggest. You know that the south-east trade wind does not blow home on this coast, but is deflected and becomes a north-east wind. In consequence of this, all vessels bound for Europe from Rio are obliged to take a long board of several hundreds of miles to the eastward before they fall in with the true trade wind, and go about on the other tack. Thus we know the exact course the barque will take. She will sail away close-hauled on the port-tack. We will put to sea six hours before her, and await her some ten leagues from the land. Do you understand?" "Perfectly. I see you know what you are about, sir." "Now call the crew aft," said Carew, "and let us learn at once what they think of our proposal." Baptiste raised the hatch of the forecastle and roused the men. They quickly tumbled on deck. "I am sorry to say, comrades, that you can't go on shore here," said the mate in Spanish. They swore and grumbled in sonorous Castilian phrases that had best be left untranslated. "Now no insubordination," continued Baptiste; "the captain would not deprive you of a day's holiday after so long a voyage unless he had urgent reasons for doing so." "Reasons indeed!" muttered El Toro. "He who wants reasons can always find them." "Silence, you old calf! Listen! We shall most probably sail to-day, for there is a treasure waiting for us outside." El Chico pricked up his ears. "What! another _Vrouw Elisa_?" he asked. "Something of the sort; but this is a safer scheme. Our necks will not be in danger this time." "That's well for you, Baptiste," exclaimed El Toro, with his brutal laugh; "for your neck must be the most precious on this ship if we may judge from the value you set on it. Ha! ha! I never shall forget your white face and your starting eyes in that Dutch law court." "My neck supports a head of brains and not a pig's head like thine, with only three ideas in it--rum, grub, and tobacco," retorted the mate. "But no more nonsense; listen to me, men." Then he briefly disclosed the plan. "Bravo!" grunted El Toro. "That sounds a likely bit of business. I will go and sharpen my knife at once. And so our English milord is a game-cock, after all, like the rest of us." "He is worth fifty of you," said Baptiste. "He has the clever brains that can devise; and he is braver than you, El Toro." "I acknowledge him to be my superior, even in courage. I have not forgotten how he defied the devil himself in the _terremoto_," replied the Basque. Baptiste turned to Carew, and proceeded to speak in French. "The lads are ready to follow you anywhere, sir." "They did not seem at all surprised, and received your communication in a very matter-of-fact way," said Carew. "They are accustomed to strange jobs of this kind. But I don't think they quite realise what a vast sum we are going to make. Idiots! It would be a pity to give them too much. We must settle later on, captain, how to divide the spoil." "Last night you said that it should be divided equally among us." "I spoke hastily. I don't think so now. You and I appreciate money and know how to use it. These pigs would squander it. We will give them just enough to keep their mouths shut. You and I will divide the bulk. If we fill their hands with bright gold pieces, the ignorant wretches will imagine that they have got an inexhaustible fortune, and they will go away perfectly satisfied. I know the animals." The mate, taking Carew's watch and chain with him, rowed on shore in the dinghy, and returned in an hour with three revolvers, some cartridges, and a quantity of plantains, yams, and other vegetables. He leapt on deck. "Captain," he cried, "there is not much time to be lost. I have learnt that _La Bonne Esperance_--that is the barque's name--will sail without fail this evening as soon as the land breeze springs up." "Then we will get under way immediately after breakfast," said Carew; "for the wind seems to be light outside, and we shall not travel fast." The land breeze, which blows all night at Rio and refreshes the heated atmosphere, died away before the necessary preparations had been made on the yacht, and the usual calm succeeded it. So Carew had to remain at anchor until midday, when the sea breeze, that prevails throughout the hottest hours of the day, sprang up; and all sail being hoisted, the _Petrel_ tacked out of the bay. The yacht sailed out to sea, close-hauled on the port-tack; but the wind was very light, and she did not make more than two knots an hour. At sunset the land was still in sight, and Carew took cross-bearings, so as to ascertain his exact position. Throughout the night the navigation of the yacht was conducted with unusual care. The helmsman steered "full and by" with as much nicety as if he had been sailing a race. Every few minutes the officer of the watch looked at the compass, in order to detect the slightest change in the direction of the wind. Without these precautions it would have been impossible on the morrow to calculate with sufficient precision the track of the following barque. At daybreak Carew made out that he was about forty miles from the land. "We have gone far enough, Baptiste," he said. "The next thing is to calculate how much nearer this yacht sails to the wind than a clumsy, square-rigged vessel like _La Bonne Esperance_." "Our steering has been so good," replied the mate, "that we must have been sailing at least a point and a half closer than the barque." "About that, I should say. We will run down to leeward some ten miles, and then, I think, we shall be lying right across her track." The sheets were eased off, and the vessel was steered at right angles to her former course. As the wind was stronger, she covered the ten miles in less than two hours. Then Carew gave the order to heave-to. While the yacht, her jib to windward, rose and fell on the ocean swell without making any progress, everything was got ready for the carrying out of their design. The dinghy was lowered; the men placed in it their baggage and some of the more portable valuables belonging to the yacht. Carew put into the sternsheets a portmanteau containing, among other things, the ship's papers, Allen's diary and cheque-book, the revolvers, and the drugs which he had purchased in Rotterdam. Carew himself undertook to scuttle the yacht. He cut away a portion of the panelling in the main cabin; then, having bored a large hole with an auger through the vessel's skin, he stopped it with a wooden plug. To this plug he attached a piece of strong cord, which he led up on deck through the skylight. The men stood by watching him. "You see, Baptiste," he explained, "I have but to pull this cord, out comes the plug, and the vessel fills and sinks." "That is all very well so far," replied the mate; "but suppose you have pulled out your plug, and your vessel is three parts full, and the barque won't stop to pick us up,--anything is possible at sea; such inhumanity among sailors is not unknown,--what will you do then? How are you to get at that hole again to stop any more water coming in? A wise general secures his retreat, captain." "I have thought of all that, Baptiste," said Carew; "you have not seen half my arrangements yet. Follow me into the after-cabin." Baptiste obeyed. "Now take up the flooring," continued the captain. When the boards were raised a long piece of lead piping was disclosed, which was connected with the end of one of the ship's two pumps. "Cut that piping off as close as you can to the pump, and bring it on deck." This was done; then Carew, to the astonishment of his crew, proceeded to bend the piping until it assumed the form of a lengthened U. Putting a bung into one end of it he poured water into it from the other end until it was full. Dipping the open end into the sea, he passed the other arm through one of the ports, so that it depended into the cabin below the level of the water-line. "Hah! I see now; it is a syphon," exclaimed Baptiste. "Exactly so. Now follow my plan. As soon as we sight the barque, I take the bung out of the inner arm of the syphon and allow the sea to pour in, until I bring the yacht down as near the water's edge as I safely can. Then I haul my syphon on board again and so stop the flow. We hoist signals of distress. If _La Bonne Esperance_ won't pay any attention to us and sails by, all we have to do is to pump the water out of the yacht, and try our luck elsewhere. If the barque replies to our signals, and there can be no doubt about her intention to pick us up, I pull this cord, out comes the plug, in rushes the sea again, we jump into the dinghy, and as we are rowing off to the French vessel the old _Petrel_ goes down. What do you think of that, Baptiste?" "Excellent--excellent!" exclaimed the mate. "And to avoid all chance of a hitch," continued Carew, who was interested in his work, "I am going to scuttle the yacht in another place, and lead another cord from the second plug on to the deck. Thus we will be doubly certain; for one plug may get jammed and refuse to come out, or a fish may get sucked into the hole and choke it. I have heard of such things happening." "You are a very clever man, captain. When you do start on a job you carry it out in a thorough manner. With your pluck and ingenuity you'd make a splendid pirate, were it not for your unfortunate scruples;" and the mate sighed regretfully when he thought of the useful talents wasted on this Englishman. At midday Carew took the latitude, and found that he had not misjudged his position. As the wind had not varied a quarter of a point since the yacht had sailed from Rio, it was almost certain that the barque would pass within a mile or so. El Chico, who had the keenest eyes of any on board, had been sent aloft to keep a good lookout for vessels. He sat on the crosstrees, and in the course of the day reported several craft, but none answered to the description of the French barque. Much as Carew had shrunk from the enterprise, he was now carried away by the excitement of the chase; and as the hours went by he became acutely anxious. He feared that he had sailed too far out to sea, and that the barque would pass him unobserved in the night. They waited in silence, staring eagerly across the expanse of glaring water. At last, at three o'clock in the afternoon, El Chico called out-- "There is a barque yonder that looks something like her." "Where away?" said Baptiste. "She's coming up close-hauled on the port-tack." "Has she brown topsides and some bright green about her figure-head?" "I can't make any colour out yet." Then the mate went aloft with the binocular. After some minutes he scrambled down the rigging again. "Hurrah!" he cried, with a triumphant glitter in his eyes. "We have her safe! That is _La Belle Esperance_!" "If we run a mile more to leeward we'll be right in her track," shouted El Chico from aloft. All was now bustle on board the yacht. Letting the foresheet draw, they ran before the wind for about a quarter of an hour; then, heaving-to again, the cork was taken out of the syphon, and the yacht began to fill gradually. The barque was still more than three miles off, so there was ample time to prepare everything. "Now for the signals of distress," cried Carew; "bring up the flags." The two flags of the international code--N and B--were hoisted to the gaff end, which indicate that a vessel is in need of assistance. "They won't be able to see that for some time yet," said Baptiste. "Your signal flags are too small." "Then rig up the long-distance signal," cried Carew. "It is a square flag at the masthead with something like a ball beneath it. Hoist the large ensign, and fasten the life-buoy to the mast; that will look like a ball." The barque was now heading straight for the yacht. When she was about a mile off Carew loaded the small brass signal gun and fired it. About a minute afterwards a wreath of smoke was seen to issue from the barque's side. Then the report of a gun was heard. "We are safe now. They will pick us up," said Carew. "Hallo, there! Inboard with that syphon at once, or the yacht will go down under our feet." The men had been watching the approaching barque so intently that they had not observed how low in the water their own vessel now was. The cabin was three parts full, and all the movable articles in it were afloat. The syphon was brought on board, and they waited yet a little longer before taking the final step; for the wind had fallen light again, and the barque was making but slow progress towards them. "Up goes some bunting yonder," said El Chico. Carew looked through the telescope, and saw that the vessel had hoisted the signal H F, which signifies, "We are coming to your assistance." "Now, then, all hands tumble into the dinghy," said Carew, as, seizing the cords, he pulled both plugs out of the yacht's side. "Good-bye, old _Petrel_!" he cried, leaping into the boat after his men. "Now, pull away, lads." Carew's experience in scuttling vessels was naturally limited, so he had miscalculated the rapidity with which an already water-logged craft will go down if two large auger-holes are opened in her sides. The men had not pulled a couple of strokes before the yacht's bow rose suddenly, her stern dipped, and she sank with a gurgling sound. So near was the dinghy that she narrowly escaped being sucked into the vortex. They rested on their oars and gazed silently at the spot where the smart little yawl that had been their home for so long had floated but a moment before. Then, as the water smoothed over her grave, they looked over the side of the dinghy and beheld a strange sight. With all her white sails set and her flags still flying, the _Petrel_ went slowly down, with a gentle, oscillating movement, into the depths of that marvellously pellucid sea. Two sharks accompanied her, swimming round and round her; one thrust his evil snout for a moment into the cabin hatchway, as if to see if there were men below. Lower and lower the yacht descended into depths where the sharks could not support the increasing pressure of the water, so, deserting her, swam upwards; still lower, till she appeared no larger than a toy boat, and they could still distinguish her; still lower, and at last she disappeared into the blackness of the still, under ocean. CHAPTER XII Carew gazed silently downwards into the clear, dark sea for some moments after the yacht had sunk entirely out of sight; then, raising his head, he looked towards the barque, and saw that she was lying hove-to, with her mainyard laid aback, about a quarter of a mile distant. "Pull away, lads," he said. "Let us get on board the Frenchman, and don't forget that we ran into a bit of wreckage last night and so sprang a leak. Say as little more as you can help, and don't give conflicting accounts of our accident." They soon came alongside the vessel, and clambered on to her deck by a rope's end that was lowered to them. The captain of the barque gave the order to sling the dinghy on deck and square away again. This being done, he turned to Carew and said in French, "I am very happy, sir, that I was so near at hand when your vessel sank. She went down very suddenly. Pray what was the cause?" Carew gave the very probable explanation of the mishap which had been decided on. "You must have run into that bit of wreckage with considerable force," said the captain. "What was it--a large spar?" "Something of the sort, I imagine," replied Carew; "but we could see nothing. It must have been floating just below the level of the water." "It is a lucky thing for you that this happened so near to the Brazilian coast and in the track of shipping, instead of in the middle of the Atlantic. You should have under-girded the vessel when you found that she had sprung so serious a leak." "So we did," broke in Baptiste. "We got a jib under her bows. But it was no good. She was strained along her whole bilge. I wonder she did not fall to pieces." "Let me introduce myself to you," said Carew. "My name is Allen. I was the owner of the unfortunate little yacht which is now so far below us. I think I recognise your vessel. Were you not lying near us under Villegagnon?" "That is quite right, sir, and I recognised your yacht as soon as I saw your signal of distress. My name is Captain Mourez, and this is the French barque _La Bonne Esperance_, bound for Swansea. And now, sir, what would you like me to do with you and your crew? I see smoke ahead, which should come from some steamer bound for Rio. Shall I signal her and put you on board, or do you feel inclined to come on with us to Swansea?" Carew did not look in the captain's face, and his voice shook as he replied, "I should esteem it a great favour, Captain Mourez, if you would allow us to be your passengers as far as Swansea. I will of course repay you for this when we reach England." "Say nothing about that at present," replied the captain proudly. "You can do what you think proper when you reach port. A French sailor is always glad to assist other sailors in distress without the inducement of a reward for doing so." The boastful speech of the patriotic captain stated no more than the truth. French sailors rarely hesitate to risk their lives at sea in going to the rescue of their fellow-men; in this respect differing considerably from the mariners of some other European nations, who have acquired an unenviable notoriety for a selfish indifference to the sufferings of others. The captain looked from Carew to Baptiste. He could distinguish from the latter's accent and appearance that he was no common sailor. "This gentleman is your friend, I suppose?" he said. "My friend, and the mate of the yacht," replied Carew. "I was my own captain." "I see that you are a genuine English yachtsman. But surely this is a French gentleman?" "No, Captain Mourez," broke in Baptiste quickly; "I am an English subject, but I am a Creole of the Mauritius, and of French origin. Permit me to introduce myself. My name is Baptiste Fortier." "Very well," said the captain. "We can find room for your two men in the forecastle. You, Mr. Allen and Mr. Fortier, will occupy cabins aft. We have plenty to spare. Come below and I will show you round." They entered the saloon--a spacious one for a vessel of her size. There were four cabins on each side of it. Only two of these were occupied; one by the captain and another by his mate. Two others were now placed at the disposal of Carew and Baptiste. The captain made his two guests sit down with him at the saloon table, and produced a bottle of Bordeaux for their refreshment. The mate of _La Belle Esperance_ soon came below and joined the party. Though no drunkard, he was never far away when there was a drawing of corks. His name was Duval; he was a wiry, red-headed Norman, somewhat hot-tempered, but very garrulous and merry. Captain Mourez was a tall, handsome man, with black hair and beard, a Breton by birth, taciturn as a rule, but very courteous in his manners. While these four were sitting in the saloon talking over the wreck of the _Petrel_, there was suddenly heard the sound of something falling heavily on the deck just overhead; then a cry and a scuffling of many feet. Duval hurried on deck to learn what the noise signified. Shortly afterwards he returned again. "It is that imbecile young apprentice, HallÃ©, again. What an awkward cub it is! He has fallen from the mizzen rigging this time; not from a great height, luckily. He has not hurt himself seriously, but he seems rather sick and dizzy." The crew of the _Petrel_ were soon at home on their new vessel. El Toro and El Chico were made much of by the kindly Frenchmen in the forecastle. As luck would have it, none of the crew of the barque understood Spanish; so the two Spaniards, who knew no French, had not to reply to questions as to the details of the yacht's misadventure. El Toro especially, whose dense head was entirely devoid of imagination, would have been certain to come to grief in attempting to lie in an ingenious and consistent manner. In the afternoon the loquacious Norman mate insisted on taking Carew and Baptiste all over the vessel and showing them everything. He was gratified by the keen interest the two passengers seemed to take in his explanation. They listened attentively to all he said, for reasons of their own. They learnt that the vessel's company, officers included, numbered seventeen souls; that there was no second mate, but that the boatswain took the port watch and lived with the carpenter in the small deck-house. Duval also took them into the forecastle, where some of the watch off duty were sleeping at the time. Among them was the young apprentice who had fallen from the rigging. He was tossing about restlessly in his bunk, and his face was very flushed. Baptiste as he passed by glanced casually at him, then scanned his face earnestly for some time. "Come out of this," he said to Carew. "It is too hot down here. Let us go on deck." That evening the wind freshened considerably, and the barque, with yards braced up, was making good way through the water. Carew, unable to sleep, came on deck shortly before midnight, and sat down in a dark, quiet corner to meditate. Now that the excitement of the preliminary preparations was over, he began to realise to the full what was before him; and an intense abhorrence of the crime he had undertaken once more oppressed his soul. He could not retreat now. He must be the cause of the death of all these innocent men, who had come to the rescue of his life. If he spared them he would be carried on to England to pay the penalty of his offences. As he sat brooding thus miserably, a man walked towards him from the fore part of the ship. Carew saw the red glow of his cigarette before he could distinguish the man in the darkness, and he knew that it was his evil genius. "Baptiste, is that you?" "Here I am, captain. A lovely night, is it not?" "Sit down here," said Carew, "and speak to me. No one can overhear us here, I think." "No; it will be all right if we do not raise our voices," replied Baptiste, looking round. "How is this going to end?" whispered Carew. "What do you mean, captain?" "How are we four to seize a vessel with a crew of seventeen strong men on board?" "Strong men, indeed!" replied the Frenchman. "They will be as weak as babies in a few days' time. By the way, I see that you did not omit to bring your medicine chest on board with you." Carew shuddered. "Poison!" he whispered, in a terrified voice. "Do you mean that?" "Why not, captain? It is a merciful and painless death if the right stuff is used." Carew said nothing for some time. "Whatever is done must be done soon," he muttered. "That is so, captain. This vessel must be ours while we are still in the trades and within a few days' run of a South American port. It will be difficult enough for four of us to work her, even in these calm waters. We must not postpone action till we get into the region of rougher weather." "Oh, that this dreadful thing were not necessary!" Carew groaned. "Ah, sir, don't allow those fatal scruples of yours to torment you. If I had some of your courage, and you some of my philosophy, what a fine couple we should be! But as it is at present, I am the more useful man of the two, despite my physical cowardice. Believe me, Mr. Carew, the ancient was right who said that to know oneself is the secret of happiness. If a man has a conscience at all, it ought to be a stable one that does not vary. You have got a set of moral principles of a sort, but you have not the slightest idea of what they are. One day you will commit an action with a light heart; on the morrow your remorse will madden you. Such inconsistency means misery. Know thyself. If you will have a code of ethics, know it and stick to it, and be happy. But now that you have gone so far, I recommend you to abjure conscience and moral principles, and substitute for them my beautifully simple code of ethics, which is summed up in three words--fear of consequences." "I wish, indeed, that I could do so, Baptiste." "If you wish it, this satisfactory result will come in time. All changes in the moral sense are arrived at by wishing. _Experto crede_, as they taught me in the _lycÃ©e_ at Nimes." Neither spoke for some time; then Baptiste said-- "You were born under a lucky star, captain. I think that Providence has found a way of sparing your sensitive conscience. She will do most of the killing for you." "What do you mean?" exclaimed Carew. "Hush! not so loud. You remember that a young man fell from the mizzen rigging while we were below drinking with the captain?" "Yes." "He is our unconscious ally. He will kill off a good many of his comrades for us. But I will not mystify you any longer. Why did he fall off the rigging--because he was awkward, as Duval said? Not a bit of it. He fell because he was dizzy. Why was he dizzy? Because he was ill. This afternoon, when I saw him first, I more than suspected that a fall could not account for all his symptoms. I have just examined him again. I know the signs well. He is in the first stage of _yellow fever_!" "Yellow fever?" "Yes, yellow fever has come to help us. The man has been very sick and is now delirious. The stupid captain has seen him, and puts it all down to his fall; says he must have injured his spine. How lucky for us was that fall! Led off the scent by it, the idiots will not suspect what is the matter with the man until the _vomito negro_ declares itself. They have not separated him from the rest. He is now lying in his bunk in the forecastle. All the watch below are sleeping round him. It is a small forecastle, and the crew, imagining that fresh air is bad for a sick man, have closed the ports. It is stifling down there at present. It is a pest-house. All those men are breathing in contagion. Do you know that it is the worst form of yellow fever that is now raging at Rio--very contagious, very fatal? If it breaks out in a vessel like this it will spread like wildfire. Man after man will fall sick and die." "Ourselves included," said Carew recklessly. "No, sir. We will take precautions in time. I have had the fever once, and am not likely to have it again. I have hinted the truth to El Chico and El Toro, and they have suddenly developed a hygienic craze for fresh air, and insist on sleeping on deck to-night, to the amazement of the French sailors. I would not like to insure the lives of the men who sleep in that forecastle; most of them are doomed by this time." Carew felt his skin turn cold and tingle with horror as he listened to the Frenchman's cold-blooded exultation in the dreadful prospect. "Good-night, captain. I am going to turn in now; and, by the way, let me advise you to keep on deck in the cool wind as much as possible, and smoke perpetually. Tobacco is a splendid disinfectant." CHAPTER XIII On the day after the crew of the _Petrel_ had been taken on board the barque the wind freshened and was so much to the south of east that the vessel was enabled to sail in a north-easterly direction, a course which would bring her to the vicinity of the Trinidad and Martin Vas Archipelago. When Carew came on deck in the morning he found Baptiste there before him. The ProvenÃ§al walked up to him jauntily, twirling his long black moustache, and looking jubilant. "I have seen young HallÃ© again," he said, in a low voice. "He is very bad. The symptoms are unmistakable; but no one suspects the truth so far. Two other men are complaining of headache." "Let the accursed plague work its way," said Carew gloomily, "but tell me nothing about it." "So be it, sir," said Baptiste, with a shrug of his shoulders. The springing up of so favourable a wind put the captain of _La Bonne Esperance_ in a very contented frame of mind. In his delight he became more talkative than was his wont, and at frequent intervals during the day sought out Carew in order to converse with him. Carew, for his part, did his utmost--without appearing churlish--to avoid the company of Captain Mourez; for he recognised him as being a kind-hearted and an honest man. The captain observed his passenger's unsociable mood, and, attributing this to his sorrow at the loss of his yacht, endeavoured to cheer him with lively gossip, but produced the opposite result. Nothing noteworthy occurred during the day; the wind held steady, and the vessel made good progress. At about ten o'clock that night, Carew was sitting alone in the saloon, killing thought by reading a French novel which the captain had lent him, when Mourez himself came in. His face bore a very anxious expression. "Mr. Allen," he said, "I am seriously alarmed about that man HallÃ©. I fear that he has the fever." "The yellow fever?" exclaimed Carew, not raising his eyes from his book. "It seems so to me; but I have never seen a case of yellow fever. Do you mind coming with me to the forecastle and giving me your opinion?" "I will do so with pleasure," replied Carew, rising from his seat; "but my opinion is not worth much." They entered the forecastle, which was dimly lighted by a small lantern. HallÃ© was lying on his bunk, keeping up a constant delirious chatter. The other men, instead of sleeping soundly through their watch below after the manner of sailors, were sitting together in a group at the corner of the forecastle farthest removed from the sick man, looking scared and talking to each other in subdued voices. Carew stood by HallÃ©'s bunk and looked at him. A change for the worse had recently come on. His face wore an expression of intense anxiety. His skin was wrinkled and of a dark yellow colour. The captain made a sign to Carew, and they went on deck again. "I have never seen yellow fever," said the latter; "ask my mate, Baptiste Fortier, what he thinks about it; he has had the fever himself." Thus did this strange man trifle with his conscience as usual, and attempt to shift the responsibility for the next step in the tragedy on to his companion. Baptiste was found, and was sent into the forecastle. It would be quite useless to lie about the facts now, so, returning to where Carew and Mourez were standing, he said, "It is yellow fever. I am sure of it." On hearing this the captain began to pace up and down the deck in a state of great agitation, wringing his hands. "Good heavens! this is a terrible affair," he cried. "For thirty hours HallÃ© has been spreading contagion in the forecastle. Who knows where this will end?" Then Captain Mourez stood still, and after pondering a little while addressed Carew. "I must at once convert some portion of the vessel into a hospital. The forecastle is no longer a fit place for the healthy men, so we will give it up to the sick. Sir, we must pray for a fresh breeze to carry us quickly into northern latitudes, where the cold will kill the plague that has come to us." At that moment the boatswain came on to the quarter-deck, and Mourez ordered him to call up the watch below. The men reached the deck with unusual promptitude. They were summoned aft, and the captain in a few words explained to them how matters stood, and exhorted them to be courageous as French sailors should be. He ordered them to rig up a large awning forward, under which the crew were to live so long as the vessel was in warm latitudes. He also instructed the boatswain to ventilate the forecastle as thoroughly as was possible by means of wind-sails, so that a cool temperature might be obtained for the sick men. On the following day two other men fell ill, and were admitted into the hospital. In the afternoon HallÃ© died, and his body was immediately lowered into the sea. Before sunset the loom of land was visible over the ship's bows. It was the desert island of Trinidad, situated near latitude 20 deg. south, about six hundred miles from the coast of Brazil. And now a most unfortunate calamity befell the pestilence-stricken vessel. The wind completely died away, and she lay motionless on a sea of oily smoothness for three whole days. The vertical sun blazed down upon her out of the cloudless sky, and the intense sultriness of the atmosphere lowered the energies of those who were still in good health, and predisposed them to contagion, while it hurried on the fatal termination of the fever for the sick. A gloom fell on the ship's company. The men looked into each other's faces with helpless terror, for what could be done against this invisible foe? One after another sickened, died, and was lowered over the side in shotted shroud. Baptiste and the two Spaniards, though they considered themselves acclimatised to the tropics, and almost proof against contagion, shared the prevailing sense of terror. On the second day of the calm, the captain, who had doctored all the sick men to the best of his ability, was himself attacked by the fever. Carew, who had some little knowledge of medicine, volunteered to take his place, and as the mate gratefully complied with his request, employed all his time in attending upon the patients in the forecastle and the captain in his cabin. On the third day of the calm the contagion seemed to have spent itself. No fresh cases were reported, and those who were lying sick became no worse. Up to this date eight men out of the seventeen that composed the ship's company had died. Among these were the boatswain and the ship's cook. It was necessary to appoint some other man to take charge of the port watch; so the mate, after consulting with Carew, gave this post to Baptiste, as being the best educated man on board. The ProvenÃ§al asked that the two Spaniards should be put upon his watch. El Chico, acting under Baptiste's orders, offered to undertake the duties of ship's cook. On this morning, being the fifth since the _Petrel's_ crew had been received on board, the mate came up to Baptiste and made some remarks to him which set the wily ruffian thinking. Duval had asked him whether he did not think the fever showed signs of abating. "It is impossible to say yet," replied Baptiste. "Yellow fever always comes in waves; it subsides and intensifies alternately." "You see, comrade," said Duval, "that even if we include you four, we are now very short handed. If we lose a few more men, we cannot sail this barque to Europe. I have decided to run back to Rio as soon as a breeze springs up." When the mate left him, Baptiste went in search of Carew, and found him in the captain's cabin, watching the sick man, who was now lying insensible in the last stage of the fever. Baptiste looked into the pain-distorted face. "He will go soon," he whispered to Carew. Carew nodded. "That was a clever idea of yours, sir," said the Frenchman. "What idea?" "To constitute yourself ship's doctor." Carew made no reply, but he understood what the remark signified. Baptiste, however, had misjudged him. With his usual inconsistency in crime, far from availing himself of his opportunities to poison the men, he had, on the contrary, risked his life and done his utmost to save the captain and the others under his charge. He was happier and was pleased with himself while acting thus, though he was also glad to find that his patients died despite his efforts. He seemed to imagine that he was driving a bargain with avenging Heaven--that he could set off his present righteous conduct against his other crimes. Men who reason with the greatest clearness on all other matters, often become insanely illogical when a guilty conscience asks for soothing casuistry. "How are you treating him?" asked Baptiste. "Not in the way you are thinking of," Carew replied, looking into the other's eyes. Baptiste saw that he had been mistaken in his surmise, but said no more on the subject. Carew's box of medicines was by his side. Baptiste looked into it, and drew out a bottle. "This is not poison, is it?" he asked. "No; but if you took a good dose of it it would make you feel very ill." "What is a good dose of it?" "About ten drops; it is in a concentrated form." "That will answer my purpose, then," and Baptiste put the bottle in his pocket. "And now, sir, I want some stuff that will prevent insomnia." The eyes of the two men met. Carew asked no questions, but merely said, "Take this bottle, then. Half a teaspoonful is a large dose." "Let us go into your cabin for a few minutes," said Baptiste, glancing at Mourez. "This man seems quite unconscious; but a man may hear as long as he has breath in him. I will not trust him." They crossed the saloon to Carew's cabin. "Well, what is it?" "The fever and the hot calm have done our work well while we have been standing by idle," said the Frenchman; "but now the time has come for us to act. We must seize this vessel to-night. There is a look of wind in the sky now, and Duval will set sail and make for Rio as soon as a breeze springs up. We must wait no longer." "Let it be to-night, then." "Come on deck at ten o'clock this evening. Bring the revolvers with you. Leave all the rest to me. You dislike details, so I will arrange everything." Carew bowed his head in assent, but said nothing. "You have two sick men in the forecastle, I think," said Baptiste; "are they strong enough to make any resistance?" Carew shook his head. "That is well. The captain will certainly not have much fight in him. So that leaves us only six healthy men to deal with; one on my watch, five on the other watch." The mate now went on deck, and Carew returned to the captain's cabin. He found that brave sailor lying on his bed dead. "I am glad--for his sake and for mine," muttered the Englishman to himself. CHAPTER XIV It is no pleasant task to describe the events that now took place on the French barque. This is no tale of daring buccaneers, of exciting hand-to-hand combats of desperate men; but a narrative of cold-blooded and dastardly crime. Now that the time for carrying out his devilish scheme had come, Baptiste had taken the lead of the conspirators. Being a pacific person who hated fighting and feared danger, he determined to omit no possible precaution to obviate the risk of failure. His brain, fertile of ingenious villainy, was not long in devising how to do this. In the first place, he instructed Carew on no account to leave his cabin between eight and ten that evening. Then he called aside the two Spaniards and explained his plan to them. He gave El Chico the first bottle which he had taken from Carew's medicine chest, and directed him to mix a certain quantity of the contents with the soup he was about to make for the men's dinner--a quantity which he calculated would be insufficient to produce a pronounced taste in the soup, but sufficient to cause unpleasant sensations in those who partook of it. At eight bells that evening the port watch relieved the starboard. There was absolutely nothing for the men to do, as it was still a flat calm, and all the sails had been furled. Duval had taken this precaution on the previous day, fearing that the fever might spread still further, and that he would not have enough hands left to shorten sail were a strong breeze to spring up suddenly. Duval, however, insisted upon the watches being set and the discipline of the vessel being carried on as usual, more with the object of employing the men's time and distracting their attention from the horrors of the situation than for any other reason. When Baptiste came aft to relieve Duval, as officer of the watch, the latter said, "Do you know if Mr. Allen is in his cabin, Fortier? I wish to see him." "I think it would be better not to disturb him. He is quite worn out from want of sleep. He has sat up with poor Mourez two nights in succession; and now that the captain is dead, and the other two sick men are getting better, he is having a long sleep." "Are the other men getting better?" "So Mr. Allen thinks," replied Baptiste. "With our brave captain's death the fever seems to have expended itself. We have no fresh cases to-day." "I am not sure of that," said Duval gloomily. "I wished to see Mr. Allen in order to tell him that I, and no less than three of the other men, have been feeling very unwell for the last half-hour." The drugged soup had done its work. "Indeed!" said Baptiste. "And, now that I look at you, your cheeks are somewhat pale, sir. But we will not wake Mr. Allen; it is unnecessary. He left a bottle of medicine with me this afternoon. It is a powerful febrifuge, and he instructed me to give a dose to the sick men below, and to any others who should feel in any way indisposed. I think it would be a prudent course to serve some round to all hands. It can do no harm." Duval approving of this measure, Baptiste went into his cabin and brought out the bottle of opiate which Carew had given him, and served out a very strong dose to Duval, and to each of the four men on his watch. Duval then retired to his cabin, and the men lay under the awning forward, all to sink, under the influence of the drug, into a heavy slumber, from which it would not be easy to wake them; while Baptiste was left in charge of the deck, with the two Spaniards and the remaining Frenchman. "You feel all right, LÃ©on, I hope?" said Baptiste to this man, a sturdy Breton, who had not been affected by the drugged soup. "Yes, thank you, sir," he replied; "there's nothing the matter with me." "Won't you take a dose of the medicine as a precaution? Prevention is better than cure." "Not for me the filth. Time enough for medicine when one is ill, and not much good it does then if we may judge from the results on this unhappy vessel." It was necessary for Baptiste's purpose to get this man out of the way before anything could be done. First he thought of asking the Spaniards to despatch him with their knives; but this might create a disturbance and awake the sleepers; so the cautious ProvenÃ§al waited until a safer plan should suggest itself. An hour of the watch had passed, and it was now nine o'clock. The sky became overcast, and a drizzling rain began to fall. "We shall have wind soon," said LÃ©on. "Would it not be well to wake Mr. Duval?" "Not for a few minutes," replied Baptiste. "Come, now; this damp is the very thing to bring on fever. We ought to take something to keep the enemy out. If you don't like medicine, what say you to a drop of genuine old cognac? I have some in my cabin." "That is more in my line," said the Breton, smacking his lips; "a fig for your doctor's stuff, I say." "Then follow me, but step quietly. Mr. Duval's cabin is next to mine. If he finds you drinking brandy aft, though it is only for medicinal purposes, you can guess what a row there will be." Baptiste led the way to his cabin, and produced a bottle of brandy. He helped the man freely, but he did not attempt to drug the drink with the opiate, for its taste was too unmistakable. The brandy was strong, and even the Breton's hard head soon succumbed to it. He began to exhibit signs of intoxication, and was chattering in a disconnected fashion, when Baptiste suddenly rose from his seat and placed his hand on the man's shoulder. "Hush!" he whispered; "hush, you idiot! I hear Mr. Duval moving in his cabin; your noise has roused him. He will catch you if you don't hold your tongue. Remain here while I get him out of the way, under some pretext or other. Then I will return for you." Baptiste darted through the cabin door, and locked it on the man within, who, after awaiting him for some time, helped himself to some more brandy, and at last fell into a drunken sleep on the bed. Baptiste then entered Carew's cabin, and found him sitting up, reading the French novel which Captain Mourez had lent him. "Come along, sir; the time has arrived," said the ProvenÃ§al. "Bring the revolvers with you, and first see that they are loaded. I don't suppose we shall have to use them, but _Quien sabe?_ as the Spaniards say." Carew made no reply, but taking the pistols from the locker in which he kept them, he followed his accomplice on to the deck. As they walked towards the fore part of the vessel Baptiste described his preparations for the _coup_. "The crew are at our mercy," he said; "Duval in his cabin, and the four men of his watch under the awning forward, are sleeping the heavy sleep of opium. LÃ©on is a prisoner in my cabin, drunk or nearly so, in the company of an open bottle of brandy, and you say that the two sick men in the forecastle are too weak to move. Now, first of all, we must deal with the four men under the awning, for they are the most dangerous." Still Carew said not a word. The two Spaniards now joined them. Baptiste looked round the horizon. "We shall have the wind down on us soon," he said; "we must do our work quickly." The rain was falling more heavily than before. The night was very dark, and there was not a star visible in the heavens. Though as yet there was not a breath of wind, the ocean, as if in anticipation of its coming, was heaving in a long, high swell, and the vessel rolled uneasily, her spars groaning dismally aloft. Baptiste took two of the revolvers from Carew's hands and handed one to each of the Spaniards. "Don't use them, lads, unless it is absolutely necessary; we don't want noise. You have your knives," he whispered. "I have brought the bits of line you asked for," said El Chico, producing several lengths of small-sized but very strong rope. "What do you intend to do, Baptiste?" inquired Carew, in a hoarse voice, speaking for the first time. "Pinion those sleepers securely with these cords, fasten a weight to each man's leg, and heave them overboard," replied Baptiste. "It would be easier to knife them as they lie there," muttered El Toro, whose bloodthirsty instinct was up. "Yes," sneered Baptiste; "you love the sight of blood, you mad bull. You would like to have a brutal fight now. But that plan will not suit me. I am a man of peace; I hate unnecessary disturbance. Now to work." Then Carew spoke firmly, once more asserting his right to command. "Secure those men with the cords, but do not kill them. Let them live till to-morrow. Then I will decide what shall be done with them." "What absurd folly is this?" hissed the ProvenÃ§al savagely. "Do you wish to endanger all our lives? They may free themselves in the night and retake the ship. No, they must die." "Silence! You shall know that I am still your master. These men shall not die to-night," said Carew resolutely. "This is too much," cried Baptiste, with impatient fury. "I have arranged everything so well, and now you interfere to spoil all. Curse that intermittent conscience of yours. It is like a geyser spouting out tepid water at intervals, and always at the most inopportune moment." "I will not discuss this with you," replied Carew doggedly; "but you know me, you coward. If you kill one of these men without my orders, except in self-defence, you will have to deal with me--you understand?" The ProvenÃ§al did understand. He swore some horrible oaths to himself, and said-- "There is no time to argue now. We will humour your fancy. Come on, El Toro and El Chico. Let us tie those fellows up as quickly and as quietly as we can." The three men crept noiselessly to the awning beneath which the French sailors lay breathing stertorously under the stupefying influence of the strong narcotic. Carew, meanwhile, stood outside under the rainy sky, motionless, taking no part in the proceedings, and at that moment wishing that the fever had seized him also and that he were dead and quit of it all. Baptiste and the Spaniards stooped over the sleeping men, and with the skill of sailors bound their limbs in such a manner that it was impossible for them to stir, far less to free themselves. In so complete a state of coma were they that the tension of the tightly drawn cords did not rouse them, though they murmured in their sleep. Carew almost hoped that they would awake. If they defended themselves and were killed in the heat of a mortal struggle, it would not have seemed so horrible to him as this silent, passionless piece of villainy. When the men were all secured, Baptiste said, "If you will stand by here and guard the prisoners, captain, we will go aft and see to the others." So leaving Carew behind, Baptiste and the two Spaniards went to the other end of the vessel and entered the saloon. First they softly opened the door of Baptiste's cabin, and there they found the Breton sailor sleeping soundly, the half-empty brandy bottle by his side. The two Spaniards held him while Baptiste bound him firmly. It was not till the operation was concluded that he awoke. He opened his eyes and looked about him in a bewildered way for a few moments; then he tried to raise himself and could not; and, perceiving the cords that restrained him, he suddenly realised the situation, and called out at the top of his voice, "To the rescue! A mutiny! A mutiny!" "Quick! away! leave him!" cried Baptiste rapidly. "To Duval's cabin, and secure him before this fellow's row wakes him. Quick! Quick!" They ran across the saloon and burst into the mate's cabin, the two Spaniards leading the way; for Baptiste, like a prudent general, gave his orders from the rear. There was a lamp burning in the cabin. Duval, roused by the din, was sitting up in his bed, half awake, still confused by the heavy dose of opium that had been administered to him. Just as the men violently swung the door open, LÃ©on again raised the shout of "A mutiny! A mutiny! Mr. Duval, defend yourself!" The Norman heard that terrible cry, and all his senses returned to him in a moment. "Grapple with him at once," cried Baptiste. The two Spaniards precipitated themselves upon him; but though not a big man, he was a strong and wiry one. Leaping from his bunk he thrust the men aside, and seizing the only weapon within his reach, an iron water-can, he swung it round and brought it down on Baptiste's skull. "Oh, you treacherous wretch, take that!" he cried. The ProvenÃ§al's evil career would have been terminated there and then had it not been for El Toro, who seized Duval's arm and broke the force of the blow. As it was, the sharp edge of the can inflicted an ugly wound, and Baptiste staggered back, the blood pouring all over his face. "Kill him!" he hissed, sick and faint with pain and fear, but mad with rage. El Toro needed no second bidding. He thrust his long knife quickly between the unfortunate man's ribs. Duval uttered one groan, and fell to the ground dead. "That was deftly done," said the Basque, wiping the blade. "Ho! my little Baptiste. How dost thou feel with that cracked pate of thine?" The ProvenÃ§al was sitting on a chest, his head in his hands, trembling with fear. "Look at my head, good El Toro, I beseech you," he cried. "See if it is a dangerous wound." "A mere scratch," replied the Basque, after a cursory examination. "What a timorous woman thou art!" His comrades washed the wound and bandaged his head; then Baptiste recovered his presence of mind, and gave his orders. "Put the body over the side at once, but first fasten a weight on to it. It must not float about to tell tales to some passing vessel." When this had been done, he said, "Now carry that noisy LÃ©on out of my cabin. Take him forward to where the other prisoners are." The Spaniards raised the helpless Breton, who, understanding that there was no one to whom he could give the alarm by crying out, now resigned himself to his fate, and uttered not a word as they laid him by the side of his four comrades. "The vessel is ours!" Baptiste called out in a loud voice when he approached Carew. There was no further reason for the avoidance of noise. "I salute you, captain of _La Bonne Esperance_!" "But where is Duval?" asked Carew. "Killed, captain; but in self-defence. Look at my unfortunate head: that was his doing. Had it not been for our brave El Toro you would have lost your trusty mate." Carew looked down at the five men lying on the deck. They were all awake now, the pain caused by the tightness of their ligatures having at last dispelled the lethargy of the drug. They realised all that had happened; they knew that they were doomed to die at the hands of this treacherous band. A lantern swung from the awning-pole above them, and by its dim light Carew saw that their faces wore an expression of dogged resolution, which changed suddenly to one of loathing and contempt when their eyes met his. Thus they stared at him in silence. He hastily turned his face away. "What next, captain? It must be done sooner or later. Why not at once?" said Baptiste. "Take them into the forecastle for to-night. Secure the two sick men as well," was the reply. "Just Heaven, what a cruel thing a British conscience is!" exclaimed Baptiste, with a loud, scornful laugh. He was intoxicated with the successful issue of his scheme. "I, the man without scruples, would have mercifully killed these men outright. You, the man of conscience, shrink from doing so, but are willing to shut them up in the pestilential hole yonder, so that an agonising fever may kill them for you. Do you really flatter yourself, oh, self-deceiver, that you in this way absolve your soul from the guilt?" "Silence!" cried Carew angrily. The man's words had hit the mark. Some such vain idea had indeed crossed the warped mind. Arguments of a like sophistical nature were always now vaguely occurring to him, and he took care not to reason them out, being conscious of the fallacy of them, yet cherishing them. A form of moral insanity this, and not an uncommon one. El Chico, who was standing by, heard Carew's last words. "Do you want us to die of the fever too, captain?" he grumbled. "Who's going to stand sentry over the prisoners in that poisonous forecastle?" Carew saw the force of this objection. "Then put them in a row along the bulwark and lash each one to a ring-bolt," he said. "That is a better plan," remarked Baptiste; "we can thus keep our eyes on them without leaving the deck. El Chico, you keep watch for two hours, while the rest of us sleep. We require rest after our exciting day's work; and as for me, that cut over the head makes me feel rather queer." "See, here comes the wind," cried Carew. The clouds towards the east had opened out, revealing a patch of starry sky, and a light breeze had sprung up. "There won't be much of it," said Baptiste, after he had scanned the heavens. "Let us shake out the spanker and lie-to under that for the night. And to-morrow morning, captain, you must decide how you are going to rid us of these men. We are too few to work the vessel, and cannot be bothered with guarding prisoners to please you." CHAPTER XV Her capture having been effected, the barque lay hove-to under her spanker for the night. The south-east wind died away about midnight, and a light south-westerly breeze sprang up. A strong ocean current must have been setting from the same direction; for, though the islet of Trinidad had been so far distant at sunset as to be barely visible, the sound of breakers roaring on a beach could be plainly distinguished towards the end of the middle watch. At daybreak Carew was left alone in charge of the vessel, his three men being asleep under the awning. He paced the deck restlessly, his heart aching with despairing misery. The five prisoners, who were lashed along the foot of the port bulwarks, as if by one consent, observed a complete silence. They were too far apart to hold any communication with each other, and they knew how useless it would be to appeal to the mercy of the villains who had surprised them; but they all remained awake, watching intently for what they felt was not at all likely to occur--an opportunity to regain their freedom and fight for their lives. The rain had ceased, the clouds had cleared away, and out of the calm night gleamed the brilliant constellations of the southern hemisphere. There was a transparency, a depth in the heavens, such as is not apparent in northern latitudes. Through the nearer archipelagos of stars one could perceive others farther back, and beyond these others; stars behind stars up inconceivable distances into the depths of space; so that they were so crowded together as to almost unite in forming one continuous sheet of silver light, save in one spot, where, amid that most luminous portion of the firmament known as Magellan's Cloud, there opened out, like to a black pit, a starless void, an infinite abyss of nothingness. There came a faint emerald light in the east, which quickly changed to the pale blue of the turquoise, and the stars faded away before the rapid dawn of the tropics. Then Carew saw, about ten miles off, standing out darkly between him and the sunrise, in sharp outline against the clear sky, the desert island of Trinidad. It seemed to consist of a confused mass of barren mountains, most fantastic in their shape, falling everywhere precipitously into the ocean, and terminating in huge pinnacles of rock, the loftiest of which were crowned with wreaths of vapour. Elsewhere there were no clouds visible in the heavens. As the sun rose higher, its rays illumined these rugged summits, and they glowed as with the dull red of molten iron; for this island is a burnt-out volcano, and a considerable portion of it has been calcined into brittle cinders of a ruddy colour. It being now broad daylight, Baptiste woke up, and coming from under the awning gave himself a shake by way of making his toilet, glanced down the row of prisoners to satisfy himself that they were still safely secured, and then turned his face towards the dreary coast. "Hallo!" he cried, "we have drifted a long way in the night. That is an ugly-looking place yonder, captain. We must not get too near those black rocks; so we had better wake up those sleepers, and get some canvas on the barque at once. I suppose the next thing to be done is to make sail for the nearest Brazilian port." "No, Baptiste, not yet," said Carew; "I shall come to an anchor under that island, and wait there for a few days." "Indeed! What for?" "I have various reasons. To begin with, look at the sky. There is every appearance of another long calm setting in. Remember that we have yellow fever on board. If we land our prisoners to-day, we shall lessen our own risks of catching it." Baptiste whistled softly to himself. Carew stood before him, and looking steadily into his face, said, "Baptiste, I have determined that no more blood shall be shed on this vessel. I intend to put these Frenchmen ashore; then we will sail for Brazil." "Captain, we do not mind humouring your whims to a certain extent, but we are not going to put our necks in the noose to please you." "It is quite useless for you to attempt to dissuade me from my purpose. I have made up my mind," said Carew doggedly. Baptiste at once abandoned his threatening tone, and spoke in a respectful manner. "You have been very lucky so far; but don't be rash. Remember that luck assists him who assists himself. Consider how recklessly imprudent it would be to leave these men on the island. They would soon signal to a passing vessel, and be taken off; and pray, what then would our poor heads be worth?" "Vessels constantly sight Trinidad," replied Carew, "but they never pass very near it. For the other side of the island is fringed with dangerous rocks far out to sea, as the chart will show you; and, since the prevailing wind hereabouts is south-east, a ship would give this side also a wide berth, for fear of being becalmed under the lee of the mountains. How could the men signal to a vessel miles out at sea?" "Necessity finds a How. What is to prevent them from lighting a large fire?" "We will not leave them the means of lighting a fire." "They would soon discover the means. Suppose, for instance, they picked up some empty bottle that had been washed on shore, they could use the bottom of it as a burning-glass. I have heard of such a thing being done." "I will not argue the question with you. Those men shall be landed on that island; they shall not die on board this vessel." "Even if I agreed to run so great a risk, I know that the other two would not. You do not want a civil war on board, do you, captain?" "I do not fear one. You cannot do without me, and you all know it. If you murdered me and took this vessel into port, do you imagine that the salvage would be handed over to you without demur, as it would be to me if I applied for it? Grave suspicions would be raised, and there would be a minute investigation. Those two idiots would contradict each other in their evidence. It would all end in one of you turning Queen's evidence and the other two being hanged. Is not that right?" "I cannot deny that there is reason in your remarks," said Baptiste coolly. "Now am I to understand that you wish these men to live?" "I repeat that they shall not die on board this vessel!" Baptiste's keen eyes scanned Carew's careworn face; then the ProvenÃ§al smiled, for he fancied that he now understood the working of the Englishman's mind. "This clever idiot must be humoured," he said to himself. "This is a new 'fixed idea' of his. He shrinks from bloodshed; he will not sanction it. But if we take these men on shore for him, knock them on the head there without consulting him, and then return to him with some fine excuse about their having resisted us and so compelled us to kill them in self-defence--why, he will pretend to believe us; he will ask no questions, and be glad that the danger has been removed. I understand this strange man now." Not exactly these ideas, but others somewhat similar to them, had indeed crossed Carew's mind. He was quite aware that it would be the height of folly to leave the prisoners alive on the island, but he wished to postpone as long as possible the murder which he felt was inevitable, hoping that yellow fever or some other interposition of Providence would solve the difficulty for him in the meanwhile. Baptiste now roused the two Spaniards, and sail was made as quickly as possible, so that an anchorage might be reached before the wind dropped, for there were sure signs of calm in the sky. Being so few in number, they dared not put much sail on the vessel. As Carew was unacquainted with the management of square-rigged craft, Baptiste gave the orders. First the foretopmast staysail was set and the sheets hauled aft so as to pay off before the wind. Then the two Spaniards were sent aloft to loose the fore upper and lower topsails, while Carew and Baptiste squared the yards. After this the maintopsail was also set. "That will be enough canvas for her," said Baptiste. "Now, sir, if you'll take the wheel, we will get her all ready for coming to an anchor." So going forward the mate saw that an anchor was got over the bows and that a sufficient length of cable was ranged in front of the windlass. The vessel sailed slowly towards the island until midday, when the expected calm fell upon the sea. However, as the current was setting straight on shore, the barque drifted on till four o'clock in the afternoon, when she was about half a mile from the breakers, and the anchor was let go in twenty fathoms of water. The scene that lay before them as they approached was appalling in its grandeur. They could perceive no vegetation of any description on the lofty mountains, which rose almost perpendicularly from the sea-foam into a bank of dark clouds that had now gathered on the summit of the island. The fire-consumed crags were often of strange metallic colours,--red and green and coppery yellow,--which gave the scenery an unearthly appearance, but most of the island was of a dismal coal-black. Some of the mountains seemed to have been shaken to pieces by the fires and earthquakes of volcanic action; for they sloped to the sea in huge landslips of black stones. Gigantic basaltic columns many hundreds of feet in height descended into the waves along a considerable portion of this savage coast, a formidable wall that defied the mariner to land. In a few places only a narrow margin of shore divided the sea from the inaccessible cliffs, and this was encumbered with sharp coral and great boulders that had fallen from above. The barque was anchored off the entrance of a profound and most gloomy ravine, from which a stream of water fell as a cascade into the sea. The head of this ravine, high above, was lost in dense clouds. It looked like the road to some mysterious and unknown world. Not only were the sights of this coast such as to terrify the imagination, but so likewise were the sounds. Though this was the lee side of the island, and was protected from the high swell which, raised by the south-east trade wind, breaks so furiously on the back of Trinidad, yet the sea rolled in very heavily with a stupendous roar that was echoed with dismal, hollow reverberations among the rocky ravines. After the breaking of a higher wave than usual, great masses of water would be dashed up the sides of a cliff to a great height. Deep fiords opened out in places; but even these afforded no shelter. Within them the sea raged as furiously as it did outside. This remote and rarely visited island was evidently a favourite breeding-place for several varieties of sea-birds. Vast numbers flew through the rigging of the vessel, uttering savage cries. So unaccustomed were they to the sight of man that they showed no timidity, but rather indignation, at his invasion, and a disposition to drive him off again. Many of them wheeled round the heads of the sailors with angry shrieks, approaching so near that they could easily have been caught with the hand. "I don't at all like the look of the island of Trinidad," said Baptiste. "It is the most inhospitable place I have ever seen. I am not surprised that no one cares to live here. How large is it?" "It is about fifteen miles round," Carew replied. "The Portuguese tried centuries ago to establish a settlement here, but they soon abandoned it. It is very barren, and so dangerous a surge breaks continually round every part of it that it is often impossible to effect a landing for weeks at a time." "It seems to me that it will be impossible to land to-day," said Baptiste. Carew went up into the maintop with a telescope, and after having closely examined the features of the shore, descended on deck again. "I thought I was right, Baptiste. We are anchored off what the pilot-book calls The Cascade, and I can see the landing-place described by former visitors to the island." "I can see nothing but a mass of foam. I can see nothing like a landing-place." "It is not visible from the deck. To the left of the cascade over there a long black rock stretches far out to sea beyond the breakers, forming a sort of natural pier. That is the easiest landing-place in the whole island. We will lower a boat at once, and put the prisoners on shore." Baptiste again looked keenly into Carew's face as he put the question. "Do you wish us to release them when we have landed them, and allow them to run wild over those picturesque crags like a lot of goats--or what do you wish?" "Let them have food before you take them off; and leave them, bound as they are now, on the beach for this night. To-morrow I will decide what is to be done with them." "It is always to-morrow with you, captain; but it matters not. We are becalmed, and are, therefore, not wasting time by this ridiculous trifling. It is a pity that there are no wild beasts on these desert islands who would kindly eat up these men for us in the night. They are becoming a nuisance." The Spaniards grumbled a good deal when they heard that they were to take the prisoners alive on shore; but they did not dare to disobey Carew. The two sick men, who were now recovering from the fever, were brought on deck, and they, together with the other prisoners, were lowered into one of the boats. All were still so securely bound that they could not move a limb. Carew stayed on board the barque while his three men pulled off to the island. They reached the projecting rock, and found that its sides were perpendicular, so that the boat could be brought alongside. The prisoners were not landed without considerable difficulty, and even danger, for they had to be dragged quickly on shore at the moment when the boat rising to a wave had her gunwale on a level with the summit of this natural jetty, before she dropped down again into the trough between the seas. At last the disembarkation was safely effected, and the painter having been made fast to a large stone, the boat was left to tumble about against the rough side of the jetty, in imminent danger of staving herself in, while the prisoners were carried one by one up the rugged shore. Then they laid the helpless men down. Even the brutal Spaniards, when they looked around them, were impressed by the weirdness of the scene. Whenever the sides of the ravine or of the mountains were not too steep they were densely covered with trees, which had not been visible from the vessel's deck. Now every one of these trees was dead; there was not a live one among them. They were of all sizes. Some stood erect as they had grown, some lay prone on the rocks; but all had been dead for long ages. On all the skeleton branches of this forest of desolation were sitting large sea-birds of foul appearance, who raised discordant cries, as if to repel the intruders, and did not take to flight, but fought savagely with any of the men who came near to them. There was no live vegetation to be seen, with the exception of certain snake-like creepers, which clung to the surface of the ground, and which bore large seed-pods of vivid green--sinister and poisonous-looking plants, that seemed well suited to this forlorn region. It was a scene appalling to the imagination, and the whole of Trinidad is of a like gloomy character. The same dead trees cover it throughout. It seems probable that at some remote period a terrific volcanic eruption destroyed every living thing on the island with its showers of poisonous ash; and where once rose from the tropical ocean a fair land, green with pleasant woods, is now a hideous wreck, more sterile than the desert itself. "It might be the gate of hell," said El Toro in an awed voice, looking up the ravine. "Now, comrades," cried Baptiste, "there is no time to lose. I don't like to leave the boat long where she is. As our merciful skipper objects to bloodshed, we must lash our prisoners to these trees." "What are you going to do with us--kill us?" asked one of the captives gruffly. "No; we are going to leave you here, tied up," replied Baptiste. "What! to starve to death?" "Indeed I don't know," said Baptiste, with a shrug of his shoulders. "This is not my doing. Our captain is a cruel man. It seems that it amuses him to play with you poor fellows as a cat does with a mouse. This is his scheme, my children, not mine. I am merciful." The men were now secured to the dead trees, and the three villains were moving off to their boat when one of the Frenchmen--the only one who did not meet his fate with fortitude, and who showed signs of the most abject terror--screamed out-- "Oh, Monsieur Baptiste, let me go--let me go! I will join you. I will not betray you. I will help you work the ship. I will be your slave if you spare me!" His comrades reviled him for his cowardice, but he still continued his piteous entreaties. Baptiste turned round and gazed with a sardonic smile into the man's white, fear-distorted face. He felt that this was very much the way he would behave himself in similar circumstances, but he did not spare his own faults in others; few men do. "So you would join us, would you? But how do I know if I can trust you, my friend? You may betray us when we get into port. Will you give me a proof of your fidelity?" "I will give you any proof you wish," cried the wretched man, writhing in his bonds, but quite unable to move. "Now, if I see you commit a far greater crime than any that I and my crew have committed, I shall know that you dare not tell tales. If I release you and give you a knife, will you kill all your comrades for me?" The man burst into hysterical tears. "Yes!" he shrieked--"yes! Anything for my life." Baptiste laughed contemptuously. "Miserable man! Your answer is sufficient for me. We do not want such cowardly traitors among our crew. You shall stay here and die by the side of your braver comrades." Baptiste and the two Spaniards then hurried off to the boat, for the sun was just setting. They pulled off to the barque, and the mate reported to the captain what he had done. About an hour after their return--the night having settled down upon the ocean--Carew was sitting by himself on the quarter-deck. The hollow roar of the waves upon the beach sounded louder than in the daytime, and the vessel rolled in the swell caused by the recoil of the distant rollers. All manner of strange and frightful noises came from the direction of the mysterious island. It seemed to Carew that he heard groans and wails echoing among the ravines, but he put this down to his imagination--to the now greatly unstrung condition of his nerves. Suddenly he started to his feet, his heart beating violently. What was that he heard? Surely that last dreadful cry did not exist only in his fancy. "Baptiste, come here!" he called out. The mate sauntered up. "Listen!" whispered Carew; "do you hear nothing?" "Nothing but the noise of the breakers." Once more arose that awful cry. It was as a shriek of unutterable despair and agony; faint, but easily to be distinguished when the lull came between one roller and another. "What is it?" Baptiste himself turned white at the sound. "I know not; it makes one's blood run cold. See, they too have heard it." The Spaniards came up. "Oh, sir!" cried El Toro, his voice indistinct with terror, "let us make sail at once and leave behind us this horrible place. Hark! that cry again! It is as the shrieks of the doomed in hell. That island is the abode of evil spirits who are mocking us." "We cannot set sail in a flat calm. We must wait," said Carew, in a low voice. They stood on the deck and listened in silence. For half an hour or more those appalling cries continued; then they died away, and nothing was heard but the roaring of the ocean upon an iron-bound coast. CHAPTER XVI On the following day the fiery sun again blazed down upon the guilty ship out of a cloudless and windless sky. It seemed probable that one of those oppressive calms that are so frequent on this portion of the ocean would detain the barque for some days longer at her present anchorage. In the early morning, when the west side of the island was still plunged in shade, Carew approached the mate, who was enjoying his matutinal cup of coffee and cigarette on the quarter-deck. "Baptiste," he said, "I want a boat lowered; I am going on shore." "Good, sir. How many of us do you wish to accompany you?" "Thank you; I want none of you. Put the yacht's dinghy over the side. She is the handiest boat on board; and I will pull off by myself." "That will not be safe," objected Baptiste; "there is no place to beach a boat yonder, and she would smash up if you left her banging about alongside that rocky landing-place; we nearly lost the cutter in that way last night. If you desire to take a solitary promenade on that cheerful island, I will pull you off there myself in the dinghy, leave you, and return for you at any hour you mention." Carew assented to this proposal, and prepared himself for the journey by placing his sheath-knife and loaded revolver in his belt. Baptiste watched him curiously, and wondered whether this eccentric Englishman had at last summoned up resolution, and was about to despatch the prisoners outright, as being a more merciful proceeding than allowing them to starve to death. Baptiste ventured no remark on the subject, for he observed that his captain was in a taciturn and absent-minded mood; and there was a peculiar, far-off look in his eyes that the Frenchman could not understand, not knowing that Carew had been dosing himself for the last few days with laudanum from his medicine chest, in the vain hope that the drug might numb the tortures of his conscience. The dinghy was got overboard, and while Carew sat in the sternsheets, Baptiste took the oars and pulled leisurely across the smooth ocean swell. While they were yet half-way to the shore, the boat shot suddenly out of the fervent sunshine into the cool dark shadow cast by the lofty mountains. Baptiste, feeling the rapid change, rested on his oars, and looked round towards the pile of barren hills. "Ugh, what a horrid place!" he cried. "I have a sensation as if I were passing into the mouth of a tomb. I should not like to explore that island alone." "Pull away!" said Carew impatiently. "Are you superstitious, like those two Spanish brutes?" "Superstition is not one of my failings, captain," replied the ProvenÃ§al, as he rowed on again; "but those dreadful cries we heard last night seem to be still ringing in my ears. I wonder what they could have been?" "When you have put me on shore," said Carew, paying no heed to Baptiste's words, "you can go back to the barque. I shall probably remain on the island three or four hours. Then I will return to the landing-place, and stand on the end of it till you come off for me. So see that someone looks out for me with a telescope occasionally." "We won't keep you waiting, for I know that you will soon have had enough of Trinidad. But perhaps monsieur has a scientific mind, and desires to study the botany, zoology, geology, and so forth, of the island?" Carew made no reply to this. They came alongside the promontory of black coral, and found that the sea was not rolling in so heavily as on the previous day. The Englishman landed without any difficulty. "Good-bye, sir," Baptiste called out. "You will find the prisoners behind the first big boulder up the ravine." Then he pulled lazily back to the vessel. Carew was now alone on the desert island with his captives. He looked to his knife and pistol to see that they were ready to his hand, and proceeded to clamber cautiously along the narrow, slippery ledge. At the farther end he found a loathsome monster standing in his way, seemingly quite indifferent to his approach; for it did not budge, but remained quite still, its ungainly form spread across the causeway, so that he had to step over it to pass by. Carew had never before seen one of the species; but he recognised this as a tropical land-crab--one of a hideous race of crustacea that swarm on this island, sharing the possession of Trinidad with the sea-birds and the snakes. In his present nervous state, Carew was startled by the sight of this repulsive-looking creature. It must have extended two feet across from claw to claw. Its colour was a bright saffron, and its grotesque features, which were turned towards the man, seemed to be fixed in a cynical grin. Its cruel-looking yellow pincers, hard as steel, could have bitten through an inch board, and between them was clutched--Carew sickened when he saw it--a fragment of the flesh of some animal. Reaching the rugged shore, he found it covered with these land-crabs. They crawled over the rocks and the dead trees, and the air was full of a multitudinous crackling noise, produced by the small particles of stone dislodged by their motion--a sound as of a distant bonfire, or as of an army of locusts settling on a field of maize. On the evening before, when the men had landed, they had seen none of these creatures; now there were thousands of them on the mountain-side. But it is well known that land-crabs at certain periods of the year migrate in immense hosts from one district to another. Even on the previous afternoon, when the coast was illumined by the full glory of the setting sun, Baptiste and the two Spaniards had been impressed by the desolate aspect before them. But now that a dark shadow was thrown over the chaotic masses of volcanic rock, the scenery was inexpressibly dreary and forbidding. Had there been no signs of life on the land, it would have appeared less terrible than with that ghastly vegetation of dead trees and snake-like creepers, and the teeming generation of silent crabs and foul sea-birds perpetually raising their hoarse cries. Carew looked round with the sense of vague terror that is experienced in a nightmare. He felt all the influence of this stern nature so hostile to the life of man. It seemed to him that at any moment some fearful cataclysm of the earth, or some unexampled calamity of any sort, might occur. It would not have appeared strange to him to behold a fire-breathing dragon or gigantic snake--such as are supposed to live in fable only--issue from that gloomy ravine. Nothing could have appeared too strange to happen on this mysterious shore. The prisoners could not be seen from the landing-place, as the clump of trees to which they had been lashed was some little way up the ravine, and a huge boulder of black rock stood in front of it. Carew heard no sound of voices as he approached. He considered it very unlikely that the men had succeeded in freeing themselves from their bonds; but, prepared for any emergency, he held his revolver in his hand and walked round the corner of the rock. He looked towards the clump of dead brown trees. His hand relaxed its grasp, and the revolver fell with a ringing sound on the rocks. He was struck motionless with a great horror. He stood fascinated, staring before him with wide-open eyes, unwincing. He would have given worlds to have closed his lids and shut out what he saw, but he could not. It was as if some irresistible power was holding him there, compelling him to look until every horrible detail of the scene should be burnt into his brain for ever. It was only for a few seconds, and then the spell was broken. He covered his face with his hands and staggered back. Then turning from the sight, he rushed away, not caring whither, sobbing such sobs as the lost souls in hell may sob in their despair--a dreadful sobbing, that told of a hopeless agony too intense to be endured for long by weak human flesh. Suddenly he stopped short, looked wildly round him, raised his hands towards the skies, and, uttering shrill shriek upon shriek, threw himself on the ground. He rolled down the steep incline for some way, cutting his hands and face with the sharp rocks, and when at last a projecting stone prevented his farther descent, he lay foaming at the mouth and writhing convulsively in an epileptic fit. * * * * * The tragic spectacle the man had suddenly come upon might indeed well have made him, the guilty cause of it, go mad with horror. The fearful cries that had been heard from the vessel were now explained. The voracious land-crabs had done his work. He had gazed upon his victims, and he felt that his limbs were paralysed; but his brain was intensely, unnaturally active. It seemed to him that a voice had said, "Look, and grasp all that there is to see, and remember, before the relief of madness is allowed to thee. Thou hast murdered sleep, and shalt never know peace again. For ever, in the worlds to come, the picture of this that thou hast done shall be branded on thy soul!" And he had been forced to look; not a detail of the horror was spared him. The surroundings of the scene, the weird black rocks, the gaunt dead trees, everything about the accursed spot entered into his brain. He even noticed with what callous indifference Nature seemed to contemplate the hideous evidences of the crime. Quite heedless, the huge crabs dragged their clumsy bodies slowly over the stones. The sea-birds fought noisily with each other for morsels of fish among the skeleton branches of the trees, careless of those ghastly relics of poor humanity beneath them. He felt how fitting a scene for such a tragedy was this doleful corner of the earth, this island that a malevolent fiend might have created, where Nature had no beauty, no love, no pity, and where, like some foul witch, she could only conceive forms of life cruel and repulsive, and become a mother of monsters. * * * * * The sun was low in the heaven, and Carew woke out of a profound slumber, weak, parched with thirst, his mind dazed. He raised himself on his elbow, and, looking round him, he found that he was lying on a beach of beautiful golden sand that fringed an extensive bay. From the sands there sloped up to a great height domes of loose stones of red volcanic formation, of all shapes and sizes, the dÃ©bris of shattered mountains, and from the summits of these slopes there rose what the earthquakes had still left of the solid hills--dark red pinnacles: some squared like gigantic towers, others pointed like pyramids. The bay was enclosed by two huge buttresses of rock that stretched as rugged promontories far out into the ocean. There was no vegetation, not even a blade of grass, visible anywhere on this savage coast. Looking seawards he saw that a vast number of black rocks, among which raged a furious surf, bordered the shore. Beyond these were the outer reefs on which the sea broke heavily. And still farther out, on the horizon, rose three rocky islands of considerable size, glowing red as the sun's rays fell full upon them. Carew could not imagine where he was and how he had reached this place. He tried to think. By degrees he called to mind the dreadful sight he had seen in the ravine; but he could remember nothing that had occurred since then. As the sun was to the back of the hills, he fancied that it was still early in the forenoon, and that he had wandered a short distance only from South West Bay; though the presence of the distant islands and the different character of the coast perplexed him. But he could think of nothing at that moment except the satisfaction of the fearful thirst that was tormenting him. He rose to his feet, eager to reach the cascade as soon as possible. He felt that he should die if he could not procure water soon. But in which direction had he to go--to the left or to the right? He could not tell. Then he saw his footprints on the soft sand, showing the way that he had come. He had but to follow them. Dizzy and faint, and often stumbling, he wearily retraced his steps. The footprints led him along the shore to that extremity of the bay which would have been on the left hand of one looking seaward. Reaching the promontory of rock he clambered to the summit of it; and then, to his dismay, he looked down upon another extensive bay, at the farther end of which was a mountain of square shape falling perpendicularly into the surf, and preventing all further progress in that direction. An ocean current must be perpetually setting into this bay, for he perceived that the shore was strewn with a prodigious quantity of wreckage. The spars and barrels were heaped up together in places. There were vessels lying crushed among the sharp rocks; others were sunk in the sand, their skeleton ribs alone showing; there were vessels of all sizes, and some of very antique construction--relics of disaster that had been collecting gradually on this desert coast unvisited by man through all the ages since European keels first clove the southern seas: a melancholy record of much suffering and the loss of many gallant men. Then Carew began to suspect the truth, and a great dread fell on him. Lying down he placed a small stone on the edge of a shadow cast by a pointed rock, and watched it with a breathless suspense. Yes, it was as he had feared. _The shadow was slowly lengthening!_ He laid his face on the ground and wept hysterically in his despair. The shadow was lengthening, therefore the sun was setting. It was setting inland over the mountains, and thus the sea was to the east of him. So--unconsciously, by what road he knew not--he must have traversed the whole island, and he was now on the coast the most remote from South West Bay. The cascade, the water he was dying for, was miles away, beyond those great hills. He could never reach it in his present state. He was on the weather side of Trinidad. Those heavy breakers on the reefs were caused by the high swell of the south-east trades, and there on the horizon were the three islands of Martin Vas, twenty-five miles away. So he despaired and lay down on the rocks, and longed for the release of death. Then he became delirious, and fancied that he was in Fleet Street again, and was going into a tavern with some comrades to drink a glass of wine. But once more the agony of thirst woke him to a consciousness of his position. He staggered to his feet, and ran on blindly a few yards; then he stumbled, and fell to his knees. Ah! what was that gleaming so temptingly before him?--an illusion only to mock him into madness with its lying promise. He stretched his hand to it--touched it. He plunged his face into it. It was water--fresh water; a small pool left in a hollow of a rock by the last rains. It was nauseous to the taste, and heated by the tropical sun; but it was water, and infinitely more precious to him at that moment than all the gold quartz in his vessel's hold. He drank fiercely and long, before his craving was assuaged; then his senses returned to him, and, though still very weak, he felt capable of making an effort to save his life. He descended the farther side of the buttress of rock that divides the two bays, and again followed his footprints, which led him across the wreck-strewn sands to the entrance of a ravine that clove the mountains, and seemed to afford the only practicable pass across them. He looked upwards, and wondered how he could have possibly found his way with safety down that perilous place; for he supposed that he must have been in a trance-like condition when he made that journey, of which he was now so entirely oblivious. With great pain and labour he accomplished the difficult ascent. This ravine had the same character as most of those in Trinidad. The bottom of it was encumbered with masses of fallen rock, among which stood the mysterious dead trees. Here the foul sea-birds were very numerous. The air stank with the fish on which they fed; and as it was now the breeding season, the mothers were very fierce, and attacked Carew with their wings and beaks as he advanced, so that he had to arm himself with a piece of wood, and fight his way through them. After much weary climbing, often in places where a false step would have meant death, he reached an elevated plateau covered with tree-ferns--the only vegetation on the island which was fair to the eye. Crossing this plateau, he found himself on the summit of a precipitous cliff, and he looked down upon the ocean into which the sun was just setting. At his feet, far below, the barque lay at anchor. Proceeding along the edge of the precipice, he came to the head of a ravine, which he knew must be the one from which the cascade falls into the sea. After clambering down a little way, he reached the source of the stream. The cool clear water rushed out with a pleasant sound from a hole in the rocks. Here he lay down and drank greedily, for his throat was again parched with fever. Feeling too exhausted to make any further exertion, and knowing that the darkness would soon render it impossible to continue the descent down those perilous slopes, he determined to pass the night where he was. Lying on a narrow ledge of rock he fell into a profound sleep. After a while he dreamt a frightful dream. He thought that his victims had come to life again, and, having surprised him in his sleep, were holding him by his arms with a grip of iron, and were about to put him to the torture. He awoke with a start, and for a moment fancied that he saw their skeleton forms leaning over him in the starlight. But was it all a dream? What was that sensation of pain in his right arm, as if a vice were tightening upon it? He sprang to his feet, and with his arm dragged up a heavy weight that was clinging to it. Shuddering with horror, he shook it violently from him, and a large land-crab fell with a crash on the stones. The wretched man looked round, and could distinguish in the dim light that the rocks were covered with the brutes. They had come out of their holes at sunset, and were about to devour him alive. He seized a large stone, and hurled it at one of them. It broke through the creature's armour and killed it. But the others paid no heed to the death of their fellow, and crawled on with a deliberate slowness. He pulled a branch off one of the dead trees, and with this he was able to thrust them away as they approached. He was obliged to keep watch and defend himself thus through all that long night. Once or twice he dropped off asleep in sheer exhaustion, only to be awakened again a moment afterwards by the closing of sharp pincers on some portion of his body. It was a night the realities of which equalled in horror the worst illusions of a nightmare. Several times he thought of throwing himself off the cliffs and putting an end to his misery, but still he clung to life, and fought for it, as men who value it the least always will when in the presence of a merely physical danger. At daybreak Carew, his eyes bloodshot, his limbs shaking, having the appearance of one who is recovering from an attack of delirium tremens, descended the ravine as hastily as his weak condition permitted. He turned his head aside as he passed the fatal clump of trees. He reached the landing-place, and there found Baptiste and El Chico awaiting him with the cutter. Carew stepped into the boat without saying a word. Baptiste glanced at the haggard face of the captain, but made no remark on his altered appearance. He merely said, "We were anxious about you, so have been off here since daybreak waiting for you." Carew looked inquiringly into the mate's face, but did not dare to utter the question that was on his lips. Baptiste understood. "Yes, I have seen it," he said, in a low voice. Even that callous villain had been awed by the sight at the foot of the ravine. CHAPTER XVII For two more days the barque lay becalmed off the desert island, but not one of the crew ventured on land again. The two Spaniards shrunk with a superstitious terror from further contact with that accursed shore--that _costa maldita_, as they invariably spoke of it. Carew's experiences on Trinidad produced an ineffaceable impression on his mind. His melancholy deepened into a dull despair. He passed most of the day alone in his cabin, avoiding as much as possible even the sight of his companions. By means of ever-increasing doses of laudanum, the miserable man stupefied his brain into a lethargic condition, which was, however, frequently broken by frightful dreams when he was asleep, and by nervous seizures of acute and causeless terrors when he was awake. Baptiste, observing these symptoms, began to fear for Carew's reason, and tried in various ways to rouse him, but in vain. At last one morning a fresh south-east wind sprang up. Carew did not even seem to notice the change, and he gave no orders to get under way. So Baptiste approached him-- "The sooner we have the anchor up and are off the better, captain." Carew assented in an apathetic way, and assisted the men in weighing the anchor and setting the sails; but he worked with a sullen silence, making no suggestions, leaving everything to Baptiste. After paying the vessel off before the wind with the foretopmast staysail, they set the fore and main topsails, an amount of canvas which the prudent mate considered sufficient for a barque so undermanned. As soon as the last yard had been squared, and there was no more for him to do, Carew again went into his cabin. A few minutes later Baptiste followed him there. "Sorry to disturb you, captain," he said, seeing the expression of annoyance on Carew's face, and also noticing the bottle of laudanum standing on the table; "but now we are off, running merrily before the wind, away from that accursed island. If you please, what is our course--where are we bound for--and have you thought of a plausible explanation of how we picked up this derelict? Rouse yourself, sir. Think, act, and be a man again." Carew had drunk a quantity of laudanum that morning, and he replied in a dreamy voice, as if he had lost all interest in life, and was heedless of the future-- "Do what you like. I leave it all to you. I am unable to think." "Sir, this is cowardly of you!" cried Baptiste vehemently. "Everything has gone so well with us thus far, and now you lose heart when an immense fortune is almost in our hands. Remember what we have done for you, and do not risk all our lives by neglecting your duties to us." "What do I care for your lives?" replied Carew with a bitter laugh, that had an insane ring in it. "What is it to me where we go, even if it be to the bottom? Leave me." "Good-bye, sir; I will take charge of the vessel until you come to your senses." As he spoke, Baptiste contrived to slip the bottle of laudanum into his pocket unperceived by Carew. The mate went on deck and threw the bottle into the sea. "That coward will go mad if he drugs himself much longer," he said to himself. "When he got on shore he would ruin us all in some silly fit of garrulous remorse. He would disburden his conscience and hang us in his present temper. He shall have no more laudanum. I must look after him and cure him before we get into port. If I cannot do so, well, then, he must die. A pity that; for he is useful, almost necessary, to us." Baptiste consulted the chart, and determined to run for the port of Bahia, which is about seven hundred miles to the north-west of Trinidad. Having quickly formed his plans, he carried them out with considerable cleverness. He collected a quantity of combustible matter, and proceeded to set fire to some of the storerooms and other portions of the vessel in such a way that he could always keep the fires under control and extinguish them at will. It was a hazardous undertaking, but he omitted no precaution; and after the vessel had been three days at sea, and was still three hundred miles from Bahia, the effect he desired was satisfactorily produced. She appeared to have been ablaze almost from end to end, and so there was manifest a sufficient reason for the desertion of the crew at sea. The last spark having been extinguished, Baptiste hove the vessel to while he completed his preparations. He lowered two of the boats into the sea and sank them. "And now," he asked himself, "what things are the crew likely to have taken with them in the boats? For we must preserve the verisimilitude. Our story must be above suspicion; every circumstance must corroborate it." So he threw overboard a chronometer, a valuable sextant, a compass, and other articles which a captain deserting his ship would most certainly have carried away. The Spaniards ridiculed this excess of caution. "Thoughtless children!" Baptiste explained; "it is most probable that there are people on shore who know exactly how many chronometers, compasses, and so on, were on board this vessel. These things will be counted up, and if none are missing, the minds of men will be puzzled at the strange conduct of the captain. Now I do not want to puzzle people; very much otherwise, my imprudent children. For the same reason I am now going to burn the ship's papers. No captain ever leaves those behind him on a derelict." Carew had watched these preparations listlessly, assisting when asked to do so, but still suggesting nothing. He never alluded to the loss of his bottle of laudanum, and very probably he knew that Baptiste had taken it away. Early on the sixth day of the voyage the Brazilian coast was sighted, and the mate recognised the palm-clad hills that border the entrance to the Reconcava of Bahia--a beautiful inland sea, as extensive as that of Rio de Janeiro. And now Baptiste, feeling how great a risk would be incurred by entering the port while the captain was in his present demented condition, dared not sail into the bay; and, after a consultation with the men, braced up the yards, and steered the vessel along the coast to the northward, with the intention of making Pernambuco, which is nearly five hundred miles distant from Bahia. By this a delay of about three days would be gained; and should Carew not recover his senses in that time, he must be put out of the way. There was no help for it. But Baptiste and the two Spaniards knew well that if they went into port without the owner of the yacht, their tale would be received with suspicion. It would be necessary to account for his absence. Their own histories would be closely inquired into; the well-elaborated scheme might end in failure after all. The gloom of the captain seemed to communicate itself to the crew. The usual cheeriness of sailors was altogether absent during the voyage. A vague foreboding of calamity oppressed the men; and on board that guilty ship all went about their work with dismal faces, never smiling, sullen and silent, suspicious of each other. On the second day, the vessel was slowly sailing up the coast near Alagoas Bay. Baptiste was sitting on deck, rolling up and smoking his innumerable cigarettes as he contemplated the beautiful panorama that opened out before him--a land of forest-clad mountains and fertile valleys, down which broad rivers poured into the sea, while among the cocoa-nut groves upon the sandy beaches were the numerous bamboo villages of the negro fishermen. But Baptiste, though gazing at it, was in no mood to admire beautiful scenery; he was looking forward with alarm to the perils before him. At last, after pondering over it for some while, he determined on a course of action. It was a desperate thing to do, but it would bring matters to a crisis at once. He threw away his cigarette, loaded his revolver and placed it in his breast, and then, with face pale with fear but determined in expression, he entered Carew's cabin. The Englishman was reading a book, or pretending to do so. Baptiste took a seat in front of him, and commenced abruptly-- "Do you wish to live, sir?" Carew looked up. "Why do you ask? If I wished to die, I could take away my life at any moment." "You will probably be saved that trouble. I will be perfectly frank with you, because I understand you. You see that we are afraid of going into port in your company. We think you are losing your senses, and we cannot allow a madman to rave our secrets in Pernambuco. We wish you to live, because you might be very useful to us. But if, before we are in sight of port, you don't satisfy us that you are sane, by ridding yourself of your melancholia and taking an interest in this business, we shall be under the painful necessity of despatching you for our own protection. We will have to kill you, not in any ill-feeling, I assure you, but with real regret." Baptiste had rightly imagined that this cool and almost ludicrously matter-of-fact way of broaching the subject was the best in the circumstances. Carew first appeared to be lost in astonishment; then he smiled sadly, and said, "You are a strange man. You come here to tell me that I am mad, and that I must become sane in two days or die--is that it?" "I don't think that you are exactly mad, but"-- "I know what you mean," interrupted Carew, "and you are right. I have been ill for several days; but I am not mad, as you will soon discover. I will allow that I might soon have become so had you not stolen my laudanum." From that moment Carew changed his mode of life, and became much as he had been before his visit to the desert island. Though melancholy in his manner and miserable in his mind, he shook off his lethargy, bestirred himself, took an interest once more in the working of the ship, and exhibited all his old ingenuity in improving upon Baptiste's preparations for deceiving the authorities as to the fate of the barque. "Talented and unfathomable being," exclaimed the Frenchman admiringly, "what could we do without you?" * * * * * The voyage was over, and the _La Bonne Esperance_ was lying under the Recife, that marvellous natural breakwater built by myriads of diminutive coral insects, which, running in a parallel line to the shore, forms the harbour of Pernambuco. In front of her stretched the long and crowded quay, with its pleasant boulevard and lofty white houses. The barque had been an object of great interest to the people of Pernambuco ever since the tug had towed her in from outside. The romantic story of the little English yacht that had foundered at sea, and of her shipwrecked crew, who had been so fortunate as to come across such a valuable prize, was on everybody's lips. The English residents had been profuse in their offers of hospitality to Carew, but under the pretext of ill-health he refused all these; and as soon as he had handed over the barque to the proper authorities he hired a room in a French hotel on the quay, and lived there as quietly as possible with Baptiste, while the Spaniards were lodged in a neighbouring tavern. The torments of his accusing conscience having now subsided, life once more appeared of value to this mutable-minded man, and his anxiety and dread of discovery returned. It caused him great uneasiness to learn how long a time must elapse before the settlement of the salvage would be completed. He found that he might have to wait many months in Pernambuco before receiving his share of the vessel's value. The barque had been in the Recife for about three weeks when one morning a coasting steamer from Rio entered the harbour. Among her passengers was an Englishman. When he stepped on shore he disregarded the importunate crowd of hotel touts, and handing his portmanteau to a black porter, said merely, "English Consulate!" The negro understood, and led the way. The Englishman found the consul in his office, asked if he could speak to him alone on urgent business, and was shown into a private room. He placed a letter in the consul's hands. "This," he said, "is from the British Consul at Rio. It will serve to introduce me." It was a somewhat lengthy letter, and as he read it an expression of extreme surprise came to the consul's face. "This is a most extraordinary story!" he exclaimed. "Tell me what more you know of this man." The interview was a long one. At its termination the consul said:--"Of course I can do nothing until an extradition warrant arrives from England. In the meanwhile, we must not rouse his suspicions. Let him still consider himself safe. He applied to me for an advance of money yesterday; I will let him have it if he does not ask for too much. But he must not see you. I recommend you to go to Caxanga--a pretty watering-place about half an hour from here by train. I will give you the name of a good hotel there. Do not come into town unless I send for you. Keep out of his way. I should like you to be here to-morrow morning at ten; for, shortly after that hour, his crew are going to make some depositions. I will conceal you in the next room in such a way that you can see them; for it will be well for you to know these men by sight. Of course you will pass under an assumed name while you are here." "I will call myself John Rudge," said the stranger. In spite of these precautions, the ever-watchful Baptiste soon came to suspect that there was mischief brewing. One day that he accompanied Carew to the Consulate he at once observed that the consul's manner had undergone a change. There was a reserve and a lack of his usual heartiness in his greeting of Carew. It was but a slight and involuntary change, and it escaped Carew's notice. A few days after this, Baptiste was sent to the Consulate with a letter. As he came to the door John Rudge was going out. The stranger seemed startled at finding himself thus suddenly face to face with the Frenchman, and walked hastily away. "A trifling circumstance," said Baptiste to himself; "but the lightest trifles show best the direction of the wind. Why did that man start at seeing me? Who is he?" A week passed, and Baptiste saw no more of the stranger; but at last he came full upon him in front of the post-office. Again Rudge seemed as if he wished to avoid being seen by the Frenchman, and turned his head aside as he passed. But Baptiste was quick in resource. "Stay a moment, if you please, sir," he called out in French; "I wish to speak to you." The Englishman stood still. "Pardon me for detaining you," continued Baptiste, "but you understand French?" "I do." "Ah, sir, what chance! I know not a word of this horrid Portuguese tongue, and I wish to inquire at the post-office if there is a letter for me. Would you oblige me by interpreting for me?" "I don't know Portuguese myself; but the clerk in the post-office understands French." "Thank you, sir. I am a stranger here, you see. I am one of the crew of _La Bonne Esperance_, the derelict. No doubt you have heard our story?" "Oh yes, I know all about it. You were very fortunate. But excuse me, my friend; I am in great haste," and he hurried off. Baptiste returned to the hotel and found Carew. "Captain," he asked, "have you committed some peccadillo in England on account of which they are likely to be hunting after you here?" "It is almost impossible that any enemies I may have can have traced me here." "All dead, I suppose," remarked Baptiste coolly. Then he proceeded to explain the reasons that had prompted his questions. "You are full of foolish fears, Baptiste. I see nothing in all this." "Ah, sir, I have lived for so many years in the midst of alarms that I perceive the first indications of danger. When I told this Englishman that I was one of your crew, he exhibited no interest. He did not question me about our adventures, and make much of me, and take me into a cafÃ© to give me drinks, as all the other Englishmen in Pernambuco do when they meet one of us heroes of the hour." "I do not see anything very alarming in his neglect to make a fuss over you." "I do, because I understand human nature. I see dangers ahead, and I intend to secure my retreat in case of disaster. I shall arrange how to slip away if necessary. I advise you to do the same, captain." "I have done so, Baptiste." CHAPTER XVIII Carew had been nearly six weeks in Pernambuco, when a British mail steamer happened to land an English passenger, who at once called on the consul, and introduced himself to that functionary as Mr. Norton. He had that to say which considerably astonished the consul, and the result was that on the following morning a letter was brought to Carew as he was sitting down to his breakfast at the hotel with Baptiste. It was from the consul's clerk, and ran thus:--"_Sir, will you kindly call here to-day? Your business is practically settled._" "Practically settled?" repeated Baptiste, when he heard the contents. "Those words have an unpleasant ring somehow. I know not why, but I cannot help fearing that something is wrong." "I too have my presentiments," said Carew, "but I am prepared." At the appointed hour Carew called at the Consulate. He found the consul and Lloyd's agent awaiting him in a room adjoining the principal office. There was a constraint in their manner, which he, watchful for the slightest suspicious indication, detected at once. They were as men who anticipated some momentous event, but who endeavoured to conceal their anxiety. The consul produced a document, and laid it on the desk. "Read this over, please, Mr. Allen, and see that it is correct." Carew glanced down it quickly with an eye trained to legal forms. "It is perfectly correct," he said. "I have a gentleman in the next room who will witness your signature to this statement," proceeded the consul. He opened the door, and Mr. Norton entered the room. The consciousness of impending peril came over Carew's guilty soul, but he seized the pen, and in a firm hand wrote the signature, "Arthur Allen, Barrister-at-law." Mr. Norton now approached the table. He took up the pen as if to sign his name, glanced at the document, and then, raising his head, looked Carew full in the face. "I cannot witness this signature," he said. "It is a forgery!" There was a complete silence for a few moments; then Carew, whose face was pale, but who betrayed no other signs of emotion, said quietly, "Explain your strange words, sir." "It is no good; the game is up, Mr. Carew," replied Norton. "I have a warrant for your arrest, and the police are at the door." "A trap has been laid for me, I see," said Carew, as quietly as before. "This is one of the absurd mistakes you detectives so often make; but I will soon clear it up. Of what am I accused?" Carew was astonished at his own courage in the presence of this extreme disaster, or rather--for it can scarcely be called courage--at his indifference to his fate. He felt as if he were the spectator of a tragedy which was being played by other men, and in which he was not himself an actor--a common state of mind with men in utmost peril. "The charge with which I am immediately concerned," replied the detective, "and on account of which an extradition warrant has been issued, is the forgery of a client's name by the solicitor Henry Carew. In the meanwhile, look at these," and he threw on the table two photographs. Carew took them up. One, he saw, was a portrait of Arthur Allen, his friend whom he left to drown in the North Sea; the other was a photograph of himself which had been taken eight years back, when he was another man, when his conscience was still clear, and before his gambling losses had driven him from crime to crime; sin and suffering had yet drawn no lines on the face, the brow was free from care. He gazed gloomily at this presentment of what he had been and could never be again, and his mind wandered back with despairing regret to memories of guiltless days. "On the 15th of August last," continued the detective, "a solicitor, Henry Carew, absconded, disappeared, leaving no trace. For some time I, who was entrusted with the case, was altogether at fault; but at last, as often happens, a coincidence threw me on the scent. I came across an advertisement inserted in the papers by the relatives of a missing man, Arthur Allen. He had left his chambers on the 15th of August, and had not since been heard of. Carew and Allen thus disappeared from London on the same day, mark you; but there was no very remarkable coincidence in that fact. However, I happened to remember that, while searching the papers of Carew to discover what were his habits, who were his acquaintances, and so forth, I had come across the name of this Arthur Allen, apparently a friend of Carew's. The clue was worth following up. I soon ascertained that Allen had that day sailed from the Thames in his yacht; that his last known port of call was Rotterdam. I went to Rotterdam, and there, from a Mr. Hoogendyk and others, learnt that the man who called himself Arthur Allen had conducted himself in a somewhat curious manner for an English yachtsman, and had suddenly sailed from that port, bound no one knew whither, with a crew of Spanish desperadoes." The detective now took the two photographs from the hand of Carew, who was still gazing at them in a dazed way, apparently not listening to the words of his accuser. "I procured these," Norton went on. "I brought them to Mr. Hoogendyk. First I showed him the portrait of Arthur Allen; he did not recognise it. Then I gave him the portrait of Henry Carew. 'This, of course,' he at once said, 'is the photograph of Mr. Allen, the Englishman who came here with the little yacht.' Then I knew that I was on the right track. Shortly afterwards, a paragraph which appeared in a London evening paper brought me promptly here, armed with an extradition warrant. I have the paragraph here. It is headed '_A Strange Story of the Sea._' I will read it to you. '_A telegram from Pernambuco states that a French barque, the_ La Bonne Esperance, _has been brought into that port a derelict. She was picked up by the crew of an English yacht, the_ Petrel. _The_ Petrel _had foundered in the South Atlantic. Mr. Allen, the owner, and his three men took to the dinghy, and, after drifting for several days, encountered the deserted barque, which they sailed into Pernambuco. The salvage is likely to far more than compensate Mr. Allen for the loss of his yacht._' That is all I need say at present." The consul spoke next. "There is a Mr. Rudge here, who has been in Pernambuco for some weeks, who can also throw a light on this matter." The consul touched the bell, and the man who had assumed the name of Rudge was shown into the room. He closed the door behind him, and stood with his back against it. "This gentleman," said the consul deliberately, "affirms that _he_ is Arthur Allen, the barrister, the owner of the lost yacht." All in the room now turned their eyes upon Carew, to watch the effect upon him of this sudden presence. Yes, it was indeed Allen, though pale and thin, as if he had but just recovered from a sudden illness, that Carew saw before him. And now this strange being, who had fallen into such depths of crime, and who yet loathed crime so intensely, behaved in the manner that might have been expected from him. The better man declared himself at last. On beholding this accuser, who had risen thus suddenly from the dead, he displayed no guilty terror. On the contrary, an expression of great relief, of joy, almost of triumph, lit up his face, and the lines of care faded away from it. They all watched him with wonder. Then he spoke quietly, in tones that carried conviction. No one could doubt but that the words were from his heart. "Yes, I am Henry Carew. I am guilty of all that I am accused of, and of more, and worse things. But I am glad, indeed glad--and little gladness has been my lot of late--to see you, Arthur Allen, standing there alive before me. There is one less crime on my soul. Yes, I am now happy; happier than I deserve to be. I am quite ready to pay the penalty of my sins." There was a nobility in his countenance as he stood up erect, with none of the shrinking criminal about him. He felt as if he were out of the world already; he was free from petty fears now. Then the consul, impressed by the man's manner, said, in an almost respectful tone, "It is better that you should go on board the English steamer at once. I have arranged everything." The detective whispered something into the consul's ear, and then slipped out of the room quietly. Carew looked through the window at the fair tropical world without. He could see the busy quay, with its green trees waving in the fresh trade wind, and the breakers dashing upon the coral reef. Beyond that, between the blue sea and the blue sky, there loomed a dark mass. Carew knew that this was the vessel which was to be his prison, lying at anchor in the outer roads. He shivered; then turning to the consul said-- "Grant me one last favour before I go: let me have paper and pen. I wish to write a letter." The consul hesitated. "Give it to him," whispered Allen, who had been eyeing Carew intently; and Carew rewarded him with a grateful look. The writing materials were put on the table. He sat before them with his back to the spectators, and as he held the pen in his right hand, he placed his left elbow upon the table, stooping over it, his face buried in the open palm as if he were meditating deeply what he should write. And so he remained for quite a minute without writing a word. Once a slight tremor passed through his frame. After that he sat quite motionless. The detective again entered the room, followed by two officers of police. "Come, sir," he said, "we must go now," and he put his hand lightly on Carew's shoulder. As the hand touched him, Carew's elbow slipped, his head dropped heavily upon the table, face downwards, and from his left hand, which had been over his mouth, there fell on the table, and rolled slowly across it, a small empty bottle. He was quite dead! He had found a use at last for the poisonous drug which the Rotterdam chemist had grudgingly sold him. * * * * * "The prisoner has slipped away from us," said the detective; "but, after all, I am not sorry for it in a way, for there was good in the man." And so ended the misspent life of Henry Carew--a man by nature probably no worse than many of the most respectable-seeming among us. But he was morally timid; and such a one, however benevolent be his disposition, however opposed to vice be his inclinations, is the slave of circumstances, and is quite as likely to develop into a villain as a saint. A weak will is the devil's easiest prey. Arthur Allen's narrative will be given in his own words:-- "The last thing I remember, after Jim and myself were capsized, is that I was holding on to the dinghy, and that I lashed myself to her with the painter. Poor Jim must have gone down at once. I don't remember seeing him after the boat turned over. The seas must have driven the sense out of me. I came to, days afterwards, in the cabin of a German barque. She had picked me up--still lashed to the dinghy--in an insensible condition. The barque was bound from Hamburg to Rio. My long exposure in the water brought on a serious and tedious illness. I was more dead than alive when I landed at Rio, and was at once taken to the hospital. There the English Consul called to see me, and behaved with great kindness. When I told him my story, and who I was, he said, 'A man of your name came here with a yacht a short time back--an eccentric man, for he only stopped two days here and was off again; so I did not see him.' I asked what the name of the yacht was. 'The _Petrel_,' he replied. Then, of course, the whole truth dawned upon me, and I satisfied the consul that someone had stolen my yacht and had assumed my name. The consul then advanced to me the money I required. I was still lying in the hospital when the news came to Rio that the _Petrel_ had been lost at sea, and that her crew had found a derelict, and sailed her into Pernambuco. In spite of the doctor's warnings, I left the hospital, and hurried here at once. I was awaiting an extradition warrant from England, when Mr. Norton anticipated my own action, and arrived with a warrant that had been obtained on account of former felonies committed by Carew." The true story of the French barque and her crew was never known. Baptiste and the two Spaniards took alarm and disappeared from Pernambuco. Not that they were in danger, for they were not implicated in the felonies which had been brought home to Carew. But the guilty wretches knew not what would be discovered next, they so completely distrusted each other, each knowing that he himself would readily betray his comrades, either for a price or to secure his own safety. What ultimately happened to these three villains I do not know. Baptiste being a criminal of the educated, cunning, and cowardly-cautious order, possibly enriched himself by iniquity for many years more, and, escaping his deserts in this world, may yet have died in his old age, a respected citizen in his native land. The other two more vulgar scoundrels were no doubt hanged, or stabbed in a brawl, or despatched in some such summary fashion sooner or later--a penalty for their crimes which seems light indeed to men of this brutal stamp, who consider a violent death as the most desirable and indeed only legitimate termination to existence. THE END PRINTED BY MORRISON AND GIBB LIMITED, EDINBURGH ADVERTISEMENTS _The Express Series.--No. II._ A GIRL OF GRIT CHAPTER I MY AMERICAN MILLIONS It was the middle of the night (as I thought) when Savory--my man, my landlord, valet, and general factotum--came in and woke me. He gave me a letter, saying simply, "The gentleman's a-waiting, sir," and I read it twice, without understanding it in the very least. Could it be a hoax? To satisfy myself, I sat up in bed, rubbed my astonished and still half-sleepy eyes, and read it again. It ran as follows:-- "101, LINCOLN'S INN, _July 11, 189-_. "GRAY & QUINLAN, Solicitors. "DEAR SIR,--It is our pleasing duty to inform you, at the request of our New York agents, Messrs. Smiddy & Dann, of 57, Chambers Street, New York City, that they have now definitely and conclusively established your claim as the sole surviving relative and general heir-at-law of their late esteemed client, Mr. Aretas M'Faught, of Church Place and Fifth Avenue, New York. "As the amount of your inheritance is very considerable, and is estimated approximately at between fourteen and fifteen millions of dollars, say three millions of sterling money, we have thought it right to apprise you of your good fortune without delay. Our Mr. Richard Quinlan will hand you this letter in person, and will be pleased to take your instructions.--We are, sir, your obedient servants, "GRAY & QUINLAN." "CAPTAIN WILLIAM ARETAS WOOD, D.S.O., 21, Clarges Street, Piccadilly." "Here, Savory! who brought this? Do you say he is waiting? I'll see him in half a minute;" and, sluicing my head in cold water, I put on a favourite old dressing-gown, and passed into the next room, followed by Roy, my precious golden collie, who began at once to sniff suspiciously at my visitor's legs. I found there a prim little old-young gentleman, who scanned me curiously through his gold-rimmed pince-nez. Although, no doubt, greatly surprised,--for he did not quite expect to see an arch-millionaire in an old ulster with a ragged collar of catskin, with damp, unkempt locks, and unshorn chin at that time of day,--he addressed me with much formality and respect. "I must apologise for this intrusion, Captain Wood--you _are_ Captain Wood?" "Undoubtedly." "I am Mr. Quinlan, very much at your service. Pardon me--is this your dog? Is he quite to be trusted?" "Perfectly, if you don't speak to him. Lie down, Roy. I fear I am very late--a ball last night. Do you ever go to balls, Mr. Quinlan?" "Not often, Captain Wood. But if I have come too early, I can call later on." "By no means. I am dying to hear more. But, first of all, this letter--it's all _bonÃ¢ fide_, I suppose?" "Without question. It is from our firm. There can be no possible mistake. We have made it our business to verify all the facts--indeed, this is not the first we had heard of the affair, but we did not think it right to speak to you too soon. This morning, however, the mail has brought a full acknowledgment of your claims, so we came on at once to see you." "How did you find me out, pray?" "We have had our eye on you for some time past, Captain Wood," said the little lawyer smilingly. "While we were inquiring--you understand? We were anxious to do the best for you"-- "I'm sure I'm infinitely obliged to you. But still, I can't believe it, quite. I should like to be convinced of the reality of my good luck. You see, I haven't thoroughly taken it in." "Read this letter from our New York agents, Captain Wood. It gives more details," and he handed me a type-written communication on two quarto sheets of tissue paper, also a number of cuttings from the New York press. The early part of the letter referred to the search and discovery of the heir-at-law (myself), and stated frankly that there could be no sort of doubt that my case was clear, and that they would be pleased, when called upon, to put me in full possession of my estate. From that they passed on to a brief enumeration of the assets, which comprised real estate in town lots, lands, houses; stocks, shares, well- _The Express Series--No. III._ A DESPERATE VOYAGE CHAPTER I In Carey Street, Chancery Lane, on the ground floor of a huge block of new buildings facing the Law Courts, were the offices of Messrs. Peters and Carew, solicitors and perpetual commissioners of oaths. Such was the title of the firm as inscribed on the side of the entrance door in the middle of a long list of other names of solicitors, architects, and companies, whose offices were within. But the firm was now represented by Mr. Carew alone; for the senior partner, a steady-going old gentleman, who had made the business what it was, had been despatched by an attack of gout, two years back, to a land where there is no litigation. Late one August evening Mr. Henry Carew entered his office. His face was white and haggard, and he muttered to himself as he passed the door. He had all the appearance of a man who has been drinking heavily to drown some terrible worry. His clerks had gone; he went into his own private room and locked the door. He lit the gas, brought a pile of papers and letters out of a drawer, and, sitting down by the table, commenced to peruse them. As he did so, the lines about his face seemed to deepen, and beads of perspiration started to his forehead. It was for him an hour of agony. His sins had found him out, and the day of reckoning had arrived. One might have taken Henry Carew for a sailor, but he was very unlike the typical solicitor. He was a big, hearty man of thirty-five, with all a sailor's bluff manner and generous ways. His friends called him Honest Hal, and said that he was one of the best fellows that ever lived. We have it on the authority of that immortal adventuress, Becky Sharp, that it is easy to be virtuous on five thousand a year. Had Mr. Carew enjoyed such an income, he would most probably have lived a blameless life and have acquired an estimable reputation; for he had no instinctive liking for crime; on the contrary, he loathed it. But one slight moral flaw in a man's nature--so slight that his best friends smile tolerantly at it--may, by force of circumstance, lead ultimately to his complete moral ruin. It is an old story, and has been the text of many a sermon. The trifling fault is often the germ of terrible crimes. Carew's fault was one that is always easily condoned, so nearly akin is it to a virtue; these respectably connected vices are ever the most dangerous, like well-born swindlers. Carew was a spendthrift. He was ostentatiously extravagant in many directions. He owned a smart schooner, which he navigated himself, being an excellent sailor, and the quantities of champagne consumed by his friends on board this vessel were prodigious. When his steady old partner died, Carew began to neglect the business for his pleasures. Soon his income was insufficient to meet his expenses. Speculation on the Stock Exchange seemed to him to be a quicker road to fortune than a slow-going profession. So this man, morally weak though physically brave, not having the courage to curtail his extravagances, hurried blindly to his destruction. He gambled and lost all his own property; for ill-luck ever pursued him. Even then it was not too late to redeem his position. But he was too great a coward to look his difficulties in the face; therefore, having the temptation to commit so terribly easy a crime ever before him in his office, he began--first, timidly, to a small extent; then wildly, in panic, in order to retrieve his losses--to speculate with the moneys entrusted to him by his clients. He pawned their securities; he forged their names; he plunged ever deeper into crime--and all in vain. When it was too late, he swore to himself, in the torments of his remorse, that if he could but once win back sufficient to replace the sums he had stolen, he would cut down all his expenses, forswear gambling and dishonesty, and stick to his profession. At last it came to this. He sold his yacht and everything else he possessed of value. He realised what remained of the securities under his charge, and then placed the entire sum as cover on a certain stock, the price of which, he was told, was certain to rise. It was the gambler's last despairing throw of the dice. The stock suddenly fell; settling day arrived, and his cover was swept away--he had lost all! So he sat in his office this night and faced the situation in an agony of spirit that was more than fear. For this was no unscrupulous, light-hearted villain. An accusing conscience was ever with him, and every fresh descent in crime meant for him a worse present hell of mental torture. He felt that it was idle to hope now, even for a short reprieve. Clients were suspicious. In a day or two at most all must be known. Disgrace and a felon's doom were staring him in the face. It would be impossible for him to raise even sufficient funds to escape from England to some country where extradition treaties were unknown. Carew realised all this. He had forced himself to look through his _Autumn 1898_ LIST OF NEW & RECENT BOOKS PUBLISHED BY JOHN MILNE AT 12 NORFOLK STREET, STRAND, LONDON The Express Series. This Series is designed to meet the taste of readers who desire a swiftly-moving, well-written, dramatic tale, of moderate length, without superfluous descriptive or other literary "padding," but with continuity and action from the first page to the last. It contains only specially-written and selected stories, mostly by well-known writers, and each volume consists of about 224 pages, crown 8vo. The First Edition, for the Library, is bound in red cloth, with gilt top, and published at 2s. 6d. The Second and subsequent Editions are issued in handy form for the Pocket or the Train, in stout cardboard covers, illustrated in colours, at 1s. _The following have been published:--_ I. THE ROME EXPRESS. By Major ARTHUR GRIFFITHS. [_Sixth Edition_ II. A GIRL OF GRIT. By Major ARTHUR GRIFFITHS. [_Just published._ III. A DESPERATE VOYAGE. By E. F. KNIGHT. [_Just published._ _CURRENT LIST._ A Desperate Voyage. A Desperate Voyage. By E. F. KNIGHT, Author of "The Cruise of the Falcon," "Where Three Empires Meet," etc. A novel by the well-known _Times_ war-correspondent and author, describing the escape of an absconding debtor from the river Thames in a twenty-eight ton yawl, and his subsequent desperate experiences by sea and land in the South Atlantic. 224 pages, crown 8vo, red cloth gilt, gilt top, uniform with the above, 2s. 6d. A Girl of Grit. A Girl of Grit. By Major ARTHUR GRIFFITHS, Author of "The Rome Express." An Anglo-American story of a gigantic scheme of fraud and attempted abduction. 217 pages, crown 8vo, red cloth gilt, gilt top, 2s. 6d. "If you wish for an exciting story--a story which will hold you fascinated for three pleasurable hours by the intricacies of a cleverly conceived plot, and the human interest of varied character--read Major Arthur Griffiths' new book, 'A Girl of Grit.' The whole story of the pursuit of the rascal Duke of Buona Mano and the rescue of Captain Wood in mid-Atlantic carries you on with a rush through a series of dramatic scenes and thrilling adventures to a climax which is as novel as it is satisfactory. 'A Girl of Grit' is a better told story than even 'The Rome Express,' which is saying a good deal."--_Daily Mail._ The Rome Express. The Rome Express. By Major ARTHUR GRIFFITHS. A notable Detective Story of much ingenuity and interest. 215 pages, crown 8vo, red cloth gilt, gilt top, Library Edition, 2s. 6d.; in coloured wrapper, Sixth Edition, 1s. "It is safe to say that the reader who glances at the first page of Major Arthur Griffiths' detective story, 'The Rome Express,' will certainly not skip one single word until he reaches the end. 'Who could have done the deed?' is the question which absorbs the reader from first to last, and in his eagerness to answer this question he will start on at least four different scents, confident each time that now he has the clue, but only to return baffled and bewildered again and again. It is General Collingham whose shrewd wit first hits upon the right track, and puts to confusion all the theories and red-tapeism of the Quai de l'Horloge. But until the last chapter we are as much in the dark as any one of them; the mystery is inscrutable until it pleases the author to lift the veil and inform us that one of the passengers was requested to continue his journey in the direction of New Caledonia, and that another was married at the British Embassy to Sabine, Contessa di Castagneto."--_Daily Telegraph._ "Any reader who opens this book with the resolution that he will read a chapter of it and then resume his ordinary occupations, is likely to be surprised speedily out of such good intentions. The story grips you like a vice. There is not a superfluous word in the 215 pages."--_Sketch._ **_The next volume of The Express Series will be a story from the pen of Mr. David Christie Murray, and others are in preparation._ The Evolution of a Wife. The Evolution of a Wife, a Romance in Six Parts, by ELIZABETH HOLLAND. The life-story of Marie de Hauteville, a young girl of noble Swiss family. It contains many charming pictures of Conventual and village life in the Bernese Oberland, with a strong love interest of the non-modern school. 398 pages, large crown 8vo, cloth, Second Edition, 6s. "There is an extraordinary genius in 'The Evolution of a Wife.' In calm and masterful handling, searching insight, and bold imaginative outlook, this romance ranks among the finest first books of all the novelists. In the delicate manner of Flaubert, without comment, and with a powerful massing of scenes, the authoress advances to her climax; and one lays down the book feeling that certain impressions will not efface themselves."--_Yorkshire Post._ "Marie is delightful, with her many lovers and the pathetic little vanities that make her innocence anything but insipid. She is absolutely realisable; and not she alone. The little Swiss town and its inhabitants live at once in the reader's eye."--_Saturday Review._ "A remarkable story, alike in plot and character. It makes an impression that here and there reminds us of the art and the passion of Charlotte BrontÃ«'s works."--_Scotsman._ The Passion for Romance. The Passion for Romance. By EDGAR JEPSON, Author of "Sibyl Falcon." Describes the remarkable love affairs of Lord Lisdor, a young and susceptible nobleman of wealth and leisure. 378 pages, large crown 8vo, cloth, Second Edition, 6s. "'The Passion for Romance' is, at the least, recommended by that air of novelty so welcome to all, but to none more than to the professional novel-reader. The hero--the main feature of the story, as he has a right to be--is treated from a refreshingly new standpoint. He is a new sort of hero as well as a fresh specimen in individuals: neither villain, saint, nor martyr, but simply a possible human being with some strong characteristics. The vain quest and the yearning for fulfilment are told with delicacy of touch, some sense of humour, and absolutely without sickly sentiment or morbid passion. Is not this enough to prove that we do not speak of the novel of the common or British type?"--_AthenÃ¦um._ "It is a long time since we have had a new sensation in fiction. It has come at last. The author of 'The Passion for Romance' is a novelist with a style that is distinguished, and--rarissimus inter raros--Mr. Edgar Jepson is also a writer who has something new to say. Apart from the literary merit of the work, there is the story; and to say that there is nothing in fiction with which that may be compared is to acknowledge at once its originality."--_Morning._ Saint Porth. Saint Porth. The Wooing of Dolly Pentreath. By J. HENRY HARRIS. A homely tale of life and love in a Cornish village. 320 pages, crown 8vo, cloth gilt, gilt top, 6s. "A Cornish tale of remarkable picturesqueness, altogether natural and touching, full of quaint pictures of a marvellously decorative people."--_Saturday Review._ "Written with singular sympathy, earnestness, and gentle humour. The scene is laid on the Cornish coast, and Mr. Harris paints for us the splendours of that gorgeous seascape in the manner of one who feels to the full its peculiar fascination, and to whom the character of the dwellers on its shore appeals with a familiar charm. The delicate and precious aroma of romance perfumes every page of 'Saint Porth,' and lends to this homely, unpretentious tale a value and an interest that are too often lacking in novels of a more ambitious scope."--_Speaker._ "Of the many efforts which writers have made during recent years to portray various phases of Cornish life, this, to our mind, represents one of the most successful."--_West Briton._ "However crowded the novel market may be, there is always room for such refreshing little idylls as 'Saint Porth'--a simple tale, simply told in delightfully breezy style."--_Birmingham Gazette._ Paradise Row. Paradise Row, and some of its Inhabitants. By W. J. WINTLE. A series of powerfully painted sketches of North Country life. 240 pages, crown 8vo, cloth, gilt top, 3s. 6d. "To adequately express the power and the pathos of these simply told sketches, is quite beyond the scope of a review, for they rouse all that is best and all that is most sacred in our common humanity, making us feel more than the grandest rhetoric could, the brotherhood of man. Some of the characters are real heroes, and one rises from the perusal of the book with a greater respect for the men who devote their lives to Christian work in the noisome dens of our populous places, and with a large hope for the ultimate redemption of mankind."--_North British Daily Mail._ "This is a volume of sketches of North Country life, very vigorously drawn, and full of pathos well relieved with humour. It shows throughout a large power of sympathy and great breadth of thought."--_Spectator._ "We commend this book as both literature and life. Those who wish to know how the poor live and love cannot do better than read 'Paradise Row.'"--_Methodist Times._ "The work of a deep thinker and a cultured writer."--_Black and White._ Butterfly Ballads. Butterfly Ballads and Stories in Rhyme. By HELEN ATTERIDGE. With Sixty-five Illustrations by GORDON BROWNE, LOUIS WAIN, H. R. MILLAR, and others. 142 pages, foolscap 4to, designed cover, cloth gilt, gilt edges, 3s. 6d. "These real ballads are very clever indeed; we feel sure 'Ethelinda Gray' and 'The Boy that went to Sea' will live in the upper circles of juvenility for many a long day. 'The Doll's Dance' ought to be as widely read and as keenly appreciated as 'The Butterfly's Ball and the Grasshopper's Feast,' which was the delight of the children of fifty years ago. The illustrations are numerous and admirable."--_World._ "A delightful collection of stories in verse for little ones. It is exactly what it professes to be, and does not indulge in metaphysics for infants, and every little one who has the good fortune to have the volume given it will be happy for a long time."--_St. James's Gazette._ "'Butterfly Ballads' are by no means inappropriately named. They are light and bright, and go fluttering along easily. The illustrations are specially clever; the dogs, the children, and the old folks are all full of character and spirit."--_Times._ "Will speedily be learned by heart, and repeated in the firelight to a breathless audience."--_Lady._ The English Stage. The English Stage. Being an Account of the Victorian Drama, by AUGUSTIN FILON. Translated from the French by FREDERIC WHYTE, with an Introduction by HENRY ARTHUR JONES. 320 pages, demy 8vo, cloth, 7s. 6d. "This large and painstaking volume will certainly interest all who follow theatrical matters. We welcome it as an interesting and valuable record."--_Times._ "That the writings of that acute French critic, M. Filon, on 'The English Stage' have been creditably translated and published in this country, is a subject of congratulation. The completeness with which this observer in a foreign land has mastered his subject is surprising, and adds much force to the penetrating and suggestive criticisms with which the book abounds. Altogether the work, written as it is in spirited and captivating style, is one that can be perused with pleasure by all classes of readers."--_Morning Post._ "One of the most entertaining, appreciative, discriminating, and instructive of recent books upon the English stage."--_New York Nation._ "No student of the theatre should miss reading 'The English Stage,' and it should be bought, not borrowed from the library, for it is essentially a book to dip into again and again. It is full of interesting facts as to the recent history of the drama in this country."--_Black and White._ Verdi: Man and Musician. Verdi: Man and Musician. His Biography, with Especial Reference to his English Experiences, by F. J. CROWEST, Author of "The Great Tone Poets." With Photogravure Frontispiece of Verdi, and several full-page Portraits. The only recent and authoritative English Biography of the famous Composer. 320 pages, demy 8vo, cloth, 7s. 6d. "As the author of this highly interesting volume rightly says, Verdi bibliography, particularly that in England, is not extensive, but he has made an important addition, a book that should be read by all admirers of the Italian composer. It is enriched with several well-executed portraits, and is fully indexed."--_AthenÃ¦um._ "A most interesting work. Did space permit, we could quote at length from this delightful book; but as it is, we must leave it to the reader to pick and choose for himself."--_Weekly Sun._ "A book full of interest both to musicians and laymen, embellished with a speaking likeness of Verdi as a frontispiece. A distinct and valuable addition to the scant Verdi literature in this country."--_Manchester Courier._ "An excellently-written and faithfully-compiled history of the rise and progress of a great composer, studded with gems of anecdote, and teeming with an appreciation that will find an echo in the heart of every lover of opera who reads it."--_Birmingham Gazette._ [Illustration: Logo] 


