Title: When Carruthers Laughed (1934)
Author: Sapper
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Title: When Carruthers Laughed (1934)
Author: Sapper



CONTENTS:

 1. When Carruthers Laughed
 2. The Snake Farm
 3. The Great Magor Diamond
 4. The Broken Record
 5. The Taming of Sydney Marsham
 6. Dilemma
 7. The Baronets of Mertonbridge Hall
 8. Touch and Go
 9. The Loyalty of Peter Drayton
10. The Madness of Charles Tranter
11. A Student of The Obvious
12. The Second Ride




WHEN CARRUTHERS LAUGHED


Henry St. John Carruthers was something of an enigma. Where he lived I
have no idea, except that it was somewhere north of Oxford Street. But we
were both members of the Junior Strand, which, as all the world knows, is
not a club frequented largely by the clergy or the more respectable
lights of the legal profession. It is a pot-house frank and unashamed,
but withal a thoroughly amusing one.

It is not a large club, and the general atmosphere in the smoking-room is
one of conviviality. Honesty compels me to admit that the majority of the
members would not find favour in the eyes of a confirmed temperance
fanatic, but since the reverse is even truer the point is not of great
interest. Anyway, it was there that I first met Henry St. John
Carruthers.

He was, I should imagine, about thirty-six years of age--neither
good-looking nor ugly. Not that a man's looks matter, but I mention it en
passant. He was sitting next to me after lunch, and we drifted into
conversation about something or other. I didn't even know his name. I
have entirely forgotten what we talked about. But what I do remember, as
having impressed me during our talk, is his eyes. Not their size or
colour, but their expression.

I sat on for a few minutes after he had gone trying to interpret that
expression. It wasn't exactly bored: it certainly wasn't conceited--and
yet it contained both those characteristics. A sort of contemptuous
resignation most nearly expresses it: the look of a man who is saying to
himself--'Merciful heavens! what am I doing in this galaxy?'

And yet, I repeat, there was very little conceit about it: it was too
impersonal to be in the slightest degree offensive.

"Rum fellow that," said the man sitting on the other side of me, after he
had gone. "You never seem to get any further with him."

It was then I learnt his name and the fact that he was in business in the
City. "A square peg in a round hole if ever there was one," went on my
informant. "From the little I know of him he'd be happier in the French
Foreign Legion than sitting with his knees under a desk."

Time went on and I saw a good deal of Henry St. John Carruthers. And as
my acquaintance with him grew--not into anything that may be called
friendship but into a certain degree of intimacy--I realised that my
casual informant was right. That City desk was a round hole with a
vengeance. And the fact supplied the clue to the expression in his eyes.
It was the life he lived that it was directed against--and himself for
living that life.

Not that he ever complained in so many words: he was not a man who ever
asked for sympathy. It was his bed and he was going to lie on it; he
asked no one else to share it with him. Very much alone did he strike me
as being: a man who would go his own way and thank you to go yours. It
would be idle to pretend that he was popular. And in view of his manner
it was not surprising. His somewhat marked air of aloofness tended to put
a damper on the spirits of men he found himself with.

"Hang it all!" said Bearsted, a stockbroker, one night as the door closed
behind Carruthers. "Has anyone ever seen that fellow laugh?"

I thought over that remark during the next few days, and finally came to
the surprising conclusion that it was true. I'd never considered the
matter before, and now that it had been brought to my notice it struck me
that I never had seen Henry St. John Carruthers laugh. I'd seen him
smile, I'd seen a twinkle in his eye--but an outright laugh, never. So
one evening I tackled him about it.

"Do you know, Carruthers," I said, "that in the course of the year since
I first met you I've never seen you laugh?"

He stared at me for a moment; then he scratched his head.

"Haven't you?" he answered. "Don't I laugh? I wasn't aware of the fact.
Though, incidentally, what there is to laugh at in life I don't know.
Personally, I think it's too darned boring for words."

"Oh, come!" I said, "that's a bit scathing, isn't it? Everything has its
funny side. Go and look steadily into the face of the Honourable James
over there in the corner. That ought to do the trick."

"Thanks," he answered shortly, "I'd sooner keep the record unbroken.
Besides, he wouldn't make me laugh: he'd make me cry. I suppose," he went
on thoughtfully, "that there are uses for things like that in the world."

"Certainly," I answered. "The old man has some excellent shootings."

"Well, I wish to heaven you'd bag the son the next time you go there.
Good Lord, he's coming over here!"

I glanced round: the Honourable James had risen and was bearing down on
us.

"I say, dear old boy," he burbled, coming to rest in front of me, "my
old governor wants me to bring down two guys next Saturday. Would you
care to come?"

"Very much, James," I said.

"What about you, Carruthers?" went on James.

"Thanks, no," grunted the other. "I'm afraid I'm already engaged."

The Honourable James continued to burble, and after about two minutes
Carruthers, with a strangled snort, got up and left.

"By Jove!" said James plaintively, "he never waited to hear the end of
the story. You know, Bill,"--he waxed confidential--"I don't believe that
fellow likes me."

"My dear James," I cried, "what put that idea into your head? I expect
he's got an appointment."

"Yes--but he might have waited to hear the end of the story," repeated
James. "No--I don't think he likes me. He never even laughed."

He drifted away--the personification of utter futility--leaving me
shaking silently. I had been privileged to gaze on Carruthers's face as
he left the room.

"It would take more than you, James, to make him laugh," I called after
him. "In fact, if you ever do I'll stand you a drink."

A promise which I repeated to Carruthers when, half an hour later, he
returned warily to the room.

"It's all right," I reassured him. "Our little James has gone. I gathered
that he has a date with the most beautiful woman in London."

"Long may she keep him occupied," he grunted. "He is the most ghastly
example of a Philandering Percy I've ever seen. Still, I suppose when a
fellow has got the amount of money he possesses, beautiful women will
suffer in silence."

And an hour later we rose to go home. The night was fine and warm, and
refusing a waiting taxi we fell into step and walked. And Carruthers, I
remember, was still inveighing against the system by which the Honourable
Jameses of this world inherit totally undeserved wealth.

"Put that excrescence on his own feet," he argued, "and what would be the
result? Take away his money and let him fight for his food, and where
would he be?"

"Still," I murmured, "a man is the son of his father."

"Call that thing a man," he grunted. "Look here, I want a drink."

We were at the corner of Albemarle Street, and I glanced at my watch.

"It's half-past eleven," I remarked. "In a moment of mental aberration I
joined the Sixty-Six a few weeks ago. Let's go there."

Now, the Sixty-Six, as all the world knows, is one of those night-clubs
that spring up like mushrooms in a damp field, endure for a space, and
then disappear into oblivion to the tune of a hundred-pound fine. The
fact that they open a few weeks later as the Seventy-Seven, and the same
performance is repeated, is neither here nor there.

"Right," said Henry St. John Carruthers. "One can only hope the police
will not choose to-night to raid it!"

And at that moment he paused in the door and blasphemed. I glanced over
his shoulder, and then, taking him gently by the arm, I propelled him
across the room to a vacant table.

"If we get the police as well," I murmured, "our evening will not be
wasted."

In the centre of the floor was the Honourable James. He hailed us with
delight as we passed, and Carruthers sat down muttering horribly. "Can I
never get away from that mess?" he demanded hopelessly. "I ask you--I ask
you--look at him now!"

And assuredly the Honourable James was a pretty grim spectacle. I lay no
claim to being a dancing man myself, but James attempting to Charleston
was a sight on which no man might look unmoved. In fact, the only thing
about the Honourable James which caused one any pleasure was his partner.
To say that she was attractive would be simply banal: she was one of the
most adorable creatures I have ever seen in my life. Moreover, she seemed
to reciprocate James's obvious devotion. Three times did I see her return
his fish--like glance of love with a slight drooping of her eyelids which
spoke volumes.

"Evidently out to hook him," I remarked, turning to Carruthers. "Hullo!
what has stung you?"

For he was leaning forward, staring at the girl with a completely new
expression in his eyes.

"Good Lord!" he muttered, half to himself. "It can't be. And yet--"

He suddenly stood up and glanced round the room; then, equally abruptly,
he sat down again. "It is." he remarked. "As I live--it is. How deuced
funny!" And he grinned: he positively grinned.

"What is?" I demanded. "Elucidate."

"They will part him from his money," he went on happily. "And I hope they
sock him good and strong."

"What the devil are you talking about?" I said peevishly.

"If you look over there to the right," he answered, "behind that woman in
green, you will see a large and somewhat bull-necked man sitting at a
table by himself. He is smoking a cigar, and gives one the impression
that he owns the earth."

"I've got him," I said.

"Just a year ago," he continued, "I was over in Chicago. I was sitting in
the lounge of my hotel talking to an American I knew who was something
pretty big in the police. He'd been giving me a good deal of inside
information about crime over there, when suddenly he leant forward and
touched me on the arm. 'See that guy who has just come in,' he said,
'with a cigar sticking out of his face?'

"I saw him all right; you couldn't have helped it if you tried. 'Well,
that bloke,' went on my pal, 'is just about the highest spot in the
confidence game that we've got. He specialises in you Britishers, and I
reckon he's parted more of you from your money than one is ever likely to
be told about.'

"'What's his line?' I demanded.

"'Anything and everything,' he replied. 'From running bogus charities to
blackmail. And he generally works with an amazingly pretty girl. There
she is: just joined him.'

"'His wife?' I said. My pal shrugged his shoulders. 'I shouldn't imagine
the Church has been over-worked in the matter,' he answered. 'But you
can call her that.'"

Henry St. John Carruthers lay back in his chair and actually chuckled.

"You mean?" I said slowly.

"Precisely," he answered. "There they are. And so is dear James."

I glanced over at the table where the big man had been joined by James
and the girl. He was smiling in the most friendly way and filling James's
glass with more champagne. Then he handed him his cigar case, and James,
coming out of a dream, helped himself. Then James relapsed into his dream
to the extent of forgetting to light it. And the dream was what one would
have expected in the circumstances.

Assuredly she was the most divinely pretty girl. And James was totally
unable to take his eyes off her face. He was in the condition of trying
to touch her hand under the table, of little by little moving his chair
nearer hers, in the fond belief that the manoeuvre would pass unnoticed.

"Look here," I said, "we must do something."

"Why?" said Henry St. John Carruthers.

"Well, if what you say is right, they're going to blackmail that poor
boob."

"And serve him darned well right," he answered shortly. "A man has got to
buy his experience, and why should that horror be an exception?"

"That's going too far," I said, a little angrily. "You may not like him,
but you can't let him be swindled by a couple of crooks."

He shrugged his shoulders indifferently. "I disagree entirely," he
answered. "However, for the sake of argument, let's assume you're right.
What do you suggest we should do?"

"Get James on one side and warn him," I said promptly.

"Try it," he remarked. "And then see the result. Do you really imagine,
my dear chap, that you stand a dog's chance against that girl? The only
result will be that you'll lose some good shooting."

"I don't care," I said doggedly. "Chance or no chance, I'm going to have
a shot." I rose and crossed the room, leaving Carruthers smiling faintly.

"Excuse me, James," I said, bowing to the girl, "was it this week-end or
next that you asked me to shoot?"

James had risen, and with my hand on his arm I drew him a little way from
the table. "This coming one as ever is, old lad," he burbled. "I say, I
want to introduce you to--"

"Look here, James," I interrupted urgently, "pay attention to what I'm
saying." I was speaking in a low voice in his ear, and over his shoulder
I saw the big man staring at me steadily. "These two people you're out
with to-night are crooks."

"Crooks," bleated James. "Crooks?"

"For God's sake don't shout," I muttered. "Yes--crooks."

"Go to blazes!" said James succinctly. "And stay there. I'm going to
marry this lady. What the dickens do you mean by crooks?"

He turned abruptly and sat down, leaving me standing there feeling a
fool. And the feeling was not diminished by the look in the big man's
eyes. I realised that he knew what I had come about; short of being deaf,
he must have heard what James said. And his expression seconded James's
remark as to my immediate destination.

"Well," said Henry St. John Carruthers, as I rejoined him. "What luck?"

"The silly fool can stew in his own juice," I answered shortly. "He says
he's going to marry the girl."

"Quite possibly he may be," he remarked. "He's got enough money to make
it worth her while. Well, I'm going to have another whisky-and-soda, and
then I'm for bed."

"I still don't feel quite happy about it," I said. "After all, the old
man is a very decent sort."

"Oh, dry up!" said Carruthers wearily. "You've done what you could, and
you've got your answer. What the deuce is the good of worrying over a
disease like that youth?" He finished his drink and rose. "I'm for the
sheets. Coming?"

I followed him across the room, and we went into the cloakroom to get our
hats.

James and his friends were still at their table, but though we passed
close to them he took no notice of us. Which, when all was said and done,
was hardly to be wondered at. I took my top-hat and put it on. As
Carruthers said, he'd have to buy his experience.

And even as I was dismissing the matter from my mind the swing doors
opened and the big man came in. His hands were in his pockets; the cigar
still stuck out from his face. And he stood there in absolute silence,
staring first at me and then at Carruthers. But principally at
Carruthers.

It was an offensive stare, and I felt my pulse quicken a little. It was
the stare that precedes a row: the stare that is designed to produce a
row. And after a while--funnily enough, it seemed quite natural at the
time--I faded out of the picture. Though it was I who had spoken to
James, the issue narrowed down to the big man and Henry St. John
Carruthers.

I think it was then that I realised for the first time that Carruthers
was also a big man.

The depth of his chest was astonishing--and the broadness of his back.
And with a queer little thrill I saw that his fists--big fists they
were--were clenched at his sides. Moreover, for quite five seconds he had
made no movement to take his opera hat, which was standing open on the
counter beside him. He just stood staring at the big man, while the big
man stared back at him. And neither the attendant nor I existed for
either of them.

Then suddenly the music started, and with it the tension snapped. Like
two dogs who have been eyeing one another and then at last move away, so
did the big man pass back into the ballroom, while Carruthers turned
round for his hat. And as he turned the swing door hit him in the side.
Now, it was, I verily believe, accidental; the big man had passed through
normally, and Carruthers being where he was, the door in swinging back
had hit him.

But accident or no accident, the result was the same. Into Henry St. John
Carruthers's eyes there came a look which spelt one word. And that word
was murder.

That he was angry was not surprising. If there is one thing in this world
which drives me to thoughts of battle, murder and sudden death, it is
when a man lets a door swing in my face. But Carruthers was more than
angry; he was white with rage. There was a pulse hammering in his throat,
and for an appreciable time he stood there drumming with his fingers on
the wall. Then he turned to me.

"The egregious James is lucky," he said quietly. "He shall not be parted
from his money after all."

"You're not going to have a row in the club?" I said apprehensively. "It
was an accident, I'm sure."

"An accident that I like not the savour of," he remarked in the same
quiet voice. "But don't be alarmed; the sacred floor of the Sixty-Six
shall not be desecrated."

"What do you propose to do?" I said, staring at him.

"If you care to wait and see, I shall be delighted to have your company,"
he answered. "If not, I'll say good night."

For a moment or two I hesitated; then, moved by a sudden impulse, I said:
"I'll stand by to bail you out."

"Don't worry," he grunted. "If there's any bailing to be done, it won't
be me."

He turned and left the room, and it was left to the attendant to sum up
the situation. "Good night, sir," he said to me. "I reckon somebody is
going to be 'urt."

So did I; and as I followed Carruthers up the stairs I had an attack of
common sense. "Look here, old man," I remarked as I joined him in the
street, "don't you think this jest has gone far enough? What's wrong with
that bed you were talking about?"

It was then that Henry St. John Carruthers grew polite--astoundingly
polite. And when a man grows polite at the same time that his nostrils
are narrowed, the time for words is past. His hat was tilted back on his
head: his hands were in his trouser pockets, and as he stood on the kerb
he swayed a little on his heels. "I have already suggested that we should
say good night," he said very distinctly--and held out his hand.

"Rot," I answered. "Where you go I go."

"Then shall we save our breath?" he remarked.

I shrugged my shoulders: the thing had got beyond me. And for a space of
about ten minutes we smoked in silence. An occasional taxi went past in
Piccadilly, and once a policeman strolled close by us along the pavement.

"Good night, officer," said Carruthers.

"Good night, gentlemen," he answered. "Looking for a taxi?"

"Shortly," said Carruthers, and the policeman walked on.

"He little knows," I murmured jocularly, "the desperadoes he has just
encountered." And then, as he made no answer, I looked at him curiously.
"What exactly are you going to do?" I said.

He held up his hand to a passing taxi. "Get in," he said curtly. "I want
you to wait," he remarked to the man. "My friend and I will sit inside."
He got in after me. "Do?" he said. "I'm going to break up that man."

And for a further space of ten minutes we smoked in silence, while I
asked myself whether or not I was mad. To sit still solemnly waiting in a
taxi, with the avowed intention of aiding and abetting, and quite
possibly participating in, a street row was certainly a sufficient reason
to induce the query. And yet a sort of excited curiosity kept me there.
Mad or not, I intended to see the thing through.

"Sit back." Carruthers's voice cut in on my thoughts. "Here they come." I
glanced through the window. Sure enough, there were the girl and James
standing on the pavement. And a moment later the big man joined them. The
commissionaire was calling up another taxi, and the instant they were in
Carruthers leant out of the window. "Follow that car," he said. "And keep
a good fifty yards behind."

"Right, sir," grinned the man, and we started.

Now, I have since wondered what Carruthers would have done had they lived
at the top of a block of service flats. He'd have got at his quarry
somehow, I'm convinced, but it might have seriously complicated matters.
As it was, that side of the affair proved easy. Up St. John's Wood Road
and past Swiss Cottage the chase lay, and we soon realised that our
destination was one of those large and ultra-respectable houses in
Hampstead. "Go past him when he pulls up," said Carruthers to the driver.
"I'll tell you when to stop."

It was a detached house, standing back from the road, that their taxi
halted in front of, and Carruthers stole a look at it as we went by.
"Excellent," he muttered. "There's quite a bit of vegetation in the
garden. And we'll have to reconnoitre the land first." He rapped on the
window of the car, and we got out. "Keep in the shadow," he whispered,
"and if you see a policeman say good night in an affable voice."

"Lord help me!" I groaned. "Lead on. I leave it to you."

We strolled back towards the house, when suddenly, to my horror,
Carruthers started to sing. And at the same time I felt his hand grip my
arm, and force me past the gate.

Just inside was standing a weasel-faced man, who stared at me as we went
by. "The plot thickens," said Carruthers when we were out of earshot. "He
will be your share."

"You're too generous," I remarked.

He swung me round again, and once more we walked past the house.
Weasel-face was no longer there, but a light was shining from one of the
ground-floor windows through a chink in the curtains.

"Now's our chance," he whispered. "Keep under cover of the bushes and
don't make a sound."

The next instant he was through the gate, and I found time even then to
marvel at the quickness of his movements--and the silence. He skirted
round the edge of the lawn, while I followed him as rapidly as I could.
By this time I was as excited as he was; considerably more so, in fact.
Certainly he seemed as cool as a cucumber when I joined him underneath
the window. "It's pretty grim," he breathed in my ear, "but I don't think
it will last long. Listen."

And grim was not the word. At odd periods in my life I had heard the
Honourable James in varying stages of fatuous imbecility. I had heard him
in his cups. I had heard him endeavouring to tell humorous stories; but I
had never heard him making love. And I sincerely trust I never shall
again.

Gradually I wormed my way up till I could see into the room. Her arms
were round his neck, and she was gazing into his eyes with a look of rapt
adoration on her face. In fact, I was just beginning to feel thoroughly
embarrassed--even an object like James might reasonably object to being
watched in such a situation--when I heard a whisper in my ear: "Watch the
door!"

It was slowly opening. Now, James had his back to it; the girl had not.
And as it opened she kissed James firmly. James returned the compliment.
And Carruthers chuckled.

"May heaven deliver us," he muttered, "but this came out of the Ark with
Noah. Still, I suppose it's good enough for him."

Weasel-face was standing in the doorway--the picture of outraged horror.
The girl had risen to her feet with a pitiful cry of terror, while James,
plucking at his collar, was helping the situation by remarking: "I say,
by Jove! what's this fellah want?"

"My husband!" gasped the girl.

"You hound!" hissed Weasel-face.

"Oh! but I say--dash it all!" spluttered the Honourable James.

And then Carruthers pushed up the window and vaulted into the room. "Good
evening," he remarked affably. "Shall we cut out the rest?"

Weasel-face and the girl seemed bereft of speech; they just stood there
staring at him blankly. In fact, only James seemed capable of utterance,
and that was when he saw me. "Hullo, old lad!" he burbled. "What brings
you here?"

"So it's you, is it?" came a harsh voice from the door. The big man was
standing there chewing a cigar, and he came slowly towards Carruthers,
staring at him through narrowed eyes. And once again I had a feeling of
being out of the picture. The thing had narrowed down to the two of them.
"May I ask what you're doing in my house?" said the big man.

"Waiting to give you a lesson in manners." answered Carruthers.

"Is that so?" said the big man softly, and a fist like a leg of mutton
whizzed past Carruthers's ear. A believer in deeds, not words, evidently,
but it is inadvisable to start scrapping with a cigar in your mouth. That
cigar disintegrated suddenly, and the big man stepped back with a grunt
as Carruthers caught him fairly on the mouth.

And then in perfect silence they got down to it. I was watching
Weasel-face, but he made no attempt to interfere. A gentleman of
discretion, he very wisely decided that the matter had passed beyond him.
And no bad judge either, when two heavyweights are fighting for a
knock-out in a room full of furniture.

Moreover, the big man could use his fists; there was no doubt about that.
That first jolt on the face had roused the devil in him, and some of his
blows, delivered with a grunt of rage, would have finished the thing then
and there if they'd got home. But they didn't, and gradually his
breathing began to grow stertorous, and he started to slog wildly.

It was a smash on the point of the jaw with the whole weight of the body
behind it that ended it. It took the big man clean off his feet and
landed him crumpled up in a corner, where he lay staring at his opponent
with murder in his eyes.

"Had enough?" said Henry St. John Carruthers.

"I'll kill you for this," said the big man, but he made no movement to
rise.

"Some other time I shall be at your service." remarked Carruthers
politely. "Just now I think we will leave you. Come on, you fellows. I
know of a haunt where a man may obtain beer."

We left as we had come--through the window, with the Honourable James
clinging to us even closer than a brother.

"But I say, dear old chaps," he burbled for the twentieth time as we got
into a belated taxi, "what's it all mean--what?"

"Dry up," said Carruthers morosely. "Things like you ought to have a
nurse."

"But she never told me she was married," pursued James.

"May Allah deliver me!" Carruthers contemplated him dispassionately. "She
surely told you, didn't she, that her father had a living in
Gloucestershire?"

"Yorkshire, she said," remarked James.

"And that one brother was up at Oxford? I thought so. He used always to
be in the Guards during the War."

"By Jove! then--you knew her," said James. "What an extraordinary
coincidence!"

"I shall weep in a minute," said Carruthers pessimistically.

"Don't do that, old man," I answered. "Once or twice to-night I thought
you were going to break your record. You got as far as grinning, anyhow.
Can't you raise a laugh, even out of James?"

"Laugh," he groaned. "Laugh! Come on--here we are. Let's get down to that
beer. Perhaps if I look at him quietly for half an hour I might."

We went upstairs, and I left them to go and wash my hands. And all of a
sudden I became aware of a strange noise. It was a discordant sound,
rising and falling at, intervals, and somewhat reminiscent of the female
hyena calling to her mate. I suppose it must have been going on for about
half a minute when the door burst open and the Honourable James rushed
in.

"I say, dear old boy," he cried anxiously, "is that bloke Carruthers quite
right in his head, and all that?"

"What's the matter?" I asked.

"Well, it was quite accidental, don't you know--what--but I never
realised he was standing in the jolly old doorway. Just behind me, don't
you know. And I went and unloosed the door, which caught him a frightful
biff in the chest. I mean, I thought he'd be deuced annoyed and all
that--but listen to him. Have you ever heard such a row? Do you see
anything to laugh at?"



THE SNAKE FARM


Santos was at its worst. The heat, like a stagnant pall, hung over the
harbour: the few passengers who had not gone up to San Paolo lay about on
deck and mopped their foreheads. And I was on the verge of dropping off
to sleep when I saw them coming up the gangway.

They were new passengers and I studied them idly. The woman--she was
little more than a girl--was of the fluffy type: pretty in a rather
chocolate-box way, with fair hair and a charming figure. The sort that
one expects to be the life and soul of the ship, dancing every dance,
and, in the intervals, throwing quoits into receptacles ill-designed to
receive them. And it came therefore as almost a shock when she stood
close to my chair waiting for the man and I could see her face
distinctly.

The expression lifeless is hackneyed, and yet I can think of no other
word to describe adequately how her appearance struck me. She was wearing
a wedding-ring, so presumably the man was her husband. He was arguing
with a porter; perhaps it would be more correct to say that he was
listening to the porter argue. And the result, as I guessed instinctively
it would be, was the complete defeat of the Brazilian porter, who retired
discomfited and cursing volubly.

Then the man turned round and came towards us. He was considerably older
than the woman--twenty years at least, and he did not impress one
favourably. Thin-lipped, thin-faced--one glance at him was enough to
explain the rout of the porter. Also perchance, I reflected, his wife's
expression.

As he approached her she seemed to make an effort to become more
animated. She forced a smile, and the two of them went below together,
leaving me wondering idly as to their story. Perhaps I was wrong; perhaps
it was the overpowering heat that had made her look like a dead woman. At
any rate, I should have plenty of time to study them on the way home to
London. And on that I dozed off.

The next time I saw them was in the smoking-room, before dinner. He was
having a drink, she was not. They were seated in a corner, and during the
five minutes I was there neither of them spoke a word. In her evening
frock she looked fluffier than ever, whilst the black and white of his
evening clothes seemed to enhance the severity of his features. And once
again I found myself wondering what lay behind it. Was it merely the old
story of youth married to age, or was it something deeper?

Once or twice it seemed to me that he was watching her covertly, and that
she, becoming aware of it, tried to pull herself together just as she had
done on deck that afternoon. And suddenly it dawned on me. Whatever might
be the cause of her depression, she was afraid of him.

The Doctor joined me, and I drew his attention to them. "They've never
travelled with us before," he said, "so beyond telling you that their
name is Longman, I can't help. He looks guaranteed to turn the butter
rancid all right, Incidentally, they're at my table."

And after dinner I met him on deck. "There's something rum in the state
of Denmark," he said. "I can't make those two out at all. I don't know
whether she's been ill or what it is, but she's the dullest woman I've
ever met in my life. Even young Granger couldn't get a word out of her,
and he'd make the Sphinx do a music-hall turn. Just Yes and No, and not
another blessed syllable. Tell you what, Parsons, she's terrified of that
husband of hers."

"Just the conclusion I came to before dinner." I remarked.

"Look there," he said quietly. "Granger has asked her to dance, and she's
fumed him down. Well, well, it takes all sorts to make a world, I
suppose, but I'm glad some of the specimens are rare."

"I must confess I'm curious about them," I said.

"I'm afraid you'll have to remain so," he laughed. "I don't quite see
anyone prattling brightly to them at breakfast and asking them the why
and the wherefore."

But as it turned out, he was wrong. The first passenger to board the boat
at Rio was Charlie Maxwell, who metaphorically fell into my arms on
sight.

"Bill," he shouted, "surely Allah is good! My dear old boy, I had no idea
you were in these parts."

"Taking a voyage for the good of my health, Charlie," I said. "What's the
matter?"

For Charlie had suddenly straightened up and was staring over my shoulder
with a strange look in his eyes. "So they're going home, are they?" he
muttered. "That's going to make it a bit awkward for all concerned."

I looked round; a few yards away the Longmans were leaning over the rail.
And at that moment the husband saw Charlie. He gave a slight start, and
then his face became as mask-like as ever. His wife saw him, too, and
gave a cry of delight.

"Uncle Charlie!" she cried and took a little run forward.

"Mary!" The husband's voice, harsh and imperious, cut through the air and
she stopped, biting her lip.

"How are you, Mary, my dear?" said Charlie quietly. "I'd no idea you were
going to be on board."

"Mary--go below." Again the husband's voice, and after a momentary
hesitation she obeyed, leaving the two men facing one another.

"I believe I told you, Mr. Maxwell," said Longman, "that you were no
longer included in the category of my wife's friends."

"I rather believe you did, Mr. Longman," drawled Charlie. "And my answer
was that you could go to blazes, and stay there. You would merely be
anticipating the ordinary course of events."

Three or four passengers were staring at the two men curiously, and for a
moment I was afraid there was going to be a scene. Their voices had been
low, but their attitude was obvious. And then with a shrug of his
shoulders Longman turned away and followed his wife.

"Let's go and have a drink. Bill," said Charlie, "and then I must make
certain that I am not at that swine's table."

"They are at the Doctor's," I told him. "But why Uncle Charlie?"

"Needless to say, she is not my niece, but I've known her since she was
two. There once was a time when, if things had gone differently, she
might have been my daughter. Her mother died on her arrival, and I'm fond
of the kid."

"The doctor and I were puzzling over the menage last night," I said.

"One night I'll tell you about it," he said gravely, "if you'll both give
me your word that you won't pass it on. It's one of life's tragedies."

The opportunity occurred a few evenings later. We had most unexpectedly
run into bad weather, which kept the Doctor busy, but things settled down
again after passing St. Vincent.

Don't ask me why she married him,--began Charlie Maxwell as we settled
ourselves in the Doctor's cabin--for I'm bothered if I know. I once asked
her the question myself, and I don't think she knows either. As I told
you, Bill, her mother died when she was born, and for some reason or
other she never quite hit it off with her father. Funny thing, too, for
he was a very decent fellow, but they just didn't agree.

He was a stockbroker and pretty well-to-do, with a nice house down near
Surbiton. And since I bore him no malice, particularly after his wife
died, for having been the favoured one, I used often to go down and spend
the weekend with him and play golf. And it was because of that that I was
given the honorary rank of Uncle. I watched her grow up from a little
toddler, through the flapper stage till she reached the marriageable age.
Of course, I was out of England a tremendous amount, but I generally saw
her two or three times a year. And you two fellows who have only seen her
on board here--listless, silent, dead--will hardly believe what she was
like then. To say that she was the life and soul of any show she was at
is to state no more than the bare truth.

She was a topper, and the boy friends realised the fact. But strangely
enough, in spite of her relations with her father, she showed no signs of
accepting any of them, though I know several of 'em asked her. She used
to bemoan the fact to me that they did so. 'It's never quite the same
after you've given them the push' she said. 'And I don't want to get
married for a long while.'

Judge, then, of my surprise when I came back to England a couple of years
ago to find that she'd gone and done the deed. It was her father who told
me when I met him in the club one day, and I could see at once he wasn't
too pleased about it. 'Women beat me, Charlie,' he said. 'There's Mary,
with a dozen fellows of her own age to be had for the lifting of a
finger, goes and marries a man of our age. Financially he's a good match,
and he seems devoted to her, but he ain't my idea of fun and laughter.
Come down this week-end and have a look at him yourself. They're both
stopping with me.'

'What's his particular worry in life?' I asked him.

'He goes in for research work,' he told me. 'He qualified as a doctor,
and then some aunt died and left him a lot of money. So he doesn't
practise, but devotes himself to original work on his own. A clever
fellow.'

Well, I went down, and I got my first inkling into Mr. George Longman's
character shortly after my arrival. Mary, as was her invariable custom,
gave me a kiss, and I happened to see his face just after. And I was not
surprised to overhear a remark a little later which was not intended for
my ears.

'What nonsense, George,' she was saying, 'I've known Uncle Charlie since
I was born.' I did not hear his reply, but the subject of their
conversation was not hard to guess, and it did not start our relations
too auspiciously. Of course, I was his age and all that sort of thing,
and she was his wife, but for all there was to it I might really have
been her uncle. Naturally, nothing was said about the matter, and neither
of them had any idea that I had overheard. But--there it was.

Now both you fellows have seen Longman, and he was just the same then as
he is now. He could talk well when he chose to on a variety of subjects,
but it always seemed to me that behind all his conversation was a cold,
analytical mind. Never once would he allow an argument of his to be
influenced by the milk of human kindness. Sentiment had no place in his
mental equipment; a thing was either proven or non proven. And the more I
saw of him the more did I share her father's surprise at Mary having
married him. On the surface she seemed happy enough, and he, in his
peculiar and rather precise way, was undoubtedly very much in love with
her. But on the second day after my arrival the rocks ahead began to show
pretty clearly.

Her father, as usual, was in London, and at lunch I suggested a round of
golf to Mary. There was no question of a three-ball, as Longman didn't
play. To my intense surprise she looked rather hesitatingly at him, and
asked him if he objected. And to my even greater surprise it was quite
clear he did object. He didn't say so. Knowing who I was, and the terms I
was on with the family, he hadn't the face to. But his consent to our
round very nearly congealed the fish on the sideboard. So I tackled her
about it on the way up to the links. 'Look here, Mary, my child,' I said,
'that husband of yours seems to have a nasty mind. Does he think I'm
going to kiss you on the first tee?'

For a while she didn't answer; then it came out with a rush. 'It's awful.
Uncle Charlie,' she cried. 'His jealousy is something unbelievable. Do
you know that this is the first game of golf I've played with a man since
my marriage?'

'Great Scott!' I said. 'I thought people like that only existed in books.
What does he think you're going to do on a golf-links?'

'And it's not only that,' she continued. 'It's the same over everything.
Dancing, for instance; he has a fit if I dance with anyone else. And as
he doesn't care about it himself, there's simply no good going to one.'

We drove on in silence for a bit, and it was then that I asked her why
she married him. Couldn't help it; that question just had to be put. And
as I told you before, I don't think she knew herself. I think, perhaps,
she'd been flattered a bit by a man of his brains running after her.
Possibly before they were married he'd been a little more human. Anyway,
that was the state of affairs two years ago. Now we're coming to the
point.

The branch of research in which Longman was most interested was
toxicology, with special reference to snake poisons. And he had
undoubtedly studied the question very thoroughly. But he was very anxious
to go for a time to some place abroad where he could observe the brutes
first hand. And he started pumping me on the matter. I told him that all
I knew about snakes was that they made me move quicker than anything
else, but that for variety of specimens, each one more pestilential than
the last, Brazil was hard to beat.

Then one of those extraordinary things happened that makes one wonder who
pulls the strings. The very morning after we'd been talking about it I
got a letter from a pal of mine telling me that he was going out to
Brazil on some form of experimental work connected with snake bites and
their antidotes. It was a semi-Government job, a bit up-country from Rio,
and would I look him up next time I was there? It was such an amazing
coincidence that I threw the letter over to Longman to read.

'If that's any use to you,' I said, 'I can easily give you an
introduction to the writer.' He was delighted, and accordingly I asked
them both to meet at my club, left em together, and forgot all about it.

A few months later I butted into Mary walking down Bond Street. I hadn't
seen her in the interval, or her father, so I suggested lunch. 'Or,' I
said jestingly, 'will George object?'

'George is in Brazil, Uncle Charlie,' she answered with a smile. 'So it
will be a bit late if he does.'

'So he went, after all!' I cried. 'I'd forgotten all about it. Perhaps I
shall see him out there.'

She clapped her hands together. 'You aren't going, are you?'

'Next week,' I told her, 'by the good ship Oregon.'

'But it's too wonderful,' she said. 'So am I. You'll be able to help me
through all the difficulties.'

I laughed. 'The difficulties, my child,' I assured her, 'of going from
London to Rio will not turn your hair grey. Now tell me all about what
George is doing.'

Well, it appeared that George had gone out with this other fellow,
leaving Mary to follow him if accommodation was suitable. The place
seemed to be a sort of glorified snake farm, and they were carrying out
experimental work with antidotes. George was there on his own in an
unofficial capacity, and he had managed to obtain a house not far away. I
knew the country near, though not the exact spot, and I was able to
assure her that she would not be eaten by cannibals or lions, nor would
she find an alligator in her bed. And ten days later the Oregon sailed,
with us both on board.

Now, we who go down to the sea in ships for most of our lives have
probably forgotten the ecstatic thrill of our first long voyage. And it
was her first long voyage. Moreover, dear George's influence had been
absent for some months. The result was what one would have expected; she
was as excited as a dog with two tails. She danced every night; she
played deck-tennis every day, and except at meals I saw very little of
her. I was working on a report and my nose was pretty well down to it. A
pity, because I might have spotted it sooner, though I don't know if it
would have done much good if I had.

There was on board a youngster called Jack Callaghan, and a more
delightful boy it would have been difficult to meet. And one morning--it
was after they'd triced the tarpaulin up for a swimming bath--I happened
to be strolling round the deck. It was early--before breakfast--and there
were very few people about. But a splash in the pool below made me look
over, and there were Mary and young Jack having a bathe. They were alone;
they didn't see me, and they were ragging in the water. Then they got out
and sat down side by side, and I was on the verge of calling out to them
when he covered her hand with one of his and kissed her shoulder.

And Mary, to put it mildly, did not resent it.

I don't know why it came as a bit of a shock--my morals are fireproof. I
suppose it was because it was Mary. However, I withdrew discreetly, and
decided to keep my eyes open. Ship-board flirtations are so common and so
harmless that I didn't anticipate any trouble, but I thought I'd watch
'em. And I very soon found out that this was a bit different.

It was later that very morning, in fact, that an elderly harridan with a
face like a wet umbrella conceived it to be her duty, since I was Mrs.
Longman's uncle, and though, of course, I would understand that she
didn't want to make mischief, to tell me in the interests of all
concerned, though really it was nothing to do with her and she was only
too glad to see young people enjoying themselves, but that she was sure I
wouldn't mind her mentioning that my charming niece was being a little
indiscreet.

I didn't enlighten her on the relationship question, and pooh-poohed the
whole thing. But in the course of the next two or three days I realised
that the old woman was perfectly right. They were the talk of the whole
ship. Literally, they were never out of one another's pockets. And I
decided that it was time I did something. So I buttonholed Mary.

'Look here, my dear,' I said, 'for a few moments I'm going to be an uncle
in reality. Have you forgotten that you're going out to a perfectly good
husband?' I could see she understood, though she pretended not to at
first. 'Your come-hither eye with young Jack is the one topic of
conversation on board ship,' I went on. 'Do you think you're being quite
fair to him--because it strikes me he's got it badly.'

And then she admitted it; they were in love with one another. Her
marriage to George had been a hideous mistake, and all the usual palaver.

'It may have been, my dear,' I said, 'but it's a mistake which,
unfortunately, cannot be rectified. Are you really serious about this, or
is it just a bit of ship-board slap and tickle?'

Evidently it was not, and I began to foresee complications. What did they
propose to do about it? I asked. They hadn't got as far as that yet, she
told me, and I breathed again. In all probability they would never see
one another again after we reached Rio, and the man who said that absence
makes the heart grow fonder coined the most idiotic utterance in the
language. But there was one thing that had to be seen to, and I tackled
Callaghan that night. 'Look here, young feller,' I said, 'I want a few
words with you. I hope you'll take em the right way, and not regard me as
an impertinent outsider. Mary has told me how things are, and I'm
extraordinarily sorry for both of you. However, it can't be helped.
You've got to grin and bear it, as lots of other people have done before
you. But I'm going to ask you to do one thing--a very important thing--a
thing for Mary's sake. She, I assume, has told you about her husband, the
manner of man he is. Well, I can confirm what she says. Without exception
he is the most jealous individual I have ever met. Now almost certainly
he will come on board to meet his wife at Rio, which brings me to the
point. I do not want there to be the slightest possible chance--don't
forget he's got an eye like a gimlet--of his spotting that there is
anything between you two. So, for the love of Allah, get your good-byes
over the night before we arrive, and behave as casual acquaintances in
front of him. No sighs and soulful glances--for if he intercepts one
he'll make her suffer for it afterwards.'

'The swine,' he muttered. 'Oh, how I wish I could ask her to come away
with me, but I can't arrive at Cadaga with her in tow.'

'Where did you say?' I said slowly. 'Cadaga! My sainted aunt!'

'What's the matter?' He stared at me in surprise.

'The matter, my young friend,' I said, 'is that that has put the lid on
it. Cadaga is not five miles from where Mary is going. I had hoped that
several hundreds were going to be between you. Brutal, I admit, but far
safer.' They hadn't realised it, of course; the geography of the country
was unknown to them. And their reaction was wild joy. Mine was not. But
there was nothing to be done about it. I talked to them both as seriously
as I could, but what was the use? They promised to be careful, and see
one another as little as possible, but with a man like Longman the only
hope would be if they didn't see one another at all. However, as I say,
there was nothing to be done except let matters take their own course and
hope for the best. Doc, I'll have a spot of that whisky of yours.

It was four months later--continued Charlie Maxwell--that I picked up the
threads again. Longman had met her at Rio as I anticipated, and Jack
Callaghan, realising that it wasn't good-bye, had treated Mary with a
casual indifference that satisfied even me. But a lot could happen in
four months, and being in their vicinity I decided to look them up and
see if anything had.

I arrived at Longman's house in the afternoon, to find Mary alone. He was
down with his snakes, so we could talk freely.

'It can't go on, Uncle Charlie,' she said dully. 'Jack and I both realise
that now. He's coming over to-morrow, and I'm going to say good-bye to
him and tell him he mustn't come over again.'

'Poor kid,' I said. 'I'm frightfully sorry for you, but it does seem the
only solution. Have you seen much of him?'

'Half a dozen times,' she answered. 'That's all.'

'And George doesn't suspect?'

'Oh no! He hasn't an idea. He never will have.'

'Well done,' I said. 'For I don't mind telling you now, Mary, that I've
been devilish uneasy as to what was going to happen.'

And it was a fact--I had been. I had not thought it possible for those
two to see one another and not give the whole show away, which, with a
man of Longman's nature, would have spelled disaster. But when he came in
and we started dinner, I had to admit that on the face of it Mary was
quite right. He was exactly the same as ever, cold and precise to me,
courteous to her. He talked in an interesting way of experiments he was
carrying out, and by the end of the meal my fears were quite allayed. And
then in a flash they returned. Mary had left us, and he had just lit a
cigar. I don't know why I watched the operation particularly, but I
remember thinking how typical it was of his character. The meticulous
care with which the end was cut the delicate way the used match was
deposited in the ash-tray; the slow exhalation of the smoke--in each
separate movement one saw George Longman, who was now staring fixedly at
me.

'Did you,' he said, speaking with extreme deliberation, 'see much of a
young man called Callaghan on the way out?'

The question was utterly unexpected, but a kindly providence has endowed
me with a face which enables me to win more money than I lose at poker.
And I'll guarantee he got nothing out of me.

'Callaghan,' I answered thoughtfully. 'Callaghan! I remember him. A nice
boy, who was always running round after some girl whose name I forget.
Why do you ask?'

'He is on a plantation close to here,' he remarked, 'and has been over to
see Mary once or twice. You forget the name of the girl, you say.'

'Completely,' I answered. 'She didn't get off at Rio, but went on to
Buenos.' And speaking, knew that he knew I lied.

But his voice as he continued was quite expressionless. 'He has seemed
very interested in some of my experiments. Strange, too, for I have never
met a human being who is in such mortal terror of a snake. It is worse
than terror, it is a peculiar revulsion which comes over him if a snake
is near him, even though it is shut up in a box. And so, as I say, it is
strange that he should go out of his way to accompany me to the farm!'

'Perhaps he is trying to overcome it.' I said casually. I couldn't get
his line of country at the moment, though it was clear Mary and young
Jack had been living in a fool's paradise.

'Perhaps,' he agreed. 'Or there may be some other motive; who knows?'

'Motive?' I said. 'A rather strange way of putting it, isn't it, Longman?
It may surely be that he thinks it only polite to show an interest in
your hobby.'

'Politic I think is le mot juste.' he remarked, and I knew the blighter
had spotted it. Jack Callaghan wasn't going trotting round a snake farm
when he might have been with Mary, unless they'd both deemed it wise. The
trouble was that it evidently had not deceived Longman.

'Politic,' he repeated, as if the word pleased him. 'It's astonishing
how blind some people can be, Maxwell. Are you quite sure that the girl
whose name you forget went on to Buenos?' He didn't wait for an answer,
but pushed back his chair and rose. 'You'll excuse me if I leave you,'
he continued, 'but I am in the middle of an experiment down at the farm,
which I must return to.' He went out through the open window, and for a
while I sat on at the table. He knew; there was not a shadow of doubt
about it. And the sooner Mary was aware of the fact the better. I didn't
like his manner. I'll go further and say I was frightened of his manner.

And yet, I argued with myself, what could he do? Clearly, Jack must never
come over again, whatever construction Longman might put on it. And I
began to wonder if that was what he had been playing for. If he had gone
straight to Mary or Callaghan, it might have precipitated a crisis he was
anxious to avoid. And so he had adopted the roundabout method of sending
them a warning through me.

At first Mary wouldn't believe me when I told her that he suspected her
and Jack. It was perfectly true that Callaghan had been two or three
times to the snake farm, because they had both thought it advisable, but
what was there suspicious in that? And it wasn't until I metaphorically
shook her, and made her understand that I wasn't inventing it, that she
began to realise the situation. Like all people in love, she had
blissfully believed that no one else knew, and now she had to adjust her
outlook to include the fact that the one person of all others she wanted
to keep in ignorance was fully aware of her secret.

'It won't matter after to-morrow,' she said a bit pitifully. 'I don't
suppose I'll ever see Jack again. And we couldn't help falling in love
with one another, could we?'

'Look here, my dear,' I said, 'I don't want to be brutal, but must there
be tomorrow? Can't you put him off?'

'And not say good-bye!' she cried indignantly. 'How can you suggest such
a thing? Besides, George knows he's coming.'

There was no more to be said and I let the subject drop. But I was
uneasy. Try as I would I couldn't get rid of a premonition of trouble.
For a man of Longman's nature to know his wife was in love with another
man and not forbid that man the house, seemed amazing to me.

Charlie Maxwell paused and lit a cigarette.

Then he burst out suddenly: 'My God! I wish I knew the truth of what
happened next day. I'm wrong: I do know it, but I can't prove it. We had
lunch as usual, and after it was over that swine went off to his snake
farm. His last words as he left us were to tell Mary to ask young
Callaghan to stop for dinner.'

'You must be wrong, Uncle Charlie,' she said. 'He can't suspect.' She was
all excited and keyed up. There would be an hour with him alone, at any
rate. But as the afternoon passed and there was no sign of him, she got
more and more unsettled. Useless for me to tell her that he must have
been detained: he'd have telephoned if that had been the case. There must
have been an accident, or he was ill or something. So I rang through for
her to his station, to find that he had left just after lunch.

'Then he's been thrown from his pony!' she cried. 'Uncle Charlie, we must
go and search along the track. I know the way, and it will be dark soon.'

I pulled out my car, and we started off. I, too, was feeling a bit
uneasy. The youngster might have been thrown. We'd gone about a mile when
suddenly she gripped my arm. 'There is his pony,' she said tensely.
'Tethered to the gate of the snake farm.'

I stopped the car. A chestnut cob was placidly grazing by the side of the
road. 'He must be with George,' I said quietly. 'I'll go and see. You
stop in the car.'

I went through the gate. What had kept the youngster there for four
hours? 'Longman!' I shouted, and got an answering hail.

'Come in,' he cried. 'I've just got to finish this culture and then I'm
through.'

'Have you seen young Callaghan?' I said.

'Not since early this afternoon. He left here about three hours ago.
Isn't he at the house?'

'He is not,' I answered. 'And his pony is still tied up to the gate.'

He pushed back his chair and rose. 'What on earth can have happened?' he
cried. 'He left me to go there, and since then I've been here in the
laboratory.'

We went out and shouted his name. No answer. Mary had joined us. Once
again we shouted. And this time we were answered. From a building about
forty yards away there came peal after peal of wild laughter--laughter
that froze the blood in one's veins.

'My God! What's that?' I muttered, and as I spoke I saw Longman's face.
For a second he had let himself go, and his expression was one of
devilish joy. Then the mask returned, and he began to run towards the
sound. 'He's in the snake house,' he shouted, 'and he can't open the door
from the inside.'

It was a Yale lock which shut automatically and I still wake up sweating
sometimes at night when I remember those next few minutes. Inside the
room were scores of snakes hissing venomously, and the demented
youngster. He was sitting on the floor babbling foolishly, whilst every
now and then he uttered a shout of laughter. He had gone mad, and when we
pulled him out he struggled to get back. 'Pretty snakes,' he kept on
saying. 'I like pretty snakes.'

Mary, poor child, was spared that part because she had fainted, and when
we got Callaghan to the laboratory Longman and I faced one another. 'What
a dreadful thing!' he said. 'And if only he had known, all those snakes
are harmless. They have had their fangs removed.'

'How did he get in there?' I demanded.

'Curious, possibly, to see what was inside,' he said calmly. 'And then
the door shut behind him.' And speaking, knew that I knew he lied.

Charlie Maxwell leaned back in his chair. "I have said things to men in
my life," he continued, "which have seared their souls. I have fought men
in my life, where if there had been weapons one of us would have died.
But I have never said to any man what I said to George Longman that
evening, while Jack Callaghan still babbled in his corner. And I have
never been nearer to murdering any man without a weapon than I was when I
fought George Longman that evening. I am as certain that he decoyed that
poor boy into that foul place and shut him in as I am that I am sitting
in this chair. Can't you picture the hours of mental agony the poor boy
went through till his brain could stand it no more and his reason
snapped?"

"Is he still insane?" asked the Doctor.

Charlie nodded. "A hopeless case. Mary had brain fever, and you see what
she is now. I have never said anything to her--naturally, I had not a
vestige of proof--and she still thinks it was an accident. At least," he
added, as he rose, "I suppose she does. But she must think it funny that
her husband has forbidden her to speak to me. And once or twice this
voyage I've seen her look at him as if..."

He paused and lit another cigarette.

"As if," he repeated, "she would not rush to open the door of a snake
house in which he was locked, even if the snakes were not harmless."



THE GREAT MAGOR DIAMOND


I suppose, as a law-abiding citizen, I should have informed the police;
but I didn't. I think it was the barefaced impudence of the thing that
intrigued me; and anyway, what would have been the use of telling a
French gendarme the truth concerning the great Magor Diamond mystery? It
had happened in England, as all the world knows, five years previously.
But much water flows under the bridge in that time: other crimes had
flitted across the stage, and even that nine days wonder was forgotten.
Besides, as I say, the little blighter intrigued me.

I met him at Aix-les-Bains doing a cure. We were both staying at the
Hotel Splendide, and once or twice I had run into him in the bar when we
were allowing ourselves a slight fall from grace. He was a small man by
the name of Martin--William Martin, of Birmingham. At least, that was
what was entered up in the visitors' book; afterwards, I wondered.

His age I put down at about forty-five, though he might have been older.
He was clean shaven and his hair was plentifully flecked with grey. But
his hands were the most noticeable thing about him. He had for his height
quite the longest fingers I have ever seen, especially the top joints,
which he could bend back in a most uncanny way. They were, in fact, the
fingers of a conjurer, and I was not surprised when, one evening, he did
some amazing tricks with a pack of cards for the benefit of two or three
of us who happened to be sitting with him. And then, just as he was going
to bed he suddenly paused by the door in a startled way.

"Good gracious me, gentlemen," he cried, "how careless of me! You might
have suspected all sorts of things."

And I'm dashed if he didn't produce from his pocket two cigarette-cases
and a gold watch belonging to us! He roared with laughter, and we laughed
too, though not quite so heartily.

"A little proof to the Colonel," he said as he left the room, "that what
I can do as an amateur is easy money for the professional."

"Darned sight too easy," growled old Firebrace, who disliked being made a
fool of. "Shouldn't wonder if the blighter ain't a professional himself.
I know one thing: I wouldn't play cards with him for a pony." And yet no
one could have been quieter than he was. He drank the waters and
conformed strictly--or as strictly as anybody did--to the rules and
regulations of the cure. He read a lot, principally lives and
biographies, and he could talk sensibly on a variety of subjects. In
fact, in his quiet way he was distinctly good value for money.

I forget what started the conversation on crime one evening. I was
sitting alone with him, and I think there had been an account in the
papers of some woman being run in for trying to smuggle silk things
through Dover. At any rate, I know I made some remark as to the
inequality of the age-old struggle between the criminal and the forces of
law and order.

"Sooner or later they all get caught," I said, "and a very good thing
too."

For a while he said nothing, though it struck me that the faintest of
smiles twitched round his lips. Then: "All is perhaps a slight
exaggeration," he remarked, "though I quite agree with your general
statement. And yet, there is a fascination in pitting your wits against
the whole resources of the police. Finger-prints: flying squads:
wireless--all the powers of science ranged against you. Or perhaps I
should say ranged against the man who does it." he added with a
deprecating wave of the hand.

I bowed: words seemed unnecessary.

"Are you interested in what people call crime?" he asked.

"A rather peculiar way of putting it," I said. "Crime, I take it, is
always crime."

"But there are varying degrees," he insisted. "In the eyes of the law
perhaps you are right. But I maintain that the man who swindles a poor
woman out of a shilling is an infinitely more despicable character, and
should be punished far more severely, than the man who relieves a
millionaire of several thousand pounds."

"A dangerous doctrine," I remarked; "though I suppose that, from a
sentimental point of view, most people would agree with you."

"Now I," he continued, "have always been interested in the study of
crime. And from a purely academic angle, I think I may claim to have as
much knowledge on the subject as anyone, in the force or out of it. It
has always fascinated me, the lone gamble against gigantic odds. And I
feel a great admiration for a man when he brings off a big coup and gets
away with it."

"Very few of them do," I put in.

"As you say," he agreed, "very few of them do. All the more power then to
the very few."

"And even if they get away to begin with," I said, "the pitcher always
goes to the well once too often."

"Always?" He raised his eyebrows. "I wonder."

"It's easy to wonder," I said, a little nettled. "There can be no proof
either way. After all, if a man isn't caught, it may merely mean that he
has given it up and is running straight."

"Of course," he agreed. "And yet that doesn't alter my argument. It may
be that by the time he has given it up he has been so successful that it
is unnecessary for him to continue. Naturally, I am not alluding to the
petty burglar--the man who breaks into villa residences and pinches the
spoons. The man I am referring to is the really big one, who plans
perhaps one or, at the most, two coups a year. Who plots and plans and
contrives for each of them as an artist does, and whose risk of being
caught in his one coup is greater than the little man in his many,
because he has so much more to contend with."

"Can you give an example?" I said, interested in spite of myself.

"Many," he answered. "There was the case of the two Vandycks stolen from
the chateau of the Prince de Perpignan: the celebrated mail-bag robbery
on the liner between Southampton and Cherbourg six months ago: a dozen I
could mention. But I think that the one that might amuse you most was
the removal of the great Magor diamond from its so-called lawful owner,
Sir Rube Jenkins, five years ago."

"Why so-called?" I put in.

He shrugged his shoulders. "You surely know Rube Jenkins's past history,"
he said. "And the less said about it the better. To my own knowledge
there were at least three men who had a prior claim to that stone.
However, that is beside the point. Do you recall the story at all?"

"Vaguely," I said. "I remember there was the devil of a song and dance
about it in the newspapers."

"And quite right, too," he remarked with spirit. "A work of art is a work
of art, whatever be the medium in which it is expressed. And I maintain
that that robbery was a very fine example of such a work. I will, if it
does not bore you, run over the salient points of the case, and you can
judge for yourself."

"There is nothing I should like more," I assured him.

He settled himself comfortably in his chair and lit a cigarette.

"To make things quite clear," he began, "I will go back some years. Mr.
Rube Jenkins, as he then was, was one of those products of South Africa
who made their money round Kimberley during the diamond rush. And, to put
the matter mildly, he was not the most scrupulous of them. It was never
brought home to him, but against his name in the dossiers out there the
three letters I.D.B. were written in letters of red. Time went on, and
from being the owner of a small store he grew to be a wealthy man and
finally a millionaire many times over. And it was at that latter stage of
his career that the great Magor diamond came into his possession in
circumstances which do not bear looking into. At least two men got knifed
in the process, and another was shot in a most suspicious manner. Anyway,
Rube got the diamond, while three other men got varying terms of
imprisonment. And it is of interest to note that all three of them,
before they left the court for jail, swore openly from the dock that they
would be even with him.

"A month or two later Rube returned to England, bringing with him his
wife. And the lady was about the only thing Rube ever possessed in his
life that he deserved. It is hard to say which was the more impossible
being of the two. In fact, one can only paraphrase the old chestnut of
the man at the country hotel: 'Waiter, if this is tea, bring me coffee;
and if it's coffee, I'll have tea.' So with Rube and his wife. When you
were with either of them alone, it was impossible not to believe that the
other was less repulsive. So you sought the other, and found you were
wrong. However, their wealth was fabulous, and when they bought Mexbridge
Towers, and started spending a fortune on the Turf, Society gradually
began to take them up. In fact, you may remember that the year War broke
out the devastating spectacle was seen of both of them in the Royal
Enclosure at Ascot.

"During the War they turned Mexbridge Towers into a hospital, supplied a
Red Cross train in France, and did all the usual things necessary to turn
Mrs. Jenkins into Lady of that ilk. And in the fullness of time Rube was
made a Knight of the British Empire, which caused those who knew him best
to shake with silent laughter.

"The War ended: the wounded were drafted away to other hospitals, and Sir
Rube and Lady Jenkins returned to Mexbridge Towers prepared to continue
their assault on Society. They bought Old Masters and tapestries, and
first editions, and scattered them indiscriminately about the house. They
had fifty gardeners, and twenty Rolls-Royces--or perhaps I've reversed
the figures: they had grouse moors and deer forests, and salmon rivers.
And finally they had the great Magor diamond.

"During the War this celebrated stone had been stored in the strong-room
of Rube's bank in London, but now that they had come into residence again
he determined that this, his crowning glory, must be on view. And so he
had a specially embossed golden cabinet of incredible vulgarity made for
it.

"You have doubtless passed at times the window of one of the super
chocolate shops in London or Paris, and you have seen reposing in the
middle one lone bon-bon. It lies there supreme, with nothing else to
distract one's attention. This, then, was his idea. Alone, on a black
velvet throne in the middle of the golden cabinet reposed the diamond.
The lid was of glass, and cunningly concealed lights shone on this apple
of his eye till the reflection almost dazzled the spectator.

"The cabinet, on its four monstrous legs, stood in a downstairs room,
which at first sight struck one as being dangerous. But Rube was, in
reality, taking no risks. Every known form of burglar-proof apparatus
protected that apparently harmless-looking cabinet. The glass, though
flawless, was an inch thick: the lock was a special combination, one that
was reset daily by Rube himself. But he went much further than that. Not
only were the windows and the door fitted with electric alarms that rang
all over the house if they were tampered with, but the cabinet itself,
when set, gave anyone who touched it a shock which, even if not strong
enough to electrocute them, was powerful enough to lay them out
temporarily. And when, in addition to all that, it was known that the
diamond was always returned to the London bank when Sir Rube was not in
residence, you will realise that it was a pretty tough nut for any
burglar to crack.

"But there were still further difficulties to contend with. Two of the
men who had gone to prison vowing vengeance against Rube were accounted
for. One had died in jail: the other had gone over with the South African
contingent and had been killed at Delville Wood. But the third, and most
dangerous, still remained. And the Knight of the British Empire was
taking no chances. In addition to carrying, himself, a six-shooter with
which he was a deadly performer, he kept a couple of prize-fighting
toughs about the place as a sort of personal bodyguard. They remained in
the background if a house party was there, because their appearance was
so awful that they used to spoil the guests' appetites if seen. But their
orders were to deal in their own way with any unauthorised man whom they
saw loitering in the grounds or near the house."

The little man paused and lit another cigarette.

"So, as I said before," he continued. "I think you will agree that the
removal of the Magor diamond was a pretty tough proposition. And that
being the case, it was all the greater incentive to the big men to try.
Human nature is the same in all branches of life, and the greater the
difficulties the keener the zest in overcoming them. But, though two or
three attempts were made, failure was registered each time. One man, it
is true, negotiated the burglar-proof window in some extraordinary way,
but was defeated by the cabinet itself. In fact, when he was found next
morning, he was only just alive.

"And so, as years passed and the great Magor diamond still remained in
its golden casket. Sir Rube, though he never relaxed his precautions,
became more or less contemptuous in his references to the abilities of
what he was pleased to call the underworld.

"'Show me the man who will lift that stone he was wont to say, 'and I'll
give ten thousand pounds to any charity you like to mention.'

"It was six years ago that the third man of whom I have told you was
liberated from jail. His name was Mark Sanderson, and he was just about
as dangerous a wild beast as you are ever likely to meet. He had always
been a wrong un, but his life in prison had made him a hundred times
worse. And, somewhat naturally, Rube Jenkins was the principal object of
his hatred.

"No sooner had he landed in England than he began to write threatening
letters, and Sir Rube at once put the matter in the hands of the police.
With a very strange result--one of the strangest perhaps in the whole of
the baffling case. Though he gave the police a description of the man,
which they supplemented by reference to South Africa, no trace of Mark
Sanderson was ever discovered. He was known to have embarked at Cape
Town: he was known to have landed at Southampton, but from that moment he
vanished completely, though the letters continued to arrive from widely
separated parts of the country with monotonous regularity. It took, of
course, a day at least for each one to arrive, and by that time the
postmark was useless. Nevertheless, it was a very extraordinary thing,
that a man for whom the entire police force was looking should be able to
hide himself for nearly a year in England; for it was eleven months after
Mark Sanderson landed that the robbery took place. During that time Sir
Rube was not idle, He had an electrician down to overhaul and strengthen
the whole system round the cabinet. He engaged another prize-fighter to
make the total three. But one thing he would not do. To every suggestion
that he should store the diamond permanently at his bank he turned a deaf
ear. He utterly refused to confess to being frightened of Mark Sanderson,
and to do that would have been tantamount to such a confession.

"And so we come to the house party which assembled at Mexbridge Towers
for Ascot in the year of the crime, of which, even at the risk of boring
you, I will give you a list. There were the Earl and Countess of
Shotover; a Colonel and Mrs. Maddox; a stockbroker named Leader and his
wife; Professor Rankel, the well-known art connoisseur and enthusiastic
lepidopterist; Aaronhaus, the big Hatton Garden diamond man; two girls,
whose names I forget, and the host and hostess.

"Not, as you will agree, a very well assorted lot, but Rube, even then,
had to be content with what he could get. The Shotovers, as you know, go
anywhere provided they are done well; Colonel Maddox and his wife were of
much the same brand. They were all four of them chronically hard up. The
stockbroker was the senior partner of the firm that Rube employed most;
the diamond man was also a business acquaintance; while Professor Rankel
had, after much pressing, been persuaded to come to give his opinion on
the art treasures. And finally the two girls were there merely to make up
the numbers.

"Such, then, was the party that went in to dinner on the night of the
Gold Cup. They had all been over to the races: even the Professor had
been inveigled into going for the first time in his life. 'It has been a
long-standing promise of mine to come and see your collection,' he told
his host, 'but attending a horse-race was not part of the bargain.
However, if you insist, I will go.'

"And he had gone, leaving Shotover fainting in the hall at his rig. 'My
dear Jenkins,' he said feebly, 'the little man can't wear a frock-coat
and a bowler. He can't. He mustn't. We shall all be assassinated on the
course. And what in the name of fortune is he taking a butterfly-net
for?' It was, I may mention, a peculiar fad of the Professor's to carry a
butterfly-net and killing-bottle with him wherever he went, and it was
only with considerable difficulty, on this occasion, that he was
persuaded to leave them in the car. So great was his enthusiasm for his
hobby that had he seen any specimen he wanted fluttering over the course,
he would probably have pursued it quite heedless of the racing. But the
danger had been averted and a very cheerful party sat down to dine.
Shotover had backed a couple of long-priced winners: a horse of Rube's
had won one of the smaller races, and a Duchess had nodded to Lady
Jenkins by mistake.

"Then quite suddenly the atmosphere changed. A letter was handed on a
salver to Rube, and the instant he saw it his face turned purple.

"'When did this come?' he roared.

"'Just been delivered, Sir Rube,' said the butler.

"'Search the grounds, Wilcox,' cried his master. 'Tell Robinson and the
others to look everywhere.' Robinson was the chief of the three
prize-fighters. 'The insolence of the scoundrel!' he went on furiously.
'It's that blackguard Sanderson again. You remember I told you about him,
Shotover?'

"'Why not open the note and see what he has to say?' said the other
languidly. Which proceeding made matters worse. Sir Rube's voice became
so suffused with rage as to become inaudible, and Lady Shotover, after a
moment or two, calmly removed it from his hand.

"'You poor fish,' she read aloud, 'I dare you to hand round the diamond
as usual to-night.'

"Now, I may tell you it was the invariable custom, when a house party
assembled at Mexbridge Towers, to pass the Magor diamond round from hand
to hand one evening after dinner. It was done with due ceremony, and the
pleasing idea underlying the performance was that all the honoured guests
should be able to say in the future that they had held in their hands for
a moment a thing the value of which would have saved hundreds of poor
people from starvation.

"'Dares me!' spluttered Sir Rube. 'Dares me! I'll show the rotten cur
what I dare and what I don't! And what's more, I'll catch him this time,
if he gives me half a chance. I'll show those blundering fools of police
how to do their own job.'"

The meal proceeded, but the harmony of the evening was shattered. And
things were not improved when they adjourned after dinner, by the
Professor, who had in a fit of absent-mindedness left his butterfly-net
on the sofa usually patronised by Mrs. Maddox. The lady was about to sit
down when his shout of anguish rent the air. 'Woman!' he yelled, 'don't
sit down.'

"By a supreme feat of contortion she complied with his request, and
glaring at her wrathfully the Professor removed his net and
killing-bottle.

"'Six sofas in this room', he rumbled, 'and you must needs choose this
one!'

"'How dare you call me woman!' she said shrilly.

"'I thought you were one,' he answered calmly, 'but you know best.
Anyway, whatever you are, there's no cause to break my butterfly-net.'
He placed it carefully in a corner and began wandering round the room
inspecting the pictures. And he was keeping up a running commentary on
the unspeakable manner in which they were hung when his host entered
with a large revolver in his hand. The ladies shrieked, but Sir Rube
held up his hand reassuringly.

"'Please do not be alarmed', he remarked. 'I am just going to say a few
words, if I may, for the benefit of those of you who do not know the
facts. This evening at dinner the note which I received upset me greatly.
It was from a man who has been annoying me considerably for some months
past: a man, I may say, who imagines he has some grudge against me. Now,
since this note was delivered by hand, the assumption is that the man is
about the place. He dared me, you may remember, to carry out the little
ceremony of handing round the great Magor diamond. Had it not been for
this note I should have postponed it till the last evening of your visit;
as it is, however, I propose to kill, if I can, two birds with one stone.

"'Knowing this man to be a desperate character, I think it more than
likely that he will make some attempt at a hold-up. He is probably hoping
that the effect of his note will be exactly what we are going to let it
be. Bluff, you perceive, of the second degree. Now then--what will occur
if my surmise is correct? He will enter by the window, which we will open
to its full width, and cover us with his revolver. We shall all put up
our hands, and at that moment my three men who are hidden on each side of
the window will collar him from behind.'

"'That's all very well,' said the Professor, nervously, 'but supposing he
lets off his gun? He might hit somebody.'

"'Don't you worry about that, Professor,' laughed Sir Rube. 'My men will
see to that. And if there is any trouble, there is always this.' He
patted his own revolver significantly. 'Now we will start. But there is
one thing I beg of you, ladies--try to appear quite natural. Don't keep
glancing at the window, or anything of that sort, or it may give the show
away. Leader, would you mind opening it as wide as you can? Thank you.
Now if we form a circle: that's right.'

"He placed his revolver on a table behind the cabinet, so that it was
quite invisible from the window; then with a flourish he opened the lid.
'The great Magor diamond, ladies and gentlemen,' he said grandiloquently,
but, in spite of his warning to the others, his eyes kept darting towards
the window. 'The largest and most perfect stone in the world.'

"He picked it up on its velvet stand and with a low bow presented it to
Lady Shotover. 'Take it in your hands and feel the weight, dear lady,' he
cried. And then in an undertone he added: 'I'm getting back to my
revolver.'

"It passed from hand to hand, and everybody dutifully gave forth gurgles
of wonder and delight, though it was noticeable that it moved with a
rapidity that suggested a red hot stone. No one had the slightest wish to
be the temporary possessor of it when the expected visitor materialised.
Until, that is, it came to the Professor, who was beyond any thought of
such a trifle as the Magor diamond. One of the girls had put it in his
hand, but he was quite unconscious of it. For he was staring at a spot on
the carpet opposite him, and his eyes were almost coming out of his head.

"'Look,' he whispered hoarsely. 'Heavens! but it is. I know it is. Here,
take the bauble.' He literally threw the diamond at Mrs. Maddox, who was
sitting next to him, leaped like a maniac for his butterfly-net, and the
next moment with a sweep he brought it down on the floor.

"'It is!' he shrieked in an ecstasy, examining the net. 'The
killing-bottle! Give me the killing-bottle!'

"'What on earth is it?' cried his host irritably.

"'The killing-bottle! cried the Professor. 'Hurry! hurry!' Somebody gave
him the bottle, and with infinite care he inserted it under the net. 'A
Death's Head moth,' he explained. 'And a perfect specimen. What luck!
What incredible luck!'

"He straightened up and beamed on the company.

"'What a ridiculous fuss to make over a butterfly!' said Mrs. Maddox
acidly, but the Professor was impervious to insult. With his
killing-bottle in his hands he sat crooning gently to himself, whilst
every now and then he held it up to the light to examine it better.

"'After which entertaining interlude,' remarked his host sarcastically,
'we might perhaps return to the trifling subject of my diamond.'

"Mrs. Maddox was still holding it, and once more it started on its round,
amidst a chorus of praise. But somehow it rang a little flat; the
solemnity of the moment had been spoiled. And Sir Rube, quite
justifiably, felt ruffled. Why the deuce did the little fool want to go
prancing after a wretched moth in the middle of the ceremony?

"The diamond came to Aaronhaus. Now, at any rate, would come the real
appreciation of an expert. 'What do you think of that, my boy?' he said
complacently. 'Something like a diamond--what?'

"The Jew looked at it; then at his host. 'Very like it.' he agreed
courteously. 'Of course, my dear Jenkins, I should have realised that
with the possibility of this man trying to get your stone you would take
additional precautions. Still, I congratulate you, I must say.' He
examined it again critically. 'Perfect,' he remarked.. 'Perfect. Who did
it for you?'

"A sudden silence settled on the room. 'What the hell are you talking
about? said Sir Rube thickly.

"'This,' said the Jew. 'It's paste, and very perfect paste. And I
wondered who had done it.'

"'You lie!' roared his host, snatching it out of the Jew's hand. He
examined it himself; then he let it drop on the floor.

"'By God!' 'he said softly, 'you're right!' His eyes roved round the
silent circle of people, and there was murder in them. Sir Rube Jenkins
of Mexbridge Towers had departed; Rube Jenkins of the mining camp had
taken his place. 'Which of you--did it?' he said even more softly.

"Lord Shotover rose to his feet. 'We have the misfortune to be your
guests,' he remarked icily.. 'And as their temporary spokesman I have the
honour to inform you that a man who can use the word you have just used
in the presence of ladies is a cad and an outsider of the first water.'

"'Maybe,' said the other thickly, picking up his revolver. 'But no one
leaves this room till my diamond is handed back. I'll give the culprit
half a minute: if it's not forthcoming by then, I send for the police.'

"'What exactly is your accusation? demanded Colonel Maddox.

"'A very simple one,' said the other. 'In the course of my diamond being
handed round, somebody has substituted this paste thing for it. Where is
the real one?'

"'Probably in that ridiculous bottle of the Professor's,' said Mrs.
Maddox venomously.

"One of the girls gave a nervous little laugh, and then gasped. For the
entire room was staring at Professor Rankel, whose face had gone the
colour of putty.

"'Ridiculous,' he spluttered. 'Absurd.' He clutched the bottle even
tighter as Sir Rube advanced towards him. 'I tell you it is absurd!' he
cried shrilly.

"'You look as if it was,' snarled his host, levelling his revolver at the
Professor's head. 'Give me that bottle!'

"He snatched it from the other's hands, opened it and turned it upside
down. And there fell out a very dead moth and the great Magor diamond.

"'You dirty little thief,' said Sir Rube softly as he picked it up. 'So
that is why you were prancing round with a butterfly-net.' And then he
broke off abruptly, and peered at the diamond. 'But I don't understand,'
he stuttered. 'This is paste too!' And even the so-called Professor
looked astounded.

"'Am I going dippy?' Sir Rube cried. 'Look, Aaronhaus! That's paste,
isn't it?'

"'It certainly is,' agreed the Jew.

"'Then where is my diamond?' said Sir Rube feebly, and Colonel Maddox
smiled behind his hand.

"'Where indeed?' he murmured pointedly.

"'What do you mean?' demanded the other.

"'As to where your diamond is, I'm afraid I can't help you,' said the
soldier, 'except to remark that it certainly is not in this room.'

"'But it was,' spluttered the other. 'You all saw me take it out of the
cabinet.'

"'We saw nothing of the sort,' answered the soldier. 'We saw you take
something out of the cabinet which you told us was the diamond, and which
we believed to be the diamond.' A murmur of assent came from the others.
'This--er--person,' continued Colonel Maddox, indicating the Professor,
had evidently conceived the friendly idea of substituting a paste stone
for the genuine one. Unfortunately--or, perhaps, in view of that chance
shot of my wife's, fortunately for him--he only substituted one piece of
paste for another.'

"'Do you mean to say I shouldn't have noticed that it was paste when I
took it out?' cried Sir Rube.

"'Hold hard again,' said Lord Shotover. 'You didn't take it in your hand.
You gave it to my wife on that velvet thing.'

"And once more there came a murmur of assent. 'I expect that man you were
talking about stole it before we came in,' said one of the girls, and Sir
Rube--all the bluster out of him--could only stare at her dazedly.

"'That is a possible solution,' agreed the soldier. 'And if so, I fear
he's away by this time. But you must go back further. When was the last
time you actually handled the diamond yourself, Jenkins?'

"'About three months ago.'

"The Colonel shrugged his shoulders. 'Then at any time during those three
months the substitution may have taken place,' he remarked. I'm very
sorry for you, my dear fellow, especially as I know you thought this
place was burglar-proof. But in my humble opinion there's nothing that
has yet been constructed by man that can't be opened by him. Don't you
agree, Shotover?'

"'Most certainly,' said the other. 'Couldn't have put it clearer myself."

"And at that it was left. No trace of Mark Sanderson was ever discovered.
In fact, he has never been heard of again. And, after much discussion, in
which the soldier played a prominent part, it was decided that the
Professor had been sufficiently punished by the disgrace he had incurred,
and his share in the proceedings was glossed over."

The little man paused, and called the barman. "What's yours?" he said.

"But, dash it, man," I cried, "you can't leave it like that. What had
really happened?"

"Well," he remarked, "the popular theory was the one put forward by the
girl--that Mark Sanderson stole it while the party was at dinner, and
then sent the note to make his revenge the more complete."

"And your theory?" I demanded.

"Is, of course, purely academic," he said, taking a sip of his drink.
"You appreciate, naturally, the main difficulty that confronted the
thief. To substitute a paste diamond for the genuine article was child's
play, but to hide the real one was a very different matter. A police
search is no joke. A thing the size of the Magor diamond would most
certainly have been discovered. It was, therefore, imperative to prevent
a search, and they hit on a very clever ruse to achieve their object.

"There were two paste stones. When the real diamond came to the
Professor, he passed it on to Mrs. Maddox, and made a diversion over an
imaginary moth. He had one already in the killing-bottle, and he slipped
one of the paste stones in as well. Taking advantage of the excitement,
Mrs. Maddox substituted the other paste stone for the genuine diamond,
which finally came to Aaronhaus and was at once discovered, she having
the real one in her bag.

"Now came the moment. She had already quarrelled with the Professor: what
more natural than her acid remark about the killing-bottle? To the others
it was an arrow at a venture, which, by a wild fluke, hit the mark; but
the whole thing was, of course, carefully premeditated. And immediately a
red herring was drawn over the trail.

"Then came in the Colonel, who proceeded to dominate the situation. He
suggested a plausible theory to which everyone assented, and Sir Rube was
so dumbfounded over the whole business that he agreed as well. The danger
of a search was over.

"Now they were in clover. The only man who could possibly be arrested was
the Professor, but there was nothing incriminating on him. True, he had
evidently gone to Mexbridge Towers with the intention of stealing the
diamond, but he hadn't succeeded. The utmost that could happen to him was
a short term of imprisonment, and punishing him didn't help Sir Rube to
get his diamond back, which was all he cared about.

"Finally, Mark Sanderson. Well, it is a strange coincidence, but on
landing at Southampton he was met by a man who bore a slight resemblance
to Colonel Maddox. And, but for the fact that three days later he was
knifed and killed in a drunken brawl down in the East End, he might have
figured more than he did in my story. But, since there were no papers on
him, and nothing by which he could be identified, it occurred to the
Colonel that he might profitably be kept alive to write threatening
letters to Sir Rube. Another red herring, and a useful one: as I said,
most people thought he was the thief."

"It's lucky for the thieves," I said, "that Sir Rube didn't handle the
diamond when he gave it to Lady Shotover."

He drained his glass and stood up. "Yes," he agreed, "but it would have
made no difference. The weights of the real and the paste stones were
identical, and it was extremely improbable that he would examine it when
he took it out. Anyway, that was a risk they had to run." He lit a
cigarette. "Well, I must be getting along. A charming woman is getting up
charades in aid of the local cats' home, and I'm performing."

"Really?" I said. "What part are you taking?"

A faint smile flickered round his lips, as he opened the door.

"That of a retired English colonel," he murmured.



THE BROKEN RECORD


On an average Tim Anstruther and I meet about once every five years, and
when we do my wife gets a telephone call to say that I am detained in
London for the night on business.

Twenty-four hours is the minimum time for recovery. And so when I butted
into him in Regent Street the other day, I went without further ado into
a telephone booth and did the necessary. Then we adjourned for a small
one.

An extraordinary chap--Tim. Providence in the shape of a father who had
made something in jam, had endowed him with ample money, so that a rooted
disinclination for any settled occupation was no drawback to him.

He had been able without inconvenience to lead the only life he wanted
to--that of a wanderer in strange corners of the globe.

There seemed literally to be no spot he did not know, and if one could
get him in a communicative mood he was the very best value for money I've
ever met. The trouble was that getting him into such a mood was what
necessitated twenty-four hours' recovery for people like myself.

But let it not be thought that this is going to be a record of inordinate
consumption of alcohol: I have only put in this short introduction to
emphasise the fact that on this occasion the mood occurred within half an
hour of our meeting. And the reason of it was so amazing that even now I
can hardly believe what he said. There must be a mistake: and yet...

We decided to lunch at the Royal Motor Club, that vast caravanserai which
numbers its members by the ten thousands. And we were standing by the bar
preparatory to feeding when a man I knew slightly, by the name of Finlay,
came up and spoke to me.

I was surprised at seeing him there because he is a strict teetotaller,
in addition to being perilously near, one of the unco guid. He
specialises in charitable works, and you can always safely bet that he
will try and touch you for his latest pet scheme. To cap it he is a
churchwarden and carries round the plate on Sunday.

I forget what he wanted to talk to me about--something trifling, and he
was just moving away when, somewhat to my surprise, Tim spoke to him.
"Excuse me, sir," he said, "but weren't you out in Burma some years ago?"

Finlay paused and looked at him. "No, sir," he answered gravely. "I have
never been out East."

"The last man I should imagine would have been, old boy," I said as
Finlay moved away. "Unless it was a round the world trip in a liner."

"Let's have another, Bill," he remarked thoughtfully. "I'll swear I'm not
mistaken."

I shrugged my shoulders. "Then why should he deny it?" I asked. "For I,
on my side, will swear that there is nothing in Finlay's past that will
not bear the closest investigation. Why, my dear boy, he damned near
preaches in the Park."

"How long have you known him?"

"Four or five years. But only really as a club acquaintance." Out of the
corner of his eye he was still watching Finlay, and I could see he was
strangely excited.

"If I'm right," he said at length, "it's the most incredible thing that I
have ever encountered in my life, and I've run against a few off and on."

"But if you'd known him out there he'd have remembered you," I objected.

"No: he wouldn't," said Tim. "Because he was so drunk on the one occasion
I saw him that he couldn't remember anybody."

"Finlay drunk?" I remarked incredulously. "You must be wrong, Tim."

"Perhaps I am, Bill," he said after a while. "And perhaps I'm not. But
one of my few assets is a memory for faces. A religious bloke, is he?
Well, that covers a multitude of sins on occasions."

"I should be interested to hear which particular one it covers in his
case," I said.

"Murder," remarked Tim quietly. "Cold blooded, brutal murder: planned out
and premeditated over many years."

"My dear Tim," I protested feebly.

"And committed," he continued calmly, "since you've known him--to be
correct, four years ago."

"But it's impossible," I spluttered. "You're pulling my leg. Who the
deuce did he murder?"

"Look here, Bill," he said with a grin. "I may be talking the most
appalling hot air, but I've got a hunch that I'm not. And anyway, the
yarn might interest you. I'm busy all this afternoon, and I can't tell it
to you over lunch: it's too long. But if you care to have a spot of
dinner with me at my club, I'll spin it to you afterwards."

And at that we left it. Tim went off shortly after two, leaving me to my
own devices, and as luck would have it I found myself in the smoking-room
sitting next a man who knew Finlay far better than I did.

"It's mere idle curiosity on my part," I said, after a little desultory
conversation, "but that man Finlay rather interests me. He was after me
this morning for some society or other he's running at the moment. What
does he do with himself when he's not touting round for money?"

My companion lit a cigarette. "I don't think he's got time for much
else." he answered with a grin. "As a matter of fact, he's in a big jute
firm in the City."

"How long has he been with them?"

"About five or six years. It was when he joined them that I first got to
know him, because he came to live down close to me in Surrey, and being
unmarried my missis and I started asking him over occasionally for
dinner. A rum bird, but he's lonely, poor devil."

"Rum in what way?" I asked.

"Well, even the mildest story doesn't go down with him, for instance. He
isn't exactly, shocked, but he simply gives one the impression that he
regards you as a dirty little schoolboy. And, of course, on the subject
of drink he is quite fanatical. Then again--women. Naturally, he is
polite to my wife, but you can see at a glance that he dislikes the sex
as a whole."

"What was he doing before he came to live there?"

"I don't know. He has never volunteered any information on the subject,
and he's not the type of man you can question. From an odd remark or two
he's made, I gathered he was in France during the War, and in the
infantry."

"I suppose you don't happen to know if he's been out East," I hazarded.

My informant shook his head and rose. "He's never said anything about
it," he answered, "but that doesn't mean that he may not have been. As I
said, he's a rum 'un, but there's no doubt about it that in his own way
he's a very decent fellow. He doesn't enliven a dinner table, but if I
was in a hole he's a man I wouldn't hesitate to go to."

With a nod he was gone, leaving me to my thoughts. Assuredly Tim must
have made a mistake: it was inconceivable to believe that such a man was
a murderer. A chance likeness would account for it: any other solution
was obviously absurd. In any case, how could he possibly say that a man
he had met in Burma many years ago, and had never seen since, was
responsible for a murder which had taken place recently. And so when we
were comfortably seated in a corner of his club that evening I was
prepared to listen to an interesting story, but Finlay was already
acquitted.

Indeed, Tim himself had recanted, and admitted that it must be a question
of an unusual likeness.

"Nevertheless," he remarked, "the story may interest you because it gives
a very strange example of what an idee fixe will do to a man, and of the
desperate passions which can be engendered by what on the face of it is a
comparatively trivial thing. We admit even in England that under certain
circumstances killing is justified. A man catching his wife with another
man is one of them, and though we don't present him with a diploma of
merit as they do in France, the chances are that he is let off lightly.
Again, we have all of us heard of the overmastering rage that can be
raised in a convict's breast if another convict hurts his pet mouse. I
don't believe public opinion would ever tolerate that man being hanged,
if in the heat of the moment he succeeded in killing the other. But my
story concerns nothing so human as that: it concerns a gramophone
record." He smiled as he saw my look of astonishment. "A common or garden
gramophone record," he repeated. "Not even a valuable one, such, let us
say, as one giving Caruso's actual voice which would be almost impossible
to replace. It was just an ordinary record that could be bought by the
dozen in any shop. However, of that in due course.

"We've got to go back to the year of grace 1910. I was doing a wander
round in the East, and in the course of it I found myself up--country in
Burma. The exact locality is of no importance, but I had been trekking
for several weeks when I arrived at one of those little communities of
white men which one finds scattered about in the back of beyond. Teak was
the particular raison d'etre of this one, though the manner of living of
the occupants varies but little whatever be the cause of their
banishment. It was pestilentially hot: the rains were about due, and in
consequence tempers were a bit on edge. The two married men had sent
their wives down-country, so that even that small restraint was removed.

"The first man I butted into was a fellow called Congleton, whom I had
met once or twice before. He was the manager, and one of the best. His
liver wanted watching in the morning, but so do most people's out there.
And he insisted that I should stop at his bungalow for as long as I
liked.

"'The longer the better, Anstruther,' he said. 'Mary has gone back home,
and I've got another six months before I'm due for leave. And, to tell
you the truth, I'm fed up with my own and the rest of the company here.'

"So I agreed at any rate to remain a few days, and in the course of the
first two I met the rest of the bunch. There was Rogerson, a great big
hulking chap, foul mouthed always and violent in addition when he'd got a
bit of liquor on board. There was Aldridge, quiet to the point of being
almost morose, and two or three others whose parents had obviously not
paid any attention to Kipling's dictum that East is East and West is
West. Anyway, they don't come into the matter.

"You may remember that it was just about then that auction bridge was
beginning, and it happened that I was the only man there who had any
practical knowledge of the game. So, since they were all keen to learn,
Rogerson and Aldridge came round each evening to Congleton's bungalow
after tiffin, and I showed them the rudiments of it. And the third
evening after my arrival, we sat down to our first genuine rubber.

"It was an electric sort of night: even the exertion of dealing made one
sweat. There was a storm about, and every living thing seemed to know it.
Not a sound broke the silence outside: it seemed as if a heavy blanket
was pressing on one's head.

"Aldridge had just dealt, and Rogerson was on his left: don't forget they
were absolute beginners. Aldridge called a spade, I think it was, and
Rogerson, who was playing with me, was trying to remember what I had told
him.

"'Now, I'm allowed to say two hearts,' he was beginning, when suddenly
the silence was broken by the sound of church bells. The chimes came
drifting through the open window and in my surprise I turned round in my
chair. The thing was so unexpected, for I knew there was no church
anywhere near. And the next moment I got a blow in the side that almost
winded me. It was the edge of the table, pushed violently by Rogerson,
who was standing up with the veins on his forehead like whipcord. 'Damn
and curse that drunken sot!' he said savagely. 'How can a man be expected
to think straight with that foul noise going on?'

"'Hold hard,' I remarked mildly. 'Until you very nearly winded me, I
thought it was rather pretty.'

"'Sorry, Anstruther,' he cried, sitting down again. 'But you wouldn't
think it pretty if you had to listen to that same blasted record over and
over again night after night. It's enough to drive one perfectly
frantic.'

"So it was a gramophone, and I asked who was the owner.

"'A man who calls himself Jones,' answered Congleton briefly. 'I'll tell
you about him later. Get on with it, Rogerson: you ought to be used to it
by now.'

"'One day, Congleton,' said the other, and his voice had an ugly ring in
it, 'that record is going to die a nasty death. I say two hearts.'

"And so we went on with the game, while the church bells still continued
to chime. Six times in succession was that record played, and at the end
I confessed there was some justification for Rogerson's outburst. The
monotony became maddening: one felt oneself on the verge of
shouting--'For Heaven's sake, play something else.' But there was
something rather intriguing about the whole thing, and I was not sorry
when Aldridge got up after the second rubber and the two of them left.

"'What's the story of the gramophone player?' I asked my host.

"He pushed the whisky towards me and lit a cigarette. 'A fairly common
one,' he answered, 'though it has one or two points about it that are of
interest. Needless to say, his name is not Jones, though what it really
is I have no idea. He arrived here about a year ago, pretty well done in,
and as Mary was not here I gave him a shakedown for a couple of nights.
Couldn't place him at all, and he volunteered no information about
himself. But I soon found out that he was frankly impossible. Drink!
Great Scott! old boy, his consumption per week would have floated a
battleship. He seemed to have a certain amount of money, though where it
came from I don't know, and apparently he still has since whisky has to
be paid for. However, just as I was wondering how to get rid of him
without being too rude, he settled the matter for me by saying he was
going into the bungalow over the way. You can see the light now if you
look through the window. It was in a very bad state of repair, but he
didn't seem to mind, and he's done nothing to it since. Shortly after
that I had to go on trek, and when I came back a month later I found him
settled in. It was a little awkward with us being so close, for so far as
I could make out he was practically never sober. Then one day a
packing-case arrived, and that night the performance you heard this
evening began. He'd sent for a gramophone, and some records, and from
then on whenever he was not too tight to wind up the machine we were
given a concert.

"At first it wasn't too bad; he varied the tunes. But after a time he
became more and more set on the one he was playing to-night. How the
darned thing hasn't got worn out, I don't know: I believe he must have
got two or three of the same one. And one night when he'd played it about
eight times, I felt I could stand it no more, and I went over to see him.

"'For the love of Allah, Jones,' I cried, 'give that tune a rest.'

"He was sitting at the table, with a photograph in his hand and a glass
of neat whisky by his side. There was a filmy look in his eyes, and I
doubt if he even saw me. Certainly my words didn't penetrate his brain.
'The river,' he said huskily, 'the river down Henley way, with the sun
setting behind the hills and the sound of the church bells stealing
softly over the fields.'

"'That's all very fine and large,' I answered irritably, 'but this isn't
Henley. And the sun has set, and there aren't any fields--only a damned
great forest. Can't you play something else, man?' His only answer was to
switch back to the beginning of the tune, an operation which was not
accomplished without difficulty. And then he started talking again--to
himself, not to me. Honestly I don't think he knew I was there. And as I
listened I learned the story of the man called Jones, and a certain pity
took possession of me.

"There was a girl in it--the girl whose photograph he held in his hand.
And there was no getting away from it, she was a fizzer. Evidently her
people had a house on the river near Henley, and he and she had been
engaged. Then she had been bathing one morning, and been drowned. Such,
baldly, were the facts that I pieced together from his incoherent
ramblings, and the rest was easy to fit in. It showed pitiable weakness
on his part admittedly, but I could not help feeling a bit sorry for him.
He'd simply let himself go, and the only thing left him was to get drunk
and then, with the help of the record, dream that he was back again in a
punt drifting down the river with his girl.' Congleton paused and
shrugged his shoulders. 'He's a hopeless case: he can't last long at the
rate he's going. And so I put up with it. At first it used to get on my
nerves: Rogerson is passing through that stage at present. But now I've
got used to it, and it doesn't worry me any more.'

"And on that we turned in. As Congleton had said, it showed abject
weakness, but there was something a bit pathetic about the case. Drinking
himself to death with a gramophone record as his only companion: one
couldn't help being sorry for the poor devil. At the same time, I was
frankly glad that it would not be my lot to have to go on listening to it
ad nauseam. I was leaving two days later, and Rogerson was going on leave
at the same time. And so the night before we started bridge was off,
since he had to square up everything before he left. He'd been
celebrating his approaching departure during the day, and when I saw him
just before tiffin he was a bit sprung.

"'Got about two hours' work on accounts to do to-night,' he growled. 'And
if that infernal machine tunes up, it'll be out of action for good.'

"A casual remark: I thought no more about it. And even when at ten
o'clock the church bells started their nightly chime I had no premonition
of trouble. Congleton was giving me one or two commissions to do for him
in Rangoon: the record was half-way through, and then it happened. Six
revolver shots rang out in rapid succession: the gramophone stopped:
there was dead silence.

"But only for a few seconds: then there came a yell of such maniacal fury
that we both sprang to our feet. It was followed by a heavy crash, and a
grunting noise like a beast worrying its quarry. 'Quick!' shouted
Congleton. 'This is serious.' We raced across the road to Joneses'
bungalow, and the sight that met our eyes pulled us up short for a
moment. Lying on the floor was Rogerson. He was unconscious, with a huge
lump already forming on his forehead. Bending over him, making animal
noises in his throat, was Jones. His hands were embedded in the flesh of
the big man's throat: he was strangling him before our eyes. It took both
of us all we knew to pull him off: he was mad drunk and fought like a
tiger. In fact, it wasn't till Congleton caught him a beauty on the point
of the jaw, and laid him out good and proper, that we could breathe
again. Then we took stock of the room, which looked as if a bull elephant
had run amok in it.

"In one corner was the gramophone splintered to bits, with the
over-turned table beside it. Rogerson's revolver was by the door, and a
broken bottle lay at his side, from which a pool of whisky had spread all
over his clothes. Jones, his shirt ripped off, sprawled face downwards in
the centre of the room, breathing stertorously. The jolt on the chin on
top of the whisky he'd drunk would keep him quiet for some time, and so
we straightened things up a bit, laid him on the bed, and turned our
attention to Rogerson. He was still unconscious, and the bump on his
forehead had grown to the size of a grape-fruit.

"'Caught him with that bottle,' grunted Congleton, 'so hard that he broke
it. And it serves the damned fool right. We'd better cart him over to my
place, Anstruther.'

"So we carried him over the road and dumped him in a chair, and half an
hour later he opened his eyes. He stared round dazedly: then he put his
hand to his head and groaned. 'What happened?' he muttered at length.

"'What would have happened if we hadn't come on the scene is that you'd
have been strangled,' said Congleton curtly. 'He laid you out with a
bottle of whisky, and it took both of us to get him off your throat. What
on earth did you do?'

"'I suppose I was a bit of a fool,' said Rogerson sheepishly. 'But I was
hard at work on accounts, and they drive me mad at the best of times,
when that infernal record started. So I went across to his bungalow, and
there he was with that cursed machine in front of him, babbling to
himself. And I dunno what it was, but I suddenly saw red and shot it
up.'

"'Well, it's mighty lucky for you that we were here or it's the last thing
you would have shot up,' said Congleton tersely. 'It was a darned rotten
thing to do, Rogerson. You're away to-morrow, and it's the only thing the
poor devil's got left in the world.'

"'I'll send him one up from Rangoon,' muttered the other a bit
shamefacedly. 'Great Scott! my head feels as if it had been hit by a
pile-driver.'

"And the following day he and I left, without seeing Jones again. True to
his word, he bought a gramophone and sent it upcountry, and with that the
whole episode gradually faded from my mind." Tim Anstruther beckoned to a
waiter. "Repeat the dose, Palmer," he said.

"About a year later," he continued, after he had lit his pipe. "I ran
into Congleton in London. He was back, I discovered, for good, and
finding London a far better place than an up-country station on the
Irrawady. And while we were celebrating his return I asked him casually
whether the man called Jones had drunk himself to death yet. To my
surprise he looked quite serious.

"'Do you know, Anstruther,' he said, 'that if anything would convert me to
the belief that the age of miracles is not past that case would. You will
hardly believe it, but from that night he cut off drinking completely.'

"'Then it looks as if Rogerson did him a good turn,' I remarked.

"'It's the most amazing thing I have ever run across,' he continued.
'After you'd gone that morning I went over to see him. I found him lying
on his bed staring at the ceiling, and holding in his hand the pieces of
the broken record.

"Has Rogerson gone?" he said to me quietly.

"Yes," I answered. "He asked me to tell you that he was very sorry about
it, and he's sending you up a new machine from Rangoon."

"Is he, indeed," he said, still in the same quiet voice. "Congleton,
would you mind taking away the whisky you'll find in that cupboard. I
shall never drink again, so it is useless to me. And I shall find it
easier to start with if it's not there."

"Of course, I will," I told him. "I'll send my boy over for it."

"Thank you." he remarked. "And now don't let me keep you."

"I hung about a bit awkwardly, but as he took no further notice of me, I
left him. Naturally I paid not the slightest attention to his remark
about cutting the drink out, and in fact I forgot to send my boy to get
it. But that evening when I got back from work I found eight bottles on
my table: the reformation had started. And he was stone cold sober when
the thing that worried me took place. Four days after you left I was
passing his bungalow when once again I heard six shots in quick
succession. I dashed up the veranda steps to find him sitting at the
table with a smashed-up gramophone in front of him. He was white and
shaking, which was only to be expected in someone who had knocked drink
off completely, but, as I said before, he was sober."

"What's the great idea?" I asked.

"That gramophone has just arrived from Rangoon," he remarked.

"What an utterly childish thing to do," I said. "You ought to be ashamed
of yourself." And then, Anstruther, he gave me a look which still haunts
me. I would not have believed it possible that so much concentrated
hatred could be seen in a man's eyes. "One day, Congleton," he said, "I
shall do that to Rogerson himself." And I believe he means it.'
Anstruther paused to relight his pipe. 'There was no doubt about it,' he
continued, 'old Congleton was quite worried. Rogerson, it appeared, had
been transferred elsewhere: Jones had vanished suddenly one morning and
had not returned.'

"'He's probably gone back to the drink by now,' I said to Congleton, but
he shook his head. 'Amazing though it may seem,' he remarked, 'I believe
that his hatred of Rogerson is a bigger driving force than his craving
for drink. And he realises that only by keeping off liquor will he be
able to gratify that hatred. Sooner or later, Anstruther, you'll open
your morning paper to find that Rogerson has been killed.'

"The years passed: the War came and somewhat naturally I'd completely
forgotten the whole thing. Poor old Congleton was killed at Loos:
Rogerson had wangled a staff job of sorts, and the man who called himself
Jones had never been seen again. I was convinced, and so was Rogerson,
whom I ran into once in France, that he had died of drink years ago: it
seemed impossible to us that a man who had been so far gone could
possibly recover. I did mention to him what Congleton had told me, but he
merely roared with laughter.

"Drunken ravings, my dear boy!" he said. "And after what you've told me,
all I regret is that I wasted my money buying the gramophone."

"And that was my opinion until one morning seven years later. I was
having breakfast in the Carlton Hotel in Jo'burg, when a paragraph in the
paper caught my eye. Here it is: read it for yourself." He handed me a
cutting from his pocketbook: it ran as follows:

"The mysterious disappearance of Mr. Cyril Rogerson six months ago has at
last been cleared up, in circumstances which leave no doubt that the
unfortunate gentleman was brutally murdered. Our readers will doubtless
remember the main facts of the case. Mr. Rogerson, of the well-known firm
of Peat & Rogerson, left Johannesburg on a lengthy business tour through
the Northern Transvaal and Rhodesia. Communications were received from
him from various places, the last coming from Bulawayo about a month
after he had started. From then on nothing further has been heard of him.
At first no anxiety was felt: it was thought that he was starting on his
return journey and was therefore bringing his reports with him instead of
mailing them. But when a fortnight elapsed without any word from him, Mr.
Peat informed the police who at once instituted inquiries, without any
result. The reason for their failure is unfortunately now only too clear.

"A native who was trekking in the sparsely populated district south of
Bulawayo was attracted by something unusual in a small gully a little
distance from the path. He found to his horror that it was the skeleton
of a man, and at once informed the authorities. A very brief examination
showed that the dead man was Mr. Rogerson, who had been the victim of a
singularly brutal crime. The actual reconstruction is difficult, as the
skull had been picked clean by the vultures. But six bullets were
discovered embedded in it, proving almost certainly that the murderer had
continued to fire after his victim was dead. Robbery was not the motive,
since the dead man's money was intact, but there was one peculiar feature
which it is thought may provide a clue. By the side of the skeleton were
placed the pieces of a broken gramophone record."

In silence I handed the cutting back to Tim. "What happened?" I asked.

"Nothing," he answered. "I told the authorities what I've told you, and
they were very polite and thanked me. But I couldn't describe the man
called Jones--for all I knew he might have grown a beard. And the crime
was six months' old: he might be anywhere in the world."

"You think it was him?"

"Who else could it have been? Surely the gramophone record proves that.
No, Bill: Congleton was right. His hatred of Rogerson was greater than
his craving for drink. Year after year he had carried round that broken
record, waiting and biding his time. And then at last he got his
opportunity. How he did it we shall never know, but that Rogerson was
killed by the man who called himself Jones is to my mind as certain as
that night follows day. Rum, isn't it--the different things that
different men require as a driving force in life, and the objects they
put them to? For a man to cure himself of drink in order to become a
murderer is a bit out of the ordinary, isn't it?"

"He may have relapsed afterwards," I said.

Tim rose and stretched himself. "Perhaps: who knows? Let's go round to
your club and have a Turkish bath. Much talking has made me weary."

It was fairly empty when we got there: two or three men were sitting
about in the outside room, and one with his back towards us and a towel
round his waist was leaning over the paper table. I didn't see who it
was, but as I passed him I noticed casually that he had tattooed between
his shoulder-blades a really beautiful design of a ship in full sail. And
at that moment he turned: it was Finlay.

"The very man," he said with a smile. "I know you can do a few good
conjuring tricks, and I want you to come down one day next week and help
me amuse some of my youngsters in Hoxton." I told him I would if I could,
and looked at Tim. "I suppose your friend hasn't any parlour tricks," he
remarked tentatively.

"None, I fear," said Tim slowly. "Are all the causes you work for such
deserving ones?"

"I try to do my bit," answered the other, looking a little surprised.

We moved away, and the next remark Tim made was as we entered the hot
room. "So he didn't relapse afterwards, Bill. I'd forgotten myself until
five minutes ago that the man who called himself Jones had the picture of
a ship in full sail tattooed between his shoulder-blades. I saw it that
night when his shirt was ripped off. And what I'm trying to decide is
whether to tell the police or to give him a fiver for his boys' home."



THE TAMING OF SYDNEY MARSHAM


To say that Sydney Marsham was wild would be to err on the lenient side.
She was the maddest, most harum-scarum child that ever donned a skirt. In
fact, she frequently didn't, until her mother and father combined in
issuing an order that the said garment was indispensable for a young lady
of seventeen, and that riding breeches, except on special occasions,
would not do instead.

The more crack-brained the escapade, the more certain it was to attract
her irresistibly. And it was useless trying to check her. Her mother had
made one or two feeble attempts, but after a while she gave it up as
hopeless. "She's you all over again, my dear--only she's a girl."

Thus to her husband, and he nodded and grinned. "Give the child her head;
she'll be all right. Look at me--how I've settled down."

At the age of twenty Sydney Marsham had become a singularly lovely girl.
It had always been obvious that she would be pretty, but maturity had
more than fulfilled the early promise. And Mrs. Marsham, looking
sometimes at the slim, lithe figure, and the perfect head set so proudly
on a pair of boyish shoulders, grew a little anxious as she thought of
the future. Who was the man going to be?

She was so impulsive--just like her father; so apt to let her heart run
away with her judgment. But with a girl of Sydney's type the wrong man
would be worse than a tragedy; it would be hell on earth.

So far she had had no serious cause for worry. There had been, of course,
a few boy and girl affairs, but they had made no impression--certainly no
lasting impression--on Sydney. One, with a Sandhurst cadet, had lasted
nearly six months, but that had died naturally with his departure to join
his regiment in India. True, he had written twice, but Jack--the
terrier--had consumed the second effusion before it had been answered,
and Sydney had forgotten the address. So that had finished that.

And it therefore came as a little shock to Mrs. Marsham when Sydney
announced one morning at breakfast that she'd met a new he-man. No trace
of her feelings, however, showed in her face as she asked placidly:

"Where, my darling?"

"In the sea," answered Sydney, her mouth full of buttered egg. "I raced
him to the sunken rock, and he won!"

"But, my dear," reproved her mother mildly, "was he a complete stranger?"

"Well, darling," said Sydney. "I really don't know. It's a point. I must
buy a book on etiquette. Surely if two people undress on the beach with
only a rock between them, that should constitute an introduction."

Mr. Marsham chuckled behind his paper, and then tried to frown. "Look
here, old thing," he grunted, "you really must be careful."

"Male parent's cue," laughed his daughter.  "I am the soul of care, my
beloved."

"I know, Sydney," he answered, "but, honest Injun, Kid, there are so many
cads about these days. Who is this man? Did you find out?"

"He's taken the Manor House, Daddy. And he's really rather a pet."

"I heard it had been let to a Major Dacres," said her mother. "Bill,
you'd better go up and call on him."

"All right, my dear--I will." He broke off suddenly. "Sydney, what on
earth is the matter with Jack? He's behaving in the most extraordinary
way."

She looked at the terrier with a puzzled frown.

"I don't know what's the matter with him," she answered. "He's been very
strange the last few days. Jacko!"

The terrier, which was lying in a corner of the room motionless, with its
head buried under its forepaws, rose a little unwillingly and came to
her. For a time it wandered restlessly round her chair; then, sitting
down, it began to lick her hand.

"Don't, Sydney--don't," cried her mother. "I hate to see a dog doing
that."

"Jacko's different. Aren't you, my pet?"

"Still, I'd take him to Rogers if I were you," said her father. "He's not
a bad vet. And I don't think the dog is fit." He pushed back his chair,
and lit a cigarette. "What was it