THE GREEN ARCHER - 1

THE GREEN ARCHER

EDGAR WALLACE

( INSTALMENT 1 )

1. THE GOOD STORY

Spike Holland scrawled the last word on the last sheet of his copy, slashed two horizontal lines to notify all concerned that it was the last page, and threw his pen at the window-frame. The nib struck home, and for a second the discoloured handle quivered.

"No unworthy hand shall inscribe baser literature with the instrument of my fancy," he said.

The only other reporter in the room looked up.

"What have you been writing up, Spike?"

"Yesterday's dog show," said Spike calmly. "I know nothing about dogs, except that one end barks and the other end wags, but Syme put me on to it. Said that a crime reporter ought to get acquainted with bloodhounds. That man is collaterally minded. Nothing ever appears to him as it is; he lives on suggestion. Take him hot news of a bank robbery and he'll jump at you for a story about what bank presidents eat for lunch."

He sighed and put his feet on the desk. He was young and freckled and had untidy red hair.

"Dog shows are certainly interesting—" he began, when the door opened violently and a shirt-sleeved man glared ill through spectacles of enormous size.

"Spike ... want you. Have you got a job?"

"I'm seeing that man Wood about the children's home—lunching with him."

"He can wait."

He beckoned, and Spike followed him to the tiny room he occupied.

"Do you know Abel Bellamy – a Chicago man ... millionaire?"

"Abe? Yeah ... Is he dead?" asked Spike hopefully. "That fellow's only a good story when he is beyond the operation of the law of libel."

"Do you know him well?" asked the editor.

"I know he's a Chicago man-made millions in building, and that he's a roughneck. He's been living in England eight or nine years, I guess ... got a regular castle ... and a dumb Chink chauffeur—"

"I know all that 'Who's Who' stuff," said the editor impatiently. "What I want to know is this: Is he the kind of man who is out for publicity? In other words, is the Green Archer a ghost or a stunt?"

"Ghost!"

Syme reached for a sheet of notepaper and passed it across to the puzzled American. It was a message evidently written by one to whom the rules of English were hidden mysteries: "DEAR SIR, The Green Archer has appeared in Garre Castel. Mr. Wilks the butler saw him. Dear sir, the Green Archer went into Mr. Belamy's room and left the door open. Also he was seen in the park. All the servants is leaving. Mr. Belamy says he'll fire anybody who talks about it, but all the servants is leaving."

"And who in thunder is the Green Archer?" asked Spike wonderingly.

Mr. Syme adjusted his glasses and smiled. Spike was shocked to see him do anything so human.

"The Green Archer of Garre Castle," he said, "was at one time the most famous ghost in England. Don't laugh, because this isn't a funny story. The original archer was hanged by one of the de Curcys, the owners of Garre Castle, in 1487."

"Gee! Fancy your remembering that!" said the admiring Spike.

"And don't get comic. He was hanged for stealing deer, and even today you can, I believe, see the oaken beam from which he swung. For hundreds of years he haunted Garre, and as late as 1799 he made an appearance. In Berkshire he is part of the legendary. Now, if you can believe this letter, evidently written by one of the servants who has either been fired or has left voluntarily because she's scared, our green friend has appeared again."

Spike frowned and thrust out his under lip. "Any ghost who'd go fooling round Abe Bellamy deserves all that is coming to him," he said. "I guess he's half legend and half hysteria. You want me to see Abe?"

"See him and persuade him to let you stay in the castle for a week."

Spike shook his head emphatically.

"You don't know him. If I made such a suggestion he'd throw me out. I'll see his secretary-a fellow named Savini; he's a Eurasian or something. Maybe he can fix me. The Green Archer doesn't seem to have done anything more than leave Abe's door open."

"Try Bellamy—invent some reason for getting into the castle. By the way, he bought it for one hundred thousand pounds seven or eight years ago. And in the meantime get the story. We haven't had a good ghost story for years. There's nothing to stop you lunching with Wood. I want that story too. Where are you lunching?"

"At the Carlton. Wood is only in London for a couple of days. He is going back home to Belgium tonight."

The editor nodded.

"That makes it easy. Bellamy is staying at the Carlton. You can cover both engagements."

Spike strolled to the door.

"Ghost stories and children's institutions!" he said bitterly. "And I'm just aching for a murder with complications. This journal doesn't want a crime reporter; it's a writer of fairy tales you need."

"That's a fair description of you," said Syme, addressing himself to his work.

2. THE MAN WITHOUT FEAR

IF the evil deeds of men were, as the ancients believed, written in letters of blood in the place of their perpetration, the name of Abel Bellamy would be splashed red in many places. On a mean farm in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania; in the grey hall of Pentonville Prison-to name but two.

Abe Bellamy never lost sleep at nights thinking of the past. Remorse was foreign to his nature, fear he did not know. He had done evilly and was content. The memory of the horror of lives wantonly broken, of suffering deliberately inflicted, of children delivered to hardship and pain, of a woman hunted to death by a tiger of hate that the Moloch of his self-esteem should be appeased, never caused him a second's unrest of mind. If he thought of these old matters at all, he thought approvingly.

It seemed right to him that those who opposed him should be hurt. Fortune had favoured him greatly. At twenty he was carrying a hod; at thirty-five he was a dollar millionaire. At fifty-five his million was ten, and he had shaken from his feet the dust of the city that made him and was one of the landed gentry of England, the master of a domain that the flower of English chivalry had won by its swords and built on the sweat and fear of its slaves.

For thirty years he had had the power to hurt. Why should he deny himself? He could regret nothing, being what he was. He stood six feet two in his stockinged feet, and at sixty had the strength of a young ox. But it was not his size that made men and women turn in the street to look after him. His ugliness was fascinating, his immense red face was seamed and lined into a hundred ridges and hollows. His nose was big, squat, bulbous. His mouth broad and thick-lipped; one corner lifted so that he seemed to be sneering all the time.

He was neither proud nor ashamed of his ugliness. He had accepted his appearance as he had accepted his desires, as normal in himself. Such was Abel Bellamy, late of Chicago, now of Garre Castle in Berkshire, a man born without the gift of loving.

The door of the sitting-room opened, and he turned his head. Julius Savini was not unused to being greeted with a scowl, but he sensed something more important than the usual snarl of complaint that was his regular morning portion.

"See here, Savini, I've been waiting for you since seven o'clock. If you're going to stay connected with your job, I want to see you before noon-understand that."

"I'm sorry, Mr. Bellamy. I told you last night I should be late. I only got back from the country a few minutes ago."

Julius Savini's attitude and voice were almost humble. He had not been Bellamy's secretary for a year without learning the futility of opposing his employer. "Will you see a man from the Globe, sir?" he asked.

"A newspaper man?" said Abe Bellamy suspiciously. "You know I never see a newspaper man. What does he want? Who is he?"

"He's Spike Holland, an American," said Julius almost apologetically.

"That doesn't make him any more welcome," snarled the other. "Tell him I can't see him. I'm not going to fall for any of that newspaper stuff. What is it about? You're supposed to be my secretary, aren't ye?"

"It is about the Green Archer." Julius hesitated before he spoke.

Abe Bellamy swung round savagely. "Who has been talking about the Green Archer? You, you rat!"

"I haven't seen any newspaper men," said Julius sullenly. "What shall I tell him?"

"Tell him to go to—here, send him up." If he did not see the reporter, he'd probably invent something, thought the old man. And he was just a little scared of newspapers. It was a newspaper that had made the fuss in Falmouth.

Presently Julius ushered in the visitor. "You needn't wait," snapped Bellamy, and when his secretary had gone, he growled: "Have a cigar?"

He flung the box on to the table as a man might throw a bone to a dog.

"Thanks, Mr. Bellamy," said Spike coolly, "but I never smoke millionaires' cigars. It makes me sort of dissatisfied with my own."

"Well, what do you want?" rasped Bellamy, looking at the red-haired reporter through narrowed lids.

"There's a story around that there's a ghost in Garre Castle, Mr. Bellamy-a Green Archer."

"It's a lie," said the other promptly—too promptly, in fact. If he had shown any indifference to the suggestion, Spike might have been deceived. The very promptitude of the denial gave him for the first time an interest in the story. "Who told you this?" asked Bellamy.

"We had it from a reliable source," was the cautious reply. "According to our information, the Green Archer of Garre has been seen at the castle, and apparently has been in and out of your room—"

"It is a lie!" Abe Bellamy's tone was violent. "These crazy English servants are always looking for ghosts. It is true I found my bedroom door open one night, but I guess I must have forgotten to close it. Who is your informant?"

"We had it from three different sources," said Spike untruthfully, "and every story hangs together. Now, Mr. Bellamy," he smiled, 'there is something in it; and anyway a ghost puts up the value of an old castle."

"That's where you're wrong," said Abe Bellamy, instantly seizing the opportunity offered to him. "It depreciates the property, and if you put a line about ghosts in your paper I'll bring an action for libel. Get that, young fellow?"

"Maybe the ghost would start something too," said the other amiably. He went downstairs, not quite decided in his mind. Abe Bellamy was not the usual type of millionaire who makes his residence in England and drifts almost mechanically into British society. The man was a bore, half educated, entirely without social ambitions, unless Spike's shrewd judgment was at fault.

Coming into the hall, he found Julius talking with a tall, grey- bearded man of the prosperous workman class, and Julius signalled him to wait. "You know the room, Mr. Creager? Mr. Bellamy is expecting you."

When the man had disappeared, Julius turned to the reporter. "What did he say, Holland?"

"He turned down the story. Honest, Savini, is there anything in it?"

Julius Savini shrugged his lean shoulders. "I don't know where you got the yarn from, and I certainly am giving you no information whatever. The old man gave me hell because he thought I had tipped you off."

"Then it is true," said Spike. "You have had a grisly apparition stalking along your battlemented walls? Say, did he wear any chains?"

Julius shook his head. "You'll get nothing from me, Holland. I've got a job to lose."

"Who was the beaver you sent up? He looks like a policeman."

Julius grinned. "He was asking the same question about you when you came down. His name is Creager, he's a—" —he hesitated— "well, I wouldn't say friend; he's an acquaintance of the old man. Probably he's a pensioner. Anyway, he calls pretty regularly, and I imagine he doesn't come for nothing. I'm not wanted until he comes down. Come and have a cocktail."

Spike shook his head. While they were speaking, to the evident surprise of Julius, the man Creager came down the stairs again, an ugly look on his face. "He won't see me until two o'clock," he said in suppressed wrath. "Does he expect I'm going to wait on him? Because, if he does, he's made a mistake. You can tell him that, Mr. Savini."

"What's the trouble?" asked Julius.

"He said two o'clock, I admit; but I'm in town. Why should I wait until this afternoon? Why couldn't he see me this morning?" demanded the bearded man furiously. "He treats me like a dog. He thinks he's got me like that." He turned down a thick thumb suggestively. "He's wild about a reporter. That's you, ain't it?" he asked.

"That's me," said Spike.

"You can tell him"—the man Creager turned to Julius, and tapped the young man's chest to emphasise his words—"that I'm coming at two, and I want a long talk with him, or I'll be having a little conversation with a reporter myself."

With this menace he left them.

"Savini," said Spike softly, "I smell a good story."

But Savini was going up the stairs two at a time on his way to his enraged employer.

3. JOHN WOOD OF BELGIUM

Spike looked at his watch. It wanted five minutes to one, but he had hardly seated himself to wait for his host before the remarkable John Wood came quickly through the swing doors. He was a tall man, prematurely grey, with a face of singular beauty. The eyes lived, and the sensitive mouth seemed to speak even when it was in repose. He gripped the reporter's hand warmly.

"I'm not late?" he asked. "I've been very busy all the morning. I want to catch the half-past two train to the Continent, and that means a rush."

They passed into the big dining-room together, and the head waiter conducted them to a secluded table in a corner. Spike, glancing at the delicate face, could not help making a contrast with the fascinating ugliness of the man he had just left. He was the very antithesis of Abe Bellamy, a gentle soul, whose eyes smiled all the time. His every movement was alert and vital, and the long, white hands seemed never to be still.

"Now, what do you want to know? Perhaps I can tell you everything before the soup comes. I'm an American—"

"That I shouldn't have guessed," said Spike, and John Wood nodded.

"I have lived a very long time in this country;" he said. "In fact, I haven't been home for"—he paused—"many years," he added. "I don't want to talk very much about myself, and I'll get over the modest recital of my virtues as quickly as I possibly can. I live in Belgium, at a place called Wenduyne. I have a home there for consumptive children, which, by the way, I am moving to Switzerland this year. I am the inventor of the Wood's system of carburation, I am a bachelor-and I think that is about all."

"It is about the children's institution that I wanted to speak to you," said Spike. "We got a story about it from the Belgian Independent. They said you were raising funds to provide in every country in Europe a mother college. Now, what is a mother college, Mr. Wood?"

The grey man leant back in his chair and thought for some time before he replied.

"In every country in Europe, and particularly in this country, there is the problem of the unwanted child. Perhaps 'unwanted' is not the word. A widow is left penniless with one or two children to support. It is impossible for her to get her living unless the children are taken care of, and that costs money. There are other little children whose coming is dreaded, whose birth is a calamity, and who must be rushed out of sight, probably into some wretched home, the woman of which, for a few dollars a week, undertakes to look after and to bring it up. Not a year passes in some country or other where these baby farmers are not brought to justice, either for neglecting or for destroying these helpless mites."

He then outlined his scheme: the institution of great mother colleges, to which the unwanted child should be taken, where it would be cared for by trained nurses.

"We would take in probationers, who would pay us a fee for their tuition in the art of baby care. I think in course of time we could make these institutions self-supporting, and we should certainly give to the world healthy boys and girls fit to face the stress of life."

Throughout the meal he talked children and nothing but children. Babies were his joy; he rhapsodised about a tiny German orphan that had just come to his Belgian institution, and grew so animated that guests at other tables looked round.

"If you don't mind my saying as much, Mr. Wood, you have a queer hobby."

The other laughed.

"I suppose I have," he said, and then quickly: "Who are those people?"

A little party had come into the dining-room, two men and a girl. The first of the men was tall, thin, and white-haired, and on his face was a look of settled melancholy. His companion was a smartly dressed young man, whose age might have been anything from nineteen to thirty. He looked to be the kind who lived to justify his tailor. From the top of his glossy fair head to the tips of his enamelled shoes he was an advertisement for good valeting. But it was the girl to whom their eyes returned.

"That's the only woman I have ever seen who comes near to a magazine cover," said Spike.

"Who is she?"

"Miss Howett—Miss Valerie Howett. The old man is Walter Howett, an Englishman who lived for many years in the States in a poor way until oil was found on his farm. And the fashion-plate is English—Featherstone. He's a lounge lizard. I've seen him at every night-club in London."

The party took a table near to where they sat, and Wood had an opportunity of a closer inspection of the girl. "She is very lovely," he said in a lower tone; but Spike had risen from the table and had gone across to shake hands with the elderly American. He came back after a while.

"Mr. Howett wishes me to go up to his sitting-room after lunch, Mr. Wood," he said. "I wonder if you'll excuse me?"

"Surely," nodded the other.

Twice during the meal the girl's eyes wandered across to where they sat, with a questioning, uncertain glance, as though she had met John Wood before and was wondering in what circumstances.

Spike had turned the conversation from babies to a subject which was at that moment interesting him more keenly.

"Mr. Wood, I suppose in your travels you never met a ghost?"

"No," said the other with a quiet smile, "I don't think I have."

"Do you know Bellamy?" asked Spike.

"Abel Bellamy—yes, I know of him. He is the Chicago man who bought Garre Castle."

Spike nodded. "And Garre Castle is the home of the Green Archer," said Spike. "Old man Bellamy isn't so proud of his ghost as some people would be, and he has tried to switch me off what looks to be like a pretty good story."

He told all he knew about the Green Archer of Garre, and his companion listened without comment. "It is queer," he said at last. "I know the legend of Garre Castle, and I have heard of Mr. Bellamy."

"Do you know him well?" asked Spike quickly; but the other shook his head.

Soon after, Mr. Howett's party rose and went out, and, beckoning the waiter, Wood paid his bill and they followed.

"I have to write a letter," said Wood. "Will you be long with Mr. Howett?"

"I'll not be five minutes," said Spike. "I don't know what he wants to see me about, but I guess it won't keep me very long."

The Howetts' sitting-room was on the same floor as Bellamy's, and the old man was waiting for him. Mr. Featherstone apparently had gone, and only the millionaire and his daughter were in the room.

"Come in, Holland," said Howett. He had a sad voice and his manner was gloomy. "Valerie, this is Mr. Holland; Holland is a newspaper man who may be able to help you."

The girl gave him a pod and a half-smile.

"Really it is my daughter who wishes to see you, Holland," said Howett, to Spike's gratification. He looked at the girl dubiously and then at the reporter.

"The truth is, Mr. Holland, I want to trace a lady who lived in London twelve years ago." She hesitated. "A Mrs. Held. She lived in Little Bethel Street, Camden Town. I've already made inquiries in the street. It is a dreadful slum, and there is nobody there who remembers her. I should not know that she was there at all," she went on, "only a letter came into my possession." Again she stopped. "It came to me unknown to the person to whom it was addressed, and who had every reason to keep her whereabouts a secret. A few weeks after it was written she disappeared."

"Have you advertised?"

"Yes," she nodded. "I've done everything that is possible. The police have been helping for years."

Spike shook his head. "I'm afraid I cannot be of much assistance to you."

"That's what I thought," said Howett. "But my daughter has an idea that newspapers hear a great deal more than the police—"

It was a voice in the corridor outside that interrupted, a loud, strident, harsh voice, raised in anger, and followed by a thud. He looked round, and immediately Spike, who recognised the sound, was in the corridor.

A strange sight met him. The bearded man whom Julius had called Creager was picking himself slowly from the floor, and standing in the doorway of his sitting-room was the huge bulk of Abe Bellamy.

"You'll be sorry for this," quavered Creager.

"Get out and stay out," roared Abe Bellamy. "If ye come here again I'll heave ye through the window."

"I'll make you pay!" The bearded man was almost sobbing in his rage.

"Not in dollars and cents," said the old man grimly. "And listen, Creager! You've got a pension from your Government, haven't you? See that you don't lose it." And with this he turned into the room and slammed the door.

Spike went towards the man as he limped down the corridor. "What's wrong?"

Creager stopped to brush his knees. "You'll know all about it," he said, and then: "You're a reporter, aren't you? I've got something for you."

Spike was first and foremost a newspaper man; a story to him was meat and drink, the beginning and end of his day's ambition. He went back to Howett. "Will you excuse me for a time? I want to see this man."

"Who was it that struck him—Bellamy?"

It was the girl who asked, and there was a certain suppressed vehemence in her tone which made Spike open his eyes.

"Yes, Miss Howett. Do you know him?"

"I've heard of him," she said slowly.

Spike accompanied the aggrieved Creager into the hall. The man was white and trembling, and it was some time before he could recover his voice. "It is perfectly true what he said. I may lose my pension, but I'm going to risk that. Look here, Mister—"

"Holland's my name," said Spike.

"I can't tell you here, but if you'll come to my house-Rose Cottage, Field Road, New Barnet—"

Spike jotted down the address.

"I'll tell you something that'll make a sensation. Yes, that's what it will make," he said with relish, "a sensation."

"Fine," said Spike. "When can I see you?"

"Come in a couple of hours' time." And with a nod he was gone.

"That man looks shaken," said Wood, an interested spectator.

"Yes, he's had a bad handling-and he has a story that I particularly want to write."

"I heard him say that," said Mr. Wood with a smile. "And now, Holland, I fear I must go. Come over and see me in Belgium."

He held out his hand at parting. "Perhaps one day I will give you a story about Abe Bellamy—the biggest story of all. If you wish for further particulars about the colleges, do not hesitate to wire."

Spike returned to the Howetts' sitting-room to discover that Miss Howett had gone to her room with a bad headache, and that the discussion of the help he could give her was indefinitely postponed.

4. THE GREEN ARROW

Reporting to the office that afternoon, Spike turned in an account of John Wood's plan for a super-creche, and took a taxi up to New Barnet.

It was a long drive to New Barnet, and Field Road proved literally to be a road through fields. Rose Cottage lay back behind high box hedges, and was a creeper-clad house, with a tiny garden in front and apparently a bigger garden at the rear which led to a small plantation. This Spike saw from the cab. Unlatching the small gate, he walked up the flagged path and knocked. There was no answer, though the door was unlocked and was, in fact, ajar. He knocked again, and again received no reply.

Pushing the door open, he called Creager by name, and when that had failed he walked back to the road to look for somebody.

There was a woman in sight; she had apparently come from one of the small houses at the farther end of the road.

"Mr. Creager? Yes, sir, he lives here, and he's usually at home at this time of the day."

"He doesn't seem to be at home now. Is there anybody else in the house?"

"No, sir; he lives alone. My sister comes in in the morning and cleans up the house for him. Why don't you go in and wait, sir?"

It seemed an excellent idea, especially as it had begun to rain and, pushing open the door, Spike walked boldly down the passage into what was evidently the living-room. It was comfortably furnished, and over the mantelpiece was a portrait, which he recognised instantly as the bearded man. He was in some sort of uniform, which Spike could not recognise.

Spike sat down and glanced idly out of the window, which commanded a view of the garden, then instantly sprang up. Protruding from behind a bush on the farther side of the tiny lawn was a foot—and it was very still.

He raced out of the room, crossed the lawn, and ran round to the farther side of the bush, and there stopped, paralysed.

Lying on his back, his eyes half closed, his hands clenched in the agony of death, lay the bearded man; and from his waistcoat, immediately above his hands, protruded the long green shaft of an arrow, tipped with vivid green feathers. Spike knelt down at the dead man's 'side and sought for some sign of life, but there was none. And then he began to make a rapid survey of the immediate vicinity. The garden was separated from the fields into which it was thrust by a low wooden fence, over which any agile man could vault. He guessed that Creager had been killed instantaneously and fallen as he had been struck.

Jumping over the fence, he began his search. Ten paces from the fence was a big oak-tree. It lay exactly in line with the arrow's flight. Round this he went, examining the ground almost inch by inch. There were no footprints, and the tree itself was in full view of the road. He looked up, caught one of the low branches, and swung himself up until he was astride. Edging forward, he came at last to a place which gave him a full view of the body. Instinctively he knew that it was from this branch that the arrow had been fired. The tree was leafy and offered cover, and it was likely, since the dead man must have been facing the way the arrow came, that his slayer was out of sight.

He must have dropped when he loosed his arrow, thought Spike, and came to the ground again. Here he was rewarded, for the murderer, in jumping down, had left two clear footprints. He had left something even more important, but this Spike did not see immediately. He found it after a while by accident. It was an arrow, similar to that in Creager's body. The shaft was polished smooth and covered with green enamel. The feathers were new, green, and well trimmed. It looked too ornamental for use, but the arrow's point was needle-sharp.

Going back to the house, he sent the taxi-driver to bring the police. They came, in the shape of a uniformed constable and sergeant, and were followed in extraordinarily quick time by a man from Scotland Yard, who took immediate charge of the house and arranged the removal of the body.

Long before the police arrived Spike had made a very searching inspection of the house. This examination included the wholly unauthorised inspection of such of Creager's private papers as he could find. He soon discovered the significance of the uniform which the man wore in his photograph. Creager had been a prison guard, or warder as they call them in England, had served twenty-one years, and had received an honourable discharge. A certificate to this effect was one of the first papers he found in the dead man's bureau. What he was anxious to unearth, however, was some paper which would explain Creager's relationship with Abe Bellamy. There was one drawer of the old-fashioned desk which he could not open and did not dare force.

He found the man's bank-book, however, and learnt to his surprise that Creager was comparatively rich. He had a balance of over two thousand pounds to his credit. A rapid inspection of the pages of this book showed that on the first of every month Creager received forty pounds, which, according to the book, was paid in in cash. His pension was easy to trace because it was paid quarterly. This and the mysterious monthly receipts, and such interests on bonds as the man held, were the only entries on the credit side. He had just finished making extracts from the pass-book when the police arrived, and he went out to meet them. Shortly afterwards the police surgeon arrived and saw the body.

"He's been dead more than an hour," he concluded. "The arrow has passed right through him. It must have been extraordinarily sharp."

To Scotland Yard men Spike produced the second arrow and pointed to the spot where it had been found.

"The man who did this was an expert," said the detective in charge. "He aimed to kill, and he must have been pretty certain that he would kill. This is the first arrow murder I've ever seen. You had better keep in touch with us, Holland. I suppose you want to go to your newspaper and make your big howl. But first you'd better tell me just why you were here at all."

Spike gave a prompt account of what had happened at the Carlton, and added a further piece of information which left the detective open- mouthed.

"Green Archer!" he said incredulously, "You're not suggesting that this job was done by a ghost, are you? If it was, then I can tell you he was a mighty substantial ghost, because it wanted an arm like iron and a bow like steel to send that arrow through Creager from the distance the string was loosed. We'll go along and see Bellamy."

Mr. Abe Bellamy was on the point of departure for Berkshire when the police officers arrived, and he was neither shocked nor perturbed by the news they gave him.

"Yes, it is perfectly true I fired him out. Creager was useful to me many years ago, and I made him a very handsome allowance for the service he rendered me. He saved my life—jumped into the water for me when my boat overturned on the river."

(That is a lie, thought Spike, watching the old man.).

"What was the quarrel about this morning, Mr. Bellamy?"

"It wasn't exactly a quarrel, but of late he's been urging me to lend him the money to buy a piece of land adjoining that on which his own house is built, and I have refused. Today he got a little fresh, threatened me-well, he didn't exactly threaten," corrected Mr. Bellamy with a harsh laugh, "but ... anyway, he got mad at me, and I threw him out."

"Where did he save your life, Mr. Bellamy?" asked the detective.

"At Henley, seven years ago last summer," replied Bellamy promptly.

(You've had that date fixed in your mind, and that has always been the explanation you were going to offer for subsidising this man, noted Spike mentally.).

"At that time he would be in the prison service," said the detective.

"I believe he was," replied Bellamy, somewhat impatiently. "But when this occurred he was on his holidays. I guess you'll be able to verify all that information from his record."

Spike was satisfied in his mind that, when the records came to be examined, ample confirmation would be found.

"I guess that's all I can tell you, officer," said Bellamy. "This fellow was shot, you say?"

"He was killed by an arrow," replied the officer, "a green arrow."

Only for a second did Bellamy lose control over his face.

"A green arrow?" he repeated incredulously. "An arrow-a green arrow? What in—" He recovered himself with an effort, and a slow smile dawned on his face and made him a little more prepossessing than usual. "Victim of your ghost story, Holland," he sneered. "Green arrow and Green Archer, eh?"

"You bet, Mr. Bellamy, we're going to have a story tomorrow," said Spike smoothly. "And that old Green Archer of yours will have a special column of his own."

5. ABE BELLAMY AND HIS SECRETARY

DID THE GREEN ARCHER MURDER CREAGER?

MYSTERIOUS ASSASSINATION FOLLOWS QUARREL WITH THE OWNER OF GHOST- RIDDEN CASTLE

"Who is the Green Archer of Garre? In what way is he associated with the assassination of Charles Creager, ex-prison warder, late of Pentonville? These are the questions which Scotland Yard are asking. Creager was found dead in his garden yesterday by a reporter of the Daily Globe, after a violent quarrel with Abe Bellamy, the Chicago millionaire, whose castle is haunted by the Green Archer. Creager was killed by a green arrow, an exact replica of the arrows that were in use six hundred years ago ... "

Abe Bellamy put down the newspaper and looked across at his secretary. "How much of that came from you I don't know," he growled. "Somebody must have told the reporters about that fool ghost. Now listen, Savini! All this crazy talk of ghosts doesn't scare me. Get that? If this monkey business is to get me rattled, and if ye think that by getting me rattled ye'll be able to make yourself a permanent feature around Garre, you've got another guess coming. I'll smash that fake without squealing to Scotland Yard, believe me!"

He walked to the window and stared moodily into the street. Presently he turned sharply. "Savini, I'll tell you something. You've got a good job. Don't lose it. You're the only thing of your kind I've ever employed. You're slick and you're a liar, and you suit me. I took you from the gutter—don't forget it. I know that you're crook—you've never been anything but crook—but I engaged you because you're the kind of crook I wanted. Someone I knew all about. D'ye hear that? More'n a year ago the police chief—inspector, or whatever you call him—happened to be seeing me about a stick-pin one of the hotel servants had taken, and I got him to stop to lunch. I've always been friendly with the police. It pays. And whilst we were lunching in this very hotel he pointed you out to me—gave me your record. I suppose, when you had a note from me, you thought your prayers for easy money had been answered? They hadn't. You've been straight with me because the week after I employed you the gang was pinched, and you were glad for a hole to hide in." He walked slowly towards his secretary, and his big finger hooked itself into the opening of Savini's waistcoat.

"That Green Archer stunt is going to end right now," he said deliberately. "And it had better! I'm gunning on anything green, and I don't want to explain to the coroner just how the accident happened. The newspapers say that there's been one Green Archer death. Maybe there'll be more!"

The grip on the waistcoat had tightened, and without any apparent effort he was swinging the helpless young man to and fro. "You know that I'm a tough, but you think I'm simple. You're wrong. I can give you trick for trick and beat you!" Suddenly his arm shot out, and Savini staggered back.

"The car at five," said Abe Bellamy, and with a sideways jerk of his head dismissed his secretary for the day.

Savini went to his room and straightened himself, mentally and sartorially. He was perturbed in mind, but he had recovered from his fright. He stood for a long time, his arm folded on the bureau, looking thoughtfully at the reflection of his brown face in the mirror. He had spoken no more than the truth when he had disclaimed all responsibility for giving the story of the Green Archer to the newspapers. There were many good reasons why he should not advertise the advent of that apparition.

So the old man knew. That discovery had been distressing at first; now it was a relief. He had lived in terror of his antecedents being revealed, but the reason for his fear even Abe Bellamy did not guess. He looked at his watch. It was just after nine, and the day his own until five, so that the excuses he had invented for going out were unnecessary. The art of serving Bellamy was to leave him alone when he desired solitude. There were days when he did not see the old man from morning until night. There were other days when every waking hour was occupied by the correspondence which his employer accumulated.

A cab deposited him before the entrance of a large residential block in Maida Vale, and, declining the invitation of the elevator boy, he walked up two flights, took a key from his pocket, and opened the door of No. 12. At the sound of his key in the lock a girl came out into the hallway, cigarette in mouth, to inspect the visitor. "Oh, it is you, is it?" she said indifferently as he closed the door behind him and hung his hat on the hall-stand.

"Who else could it be?" he asked.

"I've sent the maid out to get some eggs," she replied as he followed her into a well-furnished little sitting-room. "Where were you last night? I thought you were coming to dinner." She had perched herself on the edge of the table, her slippered feet dangling: a pretty but untidy figure of a girl, with her mop of yellow hair and her fine dark eyes. "I had a letter from Jerry this morning," she said suddenly, and laughed at the wry face he pulled.

She jumped down from the table and took a blue envelope from the mantelpiece.

"I don't want to see it," said Savini. "I hate touching things that have come from prison."

"You're lucky not to have been there yourself, my boy," said the girl, lighting a fresh cigarette from the stub of the one she had been smoking. "Jerry will be out of prison in six months. He wants to know what you're going to do for him. You're a millionaire now, Julius."

"Don't be a fool," he said roughly.

"Well, Bellamy is, and there ought to be pickings."

"There are big pickings," said Julius Savini.

He thrust his hand into his pocket and strolled to the window, turning so that his face was in the shadow.

"There's half a million at Garre."

"Dollars or pounds?" she asked without any enthusiasm.

"Pounds."

The girl laughed softly. "Old Bellamy would be worried if he knew—"

"He knows," said Julius. "He knew all along."

She looked up at him in surprise. "That you're—?"

He nodded.

"That I'm crook. Those are his own words. He told me this morning."

"What is all this stuff about the Green Archer?" she asked, getting up to close the door as the sound of her servant's footsteps came to her from the hall. "I was reading about it this morning in bed."

He did not answer at once. And then: "I haven't seen it," he said. "One of the servants thought he saw it, and the old man told me that somebody had opened his door in the night."

"That was you," she accused, and to her surprise he shook his head.

"No, there's been no need to go for midnight rambles. I know every part of the castle; and anyway the safe is not a job I would take on single-handed. It requires an expert." He frowned at her thoughtfully. "I'll tell you how I feel about this, Fay. The old crowd is breaking up. Jerry's in prison, Ben is in gaol too, Walters has skipped to the Continent, and there are only you and I left of the old gang. It's broke; let it stay broke. What did you or I ever make out of it? A few hard pounds a week, with little enough to spare after we'd paid expenses. The game was too small, and suckers are getting scarce. Here we are, with half a million for the taking. And I tell you this, I'm going half-way to murder to take it!"

He slipped his arm about her waist and kissed her, she alert, suspicious, waiting.

"What's the big idea?" she asked. "I mistrust you, Julius, when you get affectionate. Am I to go and smash his safe, or what?"

He eyed her steadily. Then: "I know a place—Sao Paulo—where a man can live like a prince on the interest of a hundred thousand dollars. And that is just the amount the old devil is going to pay me; perhaps more. Garre Castle has a secret, Fay. It may be a hundred thousand pound secret. And if the worst comes to the worst, I have a little bottle of invisible ink that will certainly be worth twenty thousand."

Julius was a lover of cryptic language, and enjoyed the mystification on his wife's face.

6. DO-NOTHING FEATHERSTONE

The immaculate young man who had been the third of Howett's luncheon- party was older than his pink, boyish face betrayed. Valerie Howett had guessed that the day her father had introduced him. To Valerie he was at first an object of mild interest. In her travels with her father, whose interests took him frequently to America, she had met in Chicago and in New York, in every big city of the United States, the pampered sons of foolish fathers, boys who had no other thought in life than the destruction of the hours that separated them from their more lurid amusements.

She knew the limitations of their interests, which usually vacillated between their fast cars and slow parties; but for the first time she was meeting the English variety of the genus. In many ways James Lamotte Featherstone was an improvement on all the others she had known. His life was as purposeless, but he possessed the great advantage of modesty. He never spoke about himself; he could talk about other things most entertainingly.

Valerie had first tolerated him because he was more presentable than the detective her father had threatened to hire to accompany her if she persisted in her practice of taking solitary rambles in neighbourhoods of an unsavoury character. And from tolerating him she had begun to like him, despite his exquisite appearance.

On the day following the murder he called to take her to the park.

"I'm going to ask you something," she said when they had reached the sunny park and he had found her a chair by the side of the Row, "and it is very personal."

"Personalities fascinate me," he said unsmiling.

"What do you do besides run around escorting attractive young ladies?"

He looked at her hard. "You are attractive," he said seriously. "You always remind me of Beatrice D'Este-the girl Leonardo painted—only your face is more delicate and your eyes much prettier—"

She was scarlet now, and stopped him.

"Mr. Featherstone!" she said awfully. "Don't you realise I was joking? Haven't you English people any sense of humour? I wasn't speaking of myself."

"You don't know anybody else I've ever escorted," he challenged, and tactfully moved to safer ground. "No, I have nothing to do."

"You don't even crease your own trousers," she said tartly, for he had annoyed her.

"No; I pay a man to do that," he admitted. "I brush my own hair, though," he added brightly.

She laughed in spite of herself, and then suddenly became serious. "Mr. Featherstone, I am going to ask you a very great favour," she said. "I don't know why I risked making you angry with me. My father is rather anxious about me. He is a little old-fashioned and thinks that a girl ought not to go out alone. He even went to the length—of proposing to hire a detective to look after me."

"Your father is an intelligent man," said Jimmy Featherstone promptly—which is exactly what he ought not to have said.

"I suppose he is," said Valerie, mastering a retort with some difficulty, "but ... the truth is that I want to be alone. I want whole days alone. Do you understand, Mr. Featherstone?"

"Yes," said the other.

"I can only really be alone, without scaring father, if he thinks you are taking me some place ... I want you to come for me tomorrow and take me out. And then I want you to leave me and let me take the car where I wish. You can say that you are taking me out for the day. On the river—"

"Rather late for the river," murmured her companion.

"Well ... some place. Somewhere that will keep me out all day. Daddy is leaving for Scotland on Wednesday night—"

"What you want me to do is to pretend to take you out and leave you to your own devices?"

She sighed again. "How clever you are. Yes, that is just what I want you to do."

Jimmy Featherstone was drilling a hole in the gravel with his gold- headed cane.

"I will upon one condition," he said slowly.

She looked at him in surprise.

"Condition? What is it?"

He raised his head and looked her straight in the eyes. "Leave the investigation of Abe. Bellamy's affairs to somebody else," he said. "It isn't a woman's job. If the police had searched the plantation behind Creager's house, you would have had some difficulty in explaining your presence, Miss Howett."

For a moment Valerie stared at her companion, speechless and pale.

"I—I don't understand you, Mr. Featherstone," she faltered.

The young man twisted round and faced her with a smile, which was half good-humour and half admonition.

"Miss Howett, you've recently accused me of living a purposeless life. An idle man has plenty of time for observation. You passed my flat in St. James's Street in a taxi-cab that was following the Ford which Creager drove."

"Then you knew Creager?" she said in astonishment.

"I knew him slightly," said Mr. Featherstone, toying with his stick and avoiding her eyes. "I know everybody slightly," he added with a laugh, "and some people a lot. For example, I know that you dismissed your cab at the end of Field Road and that you walked down as far as Creager's house, and then, as though you weren't quite certain what you would do, you came to a stile which connects with a footpath running through the plantation at the end of Creager's garden. The plantation is not part of his land, and it is only in his use because he hasn't troubled to fence off the end of his garden. And in that plantation you waited until nearly eight o'clock last night."

"You're only guessing," she challenged hotly. "Father has told you that I did not come back to dinner—"

"Indeed I am not guessing," he said quietly. "You remained in the plantation because you were afraid to have your presence betrayed."

"Where were you?" she asked.

Again he smiled. "I also was in the plantation, I'm sorry to say. Otherwise I should have seen our friend the Green Archer."

"What were you doing there? How dare you spy on me, Mr. Featherstone?"

His eyes twinkled, but not a muscle of his face moved. "You are inconsistent, Miss Howett. A little time ago you were complaining that I did nothing; and now, because I confess to having chaperoned you on a most dangerous expedition—"

She shook her head helplessly. "I don't know what to think. It doesn't seem like you, Mr. Featherstone. Why should you think I was following Creager?"

Very deliberately he took out a gold cigarette-case. "May I smoke?" he asked, and when she nodded he lit up and sent a blue cloud into the still morning air.

"You followed Creager," he said slowly, "because-and here I am only guessing—you thought, in his mood of resentment against Abe Bellamy, he would betray his employer, and, incidentally, give you the information that you have been seeking for years."

She could only stare at him.

"You're looking for a woman who disappeared under mysterious circumstances, Miss Howett," said the elegant young man, tracing patterns on the gravel with the ferrule of his cane. "And, rightly or wrongly, you suspect Bellamy of being responsible for her disappearance. You have seized at wilder straws than the one you grasped yesterday. It took me a long time to reconstruct the workings of your mind; but, as I imagine it, you thought that Bellamy would follow his tool to his house, and that you would have an opportunity of hearing them speak. You waited in the plantation nearly two hours, and were on the point of going to the house when you saw the police."

He took out his cigarette and threw it away again. He had suddenly conceived a distaste for smoking. "I'd give a lot of money to meet the Green Archer," he said softly.

"Then you believe—?" she asked in amazement.

He nodded. "I not only believe, I am absolutely certain."

She was looking at him now with a new interest and a new understanding. "What an extraordinary man you are, Mr. Featherstone! You are almost as clever as a detective my father intended to employ to take care of me."

He laughed. "I have a confession to make, Miss Howett. I am the detective with that commission. I am Captain Featherstone of Scotland Yard, and I've had you under observation ever since you arrived in London."

7. A MAN AT POLICE HEADQUARTERS

Spike Holland was in the midst of his second day's story of the arrow murder when he was called to the 'phone, and he reported to the news editor the purport of the message that had come to him.

"They want me at Scotland Yard. Gee! I'm getting important."

"You're certain about a woman being in this business?" said the news editor, looking up from the scrutiny of the first sheet of Spike's story.

"Sure!" said Spike promptly. "Two people saw her. And I've found the cabman who picked her up in the Haymarket and had instructions to follow Creager's car. And there's a woman who lives down Field Road who says that she saw a lady crossing the field towards the back of Creager's house."

"Do you think they'll be able to identify her?"

"There's nothing more certain in the wide world," said the sanguine Spike, "particularly if I'm guessing right. It is only a question of giving the cabman a chance of seeing her."

In ten minutes he was at Scotland Yard.

"The Chief of H. Bureau wants to see you," said the sergeant on the door.

"H. Bureau is a new one on me," said Spike, "but lead me to him."

A policeman piloted him into a room which, from its size and furnishing, was obviously the office of a very high official. The young man was writing at the desk and looked up as his visitor entered.

"Moses!" gasped Spike. "I've met you before, some place."

"I don't think we've met," smiled the chief, rising and pushing forward a chair. "Sit down, Mr. Holland. I'm Commissioner Featherstone, and as a rule I'm not on view to the general public. I make an exception in your case because I like your face. Will you have a cigar?"

"I'd rather have another compliment," said Spike. "Any reference you may make to my hair will be greatly appreciated."

Jim Featherstone laughed "Seriously, Holland, this is the reason I've brought you here. I understand that you have trailed a cabman who took a lady to the end of Field Road and was seen walking towards the house."

He smiled at the other's astonishment, but went on: "There's no mystery about it, because we control the taxicabs anyway, and the man happened to be uneasy under your questioning, and came and reported to the police that he had carried this lady to her destination."

"Have the other papers got this?" asked Spike dismally.

"None of the newspapers has it, or will have it," said Featherstone quietly. "Not even the Daily Globe."

"But we've got the story," said Spike.

"I don't want you to use it. That is why I've sent for you. There's nothing to it. I know the lady, and, as a matter of fact, her movements have been satisfactorily explained. I realise that it is a great disappointment to you, because a good murder without a veiled and mysterious woman isn't a murder at all from a newspaper point of view."

Spike grinned. "It is all right, chief, if that's how you feel about it," he said. "The story comes out."

"I'll give you a clue or two to put in its place," said Mr. Featherstone, toying with a silver letter-opener. "The man who killed Creager has a red scar across his shoulder."

"Is that a theory?" asked the astounded Spike.

"It is a fact," said Featherstone. "And I will give you yet another clue: the murderer either carried a very thick walking stick or a bundle of golf clubs. I am inclined to the club theory, because there is a links about a quarter of a mile from the spot where the crime was committed. I admit that I don't know exactly how this information is going to be of any value to you, but maybe you'll prefer to put it by for personal reference when the murderer is caught."

"Is there any definite clue, any that you can regard as workable?"

Jim Featherstone shook his head. "None; that is, not for publication, because it is true. I'm not being sarcastic, Holland, but you probably know that we only hint at clues when we want to rattle a criminal and push him into making a getaway. It is the last resort of the police to force a wanted man into betraying himself by leaving his usual haunts and going into hiding. More men are trapped through their conspicuous absences than by the finger-prints they leave behind. But the man we want now is not an ordinary criminal."

"What is the idea of that clue of yours—the scarred back?" asked Spike curiously; and not expecting for one moment that his question would be answered. To his surprise Featherstone explained.

"I don't know how long you have been in this country or how well you are acquainted with the processes of the English law. For certain crimes in this country we administer flogging. Some of you people think it is brutal, and maybe from the strictly humanitarian standpoint it is. So is hanging, as a matter of fact. But it has had the effect of wiping out a certain type of crime—the violent hold-up. Or if we find a man habitually living upon poor wretched women, we flog him. It has made that sort of traffic very unpopular. The lash is given for other offences—we call it 'the cat o' nine tails" because it is a whip with nine thongs—such as assault on prison officers. Creager was for seven years the principal flogger in Pentonville Gaol. It is an unpleasant job, requiring an extraordinary nerve and skill, for the law is that the lash must not fall either above or below the shoulders. If it touches the neck it may kill. There is a certain type of brute that can take this punishment and feel no resentment against the man who delivers it. There are others who never forgive, and my own theory is that the murderer was a man who had been in the hands of Creager and had waited his chance for revenge."

"And the thick walking-stick or the bag of clubs?" asked Spike.

"Creager was killed by an arrow, sent from a very powerful bow—probably a bow made of very fine steel. You cannot walk about London carrying bows and arrows without attracting a certain amount of attention. The weapon might be concealed in a hollow walking-stick, or pass unnoticed in a bag of golf-clubs."

Spike went back to his office with a feeling that the bottom had dropped out of his story. "You can cut out that woman, Mr. Syme," he said. "The police know all about her, and there's nothing to it."

"I always mistrust mysterious women," complained the unimaginative Syme.

8. THE GREEN ARCHER

Garre Castle, with its gaunt keep and its crenellated walls, offered little hint of the comfort it held. Forbidding and gloomy of exterior, no ray of light shone from its loopholed walls and turrets. The mullioned windows of Mr. Bellamy's library looked out upon the green lawn of the inner ward, and from these windows one wall of the Sanctuary Keep rose in a stark, unbroken, and seemingly endless line.

There were people who wondered why this man, who never read a book and to whom history made no appeal, should have bought, at a big figure, this home of the dead and gone lights of chivalry. Knowing him, they would not have wondered. It was the strength of it that thrilled this old builder.

There was something in these stones that was in tune with the latent ferocity in his cruel nature. The lightless dungeons with their foot-thick doors, the worn chain-rings fastened to pillars rubbed smooth by the shoulders of tortured humanity, the power and majesty of Garre Castle spoke to the primitive in him and awakened in his soul an atavistic devil that found joy even in the contemplation of forgotten suffering. It was this that made the first appeal when he had seen it twenty years before on a visit to England. Later, Garre Castle figured in such dreams as he had; finally the place became necessary. He had bought it at a heavy figure and had never regretted his purchase.

The castle was the light of his eyes. He was least objectionable here; was, on occasions, almost human. He never slept a night away. If he was in town he did not sleep there. Only the hotel servants and Julius knew this. However important the business might be that brought him to London, he was back at the castle by night, even if he left again in the morning before the world was awake. The castle was his one recreation. He would spend days wandering around the walls, hours in speculation upon some stone. Who placed it there? What was the man's name, what life did he live, what was he paid? Always it came back to that question. There were no unions in those days, no walking delegates. If a labourer got fresh they took him out and hanged him.

High from the walls of Sanctuary Keep a stout oak beam projected. Beneath was a narrow doorway. Through this slit men had been pushed, with a hempen collar around their neck, fastened to the beam above. That was the way to deal with workmen who got fresh. And the Green Archer who had stolen his lord's good venison. He had died on that beam. It was proper that he should, thought Abe Bellamy. People who go thieving should hang. That ought still to be the law.

He sat that evening before the huge stone fireplace in the library, watching abstractedly a fire of logs that crackled and spluttered. The room was a handsome one, expensively and usefully furnished. The walls were panelled from floor to raftered ceiling, and over the recessed windows heavy blue-velvet curtains had been drawn. From the fire Mr. Bellamy's eyes roved up to the stone shield above the fireplace, with its rampant leopards, which the action of time had almost obliterated. Beneath, and more distinct, was carved the de Curcys' motto: "RYTE YS RYTE."

"They spelt pretty badly in the old days," thought Abe complacently. He was not much of a speller himself. "Right is right!" A fool thing to say, anyway. Like saying that "black is black" or "water is wet."

It was late, and his evening task had been completed, but he was loath to leave the deep armchair in which he sat. At last he rose, pulled back the curtains which covered the door and unlocked it. Then he returned to the fireplace and pulled a bell cord. Julius Savini answered the summons.

"You can take all these letters on the table, draft answers, and let me have them in the morning," he growled. "I shall be here for the next month, so if you want any time off you had better tell me."

"I have an engagement on Wednesday," said Julius promptly, and the old man muttered something under his breath.

"All right, you can take it," he said.

When the man had gone he began to pace the room restlessly. There was an uneasiness in his mind which he could not understand, and for which he could find no reason. He went back to his desk, took a key from an inside pocket, and unlocked the lower drawer. He did this almost mechanically, and the leather folder was on the desk before he realised the cause of his restlessness.

"You are a fool," said Mr. Bellamy calmly. "You're lovely, but you're a fool. My God! What a fool you are!"

He had opened the folder and was looking down at a large cabinet portrait of a woman. She was wearing the costume of twenty years before, and it looked singularly old-fashioned and quaint; but the face was very young and sweet, and the calm eyes, that seemed to be searching his, had a beauty that was almost unearthly. Abe Bellamy licked his dry lips and gazed at the picture through narrowed lids. Then he turned it over calmly.

The second photograph was of a man of between thirty and forty. "A fool," said Abe calmly; "you were just that, Mick."

The third photograph was of a child, little more than a baby. This he turned in his hand. At the back was pasted a newspaper cutting: "The undermentioned officer was killed in air fighting on or about May 14th, 1918. Lieutenant J. D. Bellamy, United States Army."

He turned the photograph over again and was closing the folder when something attracted his attention, and he bent his head closer to the desk. Ash—cigarette ash! Mr. Bellamy did not smoke cigarettes. Julius Savini, on the contrary, did. He stretched out his hand for the bell, but thought better of it. After all, it was his own fault; he knew the character of the man, and if he could not keep his private documents from the curious eyes of a lock-picking crook he only had himself to blame. Before he left the library that night he put the folder in a wall- safe that the panelling hid and locked the door. He did this every night. For the space of two hours nobody could enter the library. Julius, working in a room at the other side of the entrance-hall, had his door ajar and saw his employer come out and turn the switches that extinguished the library lights.

"You can go to bed," said Bellamy gruffly. It was the nearest he ever approached to saying "good night."

His bedroom was the one apartment that looked outwards from the walls of the castle, for it was situated in the angle of what was known as the Hall Chamber—a great room, darkly panelled, and seemingly bare of furniture. There were two doors to the room, an outer of stout oak and an inner a framework covered with ancient leather. To this latter was attached a steel latch, which was connected by means of a silken cord to a pulley within reach of Mr. Bellamy's hand when he was in bed. By this means it was possible for him to keep his door fastened during the night and to lift the latch in the morning to his servant without getting out of bed. He closed the outer door and locked it, shut the leather door and slipped the latch in its socket. Then he undressed and went to bed by the light of a candle. His last act before retiring was to take from an inner pocket a long, narrow key, which he put under his pillow. He had followed the same routine for eight years.

He was a man who slept well but lightly, and instantly he was asleep. Three hours later he was as instantly awake. He never drew his curtains at night. A full moon was shining in a cloudless sky, and though the rays did not fall upon the window there was sufficient reflected light in the chamber to enable him to see clearly what was happening. The leather door was slowly opening ... inch by inch, noiselessly, steadily.

He waited, moving only to thrust his hand beneath his pillow and grip the butt of the automatic which he had planted there in preparation for some such contingency as this. The door was now wide open, and he expected every second to see the intruder pass into the room. Rising stealthily in bed and resting his elbow on his knee, he covered the edge of the door.

A minute passed, and there was no sound or sign of the intruder, and, throwing back the bedclothes, he leapt to the floor and ran out through the door, pistol in hand. The moon was streaming through the windows of the corridor, flooding the hall with light. At first he saw nothing, and then it seemed that the Thing moved from the shadow into the full light.

A tall, thin, green figure, with a dead white face, that stood stiffly facing him, bow in hand. Green from head to toe, a vivid, startling; skin-tight green that could not be mistaken. Green everywhere, save that white face that stared blankly.

For a second only the old man stared spellbound, and then his pistol jerked up and he fired twice. As he fired the figure disappeared from view. It seemed to melt into the black shadow instantly. Abe ran forward, his pistol arm extended stiffly, but when he came to the spot where the figure had been there was no sign of archer, no other evidence of his presence than two bullet holes in the panelling of the wall.

The old man made a quick search. There was a door near where the figure had disappeared, which led to a circular staircase and down to the servants' quarters. He tried the door; it was locked. And then a thought struck him, and he went quickly back along the corridor, past the open door of his own room, and came at last to where Julius Savini was sleeping. The door was fastened, and he rapped sharply.

"Savini!" he called. There was no answer. By this time the servants had been aroused, and he caught a glimpse of a man in shirt and trousers coming towards him and called him by name.

"What is wrong, Mr. Bellamy?"

"Don't ask fool questions," snarled the old man. "Get dressed, rouse all the servants, and search the castle. Phone down to the lodge and wake the keeper. Hurry."

At that moment Savini's door opened, and he stood, a startled figure in his pyjamas, holding a lighted candle in his hand.

"What—" he began. Bellamy pushed past him into the room and glanced round suspiciously.

One of the long windows was open, and he strode across and looked out. A narrow parapet ran immediately beneath the window. It was broad enough for a man to walk upon, given the requisite nerve.

"Didn't you hear the shot?"

"I heard something. I think it must have been you pounding on the door. What has happened?"

"Dress and come down to the library."

Suddenly he lurched forward without warning and jerked open the jacket of Savini's pyjamas. A square foot of bare chest was his reward, and he grunted his disappointment. He had expected to see a skin-tight green vest.

Savini dressed quickly and went down, to find the old man in the library, pacing up and down like a caged lion. "Who locked the door of the servants' stairway?" he asked.

"I did," was the reply. "You gave me instructions to see that the door was locked every night."

The old man eyed him keenly. "And you've got the key, of course?"

"As a matter of fact, the butler has it. I give it to him because he's up earlier than I. He has to open the door to let in the cleaners."

"Where is the key now?" snarled Bellamy, his red face inflamed still further. The great jaw was out-thrust and his eyes were the merest slits. "I tell you this, Savini, if you're not in this. Green Archer fake, I've made one of the few mistakes that I've ever made. Find Wilks."

Savini went out into the grounds to discover the butler, accompanied by the two keepers that Bellamy maintained.

"I've got the key in my pocket," said Wilks, when the other had explained his errand. "It couldn't have gone that way, Mr. Savini."

He was carrying a bright vapour lamp, and this, when he came to the library, the old man requisitioned. They went upstairs again to the bedroom floor, and the butler turned the key of the little door and swung it open.

"Give me that lamp," said Bellamy. He pulled his pistol from his pocket and went cautiously down the circular staircase, followed by the two men. At the foot was another door, which was unlocked, and this led into an annexe of the castle kitchen—a vaulted chamber used as a store-house for provisions. Both doors which led from this apartment were bolted from the inside. Mr. Bellamy cast the light of his lantern up the broad chimney, but saw nothing. "He couldn't have gone this way," he grumbled, and then irritably: "There was no other way he could have gone!"

The light of dawn was in the eastern sky when the search was finally finished. Mr. Bellamy sat before the newly kindled fire in the library drinking a cup of scalding hot coffee with savage, noisy gulps, whilst his secretary sat silently, and a little wearily, watching him. He stifled a yawn, not so furtively but the old man noticed it.

"There's something behind this Green Archer business, Savini," he said, breaking a silence that had lasted the greater part of an hour. "A ghost! Pah! I believe neither in ghosts nor devils. There is nothing on God Almighty's earth, under or over it, that can scare me! I am devil- proof and ghost-proof, Savini, and that fellow has got to be bullet-proof to get away with it if I ever find him!"

9. VALERIE'S SPRAINED ANKLE

"Father," said Valerie Howett next morning at breakfast, "I want a country house."

Mr. Howett looked up.

"What's that?" he asked, startled.

"I want a country house," said Valerie.

He thought she looked tired and pale. There were dark shadows under her eyes, and a certain listlessness of manner which caused him some concern.

"I've seen a wonderful old place. It isn't far from London, and it has the disadvantage of adjoining Abe Bellamy's estate."

"But, my dear," said the troubled man, "I have certain duties to perform in America, and I can't stay on here through the winter. Though it could be fixed, I suppose," he added. "Where is this place?"

"At Garre—it is called Lady's Manor, and is an old dower house that at one time belonged to the castle. It would want a whole lot of renovating." She looked down at her plate and went on tactfully: "I thought it was just the place for you, daddy, if you are ever going to write your book."

Mr. Howett dreamed a dream of writing a political history of England. It was a project he had had in mind for twenty years and for which he had accumulated an immense amount of data. The fact that perfectly good political histories of England existed was less a deterrent than a spur to emulation, and Mr. Howett scratched his cheek thoughtfully.

"It is so very quiet and peaceful. I'm sure, daddy, you'll never be able to write your book when you get to America with all your business distractions and your engagements. And of course you couldn't write in a noisy town like London, which is almost as bad as New York."

"Quiet, is it?" said Mr. Howett feebly.

"You could hear an infinitive split," she said flippantly, with a touch of her old buoyant spirit.

"I don't know that that's a bad idea, Val," said her father, leaning back and contemplating the ceiling. "And the rest would be good for you. It isn't a bad idea. I'll cable New York and see if it can be arranged. You're not afraid of ghosts?" he asked, dryly, and she smiled.

"No, I'm not afraid of ghosts," was the quiet reply, "if by ghosts you mean the Green Archer."

"That is certainly a queer business." Mr. Howett shook his head. "I don't know Bellamy, but from what I've heard of him I should imagine that he's the last man in the world to be scared by anything except an income- tax official."

"You've never met him?"

Her father shook his head. "No, I've never met him. I've seen him often enough—he's been here in the hotel. I don't like him, and I'm not greatly impressed by that yellow-faced secretary of his." She rose, and he hastened to her side to help her from the room. "Valerie, you must see the doctor or an osteopathist about that ankle of yours."

"It will be quite well today," she said. "I'm going to lie down, do nothing, and see nobody."

She waved his assistance aside with a laugh and walked to her room unaided, if a little shakily. Later in the morning came a visitor who would not be denied. Mr. Howett knocked on the door of his daughter's bedroom. "Here's Captain Featherstone. He says he wants to see you. Can he come in?"

"If he promises not to bully me," came the reply. "I'm not in the mood to be lectured."

"Why on earth should he lecture you?" asked her astonished father.

"Tell him to come in."

Jim Featherstone came into the bedroom on tiptoe, with such an exaggerated air of concern that the girl could have shaken him. "It is very sad to see you stretched so low," he said; "and please don't scowl, Miss Howett. I have come here oozing sympathy."

Mr. Howett went back to his sitting-room to write out a cablegram.

And then: "Where were you last night, young lady?"

"In bed," she replied promptly.

"And the night before?"

"Also in bed."

"Will you think I am indelicate," he demanded, "if I ask you whether in your dreams you paid a visit to the salubrious neighbourhood of Limehouse, looking for a man who is known as Coldharbour Smith?"

She uttered an exclamation of impatience.

"Wait!" He lifted a solemn hand warningly. "In searching for Mr. Coldharbour Smith, did you tumble into a free-for-all fight in a restaurant mainly frequented by Chinks and negroes?"

She shuddered at the remembrance.

"From which you were rescued by an honest but homely sailor—not, however, before you were badly kicked by one of the brutes."

"You weren't the honest but homely sailor?" she said, aghast.

He shook his head. "No; he was one of my men-Sergeant Higgins. A very good fellow, though there is nothing of the male vamp about him. Why do you do these things?"

"Because I must," she answered doggedly. "I ought to have seen Creager before this terrible thing happened. I knew of him, knew that he was on Bellamy's pay-roll for some horrible thing he had done in the past. And this other man." She shivered again. "It was terrible."

"Coldharbour is not nice," agreed Captain Featherstone. "People who run the kind of establishments at he runs are not as a rule pleasant. So Coldharbour is also on the payroll, is he?" he mused. "I didn't know that. Where do you get all your information?"

"I have paid for it," she said, declining a direct answer, "and I think it is fairly reliable."

He considered for a few moments, studying the carpet attentively.

"My own impression is that you're defeating yourself," he said. "Fortunately, Coldharbour was not on view the other night. If he had been, Bellamy would have known within twenty-four hours."

He saw the tears come to her eyes, and the unexpectedness of the sight took his breath away.

"I've tried everything," she said, "everything. I suppose I've been wilful and foolish and vain enough to believe that I was cleverer than all the police in the world, but I'm beginning to think I'm not."

His eyes met hers. "Are you chasing a shadow, Miss Howett?" he asked gravely.

"No, no, no," she cried with vehemence. "I'm sure of it. Something here tells me that I am right."

"Will you answer me this question?" said Featherstone, lowering his voice. "Who is the woman you are seeking?"

He saw her lips close tightly. "I cannot tell you that," she said. "It is not my secret alone."

10. THE SLAYER OF CHILDREN

It was a sudden impulse and a desire to meet again a man so far from the world and its everlasting struggle that made Spike Holland jump at the suggestion offered by his news editor that he should try to persuade John Wood, of Wenduyne, to contribute a series of articles on child welfare.

Leaving London by the early boat-train, Spike spent five uncomfortable hours on a bleak and troubled sea. It was not so much the possibility of securing the articles—they were certain, because Wood had already expressed his willingness—as the likelihood of obtaining even a scrap of information about Abe Bellamy that took him abroad. There was curiously little data available concerning the old man, and Spike had the impression that the philanthropist could have told him a great deal. The abruptness with which he had changed the subject when Bellamy was mentioned suggested this.

Spike was glad to step to the solid foundation of Ostend Quay. He had half an hour to wait in the Place de Gare before there hove in sight the little train that runs to the Dutch frontier, and he was glad to get to the shelter of a first-class compartment. Rain was now falling heavily, and a chill wind swept bleakly through the square. A frequent visitor to Belgium, he knew the route by heart, that dreary way across the dunes, the only points of interest the deserted gun emplacements which the German left in his retreat. Le Coq was a howling wilderness, but Wenduyne had the appearance of a town. A summer resort, it was deserted now save for a shivering policeman, who stood in the tramway shelter and eyed him curiously as he struggled up the steep incline that led to the digue in the face of a strong north-westerly wind.

The digue was a desolation. The faces of the pretty villas were boarded up, and billows of sand lay in patches on the neglected promenade. The tide was in, and a tawny sea was lashing furiously at the very foot of the embankment as he walked swiftly along, his coat buttoned to his chin. Presently he came to 94. A tall, narrow fronted villa like its fellows, its stoep and entrance were hidden behind a grey weather-board, pierced by one door, at which he knocked.

His knock was answered by a squat old woman with a slight moustache. She looked at him a little uncertainly.

"What is the name? M'sieur does not receive," she said in French.

"He expects me, aunty," said Spike. "I wired him."

The woman's dull eyes lit up.

"Perfectly I remember. Will m'sieur come this way?"

John Wood was sitting at a large ormolu writing-table as the visitor entered, and he rose and put down his pen.

"You came in spite of the weather? Stout fellow! Sit down, Mr. Holland. And before you ask me, I will gladly undertake the writing of the articles you referred to in your telegram. I need all the publicity I can get for my scheme, and I am a shameless advertiser."

They discussed the articles in detail, and Spike faithfully conveyed all the prejudices, requirements as to length and subject that Syme had impressed upon him. The squat lady with the moustache brought wine and coffee, with wafer-like biscuits. "How quiet and peaceful you are here!" said Spike enviously. "I thought you were a bit nutty, living in Wenduyne through the winter. What a place to write!"

John Wood smiled. "I won't take you up to see the quiet-disturbers. They are enjoying their siesta."

"Have you any children here?" asked Spike in astonishment, and Wood nodded. "Thirty," he said. "Three floors full." He pointed to the stairway that led to the upper part of the building. "I only have the quite healthy ones here. The sanatorium is at the back of the town."

They talked of babies for an hour. Mr. Wood seemed inclined to talk of nothing else.

"Mr. Wood, I have an idea that you know a great deal more about Abe Bellamy than you say. You don't like him, do you?"

Mr. Wood was playing with a golden figure of Pan, an exquisite little statuette that stood on his writing-table. "I know enough to hang him," he said without lifting his eyes.

Spike heard, amazed. "You know enough to hang him?" he repeated. "That's a pretty serious thing to say."

Wood raised his eyes. "It might be if I were not speaking in absolute confidence to a man I trust," he said.

Usually Spike hated to be told anything in confidence, but for once he was eager for unpublishable news. "I have no proof—absolutely none," the child-lover went on. "Nevertheless, I know sufficient to hang him. I don't say that he would hang on my unsupported statement. The law is very tender of human life."

"It was a child, of course," said Spike. "Without suggesting that you have no use for grown-ups, or that you would not get heated up over the shooting of a fat man, I fancy from your tone that it was a child."

"He killed a child," nodded the other, "a child I dimly remember having seen. Whether he or one of his hirelings was immediately responsible I do not know. He hates children. He would sooner take his last dollar and cast it into the sea than give the filings of it to help a child!"

"Can't you tell me what he did-was it in America?"

"In America many years ago," said Wood. "I'm afraid that I have already said too much. Sooner or later I shall have proof. I have had two men working on the slight clues I have been able to furnish, and they have been working for years, one in London, one in America."

"He was in trouble with a children's protection society in America?"

"I know; but that had nothing to do with the case I am referring to. There was another case in New York city. He nearly killed an office-boy; threw him down a flight of stone stairs. Yes, I have Mr. Bellamy's public record at my finger-tips. It is his private record that I am seeking. The man is a born brute. It isn't only children that he has beaten. It cost him five thousand dollars to stop a case for assault brought by his valet. He hasn't had a valet since."

"The Lord makes queer people," said Spike.

"The devil makes queerer," retorted John Wood, his fine face darkened. "He throws some men back to the animal stage of existence."

Spike launched a question that he had been pondering all the way across the sea. "Do you think that the Green Archer is one of his victims?" he asked, and John Wood's brow cleared.

"There are quite a lot of people," he said quizzically, "who think that the Green Archer was invented by a certain newspaper correspondent, whose name it would be impolite to mention to your face!"

A staggering arraignment of his veracity which amused Spike. "I'd be glad to be the author of a stunt that fooled England," he confessed; "but unfortunately the credit goes to the Green Archer himself."

He told the story of the last visitation, and John Wood questioned him closely.

"Who saw the 'ghost' besides Abel Bellamy?"

"Nobody. Perhaps the old man invented it."

"It isn't likely." John Wood shook his head. "There is nothing subtle about Bellamy. He's just animal all through. You may dismiss that supposition from your mind. The Green Archer is real enough if Bellamy has seen him."

His face clouded again and he lay back in his chair deep in thoughts. They were evidently not pleasant. Suddenly he rose, and, going to a safe at the end of the room, he opened it. He was there for some time, and when he returned he had something in his hand.

Spike had risen to go, for he had only a few hours at his disposal and he had taken up a lot of time discussing the articles.

"Look at that, Holland." It was a baby's shoe of white kid; stained and discoloured. "Some day, if judgment does not overtake him before, I will show this shoe to Abe Bellamy in an American court of justice. It will be a woeful day for him!"

It was at this moment that the old woman came in with a broad grin on her homely face, and in her arms a tiny bundle of white. "M'sieur, the little Allemande will not sleep until she has seen you."

She held up in her arms a rosy-faced baby with big, staring eyes that sought first the glittering chandelier. From the light she moved her head jerkily towards John Wood, and opened her small, wet mouth in a delighted gurgle.

The change in the man was amazing. He seemed to melt instantly. The laughter and bubbling joy that was peculiarly his came back to his face as he reached out and caught her in his arms. "Here is a coin from my treasury, Holland, more wonderful than Bellamy's millions. A little enemy! How ferocious she is, Holland! You may call her Hun and she doesn't care!"

The baby's soft cheek was against his, and Spike saw the tears in his eyes and marvelled.

As Spike went forth smiling to the gale he looked round. John had the baby sitting on the edge of his desk, one hand about her, the other holding before her delighted eyes the golden figure of Pan.

11. THE DOGS OF GARRE

Julius was met by his employer the next morning with a cryptic greeting. Mr. Bellamy was never his brightest in the early hours, and he usually worked off his spleen by a shower of fault-finding. "Don't let my dogs see you," said Abe. "You'd make less than a square meal for them."

Julius was interested in spite of his unease. There were no dogs in the castle, for Abe was not a lover of pets. His employer explained. "I've bought a couple of police dogs," he said, "and they'll go on duty in the hall and corridor from tonight on. If you take my advice, you'll stay in your room until I'm up."

Later, Julius saw the dogs—dour, unfriendly, and wolf-like. In their strange new home they were unapproachable except by Abe himself. He was absolutely fearless, and the animals seemed to recognise immediately and to acknowledge his mastership.

"Handle 'em," said Abe. "Don't be afraid. Touch 'em." Julius put forth a nervous hand at the nearest beast, and jumped back in a fright as the dog snapped at him.

"You're scared, and he knows you're scared. Come here, you!" He snapped his finger, and the dog lurched forward, wagging his tail, and sat down, his intelligent head lifted to the big man's face.

"The man who sold 'em to me said I wouldn't master 'em in a month. He's a fool. That house has been rented," he said, going off at a tangent. "What do you call it?"

"Do you mean Lady's Manor?" asked Julius in surprise.

The old man nodded. "They beat me to it by five minutes. I was on the 'phone to the agent this morning and he told me he'd hired it. Do you know anything about that?"

"No, sir; this is the first I've heard. Who is the newcomer?"

Abe Bellamy shook his head. "I don't know and I don't care," he said. "Why couldn't they go somewhere else?"

Later in the afternoon Julius accompanied him across the broad, tree- studded path on a tour of inspection. "I guess that's the place," said Bellamy, pointing with his stick to a squat, grey house, the roof and chimneys of which showed over the high wall which surrounded the park. "I've seen the house before, but I never thought of buying it. Is that a door in the wall?"

"It looks like one," said Julius. "There was probably a connection between the castle and Lady's Manor. It was what they call a dower house."

The door proved to be an ancient, iron-studded structure that evidently had not been used for years. Its ironwork was rusted, and the surface was half covered with ivy. The fact that it would mean a day's work to open the door did not satisfy the old man. "Have a mason in from the village and fill up that doorway," he said. "I'll not risk prying people wandering about my land. See to that, Savini."

Julius made a note, and that same afternoon two workmen came from the village and began clearing away the ivy and the weeds preparatory to bricking up the doorway; and when Valerie Howett, viewing the rank garden of her new home, heard the click of steel against stone, she guessed what was happening on the other side of the dilapidated gate.

In many ways Lady's Manor had been a surprise. A more careful scrutiny had revealed the fact that very little interior repair was necessary. The walls of every room were panelled, the ceilings were raftered and needed no more than a coat of whitewash. One of the inlaid floors was badly in need of repair, but to her joy Valerie found that it was possible to move into the place almost at once, and this was a step which she decided to take.

The obedient Mr. Howett agreed, and before the cleaners were out of the house, or the wash on the ceiling dry, huge furniture lorries passed in procession through the quiet lanes of Berkshire and backed into the drive of Lady's Manor.

From his bedroom window Abe Bellamy one morning saw smoke rising above the trees in the direction of the house and grunted. He was up earlier in these days, because the servants showed a pardonable reluctance to entering the living part of the castle until the watchful police dogs were leashed. These guardians of the night ranged, the castle at large, and Julius once heard the soft patter of their feet in the night and shivered. And the presence of dogs had been effective, for since their arrival there had been no sign of the Green Archer.

Mr. Bellamy caught a glimpse of a headline in the Daily Globe: "POLICE DOGS GUARD THE CHICAGO MILLIONAIRE FROM A GHOSTLY ARCHER," and growled angrily. But he had resigned himself to this undesirable publicity; and although he bore a grudge against Spike Holland, he did not feel called upon to wage a vendetta against the reporter, though in the past he had ruined newspaper men for less. And on the top of this Spike Holland had the audacity to appear at the lodge of the castle and demand admission. This was the day following his return from Belgium.

"Tell him," snapped Abe Bellamy over the telephone, 'that if he comes anywhere near I'll set my dogs on him."

"He says he has some information about Creager, the man who was murdered the other day."

"I don't want to know it," roared Bellamy, and slammed down the telephone.

A little while later, going into the grounds on one of his restless excursions, he stood stock still, momentarily paralysed with wrath and astonishment. The red-haired reporter was walking calmly across the green, a cigar in the corner of his mouth, his hands in his pockets. One of these he removed to wave a cheerful greeting to the dumbfounded millionaire.

"How did you get here?"

"Over the wall," said Spike brightly.

Abe Bellamy's red face went a shade darker.

"You can go over the wall again," he said harshly, "you've no right here, you scum. Get!"

"See here, Mr. Bellamy. There's no sense in making a fuss. I'm here, and you might as well listen to me."

"Listen nothing. Get out!"

The old man came towards the reporter, and there was no doubt as to his intentions.

"I think you'd better listen," said Spike quietly and not budging an inch. "The police have found a copy of a letter that Creager wrote to you about a man called Z, and they are mighty anxious to know the year it was written in and who was the man."

Instantly Bellamy's attitude changed.

"A letter?" he said incredulously. "Written to me? Did the fool—did he keep copies of his letters?"

Spike nodded.

"They found hundreds of copies in his bureau. I guess it was a practice of his."

Abe Bellamy thought a while. Then: "Come inside," he said gruffly, and Spike followed him, triumphant.

12. THE GAS BILL

"Now, let's hear all about this. How do you now about the letter, anyway?"

"I was there when it was found," said Spike. "In fact, they'd have passed it over if I hadn't seen it."

"They would, would they?" said the old man grimly.

"I saw it and made a copy before the inspector realised it was anything important."

He took out a pocket-book and extracted a sheet of paper, which he opened and laid on the table.

"I'll read it to you," he said. "There's no date, a fact that has rattled the police. 'Re the man Z. He is in my ward, and he is a very quick tempered fellow. I think I could do what you suggested at our meeting, but you would have to pay me well, because I might lose my job. Especially if anything went wrong and another warder saw me. Also, it might be very painful for me and I might seriously injure myself, and I must know where I stand financially. I don't like Z. He is too smart and ready, with his tongue, and there has already been a little trouble with him. If you want to go ahead with this, will you see me tomorrow? I am going on my holidays and shall be staying with relations at Henley. If it is convenient, perhaps you could see me there.'

"(Signed) J. CREAGER."

Abe Bellamy read the letter twice, then folded it up and handed it back to the reporter. "I don't remember receiving it. I know nothing whatever about Z., whoever he may be, and I never paid him money except for the service he rendered me."

His tone was unusually mild, though Spike saw that it was only with an effort that he was keeping his temper.

"But it was at Henley he saved your life, wasn't it?" Spike persisted. "It is rather a coincidence he should have fixed it for you to meet him there. Maybe he knew you were going to fall into the river?"

"I want none of that fresh talk, Holland," exploded the old man. "You have all the information you'll get from me. As to this letter, there's no proof that he ever sent it. Maybe you faked it and put it amongst his papers. What were you doing at the search, anyway?"

Spike folded the letter and put it back in his pocket.

"What was I doing?" he repeated. "Well, I guess I was just around. You've nothing to say to this letter, Mr. Bellamy?"

"Nothing. I never received it. I know nothing whatever about the man he mentions. I did not even know that Creager was a prison guard until I read it in the Globe—my favourite newspaper," he added sardonically, and Spike grinned.

"Well, that's that," he said. "Any more news of the ghost?"

"You get it before I do," replied Abe. "All the information I have about that darned Green Archer I read in the Globe—a very fine newspaper, full of accurate information. Say, I'd rather go without my breakfast than the Daily Globe."

"I suppose you don't mind my looking over the castle?"

"You suppose wrong," said Abe. "You can look over the wall you came across, and the sooner you look the better."

To be perfectly sure that his unwelcome visitor had gone, he accompanied him to the lodge gates, and the lodge-keeper's jaw fell at the sight of him.

"These walls are not high enough, Savini," said the old man after Spike had departed. "Phone somebody in Guildford to come along and fix barbed wire on the top. And, Savini—" Julius turned at the door. "I didn't mention this before, but I think it will save you a lot of trouble if I tell you now that a leather folder of mine, where I keep a few photographs, is no longer in the drawer of my desk; I've put it in the safe. If you want to look at 'em, maybe you'll come along and ask me and I'll get 'em out for ye!"

Julius did not feel called upon to reply, and was incapable of making any adequate response, even if he had had the opportunity.

Garre Castle had undergone considerable renovation before Abe Bellamy had taken up his residence. Under the personal supervision of the old builder, gangs of men had spent the greater part of a month carrying out the work which he himself had planned. He was his own architect, his own ganger. He had introduced a new water supply and had electric light introduced into the castle and a system of gas radiation. There were gas fires in every room except the library and a great range in the kitchen.

This gas supply was the cause of considerable perturbation in the mind of Wilks, the butler, on the day Spike had made his unauthorised entrance to the castle grounds. The household accounts went to Bellamy direct, but by some accident there came to Mr. Wilks' pantry and office the gas bill for the summer quarter, and he pondered on it for a long time before he interviewed his master.

"What is it?" asked Abe, scowling up at his servitor.

"This gas bill, sir, is wrong; they have overcharged us," said Wilks, gratified that he was able to approach the lord of Garre on a matter in which he knew he would welcome instruction.

"Wrong? What's wrong with it?"

"Well, sir, they've sent us a heavy bill for one of the hottest months of the year, when the gas range in the kitchen was out of order and we had to use coal."

Bellamy snatched the bill from the man's hand without looking at it. "Leave it," he said.

"But we couldn't have used a thousand feet of gas, and they've charged us—"

"Leave it!" thundered his employer. "And don't open the bills—see? That's not your job."

It was the last straw. Mr. Wilks was well paid, but he had suffered much at the hands of this boorish boss of his, and his patience was exhausted.

"I'm not going to have you talk to me that way, Mr. Bellamy," he said, "and I'll be glad if you'll give me my wages and let me go. I'm not used to—"

"Don't make speeches—go," said Abe. He put his hand in his pocket and flung a note on the table. "There's your money. You'll be out of this place in half an hour, or I'll know the reason why."

Spike was taking a modest lunch at the village inn when the tremendous news reached him. The dismissal of the castle butler was, to the village of Garre, an event of world-shaking importance.

The reporter left his lunch and went out to intercept the injured man.

"It was absolutely impossible to live with him," said Wilks, trembling with annoyance; "quite impossible, sir. He's not a human being, he's a pig! And what with his seeing ghosts—"

"Have you seen the ghost?"

"No, sir, I haven't," said Wilks. "I cannot tell a lie; I have seen no ghosts whatever, and my own opinion is that the ghost is an invention of Mr. Bellamy's for his own vile purpose. When I call him a pig, I am speaking as a man who has served in some of the best families. He doesn't know how to live, sir! He's got one of the handsomest dining-rooms in the country, and he takes his meals hog-fashion in his library, which no gentleman ever does. And the meals he eats, sir! They would feed three regular people. He has two quarts of milk for breakfast, half a dozen eggs ... " He enumerated Mr. Bellamy's prodigious appetite.

He presented Mr. Bellamy in a new light to Spike. He never thought of him as a person who ate or drank or possessed the normal appetites of humanity. "What was the trouble that led to your leaving?" he asked; and the butler told him. No gas whatever had been used during the summer quarter, and the company had charged for twenty-five thousand feet.

"It was in his own interests I told him, and instead of being grateful, as a gentleman should be, he turned round and treated me like a dog. Well, naturally, Mr. Holland, I wasn't going to stand for that."

Spike listened to the recital of the butler's woes, but gave little thought to the question of the gas company's overcharge. Instead, he skilfully directed the conversation back to the question of the ghostly visitor, without, however, eliciting anything very startling except the presence of the police dogs, which Spike knew about and had already written up.

Nevertheless, all the time Mr. Wilks was talking he was furnishing a London newspaper with an interesting column which would eventually appear under the heading: "My Life in the Haunted Castle."

Spike, going back to town, decided to call at Scotland Yard. Jim Featherstone was in, and the reporter was admitted immediately. "Well, Holland, what's the news?" He pushed the cigar-box across the table, and Spike chose with great care.

"There's trouble in Garre Castle," he said. "The noble owner has fired the butler for butting in about the gas bill. I suppose four hundred years ago poor old Wilks would have been slung up by the neck and would have joined the goodly company of ghosts that gather at night to shoot dice in Abe's backyard."

"Say that all over again, and very slowly," said Jim. "I am rather dense this morning. First of all, what was wrong with the gas bill?"

Spike told him, and to his astonishment the detective pressed him for details, questioning and requestioning until the reporter's brain reeled. "What's wrong with the gas, anyway?" he said. "That doesn't seem to me to be much of a clue, unless you suspect Abe of running a secret whisky still."

"The gas bill is the most important thing we've learnt from Garre Castle," said Jim Featherstone quietly. "I'm greatly obliged to you, Holland. And, by the way, I'm going abroad for a week or two, so I shan't be seeing you. But any information you get I'd be glad if you would tell my assistant. I'll introduce you."

Spike came into the news editor's room half an hour later. "Mr. Syme, I'm certain that the big end of this Creager's story is to be found in Garre Castle. The old man has just fired his butler, and we ought to get one of our men into his place right away. I'd go myself, but I've never buttled, and Bellamy would recognise my looks before I'd been there an hour. Can't we send Mason or one of the other boys? We could fix it so that an employment agency sent him down."

"It is an idea," said the news editor.

It was also an idea which occurred to two other interested persons, almost simultaneously.

13. THE DOGS HEAR A NOISE

"Wilful murder against some person or persons unknown."

Abe Bellamy read the report of the inquest upon Creager without emotion. It meant no more to him than that the sum of four hundred and eighty pounds a year, which he had paid for many years, would now be saved to his pocket. It had been inconvenient and irritating to answer the interminable questions which the police had put to him regarding his acquaintance with the dead man; but that was all done with.

It is a curious fact that the bizarre character of the man's death did not stir him. Nor did he himself associate the method of killing with the Green Archer. He was constitutionally prejudiced against newspapers, and from the first he looked upon the bringing together of the two circumstances as a stunt invented by journalists. Very likely the man wasn't killed with an arrow at all. He was probably stabbed by some old lag who had a grudge against him; and if it was an arrow, then the murderer must have got his idea for a weapon out of the newspapers.

One thing he had noticed—and this had nothing whatever to do with the murder—was the gloom of his secretary. He attributed this wrongly to the revelation he had made that he knew Julius and his past, and, believing this, was content to keep him in his employ. The presence of the new tenants of Lady's Manor caused him a little annoyance. They seemed in some indefinable way to encroach upon his majesty, though he did not exactly put the thought into those words. Who they were he neither knew nor cared. Except to Julius he never discussed outside matters, and his servants did not address him unless he spoke to them, and he never spoke except to complain.

A few days after the dismissal of Wilks he had occasion to snap at the new butler. "Young fellow, I want you to understand that I don't wish you to come to any room where I am, unless I send for you. You were knocking at the door of the library last night, though Mr. Savini told you that I was not to be disturbed."

"I'm very sorry, sir," said the butler deferentially. "The ways of the castle are strange to me as yet, but I will not offend again."

More than a fortnight had passed since the last appearance of the Green Archer, and Bellamy had no difficulty in finding an explanation.

"There's something about a police dog that a ghost doesn't like," he said. "Or maybe there's something about a ghost that naturally riles a police dog." That night he was awakened from his sleep by the deep growl of one of the hounds, and, jumping out of bed, he came into the corridor. The lights were all on, as he had ordered, and one of the dogs stood stiffly in the centre of the passage, facing the broad stone stairway which led to the hall below. The old man whistled, and the dog turned and walked slowly towards him, stopping to look back from time to time. Presently he was joined by his companion, who came bounding up the stairs at the sound of the whistle.

"What's wrong with ye, eh?"

Abe went back into his room, put on his dressing-gown, and slipped a gun into his pocket. Then, followed by the dogs, he descended to the hall. He saw nothing that was in any degree suspicious. Unlocking the library door, he walked in, switched on the lights, and made a search of the room without result. The big, heavy entrance-door was locked and barred.

Satisfied, he went upstairs again to his room. He had scarcely dozed off when again came the deep-throated growl, and this time from both dogs. He found them where he had seen them before.

They stood, rigidly pointing towards the main staircase, and this time when he whistled them one looked round but did not move.

He called them sharply, and they came to him.

"What's the matter with you, you fool?"

A deep growl was the reply. Suddenly, as though they had seen something, they lashed round together and flew like the wind along the corridor, with Abe in pursuit. He found them in the hall, nosing the floor, and this time he turned on all the lights in the hall and made a search, but again without result. "You dogs are nutty," he grumbled.

They were uneasy. Probably dogs had spells like these, he thought, and went to bed. As he was dozing off he heard them growl again, but took no further notice and went to sleep.

It was five o'clock; when he awoke, and it was still dark. He got up and pulled on his dressing-gown before he illuminated the room. And then his eyes opened wider. The door was wide open, the outer door unlocked, and he was certain that he had closed and fastened them when he came to bed for the last time. What had the dogs been doing? He went into the corridor to discover. At first he thought they were dead, but they were lying, one behind the other, against the wall, their legs outstretched. He shook one, and the dog opened his eyes, looked at him stupidly for a second or two, and closed them again.

Doped! thought the old man. So there had been something hidden all the time; but it was something human. The Green Archer was flesh and blood; he had never thought anything else.

The dogs recovered in half an hour and seemed none the worse for their misadventure. He himself took them down to the kennels. Why had the Green Archer come? What had been his object? It was not for the sake or demonstrating his ability to come in and out of the room at his will that he had taken the risk attendant upon drugging the dogs. What had he been seeking?

The bedroom contained few valuables, and what there were had been left intact. Robbery was not, obviously, the explanation for these visits. It was equally certain that the Green Archer was no practical joker, but had a very serious purpose.

Suddenly the explanation flashed on the old man. The Green Archer was seeking the key—the key that never left him by day and that was beneath his pillow by night. He carried it in his pocket at the end of a long steel chain. The first thing he did in the morning was to take it out and loop the chain about his neck when he went to his bath. The last thing he did at night was to return the key to his pillow.

It was a curious instrument-very long and very narrow and thin. The key! That was the explanation. And if it was that, then the Green Archer knew the secret of Garre Castle!

He almost ran into the library and slammed the door behind him. Savini, hearing the sound half awake, dreamt that the old man had shot himself, and smiled in his sleep.

14. AT LADY'S MANOR

Spike had had a letter from his friend in Belgium that morning. John Wood was coming over at the end of the week and he wanted Spike to dine with him. One portion of his letter interested the reporter: "I was very grateful to you for the long account you sent me of Bellamy and the extraordinary happenings at the castle. Since then I have had the Globe and read your account, and the story of the Green Archer of Garre is very remarkable. In your covering letter you say that the Green Archer will sooner or later break the nerve of Abel Bellamy. As I told you before, you are wrong. Nothing in the world is going to frighten this evil man. Nor do I agree that it is inevitable that Abe Bellamy will be killed by the hand that struck down Creager. I think it is largely a matter of expediency with the destroyer, and Abe Bellamy's fate depends entirely upon the nature of the discoveries which are made by the man who is 'haunting' the castle."

The letter went on to deal in detail with his new scheme and its progress. He had succeeded in interesting a number of wealthy men in America and England, and his plan had progressed beyond his wildest hopes ... Spike did not read the latter part of the letter very carefully, because for the moment he was not passionately interested in child welfare. He was, however, immensely interested in Abe Bellamy. He could not help wondering at the extraordinary difference in the character of the two men. This brutal giant, who sat like an ogre of old time in his fastness, emanating uncharity and hate, with the gentle soul whose life's work was devoted to the interests of humanity.

He had a breakfast engagement with Mr. Howett, and he strolled along the pretty lane that skirted the high walls of the castle. Presently the Elizabethan chimneys of the old manor-house came into view. Spike was something of an antiquarian, and like most Americans, was better acquainted with the history of the historic buildings of England than the Englishmen who saw them every day. The manor-house had been built in the fifteenth century for a certain Isabel D'Isle, well beloved of a de Curcy. It had been partially destroyed by fire in the days of Elizabeth and immediately rebuilt, a fact which accounted for the Elizabethan character of the architecture.

The morning was bright, and, for the time of year, warm, and he found Valerie Howett in the garden superintending the planting of bulbs. "It looks as though you've settled down here for ever," smiled Spike as he shook hands.

"I am settled here—for a long time," she said quietly. "You will find father in his library. I am afraid you will think the house rather muddled, Mr. Holland, but father's room is the most tidy of all."

Something of the melancholy which seemed to be a settled characteristic of Mr. Howett had disappeared. He was bright, almost cheerful, and Spike, not knowing the cause, thought it was the change of air, until his host revealed his plans, showed him with some pride the papers he had accumulated, and even consulted him about the introductory chapter.

"Have you seen anything of your neighbour, Mr. Howett?"

"Who is that? Bellamy?" Mr. Howett made a wry face. "No, and I don't want to see much of him either. Thank Heaven he's rather an unsociable man and he's not likely to be calling for tea! Holland," he added earnestly, "have you ever got into this tea habit of ours? If you haven't, don't; it's fatal. It is worse than drugs. Once you get the habit, you're a slave for ever."

The grounds of Lady's Manor were not very extensive. There were little less than two acres, and their boundaries were marked by the castle wall. This Spike saw after breakfast, when the girl was showing him round.

"There seems to be a door here, Miss Howett."

"There was," she said ruefully, "but Mr. Bellamy has filled up the doorway on the other side."

"Maybe he's afraid of the Green Archer," said Spike humorously, and quickly added: "I hope that is not an indiscretion, Miss Howett. You're not scared, are you?"

"No, I'm not afraid," she answered.

Spike surveyed the wall with a professional interest. "It is lower here than anywhere else round the castle," he said, "and you'd have all the opportunity you wanted if you were inclined to make an excursion into Abe's feudal domain." He went forward and put up his hands and could touch the top of the wall.

"Two light ladders, and there you are. Gee! I'm beginning to envy you, Miss Howett. I'm not going to ask you to let me burgle the castle from your backyard, but if you gave me any encouragement I'd come along one dark night and go look for that archer!"

She laughed softly.

"I shall give you no encouragement, Mr Holland," she said. And then: "Have you seen Captain Featherstone lately?"

"No, not since Monday last. He told me he was going abroad, though I doubted that. Honestly, Miss Howett, I had an idea that he was the new butler at the castle. I know he's very interested In Bellamy, especially in the gas bill; though why the gas bill, Heaven knows!"

"What is that?" she asked quickly, and Spike retailed the domestic gossip of Garre.

"I told Featherstone that they'd fired the butler, and it occurred to me later that he might have applied for the job. These secret service men make real good butlers; some of them make nothing else. To tell you the truth, I had an idea of sending one of our men there, but by the time our city editor had considered the matter and had taken legal advice, and had examined his soul in the silence of the night and prayed for spiritual guidance, the job had been filled. Thinking it over, I decided that the new butler was Featherstone. For one thing, they say he's a good-looker, and for another he never comes into the village to give us a chance of seeing him. But I spoke to Julius this morning, and I guess Julius has a streaky past, and there are few officers of the law he isn't acquainted with. If the butler had been Featherstone he'd have squealed to the old man."

She was thinking. "Then Captain Featherstone was impressed by the gas bill?"

Spike nodded. "Maybe he's a family man," he said lightly. "Being a bachelor, the tragedy of the gas bill has never appealed to me."

"Captain Featherstone is not married," she said a little coldly, and went crimson when Spike apologised for his mistake.

"I don't know why you should apologise," she said with some asperity. "I'm just telling you that he isn't married. Do you know Julius Savini?" she said, turning the conversation. "Can you tell me anything about him?"

"Why, no," said Spike in surprise, "except that he's a Eurasian. His father was an Englishman, his mother was an Indian woman, and I should imagine that Julius has the weaknesses of both. He used to run with the Crowley gang, though I have never known whether he was victim or directing genius. The police broke the gang over a year ago, and somehow Julius crept outside of the net, so maybe he was a victim, or," he added, "a stool pigeon. I used to think it strange that he was in Bellamy's employ, until I began to give it thought, and then I realised that Julius was the type that would suit the old man admirably. He was born a toady, he is utterly unscrupulous, and he's frightened for his life of Bellamy. His head's chock-full of stunt schemes for getting rich quick, but he has neither the stamina nor the grit to carry them out. That is Julius. I trust I am not doing him an injustice," he added hopefully.

"I don't think you are," said Valerie.

Spike had taken up his quarters at Garre indefinitely. Twice a day he was in telephonic communication with the office; and although Mr. Syme hinted that the Green Archer, as an excuse for loafing, had almost outlived its usefulness, he would not take the responsibility of bringing his subordinate back to town.

Spike was speaking to the office that afternoon when he saw Valerie drive past in her car, taking the London road. The telephone at the Blue Boar was in the hall—a somewhat embarrassing circumstance for a man who wished to carry on a private conversation, for it was within earshot of the bar.

He walked to the door and looked after her, and then a thought struck him, and he came back to the telephone and called the office again. In a quarter of an hour he was connected, which was fairly rapid for that particular branch.

"Is that you, Mr. Syme? Miss Howett has gone to London. Do any of our boys know her? I think it wouldn't be a bad idea to pick her up. Not for publication, you understand, but to give me a line?"

"Is she a line to the Green Archer?" asked Mr. Syme's voice sarcastically.

"She's not only one line, but the big four," was the reply.

15. AT EL MORA'S

Fay Clayton lived a solitary but not exactly a lonely life. The terms in her case were not synonymous. In her little flat in Maida Vale she was more or less of a recluse, but she had a host of friends and many venues where she could find recreation and amusement. It would not be true to say that she missed Julius. To her husband she gave an affection which none shared. She never had occasion to question his loyalty, and certainly during the past few months her financial position had been considerably improved.

She was in her little kitchen ironing a blouse when there came a knock at the door. Her maid (a euphonious title for the untidy woman who came in daily to clean the flat) was out on her morning shopping excursion, and Fay went to the door and opened it, expecting to see a tradesman's boy. Instead, she met the gaze of a gaunt, hollow-eyed man, wearing an ill-fitting suit, the creases in which would have been eloquent to the initiated.

"Why, Jerry!" she said, opening the door wider. "Come right in." She closed the door behind him, and he followed her into her sitting-room. "When did you come out?"

"This morning," he said. "Have you got a drink? I'm dying for one."

She brought a bottle from the cupboard and a soda siphon, set it before him, and he poured himself out a liberal dole. "That's fine," he said, smacking his lips, and the colour came into his pallid face. "Where's Julius?"

"He's not around, Jerry. He's got a job in the country."

He nodded and looked inquiringly at the bottle. "You'll have no more of that," she said, putting the whisky back in the cupboard and locking it decisively. "What are you going to do?"

"I don't know. I suppose the crowd are all scattered? Julius in a job, eh? Is he going straight?"

"Certainly he's going straight," said Fay indignantly; "And, Jerry, you've got to find work too. The gang is broken up. Let it stay broken."

They were brother and sister, though none would guess the relationship between the pretty girl and the hollow-faced gaol-bird.

"I saw that copper Featherstone."

"Did he see you coming here?" she asked.

He shook his head. "No, I met him up West. He stopped and asked me how I was and what I was going to do. He's not a bad fellow, that."

She made a little face. "You're entitled to any illusion that comes into your head, Jerry. What are you going to do?" she asked again.

"I don't know." He pushed his chair back and looked thoughtfully down at the table-cover. "There's a crowd that's working the Atlantic boats that want me to come in with them. I've never done such work, and it will require a bit of capital—it costs a hundred for the return fare—and there's always the chance of making a voyage without meeting a single mug. I suppose you couldn't lend me the money?"

She bit her lip in thought. "I could," she said slowly.

"I'm certain to make it pay," he said; "and it is safer. You never hear of a ship's crowd being pinched." He looked round the room. "It's good to be back. I'm tired of prison. I suppose I can stay here?"

She hesitated. "Yes, you can have Julius" room."

"Doesn't he come here?" he asked with a frown.

"He can't. I hear from him every other day, and I'm not complaining."

He looked at his creased clothes with an expression of disgust. "I shall want a new outfit. How are you off for money?"

"I can arrange that for you," she said. "You can't go out like that, Jerry. I hope nobody saw you come in. I thought they wouldn't let you out for another six months."

He laughed. "The prison doctor got me out," he said. "My chest is bad, and I asked for special treatment, so they remitted a part of the sentence. They don't want sick people in prison. I've got some clothes in the cloakroom at Charing Cross Station," he said suddenly. "Perhaps, if you got those for me, I shouldn't want very much in the way of extras."

She took the slip from him. That afternoon she went to the railway station to secure the trunk. Taking a short-cut, her taximan brought her through Fitzroy Square. It was a locality which was not unknown to Fay, for there was a restaurant which had served her well in the past. It was a place of little rooms, where people could gather, certain that they were free from observation, and discuss matters of considerable moment to themselves. It was a favourite rendezvous of the gang in its palmiest days.

A man was standing outside the entrance, and with a gasp she recognised him. It was Julius. While she was leaning forward to tap frantically on the glass a car drew up and a woman stepped out. She saw Julius raise his hat, and then the two disappeared through the narrow portals of El Moro's. Fay stopped the cab and got out. She had seen Valerie Howett once before, and she knew her instantly.

Valerie looked round curiously at the ornate sitting-room into which she was ushered. Julius Savini dismissed the smirking waiter and closed the door, sensing her repugnancio-a Portuguese word that came readily to his lips and which exactly described Valerie's emotions. "I'm sorry to bring you here, Miss Howett, but it is the only place where I was certain we should be free from observation."

"What sort of a restaurant is this?" she asked curiously.

"It is very well known," said the tactful Julius. "Won't you sit down, Miss Howett? I'm afraid I haven't very much to tell you," he said, when she had seated herself on the edge of a plush-covered chair. "Mr. Bellamy is making it more and more difficult to discover anything."

"Did you get the photograph for me?"

He shook his head. "When I went to take it I found the drawer empty. Bellamy must have found that I had been searching his desk, and he as good as told me so. I've taken a great many risks for you, Miss Howett."

"And I have paid you," she answered coldly. "I'm not quite sure, Mr. Savini, that all the risks have been taken for my sake or for the sake of the money I pay you. You have your own plans, of that I am sure, and you are working as much for yourself as for me. But that is not my business. I must have that photograph. You say there were others?"

"There was a portrait of his nephew," said Julius, and the girl's eyes opened.

"His nephew?" she said incredulously. "I didn't know he had any relations at all?"

"I only guess it is his nephew. He was killed in the war, anyway."

Fay Clayton had guessed that Julius had a profitable side-line, and in this she was not mistaken. Every scrap of information that Valerie Howett obtained of Bellamy's doings, of his acquaintances and movements, had come from the sleek Eurasian, and the girl's purse had been the gold- mine from whence came Fay's enlarged income.

"There was nothing on the back of the lady's photograph—nothing to indicate whose picture it was? Oh, why didn't you take it when you had the opportunity?"

"I'm sorry I didn't," he said ruefully, "but if he'd found it gone he would have fired me out. I shudder to think what would have happened." And Julius did literally shudder.

"You said in your note that the Green Archer had been and had drugged the dogs."

"He went into Bellamy's room too," nodded Julius. "There's only one important piece of information I have for you, Miss Howett. The old man wrote to Smith this morning. He made me take the letter to the post office and register it. By the way, it was sealed, and from its weight I should think there was money in it. Smith has more than Creager had. About a hundred pounds a month I think the sum is. I know, because I had to draw a hundred last month from the bank, and that same night Mr. Bellamy came to me for money because he wanted to pay Wilks—that was the old butler—for something that he'd bought."

"Who is the new butler?" asked Valerie.

"I don't know him, miss. He's a very pleasant fellow, but I see very little of him."

Valerie thought awhile. She had made one unfortunate attempt to come into contact with the second of Bellamy's hirelings, and it had nearly ended disastrously. She was certain in her mind that through Coldharbour Smith lay the solution to the mystery she was trying to unravel.

"I want to know more about that man," she said "You have found nothing touching him?"

"Nothing. Bellamy has very few private papers, and those are in the safe. It would take an expert to open the door, and Mr. Bellamy keeps the key with him all the time. It is the one key he carries, and it never leaves him. I've been in his room in the morning before he has been up and I've never seen it, so I imagine he takes it to bed with him."

"Let me know at once if there is any fresh development. Mr. Bellamy is getting in some new dogs, you told me?" she said with a faint smile as she rose. "It will be easy to convey information now that I am at the Lady's Manor. A note thrown over the wall-"

There came from outside the sound of angry voices in altercation. Suddenly the door was flung violently open and a woman appeared. Her face was flushed, her eyes bright with fury, and it was some time before she could master her voice to speak to the astonished girl. Then: "I'd like to know what you are doing here with my husband, Miss Howett?" she asked shrilly.

"Your husband?" said Valerie, looking from the woman to the wilting Julius.

"My dear, it is quite all right. I am seeing this lady on business," quavered Julius.

"On business, eh?" The woman stood with her hands on hips, surveying her agitated husband. "That's a fine story. You've come to talk business. Couldn't you talk to her at her hotel? What do you come sneaking here for- "

"My dear, I can explain everything. I was coming straight to see you—I swear I was. I had some business with Miss Howett-important business."

"And does Miss Howett come here alone to see you on important business?" said the woman, lashing herself into a fury. "Does she come to a place like El Moro's without somebody to look after her? Of course she doesn't!"

"Of course she doesn't," said a cheery voice from the doorway. "Miss Howett came with me."

And then, to the amazed Valerie, Captain Featherstone said: "I came up to ask you how much longer you'd be, Miss Howett. You haven't forgotten that you've an engagement at four?"

Valerie gathered up her furs and followed the detective down the stairs, feeling very foolish and very angry; and she was peculiarly feminine in that her anger was not directed either to Julius or his virago of a wife, but to the man who had made so timely an appearance.

16. A WARNING

Jim Featherstone handed the girl into the car and followed her without invitation.

"There are some places where you can go, and others where I, your indulgent chaperon, cannot allow you to be seen, and El Moro's is one of those places. It is a house of call of the most undesirable type of criminal, and I shall have something to say to brother Julius, when I get him alone, for taking you there."

"It was my fault," she said. "I asked him to find a place where I should not be recognised and where we could be quite alone."

"May I suggest," he said, "that in the future you go to the top of St. Paul's Cathedral or in the Crypt of Westminster Abbey—both highly respectable places?" Then, in another tone: "Julius, of course, has been supplying you with information about Bellamy's household. I suspected that all along. I warn you, Miss Howett, that this man, though he will serve you up to a point more or less faithfully, will not hesitate to double-cross you. He has a game of his own—"

"I know that," she said quietly. And then: "I suppose you've been following me all day?"

"Most of the afternoon," he said.

"Do you know, Captain Featherstone, you are getting on my nerves."

"You have been on my nerves for months," he answered calmly. "You don't imagine that I'm getting any pleasure out of chasing you all over London, do you?"

Instantly she was penitent.

"I'm-I'm very sorry," she said humbly. "But you have an extraordinary knack of making me feel foolish, and I suppose I resent that. I'm ever so grateful to you for coming to me at that moment. It was more than a little embarrassing. Is she his wife?"

He nodded.

"From the almost childish pride which the excellent Fay has in displaying her wedding ring I should imagine that this is a genuine marriage."

"I thought you were abroad," she said.

"I am very sorry I'm not abroad. If I were following my natural bent I should be climbing the Tyrolean Alps," he said; and she did not know how untruthful this young man could be, for there was no place in the wide world he would have sooner been at that moment than by her side in the smooth-running Rolls that was carrying them through the busy West End.

Suddenly she uttered an exclamation of annoyance.

"Oh, I forgot to ask him—" she began. "And that was one of the things I wanted to know."

"Perhaps I can tell you," he said, but she shook her head.

"You wouldn't be able to tell me what I want," she said, and he laughed.

"Some day you'll realise that as an information bureau I have no equal."

She hesitated a second and then opened her bag and took out a stout yellow package, which she unfolded carefully on her knees.

"I see. A plan of the castle," said Jim immediately.

"It is an old plan. I got it from a bookseller in Guildford. It is not the castle as it is today, but as it was two hundred years ago. You see, there are no living-rooms, and this place"-she pointed with her finger-"which is the library, is called the Hall of Justice."

He nodded.

"It was the place where the old de Curcys tried their prisoners," he said promptly. "And that"—he pointed—"which is now the entrance-hall of the castle, was the torture chamber, where prisoners were induced to tell the truth. There are moments when I regret the abolition of torture-rooms, for the crime which is most prevalent in England today is the crime of wilful perjury. Now, if we only had a few picturesque instruments of torture hanging above the witness-chair—"

"Please be serious," she said. "Are you sure that this is the library?"

"Perfectly sure. I have plans more modern than yours. I got them from the late owner of the property."

"Could you let me have them?" she asked eagerly.

"Why?"

"Well, because I want them."

It was not a particularly convincing argument, but to her surprise Captain Featherstone agreed.

"I'm giving you one piece of advice, my young friend," he said, "and it is this. Go, if you wish, to Limehouse and investigate Coldharbour Smith's little hell. Pay as many visits as you like to El Mora's, and I'll undertake that nothing beyond your reputation for intelligence shall be smirched. But do not try single-handed investigations at Garre Castle." He spoke slowly and earnestly, and she could not mistake his seriousness. "You'll never get in by ordinary methods. I want you to promise me that you'll try nothing extraordinary. Will you promise that?"

She considered a while.

"No," she said frankly, "I cannot honestly promise that."

"But what do you expect to find?" he asked in despair. "Do you imagine old man Bellamy is leaving around written confessions for intruders to read? Do you suppose for one moment that, even if you got into the castle, you would make any tangible discovery? Leave it in my hands, Miss Howett. I'm afraid for you. I'll be perfectly truthful and tell you that. I'm afraid because I know something of this vicious man. I'm afraid because of the dogs that would show you no mercy. But most of all I fear the Green Archer!"

She could not believe her ears.

"You are actually afraid of the Green Archer?" she said. "Surely, Captain Featherstone, you are joking?"

"I am afraid of the Green Archer," he repeated doggedly. "Valerie, you are blundering into the most terrible danger, danger that is no less awful because it is vague. I do not ask your confidence; I do not press you to tell me why you are seeking Mrs, Held, or what Mrs. Held is to you, or even the circumstances of her disappearance. In good time, perhaps, you will take me into your confidence. Your father said you would."

"He has told you nothing?"

Jim shook his head. "Nothing. Will you promise me that you will not attempt to get into the castle?"

"I cannot promise that," she said. "I think you are exaggerating the danger, and perhaps you are under-estimating the importance of my search."

"Perhaps I am," he said after a pause. "I think I'll get down here, if you will be kind enough to stop your car."

It was in Whitehall that he got out. Not until he had left her did she begin to realise the character of the service he had rendered and was still rendering. He believed in the Green Archer! She smiled. She never expected that the Green Archer would make so extraordinary a convert to the occult.

CONTINUED IN

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