THE MAN FROM MOROCCO - 2

THE MAN FROM MOROCCO

EDGAR WALLACE

( INSTALMENT 2 )

CHAPTER 21
A VOLUME OF EMERSON


How much did the old man know, he wondered. Had Morlake told him?

His mind went back to a sunny day in Morocco, and to two men who rode on mule back across the desert toward the blue line of the Rifi Hills. He had been one of these; his guest, a man without a name, had been the other; and as they climbed a sandy slope, a young man had come riding toward them at a gallop and had drawn rein to watch them after they had passed. It was the first time Hamon had ever seen James Lexington Morlake.

And he remembered that he had had a wild and insensate impulse to turn upon the man who was looking after them, and shoot him down. It was one of those atavistic urges which come to civilised men whose animal instincts had not wholly atrophied. The watcher stood for danger—Ralph Hamon brought his hand mechanically to his hip where a gun had hung, and then, with an effort, he merged from the tangle of his dreams and went out to the office, to find his bored secretary waiting.

"I am going now," he said gruffly. "Come to my house to-morrow morning: I shall not be at the office all day. Bring any personal letters and cables."

He had forgotten another person who was waiting, until he was nearly home.

"You told me you were coming straight back," said Lydia furiously, for patience did not appear amongst her known virtues. "I have a dinner engagement with Lady Clareborough. I can give you five minutes."

She was resplendent in evening dress, and he looked at her stupidly.

"You can give me five minutes, can you? Well, I guess that'll be long enough," he said. "Lydia, you don't know this man, Morlake?"

"Morlake?" she said wearily. "Haven't we finished with him?"

"The question is, whether he has finished with me," said Hamon.

The hand that brushed back his scant locks trembled slightly.

"That is the question—whether he's finished with me. You've got to get acquainted with that man. I don't care what money you spend; I don't care how you get to know him. You can see him as soon as you like. But I want to patch up some sort of peace with him, and I think you're more likely to do the trick than I am. You're clever, and you've a good invention. He may be the sort of man who'll fall for a woman like you— there are very few men who wouldn't," he said.

She sighed with elaborate patience.

"What do you mean by 'fall for me'? Do you mean that he'd marry me, or fall in love with me, or what?"

"I don't care what he does so long as you can persuade him to cut out this little vendetta of his."

"Won't the law cut it out?" she asked significantly. "I read the account of the trial and the judge's remarks, and it seems to me that you're going to give yourself a lot of trouble. Besides, Ralph, I do not intend jeopardising the position I've won for myself by making up to a convicted burglar—he's as good as convicted. I have my friends to think of."

There was a steely look in his eye as he interrupted her.

"Go to your dinner, my good girl," he said harshly. "I thought you'd got that social bug out of your head."

She opened her mouth to retort, but the suppressed malignity in his glare silenced her.

Lydia Hamon knew when to quit.

Ralph Hamon was a rich man, with the soul of a miser. He was the kind that treasures odd scraps of useless things, in the hope that one day they may come in handy. His wardrobe overflowed with ancient and almost threadbare clothing that he would not give away. It was his practice in his own home to shed himself of the immaculate attire in which he appeared in public, and take a little further wear out of clothing which had already rendered more than its normal service. He never wasted a scrap of paper if writing space was left upon it; and when people wrote to him on double sheets, he invariably tore off that which had not been used and employed it for note-making.

Jim Morlake had vividly illustrated this weakness when he told him the parable of the monkey and the gourd. Not only was it a weakness, but it promised to be fatal. All that was sane in Ralph Hamon told him to make a fire of one scrap of paper that was in his possession; and yet, though he had made up his mind a dozen times, he was physically incapable of applying a match to its corner.

The library where he worked was on the first floor of the house in Grosvenor Place, and looked out upon a dreary courtyard and the roofs of a string of garages. Though he was no great reader, three of the walls were covered with bookcases filled with conventional volumes. Any student of human nature would have known that the books had been "furnished" without any respect to their literary quality. There was the inevitable twelve volumes of Scott, the usual encyclopædias, the sets of mid-Victorian authors' works. They were bound in harmony with the room, and their exterior satisfied the eye of the financier, even if their contents made no appeal to him.

There was one book, however, which he had often occasion to take down from a narrow section of the bookshelf covered by glass doors. In this protected area was, amongst other works, a volume of Emerson's Essays, a somewhat portly collection flanked by Hazlitt and volumes of Addison's "Spectator." Slipping the room door bolt into its socket and drawing the curtains, Hamon opened the case and took this handsome volume, which was heavier than a book should be, for he had to use both hands to lift it from the shelf and carry it to the table.

Even now it might be mistaken by the uninitiated for an ordinary volume, for the binding was skilfully imitated and even the marbled edge of the leaves had been reproduced. Selecting a key from a bunch which he carried at the end of a long chain in his pocket, Hamon thrust it between the cover and the "pages" and turned it, and, pulling back the cover, he disclosed a shallow box half filled by papers. The book was of solid armoured steel, and was the repository for such papers as Hamon wished to have near him.

One of those he took out and laid on the desk, looking down at the closely written statement it contained. There was nothing in the words he read but was to his disadvantage. There was imprisonment and possibly death in every line. There was not one word that did not damn him, body and soul, for what he was; and yet, when he took out his matchbox and struck a light with trembling fingers, he hesitated, and finally flung the match into the fireplace and replaced the square paper in the box.

There was a knock at the door, and, hastily shutting down the lid, he pushed the "book" back amongst its fellows, and closed the glass door.

"Who is there?" he asked.

"Will you see Mr. Marborne?" asked the servant in a low voice.

"Yes. Ask him to come in."

He slipped back the bolt and went out on to the landing to meet the disgruntled detective.

"Well, you've made a mess of it, Marborne," he said sourly.

"It's made a mess of me, I can tell you, Hamon," said the other. "I have been asked to turn my coat in. I wish I had never troubled with this damned Morlake."

"There's no sense in bleating," said Hamon impatiently. "What do you mean by 'turning in your coat'?"

He took a bottle of whisky and a syphon from a cupboard and deposited them on his desk.

"Welling told me to do it, and I expect I'm finished. And, anyway, I should have been in bad odour after what the judge said about police methods. You've got to find me a job, Hamon."

"Oh, I have, have I?" sneered the other, pausing with a glass in each hand. "I've got to find you a job! Now isn't that the coolest bit of nerve!"

"I don't know who's got the nerves, you or me," said the inspector gruffly, "but—"

"Don't let's quarrel." Hamon poured a frugal portion of whisky into the glass and set the syphon sizzling. "I daresay we can find a place for you; I happen to want a man in Tangier to look after some of my interests. It was not I who got you into trouble, my friend, it was Mr. James Lexington Morlake."

"Damn him!" said Marborne, and swallowed the toast and the contents of the glass at a gulp.

"That's pretty good whisky," suggested Hamon.

"I hardly tasted it," was the reply.

Marborne seated himself at the desk, took out his pocket book and found a sheet of paper, which he opened.

"I have made out a list of my expenses in this business," he said. "Here they are."

He handed them across to the other, and Hamon winced as he read the total.

"That's a bit stiff," he said. "I didn't authorise you to incur this expenditure."

"You told me to spend as much as I liked," said the detective.

"Why, that's nearly a thousand!" spluttered Hamon. "What am I—a child in arms?"

"I don't care what you are, you'll settle that," said the man. "There's a cut for Slone."

"You seem to forget that I've paid you money already—" Hamon began, when there was an interruption.

The butler came to the door and whispered something which Marborne could not catch.

"Here?" said Hamon quickly.

"Yes, sir, downstairs."

Hamon turned to his visitor. His anger had departed.

"He's downstairs," he said.

"He—who?" asked the startled detective. "Do you mean Morlake?"

Hamon nodded.

"You'd better stay here. I'll see him. Leave the door ajar. If there's any fuss, come down."

Jim Morlake was waiting in the hall, and Hamon greeted him with the greatest cordiality.

"Come right in, Morlake," he said, opening the door of the drawing- room. "I can't tell you how pleased I am to read that you were acquitted."

Jim did not answer until he was in the room and the door was shut.

"I've decided to drop my nefarious career, Hamon," he said, coming straight to the point.

"I think you're wise," said the other heartily. "Now is there anything I can do—"

"There's one thing you can do, and that is to give me a certain document, signed by the man with whom I saw you in Morocco some twelve years ago."

"Suppose I had it," said the other after a pause, "do you think I should be fool enough to give it to you, to place my—my liberty in your hands?"

"I would give you ample time to get out of the country, and I would agree not to support the charge made in that document. And without my support and my evidence, the case against you would fall to the ground. At any rate, you would have ample time to get to another country."

Hamon laughed harshly.

"I've no intention of leaving England," he said, "and certainly not now, on the eve of my wedding. I am marrying Lady Joan Carston."

"She has my sympathy," said Jim. "Isn't she Lord Creith's daughter?"

Hamon nodded.

"She'll not marry you without knowing something about you."

"She knows everything about me that she should know."

"Then I must tell her a little that she shouldn't," said Jim. "But your matrimonial adventures are entirely beside the point. I've come to give you a chance, and, incidentally, to save myself a lot of trouble and the serious consequences which would follow a certain line of action on my part. I want that document, Hamon."

Again Hamon laughed.

"You're chasing the wind," he said contemptuously. "And as to this precious document, it has no existence. Somebody has been jollying you and playing upon your well-known simple heart. Now listen, Morlake: can't we settle our differences like gentlemen?"

"I could settle my differences like a gentleman," said Jim, "because I happen to have been born that way. But you'll never settle yours, except like a cheap, swindling crook who has climbed over ruined homes to his present heights of prosperity. This is your last chance, and possibly mine. Give me that statement, and I will let up on you."

"I'll see you in hell first," said the other savagely. "Even if I had it—which I haven't—"

Jim nodded very slowly and thoughtfully.

"I see. The monkey's hand remains in the gourd; he's too greedy to let go." He turned to the door and raised a solemn forefinger. "I warned you, Hamon," he said, and went out.

Hamon closed the door on him and went up the carpeted stairs to the library.

"Well, our friend is still truculent," he said, but he spoke to an empty room.

Marborne had gone. Hamon rang the bell for the butler.

"Did you see Mr. Marborne go?" he asked.

"Yes, sir, he went a few seconds ago—in fact, just before you came from the drawing-room. He seemed rather in a hurry."

"That is very strange," said Hamon, and dismissed the servant.

Then he saw the sheet of paper on the desk with its scribbled message.

If you won't pay my bill, perhaps you'll pay a bigger one [it read].

Hamon scratched his chin. What was the meaning of that cryptic message? Written, he noticed, on his best notepaper. Evidently Marborne was piqued about the questioning of his account, and had gone away in a fit of temper. Hamon shrugged his shoulders and sat down at his desk. He had no time to worry about the pettishness of his tools.

Happening to glance round, he noticed that the door of the glass- fronted bookcase was ajar, and he could have sworn that he had closed it. And then, with an oath, he leapt to his feet.

The steel "book" was in its place, but the title was upside down. Somebody had moved it. He pulled it down and tried the lid, and, to his horror, it opened. He had forgotten to lock it.

He turned over the papers with a trembling hand. The fatal statement was gone!

With a howl of rage he leapt to the door and yelled for the butler.

"Which way did Marborne go?" he asked quickly.

"He went to the right, sir, toward Grosvenor Square," said the butler from the bottom of the stair.

"Get me a taxi—quick!"

Hamon went back into his room, replaced the papers that he had tossed from the box, locked it and pushed it between the books. A minute later, a taxicab was taking him to Mr. Marborne's lodgings.

Marborne had not returned, the landlady told him, and had only that moment telephoned through to say that he would not be coming back that night, as he might be leaving for the Continent.

There was only one thing to do, and that was to go straight to Scotland Yard. The man was still a police officer, and would probably report to headquarters sooner or later. He had the good fortune to find Welling, and the old man seemed in no wise surprised at the visit.

"You want to see Marborne, eh? I'm afraid he's not on duty. I'm even more afraid that he will never be on duty again," said Julius. "Is it anything important?"

"Will he come here at all—to report, I mean?" asked Hamon breathlessly.

"He's certain to come," said the old man. "In fact, he has a very pressing engagement with the Chief Commissioner to-morrow morning."

"Has he any friends? Where does Slone live?"

Julius Welling adjusted his glasses and looked keenly at his visitor.

"You're in a great hurry to find him; is anything wrong?" he asked.

"Yes—no. Nothing of great importance to anybody but myself—and Marborne."

"Indeed!" said Julius politely.

He opened a book and found Slone's address, which he wrote on a piece of paper for the visitor.

"I'm greatly obliged to you, Captain Welling. I didn't expect you'd take this trouble," said Hamon.

"We always do what we possibly can for members of the public," said Julius in a hushed voice.

No sooner had his visitor left than he picked up the automatic telephone and switched to the hall.

"A man named Hamon is coming down," he said briskly. "Tell Sergeant Lavington to tail him up and not to lose sight of him. I want to know where he's going, and what the trouble is."

He put down the telephone and rubbed his thin hands gently together, a far-away look in his eyes.

"And I think there is trouble," he said, addressing the ceiling; "bad trouble."


CHAPTER 22
WELCOME HOME


Jim Morlake had never driven quite so slowly as he did on his way home to Wold House. He could well imagine that Sussex society had been shocked to its depths. The vicars and the churchwardens, the squires and squireens, the heads of noble houses who, on the strength of their neighbourship, had offered him their hospitality, the villagers themselves, sticklers for propriety, would regard his arrest and the judge's remarks as something cataclysmic. He maintained a considerable style in the country. His house was a large one; he employed butler and housekeeper, a dozen maids, cooks and the like, and he had never been quite sure of the number of gardeners who were on his pay roll.

He smiled as he thought of the effect his appearance at the Central Criminal Court would have upon these worthy folk. They were well paid and excellently well treated. His butler, and the butler's wife, who was housekeeper, had grown tremulous in their gratitude for the little services which he had rendered them. What they were thinking now, he could not guess, as he had had no communication with Wold House since his arrest. He had instructed the local bank manager to pay their salaries and such monies as were necessary to carry on the household, and in response he had received only one letter, from the gardener, asking whether it was his wish, in view of recent happenings, that the daffodil bulbs should be planted on the edge of the wood as he had ordered.

The gates of Wold House were open; he turned the car into the drive, and the solemn chauffeur, who was waiting for him, touched his cap respectfully and took charge of the machine with a certain grim thoroughness that was ominous.

Jim passed into his sitting-room. The butler bowed him in and opened the door of the sitting-room for him.

"Is everything all right, William?" asked Jim, as he slowly stripped his gloves and overcoat and handed them to the man.

"Everything is in excellent order, sir," said Mr. William Cleaver, and then: "I should like, at your earliest convenience, to have a word with you, Mr. Morlake."

"As soon as you like," said Jim, sensing the coming exodus. "Take my coat out and come back immediately."

The butler was ill at ease when he returned.

"The truth is, sir," he said, "I am going to ask you to release me from my engagement. And that—er—applies also to Mrs. Cleaver."

"You wish to leave me, eh? Don't you like the job?"

"It is a very excellent situation," said Cleaver precisely, but withal nervously; "only I find the country does not agree with me, sir, and I have been offered an excellent situation in town."

"Very good," said Jim curtly.

He unlocked the drawer of his desk, opened the cash-box and took out some money.

"Here is your salary to date."

"When would it be convenient for me to go?" asked the butler.

"Now," was the laconic reply. "There is a train to your beloved 'town' in an hour, by which time you will be out of this house. You understand, Cleaver?"

"Yes, sir," said the discomfited servant. "There have been other -er- applications, but I have refused to deal with them."

"I see." Jim nodded. "Send in the eager applicants, please."

First came the cook, a stout woman but genteel to her finger-tips, being an earnest Christian and a member of the Established Church.

"I want to give in my notice, sir."

"Why?" asked Jim bluntly.

"Well, the fact is, my niece is ill and I want to go to her."

"You mean you want to leave at once?"

"I don't want to put you to any inconvenience," the woman hastened to state, "and to oblige you—"

"Oblige nothing," said Jim Morlake. "You will leave now. If your niece is ill, she'll probably be dead by the time your month's notice has expired. Here are your wages."

There came a long procession of them: a parlourmaid, slightly tearful, and obviously acting under the instructions of her rigid parents; another, a little self-righteous and inclined to lift her nose at the very thought of serving a criminal; last came the groom and the chauffeur. Each offered a reason why they wanted to leave in a hurry, but only one spoke the truth. Some had relatives ill, some had been offered good situations; one, at least, hinted at an approaching marriage and the desire to devote the time to "getting things together." Neither man nor woman stated in precise language why he or she was leaving Wold House. None, until a little kitchenmaid, smutty of face and squat of figure, stood before the desk, her big hands on her hips.

"Why are you leaving, Jessie?" asked Jim.

"Because you're a burglar," was the blunt reply, and, leaning back in the chair, he shook with silent laughter.

"I think there is two pounds due to you. Here are five. And may I, a real live burglar, salute you as the only honest member of this little community? Don't look at that note as though it would bite you: it hasn't been forged and it hasn't been stolen."

At last they had gone, all of them, their corded trunks loaded upon a wagon which he had had brought up from the village by telephone, and he walked at its tail and, closing the gates behind the final load, returned to his empty house.

To bring down Binger was worse than useless, besides which, he needed him in London; and Mahmet, though an excellent brewer of coffee, would certainly fail in all other branches of the culinary art. He wandered through the deserted house from kitchen to attic. It was spotlessly clean, and would remain so for a day or two.

"There's only one thing for a sensible man to do," he told himself, and that was to go back to London.

But he was too much of a fighter to shirk even the petty challenge which his domestic staff had thrown out to him. He went down to the lower regions and took stock of the larder. He sought bread and butter and tea. He could have got along without either, but he wanted to know just where he stood.

The principal shop in the village was Colter's Store, which supplied most things, from horse feed to mangles. As his car drew up before the shop, he saw through the window an excited young man pointing, and the bearded Mr. Colter emerged from his tiny office at the end of the counter. Jim got down from the car at leisure and strolled into the shop.

"Good morning," he said. "I want you to send some bread up to Wold House, and a couple of pounds of butter. I think I shall also want some eggs."

Mr. Colter pushed his assistant out of his way and confronted his customer from the other side of the counter, and there was a light in Mr. Colter's eyes which spoke eloquently of his righteousness.

"I'm not sending bread or anything else up to your house, Mr. Morlake," he said. "I've kept my hands clean of tainted money all my life, and I'm not going to start truckling with thievery and burglary at my time of life!"

Jim took the cigar from between his lips, and his eyes narrowed.

"Does that mean that you refuse to serve me?"

"That's just what it means," said Mr. Colter, glaring at him through his powerful spectacles. "And I'll tell you something more, Mr. Morlake: that the sooner you take your custom and yourself from Creith, the better we shall like it."

Jim looked round the store.

"You do a fairly big trade here, don't you, Colter?" he asked.

"An honest trade," said Mr. Colter emphatically.

"I mean, this business is worth something to you? I'll buy it from you."

Mr. Colter shook his head, and at that moment his stout partner, who had been a silent audience of the encounter, emerged from the door leading into the parlour.

"We don't want your money; we neither sell nor buy," she said shrilly. "It's quite enough to have burglars living like gentlemen, without their trying to corrupt decent, honest, God-fearing people."

"Oh, I'm glad there's somebody you fear," said Jim, and walked out of the house.

His bank was almost opposite, and bankers have few prejudices.

"Glad to see you got out of your trouble, Mr. Morlake," said the manager briskly. "By the way, the police examined your account—you know that?"

"And failed to find any connection between my various robberies and my unbounded affluence," smiled Jim. "Now listen, friend: the last time I was here, you were trying to induce me to take an interest in village house property. I notice that the store next to Colter's is empty."

The manager nodded.

"It fell in under a mortgage. The owner tried to run a garage, but Creith doesn't lie on the road to anywhere, and he went broke in a month. Do you want to buy?"

"Name a price, and let it be reasonable. Imagine you're negotiating with the Archbishop of Canterbury, and forget that I am an opulent burglar," said Jim.

An hour later, he walked out of a lawyer's office the proprietor of the store.

At ten o'clock that night there arrived from London a young and energetic man.

"I 'phoned the Grocers' Association for you, and they tell me that you're something of a live wire."

"Undoubtedly I am," said the youth immodestly.

"There's a store next to Colter's in the village. I want you to take charge of that to-morrow morning; get in carpenters and painters, and stock it with every article that Colter sells. Mark down all the prices twenty-five per cent. below his. Get a van and beat up the country for custom. If he lowers his price, you lower yours, you understand? But anyway, keep it a standard twenty-five under."

"That'll cost money," said the young man.

"You probably have never heard of me. My name is Morlake, and I am by profession a burglar. My capital is therefore unlimited," said Jim soberly. "If there is any need to bring new capital into the business, just notify me and I'll take my gun and a bag and raise debentures at the nearest bank."

He had biscuits, tea and a large slice of ham for dinner; for supper, he had biscuits and tea without the ham; and in the morning, when he went in search of a breakfast menu, he rejected all other combinations than tea and biscuits. It was a little monotonous, but satisfactory. In his shirt sleeves he swept his room and the hall, made his own bed, and scrubbed down the broad steps at the front of the house. He began to sympathise with the housemaids who had left him.

All day long, strange trolleys had been dashing into the village, and a small army of carpenters and painters from a neighbouring town, men who thought it no disgrace to work for sinners, but rather prided themselves upon the distinction of being in the employ of a gentleman who had figured at the Old Bailey, were working at top speed, to convert the drab and uninhabitable garage into a store. The live wire was tingling. Stocks were arriving every hour. Mr. Colter stood before his door, one hand in the pocket of his apron, the other fingering his beard.

"It will be a nine days' wonder," he said to an audience of his neighbours. "These here-to-day-and-gone-to-morrow people! Why, I've had competition and beat 'em this past thirty years!"

By the afternoon the printing had been delivered, and the neighbouring villages learnt of sensational and permanent reductions in the price of almost every commodity. Mr. Colter went to the police station to seek legal advice, and was referred to a lawyer by the police sergeant, who wasn't quite sure of his ground, and certainly had no knowledge of the legal aspect of this undercutting process. It was the first time in his life he had ever paid a penny to a lawyer, but the occasion demanded extraordinary expenditure, and it did not seem to Mr. Colter that he received value for his money when he was told that he could do nothing.

"To talk about conspiracy is absurd," said the man of law. "There is nothing to prevent this new fellow from giving his goods away."

"But a burglar's money is behind this scandalous business!" wailed Mr. Colter.

"If it was a murderer, it would make no difference," said the lawyer with satisfaction.

Colter, after consultation with his wife, put on his coat and went up to Wold House. He found Jim in the hall, sitting on a stair with an array of silver at his feet which he was polishing.

"Sit down," said Jim politely, and Mr. Colter looked round. "You can sit on the floor, or you can go up one stair higher than me and sit there. I can hear you quite well, and it isn't necessary that I should see your face."

"Now see here, Mr. Morlake, I think this business has gone a bit too far. You know you're taking the bread and butter out of my mouth?"

"I know you denied me those self-same commodities," said Jim, "and others," he added.

"I am going to his lordship to-morrow. I am going to see if the Earl of Creith will allow one of his neighbours to be robbed of his livelihood. Not that you will," said Mr. Colter. "I have friends in this neighbourhood of forty years' standing! I've got the whole community behind me!"

"You watch 'em walk in front of you when the twenty-five per cent. reduction comes into operation!" said Jim.

"It's the most scandalous thing that has ever happened in the history of the world!" screamed the tradesman.

"You have forgotten the Massacre of the Huguenots," said Jim, "and Nero's lion parties, and a few other indelicate happenings."

Mr. Colter went back to the village, drew up a statement of his position, which was printed by a misguided stationer, and distributed it to every house in the village—misguided because the next morning brought a letter from a Horsham lawyer demanding that the name of the printer's legal representative be sent him, as his client intended to commence an action for libel.

Tea and dry biscuits were beginning to pall on Jim, when he found, that same morning, an unexpected cache of eggs. He could not be bothered to light the kitchen fire; he found a stove and a supply of spirit, and this he set up in his somewhat untidy study. He had brewed the tea, and had laid the table with a copy of the morning newspaper, and set about cooking the eggs. He knew little about egg cooking, except that a certain amount of heat, a certain number of eggs and a frying-pan were requisite. The room was grey with smoke and pungent with the odour of a burnt pan when the unexpected visitor arrived.

She came through the open door and stood in the doorway, open- mouthed, watching his primitive essay in cookery.

"Oh, what are you doing?" she asked in consternation, and, running across the room, took the smoking abomination from his hand. "You have put no fat in the pan!" she said. "How can you expect to cook eggs without some kind of grease?"

He was speechless with amazement. The last person he expected to see at Wold House, in this moment of crisis, was Jane Smith. Yet Jane Smith it was, prettier than ever in her plain blue suit, her big white Peter Pan collar, and the little black hat.

"Where the dickens did you come from?"

"I came from the village," she said, wrinkling her nose with an expression of distaste. "Phew! Open the window."

"Why, don't you like eggs?"

"Did these eggs express any wish to be cremated?"

He made no move.

"I suppose you know—"

"I know everything." She blew out the spirit fire and put down the pan, then, taking off her coat and hat, she threw them on the sofa. "I have come to look after you," she said, "you poor American waif!"


CHAPTER 23
THE NEW HOUSEKEEPER


Obediently he carried down the spirit lamp, cups and saucers and cracked teapot to the kitchen, and stood in awe, watching her as she kindled a fire in the big kitchen range.

"Let me do that for you," he said.

"You ought to have volunteered hours ago," she reproached him, "but if you had, I shouldn't have allowed you. You would only have made a lot of smoke—"

"Fire lighting is an art: I never realised it till now. Does your mother know you're here?" he asked suddenly.

"I hope so," she said. "Mother is in heaven."

"Your father?"

"Father is in London, which is quite a different place. Look in the larder and see if you can find some lard."

"That seems to be the proper place for it," he said.

"Have you any milk?" she asked, when he returned with a large white and bulbous supply.

"We have no milk, but we've lots of preserved milk."

"Haven't you a cow?"

He shook his head.

"I'm not sure whether I have or whether I haven't. I've really never taken an interest in the details of my estate, but I'm under the impression that I am entirely cowless."

"Why do you stay here?" She was sitting on her heels before the crackling fire, looking up at him curiously. "Why didn't you go back to London? You've got a flat, haven't you?"

"I prefer staying here," he said.

"How lordly! I prefer staying here." She mimicked him. "You're going to starve to death here, my good man, and freeze to death too. You ought to know that the people of Creith would never consent to stain their white souls by contact with a gentleman with your seamy past! Get some servants from London: they're less particular. They have cinemas in London that educate them in the finer nuances of criminality. Why don't you bring your man down—Binger?"

"Binger?" he said in surprise. "Do you know him?"

"I've spoken with him," she said. "When you were in durance I made a call on him, to see if there was anything I could do. It required a great deal of tact because I wasn't supposed to know that you were under arrest. I asked him where you were, and he said you were 'hout.'"

"Instead of which I was hin!" laughed Jim.

"Hout or hin, he was deliciously diplomatic. And I saw your Moor, and your beautiful room. Did you live in Morocco?"

"For a short time," he said.

She was busy with the eggs for a little while, and he saw she was thinking deeply.

"Of course, you know why this antagonism has sprung up in the village against you? It isn't wholly spontaneous, or due to the purity of Creith's morals. A week ago, Mr. Hamon came down and interviewed most of the leading tradespeople, and I believe he also saw your butler. I know, because my maid, who lives in the village—"

"Your what?" he asked sharply.

"Maid—it is short for maiden aunt," she said, not so much as dropping an eyelid. "My maiden aunt, who lives in the village and who is something of a gossip, told me."

"You were here, then?"

"No, I was in London at the time. She told me when I came back. There are your eggs."

"I couldn't possibly eat three," he protested.

"It is not intended that you should: one is for me," she replied.

She went into the hall and brought down a bag, and extracted a new loaf and a small oblong brick of butter.

"We will dine in the kitchen, because I feel more at home there," she said. "And after breakfast I am going to see what needs doing. I can only stay a few hours every day."

"Are you coming to-morrow?" he said eagerly.

She nodded, and he sighed his relief.

"The curious thing was that I didn't see you come at all, though I was looking through the window and I had a good view of the drive."

"I didn't arrive by the road," she said. "I discovered a little foot bridge across the river that joins Creith Park and your meadows. Naturally, I still retain a certain amount of self-respect, so I came furtively."

He laughed at that.

"If you're trying to make me believe that you care two cents what the village is thinking of you, you're working on a hopeless job," he said. "What puzzles me is"—he hesitated—"you may be a villager: I daresay you are; in fact, you must be, otherwise you wouldn't know so much about the people. But that you're a member of the downtrodden working classes, I will never believe."

"Go and find the carpet-sweeper," she ordered, "and I will show you that, if I'm not downtrodden, I'm certainly a labourer."

It seemed to him that she had hardly been there ten minutes before she came to the study, dressed ready to go.

"You're not going already!" he gasped in dismay.

"Yes, I am," she nodded, "and you will be good enough to stay where you are and not attempt to follow me. And I also rely upon you that you do not ask any of your village acquaintances—which, I should imagine, are very few by now—who I am or who my relations are. I want to keep the name of Smith unsullied. It is a fairly good name."

"I know of none better," he said enthusiastically. "Good-night, Jane."

He held out a hand, and was unaccountably thrilled to see the faint pink that came to her face.

"There is one favour I'm going to ask you in return for my services, and it is that you call off your campaign of vengeance; in other words, that you leave poor Colter alone. He is acting according to his lights, and it isn't going to give you any great satisfaction to ruin him."

"I've been thinking of that to-day," said Jim a little ruefully, "and wondering exactly what I can do. I don't like to strike my colours and leave the enemy triumphant."

"He's not at all triumphant: the poor man's scared to death. I can tell you all his secret history. He has been speculating in oil shares, at the suggestion of Mr. Hamon (I expect Mr. Hamon has an interest in the company) and the poor man is on the verge of bankruptcy. You have only to open your store and run it for a week, to push him over the edge—plunk! That is vulgar," she added penitently, "but will you think it over, Mr. Morlake? I don't know whether you can afford to withdraw, but I think you can."

An hour after the girl had left, Jim walked down to the village and into Colter's Store. A very humble Mr. Colter hastened to discover his needs.

"I want bread, butter and eggs," said Jim firmly. "I want them delivered every morning, with a quart of milk and such other commodities as I require."

"Yes, sir," said the humble Colter. "This store of yours, Mr. Morlake, is going to ruin me—I've had three farmers here to-day; they are supposed to be thorough gentlemen and friends of mine, but they're holding up their winter buying until your shop is open. They say that isn't the reason, but I know 'em!"

"The store will never open so long as I have my eggs, butter, bread and milk," said Jim patiently. "Is that understood?"

"Yes, sir," said the fervent storekeeper, and showed him to the door.

That night the young enthusiast was sent back to London after selling his stocks to Colter below cost price; and when Jim came down in the morning and opened the front door, he found Mr. Colter's boy sitting on the steps.

Jane Smith came late that morning, and something in her appearance arrested his attention.

"You've been crying," he said.

"No, I haven't. I've had very little sleep, that is all."

"You've been crying," he repeated.

"If you say that again, I won't stay. You're really annoying, and I never thought you would be that."

This silenced him, but he was worried. Had she got into some kind of scrape through this escapade of hers? He never troubled to believe that she was a housemaid. Probably she was some poor relation of one of the big families in the neighbourhood. There were many little villas and tiny half- acre lots scattered about the countryside.

They were eating a rather dismal lunch together when he asked her plainly:

"Where do you live?"

"Oh, somewhere around," she said vaguely.

"Do you ever speak the truth, young woman?"

"I was the most truthful person in the world until I—" She checked herself suddenly.

"Until you—?" he suggested.

"Until I started lying. It is very easy, Mr. Raffles."

"Oh, by the way"—he remembered suddenly—"two of the housemaids of this establishment came and interviewed me this morning whilst you were making the beds. They want to come back."

"Don't have them," she said hastily. "If you do, I shall go."

And, conscience stricken at her selfishness, she added quickly:

"Yes, get them if you can. I think you ought to get your servants back as soon as you possibly can. They're only following the lead of Cleaver, and most of them will be dying to get back, because there's a whole lot of unemployment in the county. Only—I should like you to let me know before they come."

He helped her to wash up after lunch, and then went upstairs to his study to write some letters, whilst she laid his dinner before she left. The kitchen stairs led into the back hall, and he was more than surprised, when he turned a corner of the stairs, to see a girl standing in the entrance hall. He had left the door wide open, and either he had not heard her ring, or she had not taken the trouble to push the bell. She was very pretty, he saw at a glance, and fashionably dressed, and he wondered if it was a delegation from the women of Sussex demanding his instant withdrawal from the country.

Flashing a smile at him, she came toward him.

"You're Mr. Morlake, I know," she said, as he took her hand. "I've seen your photograph. You don't know me."

"I'm afraid I haven't that advantage," said Jim, and showed her into the drawing-room.

"I simply had to come and see you, Mr. Morlake. This stupid feud of yours with my brother mustn't go on any longer."

"Your brother?" he asked in wonder, and she laughed roguishly.

"Now don't pretend that you don't dislike poor Ralph very intensely."

A light was beginning to show.

"Then you are Miss Hamon?" he said.

"Of course I'm Miss Hamon! I came over from Paris specially to see you. Ralph is terribly worried about this frightful quarrel you're carrying on."

"I suppose he is," said Jim subtly. "And you have come all the way from Paris to patch up our feud, have you? Of course you're Lydia Hamon. How stupid of me! I remember you years and years ago, before the days of your brother's prosperity."

Lydia Hamon had not the slightest desire to be remembered years and years ago, and she turned him off that dangerous topic.

"Now tell me, Morlake, isn't it possible for you and Ralph to get together, as you delightful Americans say, and—"

The door opened abruptly, and Jane Smith came in. She was dressed for going home and was pulling on her gloves.

"I thought you were in your study," she began and then her eyes fell upon the visitor.

If the apparition of Lydia Hamon startled her, the effect on Lydia was staggering. She raised a pair of unnecessary lorgnettes and surveyed the girl with a look of horror.

"Surely I'm not mistaken?" she said. "It is Lady Joan Carston!"

"Damn!" said Joan.


CHAPTER 24
JIM LEARNS THINGS


Lady Joan Carston! Jim could not believe his ears.

"Surely you are mistaken, Miss Hamon?" he said. "This lady is Miss—" He stopped.

"This lady is Lady Joan Carston, and I am delighted to see that you are such good friends. I'm sure my brother's fiancée will be only too happy to help me in my little scheme to make you and Ralph better friends."

"Who is your brother's fiancée?" asked Joan, electrified by this cool claim.

"It is generally understood that you are," smiled Lydia sweetly.

"It may be understood in lunatic asylums, where many people are even under the impression that they are related to Napoleon Bonaparte," said Joan sharply, "but it is certainly not understood either by me or by my father. And we should be the first to know."

Lydia shrugged her shoulders. She was trying to find an explanation of the girl's presence in this house and from her viewpoint only one explanation was possible. And then it began to dawn on her that the house was empty, save for these two people, and her attitude, her manner and her voice became instantly stiffened by the shock.

"I suppose your father is here, Lady Joan?" she asked primly.

"My father is not at Creith," replied the girl, who saw what she was driving at. "Nor is my aunt, nor any of my cousins. In fact, I have no other chaperone at Wold except the kitchen stove and a sense of my immense superiority."

The eyebrows of the red-haired girl went up to points.

"I don't think Ralph would like this—" she began.

"There are so many things that Ralph doesn't like"—it was Jim who stepped into the breach and saved Joan Carston from the humiliation of apologising for the things she undoubtedly would have said—"but I shouldn't bother to catalogue them. I don't think, Miss Hamon, that we need trouble Lady Joan with the old family feud."

He turned to the girl and held out his hand.

"I am extremely grateful to you," he said. "That is a very banal thing to say, but it expresses completely just how I feel."

He expected to find her embarrassed, but she was coolness itself, and he marvelled at her self-possession.

"I think you had better go in search of your housemaids," she said with a twinkle in her eyes, "and arrange for them to come to you to-morrow afternoon at two o'clock."

She emphasised the words, and a weight rolled from his heart, for he knew that Joan Carston would be there to breakfast.

Lydia watched the girl as she walked down the drive.

"Then it is true that Lady Joan is engaged to you?" she asked, and Jim's jaw dropped. "She told me so, but I thought she was being—well, annoying."

"Engaged to me?" he gasped. "Did—did she say so?"

Lydia smiled contemptuously.

"Of course, it wasn't true, though it might have been, judging by her indiscretion. She is a friend of yours?"

"A great friend," said Jim vaguely, "but only in the sense that Lady Bountiful is a friend of the bedridden villager."

"You, of course, being the bedridden villager?"

She forced a smile, but he saw in her face something of the emotion she was endeavouring to suppress, as the object of her visit came back to her.

"Seriously, Mr. Morlake," she drawled, "don't you think it is time that your stupid quarrel with Ralph came to an end?"

"Do I understand that you are an ambassador bearing olive branches?" he asked, a little amused. "Because, if you are, I suppose, like all ambassadors, you have something to offer me besides an intangible friendship, and that of a very doubtful quality."

She walked across to the door and closed it, and then, coming nearer, said in a low voice:

"Ralph said that you wanted something that he had—he no longer has it!"

Jim frowned down at her.

"Has he destroyed it?"

"He no longer has it," repeated the girl. "It is in other hands."

He stared at her incredulously.

"Do you seriously mean that?"

She nodded.

"Then how does it come about that your brother is at large?" he asked, and she flamed up at that.

"I don't know what you mean, Mr. Morlake. 'At large?' Do you mean that my brother should be in prison?"

"He should be in prison, anyway," said Jim calmly. "But if the document—and I take it you are referring to a certain document—has fallen into other hands, then most certainly, unless the finder is a thief and a blackmailer, your brother should be waiting his trial."

It was very evident to him that she had been speaking in the dark, and that she had no idea of the nature of the missing paper.

"What does he want me to do?" he went on.

"He particularly wants your friendship," she said. "He asked me to tell you that there is no difference between you which cannot be smoothed over."

"In other words, if the gentleman who has the statement in his hands brings it to light, your brother wishes me to testify in his favour?"

She hesitated.

"I don't know whether that is what he wishes—perhaps it is. He did not tell me any more than I have told you, that the something which you wanted had passed out of his hands, and he asked for your friendship."

Jim walked to the window and looked out, trying to solve the riddle she had set him; and all the time there ran through the web of his thoughts the more amazing discovery that Jane Smith was Joan Carston, the daughter of the Earl of Creith, and, from his standpoint, an unapproachable person.

That was the first of the many surprises that awaited James Morlake.

"I don't see what I can do," he said, turning back to Lydia. "The feud, as you prefer to call it, between your brother and myself is dependent upon his making reparation. You may tell him that."

"Then it is to be war?" she said, a little dramatically.

He smiled, and was serious again instantly.

"Yes, I'm afraid it is to be war."

She bit her lip, thinking quickly. Her instructions had been more or less vague, and Ralph Hamon had left to her the actual method by which she would carry his suggestions into effect. There was an alternative attitude for her to take, and she decided that the moment had come to initiate the new rôle.

"Do you know what this means to me, his only sister?" she asked with a little catch in her voice. "Do you realise what it means to lie awake night after night, thinking, worrying, terrified of what the morning will bring forth?"

"I'm sorry that I don't. Honestly, Miss Hamon, I am not sympathetic. If it is true that you feel these misgivings and emotions—well, that is unfortunate."

He walked up and stood squarely before her.

"You may take this message to your brother, Lydia Hamon—that I am in this to the very end. I have risked consequences more fearful than any you can picture, and I go on until my mission is completed."

"A burglar with a mission!" she sneered.

"Rather amusing, isn't it?" he said good-humouredly.

If he had any doubts as to her sincerity, those doubts were now dispelled. The woman was an actress and a bad one; she could not sustain the pose of distress at the continuance of the "feud," or hide the chagrin of her failure.

"You've had your chance, Morlake," she said, the venom in her coming out. "I don't know what this trouble is between you and Ralph, but he's too clever for you, and sooner or later you'll admit it. I'm sick of the whole business! If Ralph's a crook, what are you? Aren't there enough pickings in the world for both of you?"

"Spoken like a little lady," said Jim Morlake, as he showed her to the door.


CHAPTER 25
THE CABLEGRAM


In a week a remarkable change had come over Ralph Hamon. There were times when he appeared to his sister to be a little old man. He was greyer, new lines had appeared in his forbidding face, and he seemed to stoop more. Lydia, wise in her generation, did not attempt to probe too deeply into the cause. To her surprise, when she had reported the result of her interview with Morlake, he had not, to use her own expression, gone up in the air, but had accepted her account of the talk with the greatest calmness. Even her little titbit about Joan Carston's presence at Wold House had not aroused him.

She went to his office that day after her interview with Jim, her baggage at the station, her railway ticket and reservation in her handbag.

"I'm going back to Paris this afternoon," she said airily, "and I want a little money."

He looked up at her.

"Who told you you were going back to Paris?" he asked, and her simulated surprise did not impress him. "You're staying in London until I ask you to go. I told you that a week ago. It may be necessary for us to move, and move pretty quick."

"What is wrong?" she asked, realising for the first time the immense seriousness of the position. "Are things very bad?" she asked.

"As bad as they can be," said Hamon, and added: "for the moment. You see, Lydia," he went on in a kindlier tone, "I don't want to be left quite alone at this moment. You're part of the baggage. And besides"—he hesitated—"I promised Sadi that I would take you out to Tangier."

She did not speak until she had pulled a chair up to the table and sat down opposite him, her elbows on the desk, her eyes fixed on his.

"Have you promised Sadi anything more?" she asked.

He avoided her gaze.

"Five or six years ago you were very keen on my living at Tangier," she said. "Why? What have you promised Sadi?"

"Nothing, directly. You used to like him, Lydia."

She made a little face.

"He interested me, naturally. Any young girl would be interested in a picturesque Moor—and, from what you tell me, he isn't even picturesque any longer. Besides, I've got my values in order."

"Sadi is very useful to me—extremely useful. He belongs to one of the first Moorish families, he is a Christian—at least, he's supposed to be—and he's rich."

She smiled contemptuously.

"So rich that he draws a quarterly allowance from you! No, Ralph, you can't bluff me. I know all about Sadi, as much as I want to know. He's just a tricky Moor; and if you expect me to play Desdemona to him, you've got another guess coming. Othello was never a favourite play of mine. He is very amusing, I daresay, and he is quite a big person in Tangier, and he may be a Christian, though I doubt it. But I'm not going to be Number Twenty-three in his establishment, and the Lord didn't intend me to end my days in an unventilated harem, even though I become the pearl of great price and the principal wife of the Shereef Sadi Hafiz. I've been reading a few books on the subject lately," she went on, "and I understand that there's a whole lot of romance in the desert, but, to anybody who's sniffed the Near East, there's not enough romance to compensate for one bad smell. The last weeks I was in Paris I had several letters from you, Ralph, talking about the languorous joys of Morocco, and I've had it in my mind to ask you just what you were thinking about."

"Sadi is very fond of you," he said awkwardly. "And these marriages often turn out well. He is a man well thought of by the Government, and he has more decorations than a general."

"If he was as well decorated as a Christmas tree, he wouldn't appeal to me," said she decisively, "so let us consider that matter settled finally."

She was secretly astonished that he accepted her very plain talk without protest.

"Have it your own way," he said, "but you'll have to stay in London, Lydia, until I'm through with this other business."

After she had gone, he made an effort to work, but without success. From time to time he glanced at the clock on his desk, as though he were expecting some visitor. A cable from Tangier had come that morning, and once or twice he took it from his pocket-book and read it over gravely. Sadi's impecuniosity was no new experience, but this last demand was interesting in view of possible contingencies.

A small and frugal lunch was served in his office, and after it was cleared away he rang for his clerk, and taking his cheque-book from the safe, wrote reluctantly.

"Take this to the bank and bring the money back in fives."

The well-trained clerk did not whistle when he saw the figures, for he was used to dealing with large sums, but seldom had Mr. Hamon drawn actual cash to that amount.

He returned in half-an-hour with three stout packages, which Hamon did not even trouble to count.

"I am expecting Mr. Marborne," he said, as he put the money away in a drawer. "Show him right in."

Marborne was due at half-past two. It was nearer three when he swaggered into the office, a marvellously transformed man, for he was dressed in what he conceived to be the height of fashion, and added to the outrage of a crimson tie a grey top-hat. He took the big cigar from his teeth and nodded jovially at the watchful man behind the desk.

"'Morning, Hamon! Sorry I'm a bit late, but I had one or two calls to make."

He had been drinking: Hamon was quick to notice this. On the whole, he preferred to deal with people who drank. One of his stock arguments against prohibition was that it put the habitually sober at a disadvantage with the occasionally drunk.

"Got the money, old man?"

Without a word, Hamon opened the drawer and threw the notes on to the table.

"Thanks," said Marborne, who invariably developed gentility in his cups. "How does it feel, having a family retainer, eh?"

Hamon leant his elbows on the table and glared across at the blackmailer.

"See here, Marborne, I'm willing to finance you up to the limit, but you've got to keep your promise."

"I don't remember having made any," said the other coolly. "I told you that your little secret was safe with me. You aren't going to kick about expenses again, are you?" he asked humorously. "I've got a position to keep up. Thanks to working for you, I've been kicked out of the police force without my pension, and so has Slone. You would have left us to starve if I hadn't had a bit of luck and a naturally prying disposition."

"Where have you left that—that paper? Suppose it falls into somebody else's hands?" asked Hamon, and Marborne laughed.

"Do you think I'm such a fool that I'd throw away a good living?" he asked contemptuously.

Unconsciously he pressed his hand to his left side. It was an involuntary movement, but it did not escape the attention of Hamon.

"It is in a safe," said Marborne loudly, "burglar-proof and fire- proof, and I am the only person that's got the key. See?"

"I see," said Hamon, and was almost cheerful when he opened the door to facilitate his visitor's departure.

He came back to his desk, and without hesitation took a cable form and addressed a message to "Colport, Hotel Cecil, Tangier." There was only one possible solution to the tyranny of Marborne. He must go the way of the unknown sailor whom a cyclist had found dying on the Portsmouth Road.


CHAPTER 26
JOAN CALLED JANE


Not since that night of storm had Joan seen the lodger at Mrs. Cornford's cottage. She had purposely avoided her visitor, and with that extraordinary determination which was part of her character, had ruled out her vision and knowledge as a bad dream, something hideous born of the storm.

Once in the middle of the night she woke up to the stark reality of fact. In the morning Jim had seen traces of the despair that had entered her heart, and had wondered, and, wondering, had been troubled.

On the morning that was to see her final visit to Wold House, her maid came into her room as she was dressing.

"Mrs. Cornford wishes to see you," she said, and Joan paled.

"You're a great coward," she said aloud.

"Me, my lady?" asked the astonished girl.

"No, me, Alice. I'll be down in a few minutes."

There are certain disadvantages about putting things out of your mind. The reactions are apt to be a little drastic, and Joan was inwardly quaking when she came into the presence of her guest.

"I heard that you were back, and I came to ask whether Lord Creith would grant me a lease of the cottage, Lady Joan."

"Is that all?" said Joan, immeasurably relieved. "Of course he will, Mrs. Cornford. Are you settling in Creith?"

Mrs. Cornford hesitated.

"I think so," she said. "Mr. Farringdon is doing so well that he wants me to stay. He has made me a very handsome offer, and I can afford to give up my music teaching."

"Mr. Farringdon?" Joan's voice trembled a little. "He is your lodger, isn't he? The young man who—who drinks. Where did he come from?"

"I don't know. He was on the West Coast of Africa for some time. He got into some scrape in England, and his people sent him abroad when he was very young—he was expelled from his school for an escapade."

"Did he tell you what it was?"

She waited, holding her breath.

"No—he just said that he did something pretty bad. He took to drink on the Coast, and drifted back to England. His father died and left him an annuity. Would you like to meet him?"

"No!"

The refusal was so abrupt and so emphatic that Joan saw she had hurt the woman.

"No, my dear—I don't want to meet him—my nerves are a little on edge with recent happenings in this neighbourhood."

"You mean Mr. Morlake. How very terrible that was! His servants have left him, they tell me. I almost volunteered to look after him. Mr. Farringdon saw him on the night of his arrival."

"I know he did," said the girl, and corrected herself hastily. "I'm told he did."

Mrs. Cornford left her a little thoughtful. She must go back to London and stay there, even though she left the American burglar to subsist on raw eggs!

******

There were two strange men in the village. Joan saw them long before the gossips of Creith told her that they were young business men spending a holiday in the country. She saw them as they rode into the village on the previous afternoon, two healthy-looking men who seemed to find time hanging on their hands.

When she came to Wold House to cook the breakfast (it was half-past nine when she appeared) she mentioned her discovery.

Jim Morlake nodded.

"Yes—Sergeant Finnigan and Detective Spooner from headquarters. I saw them arrive the night after I returned. They came by the last train and were driven over from the station in a car belonging to the local police."

He saw the concern in her face and laughed.

"You didn't imagine that the police would drop me as an unprofitable subject, did you? Welling sent them to make a study of my habits. They will be here for at least another week—I thought of asking them up to dinner one night. I guess the food they get at the Red Lion doesn't wholly satisfy them."

She made no reply, turning instantly to another matter.

"I shall not come again. I think you can gather your domestic staff. I saw Cleaver in the village yesterday and he was almost tearful at the thought of losing a good job."

"He's lost it," said Jim grimly. "He's fixed—permanently! He is the one man I'll never have."

"When he asks to return, you must take him back," she said. "Don't be feeble! Of course he must come back."

"Must he?—Well, if you say—"

"It isn't what I say. Don't shield your weaknesses behind me. You'll take him back because you can't quarrel with servants any more than you can quarrel with poor Mr. Colter."

She heard him chuckle, and frowned.

"Forgive my unseemly mirth, Lady Joan," he said penitently, "but I haven't been bullied for—oh, a long time! I'll take Cleaver or anybody else. Why did you tell Lydia—"

He stopped, and she paused, fry-pan in hand, to shoot a questioning glance at him.

"Tell her—what?"

"Oh, nothing ... I suppose you said it to annoy her. She thinks so anyhow."

He found himself confused; he could feel the colour going to his face, and the more he tried to control this ridiculous display the more incoherent of speech and gauche of manner he became.

"You mean that I told her I was engaged to you?" she said calmly. "Yes, I did. I wanted to shock her, and yours was the first name that occurred to me—you don't mind?"

"Mind...? Well, I should say not ..!"

"I hoped you wouldn't. When I remembered, after I had left you, that I had confided my awful secret to Lydia Hamon, I had ten million fits."

Skilfully she lifted the eggs from the pan and laid them on the dish.

"I was afraid that I had hopelessly compromised you—you're married, of course?"

"I am not married," he said violently, "and have never been married."

"Most nice people are," she said with such indifference that his heart sank; "and I suppose you are nice ... yes, I'm sure you are. Don't put your elbow on the egg—thank you!"

He had no mind for eggs. He hated eggs: the sight of a yolk made him shudder.

"I am sorry you are Lady Joan. I liked Jan .... I like Joan too, immensely. There was a girl in Springfield, Connecticut, that I knew— "

"Is it necessary to tell me about your early love affairs?" she asked. "I am too young to be interested."

"This was not a love affair," he protested hotly. "Her name was Joan, and she called me Jim. Her father was an Alderman."

"My name is Joan, and if you wish to call me Joan don't let anything stand in your way," she said, seating herself at the kitchen table. "I may even call you Jim, but father has a pet Persian cat he calls Jim, and if I called you that I'd expect you to mew! I don't like Lexington—it is too much like the name of a railway station. And I don't like Morlake. I had better call you nothing ... About this engagement of ours. I wonder if you would mind if I did not break it off for a week or so? Mr. Hamon has views about me and my future."

"But suppose he carries this ridiculous story to your father?" he asked, aghast.

"'Ridiculous story' would have come better from me," she said coldly, "but as you got in first, it is due to my father to say that he would be amused. I was worried at first for fear the story got into the newspapers."

"Why has Hamon such a pull in this part of the country?" he asked.

She told him very frankly just how Mr. Hamon's local interests had developed, and he whistled.

"So you see, our title is rather a hollow mockery. The real Lord of Creith is Hamon, and I am his handmaiden. He wants to marry me, just as all bad men in stories want to marry the daughter of the ruined earl. To make the story complete, I should be madly in love with the poor but honest farmer who is the real heir to the estate. But all the farmers round here are rich, and daddy says that there isn't one he'd trust with a waggon load of wurzels."

He could not keep his eyes from her as he listened, fascinated. It was not her beauty that held him, nor her breathtaking self-possession, nor the humour behind irony. A little of each perhaps, but something else. He remembered the morning—was it yesterday?—that she had come with the unmistakable evidence of tears in her eyes. This hard, practical side of her, this flippancy of comment, was not the real Joan Carston. She puzzled him a lot, and frightened him too.

"Don't stare, James—that is better than Jim, but rather on the footman side—it is very rude to stare. I wanted to ask you something too ... what was it? I know! Last night I borrowed a pair of night glasses from Peters. From my window I can see Wold House. At night there is a yellow blob of light which I couldn't identify. With the glasses I saw that it was the library window. And I saw your shadow passing and repassing across the white blind. Why do you have white shades, James? You need not answer that. You were still walking up and down when I went to bed at one o'clock. I watched you for an hour ... why are you laughing?"

"Finnigan and Spooner watched for longer," he said between paroxysms. "They made a special report on my restlessness. I guess that."

"How do you know—that they were watching, I mean?"

"After it was dark I laid down 'trip wires,' only I used black thread," he said. "Every thread was broken this morning. So was the cotton I pegged across the gate, which I left unlocked. On the path under the window I laid down sheets of brown paper covered with bird lime—I found them on the road this morning."

Her eyes danced with joy.

"The boy who cleans the boots at the Red Lion is a friend of mine. I went down early this morning and found him scraping the sticky stuff off Finnigan's boots, and Spooner's pants were horrible to see—he must have sat down in it! They will watch me, of course—they would be fools if they didn't."

When the meal was over and they were washing the dishes together, she asked:

"What were you thinking about last night that you couldn't sleep?"

"My sins," he answered solemnly, and for some reason or other her attitude was a little frigid toward him for the remainder of the morning.

And to whatever error he had committed in the morning, he added what proved to be a crowning indiscretion. He came into the kitchen and found her at the table, bare-armed, kneading some pastry.

"That was a bad burn," he said.

He had never before seen the heart-shaped scar on the back of her hand.

To his surprise, she flushed red.

"It only shows sometimes," she said shortly.

She left soon after without saying good-bye.

In the afternoon came a humble Cleaver, with a rambling and unconvincing story of the causes that led to his resignation. Jim Morlake cut him short.

"You may come back," he said, "and you may reëngage any servants who wish to return. But there is a new routine in this household. Everybody must be in bed by ten, and under no circumstances may you or anybody else interrupt me when I am working in my room."

"If Mr. Hamon hadn't, so to speak, lured me away—" began Cleaver.

"I have known Mr. Hamon in many rôles," interrupted Jim, "but I confess that Hamon the siren is a new one on me."

The study was situated at that end of the building nearest Creith House. It was a long, rather narrow room, with two entrances, one leading to the hall, the other opening into a small lobby. Here was a narrow staircase leading directly into his bedroom, which was above the study. The bedroom, in a sense, ran at right angles to the room below, for whilst this ran lengthwise along the front of the house, the bedroom extended from the front to the back.

Whilst Cleaver was collecting his scattered staff, Jim went up the staircase to the bedroom, locked the door, and, taking up a corner of the carpet, opened a small trapdoor in the floor and took out a black tin box, which he carried to the table. From this he extracted his little leather hold-all of tools, a gun and the inevitable square of silk, and these he took down to the study, putting them into his drawer. Though all the detectives in the world were watching him, though the threat of life imprisonment hung over him like a cloud, The Black must again go about his furtive work. For the voice of the dead was whispering again, urgently, insistently, and Jim Morlake did not hesitate to obey.


CHAPTER 27
MRS. CORNFORD'S LODGER


Jim filled up the tank of his car, stacked a couple of tins in the dickey and drove the machine into the village, stopping first at the post office to send a wire to Binger, and then at the blacksmith's shop, which, since the demise of the garage, had served the rough needs of motorists. The complicated repairs which he described to the blacksmith could not be carried out at Creith, as he well knew.

"You had better take the car to Horsham, Mr. Morlake," said the blacksmith. "I don't know enough about these here machines to do the work you want."

The police watcher saw him drive off and strolled across to the blacksmith to discover what was the trouble.

"His steering apparatus has gone wrong," said the smith. "He has patched it up himself, but I told him it is dangerous to drive and he's taken it over to Bolley's at Horsham."

Satisfied, Detective Spooner went back to his chief and reported. Just as it was getting dark, Jim returned by the little motor omnibus which plied three times a day between Creith and Horsham. This also Spooner reported.

"I don't see what's the use of keeping us down here at all," said Sergeant Milligan. "It's a dead and alive hole, and it's not likely that Morlake is going to start anything just yet. The trial's shaken him up a bit."

"I wish he'd get in the habit of going to bed early," grumbled his subordinate. "I had a talk with the butler—who is going back to him, by the way—and he said that he'd never known his boss to have insomnia before."

"Perhaps it is his conscience," said Milligan hopefully.

Soon after Jim returned to the house, Binger arrived with a small handbag, containing all that was necessary for him in the matter of changes, and William Cleaver showed him into Jim's room.

"I've got a job for you that you'll like, Binger," said Jim. "It is to sit in a chair and do nothing for five or six hours every night. You will be able to sleep in the day and I've not the slightest doubt that you'll also put in a few short winks whilst on duty."

Binger, whose face had fallen at the suggestion of work, brightened up again.

"I'm not naturally a lazy man, sir," he said, "but I find at my time of life, after my military experience, that things tire me very hastily. I think it must be the fever I got in Hindia. It isn't that I'm lazy—ho no! Work I love. Are you having a hard time 'ere, sir?—I expect you hare! Naturally the gentry would be a bit put out, you being a burglar, sir. I'm sure the way the reporters came hafter me when you was in jug was disgraceful. They put my portrait in the papers, sir—maybe you saw it?" He fumbled in his pocket and took out a large, creased and somewhat idealised photograph of Mr. Binger. "Not that I court publicity, sir, to use a foreign hexpression, but if you're in the public heye, you're in the public heye, and there's no getting away from it. This Mommet" (he referred to Mahmet thus) "he doesn't mind at all. Being a Hafrican, he 'asn't got any sense. You've given it hup, I suppose, sir?"

"Given what hup?" asked Jim.

"Burglarising, sir."

He saw an unfamiliar object standing on a side table.

"Going in for music, sir?" he asked.

Jim looked across at the big gramophone that had been delivered to him a few days before.

"Yes, I've developed a pretty taste in jazz," he said. "Now listen to my instructions, Binger, and they are to be carried out to the letter. To-night at ten o'clock you will take up your post outside my door. You can have the most comfortable chair you can find, and I don't mind very much if you sleep. But nobody is to come into this room—you understand? And under no circumstances am I to be interrupted. If any detectives call—"

"Detectives?" said the startled Binger.

"There are two in Creith," said Jim coolly, "but I don't think they will worry you. But if they call, knock at the front door, or do anything after ten o'clock, they are not to be admitted unless they can produce a warrant signed by a magistrate, which is extremely unlikely. You understand?"

"Yes, sir. Do you want me to bring you in some coffee?"

"I want you to bring me in nothing," said Jim sharply. "If you attempt to come in or interrupt me, you'll be fired."

He had the best dinner he had had in weeks that night, for the majority of the staff were again on duty. At half-past nine he interviewed Cleaver, who was already making preparations to retire for the night.

Jim strolled into the grounds and walked to the gate. The road was deserted, but in the shadow of a hedge he saw a red spark of light that glowed and died with regularity. It was the cigar of the watcher, and he smiled to himself.

Going back to his study, he found that Binger, with a rug and a chair, had taken up his position in the hall.

"Good-night, Binger," he said and locked the door.

Though the house was equipped for electric lighting, the petrol engine which supplied the current had not been working since his return. On his study table was a shaded vapour lamp, which threw a powerful light on to the desk. The shade he had removed and the brilliance of the flame was almost blinding.

He picked up the gramophone and put it on the table in the middle of the room, wound it tight and regulated the turn-table until it moved at its slowest pace. Then, from his desk, he took a long steel rod, which he screwed into the end of the turn-table. To this he had fixed a tiny cardboard figure, the silhouette of a man with his hands behind him, clamped to a piece of stout wire. This he fastened to the end of the rod, and carrying the vapour lamp from his desk, placed it in the centre of the turn-table and released the catch. The disc turned slowly and with it the lamp and the cardboard figure. Presently the blurred shadow of the silhouette passed across the white window shade.

"There he goes again!" groaned Detective Spooner, as he saw the shadow pass. "How long is he going to keep that up?"

Apparently not for long, for Jim stopped the machine, and, passing upstairs to his room, changed into an old black suit. Over this he drew a tightly fitting ulster that reached almost to his heels, and this, with a soft black hat, completed his wardrobe. He put his tools and gun in his pocket, added a small but powerful electric torch and looked at his watch. It was half-past ten. The house was silent. He went back to the study and, going close to the door, called Binger.

"Are you all right?"

"Yes, sir."

"Remember I am not to be interrupted."

"No, sir, I quite understand."

From the voice he gathered that the watchful Binger was already half asleep.

He set the gramophone working again, watched it for a little while, regulating the speed, and then, passing up to his bedroom, crossed to the window at the back of the house, and, lifting the sash, stepped out upon a small balcony.

In a minute he was in the grounds, making his way furtively in the shadow of the bushes to the little footbridge that led to the Creith estate. Ten minutes' walk and he came to an isolated barn, approached by a cart track across a field which was his property, and here the car was waiting....

"He's at it again," said Spooner to his sergeant who had strolled up to join the watcher. "There he goes," as a shadow crossed the window jerkily.

Spooner groaned.

"This means an all-night job," he said.

At that moment Jim's car was running up the Haymarket in a drizzle of rain. He turned into Wardour Street and, putting the machine at the tail of a long queue of cars that were waiting here to pick up the theatre traffic, he walked into Shaftesbury Avenue and hailed a taxi. As the car drew up, the door of a saloon bar was pushed open violently and a man stumbled out.

He fell against Jim, who caught and jerked him to his feet.

"'Scuse me!" said the drunkard, "had a slight argument ... on purely abstrac' question of metaphysics," he got the word out with difficulty.

Jim looked at him closely. It was the young man who had come to his house on the night of the storm.

"Hello, my friend, you're a long way from home," he said, before he remembered that he particularly did not wish to be recognised. But the man was incapable of recognition.

The taxicab was waiting, and, seeing the little crowd that was gathering, he pushed the sot into the car.

"Drive to Long Acre," he said.

At this hour of the night the street of wholesale fruit salesmen and motor-car depôts would be empty. Stopping the cab in the quietest part of the street, he guided his companion to the sidewalk.

"Now, Mr. Soak, I advise you to go home."

"Home!" said the other bitterly. "Got no home! Got no friends, got no girl!"

"Perhaps that is not unfortunate—for the girl," said Jim, impatient to be gone.

"Is it? I dunno. I'd like to get hold of the girl who played the trick on me. I'd kill her—I would, I'd kill her!"

His weak face was distorted with sudden rage and then he burst into drunken tears.

"She ruined my life, damn her!" he sobbed, "and I don't know her, except her Christian name, don't know anything except that her father's a lord ... she's got a little heart-shaped scar on the back of her hand."

"What is the name of this girl who—who ruined your life?" asked Jim huskily.

The young man wiped his eyes and gulped.

"Joan—that is her name, Joan ... she played it low down on me and if I ever find her, I'll kill her!"


CHAPTER 28
MR. WELLING GIVES ADVICE


On the day that Ralph Hamon received an answer to his Moorish cablegram, Mr. Marborne dined well and expensively, for he had reached that blissful stage of conscious prosperity when money came natural.

His guest that night was Mr. Augustus Slone; and Sergeant Slone, from being an uninteresting, snub-nosed man with a vacuous face and an apologetic air, had developed into a man of fashion.

So they dined in the largest restaurant in Oxford Street, and it was a dinner of many courses.

"Another bottle," said Mr. Marborne grandly.

He pushed down the stiff front of his shirt, which bulged above the white waistcoat, and examined his cigar with a critical air.

"Well, Slone, this is more my idea of life than rousting round looking for little tea-leaves."[A]

[Footnote A: In the argot of the London crook, a tea-leaf is a thief.]

"You've said it," said Slone simply.

He also was dressed in expensive raiments and if his black dress bow had an edging of purple, it was only because a certain gentlemen's outfitter had assured him that this was the latest and most recherche vagary of fashion.

"How long is it going on?" he asked, leaning back in his chair and regarding his companion with a glassy stare.

"For ever," said the other, and as he waved his hand the overhead lights were reflected brilliantly from the diamond in his new ring.

"What have you got on Hamon?"

"What do you mean—what have I got on him?"

"You've got something." Slone nodded with drunken wisdom. "You've put som'n on to him somehow. What have you found out about him?"

"Never mind what I've found out. All you've got to do is to be satisfied and ask no questions. Am I doing the right thing by you or am I not?"

"You're certainly doing the right thing by me," admitted Slone with warmth and they shook hands fervently across the table.

"I'll tell you—not everything, but a little. A certain document has come into my possession," said Marborne. "I won't say what it is or how I got it, but it is something which would do him a lot of no good. That fellow is worth a million, Slone, and he has a sister...!" He kissed the tips of his fingers and waved them to the ceiling ecstatically.

"I know all about his sister," said Slone, "and she's not the sort of girl who would have anything to do with you, Marborne."

Marborne's face went a dull red. In his cups he was somewhat quarrelsome.

"What do you mean?" he demanded. "What was she before Hamon made his money? A barmaid! That's what she was. She served the drinks in a little dive off Glasshouse Street. She's no better than me—in fact, she is not so good."

Slone assented sycophantically.

"And there's no sense in talking about putting the black on Hamon," Marborne went on. "What is he—a thief, that's what he is and I can prove it."

"Is that what you know about him, Marborne?"

"Never mind what I know," retorted Marborne, beckoning the waiter as a resolve came to him.

"Let us have another drink," suggested Slone.

"You've had enough," said the other. "There's that old swine, Welling!"

The shock of the discovery that he had been under the observation of that grey-haired sleuth probably all the evening, sobered him. As he caught Marborne's eye Welling rose from the little table where he had been enjoying a protracted dinner and walked across to the two and instinctively Slone stood to attention.

"Sit down, you fool," said Marborne under his breath. "You're not in the police force now. Good evening, Captain Welling."

"Good evening, Marborne. Having a good time?" He sat down at the unoccupied end of the table and his mild eyes surveyed the former police officer with interest. "Doing well, eh? Making a lot of money? That's the thing to do, Marborne. Honest money brings happiness, crook money brings time."

"I'm not going to discuss with you, Captain Welling, whether my money's honest or dishonest. If you think—"

Welling stopped him with an almost humble gesture.

"You can't mean to suggest that you aren't making a fortune?" he said. "How is friend Hamon?"

"I don't know Mr. Hamon—at least not very well," protested Marborne loudly. "What are these innuendoes, Captain? I don't know why you should intrude yourself upon me. I've got nothing to thank you for."

"You've a lot to thank me for," said Welling, lighting the ragged stub of a cigar which he extracted with care from his waistcoat pocket. "The Commissioner wanted to prosecute you, and I think you would have had nine months' hard labour as the result of certain indiscretions of yours, but I persuaded him, in the interests of the service, that it would be better if we let bygones be bygones. Hamon is well, you say?"

"I didn't say anything about Hamon."

"A nice man," mused Julius softly, "an extremely nice man. You're working for him?"

"I tell you, I've nothing to do with Mr. Hamon."

"You must be working for him," said the other with gentle insistence. "He drew a thousand pounds from the bank only a week ago and at least three of the notes have been passed by you. He would hardly pay you for nothing, would he, Marborne, because that is not the way of the world." He sighed heavily. "Our cruel employers get the last ounce out of us, and perhaps they're right. What are you now—a financier?"

Marborne was silent.

"I've been worrying about Hamon," Welling went on. "I saw him for a few minutes the other day and he looked ill. As if he had some trouble on his mind. He couldn't have lost anything from Grosvenor Place, or he would have reported the matter to the police, wouldn't he? Of course he would! Yes, I'm glad to see you're getting on, Marborne. And Slone too! They tell me he's living in a Bloomsbury hotel like a gentleman! You boys are making money." He shook a finger waggishly at the infuriated and a little frightened Marborne. "You're simply dragging it in, Inspector—It sounds better to call you Inspector, doesn't it? Somebody was telling me, you've had a safe put up in your apartments—a beautiful new, green, warranted-to-defy-fire-and-thieves safe."

"You've been tailing me up, Welling," said Marborne roughly. "You've no right to do that."

"Tailing you up?" Julius Welling seemed shocked at the charge. "That is the last thing in the world I should think of doing. But gossip gets around—you know how small London is. One man sees one thing, one man sees another, and they sort of pass on the information. And I think you are wise. If you've got a lot of loose money lying around, and you don't patronise banks, it is only an intelligent precaution to have a good safe."

"What do you mean by not using banks?" said Marborne hotly. "I've got a banking account in Holborn."

"But you never use it," said the gentle Julius, shaking his head, "and again I'm sure you are right. You never know when a bank will fail. On the other hand, if you've got a nice, big, green, fire proof safe, there's nothing to fear except burglars. And what are burglars? The Black wouldn't rob you, even if he hadn't gone out of the burglarly business for good—which of course he has."

He looked round quickly and then lowering his voice, he said:

"Marborne, have you ever tried to tie a tin can to the tail of a wildcat? I see by your expression that you haven't. It is less dangerous than 'tinning' Ralph Hamon. The Old Book says there's a time to make merry and a time to be sad, a time to sleep and a time to eat; and let me tell you that there is a time to quit, too! And that's very near at hand. I wish you no harm, Marborne. You're a bit of a bad lad, but there's a lot about you that I like. Your simplicity is one of the things and your transparent honesty is another. And I shouldn't feel right if I didn't pass on these few words of wisdom and guidance. Pack up your bundle and go while the going's good."

"Go where?" asked the puzzled Marborne.

Welling rose heavily from the table.

"They tell me Spain is a pretty useful place. But keep to the north. The south is too near to Morocco. Italy is another country where living is cheap and the climate is passable. I'll do what I can to protect you."

"Protect me!" gasped Marborne, and Welling nodded.

"Yes, sir, that is the word I used. I tell you I'll do my best for you, but I'm not superhuman. Keep away from wildcats."

To Marborne's intense irritation, the old man patted him on the shoulder.

"Remember that easy money stings. You don't feel the sting for a long time after, but when you do, it'll hurt like hell!"


CHAPTER 29
A LOVE CALL


"He is a dithering old fool," said Marborne angrily, "and I can't stand here all night discussing Welling. Get me a taxi, commissionaire."

"Don't you make any mistake about Welling," said Slone, a greatly troubled man. "That man knows! If he says 'quit' you take my advice and quit."

"I don't even want your advice. I'll see you in the morning," said Marborne, bustling into the taxi.

He was more sober than he had been since the dinner started and his first impulse was to go home. Indeed, he gave instructions to this effect, but changed them and leaning from the window ordered the driver to take him to Grosvenor Place.

There was a light in the drawing-room and he smiled as he mounted the steps.

Lydia heard his voice in the hall and almost before the footman had announced his name—

"I am not at home," she said in a low voice.

This was the third evening visit Marborne had paid in a week and with each he had grown a little bolder. Before the servant could get out of the room, the door was pushed open and the ex-inspector appeared.

"Hullo, Lydia! Thought I would come and see how you were getting along."

It was the first time he had called her by her Christian name and for a second there was a gleam in her eye which boded ill for the adventurous man.

"Ralph is out, I suppose?"

"How long has he been 'Ralph' to you, Mr. Marborne?"

"Oh, for a long time," said Marborne lightly. "I'm not one of these sticklers for etiquette. If a man's name is Ralph, he should be called Ralph."

She checked the retort on her lips, having discovered that the best method of wearying her visitor was to allow him to make all the conversation, for Marborne had not a great stock of small talk. But to- night she had not the patience to continue in her abstention and presently she was irritated into asking:

"What has happened lately, Mr. Marborne, that you have become so very familiar, both with my brother and myself? I'm not a snob, and I daresay you're as good as anybody else, but I tell you frankly that I do not like your calling me 'Lydia' and I will ask you not to call me so again."

"Why not?" he demanded with a tolerant smile. "Your name is Lydia. They used to call you Lydia in the dear old days when you shook cocktails for the thirsty boys!"

She was white with passion but had gained control over her speech.

"Come now, Lydia, what is the use of putting on side? I am a man, the same as other men you meet. Why can't we be good friends? Come and have a bit of luncheon with me to-morrow and we can go on to a matinée afterwards."

"I am thrilled," she said coldly. "Unfortunately I have a luncheon engagement."

"Put it off," said Marborne, his admiring eyes devouring her. "Lydia, why can't we be good friends?"

"Because I don't like you," she said. "After all, barmaids do not choose barmen for their companions; they like to get something a little above them, socially and intellectually. What you are intellectually, I have never had an opportunity of discovering; but I would as soon think of going to luncheon with one of my brother's footmen. Is that plain to you?"

By his purple face and the incoherent sounds that were escaping from his lips she gathered it was plain enough. Fortunately, her brother came in at that moment and gave her an excuse for leaving the room.

"What's the matter with you?" asked Ralph Hamon, glowering at the man.

"What's the matter with me?" spluttered Marborne. "I'll tell you what's the matter with me, Hamon. That sister of yours has got to apologise to me ... throwing my manners up in my face ... telling me I'm no better than a footman ..."

"I guess she's right," said Hamon, his lips curling at the man's hurt vanity and self-pity. "She didn't call you a blackmailer by any chance, did she? Because, if she did, she'd have been right again. Now see here," his voice was like a rasp. "I'm paying you money because you stole something from me, and you're using the threat of exposure to get it. I'll go on paying money just so long as I have to buy your silence. But you will confine all your business transactions to me. You will have nothing whatever to do with any member of my family, by which I mean my sister. You understand that?"

"I'll do as I dam' well please!" stormed Marborne.

"You're drunk," said Hamon calmly. "If you weren't drunk you wouldn't have made a fool of yourself. See me in the morning."

"I want Lydia to apologise to me," said the other and Hamon laughed sourly.

"Come to-morrow and maybe she will," he said. "I want to go to bed. Have you seen Welling?"

"Welling? Yes. What made you ask that?" asked Marborne in surprise.

"He was standing outside the house as I came in, that is all."

Marborne walked to the window and, drawing aside the blind, peered out. On the opposite side of the road he saw a man standing by the edge of the sidewalk.

"That's Welling," he agreed. "What does he want?"

"He has tailed me up," growled Marborne.

"I'm glad," said the other. "I was afraid for the minute he was tailing me. Have a drink?"

Marborne smiled and shook his head.

"No, thanks—if I'm going to be poisoned I'll have mine at home."

The watcher had disappeared when Marborne left the house. He walked to the corner to get a taxicab and though he looked back several times, he saw no sign of the shadow. He went through the side door of the shop which constituted the entrance to his flat, and waited for some time in the dark passage before he pulled the door open and stepped out. There was still no sign of Welling. Possibly Hamon had been mistaken, or else Welling's presence had been sheer coincidence.

His apartments occupied the whole of a floor above a shop and had been furnished by the landlord with those solid and useless articles which have been called "furniture" from time immemorial. A buffet that he did not use, a clock that did not go, a table at which it was impossible to write and a three-branch chandelier only one lamp of which was practicable. But on the buffet was a tantalus, and pouring himself out a stiff glass of whisky, he drank it down.

What was Welling driving at, he wondered. And what significance was there in his reference to the safe? It was perfectly true that Marborne kept his money in the flat; and he did this because he had sufficient intelligence to know that there might come a moment when his victim would make it necessary for his hasty departure. And to Marborne money was not real money unless it was visible. A balance at the bank meant nothing except figures that gave him no satisfaction whatsoever.

He stirred the fire into a blaze, took off his dress jacket and went into the bedroom. Switching on the light, he stood in the doorway and the first object on which his eyes rested was the safe. It stood in a corner of the room, supported by a stout wooden stand.

He looked at it dully, uncomprehendingly, and then with a shriek of rage he leapt into the room and began feeling wildly in its dark interior. For the door was hanging and the safe was empty!

When he had recovered from his rage, he made a rapid search of the apartment. The method of entrance was clear. The thief had come up the fire escape, broken through the window of the bedroom and had worked at his leisure.

He dashed downstairs to the street and threw open the door. Captain Welling, his hands clasped behind him, his head perched on one side, was standing on the sidewalk, gazing intently up at the lighted windows of the flat.

"Captain Welling, I want you!"

Marborne's voice betrayed his agitation.

"Anything wrong?" asked Welling as he came over. "Curious my being here."

"I've been robbed—robbed!" said Marborne. "Somebody's broken open my safe...."

He led the way up the stairs, babbling incoherently, and kneeling before the rifled safe, Welling made a brief examination.

"He certainly did the job thoroughly," he said. "But burglar-proof safes are easy to a good cracksman. You'd better not touch it until this morning and we'll have it photographed for finger-prints."

He got out of the window on to the fire escape.

"Hullo! What's this?" he said and took something from the landing at his feet.

"One cotton glove. I suppose we'll find the other at the bottom. I don't think it is necessary to bother about looking for finger-prints."

He examined the glove under the light.

"And you couldn't trace these if you spent a week of Sundays. I'm afraid he's made a good getaway. How much money did you lose?"

"Between two and three thousand pounds, I think," whined Marborne.

"Anything else?"

The ex-inspector looked at him sharply.

"What else was there to lose?" he asked surlily. "Isn't it enough to lose two thousand?"

"Had you any books, any documents of any kind?"

"No, not in the safe," said Marborne and added quickly: "nor anywhere else for the matter of that."

"Looks like The Black's work to me," mused Welling, coming back again to the safe. "It certainly does look like The Black's work. And I don't see how it can be. Have you got a telephone here?"

"In the other room," said Marborne.

Welling put through a long-distance call and went back to make what he knew was doomed to be a fruitless and hopeless search for clues.

The thief had evidently not been satisfied with the money he had found in the safe. Every drawer had been ransacked, its contents thrown to the ground; the cupboard had been wrenched open; a trunk beneath the bed had been forced and its contents strewn about the floor. Even the bed had been dismantled, blanket by blanket, sheet by sheet, and the mattress lay half on the floor and half on the bedstead.

Welling went back to the dining-room. There were no cupboards here and no drawers, save three in the sideboard, which were empty. He looked round the walls. One of the pictures was hanging askew and he nodded.

"He was looking for something, this friend of ours. What was it?" he asked.

"How in hell do I know?" demanded Marborne savagely. "He didn't get it anyway."

"I don't know how you can say that, if you don't know what he was looking for," said Julius gently.

The telephone bell rang. It was the call which Welling had put through to Creith.

"Captain Welling speaking. Is that you, Milligan?"

"Yes, sir."

"Where is your man?"

"He's in his house—or he was five minutes ago."

"Are you sure?"

"Absolutely certain. I haven't seen him, but I've seen his shadow. He's here all right. Besides which, he hasn't got a car; it went to Horsham to-day for repair."

"Oh, it did, did it?" said Welling softly. "All right."

He hung up the telephone receiver and went back to Marborne, surveying the wreckage helplessly.

"You'd better 'phone the divisional police and ask them to send a man up, Marborne," said the old chief. "I don't think they'll be able to help you—too bad your losing all that money. Banks are safer."

Marborne said nothing.


CHAPTER 30
SADI


If the traveller passed up the narrow, hilly street which leads from the Mosque to Great Sok of Tangier, and turned abruptly to the right as though the Kasbah were his objective, he would have found on his left a high white wall pierced only by a massive gate with bronze- green hinges.

Behind the wall was an untidy garden and a broken stone fountain, sufficiently repaired by an unskilful European workman to allow a feeble jet of water to jerk spasmodically in the air before it fell into a black basin, where, amidst the rubbish of years, swam languid gold-fish.

The house of Sadi Hafiz stood at right angles to the wall, an ugly, lime-washed barn boasting a verandah and a stoep where, when the weather was warm, Sadi Hafiz himself sat in a faded drawing-room chair drinking mint tea and smoking. He was a tall, pale Moor with plump cheeks and a smear of beard, and he had the appearance at all times of being half- awake. He sat one morning, a cigarette drooping from his full underlip, his dull eyes fixed upon a wilted geranium in the centre of the court.

The Shereef Sadi Hafiz was a man who had held many positions of trust under many governments, but had not held them for long. He had served two sultans and four pretenders, had been the confidential agent of six European and one American consulates and in turn had robbed or betrayed them all. A linguist of ability, a known friend of the brown- legged men who carried their rifles into Tangier whenever they came shopping, his influence reached into strange and distant places, and he was a concession-monger without equal.

There came to him at the sunset hour a little man named Colport, who was the accredited agent in Tangier of Mr. Ralph Hamon's companies.

"Good evening—have a drink," grunted the shereef in English. "Did you get any reply to your cable?"

"He says the quarter's allowance is not due for a month," said Colport and the Moor spat contemptuously.

"Did he spend twenty pesetas to cable that? Allah! If it is not due for twenty months I need money now, Colport. Is he coming?"

"I don't know; he didn't say."

The Moor looked at him from under his tired eyelids.

"Is Lydia coming with him? Of course! For five years she has been coming, and for five years she cannot. I am tired of Hamon. He treats me worse than Israel Hassim the Jew. I give him companies, he makes millions and all I see is the allowance. Sha! What did I do for Hamon years ago? Ask him that!"

Colport listened philosophically. Sadi was for ever complaining, for ever hinting of mysterious services; he never went further than to hint.

"He would see me in the Kasbah, chained by the leg and dying for a centimo measure of water. And I have two new wonders for him—a trace of silver in the hills! Ah ha, that makes your eyes sparkle. There are fifty million pesetas in that concession alone. Who else could find such beauties but the Shereef? I am the most powerful man in Morocco—greater than a basha—greater than the Sultan ..."

He grumbled on and Colport waited for his opportunity. It came at last.

"Mr. Hamon says he will let you have your quarter's allowance and five hundred sterling. But you must send at once ... wait."

He fished out the cablegram from his pocket and smoothed it on his knee.

"'Tell Sadi I must have another Ali Hassan'—what does that mean, Sadi?"

Sadi's eyes were wide open now, his tobacco-stained fingers were caressing his hairy chin.

"He is in trouble," he said slowly. "I thought he was. Ali Hassans do not grow on every cactus bush, Colport."

He was silent for a long time, thinking, and his thoughts were not pleasant. After a while he said:

"Cable to him that it will cost a thousand," he said. "Bring the money to me in the evening of to-morrow. Even then ... but I will see."

He clapped his hands lazily and to the slave girl who came:

"Bring tea, you black beast," he said pleasantly.

He paid Colport the unusual honour of walking with him to the gate, and then he went back to his dingy chair and sat, elbow on knee, chin in hand, until the call to prayer sent him to his perfunctory devotions.

He rose stiffly from his knees and called to the man who was his scribe and valet.

"Do you know Ahmet, the mule driver?"

"Yes, Excellency. He is the man that killed the money changer, and some say he robbed another Jew and threw him down a well. He is a bad man."

"Does he speak English?"

"Spanish and English, they say. He was a guide at Casa Blanca, but he stole from a woman and was flogged."

Sadi inclined his head.

"He must be my Ali Hassan," he said. "Go into the low houses by the beach. If he is drunk leave him, for I do not wish the French police to see him. If he is sober, let him come to me at the twelfth hour."

Tangier's one striking clock was chiming midnight when the servant admitted the burly figure of the mule man.

"Peace on this house and may God give you happy dreams!" he said, when the white-robed figure of the shereef confronted him in the moonlight.

"Ahmet, you have been to England?"

They stood in the centre of the courtyard, away from the ears that listened at three lattice-covered windows.

"Yes, Shereef, many times on the mule ships when the War was on."

"Go now, Ahmet. There is a man who needs you. Remember that I saved you from death twice. Twice, when the rope was round your neck, I, the Shereef Sadi of Ben-Aza, pleaded to the basha and saved you. There will be nobody to save you in England if you are a fool. Come to me to- morrow and I will give you a letter."


CHAPTER 31
JOAN TELLS THE TRUTH


Jim Morlake returned home in the early hours of the morning. At half-past three, Spooner saw the white window shade go up and Jim appeared, silhouetted against the bright light of the room. In another second he opened the French windows and stepped out, crossing the lawn to the gate. The detective drew back to the shadows, but Jim's voice hailed him.

"Is that you, Finnigan, or is it Spooner?"

"Spooner," said the officer a little sheepishly, as he came forward.

"Come inside and have a large glass of ice water," said Jim, opening the gate. "Pretty cold waiting, wasn't it?"

"How did you know we were here?"

Jim laughed.

"Don't be silly," he said. "Of course I knew you were here. Say when."

The detective drank the potion that was offered him and smacked his lips.

"I think it is silly, too," he said, "wasting a good man's time— "

"Two good men," corrected Jim.

"Don't you ever get any sleep?" asked the detective, selecting a cigar from the box Jim handed him.

"Very rarely," replied his host gravely. "It freshens me up, walking up and down this room."

"How do you do it? I only notice you pass the window one way."

"I walk round the table as a rule. It is quite a good stretch," said the other carelessly. "What I principally wanted to speak to you about, Spooner, was to ask you whether you had heard anybody shouting, or whether insomnia is getting on my nerves?"

Mr. Spooner shook his head.

"I've heard nobody shout. It must be your imagination. From what direction did it come?"

"From the meadows on the other side of the river," said Jim. "But if you didn't hear it, it is not worth while investigating."

"Is there a bridge?" asked the detective, glad of any diversion. "What sort of a noise was it?"

"It sounded like a cry for help to me," said Jim. "If you think it is worth while, I'll get a lamp and we'll go and look."

He lit a storm lantern and they crossed the lawn to the little footbridge. He led the way over the bridge.

"It was from this field that the cry seemed to come," he said, and then the detective saw a figure lying on the ground and ran toward it.

"What is it?" asked Jim.

"Looks to me like a drunk. Here, wake up!"

He dragged the inanimate figure to its knees and shook it vigorously by the shoulder.

"Wake up, you! It is the young man who lives at Mrs. Cornford's cottage," said Spooner suddenly.

"I thought I recognised him," said Jim. "I wonder how the dickens he got here. Perhaps you'll see him home?"

After the detectives with their half-conscious burden had gone their staggering way to the village, Jim returned to the house. Not only the work of the night had been heavy—and Marborne's burglar-proof safe had been one of the hardest jobs he had ever tackled—but the responsibility of this half-crazy dipsomaniac had added a new tax on his strength. He had gone back for the car he had left near Shaftesbury Avenue and had deposited the drunkard in a corner just in time to save him from arrest. Mr. Ferdie Farringdon had slept in the car what time Jim went about his unlawful occasions. He had slept all the way down and in the end Jim had had to half-carry and half-walk him from the place where he had left the machine to Wold House. Here he had settled him comfortably in the meadow of Creith Hall before it occurred to him that he might utilise the detectives who were watching him, to save the sleeping man from the serious consequences of his folly.

He went up to his bedroom, counted the heap of notes that he took from an inside pocket, put them in an envelope and addressed them, before he placed the implements of his craft in the secret hole beneath the carpet.

He had failed, but his failure was less oppressive to him than the strange story that Farringdon had told. It could not be Joan—and yet, her father was a peer; she had the heart-shaped scar on the back of her hand, and her name was Joan.

"It's preposterous!" he muttered. "Preposterous! How could Joan ruin any man's life? Why, she's only a child...."

It was the mad babble of a drunken man, he tried to tell himself, but reason would not accept that explanation. He made a resolve. At whatever risk, he would call upon Mr. Ferdinand Farringdon in the morning and ask for an explanation.

He slept for four hours, and, waking, took a cold bath and dressed. His first thoughts on waking, as were his last thoughts on sleeping, revolved about the dipsomaniac and his strange statements.

After swallowing a cup of tea that Binger brought to him he mounted his horse and taking the side-road that misses the village came to the gardener's cottage. He had never seen Mrs. Cornford before and his first impression was a correct one. She was a lady, as he had expected her to be. He had heard, not from Joan, but from those prolific sources of gossip which existed in Creith, that she was a friend of the girl's.

"My name is Morlake," he said, watching her keenly. "I'm glad to see that you do not faint at the approach of a member of the criminal classes," he added, as she smiled her recognition of his name. "I want to see your boarder."

"Mr. Farringdon?" Her face changed. "I'm afraid you can't see him; he's very ill. He is an invalid, you know, and he went out yesterday afternoon when I was shopping in the village and did not come home until late this morning. I have just sent for the doctor."

"Is he very ill?" asked Jim. "I mean, too ill to see me?"

She nodded.

"I'm afraid he has fever; his temperature is high and he is not normal in other ways. Do you know him very well?" she asked.

"Not very well. I know something about him, that is all."

She was evidently not prepared to discuss the eccentric young man who lodged with her, and Jim had to return. He turned his horse and rode across the fields to No Man's Hill, a ride of which he was particularly fond. He could learn no more until the man had recovered—if he ever did recover. That kind of person had nine and ninety lives, he reflected, and he could wait until he sought an explanation from a saner and a more convincing Mr. Farringdon.

It was freakish of him to turn from the well-known road to send his horse climbing the hill, threading a slow way between the pines and the rhododendrons, but he had a sudden desire for the solitude which hill-tops give to man. He could not see the crest for the surrounding trees, and until he rode clear to the flat top, he was unaware that there was another early morning rider. Suddenly he came face to face with Joan. She was sitting her horse, a quizzical smile in her eyes, and she laughed aloud at his look of surprise.

"Father came back to Creith last night," she said. "Our humdrum life has been resumed, and we expect the Hamon man at any moment."

"Congratulations!"

"And do you know there was a burglary in London last night? It looked very, very much like one of yours!"

Her eyes were fixed on him steadily.

"Base imitation," said Jim. "Will you make me responsible for every robbery—"

"Was it you?" she asked.

He swung from the saddle with a laugh.

"You're a most disconcerting young lady, and I shan't satisfy your curiosity."

"Will you tell me it wasn't you?" she bent down toward him, watching him closely.

"Mr. James Morlake refuses to make any statement; this is official," said Jim.

"It was you!" She caught her breath in a sigh. "I was afraid it was, though they are perfectly certain in the village that you didn't leave Wold House."

"As a matter of fact, I did leave Wold House, and I was in London last night. Whatever evil work I did, at least I performed one kindly action. I saved a young man from being arrested for drunkenness, and I brought him home to his good, kind Mrs. Cornford."

Her face went deathly white.

"That was kind of you," she said steadily.

"Do you know this man?"

She did not answer.

"Has he any reason to hate you?"

She shook her head.

"Joan, are you in some kind of trouble?"

"I'm always in trouble," she said lightly, "and have been since I was so high!"

"I see you won't answer me. Will you tell me this?" He found difficulty in framing the words. "Joan—if, if I were not—if I were a respectable member of society and could claim to be ... of your own class— would you marry me?"

Her eyes, deep and sombre, held his as she shook her head.

"No," she said.

"Why not?" he asked.

"Because ... you asked me about Ferdie Farringdon just now."

"Well?" as she paused.

He saw her lick her dry lips, and then:

"He is my husband," she said, and, pulling round her horse's head, she sent it at full gallop down the uneven path.


CHAPTER 32
CAPTAIN WELLING UNDERSTANDS


He was dreaming, he told himself mechanically. It couldn't be true; it was too absurd to think about. She had been shocking him as she had shocked Lydia Hamon. Of course it wasn't true. How could it be? She was only a child....

He found himself with drawn reins before the Cornford cottage. He could go in there and learn the truth—could drag it from the drunkard. Then he saw the doctor coming out and the old man nodded to him cheerily.

"How is your patient?" Jim found voice to say.

"Pretty bad. I think he's got rheumatic fever. He has little or no resistance, so what will happen to him heaven only knows. You look a bit under the weather, Morlake. I haven't seen you since you came from your— "

"Since I came from Brixton Prison," smiled Jim. "No, I don't think we've met. You needn't worry about me, doctor. I'm as fit as the Derby favourite."

"My experience is that they are usually unfit," growled the doctor, "though you never discover it until after the race is won and you've lost your money."

He walked by Jim's side into the village.

"Queer fish, that man Farringdon," he said, breaking the silence. "A college man, I should think, but a queer fish. He is quite delirious to- day and the things he is saying would make your hair stand on end. Happily," he said after a moment's thought, "I am bald. Ever heard of the Midnight Monks?"

"Eh?" said Jim.

"Midnight Monks. I wonder if, in your wider knowledge of the world, you may have heard of them. Some sort of secret society, I should think. He's been babbling about them all the time, though it is not my business to give away my patient's secrets. The only satisfaction you can get out of my unprofessional conduct is that I shall probably give away yours. Hm! The Midnight Monks and Joan," he mused. "I wonder what Joan it is?"

Jim did not answer and he rambled on.

"It is a common enough name. Have you ever noticed how names go in cycles? All the Marjories belong to '96; they're contemporary with the Doras and the Dorothys. And all the Joans are about twelve years old. Just now there is an epidemic of Margarets. It is a curious world," he added inconsequently, as, with a wave of his hand, he dived into his surgery.

Jim did not hear him.

That must be the explanation. She was shocking him in her impish way. He told himself this with a firmness that sought to mask his act of self-deception.

He was turning into Wold House when a big Italian car swept past. He caught a glimpse of a face, and turning his horse, watched the car out of sight. Hamon's presence would bring happiness to nobody, he reflected. It certainly gave him none.

"The hofficers of the law have been 'ere," hissed Binger melodramatically, coming half-way down the drive to meet him.

"Which particular hofficers? And, by-the-way, I'll have to be careful or I shall be talking like you."

"I was always considered a very classy talker in my military days," said Binger complacently. "I remember once my colonel telling me—"

"Shut up about your colonel. Let's get down to common busy fellows. Do you mean Spooner or Finnigan?"

"All of 'em," said Binger. "He saw William—it's funny his name being William and mine being William—"

"It is so funny that I'm screaming with laughter," said Jim impatiently. "What did he say to William?"

"He wanted to know whether you were out last night. It was the other fellow who asked the question. And William said that so far as he knew you were hindoors. And, of course, I knew that you were hindoors, so I gave my testimony hunsolicited, as it were."

"When did they go?"

"They're not gone. They're in the study," said Mr. Binger. "And the other gentleman—there was three—he said he felt faint and would like to sit down away from the glare of the sun."

"There has been no sun for a month. I gather the other gentleman's name is Welling. It sounds rather like him."

"That's right, sir—Mr. Welling. An old gentleman, not very right in his head, I should think—childish as a matter of fact. He's had that gramophone on the table and has been asking what the little holes in the side were for. It's hawful to see a man in the prime of life talk like that."

"Horrible," agreed Jim in all sincerity.

When he walked into the study, Welling was examining with an air of quiet, detached admiration a big etching that hung over the carved mantelpiece. He bent his head sideways, looking over his glasses as Jim came in.

"Here you are then, Morlake," he said. "I think you're looking remarkably well."

"The village doctor has just passed an opinion which is directly contrary, but I guess you know," said Jim as he shook hands.

"I thought I'd look you up," said Welling. He had a trick of thrusting his chin into the air and looking down at his vis-à-vis. The taller they were, the farther rose his chin. His face was almost turned to the ceiling as he regarded Jim with that queer pale stare which had broken down so many obdurate and uncommunicative criminals.

"I only discovered last night that, outside of all my knowledge, the Yard had sent two men down to shadow you. Now, that's not right," he said, shaking his head. "It isn't right at all. The moment I discovered this, I decided that I would come down personally and withdraw these officers. I can't have you annoyed; you must have your chance, Morlake."

Jim laughed aloud.

"I haven't the slightest doubt, Welling, that you were the gentleman who sent these sleuths to watch me," he said.

"And I have less doubt," said Welling frankly, "that I did send them! That is the worst of our business," he shook his head mournfully. "We have to lie! Such unnecessary lies. I sometimes shudder when I recall the stories I have to tell in the course of a day. That is a nice little gramophone of yours. Have you any records?"

"Plenty," said Jim promptly.

"Ah! I set it going just now."

He turned the switch as he spoke and the turn-table slowly revolved.

"Very slow, eh? Now, I've been thinking that, if you had a lamp on the top of that turn-table and a figure cut in the shape of a man, so placed that every time the dial turned the shadow fell across that blind— how's that for an idea? When I write my little text-book for burglars, that notion is going to be put very prominently—with illustrations."

Jim turned the regulator and the disc spun quickly.

"It only shows how even a clever plan can come unstuck for want of an elementary precaution," he said. "I should have turned that back to full speed if I had been a criminal and had been endeavouring to deceive the good, kind police. You mustn't forget to put those instructions in your text-book, Welling."

"No, I mustn't," agreed the other warmly. "Thank you very much."

He looked round at Spooner and his superior.

"All right, sergeant, I don't think you need wait. You can take Spooner back to town with you by the next train. I will join you at the station. In the meantime, I want just a little private talk with Mr. Morlake—just a little exchange of reminiscences, shall we say?" he beamed.

He walked to the window and watched the two officers disappear.

"They're very good fellows," he said, turning, "but they have no brains. Beyond that, they are perfect policemen. In fact, they are the ideal of our force. Where were you last night, Morlake?" He asked the question curtly.

"Where do you think I was?" said Jim, taking down his pipe from the mantelshelf and loading it.

"I think you were at 302, Cambridge Circus, opening the safe of my friend Mr. Marborne. When I say 'I think' I mean I know. That isn't the game, Morlake," he shook his head reproachfully. "Dog does not eat dog, nor thief rob thief. And that Marborne was the biggest thief that ever wore a uniform jacket, heaven and the Commissioner know. You made a killing, but did you get what you wanted?"

"I did not get what I wanted," said Jim.

"Then why take the money?"

"What money?" asked Jim innocently.

"I see." Captain Welling settled himself down on a settee and pulled up the knees of his trousers as outward evidence that he intended making a long stay. "I see we shall have to bicker awhile, Morlake."

"Don't," begged Jim. "I only take money when the money I want belongs to the man I am after."

Welling nodded.

"I guessed that. But this was Marborne's own—money dishonestly earned, and therefore his by right. What is Marborne's pull with Hamon?"

"Blackmail, I should imagine—in fact, I am pretty certain. He has come into possession of a document which is very incriminating to Hamon, and he is bleeding that gentleman severely; that is my diagnosis."

Again Welling nodded.

"Now we come to the one mystery that intrigues me," he said. "There is a document, which you want to get, and which you say Marborne has got. It is a document, the publication of which, or should it fall into the hands of the law officers, would lead to very disastrous consequences to Hamon. Have I stated the matter right?"

"As nearly as possible," said Jim.

"Very well, then." Welling ticked off the points on his finger-tips. "First, we have a document, a letter, a statement, and anything you like, the publication of which will, let us say, put Hamon in a very awkward position. Now, tell me this: is there anything in that document which it is absolutely necessary Hamon should keep?"

"Nothing," said Jim.

"Then why on earth doesn't he destroy it?" asked Welling in amazement.

A slow smile dawned on Jim's face.

"Because he's a monkey," he said. "He's put his hand into the gourd and he has grasped the fruit; he cannot get his hand out without letting go his prize."

"But you say that there is nothing in the wording of this paper which can possibly advantage him, and yet he does not destroy it! That is incredible. I've heard he is a miser, somebody told me that he's got thirty pairs of boots that he's hoarded since his childhood. But why on earth does he hoard a thing which may—"

"Put his head in a noose," suggested Jim, and Welling's face went grave.

"As bad as that?" he asked quietly. "I had a feeling it might be. The man is mad—stark, staring, raving mad. To hold on to evidence that can convict him—why, there's no precedent in the history of jurisprudence. A man may keep a document through sheer carelessness, or forgetfulness, but deliberately to hoard it! Is it something he has written?"

Jim shook his head.

"It is something written by another, accusing him of conspiracy to defraud and attempted murder."

Captain Welling was a man who was not readily surprised, but now he sat speechless with amazement.

"I give it up," he said. "It is killing Hamon, anyway. I saw him yesterday and he looked like a man on the verge of a nervous breakdown."

"I should hate to see Hamon die—naturally," said Jim. "He's down here, by-the-way."

Welling nodded.

"Yes, he telegraphed to Lord Creith this morning, asking if he could put him up. He has sent his sister away to Paris." He scratched his chin. "One would like to get to the bottom of this," he said. "I have an idea that we should discover a little more than you know or guess."

"There is nothing bad about Hamon that I cannot guess," said Jim.

He liked Welling and would, in other circumstances, have gladly spent the day with him; but now he was not in the mood for company and was relieved when the old man took his departure. Jim was sick at heart, miserable beyond belief. The shock of Joan Carston's declaration had stunned him. She would not play with him; she must have spoken the truth. Twice that afternoon he found himself riding in the direction of Mrs. Cornford's cottage, and once he stopped and asked after the patient, and his enquiry was not wholly disinterested.

"He is very ill, but the doctor takes a more hopeful view," said the lady. "Lady Joan very kindly came and brought some wine for him."

A little pang shot through Jim Morlake's heart, but he was ashamed of himself the next minute.

"Of course she would," he said, and Mrs. Cornford smiled at him.

"You are a friend of hers—she spoke of you to-day."

"Do you know anything at all about Mr. Farringdon?" he asked her.

"Nothing, except that he has no friends. An allowance comes to him from a firm of lawyers in the city. I wish I knew where I could find his relations, they ought to be told. But he speaks of nobody except these 'Midnight Monks' and the only name he mentions besides that of a girl is one which seems very familiar to me—Bannockwaite. It has some sort of significance for me, but I can't tell what."

Jim had heard the name before and it was associated in his mind with something unsavoury. A thought struck him. He had passed Welling in the village street, and the old man had told him that he was staying on for a day or two and Jim had asked him up to dinner. He rode back to the Red Lion where the detective was staying and found him in the public bar, the least conscious of its habitués, and he was drinking beer out of a shining tankard.

"Do you know anybody named Bannockwaite?"

"I knew a man named Bannockwaite," said Welling instantly, "and a rascal he was! You remember the case? A young parson who got into a scrape and was fired out of the church. There was nothing much wrong with him, except natural devilry and a greater mistake than choosing a clerical career I cannot imagine. Then he was mixed up with a West End gang of cardsharpers and came into our hands, but there was no case against him. When the War broke out he got a commission—in his own name, remarkably enough. He did magnificently, earned the V.C., and was killed on the Somme. You probably remember him in connection with one of those societies he started. He never actually came into our hands on that score—"

"What do you mean by societies?"

"He had a mania for forming secret societies. In fact, when he was at school, he initiated one which disorganised not only his own school but a dozen in the neighbourhood. He was something of a mystic, I think, but devilry was his long suit."

"What was his school? I suppose you wouldn't know that?"

"Curiously enough I do. It was Hulston—a big school in Berkshire."

Jim went back and wrote to the headmaster at Hulston, hoping most fervently that the schoolmaster would not recognise him as the hero of an Old Bailey trial. Late in the afternoon he saw Hamon's car flash past toward London and wondered what urgent business was taking the financier back to town. Long after midnight he heard the peculiar roar of the Italian engine, and, looking through the window, saw the car returning.

"He is a very busy fellow in these days," thought Jim, and he thought correctly, for Ralph Hamon had spent two hours in a profitable interview with a stranger, who had arrived in London and the conversation had been carried on exclusively in Arabic.


CHAPTER 33
THE FOREIGN SAILOR


There was no man more sympathetic for a fellow in misfortune than ex- Sergeant Slone. But when he discovered that the misfortune extended to himself, Slone was inclined to be querulous.

"I don't mind you doing what you like with your own money, Marborne," he said, "but there was four hundred of mine in that safe of yours, and I've been asking you for a week to put it in your bank."

"You wouldn't have had the money if it wasn't for me," said Marborne. "Anyway, there's plenty more where that came from."

"But have you got plenty more?" asked the practical Slone.

"He sent five hundred this morning. It was like getting blood out of a stone," said Marborne. "Anyway, we shan't starve. Slone, I've been sitting up all night, thinking about things."

"I don't wonder," said Slone, his gloomy eyes surveying the empty safe. "That's The Black's work, nobody else could have done it so neatly."

"What did he come for?"

"Money," said Slone bitterly. "What do you think he came for—to pass the evening?"

"You needn't get fresh with me," said Marborne sharply. "You'll pay the same respect to me, Sergeant Slone, as you did in the old days, or you and I part company. I've told you that before."

"I meant no harm," growled Slone, "but it is a bit of a blow losing all that money."

"The Black didn't come for it. He took it, but that wasn't what he came for. He came for this." He tapped his side significantly. "And that is what The Black has been after ever since he started operations. He's been after this! I was looking up my scrap-book this morning. I've got every one of The Black's robberies pasted, and I'll tell you what I discovered—and, mind you, Slone, I haven't been a police officer for twenty-three years without being able to put two and two together."

"That's natural," agreed the obliging Slone. "And I'll say this of you, Marborne—there wasn't a better detective officer at the Yard than yourself—not even Welling."

"You're a fool," said Marborne. "Welling could give me or anybody else a mile start and lick 'em sick. Now listen; every bank that's been burgled has been a bank where Hamon has had an account. In all banks there is a strong room, where customers keep their private documents, and it invariably has been the strong room that was burgled. And if it wasn't a bank it was a safe deposit, where Ralph Hamon had a private box. And he's been after this." He tapped his side again.

"What is it?" asked Slone, consumed with curiosity, and the other man smiled contemptuously.

"Wouldn't you like to know?" he asked, and continued: "This fellow Morlake is a rich man. I've always suspected he was a rich man—"

"Naturally he's rich," put in Slone wrathfully.

"Wouldn't you be rich if you'd pulled off forty-two jobs and got away with thousands and thousands of pounds? He's richer by four hundred of mine—"

"Don't interrupt me. He is a rich man apart from that. And, besides, nobody knows that he has taken any money."

"I know he's taken ours," said Slone bitterly.

"Fix this in your nut, Slone. It is just as likely that he would pay me as well for this, as old Hamon would."

"He'd sooner pinch it," said Slone with conviction, "like he pinched my money. I wish I'd been somewhere handy!"

"You'd have been a dead man if you had, so what is the good of wishing? I'm going to think this over and if I have any trouble with Mr. Blinking Hamon to-morrow—" He snapped his fingers significantly.

Slone went home early. He had yet to recover from the shock of his loss, and Marborne was left alone. He had plenty to occupy his thoughts. The sting of Lydia Hamon's contempt still smarted. She seemed, at that moment, less the woman of his dreams than she had been, and he harboured no other emotion in his bosom than a desire to get even with her for her gratuitous insult.

That morning he had sent a peremptory demand to Hamon, and had received a paltry five hundred. He had instantly despatched a second message, to learn that Hamon had gone out of town, which Marborne regarded as the merest subterfuge, until he called himself and interviewed the butler. Miss Hamon had gone too, that official informed him; she had left by the eleven o'clock Continental train and was expected to be absent for a week.

Although the night was chilly, he threw open the windows to let in the light and sound of Cambridge Circus. Almost under his eyes were the gay lights of a theatre. He sat for some time watching the audience arrive, and trying to recognise them, for he had an extensive acquaintance with West End life.

He saw a tall, thick-set man cross the road at a run, although there was no fear of his intercepting the traffic. A foreigner, Marborne guessed. He watched him for some time, for the man did not seem quite sure of his destination. First he walked along one sector of the Circus, then he came back and stood undecidedly on one of the islands in the middle of the thoroughfare. By the light of the street standard Marborne thought he was a seafaring man. He wore a jersey up to his neck, a thick pea-jacket and a cheese-cutter cap. Turning his eyes away to watch a car drive up to the theatre, Marborne lost sight of the stranger and he passed out of his mind.

He closed the window and, taking a pack of cards from a drawer, began to play solitaire. He was nervous, jumpy; he heard sounds and whispering voices which he knew were born in his imagination. At last, unable to bear the solitude any longer, he put on his hat and went out, wandering down Shaftesbury Avenue to Piccadilly Circus, where he stood for an hour watching the night signs. Here, to his surprise and relief, he came upon Slone.

"I've got the creeps," said that worthy. "Marborne, what do you say to making a big haul from this fellow and getting out of the country? You remember what Welling told you—that the north of Spain is healthy?"

Marborne nodded. Something of the same idea had occurred to him.

"I think you're right," he said. "I'll wire to Hamon in the morning, he's staying with Lord Creith; and I'll put the matter frankly before him. It will be Italy, not Spain."

"Hamon is in town," said Slone unexpectedly. "I saw his car passing along Coventry Street, and he was in it."

"Are you sure?"

"Well, you couldn't mistake him, could you?" said Slone scornfully.

"Wait a bit." Marborne went into a telephone booth and called up Hamon's house.

"It is no good lying," he said, when the butler protested that his master was not in. "Hamon was seen in Coventry Street an hour ago."

"I swear to you, Mr. Marborne, he has gone to the country. I know he came back to town to do some business because I forwarded a coded message on to him and he came back for ten minutes—not longer. He's gone away again."

"I wouldn't be surprised if he is telling the truth," said Marborne when he reported the conversation. "Anyway, we'll see him to-morrow."

He parted from his friend in Shaftesbury Avenue and walked back to Cambridge Circus, feeling a little more cheerful than he had been when he came out. And then he saw the tall, foreign-looking sailor, and the first thing that impressed him was his big pale face and his tiny black moustache. He was standing near the door of the apartment as Marborne inserted the key, watching the ex-inspector until the door opened. Then he came forward, cap in hand.

"Excuse me," he said, speaking with a guttural accent, "but are you Marborne?"

"That is my name," said the other.

"I have this for you." The stranger held up a large envelope. "It is from Mr. Hamon. But first I must be sure that you are Marborne."

"Come in," said Marborne quickly.

Hamon had relented, he thought joyously. That parcel meant money and Hamon employed curious messengers at times. He opened the door for the big man, who had come silently up the stairs behind him, and the messenger passed through. He looked hard at his host.

"You are Marborne?" he said. He spoke English with great difficulty.

"Yes, I am that gentleman," said Marborne almost jovially, and the man laid the package on the table.

"That is for you," he said. "Will you please open and give me a sign?"

"You mean signature."

"That's the word—signature."

Marborne wrenched the string from the package and tore open the envelope. For a second his back was to the visitor and Ahmet, the muleman, drew a curved knife from each pocket and struck inward and upward with a deep-throated "Huh!"


CHAPTER 34
THE CORD


What made Marborne raise his eyes, he did not know. In the glass above the mantelpiece he saw the glitter of the knife and leant forward, pushing the table with him. He had turned to confront the assassin and in that instant he lifted the edge of the table and flung it over against his assailant. His gun came into his hand and the lights went out simultaneously; for though Ahmet, the muleman, was a barbarian, he lived in a city that was lit by electric light, and he knew the value of a near- by switch.

Marborne heard the patter of his feet on the stairs and ran after him, tripping and falling over the table. By the time the lights were on, the stairs and passage were empty. There was no sign of the sailor in the street, and double-locking the door, he came back to his room and reached for a handy whisky bottle, and he did not trouble to dilute the fluid.

"The swine!" he breathed. He put down the bottle and examined the letter that the man had dropped.

It consisted of a package of old newspapers.

So that was it! He had, as Welling told him, tinned the wildcat and the cat had shown his claws.

He was cool now, in mind if not in body, for his forehead was streaming. So that was Hamon—the real Hamon, who would stick at nothing to get back the thing he had lost. He sat for half-an-hour, then, rising, took off his coat, his vest, his shirt, and then the silk singlet beneath. Fastened to his body with strips of sticking plaster was a small bag of oiled silk, through which he could read certain of the words which appeared on the document which Hamon, no less than Morlake, so greatly desired.

He fixed two fresh strips of sticking plaster, dressed himself, and, examining his revolver carefully, slipped it into his hip pocket. There was only one thing to be done, and that must be done immediately. He had a thought of calling on Slone, but Slone might easily complicate matters, and he decided on the whole that it would be best if he worked alone. He must go at once, before the would-be murderer recovered from his fright. He put on his overcoat, took a loaded cane from the hall stand, and went out.

Jim Morlake was the solution to his difficulties and the shield to his danger. He saw that with startling clearness. Closing the door behind him, he looked left and right, but, as he expected, there was no sign of the foreign-looking sailor.

A cab took him to Victoria, and he found he had half-an-hour to wait for a train to the nearest railway junction. Another whisky fortified him for the journey, and he ensconced himself in the corner of a first-class carriage which was occupied by two other men.

At eleven o'clock that night, Jim, who was genuinely working in his study, heard feet coming up the gravel drive, and, opening the door, was audience to a parley between Binger and some unknown person. Presently Binger came in in a state of great excitement.

"It's that damned Marborne," he whispered.

"Show him in," said Jim, after a moment's thought.

What would Marborne be wanting, he wondered? That he should suspect Jim of being The Black was natural, but he would hardly have taken a journey at that hour of the night, either to express his reproaches or to conduct a cross-examination.

"Bring him in here."

Marborne was looking very haggard and drawn, he thought. He expected trouble, but the man's attitude and manner were civility itself.

"I'm sorry to interrupt you at this time of night, Mr. Morlake," he said, "and I hope that you won't think I've come to see you about that little job last night."

Jim was silent.

"The fact of the matter is," said Marborne, dropping his voice, "I'm in—" Suddenly he spun round. "What's that?" he croaked.

There was a crunch of slow footsteps on the gravel outside.

"Who is it?" he asked hoarsely.

"I'll find out," said Jim.

He himself opened the door to the visitor.

"Come in, Welling. You're the second last person I expected to see."

"And who was the first?" asked Welling.

"An old friend of yours, who has just arrived—Marborne."

The white eyebrows of Captain Welling rose.

"Marborne! How interesting! Has he come down to get his money back?"

"I thought that at first," said Jim good-humouredly, "and of course, I couldn't very well refuse. No, I think it is something more serious than the loss of money that is bothering him."

Marborne's relief at seeing Jim's visitor was so evident that Jim was puzzled.

"Expecting a friend, Marborne?" said Julius genially.

"No—no, sir," stammered the man.

"I thought you weren't. You can put your gun away. Very bad business, carrying guns. I'm surprised at an old policeman like you thinking of such things. A good stick is all that a policeman needs—a good stick and the first blow!"

Something of Marborne's nerve had returned at the sight of the man who, more than any other, had been responsible for his ruin. He seemed suddenly to rid himself of the terror which had enveloped him like a cloud a few moments before.

"I won't trouble you about my business to-night, Mr. Morlake. Perhaps you could give me a few minutes in the morning?"

"If I'm in the way—" began Welling.

"No, sir. Where can I sleep tonight? I suppose there's an hotel here?"

"There is an inn," said Welling, "the Red Lion. I'm staying there myself. But I can wait; my business isn't very important. I merely wanted to ask Mr. Morlake a question or two."

"No, the morning will do," said Marborne.

He had come to a definite decision. Hamon should have his last chance. He was here, within a stone's throw. In the morning he would make his offer, and perhaps, with the accusation of an attempted murder hanging over his head, Hamon would pay more handsomely and more readily.

"You'll find two other friends of yours waiting outside—Milligan and Spooner," said Julius Welling. "Don't corrupt them, Marborne!"

"I thought you'd sent your bloodhounds back to town?" asked Jim when Marborne had gone.

"I did, but the man who was responsible for their being here sent them back to Creith by the next train. In our service, Mr. Morlake, it is a great mistake for one department to butt into the affairs of another. Messrs. Spooner and Milligan are not in my department."

He chuckled at this little comedy of inter-departmental dignity.

"But I'll shift them. I'll have them moved for you. I came up to- night to tell you that they were here—I shouldn't like you to think that I'd broken a promise. To-morrow I will apply humbly to the superintendent whom I asked to send these men, that he will be gracious enough to withdraw them, and they will be withdrawn. What is wrong with Marborne?"

"I don't know. He talked about being in something—I think he was going to say 'danger.' Maybe he has been drinking."

Welling shook his head.

"He wasn't drunk," he said. "I wonder what he means?" He was talking to himself. "We'll have him back, Morlake. He'll be talking with those fellows of mine."

They went out into the road together and the two detectives who were waiting for Welling's return came over to them.

"Is Marborne there?"

"No, sir," said Milligan.

"Has he gone?"

"I don't know what you mean, sir. I haven't seen him."

"You haven't what?" almost shouted Welling. "Didn't he come out of this gate two minutes ago?"

"No, sir," the two men spoke together. "Nobody came out of that gate until you came out."

There was a silence.

"Have either of you men got a lamp?"

For answer, Milligan's pocket torch shot a fan of light on to the ground, and, seizing the lamp, Welling walked back, sweeping the drive from left to right.

Half-way between the gates and the house he stopped and turned the light on to the bushes that bordered the drive.

Marborne lay face downward. There was a slight wound at the back of his head, but it was the knotted silk cord wound tightly around his throat that had killed him.


CHAPTER 35
THE LETTER THAT CAME BY POST


"He's dead, I'm afraid," said Jim, at the end of half-an-hour's work on the still figure that lay on the floor of the study.

Stripped to his singlet, he had applied artificial respiration, but without effect. The man must have died a few seconds before they found him.

"Thorough!" said Welling, biting his lip thoughtfully, "very thorough and very quick. Searched to the skin, you notice."

The dead man's clothes had been torn open, so that his breast was exposed.

"That is where the mystery was hidden—fastened to his skin. It is an old dodge, which Marborne must have learnt in the course of his professional career."

Milligan returned from a search of the grounds, to report failure.

"We can do nothing till daylight, except warn the local police. Put a call through, Spooner. Turn out all the men you can find to search the meadows; the murderer must have gone that way because he could not have come out of the gate. He may make for one of the woods, but that is doubtful. You know the topography of the country, Morlake; which way would he have gone?"

"It depends entirely whether he knew it also," said Jim. "I suggest the footbridge across the river and the riverside path to the Amdon Road. But there are half-a-dozen ways that he may have gone if he can climb, and I should imagine that, if you make an inspection of the walls, you will find that he has gone that way."

But here he was wrong.

Neither daylight nor beaters brought the murderer into their hands. The only discovery—and that was of first importance—was made by Spooner, who found, on the towpath, a long, curved knife which the assassin had dropped in his hurry.

"Moorish," said Jim. "That is to say, made in Birmingham and sold in Morocco. It is a type that is greatly favoured by the country folk, and unless it is a blind I think you can issue an order to pull in any Moor who is found within twenty miles of this place in the next few hours."

The only information that came to them was that a foreign-looking sailor had been seen on the Shoreham Road, but he was not black, added the report virtuously. Welling brought the wire to Jim.

"What do you think of the clever lads?" he groaned. "Not black! I suppose they expected to see a coal-black nigger. What colour would he be?"

"White, as likely as not," said Jim. "Many of the Moors are whiter than you or I."

The London police had searched Marborne's apartments, and his friend had been interviewed. Slone's evidence was that he had seen the dead man only the previous night. He had told him that he was nervous and mentioned the fact that he had seen a foreign sailor in Cambridge Circus who seemed to have lost himself.

"That is our man," said Welling. "He went to Marborne's flat and there was a fight. The dining-room was in disorder, tables and chairs overthrown, and they found a dummy letter addressed to Marborne, which is probably the excuse on which the man secured admission. Marborne must have fought him off and come down to you."

"Why?"

"Obviously because he wanted to sell you the document with which he was blackmailing Hamon. Therefore, he must have thought that Hamon employed the Moor to kill him. Therefore, again, Hamon must be privy to this murder, and," he added in despair, "there is not enough evidence against Hamon even to justify a search warrant!"

Welling had made Wold House his headquarters—a singular choice, thought and said Ralph Hamon when he was summoned to meet Julius Welling in Jim's study.

"It may be amusing and it may be tragic," said Julius, no longer gentle, "but this place is good enough for me, and therefore I'm afraid it must be good enough for you. You know the news, Mr. Hamon?"

"That Marborne is killed? Yes, poor fellow!"

"A friend of yours?"

"I knew him. Yes, I could almost say that he was a friend of mine," said Hamon.

"When did you see him last?"

"I haven't seen him for several days."

"Was your interview a friendly one?"

"Very. He came to me to borrow some money to start a business."

"And you lent it to him, of course?" said Welling dryly. "And that is intended to explain the financial transactions between you and him?"

"What do you mean?" demanded Ralph Hamon. "Are you suggesting that I'm lying?"

"I'm telling you you're lying," said Welling shortly. "I suggest nothing when I'm investigating a charge of murder. I tell you again that you're lying. You gave him money for a purpose of your own. He had some document in his possession which you were anxious to recover, and since he would not return it to you, you paid him large sums of money by way of blackmail."

Hamon's face was grey.

"You're making a statement which may be investigated in a court of law."

"It certainly will, if I catch the murderer," said Welling grimly.

"Has it occurred to you," sneered Hamon, "that this man Harborne was an enemy of Morlake's, and that he was found dead in his grounds?"

"It has occurred to me many times in the night," said Welling. "Only, unfortunately for your theory, Morlake was with me when this man was killed, and the package, which was affixed to his body by strips of sticking plaster, was taken."

He saw the light come into Ralph Hamon's eyes and the drawn look of terror seemed instantly to disappear. It was the most wonderful facial transformation that he had seen in his long experience.

"You didn't know it, eh? Yes, your man got the package all right."

"My man?" said Hamon instantly. "What do you mean? You had better be careful, Welling. You're not so powerful a man at headquarters that you cannot be pulled down!"

"And you're not so wonderful a fellow that you couldn't be hanged," said Welling good-naturedly. "Come, come, Mr. Hamon, we don't want to quarrel; we want to get at the truth. Is it true that Marborne blackmailed you? I'll save you a lot of trouble by telling you that we have absolutely convincing proof that he did so blackmail you. Slone has told us."

Hamon shrugged his shoulders.

"What Slone told you is of no interest to me. I can only tell you that I lent money to this unfortunate man in order to start him in business, and if you have any proof to the contrary, you may produce it."

Nobody knew better than he that no such proof existed. Welling knew that his bluff had failed, but that did not greatly worry him. He tried a new tack.

"You have been sending a number of cables to Morocco recently, mainly in code, one especially in which you referred to Ali Hassan. Who is he?"

Again that look of anxiety came to Hamon's face, only to vanish instantly and leave him his cool, smiling self.

"Now I understand why they call detectives 'busies,'" he said. "You've had a very busy night! Ali Hassan is a brand of Moorish cigar!"

He looked at Jim and Jim nodded in confirmation.

"That is true. It is also the name of a notorious Moorish murderer who was hanged twenty-five years ago."

"Then take your choice," said Hamon with a quiet smile.

"This is your writing?" An envelope was suddenly produced from behind Welling's desk and thrust under the eyes of the other.

"No, it isn't my writing," said Hamon without hesitation. "What do you suggest, Inspector?"

"I suggest that Marborne was killed by a Moor, who was specially brought to this country for the purpose by you."

"In other words, that I am an accessory before and after this murder?"

Welling nodded.

"If the idea wasn't amusing, I should be very angry," said Hamon, "and in all the circumstances, I decline to give you any further information." He paused at the door carefully to fold the top of his soft felt hat. "And you cannot force me—nobody knows that better than you, Captain Welling. You understand—I will give you no further information."

Welling nodded.

"He has already given us more than he knows," he said when the door had closed upon the unwilling witness. "Who is Sadi Hafiz?"

"He is a poisonous rascal who lives in Tangier," said Jim without hesitation, "a man entirely without scruple but immensely useful to people like Hamon and other shady company promoters who want a plausible proposition to put before the public. He is an agent of Hamon's. I knew him years ago—in fact we had a slight shooting match—when I was employed on the survey of a suggested Fez railway. There were remarkable stories about him, some of them incredible. He is certainly the pensioner of half-a-dozen interests, and, I should imagine, has more serious crime or what passes for crime on his conscience than any other man in Morocco."

"Murder, for instance?" asked Welling.

Jim smiled.

"I said 'serious crimes.' Murder isn't a serious crime in the Rifi Hills."

Welling scratched his nose again.

"If we catch this Moorish fellow, he'll talk."

"He'll say nothing against Sadi Hafiz," said Jim promptly. "These shereefs are, in a sense, holy men. Sadi Hafiz could not pass through the streets of Tangier without having the hem of his garments frayed by kissing, and our murderer will die without saying a word to incriminate Sadi or any other person."

The story of the murder came to Joan through her agitated maid, and at first she was seized with a panic.

"In Mr. Morlake's garden? Are you sure?" she faltered.

"Yes, miss. Mr. Welling, a London gentleman, and Mr. Morlake found him, and it was only a minute or two after the poor man had left them that he was killed. Everybody is saying it is a judgment on the village for letting Mr. Morlake stay here."

"Then you can tell everybody they're fools," said Joan relieved.

"And they say that poor gentleman at Mrs. Cornford's is dying."

Joan did not make any reply to this. Later in the morning she went down to the cottage and learnt that the maid's fears were exaggerated.

At luncheon that day the murder was naturally the absorbing interest of conversation, but to Lord Creith alone.

"By gad!" he said with satisfaction. "The jolly old village is coming on! Haven't had a murder here for three hundred years. I was looking up the old records. A gypsy murdered another gypsy and was hanged at the top of No Man's Hill. They called it Gibbet Hill for a hundred years. What is your theory, Hamon? I understand you went down and saw the police?"

"I saw the police—yes," said Hamon shortly, "but what is the sense of discussing the matter with men of their limited intelligence? Welling is an old dotard, entirely under the thumb of that damned thief—"

"That thief," corrected Lord Creith with a bland smile. "We never damn anybody at this table unless my daughter is—er—not here. You were talking about Morlake, of course? So the police are under his thumb? Well, well, we are getting on! I thought Welling was an exceptionally bright man; and for his being old, he is two years younger than I, and nobody could call me old! Oh, by the way, Joan, that young man who is staying with Mrs. Cornford and is so ill—do you know who he is?"

Her lips moved, but she did not speak.

"He is young Farringdon—Sir Willoughby Farringdon's son. You remember old Farringdon? The boy was at Hulston College. You were at a school near Hulston of course! Yes, he is young Farringdon—a sad rascal. He got into some scrape at school and was kicked out. Old Willoughby never forgave him. I think he's been drinking too, but that is the old man's fault. All the Farringdons drank too much. I remember his grandfather ..."

The girl sat rigid, listening without comment.

"Hulston turned out some queer birds," said the earl reminiscently. "There was that fellow Bannockwaite, the rascal! The fellow that started all those tomfool societies in the schools and demoralised them most devilishly. You remember him, Joan?"

"Yes, Father," she said, and something in her tone made Hamon look at her. She was white to the lips. Following the direction of his guest's eyes, Lord Creith jumped up and went to her side.

"Is anything wrong, Joan?" he asked anxiously.

"I feel a little faint—I don't know why. The day has been rather an exciting one. Will you excuse me, Daddy?"

He took her upstairs himself and did not leave her until he had brought half the household to her side.

Lord Creith went down to the village and in a frenzy of investigation found himself ringing the bell of Wold House. It was his first visit and Jim was flabbergasted to see him.

"Come in, Lord Creith," he said. "This is a very unexpected honour."

"If I didn't call now, I never should," said the earl with a twinkle in his eye. "I want to know all about this murder, and most of the police theories."

Jim was silent. He could not detail views which were unflattering to Lord Creith's guest. So he limited his narrative to a very full description of what happened on the night Marborne was killed, and the earl listened attentively. As chief of the local magistrates, it would be his duty to conduct the preliminary enquiry if a charge was brought.

"It is a most extraordinary happening," he said when Jim had finished, "wholly oriental in design and execution. I lived for some years in India and that type of murder is not new to me. Now what are the police theories?"

But here Jim excused himself, and, seeing through the window Welling engaged in directing the measurements which were being taken, he seized the opportunity of taking his lordship to the fountain-head.

"The curious thing is," said Lord Creith, "that I had a feeling that something unusual had happened. I woke an hour earlier than I ordinarily do. I should have heard about it at once from the postman, who is a great gossip, but for some reason or other, we had no early morning post today. In fact," Lord Creith meandered on, "only one letter came to Creith House to-day and that was at eleven o'clock and even that was not for me, but for my guest."

Welling spun round.

"For Mr. Hamon?" he asked quickly.

"Yes."

"From London?"

"No, curiously enough, it wasn't from London; it was from a little village about eight miles from here. I meant to ask Hamon who the dickens his correspondent was, but probably he is buying property in the neighbourhood—in fact, I know he is," he added grimly.

"What was the name of the village?"

"Little Lexham."

The detective frowned in an effort of concentration. If it came by the eleven o'clock mail, it would have been posted that morning.

"Was it a thick letter?"

"Yes. The first impression I had was that it had a pocket handkerchief in it. Why do you ask these questions? Surely my guest's correspondence does not interest you, Captain Welling?"

"It interests me very much. You don't remember the handwriting?"

Lord Creith's brows met.

"I don't quite get the tendency of this inquiry," he said, "but I did notice the handwriting. It was addressed in printed characters."

"Was the envelope a thick one?"

"Yes, I should say it was. I remember it because it was covered with dirty finger-marks, and I asked the postman who had been handling the mail."

Welling made up his mind quickly.

"I am going to take you into my confidence, Lord Creith," he said. "I have reason to believe that Marborne was murdered because he had in his possession a document which Mr. Hamon was anxious to procure."

"Good God!" said Lord Creith aghast.

"If my theory is right—and the document was obviously taken from the body of Marborne—the murderer slipped whatever he found into an addressed envelope which had already been supplied to him. If he is a Moor, he would have enough intelligence to place the letter in the post."

"Do you know what you're saying?" asked Lord Creith breathlessly.

"I'm merely giving you my theory in confidence, and you're entitled to receive it in confidence, Lord Creith, since you are a magistrate in this county. Is it possible to get that envelope?"

Lord Creith thought for a little while.

"Come back to the house with me," he said. "I don't know whether I'm standing on my head or my heels—by the time we get to the Hall I shall be more certain of myself."

Hamon was out. He had followed Joan into the park, to her intense annoyance.

"I'm blessed if I know what to do," said his lordship helplessly. "I suppose I might as well be hanged for a sheep as for a lamb, so go ahead and look at his room."

Welling's search was thorough and rapid; it was also in part fruitless. There was a writing-table and a waste-paper basket, but the basket was empty—had been emptied in the early morning.

"Ah, there it is!" said Welling suddenly and pointed to the large open fireplace.

A scrap of burnt ash had blown into the corner and he picked it up tenderly.

"This is the envelope and something else." There were ashes which were not of paper.

He picked up a small portion and smelt.

"That isn't paper," he said. Welling looked up at the ceiling for inspiration. "No, I can't place it. Will you give me an envelope?"

He collected the ashes into two separate envelopes and put them in his pocket and got downstairs in time to see a weary Joan and her suitor coming up the broad stairs of the terrace before the house. She passed Welling with a little nod and took her father's arm.

"Daddy, can I speak to you?" she said. "Can I come to the library?"

"Certainly, my love," he said, looking at her closely. "You're still very pale; are you sure you ought to be out?"

She nodded.

"I'm quite all right," she said. "You mustn't worry. I wonder how pale you'll be when I—when I tell you what I have to tell you?"

He stopped and looked at her.

"And I wonder how disappointed in me you'll be?"

Here he shook his head.

"It is going to take a lot to make me disappointed in you, Joan," he said, and put his arm round her shoulder.

She tried hard not to cry, but the strain was terrific. Lord Creith closed the door and led her to a recessed window seat.

"Now, Joan," he said, and his kindly eyes were full of love and sympathy, "confess up."

Twice she tried to speak and failed, and then:

"Daddy, I married Ferdie Farringdon when I was at school," she said in a low voice.

His eyes did not waver.

"A jolly good family, the Farringdons, but addicted to drink," said his lordship, and she fell, sobbing, into his arms.


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