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 Title: The Velvet Hand. New Madame Storey Mysteries.
 Author: Footner, Hulbert (1879-1944)
 Date of first publication: 1928
 Edition used as base for this ebook:
    New York: Doubleday, Doran, 1928 (first edition)
    ["Published for The Crime Club, Inc."]
 Date first posted: 20 May 2010
 Date last updated: 20 May 2010
 Project Gutenberg Canada ebook #536

 This ebook was produced by: Al Haines




THE VELVET HAND


_NEW MADAME STOREY MYSTERIES_


BY

HULBERT FOOTNER




PUBLISHED FOR

THE CRIME CLUB, INC.

BY DOUBLEDAY, DORAN & COMPANY, INC.

GARDEN CITY, NEW YORK, 1928




  COPYRIGHT, 1928

  BY DOUBLEDAY, DORAN & COMPANY, INC.


  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

  PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES AT
  THE COUNTRY LIFE PRESS
  GARDEN CITY, N. Y.

  FIRST EDITION




BY HULBERT FOOTNER

  THE VELVET HAND
  CAP'N SUE
  QUEEN OF CLUBS
  A BACKWOODS PRINCESS
  MADAME STOREY
  ANTENNAE
  THE SHANTY SLED
  THE UNDER DOGS
  THE WILD BIRD
  OFFICER!
  RAMSHACKLE HOUSE
  THE DEAVES AFFAIR
  THE OWL TAXI
  THE SUBSTITUTE MILLIONAIRE
  THIEVES' WIT
  NEW RIVERS OF THE NORTH
  THE SEALED VALLEY
  JACK CHANTY




CONTENTS


THE VIPER

THE STEERERS

THE POT OF PANSIES

THE LEGACY HOUNDS




THE VELVET HAND


THE VIPER


I

It was on the very morning of Mme Storey's sailing for Paris for her
annual vacation that Mrs. Daniel Greenfield came to our office.  When I
heard the name she gave I looked at her with an extraordinary interest.
One of our most famous philanthropists, her name is on everybody's
lips, but as she has always refused to allow a photograph of herself to
be published, scarcely anybody knows what she looks like.

Well, I beheld an exquisite little old lady who looked more like a
French marquise than the wife of an American millionaire.  Decidedly a
personality.  She was so fragile she was obliged to support herself
with an ebony stick, nevertheless, not an old lady who was asking for
the consideration due to age.  She met you on your own ground.  Her
dark eyes were still full of spirit, yes, and of beauty too, though she
must have been close upon seventy.  Her lovely clothes drew a nice line
between the dignity of an older fashion and the modishness of the new.
All in black, of course, for her husband was lately dead, but she
eschewed the ostentatious widow's veil.  She was accompanied by a
nurse, or companion, a pleasant-faced woman, who had nothing of the
usual dehumanized look of those who wait upon the rich.  She was
unaffectedly devoted to her mistress, which is something money can't
usually buy.

At the moment Mme Storey was as busy as a nailer, trying to clear her
desk preparatory to taking a taxicab to the pier, but one doesn't send
a Mrs. Daniel Greenfield away.  I carried her name in, and my mistress
came out to greet her.  Apparently they had not met before.

"I read in my newspaper this morning that you were sailing on the
_Majestic_ at noon," little Mrs. Greenfield said, with a great lady's
disarming air of apology, "and I yielded to a sudden impulse to come to
see you.  I know I have no business to be troubling you at such a
moment.  I can only throw myself on your mercy.  I assure you it is a
matter of the most urgent importance--at least to me.  Can you give me
a few minutes?"

Her wistfulness, the wistfulness of a child, or of the very old, melted
Mme Storey entirely.  "An hour if necessary," she said at once.

Mme Storey led the way into her own room, and I went along after them.
Mrs. Greenfield's companion remained sitting in my room.

"I assume that you wish to consult me professionally," Mme Storey said.
"If that is so, you will not object to my secretary Miss Brickley being
present.  She will make the necessary notes."

Mrs. Greenfield accepted me with a courteous bow.  So different from
many of the men who come to consult us!  We seated ourselves, I with my
notebook.  The sight of the great room made my heart heavy, thinking of
the empty days ahead.  I do not enjoy vacations.  All the room's
beauties were packed away or shrouded in cottons.  Giannino had gone to
board at the veterinary's.  I would even have been glad to hear
Giannino's chatter, the provoking little ape!

When the beautiful old lady applied herself to the telling of her
business, one perceived that she was greatly harassed and worn.  Her
charm of address upon entering had hidden that.  One received the
impression of a great trouble proudly kept to herself.  I remembered
having read that she had no children.  Poor lonely soul, that was why
she had tried to adopt all the unfortunates.

"I must school myself to be very direct and brief," she began.  "They
say it is hard for the old.  It is in relation to the death of my
husband that I came to see you.  You may have read of it--eight months
ago?"

Mme Storey inclined her head.

"He had an apoplectic seizure in his office.  He died instantly."  The
delicate wrinkled hands were trembling, but the voice was steady.  "It
is only fair to tell you at the start that there were no suspicious
circumstances.  There was an--an--I must speak of these things--an
autopsy.  The cause of his death was certainly a cerebral hemorrhage.
Moreover, his affairs, as you may know, were found to be in perfect
order, yet--yet--ah! do not smile at me even in kindness!  Do not in
your own mind dismiss my story yet awhile!  I am haunted by the
conviction that he _did not_ die a natural death!"

Mme Storey's beautiful face was soft and grave with sympathy.  It
expressed no surprise.  As for me, I was one great Oh! inside.  A
mystery in the death of Daniel Greenfield!  Here was a case indeed!

"I never make up my mind in advance about things," said Mme Storey
quietly.  "What reason have you----"

"Ah, that's the rub!" the old lady interrupted her despairingly.  "I
have no _reason_.  I have only a feeling!"

"Well, I do not overrate reason," said my mistress.  "I should not have
used that word."

"I have no evidence," Mrs. Greenfield went on.  "I have nothing but a
dumb conviction in here"--she struck her breast--"that my husband was
murdered--somehow.  A conviction that _will not_ be downed.  Oh, I
assure you I have struggled against it, argued with myself.  It makes
no difference.  There it remains in my breast.  I feel that he was
murdered.  I have spoken of my feelings to one or two men that I
trusted--his best friend, a lawyer, a doctor--only to be listened to
with a pitying smile.  They tried to _soothe_ me!  What a humiliating
experience!  But men must have _evidence_! ... Ah, don't _you_ pretend
to sympathize and send me away.  Hear me out--question me.  You are my
last hope.  I wish I had come to you before.  This thing is killing
me--no, that is nothing; what is life to me now?--Worse, it's driving
me out of my senses.  I cannot go mad.  I must remain cool and sane.
If he _was_ murdered, it is for me to live to see that his murderess is
brought to justice.  Then I could go in peace!"

"I am not a man," said Mme Storey softly.  "You will not find me
deafening my ears to the inward voices."

"Ah, thank you for that!" cried the old lady in a tone of heartfelt
relief.  "It is the first crumb of comfort I have had!"

"You said murderess," said Mme Storey.  "Your suspicions have, then, a
definite object?"

"Yes," said Mrs. Greenfield.  "His secretary.  Her name is Margaret
Gowan."

"Tell me all about her," said Mme Storey.

As my mistress applied her mind to the case, her eyes sought the
cigarette box desirously, but she refrained from helping herself.  But
the sharp-eyed old lady marked her glance and its direction, and she
said quickly:

"Pray smoke, Madame Storey.  Your cigarettes are famous.  I am not
narrow-minded."

"A detestable habit," said Mme Storey apologetically.  "I am thoroughly
ashamed of it."  Nevertheless, she took a cigarette and, lighting it,
luxuriously inhaled.

"Miss Gowan worked for my husband for twelve years," said Mrs.
Greenfield.  "She was an admirable secretary in every respect.  Daniel
relied on her completely.  He was never tired of singing her praises."

"But you did not like her?" suggested Mme Storey.

"Ah, don't say that!" cried Mrs. Greenfield with quick reproachfulness.
"That shows you are thinking the same that those men thought when I
spoke to them of her, that it was just another case of an old woman's
jealousy of her husband's young secretary.  I assure you, Madame
Storey, it is nothing of that sort.  You must believe me.  She was not
at all the kind of young woman to make a wife anxious: a quiet,
capable, businesslike person, nothing of the 'charmer' about her.  She
lacked that--well, you know what I mean--that appeal."  Old as she was,
and broken with trouble, Mrs. Greenfield's fine eyes still flashed with
remembered power.  "No, indeed!  My mind was never troubled on that
score.  But she was deep!--deep!  Ah, much deeper than Daniel ever
guessed!  Sometimes that thought used to cross my mind uncomfortably,
but I liked the girl.  I was grateful to her for easing my husband's
burden.  It allowed him more time to spend with me.  No shadow of a
suspicion that anything was wrong ever crossed my mind until after his
death."

"And then?"

"It was the day of the funeral," said Mrs. Greenfield, her eyes
darkening at the recollection.  "I did not go downstairs.  Miss Gowan
sent up word to ask if I cared to see her.  My heart was full of
kindness toward her, they told me she had acted so splendidly, and I
said by all means.  And she came up.  When she entered my room--how can
I describe it to you?--something seemed to enter with her.  When she
came near me a strange rage seized and shook me.  I was taken by
surprise.  A dreadful unthinking feeling.  I could have attacked her
had I been stronger.  I wept at my own powerlessness.  Yet her attitude
was admirable.  Everybody spoke of it: so quiet and capable and
self-effacing; so sympathetic, so helpful, so unaffectedly saddened by
her own loss.  That is what everybody said.  Well, everybody does not
see very far.  _I_ saw in her demure and downcast eyes that she had
killed my husband and was glad of her work.  And I wished to kill her!"

The old lady paused, breathless and exhausted with emotion.  How
strange it was to see so much raw emotion in one so old and so elegant.
It upset one's sense of values.

"Describe her appearance to me," said Mme Storey.

"That is difficult," said Mrs. Greenfield with contemptuous lips.
"Nothing much to describe.  A little woman; light brown hair, watchful
gray eyes, repressed mouth.  Not pretty; not ill-favoured, either.  She
must be about thirty-two now, but she scarcely looks it.  There is
nothing in her face to betray the passage of time.  Looking back, one
feels that she _willed_ herself to be neutral, inconspicuous.  I
apprehend an iron will in the insignificant little creature.  In what
she revealed she was nothing but a reflection of my husband's tastes
and wishes and ideas.

"Sometimes I used to wonder what sort of a life she led apart from my
husband.  Not much, apparently.  Anyway, not on the surface.  When this
happened I had her investigated without telling anybody.  The result
was negligible.  Apparently she has led an exemplary life--taking care
of an invalid mother for years.  Since the death of her mother has
lived in the same boarding house for seven years.  Apparently satisfied
with the casual contacts she obtained there.  A quiet, studious little
person; no expensive tastes; no love affairs.  In short, a life as open
as the day.  If you are interested, I will send you a copy of the
report I received upon her."

"Please do," said Mme Storey.

"Have I conveyed anything to you?" Mrs. Greenfield went on.  "But wait!
She had one characteristic she could not modify: a peculiar walk;
stiff-kneed and rising on her toes.  One might call it a strut.  Like
this."  The brisk old lady arose from her chair, and, as far as the
infirmities of age would permit, proceeded to illustrate.

"I suppose Miss Gowan was of great assistance in settling up your
husband's affairs," suggested Mme Storey.

"Oh, invaluable!" said Mrs. Greenfield.  "The lawyers and the
accountants could not praise her enough.  All the details of my
husband's affairs were at her finger tips.  My husband was a peculiar
man in some respects.  In business he had no close associates, no
advisers, no confidants.  He kept no regular books.  It was a saying
downtown that Daniel Greenfield carried all his business under his hat.
Yet the girl guided the lawyers unerringly in their investigation.  And
everything was always found to be just as she said it would be.
Nothing was obscure, nothing unaccounted for, they said....  To me
there was one suspicious circumstance, but I have not mentioned it to
anybody.  It is susceptible of many explanations, of course."

"Tell me," said Mme Storey.

The old lady lowered her head as if overcome by a painful recollection.
"A few days before I lost my husband," she murmured, "he said one
night, jestingly--he said that if he died that night he would cut
up--such were his words, about ten million clear.  Yet when everything
was settled up there was only about nine million.  It seems strange he
should have made so great an error."

"I agree with you," said Mme Storey.

"Then you think--you really think my story is worth investigating?"
Mrs. Greenfield asked with a rather piteous eagerness.

"I do," said Mme Storey simply.

The old lady partly broke down.  She put a hand over her eyes.  "Ah, it
is sweet to find honest sympathy, understanding," she murmured.  "Until
now I often wondered if I was indeed mad."

"Tell me," said Mme Storey, "what did the lawyers have to start from in
order to prove and trace and check up his property?"

"Nothing but a little red notebook," said Mrs. Greenfield.  "What they
call a loose-leaf notebook.  It was kept in his own handwriting.  It
was a sort of statement of his assets on one side and his liabilities
on the other.  Whenever the statement got too much marked up to be
legible, he would start fresh pages and destroy the old ones.  Although
he was so well off, he always owed a great deal of money here and
there.  Why, I never quite understood.  Making other people's money
work for him, he would say with his laugh."

"Was there any other writing in the little book?" asked Mme Storey.

"He used to make random notes in the back and destroy them when the
occasion had passed."

"Where was the little red book found?"

"In the breast pocket of the coat he was wearing."

"Was it always kept there?"

"I think so.  He would often pull it out and read to me what securities
he had bought or sold.  It pleased us both to talk over such matters,
though I am afraid I had but a very imperfect understanding of the
transactions."

"That little red book is still in existence?"

"Oh, yes.  Furthermore, I insisted that all his business papers, the
contents of his letter files, everything must be saved."

"Excellent!" said Mme Storey.  "One obvious question.  Was Miss Gowan
remembered in your husband's will?"

"No.  Several years ago he proposed to make her a legacy, but upon
speaking of it to her she evinced such distress--even anger, he
said--that he changed his mind.  He was much pleased by the spirit in
which she received the proposal.  He raised her salary instead."

"Ah!" said Mme Storey drily.  "Her unwillingness to receive a legacy
might have had another motive."

"I understand you," said Mrs. Greenfield, very low.  "Do you think for
years past she had been plotting...?"

"Oh, I think nothing yet," said Mme Storey.  "I am merely suggesting
possibilities....  You say you read that I was sailing to-day.  What
was there in that announcement to bring you to see me?"

All during the old lady's story my mind had been running ahead,
speculating on what effect it would have on Mme Storey's plans.  It
seemed too much to hope that she would cancel her vacation.  I listened
now with avid ears.

"I have been hesitating for a long while about consulting you," said
Mrs. Greenfield.  "The reference to your vacation in Paris decided me
in a hurry.  There seemed to be something providential in it.  Miss
Gowan is in Paris.  At least, that was her ostensible destination when
she sailed away two months ago."

My hopes went down.  Nothing in this for me.

"Ah, gone abroad," said Mme Storey.

"She took care that it had nothing of the look of a flight," said the
old lady.  "All during the months while the estate was being settled,
she remained here in New York holding herself at the disposal of the
lawyers and accountants....  She came to bid me good-bye before she
left."  Mrs. Greenfield's lip curled in bitter scorn.  "I managed to
conceal my feelings.  She said that she felt she owed it to herself to
take a long vacation before she looked for another position.  That made
me very angry, but I said nothing.  Because it was not my husband's
fault that she had had no vacation.  He was always urging her to take
one, and she refused."

"She had never taken a vacation?" asked Mme Storey.

"Well, not in a good many years.  But when we travelled she went with
us; when we went to the country she accompanied us.  And when my
husband was away from his office she had almost nothing to do.  Just
looked after his mail."

"So she went to Paris?"

"Yes.  She said she had ten thousand dollars that she had saved out of
her salary, and she meant to live in Paris until it was spent."

"And you want me to...?"

"To find her," said Mrs. Greenfield beseechingly.  "They say you can
read souls.  Open the book of her soul and tell me what is written
there."

"I'm afraid I am scarcely the magician you credit me with being," said
Mme Storey soberly.  "But I will do what I can."

"Ah, thank you, my dear!" said the old lady with tears in her eyes.

Mme Storey glanced at her watch.  "I wish I had another day," she said,
"But I can't change my ship.  It's simply impossible to get berths at
this season.  We'll contrive somehow.  After I have gone, one of my
assistants, Mr. Crider, will call upon you.  You will please give him
the notebook, also the report you received on Miss Gowan, and any other
evidence he may call for from time to time.  His job will be to make a
further investigation of her antecedents; to discover if she is
corresponding with her acquaintances in this country, and to obtain a
photograph of her to send me."

"Please do not take it amiss if I speak of money," said Mrs. Greenfield
diffidently.  "I am sure you understand that it is nothing to me what
this girl may have stolen.  It is the other thing: to clear _that_ up I
will gladly spend every penny I have.  As for yourself..."

"There will be no difficulty about that," said Mme Storey carelessly.
"I have my living to make, and I shall send you a bill, of course.  But
I am taking this case on its merits.  Make your mind easy.  I promise
you, before we are through, we will either lay your doubts or prove
them."

"Ah, you have taken a load off me already!" said Mrs. Greenfield.  "The
loneliness of mind was the worst.  If everyone believes you mad, you
might as well _be_ mad.  I feel that I have found a friend.  That is an
event in one's life!"

After she had gone Mme Storey sat for a few moments in a deep study,
stabbing her desk blotter with a pencil.  Then she lighted a fresh
cigarette and smiled at me in the way that invites comment.  I felt
obliged to speak up for prudence.

"Are you sure that this conviction of hers may not after all be the
product of a mind disordered by grief?"

"I am sure of nothing, Bella," she said, smiling.

"According to her own story, everything is against it," I pointed out.

"That is just what appeals to me.  It brings up the old and
never-to-be-settled controversy between reason and intuition.  You know
what side I fight on, Bella.  I'm for intuition."

"How are you going to find her?" I said.  "Paris is a city of how many
millions of souls?"

"But the American colony is like a gossipy village.  If she's spending
money I shall hear of her at once."

We both glanced involuntarily at our watches.  It lacked just fifty
minutes of sailing time.

"Bella," drawled Mme Storey in that tone she adopts when she wishes to
plague me, "if I've got to work in Paris, you must come along with me."

My heart at the same time began to pound and flutter.  My breath was
taken away.  I suppose I looked at my mistress like one moonstruck, for
she laughed merrily.

"Why not?  You're a free and unattached female like myself.  Just
telephone your landlady that you'll mail her a check in advance for
your rent.  We'll write out Crider's instructions on the ship and send
it ashore by the pilot."

"But--but my things?" I stammered.

"You'll have to share mine.  My maid will make the necessary
alterations.  In Paris we'll get you a new outfit.  I've always wanted
a chance to dress you, Bella."

"Every berth on the ship is sold."

"Yes, but I'm doing myself the luxury of a sitting room this trip.  You
shall bunk there.  Fortunately, you have a passport.  We'll have it
visaed on the way to the pier.  We can just make it.  Leave everything
as it stands."

I was silenced.  I flew about locking things.  I felt like a woman in a
dream.  Paris!  Paris!  Paris! was ringing in my ears like a chime.
Sober, matter-of-fact me going to _Paris_!  And with my beloved
mistress!  Well as I knew her, and many as had been our shared
adventures, I guessed that there was a Rosika Storey in Paris that I
did not know, and the most delightful of all, perhaps.  I don't suppose
I shall ever recapture the bliss of that moment.  Oh, well, once was
something!


II

The next six days passed in a dream of delight: the sunny sea, the
spaces of the mighty liner, the amusing human show, the luxury that
lapped us--Mme Storey and I actually had our own tiny private veranda
on deck; one felt one's self translated to an urbaner sphere.  Mme
Storey condescended to fascinate the captain, and our voyage was made
_very_ pleasant.  Nowadays one must go to sea for real undisturbed
luxury; on shore life is full of discomforts even for the affluent.

And then Paris!  Paris in June!  Out-of-doors Paris!  Paris under the
night sky!  Djeuner at the Pavilion d'Armenonville in the Bois: dinner
on Montmartre: ices, and _such_ ices, any time of the day or night, at
the Caf de la Paix, the centre of the world!  Paris, where you may
ride in taxicabs as much as ever you want for the price of trolley
rides at home!  Oh, Paris was more than ever a heaven for Americans at
this time, with francs at seventeen to the dollar!  It was really a sin
not to drink champagne with every meal.  But I must not say anything
more about its effect on me.  I am telling another story now.

That story recommences on the seventh day, when I found myself lunching
beside a window at Meurice's between Mme Storey and Mrs. Wynn Charlton:
the latter a name to conjure with among Americans in Paris.  I should
say in the beginning that Mme Storey passed as a lady of leisure in
Paris.  Nothing was known of her professional activities.  I was
regarded as her friend.  Mme Storey was at my right, Mrs. Charlton at
my left, and I, facing the window, looked out on the Rue de Rivoli
under the arcade, with the Jardins des Tuileries across the street.
The world was full of sunshine, and I felt like pinching myself to see
if this was really I.  What is, I suppose, the best-dressed crowd in
the world, streamed by under the arcade.  Mostly Americans.  The Rue de
Rivoli in June is theirs.  I couldn't tell you what we ate.  It was
brought, and it was taken away as in a dream.

This Mrs. Wynn Charlton was a remarkable woman.  By sheer force of
determination she got herself accepted as beautiful and clever.  She
had a lot of money, though, that helped.  At the moment the most
remarkable thing about her was her hat.  A tall-crowned hat set at a
rakish angle with three upright feathers in contrasting shades.
Everybody turned around to look at that hat.  A stroke of genius--but
not Mrs. Charlton's genius.  From under the brim of it her little eyes
peered at you in a way that was intended to be languorous and alluring.
The exotic was her note; but when she became excited she forgot and
talked like a buzzing aroplane.  In a word, Paris engrafted upon
Waterbury, Conn.

My dear mistress created a sensation of another sort.  Whoso liked to
be astonished stared at Mrs. Charlton's hat; whoso loved beauty offered
the tribute of his glances to Mme Storey.  I understood at once why she
loved Paris so: it was her natural element; she seemed to expand and to
glow in that air.  With a sure instinct she dressed more plainly in
Paris than in New York.  We are all beauty lovers, but the French are
less tender minded than we; less apt to accept the pretentious at its
own valuation.  Masters of dress, they see through it.  Mme Storey, in
her sand-coloured turban and straight brown dress, was beauty, and in
Paris she received her due.

She had desired to hear the latest gossip of the American colony, and
Mrs. Charlton was giving her an earful.  It would require pages to set
it all down, even if I could remember it all.  I shall give you only
that part which has to do with the story.

"There's a newcomer," said Mrs. Charlton, "a sensation, not only in our
set, but _tout_ Paris.  A Mrs. J. Eben Smith of Ypsilanti, Mich.
Mysterious.  Entirely alone; antecedents unknown.  But as far as that
goes the antecedents of most everybody over here is--or should I say
are?  That's what makes Paris so fascinating.  You never know.  I
suppose Smith must be her real name, because nobody would ever _choose_
such an alias."

"A clever woman might," murmured Mme Storey, "just for that reason."

"Well, anyway, Gertie de Vimoutier wrote to the postmaster at Ypsilanti
asking about her, and got an answer back saying he had never heard of
such a person.  Gertie is always doing things like that, and then
telling about them.  She has no sense of fitness.  Anyway, Mrs. Smith
should worry.  Her money is real."

"Money?" said Mme Storey, cocking an eyebrow.

"Lashings, my dear.  And no encumbrances, apparently.  Some women have
all the luck....  A strange woman!  None of us can make her out.  She's
something to talk about.  Nobody can understand why such a woman was
ever attracted to Paris."

"Why not her as well as another woman?" asked Mme Storey.  With her
chin on her palm my mistress mused smilingly, just dropping a question
now and then to keep Mrs. Charlton keyed up.

"Well, my dear, sexless.  Fancy that in this age of sex.  A married
woman (at least, she says she is) well over thirty years old, who still
sports a virginal, remote air.  Why, that sort of thing went out in the
'nineties.  What does she want to come to Paris for?  A Frenchman
wouldn't know what to do with her.  And our men are more French than
the French, if you know what I mean."

"Well, she had to go somewhere," said Mme Storey, smiling.

"A strange woman, I tell you," insisted Mrs. Charlton; "she's not
pretty, she has no allure, she's dumb as an oyster, yet in two months
already she's a success."

"Two months?" said Mme Storey, glancing at me.  Of course we couldn't
know as yet that we were on the track of our quarry, but it was amusing
to listen to Mrs. Charlton.

"... A success!" she rattled on.  "She's in our set, and none of us can
tell just how she got in.  Sort of insinuated herself.  Of course she
_has_ money.  And there's nothing blatant about her.  She can keep her
mouth shut.  The most significant set in Paris if I do say it.  You
know.  The leading American women, and the ultra-ultra young French
artists.  Everything starts in our set.  Why, my dear----"

"But about Mrs. Smith," prompted my mistress softly.  "How do you
account for her success?"

"Well, she's had the wit to put herself in the hands of the best men in
Paris.  Craqui raves over her type.  I suppose it's really her absence
of type that appeals to him.  Being a nullity he can make whatever he
likes of her.  At any rate, Mrs. Smith is his pet this season; all his
best designs are for her."

"His mistress?"

"No, indeed!  I told you the woman was sexless.  It is a purely
artistic relation.  They say that Craqui does her hair himself, and
makes up her face in harmony with the costumes he designs for her.  I
assure you the ensembles are marvellous--marvellous!  Egyptian,
Chinese, or Central African effects.  A lay figure on which Craqui
spends all his art.  Once it would have been thought outlandish, but
nowadays you can't go too far.  Everybody thought Craqui was spoiled by
rich American tourists, but, after all, there is nobody like him.  In
Mrs. J. Eben Smith's gowns Craqui has come back.  The woman creates a
sensation wherever she appears, and that's all she does do, just
appears."

"What's her colouring?" asked Mme Storey.

"Originally her hair was a lifeless light brown, I believe, but now, my
dear! various new shades of red and gold woven together!  It must be
dyed strand by strand.  The effect is astonishing.  It never occurred
to anybody before to dye their hair several shades at once.  It's bound
to become the rage....  Her eyes are a cold gray; extraordinarily
steady, cold, contemptuous eyes; basilisk eyes; gives you the shivers
to look into them.  Smudged in and elongated with make-up, the effect
is snaky in the extreme.  Somebody does wonderful things to her with
make-up; curious shadows about the lips that give the effect of
petulance; a dead pallor with just a tinge of bistre; one eyebrow a
little higher than the other.  Oh, chic! chic! my dear!  The sort of
thing you can't copy!"

By this time Mme Storey and I had a strong suspicion that we need seek
no further.

"Is she a particular friend of yours?" Mme Storey asked carelessly.

"A particular friend of nobody's, my dear.  Everybody knows her and
nobody _knows_ her.  Men like to be seen with her, she looks so
expensive, but her silences, her basilisk eyes, make them uneasy.  She
doesn't play up.  It's just as well, perhaps, that she _is_ silent.
Rochechouart told me they were lunching at Laperouse's, and in the
midst of one of her sphinxlike silences, when he was wondering whether
she was dreaming about voodoo or the lovers she had thrown to the
crocodiles of the Nile, she looked down in her plate and said: 'Say,
Prince, these peas are so _green_!' ... But you can't believe a word
Hlie de Rochechouart says.

"I saw her first at the Jockey.  That's a little place on the Boulevard
Montparnasse where we go.  New place since you were here, dear.  It's
Bou Say's hangout, and Exeideuil's and Dun le Roi's and Amasa Ounce's.
The most advanced set in Paris.  I don't know who brought her the first
time.  That night she was swathed in batik draperies representing
tortoise shell with a necklace of enormous topazes and a peacock fan.
Everybody in the room knew that Paris had a new celebrity when she
entered with her stiff jerky little walk--a sort of a cross between the
gait of an empress and incipient locomotor ataxia--but women don't have
locomotor ataxia, do they?  Anyhow, like everything else about her, it
was effective."

Mme Storey and I exchanged another glance.  We were sure now.

"I'd like to meet this remarkable woman," said my mistress.

"Nothing easier, my dear.  You're dining with me to-morrow night.
We'll go on to the Jockey after.  General le Boutillier shall take us.
She's sure to be there."

Mrs. Charlton chattered on about other matters.


III

Craqui, foremost among male dressmakers in Paris (or in the world), was
an old acquaintance of Mme Storey's.  His establishment is in the Rue
de la Paix, naturally, and thither we had ourselves carried next
morning.  Ah! what a palace of tantalizing delights that was!  A woman
weeps at the difficulty of choosing.  In the show window at the Place
Vendme corner there was but one amazing dress displayed; nothing more
or less than a lopsided piece of goods in a queer chequered pattern of
green and black on a white ground.  Nobody but Craqui would have
thought of using that material; and what art in its lopsidedness!  Of
the passers-by some laughed, a few admired, but none missed it.

Inside there was no hint of merchandising, of course.  A series of
elegant salons in the French style.  A grand salon below for ordinary
customers, and various delightful little chambers above for the more
favoured sort.  Into one of the most _recherch_ of these we were
shown, and a lady of the most exalted rank, one would say, came to
inquire our pleasure.  A greater honour was in store: M. Craqui himself
came running to kiss Mme Storey's hand.  A truly remarkable figure of a
fat man in a sportive belted coat.  He had a closely cropped brown
beard--a sort of genteel bear of a man, and wore, of all things! a pair
of dark smoked glasses.  Whether this was to protect his eyes from the
dazzling stuffs that were brought forth, or from the sight of too much
female loveliness, I'm sure I can't say.

We sat in fauteuils, and a succession of young girls were admitted to
the room one at a time, each one clad in a design of M. Craqui's more
beautiful than the last.  With what a clever effect they entered, moved
about the little room, paused, turned, lifted their arms, went out.
Each one had a highly impersonal air that our models do not seem to be
able to attain to.  The creator of it all leaned on the back of Mme
Storey's chair and advised with her.  They talked in French; talked so
fast I missed some of the words, but I got the gist of it.  At this
time Craqui had just invented the famous "stove-pipe silhouette" which
admirably became Mme Storey's tall slimness.  She ordered it in a dozen
different manifestations.

The mannequins were superb creatures.  I had expected artificiality in
the French, but I quickly learned they can appreciate nature.  All the
girls were very young, just arrived at the blush of womanhood, in fact,
and, uncorseted and unhampered by much underclothing, their young
bodies swayed with a barbaric and insolent grace.  It struck me as
rather strange that such fresh young things should be used to display
clothes to the aging and exhausted rich women who must have constituted
the majority of M. Craqui's patrons.  One would think they might enrage
the older women.  But I suppose there is no woman so old she cannot
picture herself as one of the mannequins.  And then they do not often
bring their husbands, of course.

M. Craqui was one blaze of excited gesticulation.  In America we are
given to smiling at men dressmakers--well, Craqui was absurd from our
point of view, but he was also a great artist.

"Madame!" he said, striking an attitude, "I have a piece of crimson
brocade.  Ah-h!  You must see it!"

"Monsieur!  Remember I'm a poor woman.  Positively, not another thing!"

"Madame!  If you cannot pay for it, I will give it to you.  This piece
was woven for you.  I could not bear to see another woman have it."

"Flatterer!"

"Thrse!  Fetch me the piece of brocade from my private escritoire.
_Vite!  Vite!_"

In due course it was brought.

"_Regardez, Madame, regardez_.  Is it not imperial?  ... Gabrielle!
_Gabrielle_!!  GABRIELLE!!!"

Gabrielle, a brunette like Mme Storey, was introduced to the room in
camisole and bloomers.  M. Craqui seized a pair of shears and with
scarcely a glance cut recklessly into the priceless stuff.  All the
women exclaimed in dismay.  In a jiffy two lengths of it were hanging
from Gabrielle's lovely shoulders.  M. Craqui like lightning snatched
pins from the trembling hands of Thrse and jabbed them cunningly here
and there.

"_Voil_!  _Voil_!  Caught over the shoulders in two points and
hanging perfectly straight but for a slight fullness under the breast
and my three wrinkles across the abdomen.  Behold, Madame!"

Indeed, in two minutes there hung the glorious evening gown complete.
Absolutely simple, yet stamped with the genius of Craqui.

"With that you may wear your pearls," he said.  "But nothing else.
Nothing in your beautiful hair.  Part your hair not quite in the
middle, draw it back loosely and give it a careless twist at the back
as you might before going to the bath.  That is the mode for _you_,
Madame: disdainful simplicity!"

"I have no pearls," she said drily.

"Then get some.  Dusky pearls.  Not a long string.  If they hang below
the dcollettage the effect is ruined.  Twenty-six inches; no more; no
less!"

"Dear sir, how husbands must hate you!" murmured Mme Storey.

He held an expressive shrug.

I was not overlooked.  I too, was endowed with a luscious evening gown
in the "stove-pipe silhouette."  M. Craqui insisted that it must be
made up in magenta velvet.  Fancy red-haired me in magenta!  But he was
right, as it proved.  The only trouble with the gown when I got it was
that it made me look too fine for my humble station.  M. Craqui
besought me to have my straight hair bobbed, and worn clinging to the
skull in the manner of a lad of the Fifteenth Century.  I declined,
gasping.  Bella Brickley of East Seventeenth Street, N.Y., was unable
to project herself that far back!

Mme Storey wanted clothes, but she had, as well, another object in
visiting Craqui's that morning.  At a certain stage in the proceedings
she said with an aggrieved air:

"These are all very pretty, but you show me nothing to compare with the
stunning designs you have created for Madame Eben Smith."

M. Craqui made great play with uplifted palms and raised eyebrows.
"But that would be a sacrilege, dear Madame!"

Mme Storey affected to misunderstand him.  "Am I not, then, worthy of
your best?"

I thought M. Craqui would have a fit in his efforts to explain.
"_Non_!  _Non_!  _Non_!  _Non_!  In dressing _you_ I am forced to
humble myself, Madame.  I cannot adorn you!  In a jute slip you would
outshine any woman who came near you!"

"Ah, Craqui is not Craqui for nothing!" murmured Mme Storey, smiling at
me.

"Now this Mrs. Smit'," he went on, "her figure is well enough, and her
face has no positive blemishes, but she is just woman.  One can take
her like clay and mould her to any design.  I do not deny that in Mrs.
Smit' I have found an opportunity.  I have never had a customer so
ductile, so complaisant.  Most women have notions about dressing
themselves.  Or if not their range is very limited.  But Mrs. Smit' is
willing to be anything.  I can create her afresh each day, according to
my mood.  Decidedly, an opportunity.  Moreover, she carries my designs
into places where my mannequins cannot go.  Oh, an advertisement
magnificent, Madame."

"They say she's a strange woman," remarked Mme Storey.  "Inscrutable."

He shrugged.  "That inscrutability may hide anything or nothing," he
said.  "She comes here; she says nothing at all.  She has a mysterious
air--very good; that is valuable to me; I exploit it.  My little
mannequins, of course, wear their little hearts outside like breast
pins."

"What is her idea?"

"She aspires to become the most-talked-of woman in Paris."

"She is very rich I suppose?"

M. Craqui shrugged in a different manner.  He had a whole repertoire of
shrugs.  "I do not know.  She pays her bills."

"You must know something about her."

"Nothing whatever, dear Madame.  She walked into my shop one day.  The
only thing remarkable about her was that she insisted on seeing me.
There she sat.  In the end I had to go to her in order to get rid of
her.  She says she is a widow.  I should have called her a mature
mademoiselle.  Certainly she is the least married married woman I have
observed.  Possibly her husband was very old."

"Did you not ask for references?"

"Oh, her bankers.  The Crdit Foncier.  They reported merely that her
account was satisfactory to them."

Mme Storey allowed the subject to drop, and the exhibition of dresses
went on.

As we drove away from the shop I said: "I am prepared to believe now
that there is something in Mrs. Greenfield's story.  The ex-secretary
could scarcely have obtained money enough to patronize Craqui except by
criminal means."

But Mme Storey put her head on one side dubiously.  "Not quite yet,
Bella.  We know she had ten thousand dollars.  She may even have had
more, honestly obtained.  Ten thousand dollars will buy a lot of French
francs at the present rate of exchange.  She may be blowing in the
whole in one magnificent gesture....  Still, it is rather significant
she should choose a French banker--an American woman, speaking no
French."


IV

I don't wonder that Americans love Paris; the wonder is they don't all
fly there as soon as they have made their pile.  The dinner party at
Mrs. Charlton's passed off with clat--something that we have not in
America any more than we have a word for it.  Not only was everything
expensive, but there was a certain stimulus in the air.  The diners
were roused out of themselves.  They talked.

The company dispersed shortly before eleven, leaving us three women to
go on to the Jockey with General le Boutillier.  He, I need only say,
was an old gentleman with nothing whatever to him, but most
distinguished to look at.

I was disappointed in my first glimpse of the Jockey, which Mrs.
Charlton had assured us was the resort of resorts in Paris and very
difficult to get into.  Exactly like places of the sort in Greenwich
Village.  A dingy room with chairs and tables around the walls, and a
square of linoleum in the centre to dance on.  The drabness of the
walls was relieved by a few startling post-cubist paintings.  There was
a subtle difference, though: the difference between an original and a
copy.  In Paris a Bohemian has a recognized place in the scheme of
things and bears himself with a corresponding assurance.  In New York
the poor things have to fight against an inferiority complex.

There was one very palpable difference in the Jockey which made all the
difference in the world: a flourishing bar in the corner served by
American bartenders.  How real they looked!  In another corner there
was a jazz band, and that was American, too.

The types were as those of the Village only more so.  More complete and
finished than we can produce.  And yet I don't know.  I was amused to
discover that the most picturesque and Vie de Bohmish of them
invariably turned out to be Americans.  For example, there was a
glorious young fellow with a black slouch hat and a flaming red beard.
(How we sensible souls do love a swaggering pose!)  They told me he was
the American Bolshevist.  Splendid to look at.  But when he removed the
slouch hat I saw that his hair was growing thin on top, and I felt
rather let down.

At eleven, when we arrived, the place was empty; at midnight every
table save the one next to us was filled.  I was dizzied by the number
of celebrities that were pointed out to me; Lady Evelyn Estabrook, the
English Sappho; Bou Say, the cubist photographer; Otile Exeideuil, the
inventor of Ga-Ga, which is not baby talk but a serious movement in
art, etc., etc.  In addition to the habitus there was a sprinkling of
rich American tourists.  I observed that the attention of these was
unobtrusively called to the pictures, and no doubt appointments were
made to visit studios next day.  Well, artists must live.

There was one feature of artist life that had not altered.  The
celebrated photographer Bou Say, who it appeared was late of Union
Square, was talking to Mme Storey, and that brought next to me his
charming little companion who had no other name but Toto.  I was half
scandalized, half thrilled.  Really, quite a nice little thing.  She
had no English except a few naughty phrases that she got off with
innocent gusto.  But I made out to talk to her in my French.  Toto,
however, preferred to express herself in the universal language of
making faces.  Enough to make you die!  Times have changed!  Those
great ladies Mme Storey and Mrs. Wynn Charlton talked to Toto as
unaffectedly as they might to any pretty child, and Toto was not in the
least abashed by _them_.

In an interval of the music we heard an uproar of talk and laughter on
the pavement outside as a new crowd discharged themselves from taxis.
It was like a fanfare off scene.  The door was banged open and a half
dozen men and women burst in.  As soon as they were in they began to
ask each other loudly: "Where's Mrs. Smith?  Where's Mrs. Smith?"
Whereupon they all turned around and looked through the door again.  I
never saw an entrance better stage-managed.  She entered quietly, last
and alone, her noisy companions falling back to give her passage.

Well, there she was!  A little thing, smaller than me; not beautiful,
not young, not even clever, they said, but the sensation of artistic
Paris.  To me she seemed the very incarnation of Paris, though I knew
she had but lately stepped ashore from a transatlantic liner.  She was
all wrapped up in a cloak of rosy fur, flamingo colour.  Who ever heard
of rosy fur before?  But why not?  Above this pink cloud she seemed all
eyes---dark caverns in which gleamed a pair of cold and watchful
serpents.  Her strange parti-coloured hair was drawn across her
forehead in a wide band.  A curiously wrought ornament of pink jade
stuck out from her head at an angle.  Her face was all deathly pale;
her mouth a cold red splotch.  Clearly the aim of this make-up was not
to copy nature, but to set up a new criterion.

She allowed the rosy wrap to fall into the arms of a cavalier, and a
little sound of astonishment escaped the beholders.  Mrs. Smith was
wearing a high-waisted dress!  The only high-waisted dress that had
been put on in Paris that night I am sure.  How original of Craqui!  It
covered her entire too, with sleeves to her wrists, and a yoke that
rose almost to her neck.  It was made of some sheer white material
embroidered with big pale pink dots, and was tied behind with an
exaggerated thin wide bow with uneven ends, a Craqui touch.

Of course!  Daring effects not being capable of supplying any further
thrills, Craqui with one step had gone back to the prim.  It was a
humorous rendering of the Kate Greenaway period.  Highly sophisticated
primness.  Around her pretty neck Mrs. Smith was wearing a glorious
circlet of diamonds: twenty great flashing stones in an invisible
setting.

A hint of grimness appeared in Mme Storey's eyes as she marked the
diamonds, and I read her thought.  Had an old man been murdered for
those bits of carbon?

Mrs. Smith and her companions made their way to the table next to ours.
I took note of the famous walk.  It did have the effect of lending the
little woman a sort of majesty.  While the others talked back and
forth, she sat facing the dancing floor like a sphinx.  Nothing more
than her tinted eyelids moved.  She was like an expensive mechanical
doll in the window of a toy shop at Christmas.  Quite inhuman.  One
felt sorry for her.  That was supposed to be a scene of gaiety, and she
was not gay.  On the other hand, there was neither pain nor ennui in
the cold gray eyes.  There was no expression whatever.  All a pose, no
doubt, but what on earth was the good of a pose that laid such a
painful stricture on the natural motions?

In my mind I tried to reconstruct the millionaire's secretary, and
failed utterly.  What was hidden behind that inexpressiveness?  Had she
robbed and murdered in order to achieve her soul's desire only to find
it dust and ashes in her mouth?  Or was she satisfied?  One could have
speculated endlessly on the secret of her mask.  The mask was what
constituted her power.

The three young men in the party all waited upon Mrs. Smith with their
subservient glances, and the other two women, manifestly, were only
supers.  One of the young men was favoured above the other two; he had
the place of honour at Mrs. Smith's right ear into which he whispered.
She listened but gave no sign.  It appeared that the young man was
known to my ladies.

"Hlie," whispered Mme Storey to Mrs. Charlton with a humorous cock of
her eyebrow.

So I knew him to be the Prince de Rochechouart of whom I had heard.
"Roshaswarr" they called it.  It is only just now that I have learned
the spelling.  A rosy and comely young prince.

The amount of masculine attention that Mrs. Smith received was
displeasing to Mrs. Charlton, who said somewhat waspishly:

"Having rung all the possible changes on charm, the latest chic is to
fall in love with a woman who has none."

"I should not say from the visible symptoms that Hlie was in love,"
remarked Mme Storey.

"Only technically speaking, of course," replied Mrs. Charlton.  "I
heard to-day that they were engaged."

"Ah!" breathed Mme Storey with a glance in my direction.

I was terribly excited.  A _princess_ next!  How amazing!  And yet,
come to think of it, was it not in a logical sequence?  I glanced at
the so-called Mrs. Smith with an unwilling respect.  She was certainly
an out-and-outer.

Presently the Prince caught sight of Mme Storey and came hastening
around the table to kiss her hand.  Mine too; a new sensation for me,
the lips of a prince.  Many polite nothings were exchanged in
indiscriminate French and English.  Mme Storey asked him to lunch with
us next day.  As he turned to go she whispered, indicating Mrs. Smith:

"She is marvellous!  Do introduce me when an opportunity offers."

It appeared that Mrs. Smith did not condescend to dance.  When the
music started Prince Rochechouart took advantage of the general
movement to introduce the two ladies to each other.  Less than two feet
separated them.  Mme Storey had only to turn around in her chair.  She
had arranged that beforehand.  I sat on the other side of Mme Storey
and could watch them both without moving.  Mrs. Smith bowed and smiled
without expressing a vestige of human feeling.  The young man slipped
away to seek a partner.

"You are a countrywoman of mine," said Mme Storey.

"Ah, you are American?" returned Mrs. Smith with a glance which
suggested she didn't think any the better of her for it.  "I should not
have thought so."

Her voice was low and agreeable.  She obtained an effect of foreignness
by speaking slowly, and with a particular distinctness.

"Yes, from New York," said Mme Storey.  "Of course you know New York."

"I have been there several times."

"Perhaps we know some of the same people."

"I know nobody in New York."

There the conversation hung fire for a moment.  Mrs. Smith was never
one to help a conversation out.  I felt sorry for my mistress.  Just
like sitting down to talk to a china doll.  What _could_ one address to
such a blank surface?  However, I underrated Mme Storey's
resourcefulness.

"I have been _so_ anxious to meet you," she went on with an air of
navet that would have caused anybody who knew her well to smile; "you
are the most talked-about woman in Paris!"

The doll was galvanized into life.  Her lips parted, and she turned a
pair of unguarded and entirely human eyes on Mme Storey.  A blaze of
egotism was revealed in their depths.  It broke the spell that
enveloped her.  She could be flattered.  One no longer shivered in awe
of her.

"Who told you that?" she demanded with a strange eagerness.

"I hear it everywhere," said Mme Storey innocently.  "From Mrs.
Charlton, from M. Craqui..."  She named other names.

Mrs. Smith, conscious that she had stepped out of her self-created
picture, made haste to get back again.  She shrugged.  Her lip curled
ever so slightly: her eyes became fixed in their orbits.

"Why should I be?" she murmured.

"Well, the reason seems perfectly clear to me," said Mme Storey, giving
her more of the same.  "You are a very remarkable woman."

With this line of talk Mme Storey assumed a somewhat foolish
expression.  It made me uncomfortable.  I did not know which way to
look.  But she had gauged her victim to a nicety.  Mrs. Smith swallowed
it avidly.  It gave me a new reading of the woman.  It suggested that
her terrifying inscrutability was after all only the inscrutability of
a child or a savage in strange company.  If so, it was her very
unsureness that had the ironic result of making her famous--that and
the genius of M. Craqui.

"One feels that you have had a wonderful, wonderful life!" said Mme
Storey.  "You are like a deep well into which life has flowed."

I don't know exactly what this meant, and I don't believe she did
either, but it sounded impressive.  Mrs. Smith kept the tinted eyelids
down, because she could no longer look inscrutable, I suppose.  One
apprehended a flush rising under the make-up.  No doubt many men had
flattered her, but it was something new to get it from a woman, and a
woman infinitely more desirable than herself.  It affected her like a
heady wine.

"You bring an exotic note into life," said Mme Storey.  "One is
grateful to you.  Life is so ordinary."

Mrs. Smith laughed: a dry, nervous little cachinnation expressing the
most intense gratification.  Those left sitting at her table looked
around in astonishment.  I suppose Mrs. Smith had never been heard to
laugh out loud before.

"You flatter me," she said.

"I don't feel that I _could_ flatter you," said Mme Storey with a
serious air.

"We must see more of each other," said Mrs. Smith.  "Will you have
_djeuner_ with me to-morrow?"

"Sorry, not to-morrow," said Mme Storey.  "Any other day."

"The day after, then.  At one-thirty.  I live at the Ritz."

"I shall be charmed," said Mme Storey.


V

Next day we took Prince de Rochechouart to Voisin's, for lunch or, as
the French call it, a fork breakfast.  The first breakfast is a
miserable apology for a meal: caf au lait--ugh!  I could never learn
to like the nasty medicine.  Voisin's is one of the dingy famous old
Paris restaurants that the tourists do not often stumble on, a place
where one obtains the _ne plus ultra_ in eats.

The little Prince was an amusing study.  Curious compound of boyishness
and sophistication.  Another notion about the French that I had to
discard was that the men were all effete.  Rochechouart was as fresh as
a daisy, with cheeks like peonies and sparkling eyes, cornflower-blue.
To be sure, he was half American, but there were many like him in
Paris.  It is later in life that they become hollow cheeked and blas.
To be a well-born, comely, and vigorous young man in Paris, what luck!
But it needs a certain amount of imagination to appreciate it, and that
he lacked.

I was determined to be democratic.  He was no more than a
scatter-brained lad, I told myself, like thousands at home;
nevertheless, I confess I was impressed.  That magic word "Prince" cast
a sort of glory around him.  Why, Mme Storey had told me his ancestors
went on the crusades; and coming down to comparatively recent times,
his three-times-great-grandfather had been guillotined during the
Terror.  The thought of that long, long family roll could not but be
thrilling.

I was glad, though, that my ancestors were not in the crusades--as far
as I know.  Hlie still had the physique, but in the course of the
centuries the moral virtues of the old stock had sadly fizzled out.  To
put it bluntly, he was as unprincipled a young scoundrel as you will
see, but with delightful manners.  His casual cynicism took my
Anglo-Saxon breath away.  He had only one virtue: he made no pretences.
His candour, indeed, was disconcerting.

It was not difficult to make him talk.  A few glasses of 1914 Bollinger
and the cork was out of _his_ bottle.  Before we reached the entremets
we were in possession of his life's whole history, the most of which I
would blush to set down.

Mme Storey was looking superb, completely dressed in a certain shade of
cold red that becomes her so well.  Rochechouart made open love to her.
It was nothing to him that he was engaged to marry another woman.  My
mistress listened with amused tolerance.  Me he ignored, except when he
remembered his manners with a start.  I did not mind.  I was well
content to watch and listen to the comedy.

"I understand that you are to be congratulated," said Mme Storey.

"Well, I don't know," said the youthful cynic; "I'm going to marry Mrs.
J. Eben Smith if that's what you mean.  Were you surprised when you
heard it?"

"Well, yes, rather."

"Ah, if _you_ would only have me!" he said.  "But, no!  I don't want to
marry you.  You are too glorious.  I would wish to stand in a dearer
relation to you than that of husband!"

"Nobody attaches the slightest weight to what you say, Hlie," said Mme
Storey teasingly.

"I know it!" he cried gaily.  "So I can say whatever I like!  How
terrible to be held _accountable_!"

"What will your father say?" asked Mme Storey.

"Oh, he will make one noble gesture of indignation--and thankfully
pocket the miserable sum he has been allowing me.  What would you?
I've got to marry.  My father cannot support us both in the best
society.  He was disappointed in his marriage, as you may remember.  My
mother was an angel from heaven, but her dot was small.  Just before
_her_ papa died he went bankrupt--expressly to embarrass us, I have no
doubt.  So it's up to me to look out for myself."

I forgot to mention that young Hlie talked good American, scarcely to
be distinguished from that of Times Square.

"She's a good bit older than you," ventured Mme Storey.

"Oh, well, marriage is not the serious matter it used to be.  This will
do very well for a while."

"But how does she regard that?"

"She's a woman of the world.  She has no illusions."

"Are there no younger heiresses to be had?"

"I don't want an heiress," he said drily, "but a possessor....  If you
mean a French girl," he went on, "_mon dieu_! dear lady, I couldn't
marry a French bourgeoise.  For why?  Her vulgarities are _my_
vulgarities.  I should die of it!  But an American girl, _her_
vulgarity is the engaging navet of the savage.  Quite a different
thing, you perceive.  _Trs-chic_....

"I have made my tour of America as you know.  I looked them over, as
they say over there.  But nothing came of it.  It appears that French
titles do not command the best price in the American market because,
forsooth, they are not recognized by the French state.  I had a bad
press.  Indeed, such was my innocence, I failed to realize the
importance of engaging an American press agent.  Nevertheless, there
were several sweet little things who intimated their willingness to
become La Princesse de Rochechouart.  But obstacles always arose.  I
myself became coy.  Because it appeared that an American girl expects
to _possess_ her husband!  Is that not an unnatural and a disconcerting
thing?  Then there was always the difficulty of the dot.  You would not
believe how difficult it is to persuade Americans to treat such matters
seriously.  Indeed, they affected to be horrified that one should wish
to talk about settlements at all at such a time.  A strange race!  The
papas of all these sweet young things were fabulously rich, but they
baulked at handing any of it over with their daughters.  In America, it
appears, the young people are expected to exist on the charity of their
elders until the elders die.  That did not appeal to me.  I will be old
myself then, and have less use for money.  So I returned as single as I
went."

He drained his glass.  When he set it down his blue eyes were swimming
happily.  "Ah, how beautiful you are!" he said to Mme Storey.  "You
carry about with you an aura of golden light!"

"That's the champagne you have drunk," said Mme Storey drily....  "How
does the situation of Mrs. Smith differ from these others?"

"Mrs. Smith has no papa," he said, laughing.  "At least, I don't know
whether she has or not.  At any rate, he doesn't figure.  She has the
money."

"But you know nothing about her.  None of us knows anything about her.
She may be a--she may be anything at all!"

"What do I care, my dear lady?  She has the money.  Besides, she has,
what do you say? made good in Paris.  She is a success."

"In certain circles," Mme Storey put in.

"Ah, nowadays one circle's about as good as another," he said with a
shrug.  "The great thing is to get your head above the crowd; to become
known.  What does it matter how you accomplish it? ... I'll introduce
her to the Faubourg St. Germain if she's interested in that stupid lot.
They don't count at all any more....  Mrs. Smith is famous.  She's more
famous than I am.  She will become more famous.  I may be blamed for
marrying her, but I will not be despised."

"Moreover, you are wrong," he went on.  "I do know something about her.
She has told me her story.  It is not at all a grand story, and I see
no reason to disbelieve it.  Her name is not Mrs. Smith, and she has
never been near that place with the droll name, what do you call it?
Hipsolanti.  She has not been married before, one might guess from her
virginal air.  Her real name is Margaret Gowan."

I do not often see my astute mistress astonished by a piece of
information, but I knew by the quiver of her eyelids that she was
astonished then.  Needless to say, I shared it.  What on earth could
have induced the canny Mrs. Smith to tell her fianc the truth about
herself?

And this was not all.  Rochechouart went on: "For seven long years she
served one of your great money barons as, what is the word? private
secretary.  By the aid of confidential information supplied by her
employer, what they call tips, she was able to speculate with her
savings, and year by year to double, to quadruple, to multiply the
amount, until, when he finally died last year, she found herself a rich
woman in her own right."

"Hm," said Mme Storey ironically.  "I should call that quite a grand
story."

"You do not believe it," he said, undisturbed.  "But she has her
winnings to show for it."

"How much?"

"Eighteen millions of francs."

"About a million in our money.  A tidy sum, eh, Bella?  The goal that
every money maker sets himself....  Are you _sure_ she has it?"

"Ah, be sure, dear lady, I have not neglected so important a matter,"
he said with a smile.  "I have accompanied my fiance to her
bankers'--she employs no less than five; all French houses of the
solidest, and I have seen her wealth in her own strong boxes and have
handled it.  American securities, all--what is it they
say?--gilt-edged, as even I could see.  Liberty bonds, railway bonds,
and others.  On the morning of our wedding day one third of it is to be
placed in my hands."

"I do congratulate you," said Mme Storey.


VI

Next morning, in our delicious little salon at the Crillon which looked
out upon the glorious prospect of the Place de la Concorde, I was
packing my bags preparatory to catching the boat train for Cherbourg.
I was to board the _Leviathan_ that night.  My heart was rather heavy
at the thought of leaving that intoxicating town--I had had but three
dreamlike days of it--but Mme Storey had promised me that I should come
back with her for a real vacation.  Meanwhile, there was highly
important work for me to do in America.  We no longer had any doubt of
Margaret Gowan's guilt; for, as Mme Storey said:

"One does not make a million by tips alone."

The next thing we had to do was to prove her guilt, and this promised
to be no easy matter, for the trail was eight months' old now.  We
guessed, too, from her perfect composure, that it was cleverly hidden.
All the evidence was in America; hence the overnight decision to send
me home.

"This time we are opposed by a remarkable woman, my Bella," Mme Storey
had said.  "It is very stimulating.  Conceive of the plain little
stenographer who became the most-talked-about woman in Paris and set
out to marry a prince!"

"Yes, and a precious pair they will make!" I said indignantly.

"Well, what can you do better with a pair like that than marry them off
to each other?" said Mme Storey, smiling.  "It will save some better
man and woman from a ghastly fate, maybe.  No, I do not feel that we
are called upon to interfere to prevent that marriage."

"He might get away with his share of the loot," I suggested.

"I will guard against it," said Mme Storey.  "How strange she should
have told him so much of the truth about herself!"

"Why do you suppose she made her term of service with Mr. Greenfield
seven years instead of twelve?" I asked.

"Oh, that's easy," said Mme Storey.  "Have a heart, Bella.  She's going
to be married.  Let her knock off a few years from her ostensible age.
But why did she tell him at all?  Since obviously it made no difference
to him.  That, I cannot explain to myself."

"Just a slip, perhaps," I suggested.

"Never," said Mme Storey.  "She had a motive in it, as she has had a
motive in everything she has done.  It will appear before we are
through with her."

"I will remain in Paris," Mme Storey had said, "and while I am amusing
myself I will keep an eye on her.  If she ever suspected our
activities, she and her million would vanish into thin air.  You go
back to New York and work up the case against her.  I will give you
daily instructions by cable, and you will report to me daily.  It will
cost a bit of money in tolls, but I suppose the Greenfield estate can
afford it.  From Nederhal of the United States Trust I will obtain two
copies of the private code they use in cabling between their New York
and Paris offices.  We'll base our messages on that.  Let Esm be the
code word for the woman and Leo for Mr. Greenfield.  Register our New
York address at the cable office, so I can save that seventy-five cents
of each message.  Address yours to the Crillon.

"There is a lot of patient spade work to be undertaken, Bella.  This
was no hasty and ill-considered crime.  My guess is that cold, patient,
determined little creature has been years about it.  And struck like a
viper when the moment was ripe.  We will have to go back to the
beginning.  Take Mrs. Greenfield fully into your confidence.  She will
be your principal source of information.  If Crider has not already
done so, get from her the little notebook in which her husband entered
the list of his assets and liabilities.  That notebook must serve as
the cornerstone of our structure.  You had better cable me a copy of
the statement and follow it with a copy by mail.  Also get Mrs.
Greenfield to give you several authentic specimens of her husband's
handwriting--say, one or more of his private letters to her.  Take
letters and notebook to Cardozo, the handwriting expert, and find out
if the entries in the notebook, or any part of them, may be a forgery.

"Next, with the aid of the correspondence in the dead man's files,
trace back as many of the transactions entered on his balance sheet as
you are able.  I mean find out when and under what circumstances Mr.
Greenfield purchased the securities he set down on one side, and when
and under what circumstances he acquired the debts that he put down on
the other side.  If you find copies of his letters that seem to lead to
anything, you must if possible obtain the originals from the men they
were addressed to.  But I do not need to tell you to exercise the
greatest prudence.  This case when it breaks will cause an
extraordinary sensation.  The merest hint of such a case would be good
for scareheads.  Any premature disclosure would ruin our chances of
success.

"Through Rochechouart I will get additional information as to the
securities the woman holds.  But if, as I suspect, she has been clever
enough to put the whole million into non-registered bonds of enormous
issues, such as Liberty bonds, it will be almost impossible to trace
them.

"Send me a detailed report of all the circumstances surrounding Mr.
Greenfield's death.

"The first thing you should do upon landing is to hasten Crider's
report on the woman's antecedents.  I cannot wait for it to come by
mail.  Cable it.  That report will suggest our next moves.

"Really, the only wasted time will be your six days at sea.  I can
reach you by wireless if I think of anything additional.  Once you are
in New York we can communicate as freely as if we were next door to
each other.  Great is Science!  I'll use all the influence I possess to
see that our cables are dispatched and delivered promptly.  Don't
forget the difference in time.  When you're going to bed I'll be almost
ready to get up next morning.

"Time to start now.  On your way to the Gare St. Lazare you can drop me
at the Ritz.  It is time for my appointment with Mrs. Smith."

"Horrible woman!" I exclaimed.  "How can you bring yourself to sit down
with her?"

"I'm afraid I'm an unmoral soul, my Bella," said Mme Storey, smiling.
"I shall enjoy her.  I do not know when I have had so fascinating a
subject."


VII

I append a selection from the cablegrams that Mme Storey and I
exchanged.  Those that did not lead anywhere I have omitted.  What an
interesting illustration these messages afford of the way in which her
remarkable mind bridged a three-thousand-mile gap!


BRICKLEY, _Leviathan_ (via wireless)             June 17th.

Margaret was born in Weddinsboro, Ind.  Let Crider follow that up as
soon as he is able.

STOREY.


STOREY, Crillon, Paris                           June 20th.

Crider reports Margaret lived for seven years in boarding house Mrs.
Pettigrew, ---- West 57th Street.  Crider took a room there.  Landlady
refers to Margaret friendly manner, but never seems to have become
intimate with her.  Margaret very highly spoken of by all.  A guest,
Miss Bowlby, middle-aged woman independent means, regards herself as
Margaret's most intimate friend.  Appears, though, Margaret never
really took her into her confidence.  Miss Bowlby says Margaret came
there death of her mother heart disease.  Margaret living time Mother's
death flat ---- West 82nd Street.  Before that had cheap flat corner
135th Street, Columbus Avenue.  Mentioned to Miss Bowlby had a hard
struggle upon first coming to New York.  Never said where she came from.

Miss Bowlby hinted romance in Margaret's life, but upon pinning her
down it seemed there was nothing more in it than a young man who called
on her twice and then came no more.  No other man in Margaret's life.
Margaret rarely went out.  She and Miss Bowlby played rummy evenings.
Went to a play every Saturday night.  Margaret a great reader.  Got her
books from main branch Public Library, 42nd Street.  Margaret has not
written Miss Bowlby since leaving New York.  Crider has now gone to
Weddinsboro.


BRICKLEY, New York                               June 20th.

See if Margaret's card is on file at the library.  If so, hold it for
future instructions.  STOREY.


BRICKLEY, New York                               June 20th.

Mr. Greenfield's statement received.  Disregard assets.  Concentrate on
tracing notes of hand outstanding at time of death.  Obtain assistance
Ladbroke, United States Trust.  I have numbered notes in order as
listed.  Refer to numbers in replying.  Were these notes saved when
paid by the estate?  STOREY.


STOREY, Crillon, Paris                           June 20th.

Notes were destroyed when paid.  BRICKLEY.


BRICKLEY, New York                               June 21st.

By whose authority were notes destroyed?

STOREY.


STOREY, Crillon, Paris                           June 21st.

All persons concerned deny responsibility for destruction notes.
BRICKLEY.


STOREY, Crillon, Paris                           June 22d.

Mr. Greenfield occupied two offices Cosmopolitan Life Building for past
twenty-five years.  As his lease has not run out, the estate is trying
to sublet with furniture remaining as it was.  All records, papers,
etc., removed to Continental Storage Warehouse.  I am mailing plan of
the two offices.  In addition to Margaret, Mr. Greenfield employed
Henry Besson as clerk for more than twenty years.  Am in touch with
Besson through Mrs. Greenfield.  He looked after the details of Mr.
Greenfield's real estate, personal and household expenses, check books,
etc.  Was not in Mr. Greenfield's confidence.  Besson timid,
conventional old man; afraid to commit himself to any positive
statements.  Speaks of Margaret in highest terms, but fancy there was
friction there.  Mr. Greenfield left Besson legacy with which he has
purchased annuity.  What questions shall I put to Besson?  There was
also a junior clerk, a lad, Frank Carter.  Have not yet found him.

BRICKLEY.


BRICKLEY, New York                                June 22d.

Let me have Besson's account of Mr. Greenfield's death in his own
words.  STOREY.


STOREY, Crillon, Paris                            June 23d.

Quote Besson:

"It was on a Tuesday that Mr. Greenfield died; Tuesday the twelfth of
October last year.  That day which ended so dreadful for all of us
began like any one of a hundred days before.  All I can remember about
the beginning of it is that it was raining.  I know that because Mr.
Greenfield did not go out to his lunch.  He came in about eleven, as
was customary.  I did not see him because he entered his private office
direct from the corridor.  Often a whole day might pass without my
seeing him, because he always went in and out by his own door to avoid
the chance of meeting beggars or cranks in the outer office.  We were
considerably troubled by such gentry.  But of course I always knew when
Mr. Greenfield was in.  Not having seen him, I cannot tell you if he
looked any different from ordinary that day.

"He would get in along about eleven, read the mail Miss Gowan had ready
for him, and dictate his answers.  Then he'd go out to lunch at the
Bankers' Club where we could find him if need be.  Along about three or
a little after, he'd drop back to sign his letters and see if there was
anything new.  Then go on home.  'I earned the right to take my ease,
Besson,' he'd say to me, and then add with a laugh, 'but I guess I'd
take it anyhow.'  And often he'd urge me to close up early and go home.
But I didn't.  Not that I had too much work to do, but I wouldn't have
known what to do with myself if I'd 'a' gone home early.

"Latterly Mr. Greenfield did not see many people at the office.  If
anybody came with a proposition he'd say 'write it out first.'  Only
old friends, of course.  It was raining on the day he died, and he had
the boy telephone to the Exchange Caf for two chicken sandwiches,
white meat only, and a bottle of ginger ale.  That was a regular custom
in bad weather.  A waiter brought it to our office, and the boy carried
it in.

"It was some time after that; it was five minutes to two--Frank gave me
the exact time next day--when Miss Gowan opened the door between the
two offices, and her face was white as tissue paper, and she said
stuttering-like, not loud at all: 'Oh, Mr. Besson, come quick, come
quick!'  Or something like that; I don't remember exactly.  I ran in
and saw Mr. Greenfield lying on the floor with his legs under his desk
and his head under his chair.  Miss Gowan said he had just groaned once
and fallen back, then slipped down out of his chair to the floor,
shoving the chair back a little.  That was why we hadn't heard any fall
outside.  When I first looked at Mr. Greenfield his face was all
blackish red, his teeth showing.  But before the doctor came his colour
was gone.  We got a doctor in a few minutes.  From the Cosmopolitan
Life, because that was nearest.  He was there in a minute or two.
Cerebral hemorrhage he said, soon, as he looked.  Dr. Strailock, Mr.
Greenfield's own doctor got there in half an hour.  He said the same.
I knew that Mr. Greenfield had been warned about his blood pressure,
but he was real careful.  Dr. Strailock made all arrangements to take
the body home.  Mr. Greenfield's attorney, Mr. Conway, he came about
the same time.  Miss Gowan telephoned for them.  I was too upset.  Mr.
Conway put seals on everything; Mr. Greenfield's desk, his private
safe, and so on."

BRICKLEY.


BRICKLEY, New York                               June 24th.

When autopsy was performed, were contents of Mr. Greenfield's stomach
analyzed?  STOREY.


STOREY, Crillon, Paris                           June 24th.

No analysis made since death was clearly due to a cerebral hemorrhage.
BRICKLEY.


BRICKLEY, New York                               June 24th.

Use every effort to find the boy Frank Carter.  Ask Besson following
questions: (a) Was the door between outer and inner offices locked?
(b) How long a time elapsed between the delivery of lunch and Mr.
Greenfield's death?  (c) Was Miss Gowan with her employer the whole of
that time?  (d) How was Miss Gowan dressed that day?  (e) Find out from
Besson or another when, where, and by whom the notebook was found.
STOREY.


STOREY, Crillon, Paris                           June 25th.

Besson's answers: (a) There was a spring lock on the door as a
safeguard against the numerous cranks who tried to see Mr. Greenfield.
In addition to the usual means of opening it on the inside, there was
an electrical device on Mr. Greenfield's desk so that he could let
anybody in without getting up.  Furthermore, Miss Gowan had a key to
the latch so she could let herself in any time, and there was a spare
key in Besson's desk, but that was never used, (b) He could not
remember exactly.  About an hour, (c) Miss Gowan had been in and out of
the private office ever since Mr. Greenfield came in.  Besson had not
noticed her for a long time before she appeared at the door to give the
alarm, (d) Miss Gowan was wearing a dress of blue serge that Besson was
very familiar with.  A plain, straight dress all in one piece, with
some red embroidery around the neck and a narrow belt of serge around
the hips, (e) Mr. Conway searched the body in the presence of Dr.
Strailock, Mr. Besson, and Miss Gowan.  He found the notebook in the
inner breast pocket of the dead man's coat, and kept it.  BRICKLEY.


BRICKLEY, New York                               June 26th.

Any pockets in Miss Gowan's dress?  STOREY.


STOREY, Crillon, Paris                           June 26th.

No pockets.  BRICKLEY.


BRICKLEY, New York                               June 26th.

I wish to establish whether Miss Gowan had any hiding places on her
person.  Question Besson particularly.

STOREY.


STOREY, Crillon, Paris                           June 27th.

Besson says Miss Gowan had a little patent-leather handbag or
pocketbook such as women carry about.  It was a joke between him and
Frank that she would not let it out of her sight.  Even when she went
back and forth between the outer and the inner offices, she carried it
under her elbow.  BRICKLEY.


STOREY, Crillon, Paris                           June 27th.

Note No. 2, $50,000, was given by Mr. Greenfield to George Hutt August
17, 1923, in payment 2,000 shares common stock New Idea Trunk Co.  Hutt
was promoting the company.  It is now in operation.  The shares were
found among Mr. Greenfield's assets, as you know.  I have seen Hutt.
He was well acquainted with Mr. Greenfield, who had assisted him on
several previous occasions to start worthy enterprises.  BRICKLEY.


BRICKLEY, New York                               June 28th.

Nothing in number two for us.  Proceed with others.  Whenever you
locate the person to whom Mr. Greenfield issued a note let your first
question be: Did he ever meet Mr. Greenfield personally and talk to
him?  If so, drop that line and start another.  STOREY.


BRICKLEY, New York                               June 29th.

Margaret and Hlie were married this morning.  I was not invited.
STOREY.


STOREY, Crillon, Paris                           June 29th.

Crider back.  Weddinsboro a somewhat remote village in southern
Indiana.  The Gowans are remembered there.  Joe Gowan did odd jobs of
tinkering and work by the day.  A drunkard and ne'er-do-well.  Wife a
confirmed invalid.  Heart disease.  They couldn't afford a doctor.
Family lived in squalid surroundings.  The girl was bright at school,
but only half fed and clothed, and always sickly.  A homely little
thing.  Neighbours pitied her but couldn't do anything, she was such a
touchy and cross-grained little piece.  Gave herself airs which hardly
befitted persons in their situation.  Had no friends among the young
people of either sex.  When she was old enough, girl went to New York
and found work.  Returned a year or so later and took her mother away
with her.  Father lived on in Weddinsboro, sinking lower and lower.
Died three years ago County Almshouse.  No word has ever been heard
from the girl or her mother.  BRICKLEY.


BRICKLEY, New York                                July 1st.

Get Besson to give you further particulars of his employer's habits and
characteristics.  This is helpful.

STOREY.


STOREY, Crillon, Paris                            July 1st.

Notes 7 and 8 were both given by Mr. Greenfield to men he knew, so I
have eliminated them.  Note No. 5, $75,000, was held by Hanover Trust
Company at Mr. Greenfield's death.  The original note came into
possession of the bank six years ago and had been renewed from time to
time.  The original endorser was one Henry B. Blakeley, whom I have not
been able to locate.  Correspondence in files suggests Blakeley and
Greenfield never met.  The note was issued to Blakely in exchange for
shares in the Simplex Taximeter Co.  BRICKLEY.


BRICKLEY, New York                                 July 2d.

Find out if any official of Hanover Trust ever interviewed Mr.
Greenfield in respect to renewing note.

STOREY.


STOREY, Crillon, Paris                             July 2d.

No.  Seems it is customary in the case of known men for the bank to
send a notice by mail of the approaching maturity of a note.  A new
note and check for the interest was always received from Mr. Greenfield
in ample time, so no personal call was ever made on him.

BRICKLEY.


STOREY, Crillon, Paris                             July 2d.

Quote Besson: "Mr. Greenfield and me was just the same age.  He always
made a point of it.  Made out in a joking way we was twins.  But there
wasn't much twins about it.  He was tall and I am short; he was fat and
I am skinny; he was a healthy man and I have my asthma; he had no
children and I have five--not to speak of his being rich and me poor,
which is the greatest difference of all.

"Mr. Greenfield was a rare easy-going man; that was his guiding rule in
life; to take things easy.  He wore his clothes real loose, and his
collars with a wide opening at the front to give his neck plenty room.
Everybody knows his picture, I guess, with the little sideburns white
and glistening like spun glass and the pink skin showing through.  A
fleshy man he was, and real soft, but healthy.  Never knew him to have
a day's sickness.  'Look at me, Besson,' he would say; 'I am a living
example of how not to live.  I never did anything of the things I ought
to do; never took a day's exercise; never denied myself anything;
always did whatever I liked.'

"That was all very well to say, but he was an abstemious man; ate and
drank very sparingly.  He took his chief pleasure talking to his
friends.  He liked to talk to young men.  Young men with ideas.
Latterly almost the whole of his business consisted of his putting up
capital to help young men float their ideas.  When anybody praised him
for it he'd turn it off by saying: 'Most profitable business in the
world, my dear sir.  Only make sure that they _are_ ideas.  Most men
with money are more afraid of ideas than they are of spotted snakes;
consequently ideas are to be had cheap.'

"He had his little peculiarities, as everybody knows.  He was all for
new _ideas_, but he hated to have new _things_ around him.  To the day
of his death he and Mrs. Greenfield still took their airings behind a
spanking team.  He had to have a telephone in his business, but he
wouldn't have it in his private office; no indeed, it was in the
outside office, and nothing would ever induce him to talk over it."
BRICKLEY.


STOREY, Crillon, Paris                             July 3d.

Blakeley died New Orleans, La., Sept. 19, 1921.  That seems to close
that line.  Meanwhile, in respect to note No. 11 $125,000.  I have
located Webster J. F. Cook to whom it was given in 1919.  Cook was then
organizing the New Process Smelting Works at Arcana, Ill.  Mr.
Greenfield took 2,500 shares at 50 and wrote a letter of recommendation
which Cook says was the turning point in the flotation of the stock.
The concern is now very prosperous.  The whole matter was arranged by
correspondence.  Cook never saw Mr. Greenfield, so this seems to be
what you require.  What additional questions shall I ask Cook?
BRICKLEY.


BRICKLEY, New York                                 July 3d.

Cable me contents of Greenfield's letters to Cook regardless of
expense.  I don't want Cook's answers.  If the originals of any of Mr.
Greenfield's letters are still in Cook's possession, obtain them and
carry them to Cardozo for examination of signatures.  Establish from
the transfer books of New Process Company when Mr. Greenfield sold his
stock and to whom.  STOREY.


STOREY, Crillon, Paris                            July 5th.

Webster Cook himself bought Mr. Greenfield's shares at par after the
Company was on a dividend-paying basis.  Mr. Greenfield wrote asking
him if he wanted to buy.  Cook says he thought Mr. Greenfield rather
held him up in the transaction, but he couldn't say anything on account
of the original benefit.  Cook had to have shares, as his control was
threatened.  Cook put up the stock as collateral with his bank, the
Sixth National Chicago.  The cancelled certificates originally issued
to Mr. Greenfield are still in the company's possession.  BRICKLEY.


BRICKLEY, New York                                July 5th.

Have Cardozo pass on Mr. Greenfield's endorsement of cancelled New
Process certificates.  Has Cook still got the cancelled check or checks
that he gave Mr. Greenfield in payment for his stock?  STOREY.


STOREY, Crillon, Paris                            July 6th.

Cook had cancelled check to Greenfield framed and hung over his desk.
Was largest check he ever drew.  Cook most obliging.  Brought me
cancelled check and certificates this morning, and I immediately
carried them to Cardozo.  Cardozo says signatures on Greenfield's
letters to Cook, endorsements on stock certificates, and endorsement on
check all written by the same hand.  May be forgeries.  Will give you a
final opinion after he has made a further study of Mr. Greenfield's
handwriting.

The check dated July 28th, a year ago.  It was deposited in the
Interstate National.  Besson positively asserts Mr. Greenfield never
had an account there, but bank officials state he kept a varying sum on
deposit for nearly a year, and the account was closed only a short time
before his death.  President states he tried to establish personal
relations with Mr. Greenfield, but though his letters were courteously
answered, he never succeeded in seeing him.  The account was opened by
mail.  BRICKLEY.


BRICKLEY, New York                                July 6th.

Good work, Bella!  See if you can trace through any stock exchange
house the sale of a large amount of bonds to Mr. Greenfield in the days
following July 28th a year ago.  Don't go to the individual firms, but
to the governors of the exchange, who have their own system of
communicating with the members.  Get the numbers of the bonds if
possible.  STOREY.


STOREY, Crillon, Paris                            July 8th.

Have found Frank Carter.  Now working for Mackubin, Goodrich & Co.
Intelligent and well-disposed lad of 19.  Cable questions.  BRICKLEY.


BRICKLEY, New York                                July 8th.

From Carter I want full particulars of luncheon served Mr. Greenfield
day of death.  STOREY.


STOREY, Crillon, Paris                            July 9th.

Lunch consisted of two chicken sandwiches and bottle of ginger ale.
Brought to the office at 1:15.  Carter took tray from waiter and,
carrying it into inner office, placed it on the table (D) just inside
door.  See plan I sent you by mail.  Mr. Greenfield was then sitting at
his desk by the window (A), with Miss Gowan at his right hand taking
dictation.  Mr. Greenfield turned as Frank entered saying: "Here it is!
I'm thirsty."  It was fifty minutes later when Miss Gowan raised the
alarm of Mr. Greenfield's seizure.  In the confusion that followed, the
luncheon was forgotten until about 3:30, when the waiter came for the
dishes.  Mr. Greenfield's body had then been taken home.  Frank
gathered up the dishes and handed them to the waiter.  BRICKLEY.


BRICKLEY, New York                                July 9th.

More particulars.  Vitally important.  Have Frank enumerate every
article upon tray and describe exact position and condition of every
article when he gathered them up.  STOREY.


STOREY, Crillon, Paris                            July 10th.

It was a small, round silver-plated tray covered with a napkin.  Upon
it (a) a plate bearing two chicken sandwiches white bread, white meat
only, divided in half by a diagonal cut.  (b) A pair of glass pepper
and salt shakers with silver-plated tops, (c) A pint bottle of ginger
ale, C. & C. brand.  This was lying on its side, (d) A bottle opener,
(e) A thick, plain glass like restaurants use.  (f) A folded napkin,
(g) A napkin spread over the whole.

Carter showed some hesitancy in answering my questions about the lunch,
but I finally elicited the fact that he had eaten and drunk what
remained and was reluctant to confess it.  When he went into the
private office to get the things for the waiter, the tray was still on
the table inside the door where he had set it down.  The bottle had
been opened, and cap and opener lay on the tray.  The bottle stood
there half empty.  The glass was beside it quite empty.  Frank smelled
of the glass to see if Mr. Greenfield had had a highball but couldn't
smell anything whatever.  The plate with the sandwiches had been
carried over to Mr. Greenfield's desk.  Also folded napkin and pepper
and salt shakers.  Only a single bite had been taken from one of the
sandwiches.  The napkin, partly unfolded, lay underneath Mr.
Greenfield's desk.

Here is a new fact I drew from Frank.  About fifteen minutes after he
had carried the lunch into the private office, Miss Gowan came out and
went to her desk, where she sat down but didn't do anything.  Carter
noticed that she was just fooling with a pencil.  This was not like
her.  He was going to chaff her about it, but checked himself.  She was
not one that you could fool with, he said.  After two or three minutes
she got up and went back into the private office, letting herself in
with her key.  I put this up to Besson, and he confirms it.  He just
forgot to mention it in his statement.  After Miss Gowan had gone, the
boy glanced at the paper lying on her desk.  Among aimless marks she
had written the telephone number Plaza 5771.  This is Dr. Strailock's
number.  BRICKLEY.


BRICKLEY, New York                               July 10th.

Fine!  Is there a wash basin in Mr. Greenfield's private office?
STOREY.


STOREY, Crillon, Paris                           July 10th.

No.  Wash basin in outer office.

BRICKLEY.


BRICKLEY, New York                               July 10th.

Was there a water cooler?  None marked on plan.

STOREY.


STOREY, Crillon, Paris                           July 10th.

Yes.  Cooler supplied by Red Deer Water Co.  Removed by them when
offices were vacated.  Hence not on plan.  It stood alongside table
(D), on your left as you entered from outer office.  BRICKLEY.


STOREY, Crillon, Paris                           July 11th.

Hasbrouck, James & Co., members N. Y. Stock Exchange, report on August
7th last year they purchased on Mr. Greenfield's account U. S. Liberty
3 s reg.; D. & H. cvt. 5s; L. & N. rfg. 5s; Iron Mountain gold 5s,
totalling $263,000.  [The numbers of the bonds followed.]  None of
these securities appeared among Mr. Greenfield's assets.

BRICKLEY.


This correspondence closed with a surprising piece of news from Mme
Storey.


BRICKLEY, New York                               July 11th.

Hlie and Margaret sailed S.S. _Paris_ Le Havre to-day.  Booked under
their own name without the title.  Suite 625.  Will arrive New York
18th.  Have them kept under surveillance.  I sail _Mauretania_
Saturday; arrive New York 19th.  Am booked as Mrs. Davidge in case you
have to wireless.  Meet me at pier.  Should Hlie call me up on
arrival, tell him I got back on the _Berengaria_.  I am supposed to
have preceded them home.  Warn Matilda at my apartment to tell the same
story.

STOREY.


VIII

On the day named, with Crider and another operative duly armed with
passes, I made my way to the pier of the French line.  With the
jabbering on every side it was like a bit of Paris transplanted, that
Paris which I only knew for three days, but which I shall be homesick
for as long as I live.  All we could see of the great ship were squares
of black hull and white upperworks through the openings in the pier
shed.  She brought a good crowd for the westward voyage at this season.
The majority of the passengers were foreigners coming to America for
_their_ vacations.

We stationed ourselves where we could get a good view of the
first-class gangway.  My job was to point out Margaret to Crider and
his partner, who were to keep her in view until Mme Storey's arrival on
the following day.  I had not much fear that she would recognize me in
my workaday clothes.  Moreover, I was in the crowd, whereas the
passengers had to pass one by one in review before us, as they gingerly
picked their steps down the plank.

Hundreds of passengers descended before them, and I was growing
anxious.  Finally I saw them on deck, standing back with aristocratic
reserve until the press should be over.  It was Hlie's red cheeks that
I spotted.  He was quite unchanged, but in America he looked very
French.  As for Margaret, had he not been with her, I should have had
to look hard before recognizing her.  For with M. Craqui's assistance
she had changed her role again.  Nothing of the bizarre or the
sensational in her appearance now.  She was the high-born Princess on
her travels.  Her hat, suit, summer furs expressed the very perfection
of well-bred distinction.  Her make-up was absent--or discreetly
appeared to be absent, and it surprised me to discover how good-looking
she was without it.

But she was not extraordinarily good-looking; she was something rarer.
For a thousand good-looking women there is I suppose one who can look
and bear herself like a princess, and Margaret was that one.  When she
came stepping daintily and stiffly down the gangplank you could see all
the lookers-on glance at each other as much as to say: "Here comes
somebody.  Who is she?"  I could only ask myself helplessly: _Where_
did she get it?  Where _did_ she get it? this daughter of the
odd-jobs-man of Weddinsboro, Ind.

She looked around her with an amused interest, as might a Frenchwoman
first setting foot on these shores.  Technically, of course, she was a
Frenchwoman now, and undoubtedly travelling under a French passport.
She kept herself very much to herself, and left Hlie to attend to the
luggage, of which they had a vast pile.  Each expensive piece was
marked with an R under a coronet.  All the good Americans on the dock
stared awestruck at the coronet.  Yet nothing is easier, surely, than
to have a coronet painted on one's trunks.  I wonder if the million in
securities was in one of the trunks.  Probably not.

Leaving them there under the eyes of Crider and his partner, I returned
to the office.

Later Crider reported that they held passage tickets to Shanghai, and
that the greater part of their baggage had been forwarded through to
Vancouver in bond.  This was somewhat disconcerting.  However, taking a
trunk apiece, they had had themselves driven to the Madagascar, where
they had engaged a suite for three days.  At the Madagascar they had
registered as Prince and Princesse de Rochechouart, and the reporters
had already got hold of Hlie.

The interview, when I read the report of it in the evening papers, was
merely the perfunctory thing which gives nothing away.  Margaret had
kept out of sight, and the reporters had not elicited the fact that she
was an American.

Next morning I made my way to a different pier with very different
feelings.  This time I had no need to hide.  I planted myself as close
to the foot of the gangplank as they would let me.  When my dear
mistress ran down she gave me a good squeeze.  She was dressed with
extreme plainness, and was partially disguised by a comical little veil
to the tip of her pretty nose.  It appeared that she had kept as close
as possible to her stateroom on the way over, and had made no friends
aboard.  True, she was recognized by reporters on the pier, but she
smilingly asked them not to announce her return "for reasons of
policy."  Mme Storey is a great favourite with newspaper men, because
she deals with them with absolute frankness, and they promised to
respect her request.

She had brought but one tiny trunk home with her.  As soon as we were
alone in the taxicab she said:

"Well, where are they?"

"At the Madagascar," I replied.  "Ostensibly for two more days."

"Hm!  That doesn't give us much time, does it?  I suppose you're keen
to know what happened in Paris after you left.  Well, nothing happened
except the grand fact of their marriage and the announcement of their
voyage to America.  That astonished me, I confess.  My one tte--tte
with canny Margaret convinced me that I would never get anything out of
her by direct methods.  At our first meeting at the Jockey I caught her
off her guard with a strong dose of flattery, but she evidently thought
it over, and at the Ritz she was armed for me.  So I appeared to let
her drop.  She thought I had a tenderness for Hlie and was jealous of
her, and I allowed her to think so.  The woman is a fool, my Bella,
that's the extraordinary thing about her.  One of the toughest problems
that has ever confronted me, and yet, in a sense, a fool!

"After that I only met her by accident.  I had them both kept in sight,
of course.  You can get such good men in Paris for almost nothing.  A
week before they sailed it was reported to me that they had engaged
passage for America.  This was playing right into my hand, if they
meant it, but I could not be sure they might not slip off to South
America instead.  To have come back on the same ship would certainly
have aroused the lady's suspicions, so I engaged passage on the
_Berengaria_ and bade good-bye to all my friends, and left Paris.  But
I let the _Berengaria_ go, of course, and spent a glorious week in
Rouen doing the Norman churches: Chartres, Coutances, Mont St. Michel;
I had an adventure--but I'll tell you that some other time.  When my
Frenchman reported that they had actually gone aboard the _Paris_ and
she had cast off, then I cabled you and ran up to Cherbourg to catch
the _Mauretania_.

"Bella, I'll bet a dollar you cannot guess where they are going next!"

"Shanghai," I said.

"Eventually, yes.  But before that."

I shook my head.

"To Weddinsboro, Indiana."

"No!"

"That is why she was obliged to tell Hlie so large a part of the truth
about herself.  That is why she has brought him to America.  Indeed, I
believe that is the principal reason why she married him, as she does
not seem to care for him particularly and sees through him perfectly.
How stupid I was not to have foreseen it from the first.  Crider's
report from Weddinsboro throws a great white light upon her motives.
The daughter of the village drunkard!  An object of contemptuous pity
to the village women.  No young friends of either sex.  One can imagine
how that wound has been festering all these years.  Now she is going
back as La Princesse de Rochechouart to put it all over them.

"Can't you see her registering at the village hotel, if there is one;
walking about the village streets for a day, clinging to the arm of her
prince?  She will donate ten thousand dollars for a war memorial, if
they haven't got one already, or a village hall; then on to Shanghai,
trailing clouds of glory!  Can you imagine a more complete and artistic
revenge?  There are moments when I can scarcely bring myself to
interfere with it!"

"Mme Storey!" I said indignantly.

"Moments, Bella, moments....  Seriously, in all my experience I have
never met with so cold-blooded and devilish a crime.  For at least
seven years she lived with the thought of it, wholly absorbed.  The
Greenfields indeed nourished a viper."

"She was bold to venture back to America," I said.

"Not particularly," said Mme Storey.  "From her point of view the
incident is closed.  She showed her boldness, superhuman boldness, when
she remained on the job week after week assisting the lawyers to delve
into Mr. Greenfield's affairs.  They gave her a clean bill of health,
and she feels she has nothing more to fear from the law....  You have
been keeping in touch with Mrs. Greenfield?"

"Yes," I said, "but I didn't tell her in advance that Margaret was
coming back.  The old lady is so frail I feared the excitement----"

"Quite right," said Mme Storey.  "Time enough to tell her when we've
clinched the matter....  What does Cardozo say?"

"He will make a final report to you this afternoon....  Have you a
case?" I added anxiously.

"For theft, yes, thanks to your work.  For murder----"

She shook her head.  "I know she did it.  I even know how she did it,
but I could not prove it to the satisfaction of a jury.  We have a day
of intensive work before us, my Bella.  I must take action before they
get out of New York."

"Why?" I asked.

"Because when Margaret gets to Weddinsboro, she is bound to hear at
once that somebody has been there making inquiries respecting her
past....  No, within the next twenty-four hours we must forge the vital
link in the chain."

"And if we cannot do so?"

"I'll make a bold play to break her nerve and force a confession."

"Break that woman's nerve!"

"That seems visionary to you?" Mme Storey said, smiling.  "But, after
all, she's only flesh and blood like ourselves, however she may pretend
to be superior."

Within an hour of our arrival at the office Mme Storey had the
voluminous exhibits of the case organized and the contents at her
finger tips.  Nelson, the man who had the Rochechouarts under
surveillance, reported by 'phone that the couple were on a sightseeing
and shopping tour.  At noon Crider came in to report in person.  Crider
said:

"Three days ago I found the doctor who attended Mrs. Gowan.  A number
of names had been furnished me by the drug store in the flat-building
on One Hundred and Thirty-fifth Street where the Gowans first lived in
New York.  Name Michelson; West One Hundred and Thirty-sixth Street.
His memory required considerable prodding before he recalled the
people.  They must have been cash patients, because their name did not
appear on his books.  It was the fact that Miss Gowan worked for Mr.
Daniel Greenfield that brought it back.  The millionaire's name had
made an impression.

"On his first visit the Gowans had just moved in, Dr. Michelson said;
their things were still strewn about.  Mrs. Gowan was a heart patient;
serious condition.  He remembered seeing her several times in that
flat: a chronic and progressive case; all he could do for her was to
prescribe the usual stimulants and restoratives.  He remembered calling
on them once, perhaps oftener, in a more expensive flat at an address
he had forgotten--that would be the Eighty-second Street place.  The
woman died there.  He was called in after her death and issued the
certificate."

"What could he tell you about his prescriptions?" asked Mme Storey.

"Nothing positive.  He supposed that he had issued several, but he
could not remember them after so many years.  Doctors do not keep any
record of their prescriptions.  The first thing would naturally be a
powerful heart stimulant, he said, and he wrote out for me what he
would prescribe in such a case, without being able to state, of course,
that it was exactly the same thing he ordered years ago."

Crider handed over a prescription.

"I then returned to the drug store which had given me his name," Crider
went on, "but I was unable to find that such a prescription, or indeed
that any prescription for Miss Gowan had ever been filled there.  Yet
people generally deal with the nearest drug store.  Every one of the
drug stores in the neighbourhood yielded the same result.  That is what
I have been doing the last three days."

Said Mme Storey: "You have not been able to find that such a
prescription was filled, but can we be certain that it was not?"

"Yes, Madame," said Crider.  "Prescriptions are never destroyed.  The
system of keeping them was the same in every place that I visited.
They are pasted in a book as received, and given a serial number.  A
prescription always has the name of the patient written upon it and is
signed by the doctor.  As I knew the approximate date of issue, it was
a simple matter to look them up."

Mme Storey puffed at a cigarette, and considered.  "The Gowans were
very poor at that time," she said, thinking aloud, "and had to count
every penny.  Margaret, knowing that she would be at a heavy expense
for medicine, could hardly fail to think of the cut-price drug stores
which were at that time just coming into prominence....  There are two
possibilities, the shopping centre on West One Hundred and Twenty-fifth
Street where she must have gone sometimes to do her marketing, and the
down town places.

"Bella," she went on to me, "you take One Hundred and Twenty-fifth
Street this afternoon.  You will find a big cut-price drug store near
the elevated station.  As for you, Crider, one of the oldest and
best-known of such places, Cadnam's, is on Broadway almost opposite the
building where Mr. Greenfield had his offices.  You go there.
Meanwhile I will go through the Greenfield correspondence."

In three hours we were both back in Mme Storey's office.  I had had no
luck, but Crider had found what he went after.

"Dr. Michelson's original prescription for a heart stimulant is on file
at Cadnam's," he said.  "They have a system there of endorsing the date
on a prescription every time it is refilled.  This prescription was
renewed no less than seven times during a course of years.  It was
filled for the last time in March, 1915, which would be shortly before
Mrs. Gowan died."

"But there was something else?" said Mme Storey, reading his face.

"Yes, Madame, another endorsement, reading: 'Copy given Oct. 2, 1922.'
This was just ten days before Mr. Greenfield's death."

"Go on," said Mme Storey.

"After a bit of a search the clerk was found who had made out the copy.
The request for it had come by mail, he said.  The address given was a
post-office box in Newark, N. J.  The letter was signed John Gowan.  I
should explain that, as customary, the prescription was merely headed
'Gowan' without any initial or prefix.  The writer stated that he had
had such a prescription made up at Cadnam's years ago, and being about
to leave the country he wanted a copy of it in case he should ever
require that medicine again.  He had written to the doctor for it, he
added, but had had no reply, so he supposed the doctor was dead or had
moved away."

"A characteristic Margaret touch," murmured Mme Storey.

"The original package having been lost," Crider went on, "he was unable
to give the number of the prescription, but he gave the date, the
doctor's name, and the character of the medicine.  And enclosed a
dollar to reimburse them for their trouble."

"But the letter itself?" said Mme Storey eagerly.

"It was destroyed, Madame," said Crider.  "In a big cash store there is
no provision for filing letters."

An exclamation of chagrin escaped my mistress.  She arose and paced the
room.  "Oh, the clever devil!" she murmured.  "The clever, clever
devil!  How can I bring it home to her?"

Crider and I maintained a gloomy silence.  We had nothing to offer.

Mme Storey returned to her desk and put a hand forth for the telephone.
She called up the Madagascar and asked for Princesse de Rochechouart.
Crider and I pricked up our ears.  After running the usual gamut of
operators and servants she got her, and this is what we heard:

"Ah, Princesse," in a bland voice, "I could not mistake your voice.
This is Madame Storey, Rosika Storey--Paris, you remember; our djeuner
at the Ritz....  Welcome to America, Princesse.  I have just read the
papers.  I got in on the _Berengaria_ a week ago.  You are well, I
hope? ... And Prince de Rochechouart? ...  Splendid!  I expect you are
besieged with out-of-town invitations, but I hope I may have the
pleasure ...  What!  Going to leave us so soon!  Oh, Princesse!  Can't
we persuade you to linger even a few days...  Your reservations are
made.  I'm so sorry!  But at least you'll give me the pleasure of
having you to lunch to-morrow.  You and Prince Rochechouart.  At my
apartment.  It's a tiny place, but it will be more intimate than a
restaurant.  Just ourselves and Miss Brickley, whom you met in Paris.
She returned with me.  I positively will not take a refusal...."

There was a pause here.  Mme Storey smiled wickedly at us.  "She's
asking Hlie," she remarked, holding her hand over the transmitter.

"Yes, Princesse? ... That will be perfectly delightful!  At one-thirty
to-morrow.  Have you a pencil? ...  My address is ---- East Sixty-third
Street.  Got that? ... I shall be looking forward to it.  Good-bye, and
thank you."

My heart beat thickly thinking of the scene next day.  Where would _I_
be between those two terrible women?  "How can I go through with it?" I
murmured.  "I am not made of steel, like you!"

"You have never failed me yet, Bella," said Mme Storey.

"_Must_ I be there?" I pleaded.

"I have to have a witness," explained Mme Storey.  "The husband could
not be forced to testify."


IX

Mme Storey shares a house on East Sixty-third Street with her friend
the famous Mrs. Lysaght.  Those two talented women put their heads
together and produced a dwelling that in New York, at least, was
unique.  It was an old-fashioned house remodelled.  Outside, the plain
brownstone shell differed in no respect, except the basement entrance,
from dozens of its neighbours; but inside it was so amusing and
convenient and charming, one wondered how people could go on building
in the old conventional way.

The kitchen was alongside the front entrance.  When you rang the bell a
wicket opened in the wall, and the smiling face of Grace or Matilda
looked you over.  If you were all right, she pressed a button in the
manner of a Paris _concierge_ and you walked in through an iron gate.
Consider how admirable an arrangement in Manhattan, where the front
doors are beset by beggars, canvassers, and nuisances of every sort.

You were not yet in the house, but in a passage paved with red tiles
which led right through under a charming archway into a tiny formal
garden at the rear.  The front door proper was at your left hand where
Grace (or Matilda) met you.  Within, a tiny electric elevator carried
you to the rooms above.  Mme Storey's bedroom was in front, and the
living room extended across the rear with a balcony overlooking the
garden.  The dining room was under the living room, with glass doors
opening on a level with the garden.  Mrs. Lysaght had the two floors
above Mme Storey, and the servants of both households shared the top
floor.

I was on hand at one o'clock next day, in accordance with my
instructions.  Mme Storey, armed with a letter of introduction to the
postmaster, had made a dash over to Newark in a final effort to
establish, if possible, who had hired a post-office box in which to
receive the communication from Cadnam's.  In case she were delayed, I
was to receive the guests with suitable apologies.  It was not a job I
looked forward to.  I spent a miserable half hour.  I was all dressed
up in one of my Paris dresses in order to look as much like a lady as
possible.

I waited in the living room, which had been hastily divested of its
summer covers and put in order for the occasion.  I wish I could convey
something of the especial character of that room.  It had nothing of
the stately splendour of Mme Storey's office.  At home she left off
splendour.  It was above all _inviting_ in the manner of the best
English rooms--the rarest thing to find in the houses of rich
Americans.  Mme Storey, who could have had anything she wanted, had in
her whimsical way chosen to suggest the period of 1850 in the
decoration.  But with a difference.  Taste may make even 1850
beautiful.  The carved walnut chairs and sofas were not covered with
horsehair but with bits of mellow antique tapestries.  There was a
thick-piled "Turkey" rug on the floor, and the fireplace was surrounded
by gleaming brass appurtenances.  There was but the one door, so that
you had the feeling you could not be taken by surprise.  But as I write
the features down the essence still escapes me.  You will have to take
my word for it that it was the most _satisfying_ room I ever entered.

Immediately on the stroke of one thirty I heard the distant bell ring,
and my heart went down.  Mme Storey would not have rung, but knocked
with her knuckles on the wicket in a particular way.  In a moment or
two Grace opened the door, and the little Princesse strutted in with
her red-cheeked Hlie at her heels.  To-day she was wearing a dress of
rich leaf green, one of Craqui's artfully simple effects.  I marked the
famous three wrinkles across her tummy.  On her head was a little hat
of leaf-brown with a graceful hedge of aigrette all round, that
wonderfully softened her rather hard little face.  In step and glance
she was still the Princesse.  Hlie was his usual highly finished self.
He made no secret of his curiosity to behold the place where the
beautiful Mme Storey was at home.

I proceeded with my apologies.  "Mme Storey regretted so much that she
was called away.  She hoped to be back before you came.  But she asked
me to say that she would not in any case be more than a few minutes
late."

The Princesse merely said, "Oh!" and turned away rather rudely.  She
had already made up her mind I was a person she could afford to
disregard.  Not that I cared.  Since Paris she had subtly changed in
manner.  Having achieved her prince I suppose she felt she could afford
to give over the awful inscrutability which must have been a strain on
her and let the natural woman show.  It was not an agreeable
disclosure.  Poor Hlie! I thought.

He tried to fill up the hiatus.  "We hope we have not discommoded her
in coming to-day," he said.

Poor Hlie!  It was only too clear that he was being put through a
course of sprouts.  His smile was strained, and the redness of his
cheeks suggested an underneath haggardness.

"Not at all," said I.  "Mme Storey expressed the greatest pleasure at
the prospect."

"What a comfortable room!" said the Princesse with a half sneer.
"So--so homelike!  One would hardly have supposed after seeing Mme
Storey in Paris..."  She finished with a shrug.

"Oh, she was on parade then," I said.

The Princesse stared at me.  I suddenly perceived that she was a stupid
woman, just as Mme Storey had said.  A clever stupid woman, if you get
me; fiendishly clear in the pursuit of her own ends, and utterly obtuse
in regard to everything else.  Well, that is the sort that gets on, I
suppose.

"Mme Storey is fortunate in being able to follow her impulses," said
the Princesse.  "Has she no husband?"

"She has no husband," said I.

"She is a widow, then?"

The cheek of the woman! the little no-account typist from Weddinsboro!
I was boiling inside, but I managed to keep a smooth face, I hope.  "I
don't know," I said bluntly.

Again the stare.

"Perhaps Prince Rochechouart can tell us," I said wickedly.  "He has
known her longer than I have."

Hlie, thus appealed to, seemed to turn on the tap of his
sprightliness.  "Ah, Madame Storey is not the sort of person one asks
questions of!" he cried.  "So beautiful, so exquisite, so clever, one
thankfully receives what she chooses to give!  All Paris took her to
its heart!"

His wife cast a thoughtful glance on him, which scarcely concealed the
deepest malevolence.  "We're in New York now," she said drily.  "....
She's an American, isn't she?" she went on.  "Why does she call herself
'Madame' Storey?"

"You'll have to ask her," I said blandly.

"Whom does she know in New York?" was her next insolent question.
Hlie bit his lip.  After all, he was bred a gentleman.

"That depends," I said.  "If you mean who are her acquaintances, well,
everybody who is in the know.  But her friends she picks rather
carefully.  They may be stenographers, charwomen, or the wives of
millionaires."

"Really!" said the Princesse, staring.  "There is a New York woman of
whom I have heard, a Mrs. Dent Lysaght.  Does Mme Storey know _her_?"

"Her most intimate friend," I said carelessly.  "She lives upstairs."

"Really!" said the Princesse, looking around.  "In a place like this?"

"Not so nice as this," I said.

I was so angry at the woman I no longer dreaded the scene that lay
ahead.  Indeed, at that moment I gloated over the prospect.  "Aha, my
lady, you're riding for a horrid fall!" I said to myself.  I could not
have kept up the pretence of politeness much longer.  I was relieved to
hear the elevator come up and the door into the front room close.  Mme
Storey had gone in to dress.

Mme Storey always dresses instinctively to suit the part she expects to
play.  She came in wearing a straight, clinging black dress without any
touch of colour whatever.  Her face was paler than its wont, and behind
the conventional friendliness a relentlessness showed in her eyes.  The
whole effect of her was magnificent, and I saw a touch of awe appear in
Hlie's regard.  But the little Princesse was too besotted by her
recent successes to be aware of anything ominous in the air.

Mme Storey repeated the apologies.  "It was a professional matter that
called me away," she said.  "Something I could not ignore."

I was struck by her use of this word.  Mme Storey does nothing
carelessly.  Evidently the dnouement was not long to be delayed.  My
heart began to beat.  The Princesse marked that word too, and her eyes
darted a little glance of inquiry, but she said nothing.

Hard on Mme Storey's heels came Grace to announce luncheon.  In the
general movement I had one second apart with my mistress and eagerly
looked my question.  She shook her head.

"Nothing," she murmured.

From that I knew that her design to make the Princesse convict herself
held good.  I shivered out of pure nervousness.

The Princesse walked with Mme Storey, and Hlie took me.  We used the
stairs, since all four of us could not crowd into the elevator at once
without suffering a loss of dignity.

"I say, she's a crackerjack!" Hlie whispered to me in good American.

I heartily agreed.  I had a sneaking regard for Hlie, scoundrel though
he was.  I found it in my heart to be sorry for what was saving for
_him_.

The little dining room was perfect in its unostentatiousness: simple,
straight mahogany, a bowl of roses on the table; sunlight streaming
under the awnings; golden arbor vitas and oleanders outside.  The
little Princesse's lip curled in an envy that she tried to make appear
disdainful; there was something about it all that was beyond her; that
rendered her royal airs a little ridiculous.

When we seated ourselves at the little round table, Mme Storey had her
back to the windows with the Princesse facing her; Hlie was at her
right hand and I at her left.  The service was under the direction of
the invaluable Grace, who can do everything.  She had been to Paris
with us.  I shall have more to say of her on another occasion.  She is
as pretty as she is accomplished.  Assisting her was one of Mrs.
Lysaght's maids, borrowed from upstairs.  The food would not have
suffered by comparison with Meurice's, and every bit of it had been
prepared by Matilda in her tiny kitchen.

The word used by Mme Storey upstairs stuck in the Princesse's mind like
a burr.  After we had been seated for some moments, and the
conversation had ranged all over, she said: "You said you had been
called away by professional matters.  Surely you do not mean your own
matters.  Is it possible that you ...?"

"Yes, I'm a professional woman," said Mme Storey.

"How interesting!" said the Princesse with curling lip.  "Hlie, why
did you not tell me that Mme Storey..."

"I didn't know it," said Hlie.

"Is it something you are obliged to conceal, Mme Storey?" asked the
Princesse with her little desiccated laugh.

"No," said Mme Storey.  "In Paris I am what I appear to be, an
extravagant idler.  But in New York I have to work like the devil to
collect the wherewithal."

"What is your profession, if one may ask?"

"I call myself practical psychologist--specializing in the feminine."

"Ah!  I am afraid I do not quite understand.  What do other people call
you?"

"All sorts of names," said Mme Storey, laughing.  "I have even been
called detective, though I scarcely deserve that."

This word had the effect of the first big gun of an engagement.  One
might suppose that it would strike terror to the little woman's breast.
I had scarcely the heart to look at her.  But I need not have concerned
myself.  The spoon that was on its way to her mouth completed the
journey without spilling a drop.  She broke a piece of bread with
steady fingers.

"Fancy!" she said with her insulting intonation.

Oh, a marvellous woman!

Hlie had opened his blue eyes to the widest possible.  "A detectif!"
he murmured.  "It is impossible!"

"Oh, I lay no claim to that," said Mme Storey.  "But psychological
problems of all kinds interest me.  It is a curious thing that you may
have noticed: as the study of psychology is extended we seem to know
less and less about each other.  And a professor of psychology is the
blindest of all.  I suppose that is because his maxims are of no avail
in particular instances.  Intuition is everything, or nearly
everything."

"_Mon Dieu_!  I'm glad I didn't know it in Paris!" said Hlie.  "The
way I have chattered to you!"

"The people who talk the most are not necessarily the easiest to read,"
said Mme Storey, smiling.

"You console me," said Hlie.  "Do you solve crimes?" he asked,
slightly awestruck.

"Sometimes."

"Fancy!" said the Princesse, staring.

"But I think it is a fine thing!" said Hlie with spirit.  "There's no
such thing as _infra dig_ any more.  That's one encumbrance we got rid
of in the war, thank God!  One is lucky to have an exciting job these
dull days.  One doesn't need to apologize for it."

Mme Storey smiled broadly.  She was not thinking of apologizing.

The Princesse was filled with a cold fury against Hlie.  One was
forced to the conclusion that she was not pretending; she was really
not frightened at all.  She had got so completely within the skin of
her part that it did not occur to her a detective could threaten La
Princesse de Rochechouart.

"Tell us about a crime," begged Hlie.  "I adore crime!"

Mme Storey expressed a decent reluctance.  "I don't want to monopolize
the conversation."

"_Please!_" said Hlie.  "We have no interesting conversation."

The Princesse looked down her nose.

"Well, I have a strange case on hand," said Mme Storey.  "The
strangest, in fact, that ever I had."

"Good!" cried Hlie.

"But it will take a long time to tell.  If I bore you, you must
interrupt me."

"But if you are a psychologist surely you will know without our
speaking of it," said the Princesse with a polite and sleety smile.

"I specialize in feminine psychology," said Mme Storey, "because women
are so much more interesting to study than men."

"Oh, I say!" objected Hlie.  "_I_ might say that."

"Not intrinsically more interesting," she explained, "but greater
realists.  Men are conventionalized; much more likely to act by the
book.  This case concerns a woman."

"Better and better!" cried Hlie.

"Instead of propounding the problem to you and then proceeding to solve
it, I think it will be more dramatic if I relate the whole story from
the beginning as I have pieced it together....  But I am holding up
everything!  Let me finish my soup."

There was some general conversation while the plates were changed.  I
did not take part in it.  I was wretchedly nervous.  I do not enjoy
suspense.  "If they would only hurry and get over with it!" I thought.

When the next course was before us, Mme Storey resumed: "Let us call
her Clara for purposes of identification.  We find her first as a child
in a country village, a backward sort of little place.  Her parents
lived in the most abject poverty; the father was a drunkard, the mother
a hopeless invalid.  Poverty, of course, is doubly hard to bear in a
village where everybody knows you.  The child was an object of pity to
the crude, kindly village women, but they complained they could do
nothing for her, she was so 'techy.'  One can imagine the fierce pride
that consumed the little breast.  Remember that it is rather a great
soul that I am describing to you, which received a fatal twist thus
early.  She was a sickly little thing and not well-favoured.  She would
have nothing to do with the other children nor they with her.  She
revenged herself on them by being easily first in school."

The Princesse _must_ know now, I thought, and I stole a glance at her
through my lashes.  Her face showed no change; she was eating calmly.
Just the same, she knew!  Her indifference to the story was too
perfect.  She said in her clear, precise accents:

"May one ask the name of this delicious mixture we are eating?"

"Coquille St. Jacques," answered Mme Storey pleasantly.  "I got the
recipe from Margury.  Matilda does it rather well, doesn't she?
Though one misses the pink scallops' roe one finds in it in Paris.  One
must suppose that our scallops are celibate."

"She was easily first in school..." Hlie prompted impatiently.

"As soon as she was old enough," Mme Storey resumed, "Clara left home
and came to New York to find work.  How she ever got the money together
to buy her ticket, not to speak of sufficient clothes, I cannot tell
you.  It is a character of invincible determination I am showing you.
None of the smaller cities nearer home were good enough for her; it had
to be New York.  Nor can I tell you what experiences she had upon
reaching there: difficult enough, no doubt.  She next turns up as the
personal stenographer to a very rich man.  That would be the sort of
thing she would set her heart on.  As soon as she felt she had obtained
a toehold in New York, she went back to her village to rescue her
mother from that appalling poverty.  So she was not all bad, you see."

"How about the father?" asked Hlie.

"Oh, I expect mother and daughter were both pretty well fed up with
him," said Mme Storey drily.

Mme Storey did not appear to be watching the Princesse while she told
her tale.  As for me, I could not bear to watch her.  I could only
steal a glance now and then.  She had drawn the mask of inscrutability
over her face; the slight, insolent smile had become fixed there.  Mme
Storey's light words about her father caused her more nearly to betray
herself than anything else.  A flicker of emotion rippled the mask then.

"This is very interesting!" cried Hlie, with a school-boy eagerness.
"Isn't it, Marguerite?"

"Fascinating!" she drawled.

"Life in a cheap flat taking care of an invalid on meagre wages could
have been scarcely less cramped than the village," Mme Storey went on.
"It must have been her dreams that kept her going.  She had set her
heart on becoming a queen of fashion."

"But you told us she was sickly, ill-favoured," objected Hlie.

"Quite so.  That's what makes it so remarkable a case."

"In whom did she confide her dream?"

"Confide!  The woman I am picturing never confided in any soul alive.
She played a lone hand!"

"Then, pardon me, how do you know of what she was dreaming?"

"Well, for one thing I secured her library card, which gave me a list
of the books she had read.  Court memoirs; novels of the highest
society.  Her taste in reading was good.  Henry James was her favourite
novelist."

"Marvellous!" cried Hlie.

"No, obvious," said Mme Storey.

"But she did not realize her dream, of course."

"Ah, you are anticipating!"

"Forgive me.  Please go on."

"Her first care was to make herself absolutely indispensable to her
employer," said Mme Storey.  "Just at what point she began to plot, I
can't tell you.  She showed a more than human patience.  It must early
have occurred to her that it was only through her employer she could
hope to obtain the great sum of money she had set her heart on.  No
doubt she figured he was so rich he could spare what she needed without
missing it.  But seven years passed before she took the first steps.
Within that time she had taught herself to imitate her employer's
signature...."

"Oh, simple forgery," said Hlie, a little disappointed.

"Forgery, but not at all simple," said Mme Storey, smiling.  "In the
first place, the forgery was good enough to puzzle the greatest expert
in the country.  I doubt if we could convict her on the forged
signatures alone.  Fortunately, there is plenty of collateral evidence.
Little by little she evolved the details of the most ingenious swindle
I have ever come upon.  Masterly in its completeness!"

"Do give us the details!" begged Hlie.

"All these years, remember, she was studying her employer.  He was a
man of rich personality; very downright in his likes and dislikes; full
of quirks and oddities of character--all of which she traded upon.  He
was not a philanthropist in the ordinary sense: he left that to his
wife; but he had a notion that he owed it to the community which had
made him rich, to use his riches as far as he could in developing and
marketing new ideas.  To a new proposition he always lent a willing ear.

"He had to protect himself, of course.  He could not see every Tom,
Dick, and Harry who called upon him.  He required that all propositions
should be submitted by letter, and the preliminary investigations were
always conducted by correspondence.  Then, if he was sufficiently
interested, he would see the promoter and let him talk.  He was very
shrewd.  He was not often deceived.  He made money out of most of his
advances.

"Clara, in the course of time, came to have full charge of his
correspondence.  She opened his letters and brought to him such of them
as she deemed worthy of his attention.  Important letters she answered
at his dictation, and unimportant letters she answered on her own
account.  She subsequently sent all his letters and copies of his
answers to the office boy to be filed.  Now do you begin to see her
scheme?"

Hlie shook his head.

"From among the propositions that were made him by mail, Clara chose a
few of the choicest and investigated them on her own account, always by
mail, of course, and always in his name.  All this correspondence was
sent with the rest to be filed in his file."

"Why did she do that?" asked Hlie.

"You will see presently....  The employer, whom we may call Mr. X,
never kept any great sum in cash lying idle.  When he was ready to
invest in a new enterprise, it was his custom to give his note for the
required amount in exchange for stock.  When Clara was ready to invest
she did the same--only it was a forged note that she issued for her
stock.  Mr. X's paper was good in any bank in the country, and it was
always some known man, you see, who discounted these notes at his own
bank.  When the forged notes fell due, Clara simply renewed them with
fresh forgeries.  One of them ran for as long as five years.

"Such was her scheme.  Every possible contingency had been provided
for.  It was practically watertight.  I may say that it was only
through an accident that suspicion was finally aroused.

"It was Mr. X's custom to hold the stocks purchased in this way until
such time as the new concern was on a paying basis.  Then he'd sell out
in order to have funds for the next promising new thing.  Clara did the
same, of course, only when _she_ sold out she'd salt down the proceeds.
There was one transaction in which she invested $125,000 by means of a
forged note, and in three years she sold out for $250,000 in hard cash.
That was her largest single operation."

"But why didn't she pay the note then and pocket the profit?" asked
Hlie.

"Ah, why didn't she?" said Mme Storey.  "If she had, I wouldn't be
telling you the story.  That would have been too slow for her.
Sometimes there were no profits.  She was not as shrewd as Mr. X.  No,
she never had any notion of putting anything back.  The goal of her
hopes rested in Mr. X's death.  Did I mention that he was old?  Once he
was dead there was no way in which his executors could tell the forged
notes from his other liabilities.  When they proceeded to trace them
back, there would be the correspondence intact in the files.  Now you
see why it was there.  Mr. X's bookkeeping was of the most casual sort.
In fact, he kept no books further than a loose-leaf notebook in which
was entered a general balance sheet of his affairs."

"Then how _did_ they find out?" asked Hlie.  "Among the mass of
correspondence, how could you pick out the letters _she_ wrote?"

"She could imitate her employer's signature to perfection," said Mme
Storey, "but she could not imitate his racy epistolary style, for that
was the natural expression of his temperament.  Her letters are
somewhat dry in tone.  Such was _her_ temperament.  It was easy to pick
them out once you possessed that key."

"You are wonderful," said Hlie.  Apparently he thought the story was
finished.

"Wait!" said Mme Storey.  "This is only Part One....  For years
everything ran along smoothly according to Clara's plans, and at last
she secured the sum she had set her heart upon.  Then she began to get
impatient.  She had waited so many years.  Youth was slipping away.  An
old woman could hardly hope to usurp the fashionable throne.  To tell
the truth, Mr. X was too slow in dying.  True, his doctor had warned
him his blood pressure was too high and that he must be careful.
Unfortunately for Clara, he _was_ careful; he avoided excesses and
excitements of all kinds.  There seemed to be no good reason why he
should not live ten years longer.  It was inevitable that Clara should
begin to cast around in her mind--such a clever mind!--for the means
to----"

"What, murder now?" cried Hlie, pleasantly aghast.

My eyes were dragged back to the Princesse.  She, with unchanged mask,
was delicately picking at _riz de veau_ with her fork, and conveying
morsels to her mouth with good appetite.  She put down her fork,
settled a bracelet on her left arm, and screwing up her eyes a little,
looked out of the window.  With something a little less than courtesy
(for Mme Storey was still speaking), she said to me with her affected
precision:

"How ugly the houses opposite!  In America it's all front, isn't it?"

What sang-froid!  What incredible effrontery!  I could only stare,
incapable of making any answer whatever.  She didn't require any
answer.  She returned to the _riz de veau_, showing her excellent white
teeth.  Hlie never noticed because he was hanging on Mme Storey's
words.

"That's what one comes to," said Mme Storey, going on with her tale.
"She didn't have it in her mind when she started."

"How do you know?" asked Hlie.

"Because she took no steps in that direction until the time I speak
of....  I expect she didn't call it murder," she added very drily, "but
only hastening nature a little."

"How did she do it?" asked Hlie.

"That baffled me for a while," said Mme Storey.  "It was the invaluable
library card that supplied a hint.  Among the court memoirs and novels
of high society, she had on one occasion drawn Henderson, _On
Arterio-Sclerosis_, a standard medical work.  The date, which was just
after she had made her biggest haul that I told you of, was highly
significant.  I got a copy of it, and projecting myself into Clara's
state of mind as I imagined it, I sat down to read it.  I came to one
sentence which must have been like a bell ringing in Clara's mind.  The
book said: 'Of course, to a person in this condition anything in the
nature of a heart stimulant would be excessively dangerous.'  'A heart
stimulant!'  I could imagine Clara saying to herself; 'a _powerful_
heart stimulant!'  That was what I had to administer to my mother all
those weary years!  What meant life to that old body would be death to
this one!'"

"What a fiend!" murmured Hlie.

"Hm!" said Mme Storey, keeping her eyes down.  "... I needn't detail
the ingenious method by which she obtained a copy of the old
prescription.  By a lucky chance I was able to secure the letter she
wrote for it under an assumed name.  She got it, of course, and had it
made up.  She carried the phial around in her handbag awaiting an
opportunity to administer the contents.

"That came one rainy day when Mr. X, instead of going out to lunch, had
his boy telephone to a restaurant for light refreshments to be sent in.
A bottle of ginger ale and two chicken sandwiches, white meat only.
Such was his modest order.  The office boy carried it into his
employer's private office and placed it on the table just within the
door.  I should explain to you that Mr. X had a latch on the door of
his private office so that even his employees were obliged to knock
before entering.

"As the boy left the room he heard Mr. X say: 'I'm thirsty.'  Clara
must have immediately risen to fetch him his refreshments.  Mr. X was a
man of sedentary habit, and they were all accustomed to wait on him
hand and foot.  Clara did not bring the tray to his desk as it stood,
but opened the bottle and poured out a glass of the ginger ale.  While
she was doing this their backs were turned to each other.  How simple
it was to empty the contents of her phial into the glass!  She carried
him the glass and the plate of sandwiches.  One wonders if her hand
shook.  He was evidently thirstier than he was hungry, for he did not
begin to eat right away.

"About fifteen minutes later--Clara all that time sitting at the flap
of his desk taking dictation so demurely!--he began to feel very ill,
and put down the sandwich, out of which he had taken but a single bite.
He sent Clara to telephone to his doctor.  The telephone was in the
outer office.  She did not telephone, of course.  She merely waited
outside long enough to let him suppose that she had.

"Shortly after that the stroke fell.  The kindly old man had cracked
his last joke.  He slid down out of his chair to the floor without
making any sound that could be heard outside.  His face became
tormented and blackened.  Clara, the little mouse who had served him so
well for twelve years, she made no sound either.  I cannot tell you
what went through her strange mind during those moments, but I can tell
you what she did.  She took the notebook out of his breast pocket,
removed the leaves that contained his balance sheet, and inserted fresh
leaves that she had already prepared.  Since Mr. X had warning of the
stroke, it is probable that death was not instantaneous.  Unable to
stir hand or foot, perhaps he was watching her...."

"_Mon Dieu_! what a scene!" murmured Hlie, genuinely moved.

"At the water cooler she washed out the glass from which he had drunk,"
Mme Storey went on.  "What other things she did I cannot tell you.  But
forty-five minutes elapsed after the time he drank the ginger ale
before she raised the alarm.  Perhaps she was just sitting around
waiting for him to die...."

"What a monster!" breathed Hlie.

"Well--that is my case," said Mme Storey.

I do not know if she looked at the Princesse when she said it, because
I could not bear to look at either of them.  No sound came from the
Princesse.

"You have her safe under lock and key?" said Hlie.

"Not yet," said Mme Storey softly.

"Why do you delay?  You have proved your case!"

"It is only within the hour that I have completed it."

"When did the murder take place?"

"Eight months ago."

"Eight months ago?  _Mon Dieu_!  Can you find her now?  Where has she
been all this time?"

"She went to Paris," said Mme Storey.  "That was her ambition: to
become a queen of Paris.  And she actually realized it; at least, she
became the most talked-of woman in Paris for a brief period."

I doubt if Hlie heard any but the first words.  "Paris!" he stammered.
"... _Paris_!"  He suddenly jumped up, knocking his chair over
backward.  He stared at his wife with his blue eyes protruding from his
head.  His lips moved, but no further sounds came out.

I turned away my head.  After all, he was a mere boy.  He was a
scoundrel, but surely he did not deserve quite this.  It was he who was
being punished and not the real criminal.

"Sit down, Hlie," the Princesse drawled.  "You're making an exhibition
of yourself."

He found his voice.  "Is it you?  Is it you?" he demanded hoarsely.
"Is _that_ where the money came from?"

"Certainly it was I," she answered coolly.  "Why else should Mme Storey
stage this little comedy?"

We all stared at her in a stupefied fashion.

She turned the sapphire bracelet on her pretty forearm.  "It was I,"
she repeated in the unconcerned voice.  Merciful heaven!  One fancied
one heard a ring of _pride_ in it.  "I will add an item that seems to
be omitted from Mme Storey's array of testimony.  It was in Hafker's
drug store, Newark, that I filled the prescription."

"Oh, you monster!  You monster!" cried Hlie, waving his hands before
his face.  In my heart I echoed his cry.

"Monster, what is that?" she said with curling lip.  For the moment she
dropped the affected speech.  "You are merely theatrical.  In your
heart for the first time you respect me--you all respect me," she
added, glancing around the table.  "Well--I'm satisfied."

Nobody spoke.

The Princesse pushed away her plate and, drawing a silver box of
cigarettes toward her, helped herself and lighted up.  She resumed her
precise drawl.

"Really, it was enormously kind of you to feed us so well first," she
said, blowing a cloud of smoke.  "Send for the police."

"They're already waiting," said Mme Storey.




THE STEERERS


I

After the arrest of the Princesse de Rochechouart, Mme Storey prepared
to resume her interrupted vacation.  She raised me to the seventh
heaven of delight by suggesting that I accompany her back to Paris "as
a reward for good work."  I had had but a three days' tantalizing taste
of that delicious city before I had been obliged to hasten back to
America in connection with the Rochechouart case.  At a week's notice
we engaged accommodations on the _Gigantic_, the queen of all liners.
The grand rush eastward across the Atlantic was now about over for the
season, and we were able to obtain whatever we wanted.  Two rooms en
suite on D deck with a bathroom, at a price which took my prudent
breath away.  What a joy it was to study the plan of that amazing ship.
I could almost say that I was familiar with every turn of her
innumerable corridors before I ever went aboard.

I drove direct to the pier from my boarding house, and, as it happened,
I arrived first.  Once more I shared in the intoxicating confusion of
sailing day.  Before you mount the gangway a clerk looks at your ticket
and checks you up on the passenger list.  This person said to me:

"Miss Brickley?  You are travelling with Madame Storey, are you not?
Your rooms have been changed at the request of Captain Sir Angus
McMaster.  You have been assigned to C47, the Imperial suite."

The Imperial suite!  I looked at him with my mouth hanging open.  Why,
the cost of this suite is $6,000.  A mere thousand a day for the
voyage!  I was speechless--but no comment was required from me.  At the
magic words "Imperial suite" all the stewards standing about began to
bow, and I was wafted on board before I well knew what was happening to
me.

I knew the plan, but the ship itself was a revelation to me.  It was
not like a ship at all, but a palace with soaring pillars supporting
the domed ceilings, and noble, sweeping stairways.  As for our
quarters; well, I could only look around me with a sigh of
half-incredulous pleasure.  To come from a boarding-house bedroom to
this!  It was like a fairy tale.  One entered first a delicious sitting
room, set about with easy chairs and sofas; this led through two pairs
of French windows to what they called the veranda, an outdoors room
with a whole row of big windows opening to the sea.  The sun streamed
in, gilding the quantities of flowers blooming in window boxes.  The
furniture here was of wicker; it was like a garden.

The bedrooms opened from the veranda, right and left--Mme Storey's and
mine.  Each of these had its row of big windows opening over the sea.
They were just such luxurious nests as a woman might dream of, the
walls cunningly inlaid with rare woods, and the ingenious and beautiful
appointments a continual surprise.  Back of the bedrooms were
bathrooms, wardrobe rooms, maids' rooms galore.

In a few minutes my beautiful young mistress arrived attended by a
retinue of stewards.  When they had gone, she broke into a laugh at the
sight of my awestruck face.

"We appear to be in luck, my Bella," she said.

"Do you know the captain?" I asked.

"I have crossed on his ship before," she said; "but captains are a race
apart.  I did not suppose he would remember _me_!"

"He evidently has," I remarked.

There was a tap at the door, and I admitted an imposing matre d'htel,
who bowed low, and conveying the compliments of the Ritz-Carlton
restaurant, begged that Mme Storey and Miss Brickley would consider
themselves the guests of the management during the voyage.  He was
followed by a boy bearing an armful of Radiance roses with more
compliments.  It appeared that this marvellous ship even had hothouses
somewhere up above.  The third tap on our door (we were out in the
stream by this time) was given by an immaculate apprentice, who said in
his charming English voice:

"The commander's compliments, and would it be agreeable to Madame
Storey to receive him before lunch?"

"It would be highly agreeable," said my mistress.

To me she murmured with a lift of her eyebrows: "Verily, the mountain
is coming to Mahomet!"

Captain Sir Angus McMaster, R.N.R., C.V.O., and goodness knows what
else besides.  Ah! there was a man for you!  Every inch the commander
of men, and a gallant and simple-hearted gentleman to boot.  There was
that in his stern gray face with its rather melancholy eyes which
induced instant and complete confidence; something, too, to make you
shiver, if your conscience was bad.  In his blue and gold, with a
string of orders across his breast, he was magnificent without being in
the least foppish or at all conscious of his grandeur.  The simplicity
of the man was his most conspicuous quality.

His eyes paid instant tribute to my mistress's beauty.  "How glad I was
to discover that you were making this voyage with me," he said.

"You remembered me among so many thousands of passengers!" said Mme
Storey.

"That was not difficult," he said with a quiet smile.

"My secretary, Miss Brickley," said Mme Storey, bringing me forward.

The bow he gave to plain me was just the same as if I had been the
grandest of ladies.

We all went out into that charming veranda with the sun on the flowers
and the breeze from the sea and seated ourselves.  Sir Angus accepted
one of Mme Storey's cigarettes.

"I am not going to attempt to thank you for all this," said my
mistress, waving her hand about.  "You must know how we are enjoying
it."

"It was all I could do," he said, "and little enough....  It would ill
become a sailor to beat around the bush," he went on.  "I come to you
for help, my dear lady.  I am in a quandary, and, of course, being the
commander, I dare not confess it to anybody on board.  I don't suppose
it has ever occurred to you, but a captain leads rather a solitary
life.  It is not often that I may relax like this."

"You interest me extraordinarily," said Mme Storey.  "I should be so
proud if I could help.  Please go on."

"It's quite a long story," said Sir Angus, "but rather a curious one.
I hope it will not bore you."

"I know it will not."

"It began early last season," he went on.  "On a westward voyage.  My
attention was attracted by a certain good-looking young couple among
the passengers--a Mr. and Mrs. Lionel Dartrey.  I can't say what it was
about them that aroused my suspicions, for their actions on board were
irreproachable; I suppose I had what you Americans so expressively term
a hunch.  I was convinced from the first that there was something queer
about them.

"As you no doubt know, we have detectives mixing with the
passengers--unpleasant to think about, but unfortunately necessary on
so large a ship--and I desired that these people report to me
concerning the Dartreys.  The reports were nil.  The man did not
gamble; the lady, while much sought after by other gentlemen, was
entirely discreet in her behaviour.  Mrs. Dartrey was not by any means
the conventional 'charmer,' for I could see for myself that she was
very popular among the women passengers.  The two of them occupied an
expensive room and had every appearance of being well-born people of
ample means.

"Still I was not satisfied.  That hunch continued to tease me.  So I
proceeded to make friends with them myself as the opportunities
offered.  The man I found to be merely a handsome, aristocratic
nonentity; it was impossible to talk to him; he merely made well-bred
noises.  But the lady was both sprightly and amusing.  One of those
impulsive women who are apparently all on the surface, and yet--and
yet...  To tell you the truth, neither of them gave me the slightest
cause for suspicion, yet my suspicions grew.

"I had them followed when they left the ship.  It was reported to me,
to my surprise, that they simply went down West Street and boarded the
_Allemania_ of the Brevard Line, which was sailing that day.  We were a
day late.  This gave me food for thought.  This was in April.  Six
weeks later they again turned up on my ship, bound for New York.  I
overheard Mrs. Dartrey make a laughing remark to the effect that she
only really lived on board ship, and her husband was obliged to humour
her often.  Again they took the _Allemania_ back to Southampton on the
following day.

"My curiosity was now thoroughly aroused.  As opportunity offered, I
communicated with the other captains of our line by wireless at sea.
Melksham of the _Britannic_ and Coxter of the _Oceanic_; also with the
captains of the Brevarders _Baratoria_ and _Ruritania_; and I had no
difficulty in establishing that the Dartreys had spent the entire
season in flitting back and forth between New York and Southampton on
the six big express ships of the two lines.  Our schedules are so
arranged that they were able practically to jump from one ship to
another at each end.  We leave New York on Wednesdays, you see, and
land our passengers in Southampton on Tuesdays, or, at the latest,
Wednesday morning.  Whereas the Brevarders leave Southampton Wednesday
at noon and arrive in New York on Tuesdays.  In six weeks, having made
the rounds of all six ships, they were back on mine again, you see.

"I reported all this to my head office, and thereafter the Dartreys
were followed by expert detectives.  But nothing came of it.  About the
first of August they gave up their ferrying of the Atlantic and retired
to a charming little flat in Sloane Street, London, where they
entertained some of the smartest people of the fashionable world and
otherwise proceeded to enjoy themselves.  Dartrey, it appeared, was the
younger son of an impeccable British family; his wife an American.  It
was shown that they enjoyed a highly respectable banking connection;
their income, which amounted to no less than 10,000 a year, came to
them in the form of dividend checks from great American companies.  It
was all in the lady's name.

"As a result of this investigation, my company intimated to me that I
had discovered a mare's nest, and indeed I began to think myself that I
had.  Eccentric people, no doubt, but there are plenty of those;
nothing in the world to suggest that they were crooks.  But early this
season they turned up again on my ship--only travelling eastward this
season, and presumably westward on the Brevard Line.  I am convinced
that they are swindlers of the most dangerous sort, and I feel that I
owe it to my passengers to protect them from such.  My company is not
backing me in this; I am dependent on my own efforts.  It seemed
providential when I learned that you were making this voyage."

"The Dartreys are on board, then?" asked Mme Storey.

"They are," he said with a dry smile.  "In the pink of condition."

Mme Storey looked at me with a somewhat rueful twinkle.

"Why do you smile?" asked Sir Angus.

"This is the second time this summer that I have started off for a
vacation..."

"Ah, I should have thought of that."

"No, I meant it as a joke merely.  I am not really worked to death, you
know.  And you are a person who does not often ask favours.  One
regards it as a privilege therefore..."

"You are too kind," he murmured.

"Besides, it appeals to me," said Mme Storey.  "As a diversion on
shipboard.  A sort of deck game....  But, I say, don't you think you
have started off rather indiscreetly by displaying me so prominently in
the Imperial suite?"

"Bless me!  I never thought of that!" he said blankly.

She laughed at his simplicity.  "Oh, well, I don't suppose it makes
much difference.  If these people are really experienced international
crooks they probably know all about me, and I couldn't expect to
accomplish much by direct methods.  But there is Bella here.  By a
lucky chance we came on board separately; and none of the passengers
can know as yet that she is my secretary....  Bella, would it break
your heart to divorce yourself from the Imperial suite?"

"Not if there was anything interesting going on," I said.

"Good.  Then, Sir Angus, can you furnish her with another room and
another name for the voyage?  And supply me with a young woman to play
her part?"

He rose.  "I am sure that can be arranged.  The purser will help us.  I
shall speak to him at once.  And, my dear lady, I cannot sufficiently
thank you.  Of course, if my suspicions prove to be justified, the
company will..."

"Ah, don't speak of that," said Mme Storey.  "You are the commander of
us all now, and I am proud to be able to help, if ever so little."


II

It turned out that there was a certain Miss Gaul down on the passenger
list who had failed to come aboard; and I therefore took unto myself
her name and her cabin.  The latter was 63, a large and pleasant room
up in the bow; with one window looking forward and another to
starboard.  Within an hour that marvellous man, the captain, had a
telephone installed, so that I was able to communicate freely and
secretly with Mme Storey.

Only a step from my door were the great public rooms of the vessel,
which were all on B deck: lounge, grand entrance, palm court, etc.
These noble apartments were really two stories high, with domed
ceilings that made them look even higher.  The designer had had the
ingenious idea of dividing the great funnels of the vessel and running
them down at the sides, so as not to obstruct the view.  One could
therefore look through the whole magnificent suite.  Flooded with
sunlight, it was an unforgettable picture.  The most ordinary-looking
men and women moved in this vista with the dignity of eminences.

Meanwhile the niece of one of the engineer officers who was travelling
in the second cabin was brought forward to play my part.  She was a
pleasant girl who looked both intelligent and ladylike.  I confess it
caused me a good many twinges of jealousy to see her privileged to
associate with Mme Storey at all hours, eating with her in the
restaurant, and so on; but I consoled myself with the reflection that I
had the responsible job.

Mme Storey had said: "I am convinced that the captain's suspicions of
the Dartreys are well founded.  An honest man's instinct is not to be
despised.  The fact that he has never been able to get anything on them
suggests to me that they are only agents or steerers in the game.  They
operate only in the early part of the season, when rich Americans are
flocking to Europe; consequently, the real trick, if I am right, must
be turned in London or Paris.  We are lucky to catch them on an
eastward voyage."

Later she telephoned me that she had learned from the second steward
that the Dartreys were to eat in the regular dining saloon instead of
the Ritz-Carlton restaurant, and that they had been assigned to table
number 120.  I was to be allotted a seat at 123 not close enough to
attract their attention, but sufficiently near to afford me ample
opportunities for observation.  I was not to pay any particular
attention to them, and above all must not appear anxious to make
friends.  Let the first overtures come from them, if possible.

If they did make up to me, I was to represent myself as the daughter of
a wealthy, undistinguished couple in some large western city, say
Cleveland.  Let my father be a manufacturer of oil stoves who had sold
out to the Standard Oil.  I had lately been released by death from a
long, dull term of servitude to my aged parents, and I was now making
my first timid essay in the direction of Europe and culture.  Further
details Mme Storey left to my imagination.  I objected that I had no
black clothes, but she said that made no difference; many people
nowadays did not believe in wearing mourning.

Full of the liveliest curiosity, I went down in the lift to the grand
saloon on F deck.  I had picked out my table, on the plan.  But when I
took my place I saw that table 120 was as yet unoccupied, and for a few
minutes I was able to apply myself to my luncheon undistracted.
Comical it is, during the first meal aboard ship, to see everybody
taking stock of everybody else.

While they were still fifty feet away from their table, I recognized my
couple by intuition.  Among that shipload of distinguished and
expensive-looking people, nearly all heads turned to follow them as
they passed through the saloon.  What is the mysterious quality in
people that causes all heads to turn?  Personality, of course.  Yet I
have noticed that a determination not to be overlooked serves almost as
well.

The lady walked first.  My rapid first impressions ran: an ugly,
attractive woman with a good-humoured smile; some years older than her
husband, but sure of her power over him; frankly made up; hard to tell
where nature ends and art begins; but made up with the view of
accentuating her own personality; beautifully dressed in the extreme of
the mode, but without overstepping the bounds of good taste.  The sort
of woman who has raised dress to the dignity of a fine art.  In short,
a highly interesting subject.

The man was more ordinary.  He was of the type that used to be called
the haw-haw Englishman.  Very good-looking, to be sure, with curly dark
hair, bright blue eyes, and a lazy, athletic frame.  But rather
sullen-looking.  This I realized on closer examination was merely the
result of stupidity.  He was thick.  But an uncommonly handsome animal.
Some women ask no more of a man, of course.  He was turned out in a
masculine style as finished as his wife's in hers.  The English have
without doubt the best-dressed men in the world.

Their manners were better than those of most of the people in our
vicinity.  They looked at nobody but took their places without the
least self-consciousness, and talked to each other in low tones with
light smiles.  You cannot be sure about married people on parade, of
course; they might have been quarrelling fiercely.  Still I gathered
that the young man with his expression of haughty disdain (nothing in
the world but stupidity) still looked on his wife as rather a wonderful
person, and was like putty in her quick, pretty hands.  And well he
might; I thought her rather wonderful myself.

I was too far away to hear anything of their conversation; so my
impressions were confined to the visual.  I said she was an ugly woman;
I mean her mouth was too wide and her nose too flat.  I began to
recognize her type, which is a rare one, and monstrously effective.
She had the air of flaunting her ugliness; as much as to say: my
ugliness is more charming than the insipid beauty of other women.  Ah,
how clever that is!  Such a woman is like a breath of fresh air in a
hothouse.  Mere beauty is a bit overdone.  Indeed, I was so strongly
attracted by her, I was finally obliged to pull myself up roundly.
Look here, I reminded myself, she's a crook, and this charm of hers is
her stock in trade.

The only thing that might possibly have suggested that Mrs. Dartrey was
otherwise than as she seemed, was her continual alertness.  She was
always on the qui vive.  But then many perfectly respectable people are
like that.  In fact, never to be caught napping is the essence of a
smart, worldly manner.

When I had learned all that my eyes would tell me, I finished my
luncheon and made ready to leave the dining saloon.  My way out lay
behind Mrs. Dartrey's chair.  In the instant of passing I caught these
murmured words:

"... cut up rough at this late date ..."

Which was piquant but not very informative.

I telephoned my impressions to Mme Storey when she returned to her
cabin.  "If you want to look her over you may know her by her costume,"
I added.  "She is wearing a very smart sports dress of Paddy-green
silk, with pleated bishop's sleeves caught tightly at the wrists, and a
pleated skirt.  A rakish little white hat with a tiny green feather
stuck in the band."

"The deck steward has placed her chair next to yours on Deck B," said
Mme Storey.  "I shall have plenty of chances to size her up as I stroll
by."

I sought my deck chair.  Sure enough, the chair alongside was marked
"Mrs. Dartrey" on its little ticket.  I sat down prepared to await
developments, with a book for camouflage.

But the passing throng was more interesting than the book.  After the
sultry pavements of the city, the sea air was delightfully
invigorating; and it appeared as if nearly everybody on board had the
impulse to promenade after lunch.  What a throng!  Soldier, sailor,
tinker, tailor, rich man--and, no doubt, if the truth were known, poor
man, beggarman, thief.  Not to speak of their ladies.  After all, the
crowd on board the queen of liners was much the same as the crowd on
any liner, only there were more of them.  There is a tradition that
really distinguished people must keep to the seclusion of their cabins.
I suppose it helps keep up the fiction of their exclusiveness, but it
must be very dull for them.

After a while I saw my lady coming, her billowing green dress visible
from afar.  But she had no intention of stopping at her chair.
Although we had been but three hours at sea, she already had three
admirers: an elegant youth, a very solid business man, and a rather
distinguished-looking foreigner.  She was walking so fast as to make
them all appear slightly ridiculous in their efforts to keep pace with
her, and avoid colliding with slower promenaders.

I noticed that she was a little too broad for the pure line of beauty;
the pleated dress was subtly designed to minimize it.  Not that she
seemed to care.  She hastened along regardless, her long eyes
sparkling, and her carmined mouth at its widest as she flung back a
vivacious word now to one, now another of her followers.  Every time
they passed, I caught a snatch; but this time I did not feel that I was
missing much.  This sort of rattle is always the same.

After about half a dozen tours of the promenade deck she stopped in
front of me and in her downright way plumped into her chair.  "Run
along now," she said coolly to the men.  "I'm going to invite my soul.
And perhaps I shall take forty winks.  You may wake me up at tea time."

It was odd to see how, the moment they left her, the three men flew
apart from each other with indifferent looks.

Mrs. Dartrey instantly turned to me with her attractively and disarming
grin.  "I adore men," she said; "but suddenly you tire of them, don't
you?"

The suddenness of her approach disconcerted me rather, but of course it
was quite proper for me to betray a little diffidence.  "Well, I don't
know," I said.

"Don't you like men?" she asked.

"Yes, but----"

Without waiting for me to finish she rattled on: "I'm so glad the
deck-steward didn't put a man next to me, or I shouldn't have been able
to escape the creature.  Women are much more comfortable as a steady
diet."

"Do you think so?"

"Yes.  The reason men tire you is because you cannot be honest with
them."

"I should have said from what I overheard that you----"

"Oh, I only make believe to be honest with them.  They like that.  It
flatters them.  But if you were _really_ honest, heavens! they would
fly in terror!"

We laughed together.

"But the dear things!" Mrs. Dartrey resumed.  "They lend a spice to
life, don't they?"

"I have known very few men," I said.

"Really!" she said.  "I suppose you're a sensible woman."

"Ah, don't say that!  No woman wants to be thought that."

"I wish I had more sense," she said with a sigh.  "It's high time.
There's nothing in this game, really.  But somehow, without a lot of
men running in and out, the world would seem very empty to me.  Do you
remember the old song:

  "'Reuben, Reuben, I've been thinking,
  What a queer wurruld this would be,
  If the men were all transported
  Far beyond the Northern sea.'"


"I have heard it," I said.

"You're too young to remember when it was all the rage," said Mrs.
Dartrey.

"Too young!" I exclaimed.  "I am certainly as old as you."

"Ah, my dear lady, if you knew!" she cried.  "But I shan't tell you....
Not that I care much, either.  For youth and beauty are not nearly so
important as women suppose.  I have neither, and I still attract men.
I am much more popular than I was as a debutante....  What is important
is zest.  To be in love with life, to be in love with love!  That is
the thing.  Apparently, when a person is really crazy about living, he
or she gives off certain rays--I am no metaphysician and I can't
explain it, but apparently it's irresistible.  So, although my hair is
growing gray under the dye, and my hips are elephantine, I am not
worrying, because I cannot feel the slightest falling off in my zest.
When I become absolutely raddled with age I shall live in Paris,
because Frenchmen do not mind how old a woman is if she still has
verve....  Do I shock you?"

"Ah, no! no!" I said quickly.  "Please don't say that.  One becomes so
tired of small talk."

"Yes, and on shipboard it is particularly small," said Mrs. Dartrey.
"Effect of the sea air, I suppose.  I simply won't stand for it--except
perhaps from a handsome man.  They rarely have any sense.  But not from
women.  I insist on saying whatever comes into my head, and if it's too
strong for the dears, I move on."

"Well, please don't move on from me," I begged.  Mindful of the
character I was playing, I added: "I have had scarcely any experience
of life, and such talk is like an invigorating breath from the great
world."

"You have not the look of an inexperienced woman," she ventured.

"I've had a long struggle with myself," I said, "I suppose that makes
me look like a veteran."

"Not a veteran, my dear, but a gallant young captain."

This provided me with opportunity to tell my simple tale.  How I had
been immured in a tiresome Middle West village for years and years,
tending my father and mother and watching life slip by.  How at length
Death had released me, and I was venturing forth to seek experience,
too late, I feared.

"Not too late if you have the wherewithal," she said, with rather a
vulgar little gesture of counting money.  She had many little
vulgarities which, somehow, were not offensive in her.

"Oh, I have plenty of money," I said with a grand carelessness.  "But I
don't know how to--how to get on with people."

She did not rise to my little lure.  If she had any scheme for helping
me to get rid of my money, she kept it to herself.  She merely made
sympathetic sounds, and that kitten mind of hers darted off at a
tangent.

"I can scarcely wait for evening!  I have a duck of a frock to sport
to-night.  Picked it up yesterday in New York.  Little shop on
Forty-fifth Street.  I prophesy that European women will soon be coming
to New York to buy their clothes.  It's wonderful.  Oh, how I adore
pretty clothes!  Black net, my dear, over strange bright shades of
green and blue.  Under the net there is black malines cut in panels
which separate when you walk showing the vivid colours," etc., etc.

When I could get a word in, I cast another fly.  "Would you advise
Paris or London for me?"

"Do you speak French?" she asked.

"Oh, a little book French."

"Then I'd say London.  Book French will order you what you want, but
you cannot make friends on it.  Except, of course, with Americans in
Paris.  Somehow, I always detest my own countrymen abroad.  They're
neither fish, flesh, nor good red herring."

In turn she told me a good deal about herself, but nothing very
confidential.  Much of it I had already heard from Sir Angus.  I
noticed one discrepancy.  Mrs. Dartrey said that she and her husband
were obliged to make frequent trips to and fro across the Atlantic,
because they lived in England and all her husband's money was invested
in America.  I knew from Sir Angus that the money was hers.  This
seemed like unusual delicacy on her part.

We had a long talk.  I liked the woman amazingly.

Promptly at four o'clock two of her swains were to be seen approaching
from opposite directions.  Mrs. Dartrey's eyes sparkled afresh.

"Ah, the dears!" she cried.  "Having put them out of my mind for an
hour, I am prepared to adore them again....  You and I have had a good
time, too, haven't we?  It is so stimulating to meet an intelligent
woman.  We shall see more of each other.  Adieu, for the present."

She sprang out of the chair like a girl, and with a swing linked arms
with the two men as they came up.  They paused for a moment, discussing
what they should do.  Mrs. Dartrey turned up her ugly nose at the
suggestion of tea.  The third admirer being seen to approach at that
moment, it was decided to go up to the smoking room for a man's drink
and a couple of rubbers of bridge.

I gave them ten minutes and then proceeded to make a tour of A deck
myself.  Through the windows of the smoking room I perceived that they
were indeed absorbed in their game.  Dartrey was there too, in another
game.  I decided that they were good for at least an hour and that I
might safely venture to visit Mme Storey, who had told me that she
would be taking tea in her own suite.

I found her on the enchanting veranda of the Imperial suite, clad in a
lovely nglig, and reclining in a chaise longue, looking over the sea.
The pleasant-faced girl was reading to her from "Le Mort d'Arthur," but
my mistress was almost asleep.

"Ah, Bella, what heavenly comfort!" she murmured.  "The sense of the
book is lost on me, but the music of the old English charms my soul!"

The girl vanished.  Mme Storey raised herself and lighted a cigarette.
"What luck?" she asked.

I reported my conversation with Mrs. Dartrey word for word, as nearly
as I could remember it.  Mme Storey, listening with a half smile, made
no comment except to murmur occasionally:

"She is cleverer than I thought!"

When I had done she asked: "What do you think of her?"

"I like her," I said at once.  "Who could help doing so?  An impulsive,
scatter-brained, fascinating woman, full of vim and go.  Such a person
is like a stove in a cold room.  I think Sir Angus must be mistaken.
To me she seems perfectly transparent.  To imitate that sort of thing
would require a cleverness too infernal."

"Nevertheless, I believe she is just as clever as that," said Mme
Storey.  "She doesn't exactly imitate that honest air.  She plays up
her own natural self to gain her ends.  The honest dishonest people, my
dear, are the most subtle deceivers of all.  And she's really
attractive, of course, or she wouldn't have a soft job on the
_Gigantic_."

I felt a little abashed.  "I cannot doubt your insight," I said.

"This is not insight but outsight, my Bella," she said, laughing.  "You
see I happen to know that lady."

I looked at her in astonishment.

"I passed her on deck," she went on, "and I discovered that I had seen
her once before.  It must be all of eight years ago, but one would not
forget that vivacious countenance.  It was in Rector's of giddy memory.
Inspector Rumsey pointed her out to me.  She was then the companion of
the famous 'Smoke' Lassen, the most brilliant confidence man that
America ever produced.  He has disappeared; dead, perhaps; he was an
old man even then.  The girl's name was Beatrice Breese; better known
as Trixy Breese; and still more widely known throughout the underworld
as Breezy Tricks."

"What can her game be?" I exclaimed.

"We shall find out."

"I gave her every opportunity and she didn't----"

"She wouldn't, the first day out."

"It must have to do with men."

Mme Storey shook her head.  "No, she uses men as a cover for her real
operations.  Every word of hers to you suggests that women are her
mark.  I fancy that the seat of operations must be in Paris, since she
refused to name Paris to you too precipitately.  Ah, Paris is the home
of the most subtle swindles ever evolved by the wits of man--as well as
everything else that is ingenious and amusing.  It is fortunate for us
if it is so, since we are bound to Paris."

"What part do you suppose her husband plays?" I asked.

"No part--except the part of her husband.  He is essential to her.
Under the gis of his respectable name and family connections she feels
perfectly safe.  I've been observing him.  He's an easily recognizable
type: a young aristocrat vitiated by every expensive appetite, and
thrown on the world without the means of satisfying them.  She provides
everything he wants, and he is content."

"But they seem to be genuinely attached to each other," I objected.

"Why shouldn't they be?" said Mme Storey, smiling.  "Love is not
necessarily respectable, my Bella."


III

After dinner the magnificent lounge of the _Gigantic_ was cleared for
dancing.  I watched from the side lines.  All dances are called
"brilliant," but this one really had a sparkling appearance, the great
hall was so beautiful and all the women so well dressed.  No
self-respecting woman would have allowed herself to walk out on that
floor had she not full assurance of looking her best.

Mrs. Dartrey made a late and effective entrance in the "duck of a
frock," which fully justified her encomiums.  The three admirers were
now increased to half a score.  Funny, isn't it, how a man likes to
make one of a crowd about a popular woman.  If I was a man, I'd be
hanged if I would.  And from the woman's point of view I should think
the crowd would cut her off from anything real.  Other women didn't
think of this, and you could see them watching Mrs. Dartrey with a
sickly envy out of the corners of their eyes.

I observed that the handsome, sulky-looking young husband crossed the
floor when she entered, and it was to him that she gave the first
dance.  He was crazy about her.  She danced ecstatically; dance after
dance.  I remained watching until after midnight, and she was still
keeping it up unflaggingly.  What astonishing energy!  I wondered if,
when her cabin door closed behind her, a reaction set in.

Next morning, at the women's hour, I met her in the Pompeian swimming
pool down on G deck, deep in the hold of the vast ship.  She was
swimming tirelessly back and forth as if she still had superfluous
energy to get rid of, and the other women were standing about looking
at her.  She gave me a gay wave of the hand as she went to her dressing
room.

I did not have a chance to speak to her during the morning, but I saw
her often: playing tennis up on the sun deck; promenading briskly;
talking animatedly to this person and that.  Her method was the same
with all; she would march up to anybody she fancied and plunge into the
very middle of a conversation.  Most people were charmed by it; and if
they were not, the insouciant Trixy simply went on to somebody else.
There was plenty of material on board to choose from.  She and her
husband did not come down to lunch, and later I saw them the centre of
a gay party in the Ritz-Carlton restaurant on B deck.  The champagne
was flowing copiously.

Later, she flung herself into the chair alongside me on deck.  "I'm
drunk, my dear," she announced merrily.  "I do wish people wouldn't
give me champagne.  I am rattling with it."

I laughed encouragingly.

"Ah, this is good!" she said, stretching herself.  "The one quiet hour
of the day.  Let's talk about men."

"Don't you want to sleep?" I asked.

"No!  I grudge the hours given to sleep.  Life is too short.  I've been
looking forward to a rational conversation with you."  She glanced down
the deck.  "If only my husband does not interrupt us.  The poor fellow
complains that I neglect him on shipboard."

"He seems very devoted," I remarked.

She favoured me with an indescribably wicked, merry smile.  "Oh, my
dear, if you only knew!  You would never imagine, seeing him so
perfectly dressed, so indifferent looking--it is really quite terrible!"

"What is?" I asked.

"His ardour," she said, with eyes momentarily downcast.

"Oh!" I said.

"He is really too sweet!" she rattled on.  "And I adore him.  But it's
just a leetle wearying sometimes to inspire a greater devotion than you
feel yourself....  Funny, isn't it, and me years older than he."

"How do you manage it?" I asked.

"I wish you were married," she said.  "Then we could talk about things."

"Why can't we anyway?" I asked.  "I'm grown-up."

She shook her head.  "If you were married you would understand
things--without explanations.  To explain would be--horrible, you know."

"How long have you been married?" I asked.

"Two years.  He is my third husband.  One died; one I was obliged to
divorce.  Divorce is wonderful, isn't it?  The greatest aid to marriage
that was ever invented!"

This was a novel idea to me, and I suppose I looked my astonishment.

"I mean," she went on, "with the possibility of a divorce always
present, married people cannot afford to get careless with each other.
They must play up or expect to get the razz."

"I wish I had your art," I said with a sigh.

"I have no art," she quickly returned.  "I am just myself.  Heavens, my
dear, I'm the laziest-minded woman alive.  If I had to think and
contrive how to attract men, I should still be _une vierge_.  No, men
just seem to fall my way.  I can't help it."

To-day, with Mme Storey's hints to guide me, I was able to perceive
that my irrepressible friend was _not_ so spontaneous as she had seemed
at first.  Behind the merry, careless glances, there was the hint of
something watchful.  I became aware, gradually, that I was being
subjected to a sharp scrutiny.  We went on to talk of my supposed
situation, and I felt as if a delicate, searching probe was being used
on me.  I was put to it to maintain my assumed character.

Somewhere during the course of our talk, Mrs. Dartrey made up her mind
about me, and her manner began to change.  She did not become rude or
indifferent, but only cooled off.  I anxiously cast back in my mind to
discover what I could have said to put her off, but could not think of
anything.  It was impossible, I thought, that she could suspect me.
Mme Storey had said, with a woman as clever as that, it would be
dangerous to make overtures of any kind and that I had better hold
myself perfectly passive and let come what would come.  This I had
faithfully observed, yet it seemed as if the skittish lady had taken
alarm, somehow.  She finally fell asleep in the chair beside me--or
made believe to do so.

On the following afternoon, when I came to my chair, I was greatly
chagrined to discover that she had had the deck steward move her chair
away.

I had been looking forward to dining tte--tte with Mme Storey in her
suite that night, but now my pleasure was all spoiled.  Having made
sure that the Dartreys had descended to the dining saloon, I went to
keep the appointment, heavy with a sense of failure.

The little table was set out on the veranda of the suite, close beside
the ship's rail.  There was no light except one tiny bulb on the table
under a rosy shade.  Sitting there, we could look over the rail at the
moon shining on the heaving sea.  The delicious food was served piping
hot from Mme Storey's own pantry.  It was all perfectly enchanting--or
would have been had not my spirits been so low.

"What's the matter?" asked my kind mistress.

"I have failed," I said bitterly.  "Mrs. Dartrey has become suspicious
of me.  She has shaken me."

"There is no reason for you to feel cast down," said Mme Storey.  "This
was inevitable.  She has not become suspicious of you.  She has simply
made up her mind that you are not timber suitable for her cutting, and,
being a busy woman, she does not intend to waste any more time on you."

"I cannot think what I could have done," I said.

"You didn't do anything.  Remember, she is looking for a gull.  You are
obviously not a gull, nor could you create the effect of a gull.  She's
a psychologist, too."

I began to feel a little better.  "Still, I have failed," I said.  "As
far as she's concerned, my work is ended."

"I should say it was just beginning," said Mme Storey.  "Your job now
is to find the gull and attach yourself to _her_."

Well, my appetite came back, and I suddenly found the moonlight on the
sea glorious.  My chief fear had been that Mme Storey would be
disappointed in me.

"I should say take plenty of time to it," she went on.  "You still have
three days and a bit before Cherbourg.  Under the circumstances it
would be quite proper for you to sue for Mrs. Dartrey's favour a
little.  She will no doubt snub you, but you can be the least bit
persistent, as if regretful at losing your vivacious friend.  Find out
if you can whom she has chosen for the slaughter, and approach them
when they are together.  If you can contrive to have Mrs. Dartrey
introduce you to the other woman, the rest will follow quite naturally."


All of which was done as Mme Storey enjoined.  I observed next morning
that Mrs. Dartrey had had her chair carried around to the starboard
side of B deck, where it was now placed beside that of a sallow,
discontented-looking woman, very richly dressed.  I wondered if this
could be the prospective victim.  On the other side of the woman sat a
rather attractive man, her husband, apparently.

I let the whole day pass without making any move, closely observing
Mrs. Dartrey whenever the opportunity offered.  By this time she had a
hundred intimate friends of both sexes.  She was always in confidential
chat with somebody, leaning over the ship's rail or perched on the edge
of a chair, and it was not easy to decide which might be the chosen
ones.  She greeted me brightly but gave me no opportunity for
conversation.  However, when I saw her after tea in close confabulation
with the sallow woman, I doubted no longer.  Mrs. Dartrey's careless
manner was exactly the same to this one as to any other, but her
companion betrayed a secret, strained eagerness as she listened, which
gave everything away.  The husband's chair was empty.

I continued to promenade the deck until I happened by during a lull in
their confidences.  Whereupon I stopped in front of Mrs. Dartrey and
said: "I miss you."

She looked up at me with a little start of recognition, subtly
insulting.  "Oh," she said, "I'm sorry I had to move my chair.  But
there isn't a breath of air around on the port side in the afternoons."

"That's so," I said, still hanging about.

"Why don't you move over here?" she asked with a glance down the line,
knowing very well that the rank was filled.

"There isn't any room."

I purposely prolonged the awkward pause and glanced suggestively at the
other woman.  Mrs. Dartrey evidently thought, as I wished her to, that
the easiest way out was to introduce us, and she said:

"Mrs. Ellis, Miss Gaul.  Silly to introduce people, isn't it, when we
all talk to each other anyway."

We laughed inanely.  I was satisfied.  I made some inconsequential
remark and walked on.  Nor did I make any further move that day to
improve my acquaintance with Mrs. Ellis.

From the passenger list I learned that she was Mrs. John W. Ellis and
that she and her husband occupied one of the best rooms on D deck,
which suggested that they were people of wealth.  The purser told me
that they had booked from Minneapolis and that they were apparently
inexperienced voyagers.  I suppose he made further inquiries of the
room steward or stewardess, for he later volunteered the information
that the couple quarrelled a good deal in their cabin.  I regarded the
husband with interest.  He seemed superior to his wife; a man of some
distinction; but looked nervous and perhaps ill-tempered.  They were
going to Paris.

Next morning, when I started my promenade, I found Mrs. Ellis sitting
between two empty chairs.  So I dropped into one with an ingratiating
smile at the sallow woman.  She gave me a look none too friendly, but I
made believe not to see it.

"Have you seen Mrs. Dartrey?" I asked.

"No," she said.

"Isn't she a wonderful woman?" I said.  "So full of energy and spirits."

"Yes," said Mrs. Ellis in her graceless way.

She was clearly reluctant to talk about her friend, and it would have
been highly foolish for me to pursue the subject.  So I made up talk
about anything and nothing.  It was uphill work, for Mrs. Ellis was
both suspicious and touchy.  She hadn't anything against me personally;
that was just her ordinary attitude.  She was a woman of about forty,
and would have been very good-looking, with her raven hair and good
eyes, had it not been for her sallowness and her intensely disagreeable
expression.  I couldn't make up my mind whether biliousness had ruined
her disposition or her bad disposition had soured her digestive juices.
Either might have been true.

Finally I discovered that the key to unlock her nature was--flattery!
I said: "I'm so glad Mrs. Dartrey introduced us.  I should never have
dared to speak to you without.  One should on shipboard, I suppose, but
I simply haven't the assurance.  And I did so want to know you.  You
attracted me from the first."

A tinge of pink appeared in Mrs. Ellis's sallow skin, and her whole
expression softened in fatuous gratification.  I perceived that there
was no danger of feeding it to her too strong.  "What was it about me
that attracted you?" she asked, keenly interested.

"These things are hard to explain," I said, "I suppose it was because
you looked so superior to the other passengers."

"Oh, the others," she said with a sneering look down the line;
"dreadful people, aren't they?"

"They look it," I said.  "I haven't felt like talking to any of them."

"I never talk to people when travelling," said Mrs. Ellis.  "One must
maintain a certain reserve.  One owes it to one's self."

"That was it," I said.  "It was your air of reserve which attracted me."

I devoutly hoped that she wouldn't report my words to Mrs. Dartrey.
The latter would have instantly comprehended that I was after
something.  However, there was little danger of such a thing happening:
Mrs. Ellis was too much of a fool.

"I'm a queer sort of person," Mrs. Ellis went on, delighted with her
subject.  "Very few understand me.  When I give my friendship, a warmer
and more disinterested friend does not exist on earth.  But I am slow
to give it.  I insist upon worth in the object.  And I am implacable.
I never forgive a wrong in friendship."

"You must have many devoted friends," I murmured.

"No," she said, "not many.  My standards are too high.  I scarcely know
what women are coming to nowadays.  Even the so-called best women I
find to be unscrupulous liars and scandalmongers--if not worse.  I will
have nothing to do with such, whatever their position may be."

"It does you credit," I said.

"My husband is the most prominent attorney in Minneapolis," she went
on: "counsel to the biggest corporations in the Northwest.  As a
leader, I am an especial object of calumny.  It cannot touch me, of
course, but as I will not compromise with such people the result is
that I lead rather a lonely life."

"I suppose it is inevitable," I said sympathetically.

"You would not believe some of the stories I could tell you about the
so-called best people of Minneapolis," she said viciously, and
forthwith launched into an involved and excessively tiresome tale of
country club machinations.  I will not bore you with it.  Suffice it to
say that the teller appeared as the high-minded heroine, while all the
other women were hussies.  Another tale followed, and another.  Mrs.
Ellis looked upon herself as the most beautiful, the cleverest and the
noblest of women, and was enraged because nobody else would accept her
at her own valuation.  Evidently in her home town, she was avoided like
the plague.

She was particularly bitter on the subject of philandering.  Evidently
all the other women of her set were engaged in more or less innocent
flirtations, whereas no man ever looked at Mrs. Ellis.  Consequently,
she had rationalized herself into a very snowdrop of purity and was
scathing in her animadversions upon sex.  But, ah, what a tormented
envy spoke in her words!

So much for my success with Mrs. Ellis.  She always welcomed me after
that, though of course I was no more to the egotistical woman than a
sort of mirror in which she saw herself reflected as she wished.  She
never cared to hear me talk about myself.  In order that I might not
appear to be cultivating her acquaintance secretly, I used to stop
sometimes when she and Mrs. Dartrey were together.  At such moments
neither lady betrayed overmuch friendliness, but I persisted until I
had established my point.  I would then pass on as if a little saddened
by their lack of cordiality.

I must emphasize the fact that there was never the slightest suggestion
of secrecy in Mrs. Dartrey's communications to her friend.  She did not
whisper, nor cast meaning looks, etc., but was always her impetuous and
rather noisy self; and as far as I could judge the style of her talk
was exactly the same as she had used toward me in the beginning.

I discovered another significant fact about Mrs. Ellis.  Later that
same day, as I passed along the deck, her husband was in the next
chair, and I judged from their expressions that they were quarrelling
in bitter whispers.  Mrs. Ellis did not see me at all; her face was
yellow and hateful; there was something unspeakably piteous in it, too;
and in a flash the domestic situation became clear to me.  She was
passionately in love with her husband, whereas he was tired of her and
exasperated beyond endurance by her foolishness.  I was sorry for them
both.

I made my next reports to Mme Storey with more confidence, and she was
good enough to commend me unreservedly.  I went on to describe Mrs.
Ellis's wonderful jewels, her rope of pearls, her emeralds, her
beautiful diamond ornaments.

"Those, I suppose, constitute the stakes of the game," I said.

Mme Storey shook her head.  "Indirectly, perhaps," she said.  "But we
have nothing so simple to deal with as straight robbery.  They could
never have got away with robbery for two seasons without having a hue
and cry raised against them."


IV

On the night before we were to disembark at Cherbourg, that immemorial
function, the captain's dinner, was held in the grand saloon.  This
event was supposed to mark the culmination of the social activities
aboard ship, and every woman saved her prettiest dress for it.  All the
dinners were so extraordinarily elaborate there was not much more that
the steward could do; but what he could do he did; and upon glancing
down the menu one realized that the four corners of the globe had been
ransacked for delectable dainties.  All the toys and favours were
distributed that are considered to add to the gaiety of the feast.

Sir Angus, in dress uniform, was the most dignified figure present.
One could worship such a man, with his urbanity, his sorrowful, stern
face, and his cool habit of command.  He very rarely appeared among the
passengers.  None but a fool would dare to approach so noble a figure
with impertinent questions; but unfortunately the fools on shipboard
seem to be even more in evidence than elsewhere.  Sir Angus masked with
polite smiles the tedium that the interminable dinner must have caused
him.

There was a great treat saving for me afterward, because Sir Angus had
asked Mme Storey and me to take coffee with him in his own quarters up
on the bridge.  What a delightful spot that cabin was, so cool and
remote above the bustle of the ship.  One could hear the steady rush of
the wind outside, and the sighing voice of the sea.  Here one was
really aware of being at sea.  The furnishings were unexpectedly
simple, and Sir Angus's private knick-knacks, scattered about, gave it
a homely aspect.  The dear man's artistic taste was not very highly
developed, but one could not think the less of a sailor for that.

My mistress looked positively regal in a plain evening gown of a cool
red brocade that the famous Craqui had designed for her earlier in the
season.  Sir Angus's face became soft and beautiful with a chivalrous
admiration as he looked at her.  It was a very fine tribute.

But Mme Storey insisted on bringing me forward.  She suggested that I
tell Sir Angus the story of the drama which was developing on board.  I
did so.

"I knew I would not be appealing to you in vain!" he cried.  "I am sure
this ugly business will be cleared up now.  How do you suppose it will
work out?"

"Unless I am very much deceived," said Mme Storey, "Mrs. Dartrey will
furnish Mrs. Ellis with an address in Paris.  That will finish Mrs.
Dartrey's work.  She goes on to Southampton, and, as the rush of rich
Americans is slackening now, she will no doubt be free until next
season, to amuse herself with her fashionable English friends.  As to
what is to take place at that address in Paris I cannot, of course,
tell you yet.  But Bella and I will make it our business to find out."

"You are wonderful women!" said Sir Angus solemnly.

Fancy my pride at hearing myself coupled with Mme Storey like that.

Sir Angus presented me, as a souvenir, with an ink-well in the form of
a model of the _Gigantic's_ bridge, with all the telegraphs reproduced
in silver gilt.  I believe it was among his most cherished possessions,
and certainly it has become one of mine.


Next morning we dropped anchor in the harbour of Cherbourg, and as the
tender came alongside there was a great business of good-byes among the
company of passengers which divided here.  Mrs. Dartrey, who looked
very piquant in a white sports costume with Chinese embroidery, was
most affable to me.

"When you come to London, do drop in on me," said she.

But she did not intend it to be taken seriously.  I thought: "If I do
come perhaps it will be on an errand that will astonish you."

Out of the tail of my eye I observed her parting with Mrs. Ellis.  She
was too clever to give anything away; all gaiety and carelessness; but
the other woman was visibly moved.  She whispered something to Mrs.
Dartrey that I could not catch, but I read its purport on her lips.  It
was a murmur of thanks for some benefit conferred.

Mme Storey and I were to travel separately to Paris, of course.  I had
purposely omitted reserving a seat on the train, as I wanted, if
possible, to get into the same compartment with Mr. and Mrs. Ellis.  I
succeeded in doing so, but obtained little benefit from it, for Mrs.
Ellis, ill at ease in the presence of her husband, scarcely opened her
lips to me the whole way.  Moreover, I do not think she ever looked out
of the window, though this was her first visit to France.  She sat
staring straight ahead of her, her twitching hands and tapping foot
betraying a curious inner excitement.  Her husband studied a copy of
the Paris edition of the New York _Herald_ that he had purchased on the
_quai_.  One wondered why such a couple had come abroad.

In the bustle of collecting our belongings as we drew into the Gare St.
Lazare I forced Mrs. Ellis to take some notice of me.

"There are never enough porters, of course," I said with a laugh.
"They run alongside the train as it comes to a stop, and the way to
make sure of one is to pass your bags out of the window."

Mr. Ellis thanked me for the tip.

"It has been so nice to know you," I said to his wife in a lower tone.
"I hope I may see something of you in Paris."

"Surely," she said.  She did not mean it either.  It was clear that
even my flattery had no weight against the secret new excitement that
filled her.

"Where are you going to stop?" I asked.

"--Er--the Continental," she said, with an uneasy glance at her husband.

When I got myself and my bags into a taxi, I put the Ellises out of my
mind.  I thanked my stars that my own heart was unclouded and I might
freely give myself up to the delight of sniffing that rare atmosphere
and feasting my eyes on the blithesome spectacle of the boulevards.
Why is it--why is it that the mere thought of Paris moves one's heart
to a gaiety that is almost painful?  I can't explain it.  I only know
that I would rather go to Paris when I die than to heaven.

Although I had only known Paris for three brief days before, I felt as
if I were coming home.  I murmured over the names of the streets,
finding the syllables sweet in my ears: Rue du Havre; Rue Tronchet;
around the frowning Madeleine, and down the sparkling Rue Royale to the
glorous panorama of the river.

Mme Storey and I were joyfully reunited in the same charming salon at
the Crillon that we had had before.  Its windows, which looked out over
the Place de la Concorde, commanded the finest view in Paris, with the
Jardins des Tuileries on one side, the Champs-Elyses on the other, and
the river in front.  We did not stop to unpack, but rushed out into the
streets again.  Mme Storey, not telephoning to any of her friends, gave
up the rest of that day to me.  We dined at an enchanting out-of-doors
restaurant up on Montmartre and went to see the Ballet Russe.

Next morning I had to get into harness again.  About eleven I set off
down the Rue de Rivoli to call on Mrs. Ellis at the Htel Continental.
I had a disappointment.  They were not there.  They had reserved rooms,
I was told, but had not come, nor had any word been received from them.
I went to the New York _Herald_ office, but they had not registered
there, as all good Americans do; neither was there any information
forthcoming at the American Express.  I was forced to the conclusion
that Mrs. Ellis had persuaded her husband to change hotels expressly to
avoid me.

Mme Storey took it with a shrug.  "It's not fatal," she said.  "Such a
green pair, and so rich, could not lose themselves in Paris.  I know a
woman who will find them for us within an hour or so."

She telephoned to a certain Mlle Monge, who, it appeared, had served
her before.

In less than an hour word came over the wire that the Ellises were at
the Majestic on the Avenue Kleber, near the Etoile.  Mme Storey
instructed Mlle Monge to await me there in the foyer.  She would know
me by my red hair and chapeau vert.

To me Mme Storey said: "Point out Mrs. Ellis to her, and let her follow
the American about Paris.  I shall have to leave this case pretty much
to you two, as I am obliged to let my friends know I am here.  In Paris
I am not supposed to have any serious occupation."

In the magnificent Htel Majestic I was approached by a charming
brown-eyed person very modishly dressed in black, who introduced
herself as Mlle Monge.  She was not at all one's idea of the typical
Frenchwoman, she had such a modest and reticent manner; but I was
beginning to learn that, as of other peoples, there are all kinds of
French.  Her English was as good as my own, and I felt from the first
that we should be friends.

It was now the hour for djeuner, and the restaurant was thronged.  All
I had to do was to point out the Ellises where they sat by a window and
leave the rest to Mlle Monge.  It was arranged that she should call me
up at the Crillon at three, or as soon thereafter as possible.  I was
then free to kick up my heels on the Champs-Elyses.

In due course I got my call.  The Ellises had left their hotel
together, Mlle Monge reported, and had driven to the Galeries
Lafayette, where Mrs. Ellis had gone in.  But she had only waited
inside the door long enough for her husband to drive away.  She had
then hailed another taxi and had herself driven to a house in the Rue
des Tournelles in the Marais, a quarter of old Paris.  She had remained
in this house nearly an hour.  Upon inquiring of the concierge, Mlle
Monge learned that she had asked for a M. Guimet, who had the best
apartment in the house.  M. Guimet was a savant (scientist) and much
respected in the neighbourhood, it appeared.  Mrs. Ellis had then
returned to the Majestic, where she now was.  Mlle Monge was
telephoning from there.

Mme Storey was not available at the moment.  I felt that the first
thing to do was to obtain further information about this M. Guimet.  I
so told Mlle Monge, and said I would immediately come to the Majestic
to relieve her.

When I entered the Majestic for the second time, the first person I
beheld was Mrs. Ellis, who was walking back and forth in the foyer in
an uncertain way.  She saw me at the same moment and came hastening
toward me.

"What a surprise!" she cried.  "How are you!  It's so nice to see a
friendly face!"

This was rather disconcerting.  I was still more astonished by the
change in her appearance.  She was openly and feverishly excited now; a
bright red spot burned in either of her sallow cheeks, and the pupils
of her eyes were as much distended as if she had atropine in them.  A
dangerous excitement.

"Are you very busy?" she went on breathlessly.  "I'm dying to go
shopping and I don't know where to go or what to ask for."

I saw that I need have no anxiety about explaining my presence in the
Majestic.  "Just a minute until I make an inquiry at the bureau," I
said.  "Then I'll be happy to go with you."

In a shadowy corner of the foyer I saw Mlle Monge taking us in.  It was
not necessary for me to communicate with her then, as she had her
instructions.  I inquired for a mythical person at the bureau and then
returned to Mrs. Ellis.

"My friend has not arrived," I said.

She was not in the least interested.  As we stood on the sidewalk
waiting for a taxi, her head kept turning from side to side.

"That man stared at me," she said with a simper.  "I mean the young man
in the shepherd's plaid suit who just went in.  Oh, Paris!  Paris!
Paris!"

"You are happier than you were yesterday," I ventured.

With a lunatic change of mood she whispered dully: "Is it happiness?
... I don't know....  I'm terrified."

I wondered if she were a secret drinker.  I had seen no signs of it on
shipboard.

A taxi came up.  I told the driver to take us to the Place de l'Opra
as a good point to radiate from.  We hustled down the Champs-lyses.
Mrs. Ellis stared with an unwholesome eagerness into the faces of the
people in the passing motors.

"It's more fun walking," she said.  "More chance of an adventure.  And
yet, not an hour ago, when I was coming home in a taxi, a man in
another cab raised his hat to me and smiled.  Such a gentlemanly
looking fellow with a gray Fedora and a monocle.  I was quite
flustered.  And, my dear, he ordered his chauffeur to turn around and
follow.  But I lost him in the traffic....  I must tell you, I had
taken the taxi in order to escape a young fellow in the street who
brushed against me and smiled....  Isn't this a dreadful city?  How it
makes one's heart beat! ... It will seem very dull in Minneapolis.  Our
men are such stick-in-the-muds.  No verve, no romance, no abandon."

"What is it particularly that you want to buy?" I asked.

"An evening gown.  Something I can wear at dinner to-night.  I want to
charm my husband.  My dear, I've gradually allowed myself to dress in
as dull a style as if I were over forty!"

Which of course she was!

It is not so easy to buy good ready-made dresses in Paris, but Mme
Storey had told me of a little shop in the Rue du Faubourg St. Honor
to which the great dressmakers sent their model dresses to be sold, and
thither we had ourselves carried.  I soon perceived that Mrs. Ellis had
no intention of listening to any advice from me and ceased to offer it.
She chose a snaky sheath gown covered with green sequins.  It was a
gorgeous affair, but most unsuitable for her; made her skin look as
yellow as saffron.

Nevertheless, she stood clad in it before a long mirror, and raising
her arms above her head, like a girl, murmured dreamily: "I am
charming!"

She refused to leave the shop until she had seen the dress dispatched
to the Htel Majestic by a midinette.

Out in the street again, she said with a sidelong look: "Let us go to a
caf.  One of those places where we can sit out on the street and watch
everybody.  Which is the most famous rendezvous of them all?"

"The Caf de la Paix, undoubtedly," I said.  "They call it the centre
of civilization.  If you sit there long enough, everybody in the world
will pass by, they say."

"In such a place we are sure to be spoken to," she said with a secret
smile.  "Would you be afraid?"

"Not at all," I said.

"What would you do?"

"Speak back again--if I liked the looks of the speaker."

"Oh, you're so matter-of-fact," she said impatiently.  "That will never
get you anywhere."

"Where do you want to get to?" I asked, smiling.

Her strained face showed no answering smile.  "I want--I want--" she
said incoherently--"I want everything life has to offer.  After this I
mean to take it as my right.  I am no common woman.  Colour! perfume!
happiness!  I will lavish my treasures! ... Will you agree this
afternoon to follow wherever adventure may lead us?" she demanded
breathlessly.

"Yes," I said.  I felt safe in promising.

"I am utterly reckless!" she cried.  "The spirit of a bacchante has
entered into me.  I mean to drain the cup of life to the dregs!"

You would have had to see the aging, sallow woman to appreciate how
tragi-comic this sounded.

It suddenly occurred to her that it was hardly in line with her moral
protestations on shipboard.  "I expect you disapprove," she said with
another sidelong look.  "But I can't help it.  Something within me is
released.  I don't care what happens."

"I am no moralist," I said.  "I would like to cut loose myself."

"Then stick to me," she said with an insane archness.  "Wherever I go,
things are bound to happen!"

In a few minutes we were seated at the famous corner where all the
streams of Paris converge.  It was crowded, as it always is, by night
or day, and we had to hang about until one of the little tables in the
front rank was vacated and we could pounce on it.  The passing throng
all but trod on our feet.  I could have been perfectly happy just
watching.  I suggested coffee, tea, or an ice to Mrs. Ellis, but she
would have none of it.

"What are those people drinking?" she asked, indicating a particularly
rakish-looking couple at the next table.

"_Fine  l'eau_," I said.  "That is Parisian for brandy and soda."

"I'll have one of those," she said.

I did not expect to obtain any information from her by direct
questioning; still, I thought it was worth trying.  "What have you been
doing since we got here?" I asked.

"Oh, nothing in particular," she said inattentively.  "Just looking
around."

"What did you do this morning?"

The secret look on her face intensified.  "My husband and I drove
around town in a taxicab," she said with a calculated vagueness.

"What I would like to see is a bit of old Paris," I hazarded.  "If I
only had somebody to take me."

"I am not interested in anything old," she said.  ".... The Englishman
with the blue collar is staring at me."

I saw that it was useless to pursue my questions.

The woman beside me was obsessed.  Her head kept turning restlessly
this way and that, her distended eyes searching in the faces of the men
who sat near.  Fattish, complacent creatures, most of them; settled in
their chairs as if somebody had squashed them down on the seats rather
hard.  I got no suggestion of the rampant male that Mrs. Ellis affected
to perceive everywhere.  A good many of them were staring at her
naturally, her actions were so peculiar; but it was not at all in the
manner that she fondly supposed.  It made me rather uncomfortable, but
it was all in the way of my job.  Of course, nobody spoke to us.

For more than an hour she kept up the pretence that she was the
cynosure of every eye.  "I hope you'll forgive me for making you so
conspicuous," she said archly.  "I suppose you are not accustomed to
it."

I assured her that was all right.

She ordered cigarettes and attempted to smoke one with airy grace, but
choked over it.  One noticed, notwithstanding her confidence, that she
was excessively bitter in her censures upon such women who passed as
had annexed a man.

And then, suddenly, the game seemed to be up.  She rose abruptly.  She
had had several ponies of cognac and was slightly affected by it.

"I congratulate you on your success as a chaperon," she said, crassly
ill-natured.  "I will have to give you a testimonial: Warranted to keep
men at arm's length!  I don't know why I came out with you, I'm sure.
I wish Mrs. Dartrey was here."

I consoled myself for her rudeness by thinking: "If she were here, my
lady, no man would look at you!"

I put her in a cab and sent her to the Majestic.  I knew she was
expecting to meet her husband there and would be safe with him during
the evening.  And that liberated me.  I returned to the Crillon with a
light heart.

Mlle Monge reported that she had made further inquiries in the Rue des
Tournelles but with small results.  It appeared that none of his
neighbours had a speaking acquaintance with M. Guimet, who was
described as a studious and absent-minded scientist.  He had been
living in his present quarters for two years.  Nothing was known of his
antecedents.  An elderly _femme de mnage_ cared for his wants.  She
was well liked by the tradespeople chiefly because she was a liberal
spender.  A certain clat attached to M. Guimet's establishment because
of the handsomely dressed ladies who occasionally called upon him.
Mlle Monge had then inquired at the Institut de France, and of the
other learned societies, but had been unable to learn anything whatever
concerning a scientific man by the name of Aristide Guimet.  He was not
known to the police.


V

Late in the afternoon of the following day I ran into Mrs. Ellis by
accident as I crossed the Place Vendme.  That dependable Mlle Monge
had her under observation.  Mrs. Ellis looked at me point-blank without
a sign of recognition.  In order to get her attention I had to run
after her and take her arm.  A further extraordinary change had taken
place in the woman.  She seemed to have broken up overnight.  Her hair
was untidy and her eyes had the dulled look of one suffering from
shock; her colour was ghastly.

At first I made believe not to notice anything amiss.  "Fancy!" I
cried, "of all the millions in Paris, you and I to meet here!"

"Let me alone," she muttered thickly.  "I don't want to talk to you."

"Shall we go to Rumpelmayer's to tea?" I said.

She attempted pettishly to free her arm, but I clung to it.  "You are
ill," I said.  "Let me help you."

"I'm all right," she muttered.  "Let me go."

She was hardly a sympathetic figure; nevertheless, I was strongly
affected on her behalf.  After all, she was my countrywoman, and I had
reason to believe her the victim of some devilish plot.  I summoned the
first passing taxi and put her into it.  She was too apathetic to
resist me.  I told the man to drive to the Crillon.  Mrs. Ellis's
witless aspect scared me.  I began to feel that this case was getting
beyond me, and I determined to send Mlle Monge after Mme Storey, who
was having tea with friends at the Ritz.  I saw the Frenchwoman
discreetly following in another cab.

I seated Mrs. Ellis in the little salon of our suite while I talked to
Mlle Monge out in the corridor.  She said:

"Mrs. Ellis made a round of the fashionable jewellery shops on the Rue
de la Paix this morning.  It was so early the shops were empty, and I
couldn't follow her in without attracting attention, so I cannot state
what her errand was.  As far as I could see from the street, whenever
she stated her errand, she was taken into a private room.

"She had djeuner alone at the Majestic.  Immediately afterward she had
herself driven to the Rue des Tournelles again.  She remained in that
house about the same length of time as before.  Neither before nor
after that visit could I see any change from her usual look.  She was
always a little wild.  She returned to the Majestic and had herself
carried up in the lift.  In a few minutes her husband descended, his
face distorted with anger.  I assumed that they had quarrelled.  He
left the hotel.  Mrs. Ellis came down, and she then looked as you see
her now.  She left the hotel like one walking in her sleep.  She walked
the entire distance to the spot where you met her, seeing nothing."

I told Mlle Monge to ask Mme Storey to come at once, if she could, and
to proceed directly to her bedroom, where I could speak to her before
Mrs. Ellis saw her.  I then returned to Mrs. Ellis.

"I am your friend," I said frankly.  "Can't you tell me what is the
matter?"

She struggled for some semblance of self-control.  She wished to
deceive me.  "It is nothing," she said.  "I feel a little ill.  I am
subject to it.  I will just rest a little and then go home."

I appeared to be satisfied.  "Is there anything I can get you?" I asked.

"Smelling salts," she suggested.

I fetched her the bottle.  She sniffed of it gratefully and made out
that she felt better.  She kept her lids lowered to hide the look of
blank agony in her eyes.  It was very affecting.

"Shall I have tea brought up here?" I asked.

A nauseated look crossed her face.  "No, please," she murmured.  "I
could not eat.  I will go now."

By one expedient and another, I detained her for five minutes.  At the
end of that time I heard the door of Mme Storey's room close.  I went
to her and swiftly explained the situation.  She returned with me to
the salon.

"This is Mme Storey, Mrs. Ellis," I said.

It was too much for the nerves of the shaken woman.  She lost her grip
again.  "What does she want of me?" she said hysterically.  "Why was I
brought here, anyway?  I wish to go!"

There was a comfortable, sunny-tempered quality in Mme Storey's smile.
"Let me explain myself first," she said.  In a difficult situation, she
always deals frankly.  She described the nature of her profession and
told how, upon boarding the _Gigantic_, Captain Sir Angus McMaster had
asked her to do a favour for him.

"He believed that Mr. and Mrs. Dartrey were dangerous swindlers," she
said.

Mrs. Ellis's jaw dropped.  "The Dartreys, _swindlers_!" she gasped.
"That can't be! ... At least they got nothing out of me!"

"Not directly," said Mme Storey.  "But we believe they are working with
somebody in Paris.  Did they not send you to a man in Paris?"

The effect of this on Mrs. Ellis was startling.  Her arms went up to
her head in an utterly distracted gesture.  "Oh, my God! ... Oh, my
God!" she stuttered.  "A swindle!  It can't be so!"

"Was it M. Aristide Guimet in the Rue des Tournelles?" asked Mme Storey
softly.

"I don't know what you're talking about!" cried Mrs. Ellis.  "I never
heard of that name or of that street!"

"We had you followed," said Mme Storey deprecatingly.  "You were there
yesterday and again to-day."

Mrs. Ellis, wild with terror, endeavoured to save her face by flying
into a passion.  "You had me followed!" she cried.  "As if I were a
criminal!  How dare you!  How dare you!  My husband shall know of this!
Have I not the right to go where I please?"

"Oh, assuredly," said Mme Storey.  "I only wished to save you, you see.
If I have failed to do so, I blame myself very much.  But I had no idea
it would happen so quickly."

"I have not the least idea what you are talking about," said Mrs.
Ellis.  "It sounds to me as if you were out of your mind."

"_Please_, Mrs. Ellis," said Mme Storey, with her most winning manner.
"Let us talk this over reasonably.  Suppose you have been fooled: that
is no disgrace.  It happens to all of us.  If you have lost your money,
don't you want me to get it back for you?"

"I don't know you," cried Mrs. Ellis.  "How am I to know but that you
are a swindler?"

Mme Storey smiled.  "I have not asked you for anything but a little
information," she said.  "You can easily satisfy yourself about me by
cabling to anyone you may know in New York, or, better, by sending a
wireless to Sir Angus."

Mrs. Ellis abandoned that line.  "I have lost no money," she said.
"Where would I get any money to lose?  Our funds are all in my
husband's hands."

"Where are your jewels, Mrs. Ellis?"

The woman caught her breath sharply.  A moment passed before she could
command herself sufficiently to speak.  "In my jewel case," she said
tremulously.  "Where else should they be?"

"What were you doing in the Rue de la Paix this morning?"

"Buying some new ones," she said with a laugh that was meant to be
careless and offhand but only had a lunatic sound.

Mme Storey approached from another angle.  "Sir Angus and I believe
that this game has been going on for two years," she said.  "Within
that time many American women must have been deceived and robbed.  And
it appears to be such a devilishly clever game there's no reason why it
should not go on indefinitely unless we break it up.  Won't you help me
to do that, Mrs. Ellis, for the sake of saving other women?"

An unnatural calmness descended on Mrs. Ellis.  Her eyes were perfectly
daft, but her voice was under fair control.  "I would be glad to help
you if I knew what you were talking about," she said.  "But it sounds
like rank melodrama to me."

"Prove your good faith by telling us why you went to see M. Guimet,"
challenged Mme Storey.

Mrs. Ellis hesitated blankly--then, evidently, a word of mine recurred
to her.  "I merely wanted to see a bit of old Paris," she said.

"Who told you about M. Guimet?"

"Somebody in America--I scarcely remember who.  I am not in the least
interested in M. Guimet but only in his old house.  And now I hope I
may be permitted to go.  Unless I am being detained here by force."

"The door is unlocked," said Mme Storey.  "But let me make a last
appeal.  Here we are, three American women in a foreign city.  Surely
we ought to stand together.  There is evidently a devilish trap set for
our women in this city.  Won't you help me to destroy it?"

"Really, my dear lady, you are too dramatic!" said Mrs. Ellis.  "You
ought to go on the stage."

And with an affected laugh she passed out of the room with that
corpselike face, and those eyes mad with pain or terror--or both.  It
was too dreadful to see.  But we had to let her go, of course.

When the door closed behind her, Mme Storey sighed.  "God save us from
fools!" she said.

I said: "The woman must be criminally involved in some way, to be in
such terror of having the facts known."

Mme Storey shook her head.  "Most likely it is only folly," she said.
"A woman would far rather be shown up as a crook than a fool."

"There was a threat you might have used," I suggested.

"I know," said Mme Storey, "to tell her husband if she didn't come
across.  I thought of it.  But I was afraid of driving her to some
desperate act.  She is completely unbalanced."

The faithful Mlle Monge followed Mrs. Ellis out of the Crillon, and
later she reported that Mrs. Ellis had returned to the Majestic, where
she had later dined with her husband in at least apparent amity.  We
were somewhat reassured in mind by this news.

But early next morning Mr. Ellis went to the Prfecture de Police to
report that his wife was missing.  We were immediately informed of it
by Mlle Monge, who was on duty at the Majestic at an early hour.  Mr.
Ellis told the police he feared his wife might have taken her own life.
She had threatened to do so the day before.  A neurotic and highly
emotional woman, she had frequently threatened to kill herself, and he
had not supposed that she meant it.  She had retired for the night
apparently in a better frame of mind.  But sometime during the night
she had arisen while he slept, and had stolen from the room.

A watchman in the Majestic reported that a guest who answered to the
description of Mrs. Ellis had come downstairs fully dressed just as day
was breaking.  Upon his asking her how he could serve her (he spoke
English), she had said that she wanted to go to the Orleans station to
meet a friend who was arriving by a night train, and would he get her a
taxicab.  She departed in it.  The driver testified that he had indeed
taken her to the Orleans station, which as everybody knows is on the
_quai_.  She was not seen after that.

A few hours later the unfortunate woman's body was recovered from the
river at St. Cloud, having evidently drifted to that point from one of
the city bridges.

Mme Storey, Mlle Monge, and I immediately went to the Prfecture to
tell what we knew of the case.  This building was on the le de la
Cit, opposite the huge Palais de Justice where I had once been to see
the Sainte Chappelle and Marie Antoinette's cell.  The Prfecture was
not an ancient building, but, like all French public buildings, very
imposing with its statuary, paintings, etc.  How different from 300
Mulberry Street, New York!

The officers were admirably sensible and businesslike.  You will find
the high officers of the police everywhere much the same, only the
French are more formal and polite than others.  M. le Prfet himself,
to whom we were finally shown, was a perfect little Chesterfield of
deportment, but with a face as cool and keen as polished steel.  It
would have been _infra dig._ for such a personage to have betrayed any
astonishment at Mme Storey's account, but he was astonished.  One could
feel it.

"Should you not have conferred with me before?" he asked reproachfully.

"I intended to do so as soon as I had any evidence," said Mme Storey.
"So far it has been only guesswork."

M. le Prfet wished to give orders to have the man Guimet taken into
custody at once.  Mme Storey earnestly remonstrated with him.

"If you do so, I fear that he will escape us.  We have no evidence
against him.  The woman is dead, and there can be no witness to the act
of his receiving money from her.  He is, or I miss my guess, one of the
most plausible rascals in Christendom, and you will be forced to let
him go.  He will disappear for a while, only to resume his game later
on, or another game just as devilish.  I beg of you to allow me to
pursue my investigation in secret--in coperation with you, of
course--until we have him.  I ask you even to keep the fact of Mrs.
Ellis's suicide out of the papers, that he may not take alarm."

Up to this time Mme Storey had not mentioned her name, and his next
question was the natural one: "Who are you, Madame?"

"Rosika Storey," she said.

_He_ knew.  He leaped to his feet and made her a profound bow.  Then he
kissed her hand.  Frenchmen can do that sort of thing without any
sacrifice of dignity.  Compliments flowed from him in a stream.

Mme Storey insisted on identifying herself by her passport.  "We have
never met," she said, "because it is my fancy to allow it to be
supposed in Paris that I am merely a person of leisure.  If you will be
good enough to communicate with Captain Sir Angus McMaster of the
_Gigantic_, he will confirm what I have told you about the events on
shipboard."

M. le Prfet would not hear of such a thing, but I have no doubt he did
communicate with Sir Angus.

The upshot was that he agreed to let Mme Storey proceed in her own way.
He told us for our information that it had been established that Mrs.
Ellis had disposed of the greater part of her jewels to various
jewellers in the Rue de la Paix.  The money she had received for them
had disappeared, of course.

Mme Storey asked him to convey the substance of her communication to
the bereaved husband in order to save her the painful task of telling
Mr. Ellis herself.  "He is sure to think I ought to have told him in
the beginning," she said.  "But I couldn't do that on a mere suspicion.
It wouldn't have made any difference, anyway--except, perhaps, to
hasten the poor woman's suicide by a day or two."

From that time forward we worked in close coperation with the Paris
police.  They must have a tighter rein on the newspapers than we have;
for no word of Mrs. Ellis's suicide appeared.


VI

The three of us returned to the Crillon to confer.  A certain jealousy
developed between the excellent Mlle Monge and myself.  Each of us was
keen to obtain the assignment of calling upon M. Guimet.

"I know Paris and Paris ways," said Mlle Monge.

"But he looks for Americans," said I.

Mme Storey vetoed both suggestions.  "Their whole business is conducted
with absolute circumspection," she said.  "They are not taking any
chances.  We may be certain that the Dartreys have some means of
notifying M. Guimet whom to expect.  The essence of a clever confidence
game lies in that.  An outsider would never gain admission to M.
Guimet's apartment, and a false move on our part would ruin
everything....  Let me think a moment."

The result was that she announced I must go to London.

I set off that same evening via the night boat between Le Havre and
Southampton, armed with letters to Scotland Yard both from Mme Storey
and from M. le Prfet.  The journey was a great pleasure to me, but I
do not mean to hold up my tale while I relate my first impressions of
misty London, which has a beauty of its own, oh, so different from
Paris!  London did not amaze me so much, but was perhaps dearer, more
like home.

In the great red brick building on the Embankment I presented my
letters and was very courteously received.  Steps were instantly taken
to have the Dartreys placed under surveillance.  What we were after was
to discover how they communicated with M. Guimet and to intercept any
messages they might send him.

There was nothing I could do to help in this, and I spent the next two
days in seeing London.  I was in frequent communication with Mme Storey
by telegraph, but I may say that nothing of importance happened in
Paris while I was away.  The police were keeping a quiet watch on M.
Guimet to make sure that he did not slip through our fingers.

On the morning of the third day I was summoned back to the office of
the Chief Inspector of Scotland Yard.  This was a burly sober Saxon,
the exact antithesis of the dapper M. le Prfet, but in his own style
no less keen.  He said:

"I think I have what you want.  As you may know, my men had
instructions once before to watch Mr. and Mrs. Dartrey and were
familiar with their habits.  Now, as then, we found that everybody who
visited them was above suspicion.  Neither did it yield any results to
listen in to their telephone conversations, or to examine the letters
they received and sent.  This time I put the cleverest female agent I
have to watch Mrs. Dartrey, and she has laid bare the lady's simple and
ingenious scheme for communicating with her principal in Paris.

"At nine o'clock last night Mrs. Dartrey (my agent close at her heels)
dropped in at the Underground station at Sloane Square and used one of
the public telephones there.  My agent went into the adjoining booth to
listen.  But she had a difficult task to take down what she heard, for
Mrs. Dartrey spoke a strange sort of gibberish unlike any known
language.  My agent was able to get it phonetically, chiefly because
the person at the other end of Mrs. Dartrey's wire also had trouble,
and Mrs. Dartrey was obliged to repeat a good deal.

"The number that Mrs. Dartrey called up proved to be a public house in
the East End.  A man was waiting there, evidently by prearrangement, to
receive her call.  He was not known in that public house.  The name he
gave was Thompson, but of course that signifies nothing.  I will
furnish you with a description of him.  Long before we got there he had
his message and was gone, of course; and the message is now undoubtedly
on its way to Paris.  I judge that he carried it himself, since these
people have a wholesome distrust of the post office.

"Now for the message itself.  When it was laid before me I judged that
it was written in cryptogram, and I handed it over to an expert that we
have in such matters.  It gave him no great difficulty to decipher it.
One of the simplest forms of a cryptogram, it was nevertheless very
effective when spoken over the telephone, and none but a person of
uncommonly acute hearing could have taken it down.  I did not rouse you
out of bed when we had succeeded in translating it, because, as you
will see from the context, you have plenty of time in which to act.

"Here it is.  Some of the words are missing, but the sense is clear.  A
very simple cryptogram, but there are several arbitrary rules to
confuse you.  Generally only the initial consonant is transposed, but,
in long words, the consonant beginning the middle syllable will be
changed also.  The letter J is placed before all words beginning with a
vowel.  Th stands for Sh and vice-versa.  Sometimes there are
intentional mistakes in grammar.  Sometimes, when the jargon was
awkward, a word would be spoken straight.  And so on.

"Just as a curiosity I will set down a few sentences of the original.
When I spoke it over to myself I was astonished that anybody could have
taken it down by ear.


CONVERSATION IN SLOANE SQUARE STATION, 9 P.M. AUGUST 11TH

(Taken down by No. 134)

"Jar voo share? ...

"Han voo keer de glain? ...

"Rake shis mown ...

"Nis deery hopley jis humming ro garris dunmay lext feek.  De hame
jover fith ker jon pyganric bix feeks jaggo.  Sin jin jingnand bince.
Thee sit tight jaway sut rimid laycher pot hold weet nater.  De det ker
jon breet wour mays jago.  Rooker (several words missing here) Kadker
minner dy glace nast light.  Pave jit rooker strong.  Pot ker jail
jecksited.  Font wail jus low, etc., etc.


"The translation follows:


"Are you there? ...

"Can you hear me plain? ...

"Take this down ...

"Miss Mary Copley is coming to Paris on Monday next week.  We came over
with her on _Gigantic_ six weeks ago.  Been in England since.  She bit
right away, but timid nature, got cold feet later."  "I" (for the
pronoun "I" Mrs. Dartrey always said "Be" meaning "Me," but I will not
so write it every time) "met her on street four days ago.  Took her
(words missing here) Had her dinner my place last night.  Gave it to
her strong.  Got her all excited.  Won't fail us now.

"She is travelling with her parents.  Has obtained from them permission
to make five days' trip to Paris with supposed woman friend.  So she
comes alone.  No difficulty with money question in this case.  She is
well off in her own right.  Has cabled to her banker to sell certain
securities and remit by cable.  Carries with her about twenty-five
hundred pounds Bank of England notes.  We can get more later.  Suggest
you urge her to return.  They are not sailing for America until October.

"This woman does not quite fill your specifications, since she comes of
a long-established New England family and looks fairly intelligent.
But I assure you she's another fool.  I have got her going strong.  She
is ripe for your dope.  Her father inherited money.  He's a sort of
dilettante scholar; they spend half of every year in Europe.  He's a
downy bird.  Not the sort to make trouble if he got on to anything.

"The girl is thirty-three years old and has already lost whatever looks
she may have had.  She realizes that she's on the shelf and is
desperate.  I know her inside out, because I've had to listen to her
confidence _ad nauseam_.  She has led a society life and was fairly
popular during her first season or two, but has seen younger girls
supplant her.  She's not of an especially amorous disposition, and you
can't work that line.  But she has a lust of power; it enrages her that
her girlhood friends are all able to put it over her with their
husbands, their houses, their children, while she is still 'a daughter
at home.'

"She had her only serious love affair about five years ago.  At that
time she became engaged to a young engineer who was building a state
road near her home at Pride's Crossing, Mass.  But her dearest girl
friend took him away from her and married him.  This wound has been
festering in Miss C's breast ever since.  The two have been married
long enough now to begin to tire of each other, and Miss C's secret
dream is to bring the man to her feet and spurn him.  She dreams of
breaking up her friend's home and establishing a home of her own.
There's your material for you.

"This is probably the last I'll send you this season.  Can we meet in
the fall?  How did the Ellis woman pan out?  On the last trip of the
_Gigantic_ Rosika Storey was aboard, but she never noticed me.  The
captain has it in for me, though.  Next season I think I'd better give
the _Gigantic_ the go-by.  How about the big ships of the French line
and the Dutch line?  We've never tried to work them.  We've had a
first-rate season.  Can't you raise the ante a little?  The expenses
are terrific, and L. is restive.  Another thousand or two would soothe
him.  Come across, like a good fellow.

"Miss Copley is booked by the Folkestone-Boulogue route, Monday
morning.  I have recommended her to the Htel Wagram, Paris.  I don't
doubt but you will see her within an hour of her arrival."


I pinned this precious document to my underclothing and contrived to
catch the eleven o'clock express from Victoria via the fashionable
Dover-Calais route.  I reached Paris in time to have dinner with my
dear mistress at Voisin's, a delightful old-fashioned restaurant that
she affected.

Between courses she smoked and regarded the paper with a half-smile.
"We did well to wait for this," she said.  "They can hardly escape us
now."

"How will you proceed?" I asked.

"Well, on Monday afternoon, with the assistance of M. le Prfet, we
must kidnap this Miss Copley upon her arrival at the Htel Wagram and
detain her long enough for you to go call on M. Guimet in her name."

This was the most important task I had ever been given, and my heart
was proud.

"Our principal difficulty," she went on teasingly, "is that you have
not lost your looks, my Bella."

I blushed.

"However, M. le Prfet must certainly have artists in make-up on his
staff.  It ought not to be hard to endow you with a bad complexion and
a wig of lifeless hair.  Your clothes I will see to myself.
Fortunately Mrs. Dartrey does not describe her appearance, so we have a
free hand....  Mrs. Dartrey says she looks intelligent but is a fool.
That's all right.  Between now and Monday I must drill you in acting
the fool.  Which sort will you choose to be, a dumb fool or a talkative
fool?"

"Oh, a dumb fool," I said.  "I might run out of talk at the critical
moment."

"Very good.  A dumb fool very often has a suspicious and pathetic
expression--like this."

She exaggerated, of course, and it set me off on a peal of laughter.
But I was obliged to practise the look until she expressed herself as
satisfied.

"The way to be sure of holding that all the time you are in his place,"
Mme Storey continued, "is for you to keep repeating to yourself: 'I am
a fool; I am a fool; I am a poor dumb fool!' ... Look around the
restaurant and repeat that to yourself....  Excellent!

"Let your body slump a little and practise shambling in your walk," she
went on.  "Infallible indications of a fool.  And make out that you do
not understand what he says to you.  Frequently ask him with a dense
look to repeat his words.  All this will come to you naturally if you
keep assuring yourself that you are a fool....  Another thing that I've
noticed about a fool is she nearly always has some senseless tags of
speech that she works in and out of season.  I used to know a girl who
was perfectly unable to say plain yes or no.  It was always, 'Yes, my
soul,' and 'No, my father.' ... This _riz de veau bchamel_ is good,
isn't it?"

"Yes, my soul," I murmured.

"Splendid!"


VII

Mme Storey still insisted that this was my case, and I was assigned to
go to the Wagram on Monday afternoon to apprehend Miss Copley.  My
mistress had become involved in a whirl of gaieties and had engagements
at all hours, but she expected to be at the Prfecture later, to assist
in questioning the woman.  The boat train was due in Paris about four,
and I was in the foyer of the hotel at that hour.  The Wagram is one of
the several elegant places on the Rue de Rivoli that cater almost
exclusively to Americans.  I identified myself to the management, so
that I was allowed to stand by the desk of the bureau without question.
I had the assistance of an _agent de police_ in plain clothes, but I
left him out on the pavement.

Several guests arrived at once from the Gare du Nord.  I watched their
hands as they wrote their names in the book.  When I saw "Miss Mary
Copley" in a cultivated hand, I looked eagerly in the face of the
writer.  She was the sort of person that one hesitates whether to call
a girl or a woman.  She no doubt thought of herself as a girl and
dressed the part, but Time had already unkindly marked her face with
lines and hollows.  She was well enough dressed, but clothes couldn't
do much for her, and evidently, in her respectable Boston set, make-up
was still considered bad form.  In all she was a most ordinary-looking
person, dull-coloured and repressed.  One would never have picked her
out as a likely victim of an International swindle.

She was assigned to a room.  As she proceeded toward the lift I
intercepted her.  "May I speak with you a moment?" I asked.

She looked at me in great astonishment; but there was nothing in my
appearance to cause her any especial alarm.  "Why--what is it?" she
asked.

I drew her out of hearing of the boy who had her valise.  "I have to
ask you to come with me to the Prfecture de Police for a little
while," I said.

Naturally the poor woman was shocked.  "But what--but why----" she
stammered.  "What does this mean?"

"Do not distress yourself," I said soothingly.  "You are not under
arrest, of course.  M. le Prfet wishes to ask you a few questions
concerning the reason for your visit to Paris."

She had turned as white as paper and was shaking uncontrollably.
Heaven knows I would have reassured her if I could.  "I have no reason
for coming," she said, "except to look about and--and make a few
purchases."

"Then come and explain that to him," I said soothingly.  I didn't want
to become involved in an argument with her there in the foyer.

"I haven't a friend in Paris!" she murmured wildly.  "What am I to do?
What am I to do?"

"I am an American woman, like yourself," I said.  "I will see that your
interests are safeguarded.  No one will harm you; we wish to save you
from harm."

"I won't go with you," she said hysterically.  "Although I am in a
foreign city, I suppose I have some rights.  I have done nothing.  I
will send to the American Embassy for help.  My people are known there.
I won't go."

"You wouldn't like your people to know why you came to Paris, would
you?" I said at a venture.

It was cruel, I suppose.  She looked at me white and horror-stricken.
"I--I don't understand you," she faltered.

"Come," I said soothingly.  "I have an agent of the police outside.
Don't force me to call him in and make a scene here.  Come quietly, and
you'll be back here in an hour, and nobody the wiser."

"I don't know you," she said.  "You may be----"

"Ask at the desk," I said.

She did so.  By this time all the other arriving guests had gone to
their rooms.

The manager said with apologetic shrugs and bows: "This lady bears a
letter from M. le Prfet de Police.  She has the power to exact what
she wishes."

Miss Copley gave in.  I made her put her money in the hotel safe.  She
followed me out on the sidewalk with hanging head.  I hailed the first
passing cab, and we got in.  When the _agent de police_ climbed after
us, she shuddered.

We turned around in the street and, darting under the archway of the
Louvre, whirled across the Place du Carrousel at the usual breakneck
speed of Paris taxis.

"Can't you tell me what this means?" said Miss Copley.

"I have told you," I said.

"Do you know yourself what is behind it?"

"Yes," I said, "but I am not the person to question you."

"You must see how you are tormenting me."

"Well, I can tell you this," I said.  "You appear to have fallen into
the hands of dangerous sharpers.  I refer to Mrs. Dartrey and the man
Guimet you were on your way to see."

She looked at me in extreme horror.  "Sharpers!" she gasped.  "Oh! ...
_Oh-h_!"  Then she quickly averted her face from me.  Presently she
said in a muffled voice: "There must be some mistake.  I don't know any
such people."

I let it go at that.  "You ought to be thankful to us for saving you
your money," I said.  "Ten thousand dollars is a lot to lose."

She asked one more question as we crossed the bridge.  "If you are an
American, how do you come to be working for the Paris police?"

"I do not," I said.  "My employer is Madame Rosika Storey of New York.
Have you ever heard of her?"

She hesitated, and I saw that my mistress's name _was_ familiar to her.
"You will see her directly," I said.  "She is working with M. le Prfet
on this case."

Three minutes later we were in the office of M. le Prfet.  Mme Storey
was already there.  Miss Copley was in a pitiable state of nerves;
shaking incontrollably; biting her lips.

"Cheer up!" said Mme Storey kindly.  "No danger threatens you now.  You
are in the hands of your friends."  In order to give the girl time to
collect herself, she related to M. le Prfet an amusing passage that
she had had with a taxi driver on the way to his office.

Finally she said to me, "You have explained the situation to Miss
Copley?"

I nodded.

"I don't understand what it is all about," cried Miss Copley.  "I don't
know what you want of me.  There must be some mistake."

"We want you to help us bring these sharpers to book," said Mme Storey.

"_I_ help you!" cried the girl hysterically.  "_I_ testify against
them!  It will all be in the newspapers.  I should be disgraced.  My
parents--my parents----"

"Not at all," said Mme Storey.  "I think I may promise you that you
will be exhibited in an entirely favourable light.  It will be shown
that you acted as you did simply to save other women.  Is it not so, M.
le Prfet?"

"Assuredly, Madame."

But terror turned the girl absolutely stubborn.  "I know nothing!  I
know nothing!" she repeated.  "There is some mistake.  You have got
hold of the wrong person!"

"Listen," said Mme Storey.  She began to read Mrs. Dartrey's
communication to M. Guimet.

Midway, the girl stiffened out in her chair, her eyeballs rolled up,
and she began to shriek in pure hysterics.  One hardly looked for that
in the New England type.  But under that thin veneer she was no
different from another foolish woman.

M. le Prfet shrugged expressively and pressed a button on his desk.
He said something in French which one might translate as:

"Hysterics is a cornered woman's last resort."

What we would call a police matron entered the room.  At a nod from M.
le Prfet she took hold of Miss Copley's arm and led her away.

"We will proceed without her," said Mme Storey.


Half an hour later, in a sort of dressing room at the Prfecture, I
surveyed myself in a long mirror with some astonishment.  There was a
retired actor attached to the police in the capacity of make-up man, a
jolly old man, and he, in consultation with Mme Storey, had transformed
me beyond recognition.  I did not of course resemble Miss Copley, but I
exactly reproduced her type.  I was the slightly faded girl; the woman
who was not quite a woman.

"Turn around and let me look at you," said Mme Storey.

I whispered to myself: I have been taught to carry myself with a
certain assurance, but at heart I am a fool; a hysterical fool.  I
turned around.

"Admirable!" said Mme Storey with a smile.  "Hold that look!"

We proceeded down to the entrance together, and she whispered my final
instructions to me.

"You have ten thousand dollars in marked bills.  Your grand object is
to get Guimet to take it from you.  You will find an _agent de police_
in the dress of a street idler loafing at the entrance to the courtyard
of the house.  There are other agents in the neighbourhood.  Once
Guimet has taken the money, you may come out and order his arrest.
Should any accident happen, should you be in any sort of danger, you
may summon the police by blowing upon the whistle which has been
furnished you."

"My greatest difficulty will be to open the conversation with Guimet,"
I said.  "I shall have to find out exactly what Miss Copley was to come
to him for."

"Well--let us say that Monsieur possesses the secret of the charm of
women," said Mme Storey with a subtle smile.  "That is what you are
willing to pay ten thousand dollars for."

"So that's it!" I said.

"How could it be anything else?" said Mme Storey.  "Consider the style
of the talk of the decoy--that is to say Mrs. Dartrey.  Consider the
actions of Mrs. Ellis, who thought, poor soul, that she had purchased
the secret, until her husband turned from her in disgust.  Consider
what Mrs. Dartrey said to Guimet concerning this last victim."

We had arrived at the door.

"_Au revoir_, and good luck!" said Mme Storey.


VIII

My route lay eastward along the unfashionable part of the Rue de Rivoli
and its continuation, the Rue St. Antoine, which is like Fourteenth
Street, New York.  The Rue des Tournelles was the last turning to the
left before you reached the Place de la Bastille.  Here you plunged at
once into the Seventeenth Century.  It was the fashionable quarter in
those days; now it is somewhat miscellaneous.  The houses were so plain
and well built they scarcely looked ancient, but only solid and deadly
respectable.  Each one of the old mansions was entered through an
archway leading to a courtyard, in which you caught glimpses of
beautiful fountains.  My destination, number ----, seemed to be one of
the finest houses in the street.  The courtyard was still paved with
the original cobblestones in which the iron-shod wheels of the old
coaches had left deep ruts.  I saw my supposed idler lounging outside
the archway.

As in all Paris houses, you rang a bell, and the concierge poked her
head out of the window in the entry and inquired your business.
"Monsieur Guimet," said I.  "_Premier tage_," said she, with an
inquisitive and comprehensive survey of my person, and pulled a wire
which was connected with the latch of the door.

I mounted the noble old stairway with a fast-beating heart.  There were
several doors opening on the first landing, and I knocked on one at
random.  It was the wrong one; another door was opened by a very neat
old woman who looked like a peasant.  She looked me over in no friendly
fashion and asked me curtly what I wanted.

"Monsieur Guimet," I said.  I could not conceal my breathlessness, but
that, of course, was quite in character.

"You can't see him," she said bluntly.  "He's busy."

"Can't I wait?" I asked.

"That won't do you any good.  He is always busy."

I was dismayed.  Could there have been any slip-up in our plans?  I
wondered.  Had he been warned against me?  "But--but--" I faltered--"I
have come such a long way to see Monsieur.  All the way from England."

"He didn't ask you to come, did he?" she said rudely.

It occurred to me that the best way to find out if they suspected me
would be to make believe to be discouraged, so I half turned from the
door with a crushed air.

The woman immediately said: "Well, I'll take your name to him, but he
never sees ladies when he's busy."

I gave her my supposed name, and she left me standing out on the
landing.  My heart was light again, for I was sure that this blunt
reception was merely part of a clever bluff.

The old woman presently returned with a slightly less forbidding
expression.  "Monsieur says he will see you since you have come so
far," she said.

I stepped into a beautiful octagonal foyer panelled with velvety walnut
which had never been desecrated by varnish.  The little room was quite
bare.  Crossing it, we entered a noble salon which occupied the whole
of that side of the building and looked down into the courtyard.  This
room had been designed for splendid entertainments, but was now filled
from end to end with scientific instruments and chemical apparatus, all
very bare and workmanlike.  Three or four linen-coated students bent
over the tables in deep concentration or manipulated the instruments.
The lovely old painted ceiling of Venuses and cupids looked down very
strangely on this scene.

My guide, turning to the right, led me through half this room, then,
with another turn to the right, through a small library, or a
storehouse of scientific books.  Finally, with still another half turn,
she opened a door and allowed me to pass her into another beautiful
little panelled room.  Now, my sense of direction is excellent, and I
immediately realized that this little room had its own door on the
foyer, and I had been led all the way around merely for the purpose of
impressing me.

This was the cabinet of the master.  My first impression was of a
withered little man in a black skullcap.  He was seated at a table with
a pair of calipers in his hand, tracing a mysterious design on a large
sheet of Whatman paper.  He did not look up at my entrance, and I had
ample opportunity to look about me.  The single window in the room
looked toward a narrower courtyard in the rear.  This room, too, was
filled with scientific apparatus whose uses I could only guess at; mere
stage settings, I judged, since he already had a fully equipped
laboratory outside.

He raised his head, and I saw a handsome, hawklike old face with a pair
of dark, still youthful eyes.  He burst out at me surprisingly in
French; very good French too; good enough to have deceived my ears.

"Madame, I am a serious man, a scientist!  I am engaged in deep
researches for the good of humanity.  Must my work be interrupted by
the knocking of light-minded women at my door?"

Behind the assumed anger there was the hint of a twinkle in his eyes,
which suggested that he appreciated the joke of the situation.
Evidently this man was a rogue out of the sheer love of roguery.  It
rendered him insidiously attractive.  But of course I had to suppress
the answering grin that pulled at my lips.  A foolish woman like Miss
Copley would have been terrified by his outburst.  I tried to make
myself look senseless with terror.

"I didn't know," I stammered.  "Excuse me--I was led to suppose--I
thought----"

"Speak English," he said.  "I understand it."

The instant he said it, I knew he was my own countryman.  There was an
overtone that suggested the streets of New York; the merest hint of
what used to be called a Bowery accent but is now universal from Coney
Island to Clason's Point.

"I am very sorry to have disturbed you," I said, "but----"

"What do you want of me?" he demanded.

I supposed that Miss Copley and the others would have been a good deal
confused here.  "I understand," I stammered, "that is I have been told
by a lady--that you have something--a secret----"

"Please speak out, Madame.  My time is valuable."

"The charm of women," I mumbled.

He shrugged magnificently; hands, arms, shoulders, head, eyebrows, all
had a part in it.  "What folly!  There is no panacea for that!"  He
made believe to return to his work.

I suspected that a stupid woman such as I was portraying would be
dogged enough in the pursuit of her own ends, so I sat tight.

"Well, why don't you go?" he said, looking up.

"I am sure there is no mistake," I said.  "Mrs. Dartrey told me----"

"I know no such person."

"Oh, I suppose you have forgotten her.  But she has been to you.  You
gave her something----"

"My dear Madame," he said impatiently, "this is unworthy of the
attention of a scientific man.  What is this charm of women that you
set such a store by?  Merely a disturbing element in life.  It
distracts men from their serious work and sets them flying at each
other's throats.  It is responsible for all the follies and crimes and
misfortunes of humanity!  Why should I spread that which had much
better be wiped out and destroyed?"

Ah, the clever rascal!  While he was apparently disparaging what I
wanted, he was really rendering it twice as desirable.

I sat on in dumb obstinacy.

"It is useless for you to remain," he said, fussing among the objects
on his desk.

"I am prepared to pay well for it," I murmured.

"What, Madame!" he cried, furiously indignant "Do you take me for a
marketman?  Or a peddler of love philtres?  Please leave me!"

Somewhere about this point Miss Copley, I fancied, would have begun to
cry.  I couldn't actually make the tears come, but I wrinkled up my
face as if they were near.

M. Guimet jumped up with a distracted gesture.  I saw that he was a
short man who had been powerful in youth.  "Ah, _mon Dieu_!" he cried.
"Am I to be treated to a display of emotion now?  You have destroyed my
whole day for me!  I wish to Heaven there were no such thing as the
charm of women!"

This was a subtle admission, you see.  I pressed my handkerchief to my
eyes and made my shoulders shake.  "I wanted it so badly!" I murmured
with a piteous catch in my breath.  "I have come so far----"

M. Guimet walked to and fro, snorting.

Finally he came to a stand.  "Well, since you have ruined my day
anyhow, I may as well tell you," he said.  "I do possess such a secret,
but I am obliged to deny it like an infection of leprosy or I should be
swamped, _swamped_ by your scatter-brained sex."

I let the sun break through my grief.  "And you will give it to me!" I
said, clasping my hands.

"Wait a minute!" he said, holding up his hand.  "I should have
destroyed the recipe long ago and forgotten it were it not that my
serious experiments are so frightfully expensive.  Of course, I enjoy
grants from the government, but it is not enough.  And once or twice in
the past I have sold my secret to a rich woman in order to enable me to
carry on my great work for La France!"

I wish you could have seen the noble attitude he struck for La
France--this denizen of the Tenderloin district, or I missed my guess.

"Is the hint sufficient for you, Madame?  If you are not a rich woman,
go away, for the love of God, and leave me to my work."

"I'm not exactly rich," I said, "but I can pay well.  How much will it
be?"

He waved his hands violently.  "Don't talk to me of money!" he cried
with tears in his voice.  "I am no chafferer, I am a scientist.  If you
are rich, give largely to my work.  I assure you I won't count it."

This was magnificent but vague.  "I have the money with me," I said,
raising my handbag.

"I won't take it!  I won't take it!" he said.  "I am an honest man.  I
insist that you sample my recipe first.  The effect, I may say, is
instantaneous.  If you are satisfied, you may come back to-morrow for a
supply."

He opened a wall cupboard, and I beheld rows of bottles containing
diverse coloured liquors and powders with Latin labels.  I have no
Latin, but if I had, I doubt if I could have made much of those labels.
He impressively set out a number of these bottles on his desk and
brought a graduated glass and a chemist's scales contained in a glass
case, that not even a grain of dust might disturb its delicate balance.
Then he sat down and proceeded to measure and weigh with the nicest
care; holding up the graduated glass to the light, and squinting at it
exactly as you see in the pictures of the old alchemists.

An ounce of this liquid; a few drops of that; a gramme of an
odd-coloured red powder.  As the various bottles were uncorked,
different pungent and delicious perfumes filled the room.  Mme Storey,
with her marvellous sense of smell, would probably have recognized them
all; but I only got a generally alcoholic effect and one particular
perfume that I guessed to be nothing but sirop de grenadine.  All this
he put in a curious antique bottle, holding something less than a pint.

While he mixed, he conversed with the greatest affability.  His
bearlike reception of me in the beginning had evidently been designed
only to show up his present charming manners by force of contrast.  It
is an old trick.  In this he overreached himself a little; for there
was more than a trace of oiliness in him now that betrayed the sharper.
But, of course, since he designed to deal with fools only, he felt that
he did not have to be too particular.

"Do you know whose house this was?" he asked me.  "It is quite famous."

"No," said I.

"The marvellous Ninon de l'Enclos lived here during the late
Seventeenth Century.  These very rooms, in fact, were hers."

"I've heard of her," said I.

"Who has not heard of her?  She was not, perhaps, a paragon of virtue"
(an expressive shrug here), "but we must not be censorious.  A
matchless woman!  At ninety years old men fell at her feet.  In the
history of the world there was never another like her.  What is still
more remarkable, they say she was not beautiful.  She had wit; she had
learning; above all, she had charm.  Think of a woman who had for
lovers in succession such men as de Coligny, D'Estres, La
Rochefoucauld, Cond, St. Evremond.  They speak of Voltaire too, though
he was but a lad when she was old.  Anne of Austria, the great queen
herself, was no match for Ninon de l'Enclos, and strove to combat her
influence in vain.  They say that this little room was her own private
cabinet.  If you close your eyes perhaps you can feel that exquisite
presence here still.

"Of course, I did not engage these rooms for that reason, but because
the salon outside, with its good light, made such an admirable
laboratory, and this little room a quiet study for myself.  When I came
here, the panelling of this room was somewhat in disrepair, and in
examining it with a view to its restoration I discovered a little iron
box hidden in the wall.  I forced its lock myself, and inside I found a
single scrap of parchment, upon which was engrossed in a crabbed
Seventeenth Century hand a formula.  With my knowledge of chemistry I
instantly recognized the purport of this formula.  It was thus, Madame,
that I stumbled on the secret of the great Ninon de l'Enclos's
imperishable charm!"

I gazed at the man in sheer admiration of his cleverness.  It was no
wonder that poor silly women fell into his toils.  The contest was too
unequal.

"Not altogether a secret," he went on.  "Certain elements of the
preparation are known to all Frenchwomen, and that is why they are more
charming than the women of other races.  They are not more beautiful,
as you can see for yourself.  The women of your glorious young country
far surpass them in looks.  But they have charm.

"And they know but one element, perhaps; two at the most.  The great
Ninon combined them all.  Where she got her knowledge from I cannot
tell you.  She was a learned woman for that day, but I think it more
likely that some unknown chemist who loved her devoted his whole life
to the search.  What a gift that was to lay at the feet of one's
beloved!

"In the Seventeenth Century the science of chemistry was in its
infancy.  When I read the recipe with my knowledge of the great
discoveries that have been made since, I instantly saw how it might be
made a hundred times more potent.  We have marvellous essences at our
command that they never dreamed of.  This tincture, for instance ..."

He held up a bottle containing a fluid of a strange bright orange
colour.

"This bottle contains the wherewithal to drive all Paris mad.  But the
single drop that, as you may have observed, I allowed to fall into the
mixture is sufficient to change the colour of your whole existence,
Madame.  I confess I was startled by the results of my experiments.  To
be in the possession of so dangerous a power may well frighten an
honest man and render him humble.  I have kept it a secret so far as I
have been able, and when I die it will die with me."

He played his part to perfection.  A little too perfectly, if anything.
A sincere man would not have been so obviously pleased with himself.

"Charm is really no more than health," he went on.  "By that I mean
_perfect_ health.  There is not one person in ten thousand who knows
the feeling of perfect health: the ability to realize and enjoy one's
faculties to the full!  Ah! the unreasoning joy of the light heart; the
sparkling eye, the springing step; the power to command all hearts!"

By this time the elixir was ready.  He filled a tiny liqueur glass with
the dark liquid and signified that I was to drink it.  I hesitated for
the fraction of a second; the ugly little thought like a snake darted
through my mind: Suppose this gentleman adds murder to his other
accomplishments?  Observing my hesitation, he picked up the glass and
tossed off the contents.

"I like the taste," he said, "but it has no effect on me.  It acts only
on the more delicate feminine organization....  It is just as well," he
added with a roguish smile; "I could not afford to be charming.  I am
too busy."

He filled another tiny glass, and I drank it....  It was pleasant, and
one's gullet tingled as it went down.  I was reminded of drinking _fine
 l'eau_ with poor Mrs. Ellis a few days before.  In short, the elixir
was nothing more nor less than fine brandy with various flavouring
extracts added.  A lovely glow spread through my veins.  I could very
easily imagine that I was becoming charming.

We parted in the greatest friendliness.

"Until to-morrow," said M. Guimet.

"I shall be here early," I warned him.

"It is all one to me," he said with a shrug.  "I am at work early and
late."

"And the money?" I said.  I felt sure Miss Copley would have said
something about it.

"Oh, bring all you have," he said with a superb carelessness.

On my way out of the building the disguised police agent was still
lounging in the archway.  As I passed him without making any sign, he
understood there was nothing doing that day.  I did not see what became
of him.  There were no cabs in that quiet street, and I made my way
toward the Rue St. Antoine.

I had not gone far when I met a good-looking young Frenchman with an
adventurous eye--rather a flash type.  He smiled at me in a certain
way; half insinuating, half insolent, and raised his hat.  Now this
sort of thing never happens to me, and I got a great start.  The wild
thought came to me that perhaps there was something in the elixir;
maybe I was turning into a charmer!

But sober sense instantly corrected it.  That was what that poor
foolish Mrs. Ellis had thought, of course.  It explained her
half-insane actions during the afternoon we had spent together.  The
flash young man was only a plant--the cleverest bit of business of all
in this elaborate tragi-comedy.  I hurried on, looking scared and
pleased, as I fancied Miss Copley might have looked.

At the corner I had to wait for a moment.  He came up close and
whispered some inanity in my ear: "Don't be in such a hurry."

I stared straight ahead.  It was fearfully exciting and not exactly
unpleasant.  I still had a merry jingle in my veins from the brandy.

"May I come with you?" he asked.  "You are so nice."

A taxi drew up at the curb and I sprang in, pulling the door after me
without letting it out of my hand.  "Drive on," I said breathlessly to
the driver.  "Anywhere."

And this was not all.  I had not driven but a block or two when I saw a
man in a cab going the other way making signals to me.  This was quite
a distinguished-looking person with a flower in his buttonhole.  He
leaned out of his cab smiling and bowing repeatedly.  I looked at him
stonily.  Glancing back, I saw that he had ordered his driver to turn
around.  My chauffeur saw it too, and asked me with a grin if he should
stop.

"Certainly not!" I said.  "Drive me to the Htel Wagram."

This coincided with an incident that Mrs. Ellis had told me of.

From the hotel I telephoned a brief account of what had occurred to M.
le Prfet, also to Mme Storey, who had told me that I would find her at
the house of a certain friend at that hour.


IX

The necessary delay in arresting M. Guimet put M. le Prfet in somewhat
of a quandary concerning Miss Copley.  He had no legal right to lock
her up overnight, and he had every official person's dread of
international complications.  On the other hand, if he let her go, such
was her terror of any exposure, he was sure she would attempt to put
the man on his guard.

M. le Prfet solved the problem by having Miss Copley put on the boat
train for England.  Even so, she might telegraph to M. Guimet, but it
was easy for the police to intercept telegrams.  As a matter of fact,
she did telegraph.  She must also have telegraphed to Mrs. Dartrey, for
later in the night a wire was intercepted from England in their
peculiar code, which we had no difficulty in translating as:

"Beat it quick."

All this made us anxious.  I returned to M. Guimet's at nine-thirty
next morning, which was as early as I dared risk it.  To have called
earlier would, in itself, have made that canny gentleman suspicious, I
feared.  I had my police whistle; and I was now furnished in addition
with an automatic pistol in case of an emergency.  I devoutly prayed
that I might not have to use it.

This morning I was shown into M. Guimet's cabinet without any parley.
The white-coated students were already at work in the big laboratory.
What pains they all took to give verisimilitude to their game.  In a
way of speaking, it deserved to succeed.

M. Guimet appeared to rouse himself from his computations with
difficulty.  This bit of comedy reassured me.  Evidently he had not as
yet taken any alarm.  Our interview was brief, for all he wanted now
was the money, and all I wanted was for him to take it.

I handed over the fat packet of crisp white English notes.
Notwithstanding his pretended indifference to money, he counted it with
care.

"This will not carry my work very far," he said with a disappointed air.

For an instant I was genuinely terrified lest he might be going to hand
it back.  "It is all I have," I faltered.

"Oh, well," he said with a shrug; and I breathed more freely.

He threw back a panel in the wall revealing a little safe behind it.
While he manipulated the combination he said:

"This is where I found the formula.  I had the modern safe put in."

He stood in front of the safe while it was open, and I could not see
what the contents might be.  He put in the money I had given him,
closed the door, and twirled the combination.  Meanwhile, I took
possession of the bottle.

This concluded our business, but such was my gentleman's love of
histrionics that he threw in a little extra for good measure.  Do you
get the picture?  The old man, but still handsome and
dangerous-looking--except for his snuffy clothes, he did not at all
resemble the scientist he was supposed to be--standing on the other
side of his table, declaiming with graceful gestures.

"I need not ask you if you are satisfied with my cordial, since you are
here.  Never exceed the dose that I gave you yesterday, and do not take
it more than once a day.  I feel a change in you this morning, but that
is not for me to say.  I would rather have others tell you.  I hope
that I may be the means of bringing a great happiness into your life.
One can see that you have found life disappointing hitherto--owing to
the meanness and falsity of others.  Well, hereafter you will not be
dependent on others.  You will be the sun from which they receive their
rays.

"Ah, my dear Madame! the possession of such a secret entails a heavy
responsibility upon me.  I would like to publish it broadcast for the
benefit of womankind.  But it does not seem fair to do so unless I
could at the same time furnish a corresponding stimulus to men.  I am a
man.  I cannot betray my own sex.  Our ascendency is already seriously
threatened.  Where would men be if I put such a weapon into the hands
of women?"

It was deliciously comic.  I stored up every word, with a view to
recounting it to my mistress later.  I wondered what this man's life
history must have been.  A magnificent physical specimen in his youth,
women must have been mad about him.  Even in his old age he enjoyed
life and was still not unattractive.  What cleverness and humour!  It
was rather sad to see it devoted to crooked ends.

He was interrupted by the sound of voices somewhere near.  Suddenly a
door which had not been opened before banged in and a woman entered.
It was the door I had marked which opened direct on the foyer.  The
woman was a middle-aged bourgeoise of whom one sees millions in Paris,
making their thrifty purchases in the small shops.  She wore a
preposterous hat, a black "fringe," and a sober black dress over an
old-fashioned corset which featured the bust.  For the moment M. Guimet
was as much astonished by her entrance as I was; but when she spoke we
both recognized her.

"That woman is a bull!" she said, not loud, in English.

It was Mrs. Dartrey, marvellously disguised.

Things happened very swiftly after that.  I whipped out my whistle and
put it to my lips, but the two of them leaped on me, and I never got a
sound out.  The sturdy old servant, too, was there to help them.  I was
no match against the three of them.  In not very many seconds my wrists
and ankles were immovably bound with thongs of rag and my mouth gagged.
One of the women must have torn off part of her clothing to furnish my
bonds.  They were very quiet about it.  Evidently the students in the
front room were not to be alarmed.

They flung me into a chair.  The tears of bitter mortification sprang
to my eyes, seeing all my work about to go for nothing.  The biggest
job I had ever undertaken.  But how did they expect to get out of the
house, I wondered.  I was not entirely without hope.

How cool and swift they were in all their movements!  Not much time
wasted in recriminations.  Guimet flung open the door of the wall
cupboard as if to make a clean sweep of its contents.

"Let be," said Mrs. Dartrey.  "The courtyard is full of police.  If
this woman does not come out directly, they'll come after her.  How
could you be so careless?"

"I had no reason to suspect danger," said Gilbert.  "Who gave you the
tip?"

"The real Miss Copley.  The police sent her back to England last
evening.  She telegraphed me from Pontoise.  I wired you."

"I didn't get it."

"Of course you didn't....  Be quick."

"I will only wait for the money.  We must have that."

"Be careful of the money she gave you.  It is certainly marked."

"It would be still more incriminating to leave it behind, then.  We'll
throw it down a sewer."

"Is the way out clear?"

"You may be damn sure it's clear, my dear.  There are not six men in
Paris know of that passage, and they are archaeologists!"

My heart went down.

While they threw their swift sentences back and forth, the man was busy
fetching a valise and opening the safe.  The woman stood beside him
while he worked at it.  Apparently they forgot that I could hear--or
else they didn't care.

"I went right out to Croydon to the aviation field," said Mrs. Dartrey.
"But of course I couldn't persuade anybody to take the air until
daybreak.  Cost me two hundred pounds.  I was in Paris by seven
o'clock, but when I got here I found the police watching.  I had to go
away again and get this disguise."

"You are as wonderful as ever, my dear....  Do you know this woman?"

"Hell, yes!  She crossed on the _Gigantic_."

"Why didn't you tip me off?"

"I didn't know she was after us....  But at least I could see she
wasn't a prospect, if you couldn't.  She got nothing out of me."

"Don't rub it in, my angel....  Who is she working for?"

"I don't know.  The captain, maybe.  I told you he had it in for me."

There was heard a loud, official knock-knock-knock on the entrance door.

"Come on!" said Mrs. Dartrey.

Guimet flung the safe door shut, and shot the panel across.  To the old
servant he said:

"Marthe, you remain.  You know nothing.  You are safe."

She nodded stolidly.

There was a third door in the little room.  Guimet ran to it and flung
it open.  I had a glimpse of a plainly furnished bedroom on the other
side.  Mrs. Dartrey passed through the door first.  Guimet lingered
long enough to say to me with a devil-may-care grin:

"_Au revoir_, Red-hair!  At any rate, there's one good jag in that
bottle!"

They disappeared.  I could not see what became of them in the little
bedroom.  My heart was full of a bitter, bitter chagrin thus to see him
get away with a jest on his lips.

But presently the two of them came tumbling back across the bedroom,
and into the room where I was.  Gone was her cool, assured air, and the
grin wiped off his lips.  They were no more then than any two
white-faced, hunted creatures.  At the same moment we heard the
entrance door smash in, and they hung in the middle of the room, their
eyes darting wildly this way and that, like those of trapped animals.
There were the sounds of many people in the foyer, and they ran out in
the other direction through the book room.  The old servant continued
to stand stolidly by the window.

Then, sauntering through the bedroom with her most elegant air and into
the cabinet came Mme Storey; smiling and beautifully dressed; taking
everything in with her amused eyes.  A gendarme followed at her heels.
She seemed like a beautiful apparition to me.  I simply could not
believe my eyes.  It was the greatest surprise she has ever given me;
and she has given me many.

At the sight of my plight, her face filled with concern.  "Ah, my poor
Bella!" she murmured, and motioned quickly to the gendarme.

He made haste to cut me free.

It seemed by this time as if the house was filled with police.  They
came in by every door.  Guimet and Mrs. Dartrey were thrust back into
the room from the book room.

"Ah!" cried Mme Storey gaily: "Mr. Smoke Lassen, after all these years!
What an unexpected pleasure! ...  And Miss Breese, I believe.  We have
never met, but I have often heard of you.  I hardly expected to have
the luck of finding you in Paris!"

The man looked at Mme Storey with a face of unspeakable disgust.  "Damn
it all!" he cried fervently.  "Is there no place on earth where I can
escape the woman!"

Mrs. Dartrey said never a word.

They were led away by the police, and that about finishes my story.

I was keen to hear the explanation of Mme Storey's magical appearance
on the scene.

"No magic in it, my Bella," said she.  "I dined last night with some
French friends.  Among the guests was a famous archaeologist, whose
hobby is old Paris.  I asked him about Mademoiselle Ninon de l'Enclos,
and I immediately got what we would call at home an earful.  In France
the memory of the fair, frail Ninon is still cherished by every _homme
d'esprit_.  It appeared that among the treasures of my friend's
collection were the memoirs in manuscript of a certain gallant of that
day, who signed himself merely: Le Chevalier Sansregret.  There's a
pseudonym for you!

"My friend insisted, seeing how interested I was, upon driving around
by his rooms on my way home.  There he got the precious manuscript,
which has never been published, and gave it to me to read.  I read it
in bed this morning while I was having coffee.  A highly diverting
tale.  It appeared that Monsieur Sansregret was a very dear friend of
Mademoiselle Ninon's, but for some reason or another he could not be
acknowledged by her.  Perhaps he was poor but charming.  So he visited
her by means of a secret passage which opened on a tiny street behind
her house, called the Rue de Beausire.  It is still there, and it is
still called the street of the Fine Gentleman, though it is only a few
hundred feet long.

"It instantly occurred to me that the passage might be there too, and
that indeed it might have had something to do with the so-called M.
Guimet's taking this house.  It was then just about the time that you
were due to arrive here.  So I jumped out of bed, flung on a few
clothes, telephoned to M. le Prfet for a gendarme, and hustled across
Paris in a taxi.

"The passage had been particularly described in the manuscript, and
after a bit of a search we found it.  And indeed we met Smoke Lassen
and Breezy Tricks coming out of it.  So there you are."


The man and the woman were subsequently tried and convicted under the
French laws and sentenced to prison for long terms.  I understand that
in France there is less chance than with us of their being released
before the expiration of their sentences.  Well, I was genuinely sorry
to see them go.  They were a clever and amusing pair, and those
qualities are not so abundant in a dull world that we can afford to
lock them up.  But as Mme Storey said, what is one to do when we have
such a plenitude of fools?

Lionel Dartrey was arrested in England; but nothing could be proved
against him.  However, he was punished too, even more severely perhaps
than the others, for he was immediately cast out of the fashionable
world which was everything to him.

The source of the Dartreys' munificent income was revealed.  Lassen
purchased the American securities in Mrs. Dartrey's name and forced her
to endorse the certificates in blank.  As long as she played the game
he allowed the dividends to be paid to her, but he held the endorsed
certificate, and if she had ever kicked over the traces, all he had to
do was to have the stock transferred.

In the fall Mme Storey and I returned to America on the _Gigantic_, and
I may say the ship was ours!




THE POT OF PANSIES


I

In March one year, Madame Storey was forced to undertake a hasty trip
to England in connection with some business at our embassy; and she
took me with her.  I am not permitted to state the nature of our
business, but that has nothing to do with this story.  In order to
avoid observation we travelled under assumed names by one of the slower
and unfashionable ships to Liverpool.  There was a gentleman on board
who became very attentive to my mistress.  Possibly it was her
beautiful eyes; but as his antecedents were somewhat mysterious we did
not wish to take any chances; so we left the boat express at a junction
called Crewe, and made our way to Shrewsbury.  Our self-constituted
friend could not follow us without betraying himself, and so we got rid
of him.

We spent an hour or two in Shrewsbury viewing the sights, and went on
to another old town in the west of England called Banchester.  Here we
learned that we could get an ordinary train to London at eight o'clock.
It is a three hours' ride.  We spent the interim in looking at the
cathedral, and in dining at a quaint place called the New Inn, which it
appeared was five hundred years old.  But that is just like England.
"Broad" Street was about as wide as an alley at home.  On the way to
the station Mme Storey telegraphed to the Embassy to have a car without
any official insignia waiting for us at a suburban station in London
called Westbourne Park (I think).  This was in case our enemies should
have the terminus watched.

In England there are two classes of cars on the railways: first and
third.  Nearly everybody travels third, which is clean and comfortable
and corresponds to our ordinary coaches.  In order not to be
conspicuous we took third-class tickets and travelled with the crowd.
On the continent of Europe nearly all the cars nowadays have corridors,
but in England, except for a few trains which carry restaurant cars,
they stick to the old system of separate compartments; and the ordinary
train from Banchester to London was of that sort.

We were a little early, and Mme Storey secured a corner facing the
engine.  Instead of taking another corner, I sat next to her so that we
could while away the time with a little conversation.  Railway journeys
after dark are very tiresome.  Gradually the other corners were
prempted.  A third-class compartment is supposed to hold ten people,
but it is well filled when six or eight get in it.  The next to arrive
was one of those appallingly respectable British matrons with her hair
piled up on top of her head and an absurd hat perched on top of her
bun.  She glared at us as she sat down.  English people always glare at
each other in railway carriages, but it doesn't mean anything.

A few minutes later she was followed by a young man who excited a
strong interest in us because of his extreme good looks and his
expression of sullen recklessness.  Something had gone very wrong with
that poor lad; his eyes were desperate.  He looked like an animal
backed into a corner and prepared to do as much damage as he could
before they got him.  His clothes, while of good material, looked as if
they had been slept in; he had not shaved in several days.  He had no
baggage.  Without a look at the other passengers, he plumped into the
seat cater-cornered from us, and jerked his hat over his eyes.  Mme
Storey whispered to me:

"It must break a parent's heart when he sees that look in the face of a
son."

A comical old gentleman poked his head in the carriage door and
surveyed us suspiciously one by one.  Nothing more English could be
imagined.  He wore a great cape that was continually impeding his
movements and a shapeless tweed hat that had slipped over one ear.  His
face was very red, and his eyes seemed about to pop out of his head
behind the thick glasses he wore.  He had a bristly white beard that
seemed to grow in a dozen different directions at once.  In short, a
caricature out of Punch.  Without any preamble he barked at Mme Storey:

"Where are you going?"

"To London," she answered, smiling.

"And you?" he demanded of me.

I answered similarly.

"And you?" to the lady along the seat from me.

"London," she said with a toss of the head, as much as to say: "It's
none of your business."

He paid no attention to the young man, who appeared to be asleep.

"Well, that's all right," he grumbled, climbing in.  "I am sure to fall
asleep, and I don't want to be left alone in the carriage.  Always
expected to get my throat cut."

Here was a nice beginning for the journey!  I immediately thought of
all the stories I had read of unfortunate travellers trapped in a
compartment with a madman.  It is a favourite subject for shilling
shockers.  I was thankful there was quite a small crowd of us and all
bound for the same destination.

Our old gentleman carried an old-fashioned Gladstone bag, of the sort
that splits open in the middle, and a pot of pansies wrapped in paper,
open at the top to show the flowers; the enormous purple pansies that
grow in English gardens, delicate and velvety in texture.  He put his
bag and flower pot in the luggage rack and unwound yards of muffler
from his neck, grumbling continually.  He was a comical old gentleman
but a very disagreeable one; an old curmudgeon, in fact; a tartar at
home.  In America his wife and children would have trained him better,
I thought.  He closed the door and made sure that all the windows were
tightly closed.  He sat down opposite Mme Storey saying in an aggrieved
voice:

"Always makes my head ache to ride backward."

There was plenty of room for another between me and the British matron,
but he wanted a corner seat.  There was no reason why Mme Storey should
give way to him.  She merely smiled sweetly, and he looked in another
direction.  The British lady snorted audibly.  Cheek! she seemed to
say, and I heartily agreed with her.  The old man subsided in inaudible
mumbling.  He had the look of one who had been quite a man in his day,
but age had not come upon him gracefully.

The train started, and almost immediately, it seemed to me, drowsiness
began to steal on me.  I can almost never sleep in a train, but I was
very grateful for sleep, and you may be sure I did not fight against
it.  My mistress, I could see by the look of content that settled on
her lovely profile, was in the same state.  She settled comfortably
into her corner, signifying with a smile that I was to lean against
her.  For a little while I speculated idly about my travelling
companions: that awful British matron--was she human under her starch?
Had she deceived her parents in her youth and committed delicious
naughtinesses like the rest of us?  Very likely.  Very likely....  That
unhappy young man, whose head was sunk on his chest, and whose face was
hidden from me now by his hat brim--was it guilt or grief which
oppressed him?  Had he done a wrong or had he been wronged?  You cannot
tell in the young.  An injury will often cause a proud and generous
spirit to snarl as in hatefulness....

And the old man, who was also sinking into sleep, broken by starts of
suspicious wakefulness, the absurd round hat he wore ever taking a more
ridiculous angle--what an old codger!  Such a one was Scrooge; such a
one always called up the picture of a broken woman on whom his tyranny
had fed.  Suppose he were firmly opposed and put in his place, might he
not turn into a charming old man?  But it was probably too late.  A
little of this play of the fancy, then everything faded out.  My last
waking impression was of those exquisite purple pansies nodding in the
rack over the old man's head.

I awoke with a start, immediately conscious in some mysterious way that
I had slept for several hours--I who never sleep on the train.  I knew
we were scheduled to make several stops, and I must have slept through
them all.  How extraordinary!  I looked about me.  Mme Storey still
slept peacefully on one side of me; the British matron on the other.
Opposite, the young man sat in the same position with his hat over his
eyes; whether he slept or not I could not say.  The old man was gone.
This surprised me, for I had judged from his questions that he was
booked to London; still, he had not said he was going to London.

I had no time to dwell on the matter, for the train was even then
grinding to a stop.  The lights of a platform appeared outside the
windows, and in each lamp was inserted the name of the station,
according to the English customs.  Westbourne Park?  We were there!  I
hastily awoke my mistress, and we piled out somehow into the dark, bag
and baggage, and stood there in a dazed condition while the train moved
on.  It was as unreal as a dream.

However, there was a porter to bring us back to a state of reality, and
outside the station a car was waiting for us.  It had no distinguishing
marks.  Half an hour later we were in one of those massive
old-fashioned British bedrooms which, in the winter, express the acme
of comfort when there is a good fire blazing in the grate--and the acme
of discomfort when there is no fire, which there generally isn't.  But
the Embassy people had taken care of us; there was a fire, and there
was supper in our room.  We put on comfortable garments and luxuriated
in comfort.

"Funny," said Mme Storey.  "I never sleep like that in the train."

"No more do I," I said.

"I feel rather queer," she went on, "as if my head wasn't quite big
enough to hold all it had."

"Exactly," said I.

"Bella, do you suppose we could have been drugged?"

This was a discomforting thought.  We made haste to go through our
belongings, but everything, money, letter of credit, jewellery, private
papers, everything was intact.  Why should we have been drugged, if not
for the purpose of robbery?  We smiled at our fears.

"I expect it was just the bad air in the compartment," said Mme Storey.

We went to bed and thought no more about it.


II

Though we had had such a long sleep in the train, we slept all night,
and awoke feeling quite ourselves again.  We breakfasted, and
afterwards Mme Storey got through to the Embassy on the telephone and
reported our arrival.  It was agreed that we had better not show
ourselves there for the time being, and a very exalted personage
signified his intention of waiting on us at our hotel.  He came, and
spent the balance of the morning with my mistress.  What they talked
about is not part of this story.  Some day, perhaps.  It was after he
had gone, when we were thinking about lunch, that things began to
happen.

There came a knock at the door of our sitting room, and in response to
Mme Storey's summons one of the tiny bell boys entered.  He looked
scared out of his wits.

"Please, ma'am----" he began.

Before he could get any further two men pushed into the room:
well-dressed, gentlemanly looking men with grim faces.  Such was my
first hurried impression.

Mme Storey arose in astonishment, and her eyes flashed.  "Who are you?"
she demanded of the first man.  "What are you doing here?"

He was somewhat nonplussed, and well he might be.  My mistress seemed
to tower in her anger; her beauty became regal.  I had never yet seen
the man who could stand up to her when her eyes flashed like that; but
this one kept his head.  Before answering, he curtly nodded the boy out
of the room and closed the door.  Mme Storey, if possible, became
angrier still, but not in the least afraid.  I was terrified.  The man
said, producing a card:

"Inspector Battram; Scotland Yard."

Scotland Yard!  At those words my heart went down into my boots.  At
first I suspected some machinations on the part of the clever scoundrel
we had come to London to get.  He must have tracked us somehow.  Of
course, whatever ridiculous charge he might have laid against us would
quickly fail, but any publicity would wreck our plans, and he knew
that.  I was demoralized; but my extraordinary mistress smiled, and her
anger evaporated like morning mist.  She said, with a deprecatory air:

"I ought to have known you were no mere intruder.  Sit down, Inspector.
What does Scotland Yard want of me?"

The man's face was a study.  Natural feelings were visibly struggling
with official propriety.  As a man he could not but be sensible of her
beauty and grace; as a policeman he suspected she was trying to put
something over on him.  He was a handsome, manly looking fellow, well
set up and keen.  From the army, I guessed.  He said stiffly:

"You and this lady are registered here as Mrs. Amory and Miss Jackson
of Liverpool.  Please show me some proof of your identity."

"What sort of proofs?" asked Mme Storey, sparring for time.

"Visiting cards; letters addressed to yourself; bank books; anything of
that sort."

"But I haven't anything of that sort with me," said Mme Storey with a
distressed air.

He nodded toward the telephone.  "Then please call up somebody here in
London who can come and identify you."

"I can't do that either."

"Hm," said the inspector, rubbing his moustache with an annoyed air.
"Well, let that go for the moment.  You travelled last night from
Banchester to London by the train arriving at Paddington Station at
eleven?"

"Yes," said Mme Storey.

By this time I began to understand that his visit had nothing to do
with our mission in London.  I was first relieved, then anxious again,
wondering what could be in the wind now.

"Did anything unusual take place in your compartment?" he asked.

"Not that I know of," said Mme Storey.  "I slept."

"The whole way?" he asked with a disagreeable smile.

"The whole way."

"And this lady?" he asked, turning to me.

"I also slept."

"Hm!" he said, exchanging a glance with his companion.  "You must
permit me to observe that this is very unusual."

"Very," said Mme Storey blandly.  "That's what we said to each other."
She warned me with a glance not to mention our thought that we might
have been drugged.  In his present frame of mind, such a suggestion
thrown out by us would have confirmed the man's suspicions.

He was openly sarcastic now.  "Did you take any note of the other
persons who shared your compartment?" he asked.

"Yes," said Mme Storey.  "Those at least who got on before we left
Banchester."  She proceeded to describe the lady, the young man, and
the old man with the pot of pansies.

"Ah," he said; "and did you notice them when you left the train?"

"I noticed nothing then," said Mme Storey.  "My secretary awoke me
violently and hustled me out of the car before I had my eyes well open."

"And you?" he asked me.

"The lady was still sitting beside me," I said, "and the young man was
opposite her.  But the old man had got out."

"Oh, he had got out, had he?" he said meaningly.

His innuendoes, which I couldn't in the least comprehend, angered me,
but I bit my lip and kept silent.

His eyes bored into us, first my mistress, then me.  "Now," he said
with the air of one who was springing a mine under us, "please explain
how you came to leave the train at Westbourne Park instead of coming
into Paddington, which is much nearer this hotel."

"I suspected there might be somebody watching for us at Paddington that
I did not wish to see," said Mme Storey blandly.

This was hardly the answer he expected.  "I thought you said you knew
nobody in London," he said, with his eyebrows running up.

"But I did not say that.  That was the construction you put on my
words.  I said I would not call on them to come here and identify me."

"Why not?"

"Because I am engaged on an affair of business that requires secrecy
for the moment."

"Is Amory your right name?"

"It is not," said Mme Storey coolly.

"What is the nature of your business in London?"

"I must decline to answer that," she said politely.

"Come, madam!" he said indignantly.  "You must know that you cannot
trifle with the police.  A serious crime has been committed, and I have
the power to make you speak."

"What am I charged with?" she asked.

"You are not charged with anything.  I merely wish to ask you some
questions."

"I shall be delighted to answer any and all of your questions which do
not involve my private affairs."

The handsome inspector was very angry now--and a little helpless.  "You
cannot have secrets from the police," he said fiercely.

Mme Storey merely smiled and opened her cigarette case.  "Have one?"
she said.  He stiffly declined, whereupon my mistress lighted up
deliberately and blew a cloud of smoke toward the ceiling.  "What am I
suspected of?"

"I think you know," he said meaningly.  "The suggestion that you and
your secretary--if this is your secretary--slept throughout the journey
is incredible."

"Well, if you will have it so!" said Mme Storey, shrugging.

"For the last time I ask you----" he began.

My mistress interrupted him with a disarming smile.  "We must not
quarrel," said she; "I'm sure we're all very nice people.  We have more
in common than you suspect.  I have no idea what the crime is that you
refer to, but, frankly, do I look as if I had committed it?"

He dropped the official air and revealed himself as just a nice man.
"God forbid!" he said earnestly.  "That's what makes your present
conduct so hard to understand," he added, grumbling.

"But my conduct is perfectly natural," said Mme Storey.  "I have told
you the truth from the first.  It is of the greatest importance to keep
my presence in London a secret for a day or two.  I suggest that you
arrest me and my secretary and lock us up for as long as you may see
fit--it will be interesting to us to see how you do things over here."

"Ah, an American!" he put in.

"You must have guessed that from my speech....  But I ask you not to
make any search of my private papers, say, for twenty-four hours.  By
that time I am confident that, with the famous efficiency of your
department, you will have discovered the real criminal and there will
be no further occasion to bother with us.  It's a sporting offer, isn't
it?"

"An unusual one," he said, smiling.

"Ah, but I can see that you are an unusual officer," she said
beguilingly.  "You and I ought to be friends."

"Very well," he said, "if you and this lady will accompany me to
Scotland Yard, I will seal these rooms and will agree not to disturb
the contents for twenty-four hours."

"Splendid!" said Mme Storey.  "Let me get my hat.  I'll leave the door
open."

At the door of the hotel the inspector handed us into a taxicab with
the greatest gallantry.  One would never have supposed that we were
being carried off to the hoosegow.  Battram was a very attractive man,
and I could see that my mistress was fully aware of it.  In my mind I
compared him with our old friend Inspector Rumsey of the New York
police.  What a contrast!  As far as looks and manner went, fat little
Rumsey was nowhere; but I suspected he was none the worse policeman
than this other.

As our cab skirted the edge of Trafalgar Square, newsboys came running
along the pavements crying an extra.  In London the boys carry large
posters advertising the headlines--you can read them a block off, and I
read on these posters:

    HORRIBLE MURDER
        ON THE
        G.W.R.


"Could that be it?" I whispered to Mme Storey.

She nodded.  "Possibly.  We travelled on the G.W.R."

A moment or two later we were held up by the traffic.  Mme Storey
leaned out and, summoning one of the boys to the window, bought a
paper.  Inspector Battram made no move to interfere.  While she read
it, he watched her, grimly stroking his moustache.  I knew from his
manner that this must be the crime in question.  I read the story over
her shoulder.


III

"Miles Ockley, a shepherd of Moale in the Vale of Sturton, started out
at dawn this morning to drive his flock to an upland pasture.  In
passing under a beech tree close to the lofty viaduct of the G.W.R. a
drop of moisture fell upon his hand, though the sky was clear; and in
the half light he was shocked to discover that it was blood.  Upon
looking up he saw a broken human body lodged in the forks of the tree.
Obviously it had fallen from a passing train.

"The shepherd summoned help; and a party of men from the village
lowered the remains to the ground with ropes.  The body was that of a
man near seventy years of age dressed in a brown tweed suit and blue
Melton overcoat.  Over the great coat was worn an ample tweed cape of a
style rarely seen nowadays.  His clothing, while old-fashioned in cut,
was of excellent materials, and the body was well nourished, indicating
that the unfortunate man had been in good circumstances.  A round tweed
hat was found near by, also a blue and white striped worsted muffler
and a pair of spectacles.  The latter, strange to say, were still
unbroken.

"Nothing was found in the pockets of the corpse except 7s 9d, and a
linen handkerchief bearing the initials H.S. or S.H.  The absence of a
pocketbook immediately pointed to foul play.  His back had been broken
in the fall, and it was at first supposed that that was the cause of
death.  However, the local doctor, who arrived somewhat later on the
scene and made a more careful examination of the body, discovered a
stab wound which had pierced the heart.  The unfortunate gentleman was
therefore killed before he was thrown out of the train.  Life had been
extinct for several hours.

"A systematized search of the surrounding area finally resulted in the
discovery of the weapon.  This was an ordinary pocketknife of large
size with a single blade 3- inches along, and a handle faced with
black horn.  Such knives are to be found in the pockets of five workmen
out of six.  It had no distinguishing marks whatever; but the blade was
dull and rusty, as from long disuse.  It was found buried in leaves,
close to the tree, indicating that it was still sticking in the old
man's breast when he was flung from the train.

"The body was removed to a private undertaking establishment in the
town of Stanford, where the inquest will be held during the day.  The
details were telegraphed to Scotland Yard, whereupon the victim was
immediately identified as Mr. Sims Hendrie, F.R.S., the famous chemist
whose name is associated with Hendrianum and other important
discoveries.

"It appears that Mr. Hendrie left his home, Lorne Lodge, Banchester, at
half-past seven last night in order to travel by the eight o'clock
train to Paddington.  A somewhat wilful old gentleman, he insisted on
going to the station unattended, and would not call a cab, but took a
tram.  A curious feature of the sad affair is that he had been often
heard to express a fear of being attacked in a railway carriage.  He
always travelled third class, because, he said, the first-class
carriages were too solitary.  He had intended to take a day train to
London but was detained by the necessity of visiting his laboratory
yesterday afternoon.

"Mr. Hendrie's purpose in coming to London (which, latterly, he rarely
visited) was to address a meeting of the Royal Society this afternoon.
He was expected to make an important announcement in respect to his
recent researches.  His confrre Sir Egerton Pulford (whose guest he
was to be) went to meet him at eleven o'clock at Paddington.  When he
failed to get off the train Sir Egerton telegraphed to Banchester
asking what was the matter, and presently received an answer stating
that Mr. Hendrie had taken the eight o'clock train.  Sir Egerton
immediately lodged information with Scotland Yard, and it was thus that
the identity of the victim came to be established.

"Mr. Hendrie carried a wallet containing various private papers, and
ten new 5 notes.  As he had drawn this money from the bank only
yesterday, it was possible to obtain the numbers of the notes without
any loss of time.  The police are also in possession of a description
of the papers in the wallet so far as known.  Mr. Hendrie's Gladstone
bag, which constituted his only luggage, was found in the Unclaimed
Articles Office at Paddington.  It was picked up in the carriage by a
guard.  The contents had not been disturbed.  An examination of the
compartment in which he had travelled revealed the presence of drops of
blood on the floor, but not in sufficient quantity to have attracted
attention earlier.

"The guards are unable to throw any light on the tragic happening.
This train makes five stops between Banchester and Paddington, and the
running time is three hours.  The viaduct over the vale of Sturton is
seventy miles from London.  The train was well filled last night.
During the journey nothing happened of a character to attract the
attention of the guards to the compartment in which Mr. Hendrie rode.
Tickets are punched as the traveller enters the platform at Banchester
and are taken up as he leaves the platform at Paddington.  They are not
asked for on the train.

"The guards are agreed in stating that at no time during the journey
were there less than three or four persons in any third-class
compartment.  This suggests that Mr. Hendrie fell into the hands of a
gang of thugs.  The fact of there being more than one will make the
task of the police easier.  There was no conceivable motive for the
dastardly act other than the fifty pounds the victim carried in his
wallet.  The whole country will be aroused to anger at the thought of
that valuable life snuffed out for the sake of a beggarly fifty pounds.
In former times such crimes were only too common; happily, since the
improvement of the railway service, they have become rare.  Popular
opinion will now insist that the railways go further and make such
happenings impossible."


The story went on to recapitulate Mr. Hendrie's services in the cause
of science, together with other biographical data, a list of learned
societies to which he belonged, etc.  All I took note of in this part
was that he had left a widow but no surviving children; and that his
nearest friend seemed to be a Mr. Woodley Bristed, who was described as
his principal assistant and the chief of his laboratory staff.

So much for the newspaper account.  When she finished reading it Mme
Storey looked across at the inspector.

"And did you really think," she said, "that I had stabbed this
unfortunate old man with a horn-handled pocketknife and had then thrown
his body out of the car?"

"No!" he said with a horrified gesture.  "But by your own account you
were in the compartment when it happened."

"Asleep," she reminded him.

"Asleep!" he echoed.  "He was seated opposite you.  Third-class
compartments are narrow.  Your knees must have been all but touching.
How could he have been stabbed and thrown out of the door--the door
beside you--without your having knowledge of it?"

"It occurred to my secretary and me that we had been drugged," she
suggested.

This was a new thought to him.  "Drugged?" he repeated hopefully--he
didn't want to believe us guilty--but his face quickly fell again.
"How could you have been drugged after entering the compartment without
your knowledge?"

"I don't know," said Mme Storey.  "That's what we've got to find out."

The poor gentleman was falling more and more under the influence of my
mistress's beauty and charm.  "Under the circumstances," he said almost
apologetically, "how could I have acted differently than by detaining
you until the matter is cleared up?"

"You could not have acted differently," she quickly agreed.  "But
consider, for fifty pounds!  Why, I carry a letter of credit for two
thousand pounds, which I will show you later."

"Another motive for the crime has been suggested," he said, looking out
of the window.  "We kept it out of the papers.  It has been suggested
that Mr. Hendrie was in possession of an enormously valuable chemical
secret which the murderer may have hoped to find in his wallet."

"Hm!" said Mme Storey.  "This is getting interesting."

"He had intimated that he had something of supreme importance to
disclose at the meeting of the Royal Society to-day."

"I wonder what became of the pot of pansies," said my mistress
reflectively.


IV

At the door of Scotland Yard, which is not a yard at all as we
understand the word, but an immense brick building tucked out of sight
between Whitehall and the Thames Embankment, Inspector Battram
dismissed his man with some low-voiced instructions.  This individual
had not once opened his mouth since he had appeared at our hotel.  The
inspector then led us to his private office.  It was evident, from the
attitude of all the underlings in the place, that he was a person of
considerable consequence there.  You may be sure that we were stared
at.  But my fears had departed.  I now had confidence in the inspector,
and was assured that we should be treated fairly.

In his office we found the British matron, our travelling companion of
the previous evening.  She had evidently just been brought in by
another assistant.  She was in a state of hard, dry excitement very
painful to witness.  Both the bun and the superimposed hat were awry.
She was talking when we entered, and went right on talking.

"... outrageous!  I am Mrs. Hargreaves.  Lord Stukeley is my cousin.
Never in my life have I been subjected to such an indignity.  It's a
nice thing if a lady of position must submit to such a thing!  Dragged
here to Scotland Yard like a common criminal!  Somebody shall suffer
for this!"

A bored expression came over Inspector Battram's face.  I expect he was
familiar with her type.  "I am exceedingly sorry to have to trouble a
relative of Lord Stukeley's," he said drily, "but you had the
misfortune to travel from Banchester to London last night in a carriage
where a serious crime was committed."

"And do you dare to say that _I_ did it?" she demanded stridently.  "My
husband is clerk of the waterworks in Banchester.  The Dean of the
Chapter is my intimate friend.  You shall hear more of this, young man!"

"I do not suggest that you committed the crime," said the inspector
patiently, "but it is my duty to ask you certain questions."

"How do you know what carriage I travelled in?"

The inspector turned to me.  "Is this the lady you described to me as
having shared your seat?" he asked.

"Yes," I said.

"That's a lie!" cried Mrs. Hargreaves furiously.  "I never saw the
woman before.  Who is this woman anyway?  She probably committed the
crime herself!"

Mme Storey and I exchanged a glance.  This was no proof of the woman's
guilt, of course.  She had lost her head.  It was nothing but the
horror that respectable English people have of getting mixed up in
anything unpleasant, of getting their names in the papers.

"Can you swear that this lady rode in your carriage?" the inspector
asked Mme Storey.

"Oh, yes," said my mistress, with delicate malice.  "She had the same
clothes on."

"And who is this person?" demanded Mrs. Hargreaves.  "Is her word to be
preferred over mine?  Hm!  Very fine, I dare say.  Much too grand to be
travelling in a third-class carriage.  I said to myself as soon as I
laid eyes on her----"

"Then you have seen her before," the inspector put in quickly.

Mrs. Hargreaves bit her lips and the tears came into her hard
eyes--tears of vexation.  She was silenced.

"Now tell me what happened during the journey," said the inspector
soothingly.

"I can tell you nothing," she said sullenly.  "I slept the entire way.
I suppose you don't believe that, but it's the truth."

"When did you awaken?"

"Not until the train was pulling into Paddington."

"And who was in the carriage then?"

"These women had got out; and so had the old man who sat opposite them.
There was nobody in the compartment but myself and a young man sitting
opposite me with his hat pulled over his eyes."

"Did you not awaken during the entire journey?"

"Not that I can remember.  I don't know when I have slept so soundly on
a train."

The inspector questioned her at some length, but did not bring out
anything material.  The woman seemed to be in the same case as
ourselves.  It was amusing to see how in her answers she endeavoured to
turn suspicion against my mistress.  Yet she had nothing against her
except the instinctive animosity of a plain woman for a handsome one.
The inspector was not impressed by her insinuations.

Her testimony was interrupted by the entrance of still another of his
men, leading by the arm the young fellow who had ridden with us from
Banchester to London.  Thus, before one o'clock the police had
succeeded in rounding up every person in that compartment.  It was a
first-rate tribute to their efficiency.  Mme Storey congratulated the
inspector.

At the sight of the young man my heart was wrung by compassion.  He was
sallow and still unshaven; he looked sick, but with a spiritual
disease, not physical.  His manner was more than ever hangdog and
reckless, and there was now an ugly fear in his face--more than ever
the creature at bay.  The same thought leaped into the minds of
everybody in the room.  There, if the murderer had ridden in our
compartment, certainly stood the man.  And yet--and yet!  There were
other things in his face: something wild and beautiful and unsubdued.
I recollected Mme Storey's saying that it is sometimes the finest
spirits that our civilization chucks on the dung heap.  This young
fellow had been made for love and laughter and fighting, and somehow
the net of circumstances had caught him, and all had been spoiled.  It
almost brought the tears to my eyes.

The man who brought him in could not contain his jubilance.  "There's
your man, sir," he said to the inspector, without waiting to be
addressed.

"Ha!" said the inspector.  "Where did you pick him up?"

"In the offices of the Brevard Line, sir.  He appeared there half an
hour ago and asked for a second-class ticket to Canada on the
_Pannonia_, sailing to-morrow.  We had already circularized the
steamship offices, and something about his actions aroused their
suspicions, so while the ticket was being made out they gave us a call
on the telephone.  When the ticket was handed him he offered in payment
six 5 notes of the same numbers as those carried by Mr. Hendrie.  I
found three more of the notes in his pocket and the change from the
tenth one.  Nothing else in his pockets."

This seemed conclusive.  I turned a little sick at heart.  Suppose in a
moment of madness that he had committed this crime, I asked myself,
would it square matters to take his life in payment for that other?

Inspector Battram, with a grave face, pulled a pad toward him.  "Name
and address?" he asked.

"George Albert--no home," the young man replied with a swagger of
bravado very painful to see.  He had an educated voice; the sort of
voice that speaks of a good home.

The inspector paused with his pencil in the air.  "This attitude is not
going to do you any good," he said mildly.

"I shan't give you my right name," the young man burst out.  "It would
please my old man far too well.  When he kicked me out he prophesied
that I'd end in jail."

"It's bound to come out," said the inspector.

"Well, let it come.  It shan't come through me."

"Have you got anything to say for yourself?" asked the inspector.
"Anything you say here may be used against you."

"I didn't steal that money," cried the prisoner.  "But what's the use
of saying anything about it?  I might as well go to jail as to Canada.
I only want to lose myself."

"It's not a question of going to jail," said the inspector.  "The
penalty for murder is hanging."

The young man started and paled.  "Murder!" he said huskily.  "Good
God!  I am no murderer!  My hands are clean!"

That was either a genuine start of dismay, or else the most marvellous
piece of acting I had ever beheld.  I was for the prisoner; still, I
have been deceived so many times, I never trust my own judgment at such
moments.  I glanced at my mistress, but her pale, grave face betrayed
nothing.

"Murder!" cried Mrs. Hargreaves.  "Merciful Heaven! to think of me
being mixed up in anything like that!  What will my friends say!"

The unfortunate young man looked at each one of us in turn with his
eloquent eyes as if imploring some assurance that he had dreamed the
hideous charge.  Gone were the sneer and the swagger.  He looked a mere
lad at that moment.  Several times he essayed to speak before any words
came out.

"I--I--I swear I don't know how that money came to be in my pocket!" he
chattered.  "When I got off the train at Paddington last night I was
flat broke.  At least, I thought I was.  It had taken my last penny to
buy the ticket to London and a bite to eat before I got on the train.
I went to the Embankment to spend the night on a bench.  Would I have
gone to the Embankment if I had known I had money in my pocket?  When
my hands became cold I put them in my pockets and found a wallet there.
It contained a lot of papers and ten five-pound notes.  The money was
like manna to a homeless man.  I never even looked at the papers.  I
was afraid if I came on the name of the owner my damned conscience
would force me to return the money.  I thought some thief, hard pressed
by the police, had slipped the wallet into my pocket.  I flung it into
the Thames and kept the money.  Any man in my position would have done
the same! ...  Don't you believe me?  You must believe me!  I am no
murderer!"

"Always the same story," said the inspector wearily.

"But this time it happens to be true!" said the young man fiercely.  He
struck the edge of the inspector's desk.  "It's true!"

"It would be better for you in the end to tell me what happened on the
journey," said the inspector.

The young man's arms fell helplessly at his sides.  "I can tell you
nothing," he said.  "I slept the whole way from Banchester to
Paddington."

"You slept," said the inspector scornfully, "while a man was murdered
in your compartment and flung out of the door!"

"It's the truth!  It's the truth!  I swear it!"

The inspector nodded to his man, and the latter started to lead the
prisoner away.  The inspector said, not unkindly--there was nothing of
the hard-boiled inquisitor about him:

"Better think it over for a while and come back and talk to me later."

When the door closed after him he was still crying pitifully: "I didn't
do it!  I didn't do it!"

That ridiculous Mrs. Hargreaves bustled out of her chair.  "I suppose I
may go now," she said acidly.

"Certainly, madam," said Inspector Battram.  "I am sorry it was
necessary to trouble you.  We shall have to call upon you to testify
later, but of course we have your address."

She departed with a snort of indignation.

"I assume that you have no further need of us either," said Mme Storey,
rising.

"I wish I had," said the inspector gallantly.

"It is going to be rather awkward for me to testify in this matter,"
she remarked.

"At the preliminary hearing it won't be necessary," he hastened to say.
"The fact that we found the notes on him will be sufficient to procure
an indictment.  But when he is brought to trial, of course..."

"Oh, by that time there will be no further necessity for me to conceal
my presence in London," she said, relieved.

They shook hands.  The inspector released her hand with manifest
reluctance.

"Look here," said Mme Storey suddenly, "you have earned my confidence.
I know you will not give me away to the newspapers.  I am Rosika Storey
of New York."

His eyes widened.  "Madame Storey!" he cried.

"I see you have heard of me."

"Heard of you!  You are at the head of my profession! ... I knew it!"

"Knew what?"

"I knew when I first saw you that I was in the presence of an
extraordinary woman!"

"Flatterer! ... Come and have lunch with us."

He hesitated.  "Well, I have caught my man, and I must eat somewhere.
I accept with pleasure."

"Good!  We will return to our hotel."


During the meal Inspector Battram said with pardonable pride: "I hope
we have shown you that we're not such duffers at Scotland Yard as the
fiction writers are fond of making out."

"A brilliant piece of work," said Mme Storey.  "But you've hardly got
to the bottom of the case yet."

"Oh, no," he said, "we must find out all about this fellow.  But we
have him fast."

"The pot of pansies," she began.

He interrupted her with a good-humoured laugh.  "Still thinking about
that?"

"As I have already described to you," said Mme Storey, "Mr. Hendrie
entered the carriage carrying it under his arm.  He put it in the rack,
and it has never been seen since.  It could not have been thrown out
after the body, or the remains of it would have been found below.
Neither was it found with the old gentleman's bag at Paddington."

"Possibly one of the train men at Paddington, realizing that it was of
no particular value and would fade before it could be claimed, carried
it home to his wife," suggested the inspector.

"Possibly.  That must be looked into."

"But in any case," he said, "how could a pot of pansies possibly have
contributed to Mr. Hendrie's death?"

"I don't know," said Mme Storey.  "It's just an unexplained
circumstance....  Let me have the pot of pansies," she suddenly added.

"Eh?" he said, not comprehending her drift.

"This case interests me," she said.  "I shall be a busy woman during
the next few days, but I'll save out a few hours for this.  Let me have
the pot of pansies for my clue."

"I should be honoured to have you working with me," said Inspector
Battram, overjoyed.


V

When we were alone together Mme Storey said: "Bella, before I start
constructive work upon this Hendrie case, it is necessary for me to
know whether or not the pot of pansies remained in the luggage rack
after the crime was committed.  Think back and tell me: was it there
when you awoke me at Brondesbury?"

I considered, anxious to make no mistake.  "It was not there," I said
finally.

"Could you swear to that?"

"I could swear to it.  The last thing I remember seeing before I fell
asleep was those beautiful pansies; and in the moment of waking my eyes
involuntarily sought them again.  They were not there."

"Good!  Then we have a starting point....  Did you notice anything
peculiar about the pot in which they were planted?"

"No," I said, "the pot was covered with a wrapping of manila paper, but
from the shape of it I should say it was just a common pot."

"But pansies have shallow roots," she pointed out, "and it is customary
to transplant them into shallow pots.  Now, this pot, as I remember it,
was at least nine inches deep--big enough to hold a hydrangea."

"That is so."

"A professional florist or gardener would never have wasted that big
pot and all that good earth on a clump of pansies.  So I think we are
safe in assuming that these pansies were transplanted by an amateur at
home."

I nodded.

"A pot of that size filled with earth is a heavy object," she went on;
"yet the old gentleman carried it without any sign of strain and put it
up in the rack without difficulty."

"What would you infer from that?" I asked.

"Nothing, yet.  It is just a point to keep in mind....  Very fine
pansies, you said."

"Yes.  Immense in size and perfect in colour."

"But not phenomenal?"

"No.  Not in England.  I saw others as fine in the gardens at
Banchester when we were walking around.  They are just coming into
bloom."

"And the old gentleman did not seem to attach any particular importance
to them?"

"No.  He put them up with a pettish gesture, as if he were glad to get
rid of them--but, then, all his actions were pettish."

"Quite."

"The clump of flowers was not fully matured," I volunteered.  "There
were only a few blossoms and many buds.  It is possible that the
flowers had not reached perfection."

She nodded and, lighting a cigarette, smoked reflectively.  I thought I
perceived her drift.  Those were very special pansies, the fruit of the
old scientist's recent labours, perhaps.  Well, I had heard of a murder
being committed for tulip bulbs, why not for a pot of pansies?

On the following day matters so shaped themselves that we were able to
steal the afternoon for a dash to Banchester.  On the way to the train
we called by appointment on Sir Egerton Pulford, the eminent scientist.
He proved to be not at all an intimidating sort of person, but a nice
old granny, who was thrown into quite a flutter by the visit of my
mistress.  After explaining her connection with the Hendrie case, Mme
Storey said:

"I have just one question to ask you, Sir Egerton.  What can you tell
me about the nature of the communication that Mr. Hendrie expected to
make at the meeting of the Royal Society?"

"Very little, Madame.  Mr. Hendrie had written to the secretary asking
to be put down on the agenda for a fifteen-minute talk and intimating
that his subject was of considerable importance.  This was a good deal
from him, and all the members were on the _qui vive_ to learn what he
had up his sleeve."

"Could it have had anything to do with the propagation of plant
life--flowers?" she asked.

"I should think not," Sir Egerton cautiously replied.  "So far as I
know, Hendrie had no interest whatever in that direction.  Of late
years his attention has been exclusively directed toward the use of
chemicals in warfare."

"Oh," said Mme Storey, disappointed, "another of these scientists who
are working to annihilate entire armies with a blast of gas!"

"No, no, Madame," said Sir Egerton earnestly.  "Quite the contrary.  My
poor friend looked upon chemical warfare as an unmitigated evil.  'Man
will destroy himself by it!' he said.  'But there is no use preaching
against it, Pulford,' he said.  'As long as there are deadly chemicals
to be had, the nations will use them.  What we chemists have to do is
to find something that will render nugatory the entire use of deadly
gases."

"What do you suppose he meant?" asked my mistress.

"I cannot say, Madame.  He was a very secretive man."

We proceeded to the train.  Sir Egerton's communication was rather
damaging to my theory about the pot of pansies, but I did not abandon
it yet.  After all, he had said he did not know.

Three hours later we were in Banchester.  We engaged a motor car by the
hour in order to get around quickly, and drove first to Lorne Lodge,
the home of Sims Hendrie.  His laboratory was in a different part of
town.  It was a quiet little house at the end of a quiet little street,
beautiful with evergreens, shrubbery, and ivy.  Strange what a passion
the English have for privacy.  Every house was almost invisible from
the street; and each was separated from its neighbour on each side by a
high wall, or an impenetrable evergreen screen.  Even in March the
grass was lush and green; in summer it must have been lovely.

The drawing room of the house was pure Victorian; simply crowded with
ugly furniture and unnecessary knick-knacks.  A tiny little old lady
entered to us.  She was very plainly dressed in black and wore her hair
smoothly brushed down and wound in a tight little roll behind.  Her
face was the colour of a dead leaf, but little wrinkled; her sunken
eyes large and wondering.  She had the air more of a well-bred little
girl than the mistress of the house.  She sat on the edge of a chair,
her feet scarcely touching the floor, and, folding her hands in her
lap, waited to be questioned.  There was something terrible in her
calmness.

She had been apprised of our coming, and there was no need to enter
into explanations.  Mme Storey went direct to the point.  "Mrs.
Hendrie, was your husband interested in flowers?"

"Why, no, Madame," she said with a surprised look.

"I see you have pansies growing about the house."

"That is my province entirely.  Mr. Hendrie was all for practical
things."

"Have you noticed if any of your pansies are missing--dug up, I mean?"

"No, Madame," she answered, more and more surprised at this line of
questioning.

"Did your husband ever use flowers in his experimental work?"

"Not that I ever heard of."

"I suppose you have intimate friends here in Banchester."

"Hardly intimate," she said with a reticent air.  "We know pleasant
people, of course, whom we visit and who visit us."

"Had your husband any confrres--men that he could discuss his work
with?"

"Mr. Hendrie _never_ discussed his work outside of the laboratory."

"Can you tell me the nature of his recent researches?"

"No, Madame.  Never, since we have been married, have I ventured to
discuss Mr. Hendrie's work with him."

Poor little soul! what a picture of her bleak life this called up!

Mme Storey returned to the pot of pansies.  "Are any of your friends in
Banchester especially interested in growing flowers?"

"They all grow flowers, Madame.  Our mild, moist climate is especially
suited to them."

"Pansies?"

"Banchester is noted for its early pansies."

"But I mean particularly interested in pansies."

"No, Madame," said Mrs. Hendrie with a scared look, as if she was
beginning to suspect that my mistress was cracked on the subject.

"I ask these questions," Mme Storey explained, "because several
witnesses have stated that your husband was carrying a pot of pansies
when he got on the train."

"I think they must be mistaken," was the reply.  "I never knew him to
do such a thing."

"Did he not have it when he left the house?"

"No, Madame."

"Are you sure?"

"I came to the door with him.  He had only his Gladstone bag."

"At what time did he leave the house?"

"At five and twenty minutes to eight, Madame.  He caught the
seven-forty tram at the corner of our road."

It appeared that Mrs. Hendrie knew most of the tram conductors, and she
was able to state that the man on that particular car would be a
certain Higgins.  He passed every hour, she said, and we could catch
him at the corner at four-forty.  Obviously she wondered what we wanted
of him, but did not greatly care.  Mme Storey asked her other questions
but elicited nothing material.  We left the house in time to catch the
car at the corner.  The strange little old woman let us go as she had
welcomed us, without a break in her apathetic air.  Poor little soul!
I wondered if she had a woman friend.

We boarded the car when it came along, bidding our chauffeur to follow.
The conductor looked pleasantly self-important when Mme Storey began to
question him.  Evidently he was proud of his connection with the
Hendrie case, slight as it was.

"Yes, ma'am, I knew the late Mr. Hendrie as well as I know my own
brother.  For ten years I carried him to and from his laboratory.  Very
regular in his habits, he was."

"Do you remember taking him to the station night before last?"

"That I do, ma'am.  Had to give him a hand up, because his arms was
full."

"What did he have in his hands?"

"A Gladstone bag and a pot of pansies, ma'am."

"Did he say anything to you?"

"No, ma'am.  Mr. Hendrie wasn't what you'd call a familiar gentleman.
A nod, that's all you'd get."

"Was he alone when he got on the tram?  I mean, was there anybody near
to whom he spoke or said good-bye to?"

"No, ma'am.  Nobody as I could see."

"Did he talk to any passengers on the tram?"

"No, ma'am.  He wasn't exactly sociable."

That was all we got out of the conductor; all we expected to get.  We
alighted from the tram and hailed our chauffeur.

It was all very mysterious.  Either the little old lady had lied, which
seemed unthinkable, or else Mr. Hendrie had picked up the pansies
somewhere along the quiet block between his house and the corner.  If
he had not left home until seven thirty-five, he certainly had not had
time to stop at any house.  The further we pursued that confounded pot
of pansies, the more involved in contradictions it became.  My first
theory concerning it went a-glimmering.


VI

We next drove to the laboratory, which was in a new quarter of the
town.  Mr. Woodley Bristed, Sims Hendrie's assistant, had been up to
London the day before to consult with the police, and we had met him at
Scotland Yard.  He was expecting us.  The laboratory was an atrocious
little building of staring red brick roofed with corrugated iron.  The
Bristeds lived in an equally staring cottage next door.  There was no
agreeable shrubbery about these buildings; but the cottage had flower
beds around it, gay with more of those beautiful pansies in red
purples, blue purples, gold, brown, and white.

Bristed and his wife were waiting in the laboratory.  They presented a
striking contrast.  He was a fat, blond young man, rather gross of
feature but with intelligent blue eyes; very talkative; she, a tall,
slim, dark girl, quite a beauty, but with rather a repellent coldness
of manner.  Both were extremely courteous; wished us to go to the
cottage for tea before we set to work; but Mme Storey declined.  We
were much pressed for time, of course.  Had to be back in London the
following morning.

The laboratory was a plain, well-lighted rectangle divided into two
unequal parts, a large outer room for the assistants and a sanctum for
the master.  It was filled with chemical apparatus perfectly mysterious
to me, with many shelves of glass jars, big and little, filled with
drugs labelled in Latin.  Everything was in apple-pie order; no dust,
no litter.  All the tables had porcelain tops.  In the inner room there
was also a plain writing table where the scientist had made his
calculations; but no papers were visible.

"You will wish first to go over everything," said Bristed.  "I will
explain it as well as I can."

Mme Storey humorously held up her hand.  "I doubt if I am capable of
understanding it even with your explanations," she said.  "Let me ask a
few general questions first."

We all sat down on the plain deal chairs with which the place was
furnished.  "It wouldn't cause an explosion, would it, if I lighted a
cigarette?" asked my mistress, looking around her in mock alarm.

Bristed laughed heartily.  "Not at all!  Mr. Hendrie forbade smoking,
but now there is no reason..."

Bristed and his wife both accepted cigarettes from my mistress's case.
The man's hand trembled slightly as he lighted his.  He called
attention to it, laughing.

"My nerves have gone to pieces over this business."

"It's not surprising," said Mme Storey.

His wife's hand did not shake.  She deeply and gratefully inhaled the
smoke, letting it slowly escape through her nostrils.  A strange girl,
having beautiful dark eyes without any expression whatever.

"How many assistants did Mr. Hendrie employ?" asked Mme Storey.

"Only myself and my wife," said Bristed.  "My wife is also a chemist."

"Did he ever have visitors at the laboratory?"

"Never!  Such a thing would have been unheard of!"

"Then nobody but you three ever entered it?"

"And the charwoman, a Mrs. Freese, who came twice a week to clean."

"What was the nature of the work Mr. Hendrie was engaged on at the time
of his death?"

Bristed spread out his hands.  "I don't know," he said.

"You don't know!" echoed Mme Storey in surprise.

"I know it sounds incredible," he said apologetically, "but that is the
sort of man he was.  Suspicious.  Not an easy man to work for.  He
never trusted my wife and me--never trusted anyone.  He gave us merely
the journeyman work to do, simple formulae to work out.  What he did
with the results we never knew.  We never possessed any key to the
whole."

"But surely you must know in a general way."

"Oh, yes, from the apparatus he used and the drugs he bought, I
inferred that he was working on a new poison gas to be used in warfare."

"But Sir Egerton Pulford said he had a hatred of that sort of thing."

"He was pulling Sir Egerton's leg," put in Mrs. Bristed.

"Mr. Hendrie was fond of concealing his real aims," remarked her
husband drily.

"Isn't such work excessively dangerous to the experimenter?"

"Mr. Hendrie was an old hand.  He knew how to protect himself."

"Didn't he leave any written notes?"

"Not a line.  Whatever notes he made, he destroyed at the end of the
day or carried them away in his wallet.  Nothing was ever left lying
about."

"I suppose he used animals in his experiments--guinea pigs, rats,
rabbits?"

"No, Madame, he did not experiment on animals."

"Then the secret of his last work, whatever it may have been, died with
him?"

"Either it died with him or was in his wallet."

"And that has been lost," remarked Mme Storey.

There was a silence.  A superb tiger cat came strolling grandly out
from behind some carboys in the corner.  After stretching himself
luxuriously, he rubbed himself condescendingly against my mistress's
knee.

"What a beauty!" she said, rubbing his head.  "Is he yours?"

Mrs. Bristed made a move as if to take the cat out, then thought better
of it.  "No," she said indifferently, "as a matter of fact, he belongs
to the charwoman."

Her husband, always more voluble, more eager, added, with a laugh:
"He's been hanging around the laboratory lately.  We were troubled by
mice.  Mr. Hendrie took quite a fancy to him."

My mistress took a new line.  "Has Mr. Hendrie's will been read?"

"Yes," said Bristed.  "He was a wealthier man than any of us suspected.
He left everything to his wife, of course, except this laboratory with
its contents, and the cottage adjoining.  That he left jointly to my
wife and me.  It was more than we expected."

"Yes," added Mrs. Bristed.  "We were sorry then for some of the hard
thoughts we had cherished against him."

Her husband glanced at her as if this speech had startled him.  Then he
laughed in his nervous way.  "Yes," he said, "he kept us in hot water
while he lived."

"I quite understand," said Mme Storey sympathetically.  "And shall you
carry on here?"

"No," said Bristed modestly.  "I am scarcely qualified yet to do
research work.  We shall have to sell out for what we can get and find
jobs."

"What were the relations between Mr. Hendrie and the charwoman?" Mme
Storey asked unexpectedly.

Bristed looked at her as if at a loss how to answer.  Mrs. Bristed put
in quickly, with her cold smile: "Not very good.  They were continually
at loggerheads.  He only kept her on because she rarely broke anything.
She was never allowed in his room unless he were present."

"When did you last see Mr. Hendrie?" was the next question.

"Day before yesterday, in the afternoon," said Bristed.  "He had not
expected to come to the laboratory that day, but we had a fire, and I
felt it my duty to telephone him."

"A fire?" exclaimed Mme Storey, looking around.

"Oh, a trifling affair.  We soon cleared away the mess.  But Mr.
Hendrie insisted on coming down.  He gave me a great rating for my
carelessness."  Bristed laughed heartily.

"And that is how he came to miss the afternoon train for London?"

"Yes, Madame....  It is terrible to think of it now!" he added with
sudden gravity.

Later Mme Storey expressed a wish to be shown around the laboratory and
especially the inner room.  Bristed conducted us, and Mrs. Bristed
brought up the rear of the procession, seldom speaking, but never
ceasing to watch us with her cold eyes.  Bristed was most anxious to
make everything clear--too anxious, if anything.  It occurred to me
that there must have been a careful cleaning up since Mr. Hendrie's
death.  It did not seem possible that a man could have been cut off in
the middle of his work like that and leave not a trace of it behind.

When we had completed our round Mme Storey said carelessly: "Where does
the charwoman live?"

Husband and wife exchanged a quick glance and both started to make
objections, voice answering voice in a sort of antiphony.  "Such an
ignorant woman! ...  You couldn't get anything out of her! ... And
absolutely unreliable....  Yes, what she didn't know she'd invent....
Lives in the worst quarter of town...."

"I am not afraid of a poor quarter," said Mme Storey with a smile.
"The car I have waiting can take me there."

"In that case I had better accompany you," said Bristed.

"As you will," said Mme Storey pleasantly.  I could see, though, that
she had no intention of allowing him to be present at the interview.

We were driven to a mean little street lined by grimy two-story
tenements, and with a swarm of filthy children in the gutters.  There
is a squalor, a hopelessness about the British poor that we do not see
in America, thank God!  From the house before which he stopped,
however, issued the sound of a loud and unmelodious singing.

"That's her," said Bristed with a bleak smile.  "Second floor front."

As we got out, Mme Storey appeared to be struck by a sudden
recollection.  "I have forgotten the station master!" she exclaimed.
"Mr. Bristed, I wonder if you would attend to that for me, while I
speak to this woman."

He looked sour but was obliged to consent, of course.

"Take the car," said Mme Storey.  "The railway carriage in which the
murder was committed goes up to London at eight to-night, on the same
train.  I want to reserve the compartment in which Mr. Hendrie
travelled."

His face offered a study in chagrin and baulked curiosity.  However,
with an outward appearance of courteous willingness, he hurried away.

Mme Storey and I exchanged a look as we turned into the house.  "It
isn't possible," said I, "that he should be so ignorant of his master's
work."

"Scarcely," she answered; "but you mustn't infer too much from that.
He is probably in possession of the secret of Sims Hendrie's last work;
but that doesn't connect him with the murder."


VII

I must confine my account of the exuberant Mrs. Freese within strict
limits.  If I gave her her head she would fill the balance of my pages.
Talk foamed out of her in billows and cascades.  There was no stopping
her, no controlling her, we simply had to let her talk, and fish out
what scraps of interesting matter the flood brought down.  In ten
minutes, I suppose, we were in possession of her entire life's history
from her early love affairs to her latest quarrels with her neighbours.
She was not in the least abashed by Mme Storey, but treated her
immediately as an old friend.  As a matter of fact, Mrs. Freese was not
English but Irish, which explains a good deal.

Picture an elvish little woman with a wide mouth--only a whole tooth or
two left--big ears, and a tight little twist of mouse-coloured hair.
What she had to be cheerful about I don't know, but cheerful she was.
The sordid room, no doubt her only room, was full of steam.  She had
her washtub on a chair, and she stood on a low box, bending over it.
Having placed us on two other chairs, she returned to her tub and
continued to scrub during our visit.  And while she scrubbed she
talked.  Astonishing energy!

"Me and Mr. Hendrie, we understood each other.  We got along good.  My
motter is: Never take people serious.  Lor' bless you, nobody don't
mean the half of what they say!  He was a testy old gent, a temper like
cayenne pepper, he had.  He'd go off like a pack of firecrackers when
you hang it up and light the bottom one.  Lor', how he'd storm around
that place when he mislaid anything, and it right under his nose all
the time.  If't had been a little yaller dog 'twould have bit him, I
uster say.  Ev'ybody was scairt stiff of him but me.  But I seed he
didn't mean nothin' by all his hullabaloo, an' I never let myself be
put about by it.  And he liked me because he seed that I seed that he
didn't mean nothin' by it.  It made the couple over there sore because
he liked me; they wanted to run him theirselves.  And you wouldn't
believe all the dodges they put up to get me sacked--why, Mis' Bristed
offered to clean up herself, but the old man wouldn't.  Ah, he was an
old bear, he was, but I miss 'im now 'e's gone!  I'll look long before
I find me another such a good place!"

"That was a fine cat of yours that I saw in the laboratory," remarked
Mme Storey, apparently at random.

"Yes'm, Ruddy.  Short for Rudyard Kipling.  My young uns called him
that because he looked like a tiger from India.  I brung him home this
morning when I got the sack, but he went right back again.  They fed
him too good over there for the likes of me to compete with."

"So you were sacked this morning?"

"Yes'm.  Of course, I expected it."

"Were you there yesterday?"

"No'm.  Yestiddy was my day home."

"Then you haven't been inside the laboratory since Mr. Hendrie's death?"

"No'm."

"How did you happen to take the cat over there in the first place?"

"Mr. Hendrie ast me if I had a cat, 'm.  Said he was troubled with mice
in the laboratory."

Mrs. Freese said this with so comical an air, primming up her lips and
looking virtuous, that anybody not blind could have seen that she was
holding something back.  Repression was very difficult to one of her
temperament.

"Come now, Mrs. Freese," said Mme Storey indulgently.  "That's not the
whole truth."

She shook her head and scrubbed hard.  "I promised," she said.

"Promised whom?"

"Mr. Hendrie, 'm."

"But Mr. Hendrie is dead, and by foul play.  I am trying to solve the
crime."

Mrs. Freese looked greatly relieved.  "Well, now, that do let me off my
promise, don't it?" she said, and forthwith launched on her tale.  "He
said mice, 'm, and I had no reason to disbelieve him.  But one morning,
when I was cleaning, he called me in to do his room, forgetting that he
was experimenting with Ruddy, and on the table I seed a box like, with
a glass front to it, and alongside the box a little kittle sort of,
with a pipe into the box; and inside the box my Ruddy stretched out
flat with his toes curled so pretty.  Dead as a door nail, 'm!  Or so I
thought at the time.  Lor', but it give me a turn: I'm that
tender-hearted!

"I let a screech out of me, and Mr. Hendrie began to storm something
awful.  We had it hammer and tongs there for a while.  I wasn't
a-scairt of him.  I says: 'You brutal torturer!' I says; and he says:
'There isn't anything the matter with your cat!  He's just having a
nice sleep!  I do this to him half a dozen times a day,' he says, 'and
he waxes fat on it!'  'The more shame to you, then!' I hollers.  Well,
the upshot was, Mr. Hendrie says if I'd go in the other room, he'd
restore my cat to me.

"So I went out, and pretty soon he calls me in again, and there was
Ruddy outside of the box, sitting up and washing his face large as life
and twicet as natural.  Only he was sleepy yet, 'cause he yawned once
or twice.  I could have hugged him to my bosom, only I was afraid he
might have gas on him still that would lay me out, so I just stroked
him gingerly at arm's length, and Mr. Hendrie told me to take my cat
home and be damned to me, but he didn't mean nothing by it, and when I
see how good Ruddy looked I told Mr. Hendrie he could keep him for his
experiments, and he gave me a pun note and told me to keep it to
myself, and that's all."

"Did Mr. and Mrs. Bristed know about this?" asked Mme Storey.

"No, 'm, they wasn't in the laboratory at the time.  They never knew
that I took any particular notice of the box with the glass front.
There was so many queer gadgets about that I didn't know the use of."

"You say there was a sort of kettle outside it."

"A glass kettle, 'm.  I could see inside it.  There was a brown powder
in the bottom of it, and water in the top part, I think, but I didn't
take very good notice, I was that flustered."

"Any fire under it?"

"No, 'm, no fire, as I recollect."

"Now, think well.  Did Mr. Hendrie say anything else about the gas?"

"Well, 'm, he kept saying as how it was good for both man and beast;
and he offered to put both me and him under the influence to prove to
me that it wouldn't hurt.  But I declined with thanks."

"What became of the box?"

"Nothing, 'm.  It was always in his room.  It was too big to put away."

"Did you wash the kettle?"

"No, 'm.  My instructions were never to touch anything that had
chemicals in it.  And I wasn't anxious to.  They washed them
theirselves."

That was all we got out of Mrs. Freese that was material to our case,
though it was not all she volunteered.  We got out as quickly as we
could after Mme Storey had presented the cheerful and indigent little
woman with a five-pound note, which called down ten thousand blessings
on her head.  When we got down to the street Bristed had not yet come
back with the car, and we stood there talking for a few moments.  From
behind the closed windows of the second floor issued the sounds of Mrs.
Freese's singing, more vociferous than ever but not a bit more tuneful.

"Not a poison gas, but a lethal gas, Bella," said my mistress
thoughtfully.  "There's a big difference.  That coincides with what Sir
Egerton Pulford told us.  The scattered pieces of our puzzle are
beginning to come together.  One begins to understand what Sims
Hendrie's scheme to end warfare was.  Imagine the advantage of
possessing a gas which would put the entire opposing army sound to
sleep without a struggle!  It is magnificent!"

After a moment she added: "Bella, I wonder if you and I didn't get a
whiff of that gas in the train night before last?"

"But how could we?" I said helplessly.

"I don't know," she answered simply.

"Very likely Mr. Hendrie may have been carrying a sample of it up to
the Royal Society," I agreed, "but he wouldn't have set it off
voluntarily in the train; and if it escaped from him by accident, it
would have put the young man to sleep as well as the rest of us, and he
couldn't have robbed and murdered Mr. Hendrie."

"Oh, quite," she said.

"And if it was a thief who got on our car by accident and found us all
asleep, your clothing was far richer than Mr. Hendrie's: there was your
watch, your rings--would he not have chosen you for his victim?"

"Surely," she said.  "We are not yet at the end of our work."


VIII

Bristed came along in the car, reporting that he had reserved the
compartment for Mme Storey as requested.  "How did you get along with
Mrs. Freese?" he asked with his loud laugh.  He laughed too much.

"What a woman!" said Mme Storey, humorously holding up her hands.

"I shouldn't think she could tell you anything of value," said Bristed.

"She didn't.  I wasted my time."

He looked relieved.  "What next?" he asked.

"I've done about all I can do in Banchester," said Mme Storey.

"Come to my house and rest for a while," he said eagerly.  "Mrs.
Bristed and I would be honoured."

"You are very kind," said my mistress.  "We will."

It was now past six o'clock and growing dark.  There was an agreeable
mildness in the air, and the sunset was beautiful.  Particularly lovely
at that dusky moment were the great pansies growing around the Bristed
cottage.  Mrs. Bristed came to the door, as we walked up the path, and,
hearing Mme Storey's exclamations of pleasure, came out.  The pansies
were growing in a narrow bed all around the foundation of the cottage.
Their fragrance--for pansies have a fragrance, faintly perfumed the air.

"How exquisite!" exclaimed my mistress.  "I must see them all!"

"They are nice," said Mrs. Bristed with her casual air.  "I can't do
much with flowers, I have so many other things to do, but I always try
to have a few."

We strolled slowly around the cottage.  "Do you raise them from seed?"
asked Mme Storey.

"They may be raised from seed, if you have hot frames; but I have not
the time.  I buy the clumps from the gardeners."

"In pots?" asked Mme Storey innocently.

"No, they come in little baskets.  So much lighter to carry."

"Quite."

At the back of the house several of the clumps were obviously freshly
planted.  Indeed, the basket and the trowel were lying close by.  "I
have been putting some in to-day," said Mrs. Bristed.  "Some of the
first ones died."

When we entered the house Mrs. Bristed said: "I hope that you and Miss
Brickley will have a bit of dinner with us before you go to the train.
It will not be much, of course."

Mme Storey thanked her heartily and declined.  "We could not think of
descending on you like that," she said.  "You and Mr. Bristed must dine
with us at the hotel opposite the station."

Mrs. Bristed looked at her husband, who enthusiastically accepted for
both of them.

The interior of the house was sufficiently well furnished but quite
lacking in charm.  It was odd, the total absence of personality that it
exhibited, like one of those completely equipped flats that they set up
in furniture stores.  Still, I suppose it was what you might have
expected to find in the house of a woman who was a chemist first and a
housekeeper second.

"Better still," said Mme Storey, with a careless look that suggested to
me something important was coming; "perhaps you and Mrs. Bristed would
be willing to coperate with me in a plan that I propose.  It will keep
you up all night, but you are young; and I know how keen you are to get
to the bottom of this terrible affair."

They looked at her questioningly.

"The trainmen have not been able to give us any information," Mme
Storey went on, "and it occurred to me if I reproduced the journey of
two nights ago in every detail so far as possible, it might strike on
some chord in their memories."

So this was her plan!  The subtlety of it was characteristic.  One for
the trainman and two for the Bristeds, I thought.  Whatever they may
have thought, they made haste to agree.

"Splendid idea!" cried Bristed.

"Miss Brickley and I will play ourselves," Mme Storey continued; "Mr.
Bristed may represent Mr. Hendrie, and Mrs. Bristed the lady who sat
next to Bella.  All we lack is the young man who sat in the other
corner, but we can do without him."

"It will be fun!" cried Bristed enthusiastically.

"Fun!" I said involuntarily.

"I mean interesting," he amended, somewhat confused.

"I suppose you haven't anything out of which we could create a disguise
for you," suggested Mme Storey.

"I have an old tweed hat such as he used to wear," said Bristed; "there
is a pair of his glasses in the laboratory; and my wife has a great
cape that I could put on over my overcoat."

"Excellent!  We must also have a pot of pansies."

"Won't a basket do?" asked Mrs. Bristed.

"No, I think we ought to have a big pot exactly the same as he carried.
If you will give Bella the name of a gardener, she will fetch it in the
car while you are getting ready."

This was done.  The gardener filled the pot with earth and planted the
pansies in it, wondering, I suppose, why I insisted on such a clumsy
pot.

"Hm!" said Mme Storey, weighing it when I got back.  "How heavy it is!
Yet Mr. Hendrie seemed to carry it without difficulty."

"Where on earth could he have got it?" put in Mrs. Bristed.

As we drove through the business part of town the boys were crying the
evening papers, and we stopped to buy them.  In the local sheet there
was fresh matter in the case, new even to Mme Storey and myself.  It
appeared that an enterprising reporter had discovered the identity of
the young man who called himself "George Albert."


"He is Harry Straiker, the second son of a highly respected resident of
this place," so the Banchester story ran.  "His father is Mr. Edward
Straiker, manager of the Banchester branch of the London and Western
Counties Bank.  This tragic affair comes as the climax to a long series
of escapades on the part of young Straiker at school and at Oxford.  He
was sent down from the University during his third term as the result
of a peculiarly outrageous prank, the details of which his family
refused to divulge.  Since that time his father has made one attempt
after another to set him up in a business of some sort, but each
attempt ended in disaster.  According to a member of the family, he
never before exhibited any criminal tendencies in his excesses; they
were the result simply of high spirits and an unconquerable levity of
disposition.

"As his last attempt to give him a start in life the elder Mr. Straiker
set up his son at his own request on a chicken farm in one of the
Southern counties.  Here for a time things went very well, until young
Straiker was run to earth by a party of wild young fellows, his former
associates at Oxford.  It appears that they wished to emulate the
meetings of the Hell Fire Club of unholy memory, and after several days
of bacchanalian riot, during which the chicken farm was virtually
wrecked and most of the birds escaped, local constables proceeded to
the place for the purpose of taking the participators in charge.  There
were only three constables against five young men, and in the mle
that resulted, the five succeeded in making good their escape, but
without their car.

"They scattered, and two days ago young Straiker turned up at his
father's house in Banchester, having walked the whole distance.  A
painful scene followed between father and son.  The elder Mr. Straiker
took the stand that his son must return to Cranstoun (the scene of his
exploit) to face the music and serve a term in jail, if necessary,
hoping that the experience might serve to sober him.  The son refused
to submit to the humiliation of arrest for what he termed 'a
gentleman's private party.'  After bitter recriminations on both sides,
the son rushed from his father's house swearing that his family should
never hear of him again.  He must have gone direct to the station and
boarded the train for London."


My heart bled when I read this story; it was so exactly what one might
have expected after having seen that young man's desperate face.
Surely there was nothing mean or crooked in him, but only a mad
recklessness which would not submit to English decorum.

When Bristed read the story, he said: "It's lucky this should come out
just at this moment.  You will be able to question the fellow's father
and mother before you leave Banchester."

But Mme Storey shook her head.  "Those unhappy people could not tell me
anything useful," she said.  My heart warmed to her for that speech.

Dinner at the hotel followed.  I cannot remember that anything
significant transpired during the meal.  Bristed talked in his
impulsive, rather scatter-brained fashion, while his wife mostly kept
her mouth shut and her eyes cast down.  Bristed was an interesting
study: he was of the blundering, garrulous type, whom one thinks of as
being unable to keep anything to themselves; yet he was keeping the
secret of the lethal gas very successfully.  It reminded me afresh of
one of Mme Storey's sayings, that a naturally open man makes the most
successful liar when his motive to deceive is strong enough.

We then proceeded to the station.  My mistress and I received a bit of
a shock on the platform when we perceived standing by the train an
almost exact replica of the young man whom we now knew to be Harry
Straiker, our travelling companion of two nights before.  The same fine
eyes and well-chiselled features, and a similar look of despair.  To be
sure, this one kept his head up, and there was no shame mixed in his
despair; also he was a little older.  The same sort of soft hat and
trench coat emphasized the resemblance.

"Must be a brother," Mme Storey whispered.  "Let us speak to him."

We allowed the Bristeds to get into the compartment and then approached
the young man.  "Is your name Straiker?" asked my mistress.

An expression of pain crossed his face.  "Richard Straiker," he said,
bowing stiffly.

Mme Storey introduced herself and in a few words explained our
business.  "Perhaps you can help us," she said.

He looked at us with no friendly eye.  "I cannot help you if you expect
to prove my brother guilty," he said bitterly.

"I have no opinion," said my mistress mildly.  "My business is to
follow the clues wherever they may lead."

His face worked painfully.  "He _couldn't_ have done it!" he burst out
involuntarily.  "Anything in the nature of brutality was foreign to his
entire nature!  Why, the sight of brutality in others aroused him to a
fearful rage.  I know--I know him better than anybody.  Oh, I know
they're all against him because he was so wild, but it was a natural
kind of wildness, not crime.  He has a generous heart.  We were all
against him at home until to-night because he kept us in hot water all
the time.  But not a criminal!  We'll stand by him now.  My father sent
me off to-night, and he'll follow to London to-morrow."

"If you're convinced of his innocence," said Mme Storey, "you needn't
fear the truth.  Will you help us?"

"How?" he asked.

"With the object of discovering what really happened on this train two
nights ago, I am trying to reconstruct the journey in every particular
as far as possible.  I want you to play the part of your brother by
taking the seat that he occupied."

"And what must I do?"

"Nothing--or, rather, we must all be guided by what happens."

He acquiesced.  She had given him no encouragement, but he seemed to
apprehend friendliness, to feel that he could trust her.


IX

Mme Storey showed Richard Straiker the seat he was to occupy, and
introduced him to the Bristeds.  Husband and wife bowed with sharp
glances of inquiry, but said nothing.

The conductor came to the door of the carriage, and Mme Storey
explained what she wanted of him and of the guards during the journey.
It appeared that it was the guards' duty to go along outside the train
to make sure that every door was tightly closed as it left each station.

"What is the first station?" asked Mme Storey.

"Mortlake Road, madam, a suburban station for the convenience of
persons coming out from Banchester.  Few get on there."

"And the next station?"

"Stotesbury, a good sized town, forty-five minutes from Banchester."

"That is the last station before crossing the viaduct?"

"Yes, madam."

"Then at Stotesbury please have the guard pay particular attention to
this compartment.  I want him to try to recall just how it looked two
nights ago."

He nodded.

"At the following station..."

"Redminster, madam, half an hour from Stotesbury."

"Please come and speak to me there before the train leaves."

"Yes, madam."

The train started.  In the rack above Mr. Bristed's head the second pot
of beautiful pansies nodded and swayed to the motion.  Excepting Mme
Storey, we were all very self-conscious, scarcely knowing how to
comport ourselves in this queer situation, half play-acting, half
reality of the grimmest sort.  There, where the fleshy figure of
Bristed now lolled, two nights ago the old scientist had sat, full of
his testy humours and irritations, shortly to be stilled by death in
its most horrible form.  Queer!  Queer!  A sickly feeling of excitement
possessed me.  I heartily wished the affair were over and done with.

Bristed's excitement seemed to be of a more pleasurable sort.  "Shall I
put on the glasses and cape?" he asked like a child.

"Plenty of time," said Mme Storey; "nothing could have happened this
side of Stotesbury, I think."

Straiker shot a contemptuous look sideways at Bristed.  These two were
bound to rub each other the wrong way, because Straiker, according to
the English technicality, was a gentleman, whereas Bristed was not.
These distinctions are difficult to explain.

The train stopped at the suburban station and afterward pounded on
through the dark.  I suppose it was full of people all bound on their
various businesses, but we could see or hear nothing of them: our
compartment was like a tiny world of its own.  There was little
conversation among us; the elements of our party were too disparate.
The silence seemed to get a little on Bristed's nerves, and he made one
or two explosive attempts to start something, but received no
encouragement.  His wife sat beside me, completely withdrawn into
herself like a woman of marble.

From time to time Mme Storey glanced at her watch, and finally she
said: "Time to get ready."

We all started nervously.  There was nothing for her and for myself to
do, since we were just playing ourselves.  She placed Mrs. Bristed's
hat on top of her head, and told her to sit up stiffly and look sour.
These directions sounded comic, but nobody thought of smiling then.  My
heart was beating thickly.

"What must I do?" asked Straiker.

"Pull your hat over your face and slump down in your seat," said Mme
Storey.

Meanwhile, Bristed had put on Mr. Hendrie's thick glasses, wrapped the
cape around him, and jammed down the tweed hat as the old man had been
accustomed to do.  Of course, he did not look like the old man, really,
but such is the power of suggestion, that I imagined I saw him sitting
there and shivered.

The train began to slow down.

"Remember," said Mme Storey, "we are all supposed to be sound asleep."

We took relaxed attitudes and closed our eyes.  The train gradually
lost way, and stopped with a little jerk.  A minute or two of tense
suspense succeeded.  We heard the doors of the carriages open and
close, the shuffle of feet along the platform, the cries of the
trainmen; then the moment of silence when all is ready for the start
again.  Suddenly we heard an exclamation outside our carriage.  We
opened our eyes to perceive the startled face of a young guard looking
through the window.  He opened the door.

"I remember now," he said excitedly.  "Seeing you all asleep like that
brings it back: the old man and the young man on one side, and the
three women on the other.  But night before last there was another
person in this compartment!"

A long-drawn exclamation escaped from all of us: "Ahh!"

"What sort of person?" asked Mme Storey.

"A woman, ma'am."

This created a fresh surprise.

"A big woman--elderly--with gray hair and a shabby bonnet.  She had a
big shawl around her, or a cape; couldn't be sure which.  The lights of
the compartment were behind her, and I couldn't see her face very good.
When I came along she was standing at the door.  The door was fast, but
she had the window all the way down and was leaning out a little.  That
was how she was as the train pulled out."

"On account of the gas," murmured Mme Storey _sotto voce_.

I did not understand her reference then.

The conductor and the other guard had come up.  The second guard said:
"That old woman got out of the last carriage.  I marked her because she
was so big and strong.  I saw her get out but didn't see her get on the
train again.  She must have followed the passengers out to the exit
gate and come back again."

"Was she carrying anything?" asked Mme Storey.

"That I can't say, ma'am."

The conductor was growing uneasy.  "What are your wishes, madam?" he
asked.  His deference was due to the letter from Scotland Yard that my
mistress carried.

"Let the train go on," said Mme Storey.  "But come to me again at
Redminster.  I may have to ask you to hold it there for a moment or
two."

With a relieved air he gave the signal to start.

We settled back in our seats.  Young Straiker, his eyes burning with
excitement, said: "This means--this means...?"

"Presumptive evidence in favour of your brother," said Mme Storey
cautiously; but her glance was kind upon him.

"Oh, thank God!" he said.  "This will be fine news to bring him!"

"Splendid!" said Bristed enthusiastically.  His wife said never a word.

"A female thug!" said Bristed, with his ill-timed laugh.  "That's
something new!"

"Unusual," said Mme Storey drily, "but not unheard of in the annals of
crime."

"She must have been thoroughly familiar with the line."

"Not necessarily," said my mistress.  "It may have been pure accident
that she flung her victim over the viaduct.  Any place would have done."

I shuddered.

"What must we do now?" asked Bristed.

"You may take off your disguise.  It has served its turn."

We fell silent.  I suppose the same thought was in every mind.  There
was now a shadowy sixth presence riding in the compartment with us.
She must have sat down between the two men opposite me.  I pictured her
cunning and brutal glance around at her sleeping fellow travellers.
Was her purpose born in that moment, or had she entered the carriage
with murderous intent?  Perhaps the old man had awakened, or seemed
about to awake, and it was that which had sealed his fate.  I pictured
her getting the knife out and opening it--how horrible in the hand of a
woman!  Had she gone through his pockets or stabbed him first? ...

The rumble of the train took on a hollower sound.

"We are crossing the viaduct," said Mme Storey.

Oh, it was too horrible!  Involuntarily, I shut my eyes and clapped my
hands over my ears.  But clearer than with the eyes of my body I saw
the door of the compartment open and that poor murdered body go
hurtling down through the dark.  When I opened my eyes we were on solid
ground again.  There was a sort of witless grin of excitement pasted on
Bristed's face.  "It is nothing to him but a newspaper sensation," I
thought.

A few minutes later we came to a stop in the station at Redminster.
The conductor and guard came to the door of our carriage.  Mme Storey
asked the latter if he could remember having seen the old woman leave
the train at this place, but he could only shake his head.

"Can't say, madam.  There was quite a number got off."

Mme Storey then asked the conductor for sufficient time to make inquiry
of the ticket taker.  She nodded to me to follow and indicated that I
was to bring the pot of pansies.  I wondered greatly what this was for.
Bristed and his wife made as if to come with us, but Mme Storey asked
them to remain in their seats.

"It would only make confusion," she said.

We were obliged to wait until the passengers had passed through the
gate.  Mme Storey whispered to me: "While I am questioning the man,
stand in such a way that his eye must fall on the pot of pansies.  I do
not wish to suggest the word pansies to him, but hope that the sight of
the thing itself may stir his memory."

The conductor identified Mme Storey to the ticket collector.  Scotland
Yard! the man's eyes widened at the sound; and his amazement visibly
grew as he took note of my mistress's beautiful face in the light of
the station lamps, and her elegant attire.  Not at all the sort of
figure one associates with the police.  I took care to stand where the
light would fall on my pot of flowers.

"What can you tell me about the people who got off this train two
nights ago?" asked Mme Storey.

"There was about twenty persons, ma'am," he said.  "I can give you the
exact number if you let me look up my record."

"Never mind that," said Mme Storey.  "Do you remember any women among
them?"

"Women?" he said, scratching his head.  "Yes, there was women among
'em.  What sort of a woman are you lookin' for?"

"I'd rather have you tell me what you saw."

"I mind one woman," he said, after a moment's thought: "big woman with
a shawl around her shoulders.  She was a rare ugly specimen, she
was--that's how I mind her.  Big gray eyebrows jutting out like an old
man's, and a moustache like; and a few long hairs growing on her chin.
Enough to stop a clock, ma'am."

"That will be the one," said Mme Storey.  "Was she carrying anything?"

"Little old-fashioned satchel, ma'am.  Squarish in shape."

"Anything else?"

"That was all I saw."

"Was the satchel big enough to have contained this pot of pansies?"

His eyes goggled at the flowers, but he answered readily: "No, ma'am."

"What was in her other arm?"

"It was hidden under the big shawl, ma'am."

"Then she might have been carrying quite a large object in it."

"Possibly, ma'am....  Come to think of it, she must have had something
in that arm, because I mind how she had to put her satchel down in
order to give me her ticket."

"Excellent," said Mme Storey.  Turning to the conductor she said: "We
will leave the train here."

I was sent back to fetch Mr. and Mrs. Bristed.  We supposed that young
Straiker would continue his journey to London; but he begged to be
allowed to see the thing through, and Mme Storey made no objection.

As we made our way through the station Mme Storey murmured to me: "The
pansies didn't serve us that time; but hang on to them; they will be
useful later."


X

Outside the station Mme Storey looked for a taxi driver with the idea
of getting further information; but it appeared that the cabs had all
secured fares and driven away.  There was a tramcar in the street, but
that also moved away with its load.  However, a train from the North
was due to pass through in a few minutes.  We waited, and the cabs
presently began to straggle back.  The first driver we spoke to was a
typical English cabby.  I am told they have changed very little since
horseflesh gave place to petrol.  A burly man rendered still burlier by
the amount of clothing he wore, he had a white neckerchief wound round
his throat inside his coat collar, and his face was the colour of
beetroot.  You have seen his prototype driving stagecoaches in old
English sporting prints; only nowadays he wears a cap instead of a pot
hat.

"Yes, miss," he said hoarsely, "I remember the big woman that got off
the Banchester train two nights ago.  As it might happen me and my
mates we made a bit of game of her among ourselves.  Such a fearsome
old grenadier.  'I'm glad she ain't my mother-in-law,' I says."

"What became of her?" asked Mme Storey.

"She come out the station and looks about her like a stranger.  'Keb,
lady?' I says.  She shook her head without speaking.  The tram was
waiting just the same as it was to-night, but she didn't take that
neither, though it's a good half mile to the centre of town.  She let
it go, and she started walking."

"In what direction?"

"Down the main road, miss, with the tram line."

"You had never seen her before?"

"No, ma'am.  I could almost swear she had never been seen in
Redminster.  That was a face you couldn't forget easy."

While Mme Storey was talking to him, the train came in.  We waited to
let the bustle subside.  In some manner the news of our errand had got
about the station and we were the objects of general attention.  The
size of our party made me feel rather foolish.  I wished that Mme
Storey and I were alone on this.  When the train had gone on, the
station guard, the one who collected the tickets, joined us.  He hadn't
anything to do, he said, until the last train from London to Banchester
went through at eleven forty-five, and we would want a guide about
town.  Mme Storey good-naturedly accepted him, but turned down the
cabman, who begged us almost tearfully to make use of his cab.

We set off on the trail of the old woman walking two and two like a
parcel of schoolchildren out for an airing: first, Mme Storey and the
guard; then the Bristeds, then Mr. Straiker and I.  Straiker carried
the pot of pansies for me.  It was certainly an oddly assorted
sextette, yet Mme Storey and the guard chatted away as if they had been
acquainted for years.  That is her way.  The Bristeds had nothing to
say to each other.  They walked a little apart, as if estranged.  I
wondered what were the relations between those two.  In looking back I
could not remember having heard them address each other.  A curious
excitement filled me; the excitement of the hunt.

The suburban road wound away from the station first to the left, then
to the right--English roads are never straight.  There were a few shops
at the station, then houses and dark gardens.  Over the trees ahead we
could see a brighter glow which denoted the centre of the town.  The
road kept winding downhill, and presently we came to a bridge, an
ancient bridge with stone parapet.  Mme Storey stopped and peered over.

"There seems to be a good bit of water here," she remarked.

"The Scar River, miss," said the guard.  "Yes, miss, there's good
boating about here."

"What a welcome find for a stranger who had something heavy to get rid
of!" said Mme Storey reflectively.

"Eh, miss?" he asked, perplexed.

"Fetch me a constable," said Mme Storey briskly.  "Tell him who I am
and say that I would like to have this stream dragged under the bridge."

"A body, miss?" he exclaimed in tones of delighted horror.

"Nothing like that!  Be as quick as you can, so that we can take the
eleven forty-five to Banchester if we find what we want.  We'll wait
here."

He ran off, delighted with his errand.

Mme Storey hoisted herself on the parapet and lighted a cigarette.
Straiker put down the pot of flowers near her.  The few townspeople who
passed stared at us curiously.  It was a bit early in the season to be
spooning on the bridge.  Suddenly I became aware that a change had come
over Bristed.  He was still laughing in his fat way, making his
inconsequential and enthusiastic comments, but his head had gone
forward in a curious fashion, his whole attitude suggested a deathly
fear.  At the same moment in the light of a street lamp I glimpsed his
wife's face.  She was staring at him with distended eyes full of rage,
contempt, or terror--perhaps all three.  Straiker saw it too, and we
exchanged a swift glance.

In a moment it was over, Mrs. Bristed lowered her eyes, Bristed
straightened up, and we were all talking easily again.  But thereafter
Straiker never moved far from Bristed's side; and for my part I made it
my business to keep an eye on the woman.  Apparently Mme Storey had not
noticed anything; but you never can tell about her.

They had a very up-to-date and efficient police department in that
town, and naturally they wanted to exhibit it to a stranger.  Their
methods were a little too spectacular for our taste.  A motor patrol
came clanging downhill to the bridge with half the populace in pursuit.
There were four smart young constables in the car, who jumped out and
saluted Mme Storey.  They had a sort of portable searchlight operated
with power from the engine.  They set this up on the parapet of the
bridge, flooding the gentle little river below with an unnatural light.

"Constable Beddowe will be downstream directly with a boat, 'm," said
the sergeant.

Within a minute or two there were five hundred people on the scene.
The police, however, kept the bridge free, allowing nothing to cross
but the tramcars.  Our little group, of course, was the centre of
attention.  I hate to be made conspicuous in this manner.  Mme Storey
was quite undisturbed.  The people, kept off the bridge, scrambled
along the river bank on either side to obtain points of vantage,
regardless of the carefully tended terraces and shrubbery.  With that
flaring light on the water, it was like some lurid scene on the stage.

A rowboat poked under the old bridge with a constable in his shirt
sleeves at the oars.  In the stern was a sort of dragnet weighted at
the bottom, with ropes to pass ashore on either side.  Seeing this
significant object a hush fell on the crowd.  They expected a human
body at the least.  The oarsmen took another man aboard to manipulate
the net.  The constables were but human, of course, and called back and
forth to each other in important sounding voices.  The sergeant stood
on the parapet of the bridge to issue his orders.  Mme Storey put the
pot of pansies on the pavement, that it might not be knocked overboard
in the excitement.

The dragnet was dropped astern, and a line passed to a waiting
constable on either bank.  Pulling the net into position, so that it
filled the whole bed of the little river, they commenced to walk slowly
along the water's edge, dragging it behind them.  An uncanny silence
fell on the crowd.  All you could hear was the shuffle of new arrivals
pushing for a look.

The constables had not much more than started to walk along the bank,
when they stopped again.  Turning, they played the ropes tentatively
like a fisherman with a nibble.  Out of the stillness one spoke low
voiced to the sergeant:

"We've got something, sir."

A long breath escaped from the crowd: "Ahh!"

"Handle it gently," said Mme Storey.

"Pass the ropes back to the man in the boat," said the sergeant.  "Let
him haul in both together.  Steady, now!"

It was done as he ordered.  While the man at the oars kept the boat in
midstream, the one standing in the stern pulled the two ropes in slowly
hand over hand.  The search-light was beating full on him like a
spotlight on the stage.  He began to take in the net itself.  The
silence was breathless now.  Finally a heavy object was seen to be
weighing down the bottom of the net.  The constable leaned out to lift
it clear.  It came out of the water streaming; a big flower pot!  A pot
of pansies, the flowers broken somewhat but still fresh and vivid after
their long immersion in cold water!

The crowd thought that the joke was on us, and a derisive laugh broke
from them.  Voices cried out: "Try again, old man!"

The sergeant looked questioningly at my mistress.

"That is what I wanted," she said, smiling.

"But, madam, all this trouble for a pot of pansies?"

"I shall be glad to reimburse you."

He waved this suggestion aside.  An absurd look of perplexity filled
his face.  "You have one already," he said, pointing to the pot on the
pavement.

"I was trying to match it," said Mme Storey, smiling.

He gave it up with a helpless shrug.  The flower pot was passed up to
the bridge and the boat sent home.  The crowd, seeing that there was to
be no more excitement, began to melt away, still laughing at what they
supposed to be the discomfiture of the police.

A pot of pansies!  It was the key to our whole case, and Mme Storey
with her marvellous instinct had put her finger on it in the beginning.
She received the precious find into her own hands.  She would allow no
one to examine it.  She bent down on the pavement to drain the water
out of it, concealing the operation from the rest of us with her own
body.  It took a little time.  While everybody was twisting and craning
to get a look at the pot, I stole a glance at Bristed.  His face was
sick with terror.  He was not looking at the pot; his eyes were darting
this way and that across the bridge, as if he were meditating flight.
Straiker and I exchanged a glance, and Straiker edged around on the
other side of him.

Mme Storey's voice came from the pavement.  "This will drip for an
hour.  Lend me that old cape, Mr. Bristed, to wrap it up in."

This was the cape with which Bristed had impersonated the old man.  It
was still hanging over his arm.  He passed it to Mme Storey.  She
wrapped the pot completely up in it, flowers and all, and gave it to
Straiker to carry.  The other pot was left standing on the pavement.

"What shall I do with this one?" said the station guard, touching it
with his foot.

"Oh, that has served its purpose now," said Mme, Storey carelessly.
"Take it home and present it to your wife.  But I spilled some water in
it.  Mr. Straiker, lend him your raincoat to carry it in."

She herself wrapped it in the raincoat and handed it to the guard, who
bore it proudly as a souvenir of a great occasion.


XI

By this time the police had gathered their apparatus together.  Mme
Storey made them a handsome present for their trouble, good-byes were
exchanged, and the motor patrol went clanging back up the hill.  Once
more the six of us were left alone on the bridge.

"Where next, ma'am?" asked the guard.

"Back to the railway station," she said.  "We shall just be in good
time to catch the eleven forty-five for Banchester."

"But how about the old woman?" he asked with a falling face.

"Well," said Mme Storey, "I infer that, having got rid of her incubus,
she went back to Banchester on that train.  That's where she came from."

"No, ma'am," he said positively, "she never came around the station
again that night."

"Who did take that train?" asked Mme Storey, smiling.

"There was only one passenger that night--a man."

"What sort of man?"

"A rough-looking customer, ma'am.  That's all I can tell you.  Nothing
about him in particular to notice."

"Wasn't he about the same size as the old woman?" she asked.

"Well, since you put it to me, yes, ma'am."

"And what was he carrying?"

"Let me see--a small satchel, squarish in shape--by Gad! yes, ma'am,
the same sort of satchel _she_ carried!"

"Exactly," said Mme Storey, lighting a fresh cigarette, "and the female
clothes were then in the satchel.  Being a stranger here, he wouldn't
know where to hide them in safety, and he had to carry them back."

"By Gad!" said the guard admiringly, "but, begging your pardon, ma'am,
how did you know she--he was going back?"

"Oh, that's easy," said Mme Storey; "a man who takes such pains to
disguise himself doesn't mean to run away!"

In his enthusiastic admiration the guard quite forgot his British
obsequiousness.  "Now that's what I call a bit of head work!" he cried.

We returned to the railway station, Straiker carrying one pot, the
guard the other.  The one which had been fished from the river still
dripped water on Mr. Straiker's clothes, notwithstanding the folds of
the cape around it.  In the station Mme Storey sent a telegram to
Inspector Battram to report progress, while the guard went off to
deposit his prize in his own quarters.  He returned Mr. Straiker's
raincoat.

We still had a while to wait for the train.  The Bristeds must have
been suffering the torments of the damned during this time.  Mrs.
Bristed, who never gave away much in her face, hid it best; her
husband, still essaying to play the good fellow with his jokes, his
enthusiasm, his loud laughter, looked positively ghastly.  His limbs
twitched, his face was streaked and discoloured, his eyes looked mad
with fear.  How he endured it, I don't know.  I suppose, if Straiker
hadn't been there, he would have made a break for it.  As usual in such
cases, their common trouble did not have the effect of drawing the
couple together.  The little glances they threw at each other were full
of hatred.  I suppose each was blaming the other for the pass they were
in.

The train came along half empty, and we had no difficulty in getting a
compartment to ourselves.  The pot of pansies was carefully deposited
in a rack.  It had ceased to drip by now.  Bristed's tormented eyes
kept returning to it.  At other times he kept glancing in a sick
fashion at my mistress.  He couldn't understand her tactics.  Why not
open the thing and put him out of his suspense?  Yet he dreaded to have
her open it.  All this was written in his face while he kept up his
inconsequential talk.  Finally he could stand it no longer.

"What is the significance of this pot of pansies which the woman--or
man--threw away?" he asked with his agonized grin.

"Well," said Mme Storey, smiling drily.  "I fancy there is more in it
than pansies.  If I have reasoned correctly, there is a machine within
the pot to generate the gas which put us all to sleep the other night
and made it easy for the criminal to enter the compartment and do his
work."

"But," said Bristed, with a great air of bewilderment, "I thought Mr.
Hendrie brought it on the train himself!"

"He did," said Mme Storey.  "It was handed to him on the way to the
station by an accomplice of the murderer.  Ingenious, wasn't it, to
make the old man put himself to sleep, in a manner of speaking, as well
as any other persons who might be in the way.  In fact, it was the most
cleverly planned murder of my experience."

So much for Bristed.  He laughed and clapped his thigh and cried: "By
Gad!  By Gad!" while his face was perfectly livid.

Yet he was somewhat relieved, because he understood by Mme Storey's
words that she did not mean to open the package immediately.

That extraordinary woman, my mistress, settled herself comfortably in
her corner and proceeded to go to sleep.  She did not even take the
precaution to tell me to watch our precious piece of evidence in the
rack overhead; but of course there was little danger that I would
forget it.  I was on wires; no sleep for me; nor for Straiker either,
especially since Mme Storey had told him what the flower pot might be
expected to reveal.

The wretched Bristed talked jerkily on, while his wife watched him
through eyelids narrowed in contempt.  "By George! what a woman! what a
woman! ... You might know she was an American....  Strange she should
have happened to be riding in the very carriage where the murder was
committed ... with her trained mind!  Marvellous! ... It's a privilege
to be associated with her....  That is, of course, if her theory is
correct..."

While his tongue wagged in this fashion, his sick eyes expressed a very
different language.  Pure hatred glittered out of them when they fell
on Straiker or on me.  He would gladly have made away with us if he
could.  Ever and anon his glance travelled furtively up to the shrouded
flower pot in the rack, and then toward the window.  I think he would
have taken a chance on pitching it through the glass could he have been
sure that it would be completely destroyed along the right of way.

Sometimes he would fall silent, and you could see the fine beads of
sweat spring out on his forehead.  He would surreptitiously wipe his
face and burst into talk again.  Poor wretch!  Yet when we rumbled back
over that horrible viaduct he never even noticed it.  One inferred that
it was not remorse that was eating him, but simply a craven fear for
his own skin.

We reached Banchester at one o'clock.  As we alighted from the train
Bristed said facetiously: "Well, what next?"

"I can do nothing further until morning," said Mme Storey.

He stammered with a painful eagerness that he tried in vain to hide:
"Perhaps you and Miss Brickley would come and spend the rest of the
night with us.  We would try to make you more comfortable than the
hotel."

I thought he had a great cheek to ask us.  But I suppose he still
flattered himself that he had not given anything away--that he was
still unsuspected.

To my astonishment Mme Storey accepted.  "Thank you very much," she
said.  "We will come with pleasure."

My heart sank.  If ever there was a desperate man Bristed was he.  His
look suggested that he would stop at nothing in order to get us into
his power--or, it would be more proper to say, to get that
incriminating piece of evidence away from us.  But of course I could
not say anything.  Mme Storey always knows what she is doing.  I could
not appear to hang back.  I just had to swallow my fears and make out
that I, too, was grateful for the invitation.

We parted from Straiker at the train gate and took a taxi back to the
little cottage alongside the laboratory.  There was no other house very
near, and such houses as one could see showed no light.  An ideal
situation for murder.  If Bristed was already faced by the prospect of
hanging, what was there to restrain him from further murders?

They switched on lights, and I placed my burden on the centre table of
the little drawing room.  At this moment Bristed was worked up to the
highest pitch of excitement.  His legs and arms jerked like a jumping
jack's.  I suppose he expected the flower pot to be opened up there and
then and had nerved himself up to a desperate deed.  Hysteria was
gripping my throat.  But Mme Storey said with a careless air:

"I'm not going to look at this thing until Inspector Battram comes.  I
have telegraphed for him."

I heard a long breath escape from Bristed.  He had obtained another
reprieve.  He relaxed.

Mrs. Bristed said we must have a bite of supper before turning in.  She
took Mme Storey upstairs to freshen up after our hours in the train and
went off to prepare the food.  I remained in the drawing room to guard
my charge.  Bristed stayed with me, alternately sitting down and
jumping up again; moving around the room, talking all the time, of
course, while his furtive eyes strayed from my face to the shrouded
object on the table and back to my face again.  Momentarily I expected
him to spring on me.  How thankful I was when I heard my mistress come
running down the stairs again.

She stayed in the drawing room while I went up to wash, and brush my
hair.  When I returned supper was on the table: a simple meal of bread
and butter, cold meat, cheese, and beer.  And in spite of the secret
tenseness of the atmosphere we did it justice.  The door between
drawing room and dining room stood open, and from where I sat I could
watch the flower pot.  Since I had been upstairs a subtle change had
taken place in Bristed's manner.  Some of the haggard lines were
smoothed out of his face, and a bit of colour had returned to it.  He
still talked extravagantly, but I was aware of an increased ease and
assurance in his manner.  It made me vaguely uneasy.

When we had finished eating we began to talk of bed.  We passed into
the drawing room, and I picked up my flower pot to carry it upstairs.
There was nothing in it!  With a cry I put it down and flung off the
cape.  Underneath there was a jardinire somewhat of the same size and
shape as the flower pot but perfectly empty.

"It's gone!" I cried.


XII

They crowded around the table.  "Good God!" cried Bristed with an
admirable assumption of astonishment.  "It must have been substituted
somewhere en route!"

"Substituted nothing!" I cried angrily.  "Do you think I wouldn't know
the difference between a full pot and an empty one?  I brought it into
this house!"

He never changed a hair.  "Heavens!" he cried instantly.  "Then some
interested party must be hanging around the house, peeping in at the
windows.  What a terrible thought!"  And he had the effrontery to look
around him as if in terror.

"Nothing of the sort!" I said.  "He changed it himself!  He changed it
while I was upstairs.  I could see the difference in his manner when I
came down."

"Bella, Bella," said my mistress rebukingly, "you must not make charges
that you can't substantiate.  It's quite true that while you were
upstairs I left the room to help Mrs. Bristed lay the table.  But I'm
sure Mr. Bristed never touched the thing."

This capped the climax for me.  I burst into tears.  Mme Storey ignored
me.  She was playing for a big stake, and a few tears from me could not
be allowed to sway her.  Bristed was greatly heartened by her seeming
rebuke to me.

"I wouldn't have had this happen in my house for a thousand pounds!" he
cried fervently.

"It's too bad!" cried my mistress bitterly.  "Our whole night's work
gone for nothing!  The murderer will escape scot free because of this!
We must have been spied upon throughout!"

And so on.  She was really giving a very good imitation of the chagrin
and disappointment she might have been supposed to feel; but I who knew
her so well was not deceived by it.  If she had been really put about
by the loss of the pot of pansies she would have set her teeth and said
nothing.  So I cheered up again.  I had not the least idea of what her
game was.

"But we must find it!" cried Bristed.  His self-confidence was
increasing every minute.  "As you may remember, I was out of the house
while you were helping Mrs. Bristed.  I went out to the laboratory to
see if all was right there.  He must have slipped in then!"

We gravely went through the comedy of making an exhaustive search.  We
found that the front door could not be opened from the outside; but
there was a window in the hall which had been thrown up on our entrance
as the house seemed to be close.

"That was where he came in!" cried Bristed.

We searched the yard surrounding the cottage, and the laboratory.
Afterward, at Bristed's insistence, we went over the cottage from
ground floor to garret.  English houses have no cellars.  During this
part of the search, I noticed that Mme Storey's eyes were busy, and I
guessed that she was looking for more than the pot of pansies.

It must have been close on three o'clock when we had finished.  We
returned to the drawing room.

Bristed was still voicing his regret in extravagant terms when we heard
a motor car approaching through that silent quarter.  It came to a stop
in front of the cottage.  I saw Bristed and his wife slowly stiffen.  A
moment later the doorbell rang.

"That will be Inspector Battram," said Mme Storey carelessly.  "He has
motored down from London."

Bristed did not immediately move to open the door.  "But how--how did
he know you were here?" he stammered.

"Oh, I told Straiker to wait for him at the hotel and fetch him along,"
she said.

Bristed's new-found confidence slowly wilted.  However, he went to open
the door with a good face.  The handsome inspector came in smiling,
with Richard Straiker at his heels.  Two more men followed--detectives,
by the look of them--who closed the door and stood in front of it.  The
sight of these two grim figures and the significant action seemed to
affect Bristed more than the arrival of the inspector.  He gazed at
them with a whitening face.

The hall was narrow, and we passed, as a matter of course, into the
drawing room.  Straiker was carrying something on his arm.  A slight
thump on the centre table sharply recalled Bristed's attention to it.
He beheld, wrapped in an old coat, an object strangely reminiscent of
the pot which had rested on the table earlier in the evening.

"What's that?" he gasped.

Straiker, at a glance from Mme Storey, threw off the wrappings,
revealing a pot of pansies, the flowers and leaves now a good deal
broken and wilted.  I myself swallowed a gasp at the sight of it, but,
knowing my mistress, I guessed what had happened.  Bristed stared at it
wildly.

"But--but--but----" he stammered.

"Oh, the one you hid was the pot which Bella obtained from the gardener
before dinner," said Mme Storey with the utmost nonchalance.  "This is
the one we fished out of the Scar River at Bedminster.  I didn't want
to take any chances, so I changed the pots on the bridge.  The station
guard put this one in the luggage van for me, and Mr. Straiker claimed
it when we got here."

It was a sickening blow to Bristed.  It seemed to stupefy him for the
moment.  A look of hard defiance came into his wife's face.  She saw
that the game was up.

"The one he hid?" put in the inspector.

"Yes," said Mme Storey calmly.  "He buried the other one under the
compost heap in the garden of the cottage next door until he should
have a chance to destroy it.  He was in a hurry, or he would have
noticed that it was the wrong one."

"Did you see him do it?" said Battram.

"No.  Shreds of vegetable matter were clinging to his trousers when he
came back," answered Mme Storey, with her inimitable air of unconcern.

The two of them made believe to ignore Bristed for the time being.
Inspector Battram was bending over the pot of flowers.  "It appears to
be two pots nested together," he remarked.

"I expected something of the sort," said Mme Storey.

With his penknife the inspector succeeded in prying them apart.  Out of
the big pot came a shallow pot such as pansies are usually planted in.
In the space beneath it there was a simple apparatus the nature of
which we could all understand at a glance.  A little tin tank was
fitted in the top with an infinitesimal opening through which water had
dripped on a chemical placed in the bottom of the pot.  There was also
a rubber tube which had been run up through the top pot and had issued
among the leaves of the pansies.  Through this tube the gas had escaped.

"How simple!" said Inspector Battram.

"And how effective!" added Mme Storey.

Bristed was pulling at his collar and struggling for speech.  In that
moment he had cracked.  "I'm done!" he cried hoarsely.

His wife turned on him like a tigress.  The change in her was
electrical.  Gone were her dullness and lassitude.  In that moment she
was as beautiful as the angel of evil.  One of the detectives,
supposing that she was actually about to assault her husband, hastily
stepped between them.

"Be quiet!" she cried.

But Bristed continued to wail: "I'm done!  I'm done!"

"You fool!" cried the woman.  "There is no evidence to connect you with
this crime!  The woman is just trying to break you down with her stage
tricks.  That has been her object from the first!"

Bristed, having cracked, was helpless now.  "I know it!" he cried
hysterically.  "And she's done it!  I'm done, I tell you; I can stand
no more!  Oh, God! nobody knows what I have been through to-night!  It
is more than flesh and blood can bear!"

"Be quiet, you fool!  You snivelling coward!" she cried with blazing
eyes.  "You are hanging yourself!"

"You're all right," he said.  "You're not in it.  I did it all.  I'll
protect you!"

"Ah, be quiet!" she said, turning from him with a violent gesture of
disgust.  "I'm done with you!  All night you've been playing the fool.
She made you dance to her tune like a marionette on strings!  Ah, God!
if I was married to a man!"

After that Bristed completely lost control of himself.  He howled and
beat his fists against his head.  It was an ugly sight.  Straiker,
thinking of his brother, listened to the confession with burning eyes;
Mme Storey was as cold as Nemesis.  Remembering the hideous brutality
of the murder, she felt no pity.

"I did it!  I did it!  I did it!" screamed Bristed.  "Does that satisfy
you?  I prevented the old man from travelling by daylight.  I prepared
the scheme to gas him.  And it worked, too!  When I entered the
compartment you were all sleeping like the dead.  I took the old man's
pocketbook.  I got what I wanted out of it, and slipped it into his
pocket.  He was nothing to me."  He pointed at Straiker.  In his
hysterical state he evidently confused the identity of the brothers.
"I stabbed him!" he went on.  "It was an old knife which had been among
my tools for years.  It would never have been missed.  I stabbed him!
I flung his body out of the door!  Now you know it.  If you want any
more details ask her"--pointing to my mistress--"she's got it all down
pat!"

"What did you take out of the pocketbook?" asked the inspector.

"The formula for making the gas," said Bristed.  "He was going to place
it in the archives of the Royal Society."

"But if you knew how to make the gas, what good was the formula to you?"

"It was my discovery!" cried Bristed.  "And he wouldn't give me credit
for it!"

"That is no doubt a lie," said Mme Storey coldly.

Bristed whirled on her.  "That woman is a she-devil!" he screamed.
"She's not human!  She kept at me and at me till I near went mad!  She
ought to have been in the Spanish Inquisition, she should!  What's she
doing over here, anyway, plying her trade?  Aren't there enough murders
in America?  She wasn't content with arresting me and letting me stand
my chance at my trial.  Wanted to torture me for her pleasure.  Made me
go back over everything on the pretext that she thought it was somebody
else and I was helping her catch him.  Step by step over everything!
God! it was like being dissected alive, nerve by nerve!"

"No advantage in listening to this sort of thing," said Inspector
Battram, low-voiced, to my mistress.

He nodded to one of his men, who thereupon stepped up to Bristed and
snapped a pair of handcuffs on his wrists.  The act had the effect of
shutting off the man's wild cries.  He fell into a helpless, shaken
weeping, while his wife's lip curled.  The second detective approached
Mrs. Bristed with a pair of steel bracelets.  She proudly drew herself
up.

"Keep your hands off me!" she said.

The man hesitated.  Inspector Battram looked at Mme Storey, who said
coldly:

"I recommend you to take her too.  In my opinion she got the whole
scheme up.  It would never have been conceived in the man's muddled
brain.  In any case, it must have been she who handed the pot of
pansies to Mr. Hendrie.  There was not time for Bristed to have
disguised himself after doing so and still have caught the train."

So Mrs. Bristed's graceful wrists had to submit to the steel.  She
became apathetic again.  One could feel sorry for her.  Under that dull
exterior slumbered a fiery spirit.  The man was merely contemptible.

"Take them to the local police and make the necessary affidavits," said
Inspector Battram.  "Then come back here for us."

Bristed and his wife left their little cottage, never to return to it.
Neither gave it a backward look.


XIII

When they were taken away we had a chance to relax.  It had been a
strenuous twelve hours.  Mme Storey and the inspector lighted
cigarettes.

"A fine piece of work!" the inspector said with generous enthusiasm.
"If it was anybody else I would feel sore thus to have my own trade
taught me.  But from Madame Storey I can learn with humility!"

"Nonsense!" said my mistress, affecting to scorn his flattery, but not
at all ill pleased by the same.  "I just blundered into this case by
accident.  You would have solved it if I had never appeared on the
scene."

"I hope so," he said modestly.  "And I hope this will not be the end of
our association," he added wistfully.  It was the man, not the
inspector, who spoke then.

"Come to America and see how we do things there," said Mme Storey,
smiling.

"I will," he said meaningly.

We fell to discussing different aspects of the case.  Said the
inspector:

"The man was certainly lying when he claimed to be the discoverer of
the gas.  They all do that.  What did he expect to get out of the
murder, anyway?"

"After a year or two they would have come forward as the discoverers of
the gas," said Mme Storey.  "Sims Hendrie was so secretive about his
work that no one knew what he was doing."

"And is it then so valuable?" said Battram.

"Ah, consider all its possible uses!  A new and better anaesthetic,
perhaps, without the dangerous qualities of ether; a cure for insomnia,
one of the scourges of mankind.  And this is not to speak of its
advantages in warfare.  Put your enemy to sleep and he would be yours!"

"Tell us something about how the case shaped itself in your mind," said
the inspector persuasively.

"In the first place," said Mme Storey, "I suspected that Bella and I
had been drugged in the railway carriage, and the question was, how
could the murderer have drugged us without coming into the carriage
with us; and how, if he had been in the carriage, could he have drugged
us without drugging himself at the same time?  A fascinating problem.
As soon as I learned that the pot of pansies had disappeared, I
suspected that that had been the medium.

"Secondly, something in the quality of young Straiker's voice assured
me that he was not guilty of murder.  But intuitions are not sufficient
in our business--that is, they're not sufficient to convince judges and
juries.  So I had to go to work.

"Thirdly, when I talked to Bristed, as soon as he claimed not to know
the nature of the work his employer had been engaged on, my suspicions
fastened on him.  Such a statement was simply incredible.  It was
Bristed's one fatal error in tactics.  Later, when I learned from the
charwoman that he had lied about the nature of the gas, I was morally
certain that Bristed was the murderer; but you can't go into court with
moral certainties, either; I had to prove my case.

"By this time I had discovered that I was up against an exceptionally
astute and prudent pair.  Nobody had seen Mrs. Bristed hand the pot of
pansies to the old man.  No doubt she met him outside his house, as if
she had been on the way there with it, and begged him to carry it to
her sick sister in London, or something of that sort.  Moreover, since
the murder, they had been over the laboratory and the cottage with a
fine tooth comb and had collected and destroyed every scrap of
evidence.  That woman made no mistakes.  Bristed's disguises, the
satchel, and so forth; all had been burned, and completely burned, you
may be sure.

"So my only recourse was to force a confession from the man.  I have
had to do that before when my evidence was insufficient.  It was for
that reason that I staged the reproduction of the fatal journey, using
the same compartment where the murder was committed; and casting
Bristed in the role of the victim.  But remorse for his crime didn't
affect him in the least, all he felt was fear of discovery.  He would
have caved in quicker if I had left the woman at home.  She was of much
tougher fibre; her presence stiffened him.

"When the pot of pansies was fished from the water and he still did not
cave in, I changed the pots with the idea of letting him think for a
while that he had saved himself and then springing the truth on him.  A
cruel trick, but a brute like that deserves no better.  That worked, as
you saw.  And that's all there is to it."


The car was heard returning, and we all stood up.  None of us was
anxious to linger in that poor little house.  Mme Storey pressed out
the fire in her cigarette and smothered a yawn.

"Hum!" she said, "and now I must get back to London."

"London!" exclaimed the inspector.  "My dear lady, you need sleep."

"I must snatch what I can on the way.  Do you suppose I can get a car
at this time of night?"

"Come with me!" he said eagerly.

"You are sure you have room?"

"There are only four of us, including the chauffeur, and the car holds
seven."

"Splendid!  Let's go."

"Wouldn't you like to sleep for a few hours?" he said solicitously.  "I
can wait."

She shook her head.  "Impossible.  Bella and I are due at the Embassy
at nine.  That's our main graft, you know.  This was only a side issue."

"What a woman!" he murmured, his eyes fixed on her, big with admiration.

Poor fellow!  He was going the way of all the others, I could see.  And
such a handsome man!  There were plenty of women in England, I had no
doubt, who would have been glad to put his slippers to warm in the
evenings.

"Inspector, could I--could I make the seventh in the car?" asked young
Straiker, his voice trembling a little with eagerness.  "If I could
only be the first to tell Harry of what has happened."

"Oh, yes, do take him!" said Mme Storey warmly.

"By all means!" said the inspector, looking at her, not at the young
man.


We were in London by eight o'clock and drove direct to the prison where
Harry Straiker was confined.  All obstacles smoothed by a word from
Inspector Battram, Richard Straiker was admitted directly to his
brother's cell.  A few minutes later we followed him.  The two brothers
were sitting side by side on the cot, the elder with an arm around his
junior's shoulders.  Their faces were beaming.  Seen side by side like
that they did not look so much alike.  Harry was much the handsomer.
There was a power either for evil or for good in that young man.  They
sprang up.

"This is the lady who saved you," said Richard.

Harry took the hand that she held out.  But his tongue failed him.  "I
can't say what is proper," he murmured.

"Don't try," said Mme Storey promptly.

"We'll have you out of here in an hour or two," said the inspector
cheerfully.  "There are certain formalities that have to be attended
to."

"Then what are you going to do?" asked Mme Storey.

He shrugged rather helplessly.

"You want a new start," said Mme Storey.  "Come to America.  I'll give
you a job to start with, and you'll soon find your own feet."

"Oh, you don't know!" he said with a painful air.  "About me, I mean,
what I've been."

"I know all about you.  That's why I offered."

He flashed a look of perfect devotion on her and quickly veiled his
eyes.  "All right," he said brusquely, "I accept.  That is if my father
approves.  I must consult him."

And so it was done.  I need only say that Harry Straiker finds the
wider spaces of America more congenial than confined England.  He's
raising cattle in the Big Bend country of western Texas.




THE LEGACY HOUNDS


I

Our visitor was a dignified little old gentleman in an old-fashioned
Prince Albert and round white cuffs which came down partly over his
hands.  The quaint cuffs somehow stamped him as a prosperous country
lawyer and such he proved to be: Mr. D. J. Riordan, Stanfield,
Connecticut.  "Village lawyer" was the phrase he used, deprecatingly,
to describe himself.

"But you would hardly call Stanfield a village," said Mme Storey.

"It was a village when I started to practise there," he said.  "And I
am afraid we old-timers like the self-dependent village that it was
better than the great and wealthy suburb it has become."

"What can I do for you?" asked Mme Storey, smiling.  I could see that
she liked the quaint little gentleman.

"Well, in order not to waste your time unnecessarily," he replied, "I
will ask you at once, plainly: would you be attracted by a fee of five
hundred dollars (it is all I am empowered to offer) for a service which
will require three hours of your time some afternoon; with the promise
of an additional five hundred in the event that you are successful in
the undertaking I am to suggest to you?"

"The fee is sufficient," said Mme Storey, "provided the undertaking is
one which I am qualified to carry out."

"Oh, eminently, eminently," he said.  "My friends and I have heard you
described as a practical psychologist, specializing in the feminine.
That is precisely what we require."

"Is it a crime which has been committed?" asked my mistress.

"No, Madame.  It is a measure designed to forestall a crime."

"So much the better," said Mme Storey.  "Proceed."  Helping herself to
a cigarette, she prepared to listen.

"We have in Stanfield," he began, "a conspicuous local character called
Mrs. Genevieve Brager--perhaps you are familiar with the name?"

"Vaguely," said Mme Storey, "but I cannot remember in what connection."

"Doubtless you have heard of Hyman Brager, her husband, a wealthy
manufacturer of enamelled ware.  He created the enamelled-ware trust,
and died a few years ago, leaving his widow upward of ten million
dollars without check or hindrance."

"Ah," said Mme Storey.  "A nice little sum."

"Mrs. Brager is sixty-seven years old," the lawyer went on.  "She is
childless; indeed, she has not a relative in the world.  Moreover, she
is a woman so flighty and ill-advised that she has never succeeded in
making any friends in Stanfield, though she has lived there for over
thirty years."

"I begin to picture the situation," said Mme Storey.  "The legacy
hounds have tracked her down."

"Exactly, Madame.  An admirable phrase!  These persons, both men and
women, are of the most sinister types.  God knows where she picks them
up!"

"Oh, they pick her up," put in my mistress.

"It has become a public scandal.  Brager's Asylum is the phrase coined
by my townspeople to describe the establishment."

"Then they live in her house?"

"Yes, Madame, a swarm of them.  Mrs. Brager is of a miserly character
and keeps them all on short commons.  She retains a hold on them by
scattering promises of legacies.  She plays them off one against the
other.  She is continually making new wills.  You can readily conceive
what hideous passions this must set loose.  We feel certain that it
must end in an appalling tragedy."

"Which would sully the fair name of Stanfield," put in Mme Storey.

"Exactly, Madame.  For a long time the situation has troubled me
vaguely, but it was not my province to interfere.  It was nobody's
business to interfere.  There is no question of having the woman
declared incompetent, even if it was anybody's interest to do so,
because her wits are as sharp as yours or mine.  She handles her great
fortune skilfully; and since she spends nothing it increases by leaps
and bounds."

"What finally led you to act?" inquired my mistress.

"Three days ago Mrs. Brager sent for me (she employs every lawyer in
Stanfield by turn) and required me to make a will leaving everything
she possessed to one of her hangers-on, a scoundrel who has the
impudence to call himself 'the Honourable' Shep Chew."

"A proved scoundrel or only a suspected one?"

"Proved, Madame.  I have learned that he has served a term in prison in
Ohio for malfeasance in some minor political office: under sheriff, I
fancy."

"Hence the 'honourable,'" said my mistress drily.

"His scoundrelly character is written in his face," Mr. Riordan went
on.  "I am convinced that he does not intend Mrs. Brager shall live to
make another will."

"Hm!" said Mme Storey; "a highly explosive situation.  But what can I
do?"

"I drew up the will," said Mr. Riordan, "since nothing would have been
gained by my refusal to do so.  I then consulted with Thomas A.
Braithwaite, the president of our Chamber of Commerce, who called in
Mr. Eckford, president of the First National Bank, Mrs. W. Atlee Bryan,
president of the Woman's Club, and one or two others of our leading
people; and a committee was formed to deal with the situation."

"Who suggested coming to me?"

The little old gentleman's eyes gleamed behind his glasses.  "I did,
Madame.  I have long followed your career.  I have made a study of your
cases: the Ashcomb Poor case, the Teresa de Guion case; the strange
murder of Mrs. Norbert Starr.  And, if I may be permitted to say so, it
is a great occasion for me thus to come face to face with you at last."

He bowed with no little impressiveness.  Mme Storey, smiling, bowed in
return.

"Nor were you by any means unknown to the other members of the
committee," he went on.  "When I mentioned your name they jumped at it.
'Madame Storey!  Ah, if she will only help us!' they cried.  They
subscribed the sum I have named, on the spot, and pledged themselves to
double it if you were successful."

"What do they want me to do?"

"Persuade Mrs. Brager to create a living trust, so that, although she
will continue to enjoy her income, the control of her vast principal
will pass out of her hands."

"Hm!" said my mistress, "this is no small order."

"With your extraordinary insight into feminine psychology, you are the
one person for the job!" cried Mr. Riordan enthusiastically.  "She is a
timorous old woman--work upon her fears.  And inordinately vain.
Persuade her to leave her millions to found a great philanthropic
institution.  By announcing her intention in advance she can enjoy all
the glory during her lifetime."

"What sort of institution?"

"Anything, anything she likes.  My committee, in order to prove to you
their disinterestedness, do not even stipulate that it shall be built
in Stanfield--though of course it would be a fine thing for the town."

"Oh, it might as well be Stanfield as any place else," said Mme Storey.

"Then you will help us?"

"One moment.  How could I be introduced to Mrs. Brager in a
natural-seeming manner?"

"Oh, that will offer no difficulties, Madame.  Mrs. Brager is always
trying to get decent people to come to her parties."

"Ah, poor soul!" murmured my mistress.

"And if the great Madame Storey deigned to honour her house----"

"No!" interrupted my mistress quickly, "that would be fatal.  I should
be introduced under a pseudonym."

"Of course, if you thought best.  Then you will...?"

"I will," said Mme Storey.

"Thank heaven!" cried the little lawyer.

"I assume that Chew knows about the will in his favour," said Mme
Storey.

"Yes, Madame.  Mrs. Brager gave him a copy."

"Then we should act at once."

"I am asked to a tea at Mrs. Brager's house to-morrow afternoon," said
Mr. Riordan, with a rueful smile.  "If you and your secretary could be
at my office at four we might go together."

"Expect us at three-thirty," said Mme Storey.  "And have your committee
on hand in your office so that I may have a few words with them before
we start for Mrs. Brager's."

"Yes, Madame."


II

We motored up to Stanfield on the following afternoon.  It took a
little longer so, but the quiet of our own car permitted us to do some
work on another case.  In Mr. Riordan's respectable office we found the
committee waiting, all obviously impressed by the prospect of meeting
the great Madame Storey face to face.  The male members had brought
their wives.  My mistress plainly told these eminent ladies and
gentlemen of Stanfield that if they had shown more neighbourliness to
the lonely old widow they might have handled this case without outside
assistance.  They all pledged themselves thereafter to act exactly as
she enjoined.  With Mr. Riordan, we then proceeded to Mrs. Brager's.

I was keenly interested in this case.  The vastness of the sum involved
arrested the imagination.  Moreover, it was much more agreeable to be
working to prevent a crime than to solve a crime already committed.
But I must say there was nothing about the house to suggest ten
millions.  It looked more like a second-rate boarding house than the
home of a woman rich beyond the dreams of avarice.  It was on the
Boston Post Road, just outside of town.  Picture a big square wooden
house with a cupola in the style of the 1870's, standing in full view
of the street.  The house was sadly in need of paint, the wooden fence
was broken in several places, the evergreen trees were decayed and
dying, and patches of naked earth showed amid the neglected grass.  To
come upon such a place in fashionable Stanfield, where everything was
trimmed, cut, and rolled to a finish, was like finding a leering old
tramp at a garden party.

The inside of the house was in keeping.  You know the plan of such
houses: a wide and lofty hall running through the centre, with two
drawing rooms on one side, dining room, pantry, and kitchen on the
other.  The hall was cluttered with the stuff that was considered
stylish thirty-five years ago: hall rack, "cosy-corner," statuettes and
jardinires.  I suppose all this had been expensive in the beginning,
but it had never been in good taste and was now shabby and dilapidated
to a degree.  The air contrived to be both stuffy and chilly.  I
noticed that the only means of heating the house was an old-fashioned
hot-air furnace.  From the amount of heat issuing through the register,
it must have been kept on short rations of coal.  How strange that an
old woman as rich as Mrs. Brager should not even permit herself the
creature comforts!

A maid, neat enough, and polite, admitted us and, indicating that we
were to enter the drawing room on our left, disappeared at the rear.
From the drawing room came a thin babble of talk.  I shall never forget
my first glimpse of that room.  It was like an ugly old picture; like a
second-hand salesroom.  The two rooms together, I suppose, were nearly
sixty feet long, yet they were so filled with stuff it was difficult to
make one's way.  There were fancy chairs and useless tables; what-nots,
tabourets, stools, screens, ottomans, and big pictures on easels; and
everything was encumbered with "drapes."

At the front of the room with her back to the windows sat a caricature
of an old woman with carmined cheeks; and ranged at each side of her
were half a dozen of as scoundrelly looking "guests" as I ever expect
to see, all dressed up, drinking tea, and going through the motions of
fashionable conversation.  While the tongues of the six dripped honey,
their eyes were fixed on the wasted little woman with an expression
which I can only describe as murderous; and in her eyes, while she
twittered and simpered, dwelt a look of plain terror.  I thought to
myself we had not come any too soon.

Can you conceive the effect of my mistress's entrance into that room?
The beautiful and serene figure seemed to emphasize the second-rateness
of it all.  The six guests, as one, recognized an enemy in her and
turned looks of fear and hostility in her direction.  Their thought
was--one could read it clearly: If such a one as this enters the chase,
where will we be?  Mrs. Brager herself looked at Mme Storey in a
strained and confused way.  It is likely that the old woman's sight was
failing and she was too vain to admit it.  Mr. Riordan hastened
forward.  He said:

"Allow me to introduce Mrs. Pomeroy and Miss Hastings, whom I
telephoned you I should bring this afternoon.  They have long wished to
make your acquaintance."

The old woman put her head on one side and simpered.  "Pleased to meet
you....  Pleased to meet you," she quavered, extending to each of us,
in turn, a claw of a hand covered with glittering old-fashioned rings.
"You will find my house very out of date, I am afraid.  We are plain
people.  Sit down, ladies.  Signor Oneto, the bell, please.  We will
have fresh tea."

False teeth, dyed brown hair, rouged cheeks, and those killing airs and
graces.  And all the time the faded old eyes looking at you so
wistfully.  One felt ashamed for her, and deeply sorry, as for a silly
posturing child.  She was wearing a very smart blue silk costume which
hung strangely on her wasted frame; around her shoulders she had a
little scalloped crocheted shawl of gray wool, which went better with
the furnishings of the room.  She was continually fidgeting with her
draperies, putting her handkerchief to her nose, twisting her rings, or
shoving the heavy bracelets up her skinny arms; and the simpering smile
came and went without any meaning.

Whenever she simpered, a reflection of the same simper promptly
appeared in the six hard faces that surrounded her; whenever she spoke,
the six voices murmured in agreement.  Four women and two men: an
incredible exhibition.  They had placed their chairs as close as they
could get to Mrs. Brager, and all held themselves as if brooding
solicitously over her.  The two women who had succeeded in getting
places on either side of her were continually arranging the little
shawl, patting her hand, and so on.  When she dropped one of the rings
the two men scrambled for it, all but bumping their heads together.
Yet none of the six pairs of eyes ever lost what I called their
murderous look.  It was clear, too, that they hated each other
poisonously.  Oh, it was a sweet household.

Fresh tea was brought by the maid.  Mrs. Brager was obviously too shaky
to manipulate the tea things, and it was poured by a fat blonde woman
in a scanty pink slip, who had ex-manicure and beauty culturist written
all over her.  One expected her to address Mrs. Brager as "Dearie," and
one was not disappointed.  She handed us our cups with an expression in
her glassy blue eyes that said she hoped it might poison us.  And such
a to-do about sugar and cream!  For all her fatness she had a face
that, as Mme Storey said later, you could have broken rocks on.

Mrs. Brager introduced her to us.  "My dear friend, Madame Rose La
France, ladies."

It was a full-blown rose, indeed!

"Mr. Chew, will you pass the cake...  The Honourable Shep Chew, ladies."

I looked at him with strong curiosity.  He was a big man dressed in a
braided cutaway and striped trousers.  The fashionable garments
accorded ill with his coarse face.  In his youth he may have been
handsome, but it could not have done him much good, for nobody would
ever have trusted those false and greedy black eyes.  Now his features
had taken on the flabby smoothness of the glib hypocrite.  His loose,
thick lips emitted a stream of sticky platitudes in a gobbling sort of
voice; but his eyes always gave him away.  He permitted himself a
proprietary air in Mrs. Brager's drawing room which was no doubt due to
his knowledge of the latest will.

"Charmed, ladies, charmed.  It gives me the greatest pleasure to
welcome you to our little circle here.  Mrs. Brager does not care for
general society but prefers to gather a few choice spirits around her
in her own home...."  Gobble, gobble, gobble.

"Oh, Mr. Chew, how can you!" protested Mrs. Brager, simpering.  "An old
woman like me is not interesting."

All six raised a chorus of indignant denials.  "Old! ... _You!_ ... Oh,
Mrs. Brager, how can you! ...  Nobody would ever think of you as being
old! ... You're the youngest among us!" etc., etc.

When the chorus had died down the younger man, who had left the circle
for the moment to get a cigarette, added in a languorous drawl: "You
are not old, Genevieve."

The poor old soul gave him a killing glance.  "Perhaps not to you,
Raymondo."

He was of the type which nowadays is variously termed cake eater,
lounge lizard, sheik.  You can picture the slick black hair, the
incipient side whiskers encroaching on his cheeks, the big, shallow
black eyes.  Though handsome in its way, he had, I think, the worst
face of any there: slinking, mean, and cruel.  But not so dangerous,
perhaps, as the Honourable Chew's, because it was weak.

"Signor Oneto and I are engaged," added Mrs. Brager, for our benefit,
with her silly, tragic simper.

You would have thought that even a lounge lizard must have blushed thus
to have his shame exposed before a beautiful woman like my mistress;
but not a bit of it; with perfect effrontery Oneto continued to grin at
the old woman in the same cruel, die-away fashion.  It was like a comic
opera or a nightmare, whichever you prefer.

I have forgotten the names of the other three women present.  It
doesn't signify, since they played no part in the tragic events which
followed.  They were all Stanfield wives in shoddy finery, a type which
is common in every fashionable suburb; desperate hangers-on who will go
to tea with anybody who does not expect to be asked in return.

In the beginning Mme Storey and I had seated ourselves opposite the
semicircle formed by Mrs. Brager and her admirers.  This did not suit
the old lady, and after a while she bounced the woman on either side of
her and established us in their places.  Thereafter she addressed her
conversation to us, while the others darted little looks of suspicion
and hostility in our direction and stretched their ears to hear what
was said.  Mme Storey, with her kind smile, and a word or two, friendly
without being fulsome, had already established herself in the old
lady's good graces.

She asked with a curious eagerness: "Do you live in Stanfield, my dear?"

"No," said Mme Storey, "but I have many friends here."

"Whom do you know in Stanfield?" asked Mrs. Brager breathlessly.

"Well, there are the Braithwaites, the Eckfords, the Bryans," said my
mistress carelessly; "the Van Loars, the Teagues, the Dilwyns..."

These were the most prominent families of the place.  I silently
commended my clever mistress's line of attack.

"Oh!" gasped Mrs. Brager.  "Do you really know all these people?"

"Why, yes," said Mme Storey casually; "don't you?"

"Oh, of course, of course," she said hurriedly, "but we do not exactly
visit.  I go out so little."

"I am sure they would all like to know you better," said Mme Storey.
"I have heard them speak about you so nicely."

"Oh!" said Mrs. Brager excitedly, "do you think--do you really think
... how is one to make the first move?  After all these years I
couldn't be the first to call--and they couldn't be the first.  Oh,
dear!"

"But a woman in your position," said Mme Storey, "why not write to
these ladies and ask them to come see you?"

"Oh, I wouldn't have the face!  What!  Mrs. Bryan! ... Do you think it
would be proper?"

"Certainly!  Everybody knows Mrs. Brager."

"Oh!  Oh!" she gasped in a perfect flutter.  "Do you think they'd come?"

"I am sure of it."

"I'll do it!  I'll do it!"  She broke off and looked around the circle.
"Er--perhaps----"

Mme Storey whispered: "Yes, I think perhaps it would be better to have
them here by themselves the first time."

"And will you come that day?" asked Mrs. Brager like a little girl.  "I
shall be so nervous."

"I should love to," said my mistress.

After this, of course, Mme Storey was first and the rest nowhere.  Mrs.
Brager patted my mistress's hand, saying:

"Do throw off your wraps, dearie, or you won't feel the good of them
when you go outside."

"Thanks," said Mme Storey drily, "but I think I had better keep my coat
around me."

"Oh, do you find it cold in this room?" said Mrs. Brager with a
horrified look.  She glanced around the circle for confirmation, and
instantly the chorus was raised.

"Oh, no, Mrs. Brager....  It is just right for me!  ...  Most pleasant,
I say....  Indeed, I am if anything too warm....  If there is anything
I detest it is these overheated rooms!"  And so on.  Every face among
them was pinched with cold.

Mme Storey was not to be shouted down by this crew.  When she could
make herself heard, she said with a good-humoured smile: "I am afraid I
am spoiled.  I do like to have it warm indoors."

Mrs. Brager looked at me.  "And you, dearie?"

"It is a little cold," I said.

A visible struggle took place in the old woman's face between avarice
and the desire to stand well with my mistress.  The better feeling
prevailed, but not easily.  "Oh, dear!" she said despairingly.  "Mr.
Chew, please touch the bell."

The maid was instructed to ask Mrs. Marlin to step in.  The person who
came in response to this summons, and whom I took to be the
housekeeper, astonished me, she was so different from the other inmates
of that weird household.  A handsome young woman of thirty, say, with a
businesslike, self-controlled air.  She was very neatly and trimly
dressed, and everything about her bespoke character, resolution, and
decency.  In fact, she seemed to bring a ray of clean sunlight into the
slightly foetid atmosphere.  I took to her instantly, and so, as I
learned later, did my mistress.

"Mrs. Marlin," said Mrs. Brager in her affected way, "could we have a
little more heat, if you please?"

In the housekeeper's quick glance at her mistress there was a hint of
amused surprise.  "Why, certainly, Mrs. Brager.  The fire box is only
half full."  She turned to leave immediately.

"Just a _little_ more heat," said Mrs. Brager anxiously.  "A shovelful
of coal."

Mrs. Marlin, with a bow of acquiescence, continued toward the door; but
the struggle was still going on in the old lady.  "How is the coal
holding out?" she asked.

"I will order more to-morrow," said the housekeeper quietly.

At that the ruling passion had its way.  "Nothing of the sort!" cried
Mrs. Brager in the querulous voice of the very old.  "You must make
what we bought this month last out, do you hear?  I won't have any more
coal ordered!  They are all robbers.  I won't submit to it!"

Mrs. Marlin, bowing again, went on out without speaking.  What a
difficult role was hers, I thought.  She carried it off with dignity.
Mrs. Brager turned her pathetic, faded old eyes on us, still mumbling
her grievance as if scarcely aware of what she was saying.

"Robbers--swindlers--all of them!  I've already ordered two tons this
month.  Soon be in the poorhouse if I didn't make a stand...."

She did not lack for sympathy from her faithful chorus.  "It's simply
scandalous, the prices they charge!  ... I'm sure I don't know what
we're coming to!  Where is it going to end? ... My husband says..."

Mme La France said with a hateful glitter in the glassy blue eyes: "It
is Mrs. Marlin's fault.  She shows no management."

The Honourable Chew affected to be good-humoured about it, but the
thick lips curled in an ugly sneer.  "That young person thinks to put
us all in our places, I fancy."

"I don't see how you can be willing to put up with her, Genevieve,"
drawled Oneto.  "I would undertake to furnish you with a better person
to-morrow."

No doubt!  No doubt!  I was glad to see that the old lady did not rise
to this suggestion.  I felt that Mrs. Marlin was honoured by the hatred
of such people.

Mme Storey sought to pour oil on the troubled waters by saying, as one
might to a child: "What a pretty dress, Mrs. Brager!"

Instantly the old lady was all smiles and simpers again.  "Oh, do you
think so, dearie?  I've got a much prettier one upstairs.  I'm afraid
it is a weakness of mine!"

"I'd like to see it," said my mistress.  "I love pretty clothes."

"Then come right up to my room," she said, rising at once.  "And you
too, dearie," she added in my direction.  "We'll be back in a minute,"
she said to the others generally.

I had been wondering how Mme Storey was going to accomplish the feat of
separating her from her parasites, and here it was done as easily as
turning over in bed.  You can imagine the sort of looks that followed
us out of the room.  I was sorry for Mr. Riordan, left amid that crew.


III

The better we became acquainted with that household, the odder it
appeared.  On the second floor, as in all houses of this type, there
were four big square bedrooms, one in each corner, and a fifth room
between the two front rooms and over the entrance hall.  It was into
this middle room that Mrs. Brager led us.  There was much less of a
clutter in it; things were arranged in better taste.  It was used as
both sitting room and bedroom, one guessed.  We found Mrs. Marlin
sitting by the window sewing.  She looked up pleasantly, but did not
speak.

"This is Mrs. Marlin's room," said Mrs. Brager.  "I have to go through
it to reach my room."

I wondered why this should be.

"What a nice room!" remarked Mme Storey, who wished, I could see, to
draw the housekeeper into the talk.

Mrs. Marlin coloured with pleasure.  The young woman was positively
beautiful when she allowed her feelings to break through her
self-controlled mask.  "Mrs. Brager is good enough to let me fix it the
way I like," she said.

"Hmph!  Pish!  Modern notions!" grumbled the old woman.

Reaching the door in the right-hand side of the room, Mrs. Brager, to
my astonishment, produced a key on the end of a long chain and inserted
it.  The door was fitted with a Yale lock.  It admitted us to one of
the big corner bedrooms where, as in the rest of the house, we were
back in the era of 1890.  You know the sort of thing: lace bedspreads
and pillow shams; lambrequins, splash cloths, and a crowd of ornaments
on the mantel.

Mrs. Brager herself seemed to feel that some explanation of her
peculiar sleeping arrangements was necessary, for she said: "I am timid
about sleeping; that's why I keep a spring lock on my door.  Nobody has
a key to it but Mrs. Marlin and me.  The door from my room directly
into the hall has been screwed up.  I sleep easier knowing that nobody
can get to me except through Mrs. Marlin's room, and she a light
sleeper."

Before closing the door behind her, Mme Storey said to Mrs. Marlin:
"Mrs. Brager is going to show us her pretty dresses.  Won't you come in
too?"

The young woman put down her sewing with a smile and followed us.

In the big corner room Mme Storey seated herself in a broken-springed
"easy" chair before the empty fireplace, and I in a plain chair
opposite her.  It was even colder in here than downstairs, and my
mistress presently rose and sidled over in front of the wall register
to get the benefit of what little heat was coming through it.
Meanwhile Mrs. Brager was bringing out her dresses.  It was not
sufficient to show them to us: the ridiculous old woman, with the
assistance of Mrs. Marlin, must needs struggle in and out of each dress
in turn and parade up and down in it with all the affectations of a
mannequin.  An absurd and piteous spectacle.

And how strange it was to observe the relations between mistress and
housekeeper.  Though Mrs. Brager had just given us the best proof
possible of her trust in the younger woman, it appeared that she could
not get along without continually abusing her.  Nothing that Mrs.
Marlin did succeeded in pleasing her.  As Mme Storey pointed out to me
later, this is characteristic of the very old.  It is those closest to
them who have to bear the burden of their infirmities.

While my mistress and I sat there making believe to talk to each other,
we would hear from the back of the room: "That piece fastens in front,
stoopid!  Oh, your fingers are all thumbs!  Now look at it! look at it!
When you are through with me I look like a perfect frump!  I declare
you do it on purpose to plague me!  There is no bearing with you.  You
want to wear me down, don't you.  You will be glad when I'm gone.
Well, I warn you, miss, I warn you as I've warned you a hundred times
before, you'd better take care of me if you know what's good for you,
for you won't profit one cent by my death!  Not one cent!"

This was very embarrassing for strangers to have to listen to.  That
admirable young woman neither put on the air of a Christian martyr nor
answered back.  She took it all in a matter-of-fact way, as if she was
thoroughly used to it.  Only once, when Mrs. Brager was looking
elsewhere, did she permit herself to exchange a deprecating glance of
amusement with us.

"Please hold your arm up while I fasten this.  There's a little too
much fullness here.  I will take it in after you take the dress off."

"Don't you dare to touch it!  With your bungling fingers you would ruin
my frock."

"Very well, Mrs. Brager."

"Besides, I like it better as it is.  It makes me look plumper.  And
with this new tonic I am taking, I am already beginning to fill out."

"You would do better to leave the tonics alone," murmured Mrs. Marlin.

"Hold your tongue, miss!  What do you know?"

When the dresses had all been tried on and duly admired, Mrs. Marlin
quietly disappeared.  From the grateful heat which presently came
stealing around us, I guessed that she had gone downstairs to stoke up
in spite of her mistress.  Mrs. Brager was for returning downstairs,
but Mme Storey settled herself in the broken-springed chair.

"Now we can have a good talk!" she said.  "Do you mind if I smoke?  I'm
a slave to the weed."

"By all means," said Mrs. Brager, "I am not puritanical, I hope."

"Perhaps you will join me," said Mme Storey, offering her case.

"I don't mind if I do," said Mrs. Brager, helping herself with a
simper.  It was a treat to see the rakish way in which she held it and
puffed smoke toward the ceiling.  But after a puff or two I noticed she
allowed it to go out.

"It's such a relief to get away from men for a while," said Mme Storey.

"Didn't you like Raymondo and Mr. Chew?" asked Mrs. Brager coyly.

"Well, frankly, no," said my mistress.  "They are not nice enough for
you, dear Mrs. Brager."

The old lady looked surprised at this line of attack; but she was
pleased.

"You are not serious, of course, in intending to marry Oneto?" said Mme
Storey.

"Oh, not serious," said Mrs. Brager, simpering; "but I hate to send the
poor boy about his business, he is so devoted to me!  Isn't he just too
sweet?"

"Oh, quite!" said Mme Storey drily.  "As for Mr. Chew, his manners are
pleasant, but the look in his eyes makes me shiver."

"Me, too," said Mrs. Brager unexpectedly.  She shivered when she said
it.  Here was the truth popping out, in spite of every affectation.  My
mistress has the faculty of bringing it out.

"But I understand from Mr. Riordan..." she said in assumed surprise.

"I know," said Mrs. Brager, rapidly nodding her head; "the will; I only
did that to placate Mr. Chew.  I was afraid not to do it.  I can always
make another will."

"But, my dear Mrs. Brager, consider what a frightful temptation you are
putting in the way of a penniless man!  After all, human nature is
human nature, and terrible things happen."

The old lady seemed about to cry like a child, then.  "I know," she
wailed, all but wringing her hands.  "But what was I to do?  I can't
get rid of him!"

"You can easily remove temptation out of his way," said Mme Storey,
"and out of the way of others like him."

"How?"

"By putting the principal of your fortune out of your own control--I
think they call it creating a living trust--and letting everybody know
what you have done."

"Then they would all leave me!" cried the old woman piteously.  "I am
old.  I must have friends around me."

"Make yourself real friends."

"I don't know how!"

Mme Storey considered.  "You ought to take a more prominent part in
Stanfield affairs," she said.  "To a woman of your position it is
really a duty."

"They don't want me," said the old woman querulously.

Mme Storey ignored this.  "Why don't you found a great institution at
your death," she said, gesticulating with her cigarette, "that would
make your name remembered in Stanfield as long as the town exists?"

"Charity doesn't make friends for you."

"Not in the ordinary sense, but it brings charitably minded people
around you.  You would naturally appoint the best people as the
trustees of your fund."  My mistress slyly named the magic names again.
"Mr. Braithwaite, Mr. Eckford, Mrs. Bryan, Mr. Teague, Mrs. Van Loar.
They would be proud and happy to serve on such a board.  It would bring
them into the closest association with you."

"I couldn't give away my money while I was living!" cried the old woman
passionately.  "I couldn't!  I couldn't!"

It was useless to combat blind avarice like this, and Mme Storey made
no attempt to do so.  "Of course not," she said easily.  "You create
the living trust which is to be devoted to this purpose after you are
gone.  But in the meantime you have to plan out all the details, to
make sure that the thing shall be done as you wish.  You could have all
the fun of that while you are alive."

Mrs. Brager began to nibble.  "Nobody takes care of old ladies who lose
their money," she said.  "If I did anything it would be a home for aged
gentlewomen."

"Splendid!" cried Mme Storey.  "Can't you see the beautiful big home
where they may enjoy every comfort, standing in the midst of its lovely
grounds?"

"Could I change the trustees if I wanted?" demanded Mrs. Brager.

"Why, certainly!"

"So that if anybody did not accept the trust in a proper spirit I could
replace them with others?"

My mistress's eyes twinkled, but she answered gravely: "A very wise
provision."

That marked the turning point.  Mrs. Brager still raised a hundred
objections, but in reality the idea had won her.  As she became eager,
my mistress cunningly appeared to be holding her back, and thus
increased her eagerness.  Finally, Mrs. Brager declared that she would
give Mr. Riordan his instructions to draw up the necessary papers that
very afternoon.  As a matter of fact, anybody could persuade that old
lady to make a will, but this time, I was hoping, she would get one
that would stick.  I was sent down to the drawing room to fetch him.
The summons to the lawyer threw the Honourable Chew _et al._ into a
visible panic, as you may suppose.

While Mr. Riordan explained the nature of a living trust to Mrs.
Brager, I remained in the adjoining room talking to Mrs. Marlin.  "How
do you stand it here?" I said.

She laughed good-naturedly.  "You haven't heard the half of it!  I go
through a regular circus once a month to get the money to pay the
household bills.  But it isn't as bad as it seems.  Mrs. Brager and I
understand each other.  I don't let her get under my skin.  I should be
sorry to lose the place."

There are some people you do not waste time in making friends with.
Mrs. Marlin let down the bars of her reserve completely.  I learned
that she was a widow with three small children to support.  They lived
with her sister near by and came to see her every day at the noon
recess.  She confessed that she wished to marry again.  Her fianc was
a brilliant young chemist called Dr. Sanford Brill.  She seemed to
think that I ought to have heard about him, but I had not, of course.
Unfortunately, he was poor, and their marriage was likely to be long
delayed.  Mrs. Marlin had some hopes of interesting Mrs. Brager in Dr.
Brill's discoveries.  The old lady had promised to receive him on the
following day.

Meanwhile, in the next room everything was proceeding smoothly.  Mr.
Riordan was instructed to draw up the agreement creating the trust,
also a new will to carry out its provisions, and to bring them to be
signed at four the next day.  Like a child, when Mrs. Brager got
started, there was no stopping her.  She wanted the news given to the
papers that night.  Mme Storey was dead against it.  "Nothing should be
published until the papers are actually signed," she said.  Mrs. Brager
pished and pshawed impatiently.

Before we got out of the house, she sent after Mr. Riordan again.  We
waited for him in the lower hall in no little anxiety.  There was no
knowing where you had that old lady.  But he rejoined us with an
undisturbed face.  Mme Storey looked her question.

"A codicil to be added to the will," he said.  "I am pledged to
secrecy."

"But it does not invalidate the whole scheme?"

"Oh, no," he answered, smiling; "it reveals a kindness of heart you
would not suspect in the old curmudgeon."

It was close on seven o'clock.  By the time we got back to New York it
was far too late for me to think of getting supper at my boarding
house, and my mistress, with her customary kindness, took me to dinner
with her at one of the fashionable new restaurants on Park Avenue.
While we were discussing the excellent potage St. Germain, a boy walked
through the room paging:

"Mrs. Pomeroy--Miss Hastings--Mrs. Pomeroy--Miss Hastings."

Conceive of our astonishment.  The names under which we had been
introduced at Mrs. Brager's!  Who could have known that we were in this
restaurant?  For a moment we looked at each other blankly; then the
obvious explanation suggested itself.

"Somebody followed us here from Stanfield," said Mme Storey, "and then
went somewhere near by to call us up."

We went to the telephone.  Mme Storey made me answer it first.  I heard
a gruff, common man's voice saying: "Who is this?"

"Miss Hastings," I replied.

"Well, Mrs. Pomeroy's the one I want.  Is she there?"

"Yes."

"Let her come to the 'phone."

I stood by the open door of the booth while my mistress talked.  I
could not hear what he said, but I witnessed her comedy.  She was
making her voice sound terrified.  "Why--what do you mean! ... How dare
you! ... Who are you, anyway? ... Mrs. Brager is nothing to me....
Just a friendly call..."  And so on.

Coming out of the booth she said scornfully: "Clumsy work, Bella.  The
gentleman called up to say if we wanted to know what was good for us
we'd stay away from Mrs. Brager."

"What an extraordinary growling voice!" I said.  "It didn't suggest the
voice of either of the men we saw there."

"It wouldn't," said Mme Storey.  "Come on, let's finish our dinner."


IV

Notwithstanding Mme Storey's advice, Mrs. Brager herself called up the
Stanfield newspapers that night and announced her intention of founding
the Brager Home for Aged Gentlewomen.  The news created a sensation
locally when the papers came out next morning.

Shortly before we were to close the office that day, Mr. Riordan called
up from Stanfield in distress.  When he took the papers to Mrs. Brager
to be signed she had refused to see him.  Evidently the gang had been
at her.  He had succeeded in getting her to promise him an appointment
at eleven the following day; and he wanted to know if Mme Storey would
accompany him to her house.  My mistress good-humouredly consented.  We
were very busy at the time, but this case had intrigued her interest.

So for the second time we motored up to Stanfield, taking our work with
us.  It was a clear and frosty day in February.  We picked up Mr.
Riordan at his office and went on.  No suspicion of what lay before us
troubled our minds, I remember.  We anticipated merely a repetition of
the scene of two days before.  Mme Storey had no doubt of her ability
to bring the weak-minded old woman around again.  Mr. Riordan had the
papers in his pocket, and we hoped to get them signed for good and all
before leaving the house.

The maid informed us that Mrs. Brager was not up yet.  We asked for
Mrs. Marlin, who presently came hurrying to us in the drawing room.
For Mme Storey and me she had a delightful friendly smile, very
different from the guarded look that she customarily wore on her face
in that house.  She was apologetic.

"Mrs. Brager awoke at seven," she said, "and claimed to be feeling
unwell.  She said she would remain in bed this morning and Mr. Riordan
would have to come another day.  It was only an excuse to get out of
seeing him, of course.  What could I do?"

"Well, here I am," said Mme Storey, smiling.  "I've come all the way
from New York.  She can't in common decency refuse to see me."

"I'll fix it," said Mrs. Marlin, and scampered away up the stairs.

We did not bother to sit down in the chilly room, but stood waiting
near the open door, laughing among ourselves at the absurd old woman's
childish pretexts.  I heard Mrs. Marlin open her door; she left it
standing open.  I heard her knock on the second door, then she unlocked
it.  A moment later her shriek rang through the house.

The sound froze us where we stood.  It had the dreadful staccato
quality of shock.  A brief cry, followed by silence.  Mme Storey ran
for the stairs and sprang up like a man, two steps at a time.  Riordan
and I followed more clumsily.  We burst through Mrs. Marlin's room.
Just inside of Mrs. Brager's room we found Mrs. Marlin clinging to the
door handle, her face ashy, her eyes witless from shock.  She pointed
to Mrs. Brager's bed.

"Dead--dead..." she whispered.

A look was enough.  The old woman lay in her immense, ugly wooden
bedstead, her eyes closed, a half smile on her face, like one in a
happy sleep.  But her flesh had taken on a yellowish waxen consistency,
and her face bore an expression of awful dignity such as had never
visited it in life.  Oh, there was no mistaking it!  Mme Storey glided
to the bed and touched the hand that lay outside the spread--it no
longer looked withered.  "Cold," she murmured, and automatically
glanced at her wrist watch.  "Eleven-five."

There was no sign of any disturbance: the whole house was in order; and
for a moment I hoped that the old woman had died from natural causes
and that we were to be spared a hideous sensation.  But my mistress,
with a quick glance around, pointed without speaking to two brass cages
which hung one in each of the front windows.  Apparently they were
empty; but as I approached, I saw in each a tiny yellow form lying on
its back with piteous claws in the air.  This discovery was unspeakably
horrible.  It sickened me worse than the dead human figure on the bed.

"Mrs. Marlin," said Mme Storey crisply, "telephone for the doctor."

The young housekeeper, though very pale, had by this time recovered her
self-command.  It was the shock that had unnerved her.  She whispered
imploringly: "Do not let _them_ come in here!"  And ran downstairs.

We knew to whom she referred.

"Mr. Riordan," Mme Storey went on, "you had better take my car and go
for the police.  We don't want to telephone that call."

The good little man was aghast at the prospect.  "Must we--must we?" he
stammered.

"Instantly," said Mme Storey.

He went heavily out.

My mistress placed me at the door while she conducted one of her
characteristic searches of the room and the adjoining room.  It is
wonderful to watch her at such moments: like a divine hound, all her
senses are brought into action, guided by her beautiful intelligence.
Eyes, nose, and finger tips all take part.  She moves with incredible
swiftness, leaving everything exactly as it was, making no sound.
After five minutes I am sure she could have written a book about what
she discovered in those rooms, had she cared to.  She did not confide
her findings to me.

"You had better close the door between and stand outside of it," she
said.  "Let no one enter."  She then departed to conduct her lightning
search through the rest of the house before she might be interrupted.

Meanwhile the maidservant and the fat cook had come to the outer door
of Mrs. Marlin's room, where they stood gasping and carrying on as such
people always do.  They appeared to be enjoying their own horror.  I
heard the front door close, and somebody came up the stairs.  It was
Oneto.  Seeing the servants in the doorway, he broke through them into
the room.

"What's the matter?" he demanded.

"Mrs. Brager is dead," I said.

He was young and had not yet acquired full control over his features.
An ugly triumphant grin overspread his face.  "Are you sure?  Are you
sure?" he eagerly demanded.

Disgusted, I refused to answer.

"Let me in there!" he cried.

"You can't go in there."

He ran to the door and violently rattled it.  "I will go in!  Nobody
has a better right."

"Well, I haven't the key," I said.

Mme La France was the next to appear.  I suppose she came from
out-of-doors too, since she was wearing hat and cape.  Her unwholesome
flesh turned mottled in her excitement; her hard eyes bored into me.  I
have never seen such baleful eyes.  They were at once bright and thick
looking, if you get what I mean: like a blue glaze on cheap china.

"Who found her?" she said thickly.

"Mrs. Marlin," I said.

She laughed hatefully.  The whole atmosphere was charged with hate and
suspicion.  Oneto and the La France woman measured each other up and
down with ugly sneers.

"Aah, you cur!" the woman said suddenly.

He retorted with an unprintable epithet.  "You'll soon find out where
you get off!" he added.

"Is that so?  Is that so?" she retorted.  "You wait!"

Suddenly, as if seized by a common impulse, they turned and shouldered
each other out of the room.  Oneto, being the more active, gained the
stairs first and ran down, with the woman following heavily.  I
couldn't guess what they were up to.

The next thing I remember, Mrs. Marlin was bringing the doctor in.  He
was a grave, decent, middle-aged man, that I was glad to see.  She
opened the door of Mrs. Brager's room for him to enter, while she hung
back to whisper to me:

"Your friend says please telephone for Crider and Stephens to come at
once.  They are to apply at the back door."

Crider and Stephens, as you know, were two of four best operatives.  I
went down to do Mme Storey's bidding.  The telephone was under the
stairs.  Oneto was using it, while Mme La France waited, biting her
fingers in impatience.  As well as I could make out, each was calling
up a lawyer.  They hung about to learn what I wanted with the 'phone,
but I contrived to speak so that they could not hear.  Stephens was
keeping the office during our absence; and he knew how to get in touch
with Crider.

Oneto and the woman followed me back to Mrs. Marlin's room.  Mme Storey
was there, having completed her survey of the house.  The servants had
returned to the kitchen.  My mistress, who had put on a silly-seeming
air, immediately sidled over to the two behind me and said, goggling
with affected horror:

"Oh, isn't it terrible?"

They looked at her suspiciously, not knowing how to take this.

The doctor (his name was Patten) came out of the further room, followed
by Mrs. Marlin.  The young woman had regained complete control of
herself.  Her face was a dead-white mask.  Dr. Patten said gravely:

"Mrs. Brager is dead of suffocation.  She has been asphyxiated."

Mme Storey uttered an affected little scream of horror.  "Oh, how
awful!"

I was watching the remaining two persons in the room.  Oneto turned
very pale and then flushed deeply.  He quickly lowered his eyes, but
the whole air of the man proclaimed that he was swelling with a secret
joy.  Mme La France was not giving so much away.  Her face still showed
that mottled look under the make-up, and she was breathing hard; but
her blue eyes remained staring defiantly ahead of her, impervious as
earthenware.  I could not understand it.  Suppose Mrs. Brager had been
murdered, they could not have done it together, since they hated each
other so intensely.  And apparently neither of them was going to profit
by it anyway.

"Oh, Doctor, oh, Doctor, how can that be?" gabbled Mme Storey--my
mistress is most dangerous when she is playing the part of the foolish,
pretty woman.  "When we went in there awhile ago the air was perfectly
good.  There was no smell."

"I cannot explain that, Madame," said Dr. Patten.  "It is a matter for
the police."


V

Mr. Riordan presently returned with two policemen, who took up their
watch within Mrs. Brager's room.  It appeared that nothing could be
done without the Public Prosecutor; and as this official was absent in
a near-by village, we had to wait until he could motor back.  Our
friend Mr. Riordan was somewhat disconcerted by the role that he found
Mme Storey had assumed.  Fearful, perhaps, of betraying his uneasiness,
he waited downstairs.

Mrs. Marlin's room, while smaller than the corner chambers, was
nevertheless of a good size for a bedroom: say, fifteen by twenty.
Opposite the door from the hall was a triple window which must have
been immediately above the front door of the house.  There was another
door corresponding to the door into Mrs. Brager's room, but this was
closed up.  Mme La France's room lay on that side.  The two men
occupied the rear chambers on this floor.

As I have said before, Mrs. Marlin had arranged her room as a
bed-sitting-room.  As you entered from the hall, the narrow bed was on
your left, a couch on your right.  At the front there was a bureau on
one side, a writing desk on the other, and in the centre of the free
space a table which bore a china tea service on a tray, together with a
little brass kettle suspended over a spirit lamp.  Two or three
comfortable chairs completed the furnishings.  On the walls hung many
photographs of Mrs. Marlin's children at different ages, and of an
intelligent-looking man with the eyes of a dreamer, whom I supposed to
be her fianc, Dr. Brill.  The entire drama was played out in that room
with the different characters continually coming and going.  At a
moment when we were unobserved, Mme Storey instructed me to remain
there and to take particular care that nobody tampered with the brass
kettle or tried to remove it.

Oneto and Mme La France, having been away to remove their outer things,
returned to the door of the death chamber, whence nothing could budge
them.  Mme Storey curried favour first with one, then the other, and by
degrees got herself accepted by both as a harmless sort of fool.  Her
method was to talk a great deal and apparently never to listen.  It is
surprising what a lot she can pick up that way.  I could overhear but
little of their low-voiced talk.

Then the lawyers came, the woman's first.  He was fetched up to the
room where we all were, a lanky young man with a prominent Adam's
apple, who seemed to be well-nigh overwhelmed by the magnitude of the
situation.  His name was Mr. Deisel.

"Have you got the will?" barked Mme La France.

He nodded, swallowing hard.

"Read it to these people."

He drew the document from his pocket.  It was contained on a single
sheet of foolscap.  He read it tremulously.  In effect it constituted
"my dear friend Mme Rose La France" the sole benefactor.  The woman,
unable to contain her feelings any longer, broke out into a vulgar,
shrewish cry of triumph.

"Now!  _Now_, who is the mistress here?"

Oneto had listened to the reading, posing with one hand on his hip and
a hateful, conceited smile on his face.  "And the date?" he drawled.

The lawyer named a day in November.

"I see," said Oneto, grinning still, "a Thanksgiving present!"

Mme Storey immediately went up to the woman with fulsome
congratulations and side glances of contempt for Oneto.  The two women
drew aside toward the window, Mme La France flushed with triumph,
confiding eagerly in my mistress.  I could not hear what she said.

Oneto's lawyer, Mr. Paulson, was an older man and more urbane than
Deisel; his present errand was clearly not to his taste.  He
remonstrated quietly with his client, but in vain.  He too was forced
to take a will from his pocket and read it aloud to us.  In phraseology
it was similar to the first, but in this case the beneficiary was "my
dear fianc Raymondo Oneto."  Mme La France was left a legacy.

"And the date?" drawled Oneto with his hateful smile.

"December twenty-fourth."

"Mine was a Christmas present, you see."

A shocking change had taken place in Mme La France.  Her face seemed to
have turned black, and the blue eyes protruded.  She gasped for breath,
one hand clutching her fat throat.  At last a vitriolic stream of abuse
issued from her lips, directed at Oneto.  She brought up the very dregs
of foul speech.  I can convey no idea of it.  The burden of it was:
"You killed her!  You killed her!"

To which Oneto retorted: "Why me any more than you?  You thought you
were the heir."

All this in the very antechamber of death, remember.  It was a
disgusting exhibition.

Rage overcame the woman.  She staggered and fell into a chair, half
fainting.  One could imagine the hell of disappointment in her breast.
Mrs. Marlin, with a cold air of disgust, fetched her a glass of water.
Presently she got to her feet and made her way slowly out of the room,
supporting herself from object to object.  The rest of us looked on the
ground, shamed by the scene.

Curiosity soon brought her back again, looking like a wreck of her
former self.  Her face was strangely streaked and discoloured, her hair
disordered, her dress awry.  I saw then that she must be nearer sixty
years old than the forty I had supposed.

Meanwhile, Mme Storey, unabashed, was making up to Oneto with alluring
smiles and much play of her fine eyes, and the young man quickly fell
for it.  It was the first time a woman like that had ever come his way.
Mme Storey's actions seemed perfectly natural to these people, since it
was exactly the way they would have comported themselves under the same
circumstances.  They whispered together, while the La France woman
watched them with a sick sneer.

A car drove up outside, and the Hon. Shep Chew came hastening upstairs.
Evidently he had learned the news outside; he was prepared for the
scene which met his eyes.  There was nothing crude here: he was
perfectly master of himself and of the situation; full of pious
expressions of grief, and displaying courtesy toward all.  But how
those greedy black eyes glittered!  Throwing his hat and coat on the
bed, he immediately undertook to tell us all in the nicest way where to
get off at.  He reminded me of a high-priced undertaker.

He tackled Mme Storey first.  "My dear Mrs. Pomeroy, what a dreadful
thing has happened!  It was so good of you to come and see us again,
but under the circumstances I am sure you will..."

His object was to get her out of the house, but she displayed a bland
obtuseness.  "I'm waiting to hear what the Prosecutor says," she
answered with a silly smile.

He had to give her up.  He then tried to waft us all out of the room
with motions of his outspread arms.  "Let us wait down in the drawing
room," he said unctuously; "it will be more seemly."

"Who the hell do you think you are, giving me orders?" said Oneto.

Mr. Chew looked inexpressibly grieved.  "I speak in the name of the
common affection that we all bore to the dear one who has left us," he
said gently.

"Speak in the name of what you please," said Oneto.  "I stay here."

Without another word Mr. Chew walked out of the room.  Oneto swaggered
and plumed himself but was perhaps not quite so confident as he wished
to appear.  Mme Storey soothed his vanity.  He whispered to her.  And
then Mr. Chew returned, dragging a very reluctant Mr. Riordan after him.

"Mr. Riordan," he said impressively, "be good enough to explain to this
young man what relation I stand in to the late Mrs. Brager."

Mr. Riordan scowled, removed his glasses and violently polished them.
I doubt if in his whole career he had ever had a client that he liked
less than his present one.  He said huffily: "All I know is that at
Mrs. Brager's request I drew up a will for her which is now in my
office safe.  After making a number of unimportant bequests, she named
Mr. Chew as her principal beneficiary."

"What was the date?" cried several voices at once.

"February ninth; eight days ago."

A fleering laugh broke from Mme La France.  Having nothing more to lose
herself, she was delighted to be a witness of Oneto's discomfiture.
That young man's voice scaled up like a woman's.

"It's a lie!" he cried.  "I'll believe it when I see it and not before.
Mrs. Brager and I were engaged to be married.  We made an agreement."

The woman redoubled her laughter.

Mr. Chew held up his hand in pious horror.  "Pray, dear Madame La
France, not here! not here!  Think of the respect that is due to the
dead!"

"Judas!" she hissed at him.

Oneto's face was working like that of a child who is about to burst
into tears.  "You damned mealy-mouthed hypocrite!" he cried.  "I see it
all now!  You read the papers yesterday morning, didn't you?  You
didn't intend that she should make another will which would throw yours
into the discard!  You are the murderer!"

For an instant the smug mask dropped from Chew's face.  "You read the
papers yourself, I believe," he snarled.

By this time the rest of us were so fed up with sensations that this
had little effect.  We were only disgusted.  I wondered what Mme Storey
made out of all these recriminations.  For myself the fog only became
thicker and thicker.  It was clear that all three of them had had the
will to kill the unfortunate old woman; but which had succeeded?  And
how?

The scene was interrupted by the entrance of a new character, who came
pushing in, followed by three satellites.  The room was already too
crowded without them.  Mr. Riordan introduced the newcomer.

"Mr. Walter Dockra, the Public Prosecutor."

He was a young man for the job; good-looking and very smartly turned
out.  He had a clever, forceful face, but, it seemed to me, was a
little puffed up by the sense of his own importance.  As a matter of
fact, the enormous publicity that he foresaw in connection with this
case completely turned his head.  The very likable young man began to
behave as you will see, like a second-rate actor in the part of
district attorney.  The three men he brought with him were typical
small-town sleuths.  Need I say more?

Fully aware of the value of a good entrance, he came to an abrupt stop
in the centre of the room and looked at each one of us in turn with his
compelling eye--hoping to see us quail, I suppose.  When he came to Mme
Storey he met with a check.  She had attached herself to the Honourable
Chew now.  Mr. Dockra knew her at once and changed colour.

"Madame Storey!" he said, amazed.  "Madame Rosika Storey!  This is
indeed unexpected!"  There was a curious conflict of feelings in his
face: admiration, respect, and a deep chagrin.  He saw his precious
publicity threatened by a figure which dwarfed his own.

The speaking of that famous name produced an electrical effect in the
room.  Every pair of eyes was turned on my mistress in wide
astonishment.  In especial, Rose La France, Oneto, and Mr. Chew looked
at her in horror.  One could see them casting frantically back in their
minds to see if they had made any dangerous admissions to this terrible
woman.

It must have annoyed Mme Storey thus to have her hand forced; but she
took it in good part.  "Very much at your service," she said, bowing to
the prosecutor.


VI

I need not go into the first stages of Mr. Dockra's investigation,
since nothing was brought out but what you already know.  He asked the
obvious questions to which he received the obvious replies.  I may say
that during this period Crider and Stephens, our two operatives,
arrived from town, and were immediately dispatched by Mme Storey on
different errands.  I did not then know the nature of their errands.
The prosecutor and his men had made a search of the two rooms.  Mr.
Dockra himself had examined the brass kettle with the greatest care.
He put it down without comment, but I was aware thereafter that he was
watching it as carefully as I was.

Half an hour later found five of us in Mrs. Marlin's room; to wit, Mrs.
Marlin, Mme Storey, Mr. Dockra, one of the detectives who was acting as
clerk to the prosecutor, and myself, who was taking notes for Mme
Storey.  I am sure that Mr. Dockra was none too pleased to have us
present; it made him nervous to have Mme Storey sitting by, quietly
watching; but he could not very well dismiss the famous psychologist.
The others had been banished to the drawing room downstairs, where they
sat, one may suppose, each in company with his secret thoughts.  A
policeman guarded the door of the room.  The reporters were herded in
another room.

It was Mrs. Marlin's turn to be interrogated.  She sat at the foot of
the bed facing the windows, her hands loosely clasped in her lap, pale
and entirely composed.  There was a curious look of indifference in her
beautiful face, a remote look.  One might have said that she secretly
scorned us all.  Mr. Dockra paced back and forth across the room,
shooting out most of his questions sideways.  Mme Storey lounged in an
easy chair with her long legs crossed, taking everything in without
appearing to.

"It is only fair to warn you," said Mr. Dockra, "that anything you say
here may be used against you later."

My mistress sent me a glance of humorous despair.  Oh, these clever men
who will take the obvious view of a case and ignore the inner truth!
Pride themselves on logic and refuse to listen to the still small voice
of intuition.  My mistress and I are continually up against that sort
of thing, and will always be, I suppose.  I think Mr. Dockra caught her
look at me and was annoyed by it.

"I have nothing to conceal," said Mrs. Marlin proudly.

"How long have you been working for Mrs. Brager?"

"Three years."

"Was she a good mistress to you?"

"She paid me good wages."

"That is not what I mean.  Was she kind to you?"

The hint of a smile flitted across Mrs. Marlin's face.  "She meant to
be."

"Be good enough to give me plain answers," he said in an annoyed way.
"Is it not true that you were continually quarrelling with her?"  (You
will perceive by this that the Honourable Chew had had the prosecutor's
ear.)

"Quarrelling, no!" said Mrs. Marlin.  "She was always scolding me, if
that is what you mean.  It was just her way.  It meant nothing."

"Just her way?" sneered Mr. Dockra.  "Do you mean to say she scolded
all the inmates of the household: Mr. Chew, Madame La France, Mr.
Oneto?"

"Oh, no," said Mrs. Marlin simply.  "She was afraid of them."

He smiled in a superior way, and I saw a spark of annoyance appear in
Mme Storey's eyes.

"Sound psychology, Mr. Dockra," she murmured.

He bowed in a manner that suggested she was entirely mistaken, but he
was too much of a gentleman to question a beautiful lady's statement.

"What did she scold you about?" he next asked.

"Everything," said Mrs. Marlin.  "The principal trouble was over the
bills.  Mrs. Brager always refused to make me a regular allowance to
run the house on; consequently, at the end of the month there was a row
over almost every item of every bill."

"Were the bills excessive?"

Again the slight smile in Mrs. Marlin's face.  "I was required to keep
the expenses within three hundred dollars a month.  You would hardly
call that excessive at the present prices of everything."

"Had Mrs. Brager ever discovered any irregularities in the bills?"

"No."

"Then what was the trouble about?"

"It was Mrs. Brager's peculiarity that she could not pay out a dollar
without agonizing over it."

"You are accusing your mistress of being miserly."

"Surely that is notorious," said Mrs. Marlin quietly.

"Then how did you succeed in getting good wages out of her?"

"I made myself indispensable to her," said the young woman proudly.
"Before I came she had had twelve housekeepers in a year."

"And having made yourself indispensable, you brow-beat her into paying
you good wages."

"That is not a question but a statement of your own," said Mrs. Marlin
quietly.  "It calls for no answer from me."

Mme Storey lowered her eyes to hide the glint of amusement.  She loves
to see a woman score off a cock-sure man, and so do I.

"Hm!" said Mr. Dockra.  "Now, let us take up the question of these
peculiar sleeping arrangements.  How long is it since Mrs. Brager had
the door from her room into the hall fastened up and a Yale lock put on
this door?"

"About two years."

"Did the suggestion come from her or from you?"

"From her.  I opposed it as long as I could.  The arrangement destroyed
what privacy I had in my own room."

"You and she had the only keys to that lock?"

"Yes."

"Your key has never been out of your possession?"

"Never.  I pledged myself not to let it leave my person.  Mrs. Brager
gave me this thin chain from which I wear it suspended.  She kept hers
on a similar chain, which is still around her neck."

"But the spring lock could be caught back, of course.  Was that ever
done?"

"Never."

"I understand that you were the last person to see Mrs. Brager alive.
Please describe the circumstances."

"At seven o'clock this morning I carried a cup of tea and a biscuit in
to her, according to custom.  She would not allow the maid to enter her
room at that hour.  She told me she felt unwell and would not get up
until lunch time."

"What was the nature of her indisposition?"

"I did not inquire."

"Why didn't you?"

"From the way she spoke, I gathered that it was merely an excuse to
avoid seeing Mr. Riordan, with whom she had an appointment at eleven."

"As far as you could see she was quite well, then."

"Quite well."

"You noticed nothing unusual about her, about the room."

"Nothing."

"Were the birds singing?"

"No.  The sun was not up."

"Hm!  Then what did you do?"

"I dressed and went down to breakfast.  Afterward I swept and dusted
the drawing room, according to custom.  At quarter to nine I went down
town to do my marketing."

"What shops did you visit?"

Mrs. Marvin, with her faint smile, named them.

"What time did you get back?"

"A few minutes after ten."

"Did you come up to this room?"

"Yes, for a moment."

"Did you open that door?"

"No."

"Will you swear that you did not open that door?"

"Yes, when the proper time comes."

"Why didn't you open it?"

"There was no occasion to."

"Did you hear anything from that room?"

"No."

"Weren't the birds usually singing?"

Mrs. Marlin shrugged with a touch of impatience, "Oh, sometimes birds
sing and sometimes they don't."

Mr. Dockra then took her over the scene of the discovery of the body,
which I have already described to you.  Nothing of moment was brought
out.

"Had the lock been tampered with?" he asked.

"No."

"Did you notice a peculiar smell in the room?"

"No."

"Were the windows open?"

"No.  Closed and locked.  It was Mrs. Brager's custom."

"If the windows had been closed all night, did not the room have a
close smell?"

"Not perceptibly.  It is a very large room."

"Don't you see how damaging your own answers are to yourself?" said Mr.
Dockra.  "According to you Mrs. Brager was alive and well at seven
o'clock and dead at eleven.  And nobody but yourself could have got
into the room in the meantime."

"Why should I have killed her?" asked Mrs. Marlin quietly.  "I had
everything to lose and nothing to gain by her death."

"We can see that now," said Mr. Dockra, "but you may have had
expectations of something different."

"Mrs. Brager was continually telling me that I need expect nothing at
her death."

Mr. Dockra permitted himself an incredulous smile.

"Madame Storey heard her," said Mrs. Marlin.

"Did you?" he asked of my mistress in surprise.

"Yes.  Two days ago, on my first visit to Mrs. Brager, I heard her use
these words to Mrs. Marlin: 'I warn you, miss; I warn you as I've
warned you a hundred times before; you'd better take care of me if you
know what's good for you, for you won't profit one cent by my death.
Not one cent!'"

Mr. Dockra coughed in a disconcerted fashion.  "Hm!--Ha!"

For fifteen minutes longer he kept after Mrs. Marlin, leading over the
same ground, without succeeding in tripping her.  She answered
apparently without even stopping to think.  Her indifferent air was
exasperating to her questioner.  I need not repeat all this, since
nothing new was brought out.

The prosecutor was interrupted by another of his men, who whispered a
communication in his ear.

"What! another lawyer?" said Dockra.  "Well, bring him in."

A young man with a keen and resolute face entered briskly.  He and Mr.
Dockra were acquainted; rivals possibly.  They exchanged curt nods.

"Well, Blick?" asked the prosecutor.

The newcomer wasted no time in beating around the bush.  "I have a
will," he said crisply, "drawn up by me at the request of Mrs. Brager
and signed by her.  Her instructions were that any time I should hear
of her death I was instantly to proceed to her house and take charge."

"What is the date of this will?" asked Mr. Dockra.

"February tenth--one week ago."

"Ha!" cried Mr. Dockra; "let us hope that this is really the last one!"
He held out his hand for it.

An uncomfortable premonition of the truth came to me.  I waited on
tenterhooks.

As Mr. Dockra read, his face became suffused with gratification.  "Ha!"
he cried again, in quite a different tone.  "Just what I expected.
Listen!"  He read a single sentence: "'All the rest and residue of my
estate I hereby devise and bequeath to my loyal friend and servant Mrs.
Clare Marlin.'"

Mrs. Marlin leaped up with a cry of the purest surprise.  "Oh!  I never
knew!"

Mr. Dockra smiled.  I groaned inwardly.  Not that I doubted the poor
girl; the production of this latest will did not really alter the
status of the case; but I foresaw what capital the logical male mind
would make of it.

"Under what circumstances was this will made?" Mr. Dockra asked.

"Six times during the past two years," Mr. Blick answered, "Mrs. Brager
has come to my office and instructed me to draw up a will of this
nature, each time with a new date."

"When was the last time?" asked Mme Storey.

"Just before Christmas, Madame."

"And the time before that?"

"Somewhere around Thanksgiving."

"Then it is clear she always intended Mrs. Marlin should inherit," said
my mistress.  "The other wills were merely blinds."

"Quite so," said Mr. Dockra.

"I never knew!" cried Mrs. Marlin, like one stunned with surprise.  The
dawning gladness in her face was eloquent of the truth of her words;
but that logical man refused to see it.

"Who came with Mrs. Brager to your office?" he asked.

"She was alone," replied Mr. Blick.  "She always came alone."

"She pledged you to secrecy?"

"She did.  She said nobody was to know about this will but herself,
myself, and the beneficiary."

"The beneficiary, eh?  Well, there you are!" cried Mr. Dockra,
spreading out his hands.

"She never told me!" cried Mrs. Marlin.

"I am sorry, my dear Mrs. Marlin," said Mr. Dockra, delighted at having
seemed to prove Mme Storey wrong, "but circumstances are against you.
I shall have to detain you in custody for the present.  You may wait in
one of the rooms upstairs, where you will not be the subject of vulgar
curiosity."

The poor girl, still dazed, was led away by a policeman.  She glanced
imploringly at Mme Storey and at me.  We smiled at her encouragingly;
it was all we could do.

When the door was opened the Hon. Shep Chew was to be seen hovering
outside.  He had evidently witnessed the coming of the new lawyer and
was visibly tortured with anxiety to know what it portended.  He stuck
his head into the room.

"Can I be of any help?" he asked insinuatingly.

Mr. Dockra ignored him; to give him credit, he had no use for the slimy
hypocrite.  It was my mistress who, with her most winning smile,
invited him in.

"Another will has turned up," she said, "post-dating yours.  It leaves
practically everything to Mrs. Marlin."

You should have seen his face!

"Unfortunately," Mme Storey went on, "there are some very unpleasant
circumstances--very unpleasant circumstances..."

A crazy hope sprang up in his eyes.  Naturally, if Mrs. Marlin could be
proved to be guilty of the death of Mrs. Brager, her will would be set
aside and his be good.  "Of course," he said eagerly, "none of the rest
of us ever doubted who did it!"

"But how?" murmured Mme Storey as if more to herself than to him.

"Haven't you brought out the facts about clarium gas?" he asked.

"What is that?" asked the prosecutor sharply.

"Dr. Sanford Brill's discovery.  He has produced a gas which is
instantly fatal to all breathing creatures.  They wanted Mrs. Brager to
finance him.  He came here only yesterday, and gave her a
demonstration.  She turned him down."

"Ha!" cried Mr. Dockra.  "Let this Dr. Brill be brought here
immediately," he said to his clerk.  "And if he is giving
demonstrations of his gas, let him be prepared to give me a
demonstration."


VII

Dr. Brill was that unusual type, the stalwart young scientist, a man of
intellect and muscle.  I could readily understand how Mrs. Marlin had
fallen in love with him.  He had a handsome head, covered with tousled,
shining black hair, and deep, brooding gray eyes.  His look was at once
open, thoughtful, and manly.  What was more, the carelessness of his
dress suggested that he needed a woman to look after his clothes and to
see that he was properly fed.  He had not the least notion of how
attractive he was.

Such a man, buried in his laboratory, would be the last to hear a piece
of news.  He was shocked beyond measure to hear of Mrs. Brager's death,
and demanded to be allowed to see Mrs. Marlin.  When this was refused
him, when he understood that Mrs. Marlin was suspected of having had a
hand in it, his amazement turned to anger, and I thought we were going
to have a fight on our hands.

"What nonsense!" he cried.  "How could she have done such a thing?"

"By means of clarium gas," suggested Mr. Dockra, watching him.

All the anger suddenly went out of Dr. Brill.  He paled and his eyes
widened; he became very quiet.  The prosecutor, of course, did not fail
to mark these evidences of an inward dismay.  A man like Dockra, I may
say, the clever, ambitious opportunist, was perfectly incapable of
understanding one of Dr. Brill's type; consequently, he disliked him at
sight, though he was careful to preserve the outward forms of courtesy.

We had Dr. Brill into Mrs. Marlin's room, and the investigation
proceeded.

"Please tell me about this clarium gas," said Mr. Dockra.

"It is a discovery of mine," said Dr. Brill, "a gas lighter than
hydrogen, lighter than helium, and which may be produced at a fraction
of the price of helium."

"Poisonous, is it not?"

"Yes.  That's the trouble with it."

Mr. Dockra stared.  "What's it to be used for, then?"

Dr. Brill looked at him as much as to say: "What a foolish question."
"It solves the problem of the navigation of the air by heavier than air
vessels," he went on, as one might explain to a child.  "By the use of
clarium airships may be made much smaller, hence more manageable, and
the cost brought within the limits of commercial possibilities."

"Where did the name come from?"

"I called it after Mrs. Marlin, whose name is Clare."

"You are engaged to marry Mrs. Marlin?"

"Yes."

"Why have you and she not got married before this?  ... I hope you will
pardon these personal questions, Doctor.  In my position I have no
choice but to ask them."

"I have no objections to answering any proper question," said Dr. Brill
simply.  "We have not got married because we could not afford to."

"Then clarium has not paid?"

"I have not tried to realize on it as yet.  I do not consider that my
work is complete.  Though I have tried to keep it as much of a secret
as possible, such things will leak out; and I may say that I have been
approached by an agent of the government with a handsome offer for the
formula, besides a very good contract to take charge of the
manufacture.  But I declined the offer."

"Why?" asked Mr. Dockra in astonishment.

"Because of the poisonous nature of the gas."

"Oh, you are afraid that it would kill everybody who handled it."

"Not at all.  Safeguards could easily be provided against that.  I
manufacture it and experiment with it without the slightest danger.
What I fear is that, in case of any trouble, the government would turn
it to the uses of chemical warfare.  By increasing its density, a
simple matter to a chemist, it could be made frightfully destructive.
I could not take the responsibility."

"What are you going to do, then?"

"I shall not let the formula out of my hands until I have succeeded in
making the gas harmless.  It may be done.  But it will take time."

"Meanwhile you need money," suggested Mr. Dockra bluntly.

"I do," returned Dr. Brill, with his admirable simplicity.

"Mrs. Marlin tried to interest Mrs. Brager in the discovery."

"She did."

"Please describe what happened when you gave your demonstration in this
house yesterday."

"It was a very simple demonstration," said Dr. Brill.  "That was all I
was permitted.  It was held in the double rooms downstairs.  Besides
Mrs. Brager, Madame La France, Mr. Chew and Mr. Oneto were present.
And Mrs. Marlin, of course."

"Had you ever met these people before?"

"Never.  But Mrs. Marlin had talked to me about them."

"What do you mean by saying you were only permitted a very simple
demonstration?"

"The whole atmosphere was antagonistic.  Of course, I had expected it
would be.  Mrs. Marlin had warned me that nobody yet had ever succeeded
in getting Mrs. Brager to put up money for anything.  So it was just a
forlorn hope.  Still, I might have succeeded in interesting the old
lady if it had not been for her hangers-on.  They acted as if I was
threatening their interests."

"Well, describe the experiments."

"I had brought with me three little tanks containing respectively
hydrogen, helium, and clarium; and a handful of rubber skins, such as
are used for children's balloons.  I blew up a red skin with my breath,
a green skin with hydrogen, a yellow skin with helium, and a purple
skin with clarium."

"Suppose the purple balloon had burst?"

"It would have done no harm--such a small quantity of the gas, unless
it had burst directly in my face.  And I took care of that.  Clarium
rises very quickly."

"Go on."

"The red balloon fell to the ground, of course; the other three rose.
I then demonstrated, by using small boxes of matches as units, how much
more weight the purple balloon would support than either of the others."

"I suppose many questions were asked you."

"Oh, innumerable questions," answered Dr. Brill ruefully.  "Most of
them quite beside the point."

"And then?"

"Mr. Chew said: 'But how do we know that this is clarium, this helium,
this hydrogen?'"

"A natural question?"

"Oh, quite.  I would not have expected Mrs. Brager to put up her money
without engaging some qualified person to check up my claims.  But
Chew's tone suggested that I was trying to cheat her, and she believed
it.  And--well, that was all.  I was given no opportunity to prove my
claims."

"It was a bitter disappointment?" suggested Mr. Dockra.

"I can hardly say that," answered Dr. Brill composedly, "since I had
expected nothing else."

"I suppose you and Mrs. Marlin often talk about clarium?"

"It is often mentioned between us, naturally.  We do not discuss it
because my thoughts on the subject are of a highly technical nature
that she could not follow."

"But she is fully informed as to the properties of clarium?"

"In a general way, yes."

"Dr. Brill, are you prepared to give me a demonstration of clarium?"

"I am."  The doctor opened his satchel and showed us a small tank.  "I
have brought the same container that I used yesterday."  He then
produced a small pasteboard box and opened it.  "I have also several
ounces of the powder of clarium."

"Be careful!  Be careful!" cried the prosecutor sharply.

"In powder form it is entirely harmless," said Dr. Brill with a smile.
To prove it, he put the powder to his nose and smelled of it.  Little
prickles ran up and down my spine.

"How is the gas produced?" asked Mr. Dockra, still fearful of the stuff.

"By heating the powder in a retort."

Mr. Dockra sent outside the room, and one of his men came in carrying a
cage with a canary in it.  I do not know whether they had found it in
the house, or had sent out for it.  I foresaw what was coming, and
shivered.

"What I want," said Mr. Dockra, "is a demonstration of the effect of
clarium gas on a breathing organism, such as this bird."

"Nothing easier," said Dr. Brill, rising.

"Not here!" said Mr. Dockra.

"There is no danger," said the chemist.  "An infinitesimal amount will
be sufficient.  If the cage is placed up high the gas will lose itself
under the ceiling.  A few minutes after its release it becomes
innocuous.  All I require is a piece of impervious material such as
rubberized cloth."

One of the detectives handed him a raincoat.

"You have not given Dr. Brill the customary warning," remarked Mme
Storey.

Mr. Dockra looked annoyed.  "You understand that the result of this
experiment may be used against you later."

"Nothing is to be gained by refusing to make it," said Dr. Brill simply.

Mrs. Marlin's writing desk had a high back, with pigeonholes, etc., and
shelves for books above that.  Such an article used to be called an
escritoire when I was a child.  Removing the books from the top shelf
Dr. Brill placed the cage upon it, and covered it carefully with the
raincoat.  I had a final glimpse of the tiny bird hopping from perch to
perch in wild affright.  The doctor then ran a rubber tube from the
cock of the gas container into the cage under the covering, and sat
down.  Mr. Dockra made believe to have business out in the hall at that
moment.  I was nervous myself; but as my mistress remained sitting
quietly in her chair I had to do likewise.

Dr. Brill turned the cock of the gas tank.  There was a tiny hiss, and
he shut it off again.  He looked around him, saw Mr. Dockra's walking
stick, where he had laid it on the bed; lifted the raincoat off the
cage with the stick; carried the coat to the door, gave it a shake, and
handed it back to the man who had lent it to him.  The little bird lay
dead on the floor of the cage.

Mr. Dockra called for Dr. Patten.  When the physician entered, the
prosecutor said to him significantly:

"You know what you have to do."

Dr. Patten carried the cage with the dead bird in it into Mrs. Brager's
room and closed the door behind him.  There was a long wait.  Dr. Brill
sat throughout without moving, his head lowered, lost in thought.  Mr.
Dockra whispered with two of his men.  Mme Storey left the room.

Dr. Patten returned, and made a whispered communication to the
prosecutor.  "You can testify to that?" asked Mr. Dockra.  Dr. Patten
nodded.

My mistress returned in time for Mr. Dockra's announcement.  "Dr.
Patten has established the fact that the two birds in Mrs. Brager's
room met their deaths in the same manner as the bird you have just seen
killed by Dr. Brill.  There are certain peculiarities in the effects
upon the respiratory organs.  It follows therefore that Mrs. Brager was
killed by inhaling clarium gas."


VIII

Dr. Brill was still under examination.  "Can anybody have stolen the
formula for making clarium gas?" asked Mr. Dockra.

He shook his head.  "It has never been written down.  It is all in
here," he tapped his forehead.

"When you were in this house yesterday, did you leave any of the gas or
the powder here?"

"No."

"Could it have been abstracted from among your things without your
knowledge?"

"No."

"Have you at any time ever allowed any of the gas or the powder out of
your possession?"

This was evidently the question that Dr. Brill dreaded.  He became very
pale.  "Yes," he murmured low.

"Ha!" cried Mr. Dockra.  "Under what circumstances, please?"

Dr. Brill hesitated painfully.  "What I am about to say has an ugly
look," he said slowly: "but there could not be anything in it; there
could not!"

We pricked up our ears at this.

"Never mind about the look of it.  Say it."

"Yesterday, shortly after I had returned to my laboratory from this
house," Dr. Brill continued, "I was called to the telephone.  A man who
said he was the Honourable Shep Chew was on the wire.  He told me that
Mrs. Brager had changed her mind in respect to clarium gas; that if I
was willing to fulfil the condition she laid down, she would advance
the money I required.  The condition was that I mail to Mrs. Marlin
sufficient of the powder to experiment with; Mrs. Marlin was to carry
it to a firm of independent chemists, and if their findings agreed with
my claims the money would be placed at my disposal."

"Well, what did you do?"

"I immediately did up three ounces of the powder in a tin box and put
it in the mail."

Mr. Dockra's lip curled incredulously.  I confess that the story sounds
far-fetched when I repeat it; but no observant person who watched the
simplicity with which it was told could very well have disbelieved it.

"Did you recognize Mr. Chew's voice?" asked Mr. Dockra.

"I cannot say that I did," said Dr. Brill with his dogged honesty.

"You had heard him speaking an hour before."

"I know; but his voice had not impressed me."

"Did it not seem strange to you that Mrs. Marlin herself had not called
you up?"

"Mr. Chew had appeared to be Mrs. Brager's principal mouthpiece."

"And you did not question this telephone call at all?"

"No, I was too happy about it," said Dr. Brill simply.  "When a thing
that you wish for so much comes about, you do not naturally question
it."

"It appears not," said Mr. Dockra sarcastically.

"May I ask a question?" put in Mme Storey.

Mr. Dockra bowed to her gallantly.

"Was it not strange that Mrs. Marlin should not call you up afterward
about such an important thing, such a fortunate thing?" she asked.

"I have an aversion to talking on the telephone," said Dr. Brill.

"Is that generally known?"

"Mrs. Marlin knows it.  We never talk over the telephone....  I sent
her a note and enclosed it between the tin box and the paper wrapping."

"That is against the postal regulations," said Mme Storey, smiling.

"Well, I couldn't find an envelope."

"At what hour did this conversation take place?" asked Mr. Dockra.

"My laboratory is in Fordham.  I reached there at six o'clock.  It
would be about ten minutes later."

Mr. Chew was called into the room.

"Mr. Chew," said Mr. Dockra, "Dr. Brill states that he was called up at
his laboratory at six ten last evening by a man who gave your name."

"It's a lie!" cried Mr. Chew excitedly.  "I never called him up in my
life.  At ten minutes past six, you say?  At ten minutes past six I was
talking to a friend in the lobby of the Stanfield Arms.  I can prove
it!  What does he say that I said to him?"

Mr. Dockra motioned to him to be silent.  "Now, Dr. Brill," he said to
the other, "you have heard his voice again.  Was that the voice that
spoke to you over the telephone last evening?"

"I don't think so," said Dr. Brill heavily.  "It was a sort of growling
voice."

I glanced at Mme Storey in astonishment.  Was it the growling voice we
knew?  Her face gave nothing away.

Mr. Chew, much against his will, was dismissed from the room, and the
maidservant Maud Pickens was brought in.  The girl was paralyzed with
fright, and it was with the greatest difficulty that we could get
anything out of her.  However, we finally established that: she had
taken the mail in at a few minutes before nine; she had laid it on the
hall table; she remembered seeing the little package addressed to Mrs.
Marlin; Mrs. Marlin had already gone to market when the mail came; she
thought that Mr. Chew, Mr. Oneto, and Mme La France had all come out
into the hall to see what was in the mail; Mrs. Marlin had returned
from market at five minutes past ten; she had come into the kitchen;
she had a number of packages; the witness could not state if she then
had the little package that had come in the mail.

Afterward Mr. Chew, Mme La France, and Oneto each stated in turn that
they had seen the little package when it arrived, and that it was still
lying on the hall table when they had gone out.

"Well, my case is beginning to shape up," remarked Mr. Dockra, glancing
at my mistress as much as to say: "We won't need you in this."

"I congratulate you," said Mme Storey dryly.

After the last three had testified, Mr. Dockra allowed them to remain
in the room.  He was not averse to making a grand-stand play, as you
have seen, and he thus made sure of his gallery.  During all this Dr.
Brill had remained sitting at the foot of the bed in an attitude of the
deepest sadness, arms folded, chin sunk on his breast.  I have never
seen a man sit so still under stress of emotion.

"Now, Dr. Brill," said Mr. Dockra briskly.

The young chemist raised his pale, drawn face.  He foresaw, of course,
that worse was coming.

"You have stated," the prosecutor went on, "that you were in need of
money.  Within the past few days, has not that need become acute?"

Dr. Brill did not answer immediately.

"Is it not a fact that you have been given notice to quit your
laboratory unless you can pay the arrears of rent?"

"Yes."

"May I ask a question?" put in Mme Storey.

Mr. Dockra was none too well pleased to be interrupted; however, he
bowed.

"You spoke of answering many questions yesterday," said Mme Storey,
"when you were demonstrating clarium.  Did you describe to the company
how to produce the gas from the powder?"

"Yes, Madame."

"Well, who asked you that question?"

One could feel the suspense tighten in the breast of every hearer.
Unfortunately Dr. Brill made the worst possible witness for himself.
He spread out his hands helplessly.

"I cannot tell you, Madame.  It is possible that I volunteered the
information without being asked."

"But everybody in the room heard you describe how to do it?"

"Yes, Madame."

Mme Storey bowed to Mr. Dockra; and he proceeded, after letting his
eyes travel around the circle to make sure that he had our attention.

"Dr. Brill, have you ever discussed with Mrs. Marlin the possibility of
using a makeshift retort for releasing the gas?"

"I cannot recollect doing so."

"Be careful what you say, sir!"

Dr. Brill looked at him suddenly and full.  "I am always careful what I
say, sir."

Mr. Dockra wagged an inquisitorial forefinger at him.  "Have you ever
discussed the possibility of using a common kettle for the purpose?"
This was where the prosecutor sprung his great surprise.  "Such a
kettle as this, for instance?"  He snatched up the brass kettle from
its stand and handed it to the doctor.

It was not a complete surprise to me, because Mme Storey had warned me
about that kettle.  But it made me anxious, to see the prosecutor thus
stealing our thunder.  I stole a glance at Mme Storey.  She was calm.

Dr. Brill turned the kettle over in his hands unsuspectingly.
"Certainly we have never discussed this," he said.

"Examine it closely!" said the prosecutor raspingly.

Dr. Brill removed the cover and looked inside.  Suddenly his eyes
became intent.  He carried the kettle hastily to his nose and sniffed
it.  Turning it upside down, he examined the bottom.  A startling
change came over his face; his eyes bolted; I saw the fine drops of
sweat spring out on his forehead.

"Well, sir, what do you find?" barked the prosecutor.

The tortured man moistened his pale lips.  "Nothing," he stammered.

Mr. Dockra pressed him mercilessly.  "Do you not find that clarium
powder has lately been burned in that kettle?  It has not even been
washed out!  A fatal error, but perhaps there was no time!"

"I refuse to answer," muttered Dr. Brill.

"You have already answered me sufficiently for the present," said Mr.
Dockra, with a satisfied smile.  "Later you will have to answer."

Dr. Brill suddenly rose.  "Let me see Clare," he said hoarsely, "here,
before you all.  Then I will answer you!"

"Oh, very well," said Mr. Dockra, not at all displeased by the
suggestion.  He expected further disclosures.  One of the detectives
was sent upstairs to fetch Mrs. Marlin.

I dreaded what was coming.  I never doubted the innocence of that
little woman; but I was terrified at the strength of the case which the
wily prosecutor had built up against her.  I could see no loophole of
escape.  When all that was presented to a jury, how could they do
otherwise than convict?  I looked at my mistress.  How I longed to have
her uncover her guns!  But she gave no sign.  From her I looked at that
precious trio: Chew, La France, and Oneto; each of their faces bore a
similar ratlike look of mean exultation.  They were delighted to see
Mrs. Marlin, as they would have said, getting hers.

She was brought in with her head up.  She went straight to Dr. Brill,
who took both her hands in his.  They were oblivious to everybody else
in the room.

"Oh, Clare! ... Oh, Clare...!" he murmured brokenly.

"Hush, San," she whispered.  "Everything will be all right."

He schooled his feelings.  "Answer me one question," he said simply.
"Have you used that kettle for any purpose this morning?"

"No."

"Look at me, Clare."

She lifted her clear eyes to his, and his glance plumbed the depths of
her soul.  A great breath of relief escaped him.  "Thank God!" he
cried, and lifted her hands to his lips.  Such a natural and beautiful
gesture.

"Now, Mr. Prosecutor," he said, turning around, "I'm ready to answer
your question.  Somebody has, as we chemists say, cooked clarium powder
in that kettle."

Mr. Dockra had watched the little scene with a sneer.  "Thank you, Dr.
Brill," he said sarcastically.  "That about completes my case.  I
believe you have been an involuntary accessory, but the degree of your
responsibility will have to be established by a jury.  I shall have to
order both you and Mrs. Marlin taken into custody."

Dr. Brill looked at him as an angry mastiff might look at a terrier;
his arm went around Mrs. Marlin instinctively.  She drooped pitifully
within it.

"Oh, my children!" she murmured.

Mr. Dockra had gone on to my mistress.  Scaling the dizzy heights of
gratified vanity, he murmured with affected gallantry: "Madame Storey,
I cannot tell you what a privilege it has been to have you present at
this inquiry.  Stanfield is honoured that one whose time is so valuable
should have given..."

"Oh, I can give a couple of hours more to it," drawled Mme Storey.
"Let's get to the bottom of it while we're about it."

He dropped her hand as if it had been red hot.  "My case is complete,"
he said, staring.

"Oh, absolutely," said Mme Storey dryly; "except in one particular."

"What is that?"

"Mrs. Marlin could not possibly have killed Mrs. Brager."

If you could have seen the beautiful hope and joy break in the faces of
those lovers.  And how they hung, waiting for her next words.

"I should be glad to have you explain yourself," said Mr. Dockra
stiffly.

"It has been established that Mrs. Marlin left the house at quarter
before nine," said Mme Storey, "and returned at five minutes past ten.
Allowing her only fifteen minutes to make her preparations, she could
not have committed the deed before ten-twenty.  At eleven five, when I
touched the body, it was cold."

The young prosecutor was brought down from his dizzy height.  Before
his men, too.  He rubbed his lip to hide his bitter chagrin.  Mme
Storey's simple demonstration was unanswerable.  As for me, I could
have cheered.  Ah! my wonderful mistress, she has never yet failed the
cause of the angels.

Finally Mr. Dockra said sulkily: "Perhaps you will tell us who it was
then."

"That I propose to find out before anybody leaves this room," said Mme
Storey significantly.


IX

After the scene I have just described Mme Storey took charge of the
proceedings.  Mr. Dockra never ventured to oppose her.  One could not
help but feel a little sorry for the deflated young prosecutor.  He was
not a bad fellow at heart; but he had been carrying too much pressure.
Imagine the small-town attorney thinking he could show Mme Storey a
thing or two!  She softened the blow as much as she could by making
believe to consult him at every point, etc.  Everybody remained in the
room, and my mistress turned from one to another as questions occurred
to her.  It was much simpler.

"Mrs. Marlin," she said, "when you went out, was it your custom to lock
your door?"

"No, Madame, it never occurred to me to do so.  In fact, I had no key
to the lock."

"Thank you."  My mistress picked up the fateful kettle and tapped it
reflectively with her finger nail.  "Dr. Brill," she said, handing it
over, "look at this again, please.  It is a cheap kettle, you see, the
metal is very thin.  If this kettle, not having any water in it, were
suspended over a flame, how long would it be before the metal fused?"

"It would depend upon the flame, Madame."

"I am referring to the flame of the alcohol lamp that goes with it."

Dr. Brill lighted the little lamp and put it out again.  "Between six
and eight minutes, Madame.  The bottom of the kettle is badly
discoloured and warped.  Another minute and it would have burned out."

"Thank you.  How long would you have to cook the clarium powder before
it began to give off its gas?"

"No time at all.  As soon as the heat penetrated it the gas would be
released."

"I see.  When the gas is released, how long a time must pass before it
becomes innocuous?"

"Fifteen minutes, Madame."

Mme Storey turned to Mr. Dockra.  "An elementary sum in arithmetic,"
she remarked.  "If Mrs. Marlin carried the kettle into that room and
lighted it, unless she went back in eight minutes to put out the flame,
the bottom of the kettle would burn out.  Yet it has not burned out,
you see.  On the other hand, if she went back inside of fifteen
minutes, the fumes would kill her too.  It won't work out."

The young man's face became longer and longer, seeing his case crumble
to the ground.  "According to that, nobody could have done it, then,"
he said sullenly.

"But somebody did do it," said Mme Storey, "for Mrs. Brager lies dead
in there."

"How did they get the gas in there, then?" said Mr. Dockra.  "Mrs.
Brager didn't come out of the room, because the birds are dead in there
with her."

"Through the hot-air flue from the furnace," said Mme Storey softly.

A little sound of astonishment went around the circle of listeners.
The prosecutor gaped at my mistress.  We all did.

She turned to Mme La France without pausing.  "Will you please give an
account of your movements this morning?"

"Certainly, Madame."  The fat woman had by now succeeded in concealing
the rage that gnawed her vitals.  During one of her absences from the
room she had fixed her hair and repaired her make-up.  She faced Mme
Storey with a hard smile.  "After breakfast I sat in the dining room
reading the paper," she began.

"Waiting for the mail?" put in Mme Storey pleasantly.

"We all were.  When it came we went out into the hall to see what there
was.  I seen the little package addressed to Mrs. Marlin----"

"You have already testified as to that.  Was there anything for you?"

"No, Madame.  Afterwards I went upstairs and put on my things, and left
the house.  I went down to Ye Gilded Lily Shoppe--that's a beauty
parlour in the town--where I had an appointment for a head shampoo."

"At what hour was your appointment?"

"Ten o'clock."

"That leaves a whole hour to be accounted for."

"Well, I didn't hurry none.  I took my time about getting my things on.
I suppose it would be about nine twenty when I left the house."

"But it only takes ten minutes to go downtown on the car.  Less than
that by taxi."

"I walked, Madame.  I am reducing."

"Oh, I see.  Did you leave the house before or after the gentlemen?"

"I can't say.  I didn't see them when I went out."

"Then nobody saw you leave the house?"

"Nobody that I know about."

"Did you meet anybody you knew on the way downtown?"

"No, Madame."

"I suppose you are known at the beauty parlour?"

"Oh, yes, Madame, they all know me there."

"What time did you leave there?"

"Eleven.  And come right home by car.  You was already here then."

"You were wearing a cape when I saw you.  Is that your custom?"

"No, Madame.  Only when I'm walking.  It gives me more freedom, like."

"That is all, thank you," said Mme Storey.  "Now, Mr. Oneto."

The young man faced her with a look at once nervous and sulky.  His
eyes quailed; he passed his handkerchief over his face.  This looked
hopeful.

"You, too, were waiting in the dining room after breakfast?" suggested
my mistress with an ironical air.

"Yes."

"Reading the paper?"

"No, she had it."

"What were you doing?"

"Nothing."

"Waiting for the mail?"

"Oh, I don't look for much in the mail.  I'm no hand to write letters."

"But you went out in the hall when it came?"

"Yes."

"Get anything?"

"No."

"Then what did you do?"

"My hat and coat were downstairs.  I took them and went out.  Mr. Chew
saw me go."

"Where did you go?"

The young man scowled even more blackly, and his eyes darted from side
to side like something trapped.  "Went to see a friend," he muttered.

"Who?"

He hesitated.  "I won't say," he muttered.

"Hm!" said Mme Storey.  "You understand what that implies."

"Aah, what difference does it make?" he burst out.  "Chew saw me go out
right after the mail came; and you all saw me come in again after
eleven o'clock.  It couldn't have been me."

"How do we know that you didn't come back in between?" suggested Mme
Storey quietly.

"I didn't have a latchkey."

"It would have been a simple matter to leave the door on the latch."

"Well, I didn't," he muttered.

"There is a door opening from the side yard directly onto the cellar
stairs," Mme Storey went on.  "It has not been used in many years; not
since the house was last painted, in fact.  But this morning it was
opened, and somebody entered that way, after having put down a board
over the soft earth outside to avoid leaving a footprint."

Oneto stared at her.  "Well, it wasn't me," he said sullenly, "and you
can't hang it on me."

"You will be under suspicion until you can account for your movements."

"Aah, I went to see a lady friend," he said with a hang-dog air.  "It
wouldn't do any good for me to give her name, because she'd deny I was
there if you asked her."

"Why should she deny it?"

"Because her husband don't know me."

A smile travelled around the circle at this answer.  But Oneto had no
intention of being funny; he was sweating.  To my disappointment, Mme
Storey let him go for the moment.

"Mr. Chew," she said.

There was no hesitancy about this witness.  He was too eager to
testify, too full of virtuous protestations.  "After the mail came I
went back into the dining room to look at the paper," he said.  "Nobody
gets a chance at it when Mme La France is around.  I didn't see Oneto
leave the house.  He may have done so, but he can't prove it by me,
because I wasn't taking any notice of him.  I didn't read the paper
long--only the headlines.  The dining room door was closed to keep in
the heat, and I didn't see Mme La France go out.  Maybe she did.  My
hat and coat were up in my room, and after a few minutes I got them and
went out."

"Where did you go?"

"Well, you'll think it's funny, Madame Storey, but I got on a car and
went down to a sort of little club that I know of called the Acme
Social Club, and played pool with some men there.  I assure you it's
not my custom.  But this morning I was to talk over some business
matters with Mrs. Brager, and when the housekeeper told us at breakfast
that she was indisposed it left me at a loose end, so to speak, and
I----"

"Quite so," said Mme Storey, cutting him short.  "With whom did you
play pool?"

"Well, there was quite a crowd: a fellow they call Fred, and a fellow
they call Spike, and Dan--you see I don't know them outside the club,
and I'm not sure about their last names; Dan's last name is Potter, I
think."

"But they could be found at the club?"

"Certainly, Madame Storey."

"At what time did you enter the club?"

"I couldn't tell you exactly.  It would be about twenty-five past nine."

"Mr. Chew, can you produce a witness who will swear that he saw you
enter the club before half-past nine?"

A panicky look came into the greedy, darting black eyes.  "How do I
know if I can?" he gobbled.  "There was a crowd there; fellows always
coming and going.  I don't know if anybody noticed me particularly
coming in or could tell the time to a minute."  He darted off on a new
tack.  "Nobody who ever saw me and Mrs. Brager together would ever
suspect me of meaning harm to her!" he cried with tears in his voice.
"Why, we were like brother and sister together, like mother and son; a
hundred times she has termed me her son."

Those of us who knew the old lady and her pretensions to youthfulness
smiled at this.

"Why, when a fellow come into the club and said that a rumour was going
around town that Mrs. Brager was dead, I almost dropped where I stood.
Ask any of them how I took it!  My friend!  My benefactor!  I rushed
out of the place and jumped in a taxi and came right here.  I am still
so overcome by this shocking event, I scarcely know what I'm saying!"

My mistress was bored by these protestations.  "I noticed, when you
came in, that you were wearing your overcoat across your shoulders,"
she said.  "Why was that?"

"It is just a way I have got into," he said.

"Madame La France," said my mistress, "have you seen Mr. Chew wearing
his overcoat in that manner?"

"No," was the blunt answer.

"That's a lie!" cried Mr. Chew excitedly.  "That woman has it in for
me.  She----"

"Oh, please!" said Mme Storey, holding up her hand.  "No
recriminations.  That is all, thank you, Mr. Chew."

Things began to happen then.


X

A battered figure appeared in the doorway.  It was Crider, the best man
we have; one of his eyes was puffed up and beginning to blacken; his
cheek was cut; his collar was torn open.  I gasped at the sight; but my
imperturbable mistress never batted an eye.

"Did you get your man?" she asked coolly.

"Yes, Madame," he said grimly.

"Good!"

The room had become so crowded we could scarcely breathe.  Mme Storey
suggested that it be partly cleared; and the flock of lawyers was
requested to wait in the hall.  Mr. Dockra also sent his men outside,
except the one who was taking notes.  The door had to be left open for
air; and during the subsequent proceedings there was a whole bouquet of
heads there, peering and listening.  Even for those who remained in the
room there were not seats enough, though some sat on the bed and some
on the couch.  I doubt if any of those who stood ever became conscious
of weariness, for minute by minute the tension increased, as one might
slowly screw the strings of an instrument higher and higher.  It became
almost unbearable.

Crider was looking at Mme Storey for further instructions.  "Speak
out," she said; "the Public Prosecutor is waiting to hear what you have
to say."

"From the cook downstairs," Crider began, "I got a tip that the man you
sent me after would be going to St. Agnes' school after leaving here.
He visits the school four times a day.  I followed by the route he
would naturally take.  According to your instructions, I searched all
places that would likely suggest themselves as hiding places for a
small object he might want to dispose of.  I found that my route
carried me across the Stanfield River, and I realized, of course, that
that would be the place, if any.  It is a small tidal stream, and at
the time I crossed the bridge was just a narrow creek flowing out
between mud flats.  I did not feel that I ought to take the time
myself, so I hired some boys to drag the water under the bridge, and I
went on.

"From having to stop so many times, I found the man gone when I got to
the school.  But they had his address, and I went there.  It was a
lodging house in a poor quarter.  I found him at home.  He had just got
there.  He refused to come back with me.  In fact, I had considerable
trouble with him.  He was a heavier man than me.  But I managed to hold
him until the people in the house, who were scared by the racket, sent
out for a policeman.  I told the officer who I was and took the liberty
of adding that the Public Prosecutor wanted the man at Mrs. Brager's
house, and the officer took him in charge for me.  I searched his room
but did not find any of the things you told me to look for.  I followed
behind to make sure he did not throw anything away in the street.

"When we approached the bridge, I saw that the boys had found
something, so I let the officer and his man walk on ahead.  The boys
gave me this, which they had found in the water.  The man does not know
that we have it.  He is down in the kitchen under guard."

Crider handed Mme Storey a crumpled piece of tin.  It had the look of a
small box which had been squeezed flat so that it would sink when
thrown into the water.  Mme Storey, pulling the sides apart, examined
it all over, while everybody in the room waited in a breathless silence.

"Dr. Brill," she said at last, "do you smoke Demiopolis cigarettes?"

"Why, yes, Madame," he said, astonished.

"Do you buy them in boxes of one hundred?"

"Yes, Madame."

"Did you use one of the empty boxes to mail the clarium powder to Mrs.
Marlin?"

"Yes, Madame," he said, with rising excitement.

"This will be it, then, I fancy," she drawled.  "You had better take
charge of it, Mr. Dockra."  She handed it over.  "You will find the
name of the maker stamped in the tin."

A little sound of wonder travelled around the room.

Amid an electrical silence, the mysterious man in the case was led into
the room and told to sit down in the chair at the foot of the bed.  I
shivered with repulsion at the sight of the murderer, as I then
supposed him to be.  He looked like a murderer, which murderers seldom
do: a Hercules of a man, now somewhat gone to fat, with a ridged, bony
head and completely brutalized features.  The sort of man whose only
retort is a guffaw of coarse laughter.  His little swimming pig eyes
held no expression whatever.  The coarse and dirty clothes betrayed his
occupation.  He wore no overcoat.

"What is your name?" asked Mme Storey mildly.

"Henry Hafner," he growled.

Instantly Dr. Brill cried out: "That is the voice I heard over the
telephone!"

It was on my tongue's tip to echo him.  I too recognized that growling
voice!  But Mme Storey has taught me to restrain my impulses at such
moments.  I could see that she was annoyed by Dr. Brill's cry.  She
looked at Mr. Dockra meaningly.  He said:

"There must be no interruptions, or we will have to clear the room."

In order to lull his suspicions, my mistress was adopting a
painstakingly friendly attitude toward the brute.  "Married, single, or
widowed?" she asked.

"Single, 'm."

"Age?"

"Fifty-one."

"I shouldn't have thought it," said Mme Storey politely.  "How long
have you lived in Stanfield?"

"Eight months, 'm."

"Then you're not well known here?"

"No, 'm.  I keeps myself to myself."

"What is your occupation?"

"Sort of odd jobs, 'm.  In the winter I tends furnaces.  Summers I
gardens and mows lawn....  Can I make a statement?" he asked.

"I'd be glad to hear it," said Mme Storey.

"Well? 'm," he began with an aggrieved air, "when this guy here"--a
jerk of the dirty thumb in Crider's direction--"come to my room and
says, 'Come with me,' I says, 'What t' hell,' I says, 'a man's got his
rights.  A man's house is his castle,' I says, 'who are you to come
buttin' in here?'  He says: 'I'm Madame Storey's man,' or some such
name.  Well, I don't know who Madame Storey is, and I tell him so.
'Show me your badge,' I says.  And he ain't got no badge.  'Nothin'
doin',' I says, 'get the hell out of here.'  Then he tried to drag me,
and I pasted him one and we mixed it up, sort of, till the cop come.
The guy tells the cop the Public Prosecutor wants me.  He didn't tell
me that.  Soon as he says Public Prosecutor, I goes with him like a
lamb.  I just want you to get me right, lady: I don't set up to resist
no lawful authority."

"That's all right," said Mme Storey; "your resistance to my agent will
not be counted against you.  Let us get on.  I understand that you
attend to the furnace in this house?"

"Yes, 'm."

"How long have you been working here?"

"Since the fire was lighted last fall."

"Who got you the job?"

"I got it by astin' at t' kitchen door."

"What time do you come here every day?"

"A little before seven in the morning, and again between nine and ten
at night.  At this house they won't give no key, so I has to wait for
the cook to let me in mornings."

"Then you enter by the kitchen?"

"Yes, 'm."

"Why don't you use the door direct from the yard into the cellar?"

"Is there a door from the yard?" he said with a cunning look.  "Oh,
sure, I mind seein' that door on the cellar stairs.  But that there
door has been bolted up since before my time.  I suppose the missus
wants the kitchen help to keep tab on all who comes and goes in the
cellar."

"You came back a second time this morning, didn't you?" said Mme Storey
carelessly.

The little eyes darted an uneasy look in her face; but he answered
readily: "Yes, 'm."

"What for?"

"Well, you see, 'm, the first time I come the fire was so near out I
couldn't fill her up.  I just had to put a little on and wait for it to
catch good.  So I told Mis' Morris, that's the cook here, that I'd be
back."

"What time did you come back?"

"Some'eres about nine."

"Where had you been in the meantime?"

He named three houses that he had visited.

"But it wouldn't take you two hours to fix three furnaces."

"No, 'm, I was waitin' round to give the fire time to burn up good."

"It wouldn't take two hours for the fire to come up."

"Not if the dampers was opened right, 'm.  But they won't let me do
that here.  Burn too much coal.  They buy it every month, and I gotta
make two ton last out.  They ought to burn four."

"I want to fix the exact time of your return, if I can," said Mme
Storey.  "Did you meet the letter carrier making his first round?"

"Not that I rec'lect."

"Are you sure?"

It evidently occurred to Hafner that the letter carrier might have been
questioned.  "Sure, that's right, I met him," he said.  "I just forgot
for the moment.  Fella name of Smitty.  Me and him's well acquainted."

"Had he been to this house, or was he on the way here?"

"He'd been."

"Had you been waiting for him?" asked Mme Storey slyly.

But she didn't catch him.  "Why should I?" he asked with an innocent
air.

"I don't know," said Mme Storey, just as innocent.  "What did you do
when you came back?"

From this point on he weighed every word of his answers.  As you have
perceived, he was by no means as stupid as he looked.  That debased
exterior concealed a world of low cunning.  He made a good witness for
himself.

"I went down cellar."

"Did you find anything out of the way there?"

"No, 'm, nothin' out of the way.  The fire was still sulkin'.  I opened
all the drafts and went up to the kitchen while she burned up."

"Right away?"

"No, 'm.  I can't say as it was right away.  I fooled around a bit,
watching her--drawing out a clinker or two.  Then I went up."

"What did you do in the kitchen?"

"I sat down and talked to cook and the girl."

"Oh, you sat down and talked.  What about?"

"'Deed, I can't tell you that, 'm.  Nothin' particular.  Just talkin'
like."  Then, reflecting, no doubt, that the cook was at hand to
corroborate this part, he added: "But I remember one thing."

"What was that?"

"While I was sittin' there cook wanted to send the girl down cellar for
potatoes and I stopped her."

"Why?"

"Because of the coal gas.  The furnace was givin' out gas somepin'
fierce.  I had opened everything up to drawr it off, and I opened the
cellar window, too.  I told the girl she better wait awhile."

"But you just told me you'd been fooling around down there."

"Oh, I'm used to the gas.  Don't notice it a-tall."

"Did the furnace often give off gas?"

"Yes'm.  Plumb wore out that furnace was.  Weren't no use to complain.
Wild horses wouldn't have drug the price of a new furnace out of the
old missus."

"Then you went down cellar again?"

"Yes, 'm, I went down again."

"Closing the cellar door after you."

"That was along of the gas."

"Oh, I see.  Did the girl go down with you?"

"No, 'm.  She didn't come down till I hollered up that the gas was out."

"How was the fire then?"

"Not so good.  I fooled around awhile yet, waitin' for it, then I
couldn't wait no longer, so I fixed it up the best I could and left."

"Did the girl get her potatoes?"

"Oh, yes, 'm, she got her potatoes all right."

At this point the questioning was interrupted by the entrance of
Stephens, the second operative, who had come out from town with Crider.
He stood just within the door, waiting to catch his mistress's eye.

"Well, that's fine!" Mme Storey said to Hafner; "just excuse me a
minute while I speak to this gentleman."

Stephens handed her a slip of paper on which was a written memorandum.
After reading it Mme Storey folded it and kept it in her palm during
what followed.  I guessed by that that it was something of first-rate
importance.  Hafner's little eyes watched her with an agonized
curiosity.  He would have given something to know what was written on
that paper.  Mme Storey then whispered further instructions close in
Stephens's ear, and he left the room again.


XI

Up to this moment Mme Storey had shepherded Hafner along so gently that
he thought he was picking his own way.  He was cunning, but not cunning
enough.  He thought he was getting along fine; but I, who knew Mme
Storey so well, could see that by the apparently plausible answers she
was drawing out of him she was making him weave the rope that would
later hang him.

I say hang him, but of course I could see by this time that he could
not be the principal in this affair.  He had no access to the upper
part of the house; and he had nothing to gain directly by the death of
Mrs. Brager.  He was a tool in the hands of one of the three interested
persons.  I glanced at that precious trio where they sat in a row on
the couch near the door: La France, Oneto, Chew.  Each face showed the
same wary mask, each was awaiting Hafner's answers with the same secret
tenseness.  Were they all in it?  I wondered.

Mme Storey now changed her tactics.  With an unexpectedness that caused
the witness visibly to jump she said: "Hafner, for what reason did you
follow my car back to New York night before last?"

He made his eyes as big as possible with astonishment.  "I never
followed you, lady," he said in an aggrieved voice.  "I never seen you
before I come into this room."

"I saw you."  (This was not so, of course.)

"Maybe you did, but I wasn't follerin' you....  What kind of a car was
I in?"

My mistress bit her lips to control a smile.  Brute though the man was,
his readiness of wit pleased her.  "Never mind that," she said.  "You
followed me and my secretary to the Restaurant Lafitte on Park Avenue.
You then went to a pay station near by and called me up."

"You're mistaken, lady.  If somebody called you up, it wasn't me."

"You should butter your voice before you call up folks on the 'phone,"
remarked Mme Storey dryly.  "... Who pointed me out to you and told you
to follow me?"

"Nobody, 'm, because I didn't foller you.  I ain't been to New York
since Christmas."

"Well, let's get back to the cellar," said Mme Storey.  "You say the
second time you went down you didn't see anything out of the way."

"No, 'm.  Nothin' out of the way."

"Well, that's funny," said Mme Storey carelessly, "because when I went
down I immediately noticed that the tops of all the hot-air pipes
leading out of the furnace had been dusted off."

Hafner's eyes flickered with fear; but he answered without hesitating:
"You don't say.  Must 'a' been done after I come up, for that would be
a thing I'd notice.  Everything down cellar was covered with dust."

"Yes.  Seems funny anybody would go to the trouble of dusting off all
those old pipes."

"You're right, lady."  She had him sweating now; but his answers still
came out pat.  He started to pull a handkerchief out of his back pocket
and then shoved it back again.

Mme Storey's voice rang out: "Give me that handkerchief!"

Jumping to his feet with a snarl, he clapped his hand over the spot.
But resistance was useless, of course, in that crowd.  The handkerchief
was taken from him and handed to my mistress.  It showed the
unmistakable dark brown stains of thick dust.  Mme Storey gave it a
flirt, and a little cloud of fresh dust flew out of it.

"How did it get so dusty, Hafner?" she asked softly.

His tongue failed him then.  "I--I--I--" he stammered--"I used it to
dust my room with this morning.  I hadn't nothin' else to use."

"Your room must have needed it," remarked Mme Storey, looking at the
thick brown accumulations on the handkerchief.  "Mr. Dockra," she said,
brusquely raising her voice, "I would like to have this man searched."

Hafner crouched; showed his teeth like a trapped animal; glanced
desirously toward the door.  Useless to think of escape.  Mr. Dockra
called two of his men in.

Mme Storey said carelessly: "I expect to find on him a pair of pliers,
a pair of gloves of some sort, a knife--of course, the knife won't
prove anything, because every workman carries a knife.  If you can also
find some scraps of rubber and wire, it will help prove my case."

While the man was being frisked, she turned indifferently away.  One
after another the objects she had named were thrown on the table: the
pliers; a pair of coarse cotton gloves, new, but stained on the palms
with the same brown dust; a penknife; two pieces of rubber which looked
as if they might have been cut from an old inner tube.  Only the wire
was missing.

Mme Storey glanced over these things.  "We can do without the wire,"
she said.

Everybody else in the room looked on open mouthed, like a crowd of
yokels at a side show.

"These gloves I think were worn for the first time this morning," said
Mme Storey, calling attention to their clean backs.  "What did you want
gloves for, Hafner?"

"To protect my hands," he muttered.

If you could have seen those dirty, calloused hands!  A laugh travelled
around the room.

Hafner sat down again, breathing hard; but he was not yet beaten; for
when Mme Storey said: "Has there been anything wrong with the heating
flue leading to Mrs. Brager's bedroom?" he answered readily:

"Not as I knows of."

"Because the next thing I noticed in the cellar," she went on, "was
that that flue had been disconnected and joined up again.  There was an
edge of bright tin showing at the joining of the old pipe.  It was at
the point where the horizontal flue from the heating chamber joins the
vertical flue which runs up through the walls.  There is a sort of
square tin box there, which receives the round pipe from the furnace."

My mistress's quiet, matter-of-fact voice was too much for Hafner's
nerves.  "What's all this about?" he suddenly burst out.  "What you
gettin' at, anyway?  A man's got the right to know what he's suspected
of!"

Mme Storey stepped to the door into Mrs. Brager's room.  We all held
our breath.  The key had been left in the lock; she opened the door.
"Come here and see," she said quietly to Hafner.

His face turned greenish.  Showing all his teeth, he strained away,
like an animal on a leash.  "I won't!" he cried hoarsely.  "None of
your tricks!  I asked you a plain question--can't you give me a plain
answer?"

Mr. Dockra looked at his man.  "Make him look in there," he said.

But Mme Storey held up her hand.  "It's not necessary," she said.  "He
knows what's in there."  She closed the door.

Hafner dropped into his chair again.  You could not help but pity the
wretch.

"I disconnected the pipe again," Mme Storey resumed, "and looked inside
that square box.  That had not been dusted out--a fatal oversight!  In
the bottom of it was collected the dust of thirty years which had
sifted down through the register in Mrs. Brager's room.  It was, I
suppose, a quarter of an inch thick.  And in the dust I found three
fresh marks in the shape of a triangle, three marks which correspond to
the three legs of the standard which supports this kettle.  I was
careful not to disturb these marks; they are still there."

She paused to flick the ash off her cigarette, and one could hear a
little sigh travel around the room as the pent-up breath was released.

"Hafner," asked Mme Storey, "how do you suppose those marks came there?"

"How do I know?" he said.  "I couldn't have come up here to get that
kettle."

"How did you know that kettle belonged in this room?" she asked quickly.

"I didn't know it," he retorted.  "That was just in the way of
speaking."

There was an interruption here.  The servant Maud pushed through the
crowd at the door to say that Miss Rose Schmalz was wanted on the
telephone.  Mme Storey looked inquiringly at Mrs. Marlin.

"Never heard of such a person," said the housekeeper.

The maid was instructed to say that there was nobody of that name in
the house, and she returned downstairs.  At the moment I saw nothing in
this incident but what appeared on the surface; but it was to have an
important bearing on the result, as you will see.

Mme Storey resumed: "I'll tell you how I have figured out what
happened, Hafner.  Set me right if I go wrong....  The same person who
instructed you to follow me into town two days ago told you to watch
this house this morning for the first call of the letter carrier and to
come back after he'd gone...."

"It's not so," muttered Hafner.  He kept interrupting Mme Storey
throughout with denials, but I need not set them all down.

"On your way down cellar, you opened the door into the yard--I could
see where the old film of paint on the outside had been freshly broken.
You then disconnected the flue leading to Mrs. Brager's room.  You wore
the gloves to avoid leaving finger prints on the pipes.  In working
over the pipe you disturbed the dust, therefore you were obliged to
dust all the pipes alike.  Your companion joined you, entering from the
yard, and bringing the little brass kettle and the tin box containing
the powder."

Mme Storey held up the two pieces of rubber.  One piece, a rough ring,
had obviously been cut out of the other.  "The ring was for a washer to
make the lid of the kettle fit snugly.  In this manner."  She showed
how the rubber ring had been snapped around the lid of the kettle.
"After the powder had been emptied into the kettle," she resumed, "the
lid was wired down.  Here are the marks of the wires on the kettle.
The wire itself came from one of the supports of the flues.  All this
business of making the lid tight was perfectly unnecessary, by the way;
for the gas would have puffed right up the flue even if the lid had
been off; but you and your friend were not chemists enough to know that.

"You were in momentary fear of being surprised by one of the servants
in the kitchen," she went on; "therefore you left your companion to
light the flame under the kettle and to blow it out before the bottom
of the kettle burned through.  You went up into the kitchen and stood
guard over the cellar door.  When you heard your companion pass out
into the yard by the door on the cellar stairs, you returned.  You
bolted up the door into the yard.  You connected up the heating flue
again.  Your companion had taken the kettle, and you concealed the
other evidences of your activities.  You then called up to the kitchen
that the gas was out....  The gas was out," she gravely concluded, "and
so was the spark of life in the old woman who lies in the next room."

Hafner was breaking fast now.  "It's not true!" he panted.  "I know
nothing about it!"

"Then how came you in possession of the tin cigarette box in which the
poison was mailed?" asked Mme Storey.  "You tossed it into Stanfield
River when you crossed the bridge this morning."  She held out her
hand, and Mr. Dockra passed the box back.

Hafner's nerve went completely.  A strangled cry broke from him.  He
held out his hands toward Mr. Dockra as if inviting the handcuffs.
"Take me away!" he bellowed.  "Take me away from that woman!  Lock me
up!  Send me to the chair!  I don't care what you do to me! ... Take me
away from her!  She's not a natural woman.  Nothing can be hid from
her!"

It was a horrible and grotesque sight.  The sweat was pouring down his
face in drops as big as tears; his eyes were devoid of all sense; his
brutal mouth was working like an idiot's.  I turned away my head from
that sight.  "Take me away from her!" he kept shrieking.

"One moment," said the prosecutor coldly; "you have not yet told us the
name of your companion in the cellar."

"I'll never tell you that!" cried Hafner.  "I don't care what you do to
me.  Send me to the chair!  Won't that satisfy you?"

"Oh, I guess we know how to make you tell," said Mr. Dockra grimly.

Mme Storey turned quickly.  "Don't do it," she said with a note of
compassion in her voice.  "It's his last shred of decency.  Give him
credit for it.  I know who his companion was."

"Who?"

Mme Storey pointed to the fat woman sitting on the end of the couch.
"There is the real murderer," she said quietly.

"Madame La France!" cried Mr. Dockra.

"If you like," said Mme Storey.  "She goes by several names.  She is
most commonly known as Rose Schmalz.  She betrayed herself when I
caused that name to be spoken at the door awhile ago."  She unfolded
the slip of paper that she had kept in her hand all this time.  "I had
previously been informed that Rose Schmalz and Henry Hafner were
married in South Norwalk on October 24th last."

I do not know if the woman had seen this coming.  She got to her feet.
There was a hard peasant strength in her, and she uttered no sound; her
face remained composed.  But that ghastly mottled look returned to her
skin, and her hand stole to her throat.

"That was how she secured to herself the accomplice she was in need of,
by marrying him," Mme Storey went on--there was no compassion in her
voice now.  "She herself takes marriage lightly.  According to the
reports of my agent she has been married at least three times before.
That was as far as he could go into her past in two hours' telephoning.
Her room adjoins this, you remember.  It was she who stole out of the
house, carrying the kettle under her cape; and stole back with it
later, knowing that the men had gone out."

The woman, still without having uttered a sound, suddenly swayed
forward, crashed against the bed opposite, and collapsed in a huddle on
the floor.  A heart attack.  How like man and woman, I thought--his
frantic self-pitying cries, and her collapse without a sound.  That
ended the proceedings.


XII

I must say that Walter Dockra took his humiliation at the hands of my
mistress very handsomely.  After the excitement was over he marched up
to her like a man saying:

"Madame Storey, that was the finest piece of work I ever saw in my
life.  I consider it a privilege that I was there to see the whole
thing worked out.  Allow me to congratulate you and to express my
regret that I ventured to differ from you, even for a moment."

"Oh, you give me far too much credit," said my mistress, smiling.  "In
this case, as it happened, I enjoyed an exceptional advantage through
having been introduced to the house before the tragedy occurred.  It
was what I learned then that gave me my line.  It was obvious that the
three legacy hounds hated Mrs. Marlin poisonously.  When I found the
kettle with the remains of the poison in her room, I knew it was a
plant."

"Why did they hate her?" he asked.

"Because her decency and good feeling were a perpetual reproach to
them."

"Nevertheless, it was a wonderful piece of logical reasoning," he
insisted.

My mistress smiled suddenly and merrily.  "I'm afraid I don't think as
much of logic as you do," she said.

"Why not?"

It would have been useless to try to explain.  She just smiled on.

Dockra was a young man, and I think the lesson did him permanent good.
I have never seen a trace of bumptiousness in his manner since.  He
remains our very good friend, and sometimes comes to consult my
mistress concerning the knotty points that rise in his practice.

When the Schmalz woman and Hafner came to trial, they had not a leg to
stand on.  Both pleaded guilty and threw themselves on the mercy of the
court.  But as it had come out that they had been plotting the old
woman's death for months, they did not receive much mercy.  There is a
prejudice against executing a woman; and as they could not execute the
lesser criminal and let her live, both received life sentences.

They had first planned to lead common illuminating gas into the heating
flue, but gave it up because the odour would have betrayed them.  They
next prepared to suffocate her with coal gas from the furnace.  By
tampering with the rusted smoke flue where it passed through the
heating chamber, Hafner had already worked a hole in it.  Then, if the
smoke flue had been stopped up and all the heating flues shut off in
the cellar except the one leading to Mrs. Brager's room, the old woman
would certainly have suffocated before morning, and it could have been
made to appear an accident.  However, before they had time to carry
this out, they learned of clarium gas.

As for the Hon. Shep Chew and Raymondo Oneto, they quietly disappeared,
and I have never heard of them since.  No doubt they have gone
sleuthing after other legacies.  I understand it is quite a business.

As a result of this case we also added Dr. Brill and Mrs. Marlin to our
circle of friends--or Dr. and Mrs. Brill as they now are.  Their
happiness was beautiful to see.  Under the last will signed by Mrs.
Brager Mrs. Marlin inherited practically her entire fortune, and it
seemed as if nothing could be more just and right.  But that ridiculous
and high-minded pair were one in refusing to touch the money; and this
in spite of the fact that Dr. Brill was actually evicted from his
laboratory and Mrs. Marlin had lost her job.  The money must be
disposed of according to the terms of the last will drawn up by Mrs.
Brager's orders, though not yet signed by her, they insisted.  In other
words, the aged gentlewomen were to benefit.  There was a legacy to
Mrs. Marlin in this will, but not sufficient to support her.

Well, the trustees accepted the money, but I'm happy to say that their
first act was to set aside a trust fund that will relieve Dr. Brill and
his wife of the necessity of worrying during the rest of their lives.
Perhaps they are happier than if they had the millions.  Clarium gas
has not yet been rendered harmless, and I do not know if it ever will
be; but I do know that the Brills' is one of the most delightful houses
that I am privileged to visit.  There is nothing like having escaped a
hideous danger to give one an edge for joy.




THE END




[End of _The Velvet Hand_ by Hulbert Footner]
