– English Lyrics

Lyrics & Translation

[English]

Welcome to Classic Detective Mysteries. Today, we present 'Kate Plus

10' by Edgar Wallace—a masterful tale of wit, deception, and one of

the most daring criminal minds in fiction. At the heart of this story

is Kate Wasthanger, a young woman of remarkable intelligence and charm

who leads a criminal gang responsible for a string of audacious heists

that leave Scotland Yard baffled. As the authorities close in, the

tension mounts, and the line between right and wrong begins to blur.

Prepare for a gripping pursuit filled with twists, strategy, and

intrigue that only Edgar Wallace can deliver.

Chapter 1.

EIGHTY-THREE PEARLS ON A STRING.

The Earl of Flanborough pressed a bell push by the side of his study

table and, after an interval of exactly three seconds, pressed it

again, though the footman’s lobby could not have been far short of

fifty yards from the library and the serving man was never born who

could sprint that distance in three seconds.

Yet, in such awe was his lordship held that morning by his

man-servants, his maid-servants and everything within his gates, that

Sibble, the first footman, made the distance in five.

“Why the dickens don’t you answer my bell when I ring?” snapped the

Earl and glared at his red-faced servant.

Sibble did not reply, knowing by experience that, even as silence was

insolence, speech could be nothing less than impertinence.

Lord Flanborough was slightly over middle age, thin, bald and

dyspeptic. His face was mean and insignificant and if you looked for

any resemblance to the somewhat pleasant faces of the Feltons and

Flanboroughs of past generations which stared mildly or fiercely, or

(as in the case of the first Baron Felton and Flanborough, a poet and

contemporary of Lovelace) with gentle melancholy from their massive

frames in the long hall, you looked in vain. For George Percy

Allington Felton, Earl of Flanborough, Baron Felton and Baron Sedgely

of Waybrook, was only remotely related to the illustrious line of

Feltons and had inherited the title and the heavily mortgaged estates

of his great-uncle by sheer bad luck. This was the uncharitable view

of truer Feltons who stood, however, more remotely in the line of

succession.

Lord Flanborough had been Mr.

George Felton of Felton, Heinrich and

Somes, a firm which controlled extensive mining properties in various

parts of the world, and the one bright spot in his succession to the

peerage lay in the fact that he brought some two millions sterling to

the task of freeing the estates of their encumbrances.

He was a shrewd man and an unpleasant man, but he had never been so

objectionably unpleasant until he assumed the style and title of

Flanborough and never so completely and impossibly unpleasant in the

period of his lordship as he had been that morning.

“Now, what did I want you for?” asked Lord Flanborough in vexation. “I

rang for something--if you had only answered at once instead of

dawdling about, I should--ah, yes--tell Lady Moya that I wish to see

her.”

Sibble made his escape thankfully.

Lord Flanborough pulled at his weedy moustache and looked at the

virgin sheet of paper before him. Then he took up his pen and wrote:

“Lost or Stolen: Valuable pearl chain consisting of eighty-three

graduated pearls. Any person giving information which will lead to

their recovery will receive a reward of two hundred pounds.”

He paused; scratched out “two hundred pounds” and substituted “one

hundred pounds.” This did not satisfy him and he altered the sum to

“fifty pounds.” He sat considering even this modest figure and

eventually struck out that amount and wrote, “will be suitably

rewarded.”

He heard the door click and looked up.

“Ah--Moya. I am just tinkering away at an advertisement,” he said with

a smile.

The Lady Moya Felton was twenty-two and pretty. She re-collected in

her admirable person many of the traditional family graces which had

so malignantly avoided her parent. Well-shaped and of a gracious

carriage, though no more than medium in height, the face with its

delicacy of moulding was wholly Felton.

If the stubborn chin, the firm

mouth and the china-blue eyes had come from the dead and gone

Sedgelys, the hair of bronze gold was peculiarly Feltonesque.

When she spoke, however, the carping critic might complain that her

voice lacked the rich quality upon which the family prided itself, for

the Feltons were orators in those days when a parliamentary speech

read like something out of a book. Moya’s voice was a trifle hard and

without body; it was also just a little unsympathetic. Lord

Flanborough boasted with good cause that his daughter was a “practical

little woman” and at least one man beside her father could testify to

this quality.

“Dear, don’t you think it is a little absurd--advertising?” asked the

girl.

She seated herself at the other side of the desk and, reaching out her

hand, opened a silver box and helped herself to one of her father’s

cigarettes.

“Why absurd, darling?” asked Lord Flanborough testily; “lost property

has been found before now, by means of advertising. I remember years

ago when I was in the city, there was a fellow named Goldberg--”

“Please forget all about the city for a moment,” she smiled, lighting

her cigarette, “and review all the circumstances. Firstly, I had the

pearls when I was at Lady Machinstones’ house. I danced with quiet,

respectable people--Sir Ralph Sapson, Sir George Felixburn, Lord

Fethington, Major Aitkens, and that awfully nice boy of Machinstones.

_They_ didn’t steal them. I had the pearls when I left, because I saw

them as I was fastening my fur cloak. I had them in the car because I

touched them just before we reached the house. I don’t remember taking

them off--but then I was dead tired and hardly remember going to bed.

Obviously, Martin is the thief. She is the only person who has access

to my room; she helped me undress; it is as plain as a pikestaff.

”

Lord Flanborough tapped his large teeth with his penholder, a practice

of his which annoyed his daughter beyond words, though at the moment

she deemed it expedient to overlook the fault. The loss had frightened

her, for the pearls were worth three thousand pounds and she was one

of those people whose standard of values had a currency basis.

“I have asked Scotland Yard to send their very best man,” said Lord

Flanborough importantly. “Where is Martin?”

“Locked in her room--I have told Fellows to sit outside her door,”

said the girl, and then, interestedly, “When will the detective

arrive?”

Lord Flanborough picked up an open telegraph form from the table.

“‘Sending Inspector Pretherston’--by Jove!”

He blinked across the desk at his daughter.

“Pretherston,” she repeated thoughtfully; “isn’t it strange?”

“Pretherston--hum,” said her father and looked at her again.

If he expected to see any confusion, any heightening of color, even so

much as a faltering of glance, he was relieved, for she met his gaze

steadfastly, save that there was a far-away look in her eyes and a

certain speculative narrowing of lids.

The romance was five years old, and if she cherished the memory of it,

it was the charity which she might show to a favored piece in her

china cupboard; it was something to be taken out and dusted at

intervals. Michael Pretherston was a bad match from every point of

view, though his invalid cousin was a peer of the realm and Michael

would one day be Pretherston of Pretherston. He was hideously poor, he

was casual, he had no respect for wealth, he held the most outrageous

views on the church, society and the state; he was, in fact, something

as nearly approaching an anarchist as Lord Flanborough ever expected

or feared to meet.

His wooing had been brief but tempestuous.

The girl had been

overwhelmed and had given her promise. Recovering her reason in the

morning and realizing (as she said) that love was not “everything,”

she had written him a letter of fourteen pages in which she had

categorically set forth the essential conditions to their union. These

called for the abandonment of all his principles, the re-establishment

of all his shattered beliefs and an estimate of the cost of placing

Pretherston Court in a state of repair suitable for the reception of

the Lady Moya Pretherston (_née_ Felton).

To her fourteen pages, he had returned a thirty-two page letter which

was at once an affront and a justification for anarchy. It was not a

love-letter; rather was it something between a pamphlet by Henry

George and a treatise by Jean Jacques Rousseau, interspersed with

passionate appeals to her womanhood and offensive references to her

“huckster-souled” father.

“He was always a wild sort of chap,” said Lord Flanborough, shaking

his head darkly. “I understood that he had gone abroad.”

“I suppose there are other Pretherstons,” said the girl; “still it

_is_ strange, isn’t it?”

“Do you ever feel…?” began her father awkwardly.

She smiled and laid down her cigarette on the crystal ash-tray.

“He was wholly impossible,” she agreed.

There came a gentle tap at the door and a girl entered.

She was dressed neatly in black, and her prettiness was of a different

type to that of her employer (for Lady Moya indulged in the luxury of

a secretary). It was a beautiful face with a hint of tragedy in the

down-turned lips and, it seemed, a history of wild sorrow in her big

grey eyes. Yet of sorrow she knew nothing, and such tragedy as she had

met had left her unmoved. Her abundant hair was of a rich brown; the

hand that clasped a note-book to her bosom was small and artistic.

She

was an inch taller than Lady Moya, but because she did not show the

same erectness of carriage she seemed shorter.

“Father, you asked me to let you have Miss Tenby this morning,” said

Lady Moya with a nod for the girl. “I don’t know whether you will

still want her?”

“I am _so_ sorry this dreadful thing has happened, Lord Flanborough,”

said the girl in a low voice; “it must be terrible to feel that there

is a thief in the house.”

Lord Flanborough smiled good-humoredly.

“We shall recover the pearls, I am certain,” he said; “don’t let it

worry you, Miss Tenby--I hope you are comfortable?”

“Very, Lord Flanborough,” said the girl gratefully.

“And the work is not too hard, eh?”

The girl smiled slightly.

“It is nothing--I feel awfully ashamed of myself sometimes. I have

been with you a month and have hardly earned my salt.”

“That’s all right,” replied his lordship with great condescension;

“you have already been of the greatest assistance to me and we shall

find you plenty of other work. I was glad to see you in church on

Sunday. The vicar tells me that you are a regular attendant.”

The girl inclined her head, but said nothing. For a while she waited

and then at a word of polite dismissal, she left the library.

“Deuced nice girl, that,” said his lordship approvingly.

“She works well and quickly, and she can read French beautifully--I

was very fortunate,” said Moya carelessly. “What were we talking about

when she came in? Oh, yes--Michael Pretherston. I wonder now--”

The door opened and a footman announced,

“Inspector Pretherston, m’lord.”

“Inspector Michael Pretherston, you silly ass,” corrected the annoyed

young man in the doorway.

It was Michael, then!

A little older, a little better-looking, a little more decisive--but

Michael, as impetuous and irresponsible as ever.

“He spoilt my entrance, Moya,” he laughed, as he came with rapid

strides toward the girl; “how are you after all these years--as pretty

as ever, confound you. Ah, Lord Flanborough, you’re wearing well--I

read your speech in the House of Lords on the Shipping Bill--a fine

speech; did you make it up yourself?”

Moya laughed softly and saved what might have been a most embarrassing

situation--for his lordship was framing a dignified protest against

the suggestion that he had shared the honours of authorship.

“You are not changed, Michael,” she said, looking at him with

undisguised, but none the less, detached admiration; “but what on

earth are you doing in the police force?”

“Extraordinary,” murmured Lord Flanborough, and added humorously, “and

an anarchist, too.”

“It is a long story,” said Michael. “I really received my promotion in

the Special Branch--the Foreign Office Branch--and was transferred to

the C.I.D. after we caught the Callam crowd, the Continental

confidence tricksters. It is disgraceful that I should be an

inspector, isn’t it? But merit tells!” He chuckled again, then of a

sudden grew serious. “I’m forgetting I’ve a job to do--what’s the

trouble?”

Lord Flanborough explained the object of his urgent call, and a look

of disappointment appeared upon Michael Pretherston’s face.

“A miserable little larceny,” he said reproachfully. “I thought at

least Moya had been kidnapped. Now, tell me all that happened on the

night you lost the pearls.”

Step by step the girl related her movements and the periods at which

she had evidence that the pearls were still with her.

“And then you reached your bedroom,” said Michael, “and what happened

there? First of all, you took your fur wrap off.”

“Yes,” nodded the girl.

“Were you in a cheerful frame of mind or were you rather cross?”

“Does that matter?” she asked in surprise.

“Everything matters to the patient and systematic officer of the law.

Temperamental clues are as interesting and material as any other.”

“Well, if the truth were told,” she confessed, “I was rather cross and

very tired.”

“Did you take your cloak off, or did your woman?”

“I took it off myself,” she said after a pause, “and hung it up.”

He asked her a few more questions.

“Now, we will see the sorrowful Martin,” he said, “and let me tell you

this, Moya, that if this girl is innocent she has grounds for action

against you for false imprisonment.”

“What do you mean?” demanded Lord Flanborough with asperity. “I have a

perfect right to detain anybody I think is guilty of theft.”

“You have no more right to lock a woman in a room,” said the other

calmly, “than I have to stand you on your head. But that is beside the

point. Lead me to the prisoner.”

The prisoner was very pale and very tearful; a middle-aged woman who

felt her position acutely and between sobs and wails made an

incoherent protest of her innocence.

“I suppose you have searched everywhere?” asked Michael, turning to

the girl.

“Everywhere,” she replied emphatically. “I have had every box and

every corner of the room examined.”

“Suppose the string of the pearls broke, would they all fall off?”

“No, they would still remain on, because each pearl was secured.

Father gave them to me as a birthday present and he was very

particular on that point.”

“I would like to bet,” said Michael suddenly, “that those pearls are

not out of this room. Show me your wardrobe.”

The girl’s wardrobe occupied the whole of one wall of her

dressing-room, and the tearful Martin opened the rosewood doors for

his inspection.

“This is your fur cloak, I presume? Did you examine this after the

loss?”

“Examine the cloak,” said Lady Moya in surprise, “of course not. What

has the cloak to do with the loss? There are no pockets in it.”

“But if I know anything about the fur cloaks that are fashionable this

season,” said Michael, wisely, “I should say that there is a

possibility that this luxurious garment had a great deal to do with

the loss. In fact, my dear Moya,” he said, “your mysterious loss has

been duplicated and triplicated this year. In two cases the police

were called in, and in the other case the owner had the intelligence

to find her lost trinket without assistance.”

He lifted the cloak down very carefully and opened it to show the silk

lining and there, caught in one of the long flat hooks, dangled the

pearls. The girl uttered an exclamation of delight and slipped them

from its fastening.

“Wonderful, isn’t it?” said Michael dryly. “That is what has happened,

not three times but half-a-dozen times since these flat hooks have

been introduced. You take the cloak off in a bad temper, the hook

catches the chain, breaks it, you bundle the cloak in your wardrobe

and there you have the beginning of a great jewel mystery.”

“I can’t tell you how delighted I am,” said the girl. “Michael, you’re

wonderful!”

Michael did not reply. He turned to the frightened waiting-woman with

a kindly smile.

“I am so sorry you have been worried about this, Mrs. Martin,” he

said, “but when people lose very valuable property they are also

inclined to lose their very valuable heads. I am sure Lady Moya is

sorry and will make you due compensation for any inconvenience you

have been put to.”

The girl stared at him resentfully.

“Of course, I am awfully sorry, Martin,” she said, coldly.

“Oh, my lady,” said the woman eagerly, “I am only too pleased that you

have recovered your chain. The worry of it has made me quite ill.”

“You can have a week’s holiday,” said Lord Flanborough, magnificently.

“I will get you a free railway ticket to Seahampton,” he added.

“So you see, Mrs. Martin,” said Michael with that bland air of his

which scarcely veiled the sarcasm so irritating to his lordship, “your

generous employers will leave no stone unturned to minister to your

comfort, regardless of expense. And when you are at Seahampton, Mrs.

Martin, (I trust you will not lose the return half of your free

ticket) you will be allowed to walk up and down the promenade on equal

terms with the aristocracy and breathe the ozone which, ordinarily, is

created for your betters. You may sit on the free seats and watch the

pageant of life step past you and, reflecting upon the generosity of

your betters, you may appreciate the good fortune which brought you

into hourly contact with the aristocracy of England. And on Sundays,

Mrs. Martin, you may go to church where quite a number of the seats

are also free and may even share a hymn-book with a Gracious Person

who is so vastly above you in social standing that he will never

recognize you again, and there, I trust, you will pray with a new

fervence that the deliberations of the House of Lords may receive

divine inspiration.”

“Oh, indeed I will, sir,” said Mrs. Martin almost stunned by his

eloquence.

He left the woman, overwhelmed, and returned with a very ruffled Lord

Flanborough and an indignant Moya to the library.

“What utter nonsense you talk, Michael,” said the girl angrily. “I

don’t think it was kind of you to attempt to set my servants against

me.

“Beastly bad taste,” said Lord Flanborough, “and really, Pretherston,

you came here as an officer of the law and not as an old acquaintance

and I think that you exceed your duties, if you don’t mind my saying

so.”

“Old acquaintances,” said Michael, picking up his hat and his coat

from a chair where he had put them before the interview, “are

especially made to be forgotten, a peculiarity of which one is

reminded in that Bacchanalian anthem which is sung at all public

dinners where sobriety is bad form. I was merely endeavouring to

inculcate into the mind of your slave a few moral principles,

beneficial to you, and to society.”

“Don’t tell me that,” growled Lord Flanborough, “as though I didn’t

recognize your sarcasm.”

“Children and the lower orders never recognize sarcasm,” said Michael

with a broad smile.

He held out his hand and somewhat reluctantly his lordship extended

his own flabby paw.

“Before I go,” he said, “I suppose I had better take a full account of

this case. You haven’t a secretary or anybody to whom you can dictate

the circumstances? You see I have to make a report to my cold-blooded

superiors.”

Moya had reached the stage where whatever remains there was in her

friendship with Michael Pretherston had not only died but had been

cremated in the fires of her smothered anger and she was as anxious to

see the end of this interview as was her father.

“Perhaps you will ring for Miss Tenby,” she said after a pause.

Her father pressed the bell and the waiting Sibble answered it.

“Send Miss Tenby,” said his lordship.

“And I do hope, Michael,” said the girl severely, “that when Miss

Tenby is here you will not make such extravagant comments as you did

before Martin.”

“Miss Tenby,” interposed Lord Flanborough, “will not welcome such

talk.

She is a young girl with--er--”

“I know, I know,” said Michael solemnly, “she is genteel. She does

forty words a minute on the typewriter and goes to church, filling in

her odd moments with needlework and accompanying you on the piano.”

“It must be a wonderful thing to be a detective,” said Moya,

sarcastically; “as a matter of fact Miss Tenby is one of the fastest

typists in the world.”

Michael swung round on her with an odd look on his face.

“Fastest typists in the world,” he repeated with all the humor gone

out of his tone; “does she sing?”

It was the girl’s turn to be astonished.

“Yes, she does, and very beautifully.”

“Does she prefer Italian opera?” he asked.

At this, the girl laughed aloud.

“Somebody has been telling you all about her and you are trying to be

mysterious,” she accused.

Further conversation was cut short by the arrival of the girl, who

walked in, closed the door and came straight to the desk. She stopped

dead at sight of Michael. Moya saw the meeting, saw the girl stiffen

and her sorrowful eyes fixed upon the detective’s face.

“Why, Kate!” said Michael Pretherston softly. “Well, well, well! and

to think that we meet again under such noble auspices.”

Miss Tenby said nothing.

“And what is the great game?” asked Michael, banteringly. “What

beautiful impulse brought you to this sheltered home and how is the

Colonel and friend Gregori and all those dear boys? By-the-way, the

Colonel must be out by now, Kate. What did he get, three years?”

Still Miss Tenby made no reply.

“What is the meaning of this?” demanded Lord Flanborough, feeling that

the moment had arrived to assert himself.

“Do you know this lady?”

“Do I _know_ her,” said Michael, ecstatically; “why, I am one of her

greatest admirers, aren’t I, Kate?”

The girl’s sad face softened to a smile which showed the regular lines

of her white teeth. She spoke and her voice was gentle and appealing.

“It is perfectly true, Lord Flanborough,” she said quietly, “Mr.

Pretherston knows me. He also knows that my uncle, Colonel Westhanger,

has been mixed up in a very serious scandal which brought him within

the reach of the law. It is perfectly true that when I was a little

girl I was known as Kate. It is just as true that I am trying now to

live down my association with law-breakers and am trying to

rehabilitate myself in the world.”

“H’m,” murmured Lord Flanborough, a little taken back, “very

creditable.”

Moya turned to Michael indignantly.

“I suppose that you think you are rendering a great service to the

world in trying to drag this poor girl down to the gutter, in exposing

her to her employers and in obtaining her dismissal from honest

employment.”

“I do,” said Michael shamelessly.

“I think it is a barbarous thing to do!” said Moya angrily.

She had not yet decided in her own mind as to what steps she would

take in face of this revelation. In view of her own character, it is

possible that “Miss Tenby” would have a very short shift at her hands.

But for the moment the opportunity for the display of benevolence and

Christian charity was not to be passed over. She saw the girl’s

appealing eyes and clasped hands and, for a moment, she felt a sincere

thrill of pity for a brave sister struggling to escape the octopus

tentacles of law and crime; for a moment she felt a genuinely

unselfish desire to help another.

If she expected Inspector the Hon.

Michael Pretherston--for such was

his incongruous title--to wilt under her reproaches, she was

disappointed. Michael had not taken his eyes from the secretary, nor

had the twinkle in those eyes abated. He nodded to “Miss Tenby.”

“Kate,” he said, “you are really a wonder, and to think that you have

never yet come into the clutches of the law until now.”

“Until now,” said the girl quickly, raising her voice.

He nodded.

“The Prevention of Crimes Act,” murmured Michael. “I _can_ take

you,”--he emphasized the “can”--“on a charge of obtaining employment

with forged letters of recommendation, also with being a Suspected

Person.”

The girl dropped her attitude of humility, threw back her head and

laughed, showing her even white teeth.

“Oh, you Mike!” she railed him. “Oh, you busy fellow!”

Her amusement did not last long for instantly her face was set again

and the grey eyes blazed with rage.

“One of these days you will be too clever,” she said bitterly. “I have

seen better men than you and cleverer men than you go out, Michael

Pretherston. You and your Prevention of Crimes Act! You can’t put that

bluff over me. The Act does not come into operation until you have a

conviction against my name, and that you will never get, you brute!”

“Kate, Kate!” murmured Michael. “There’s a lady present.”

She nodded.

“I guess I’ll get my kit together,” she said; “it hasn’t been exactly

a holiday trip.”

“My sympathies are entirely with you,” said Michael; “it must have

been awfully dull after the gay orgies of Crime Street.”

“There is one thing I have always wanted to know,” said the girl,

pinching her lip thoughtfully.

She walked to the desk, and Lord Flanborough was too much taken back

to arrest her progress. Without a word she opened the silver box on

the table and took out a cigarette.

“I have always wanted to know what kind of dope this dear old

gentleman smoked.”

She looked at the cigarette critically and with an exclamation of

disgust threw it back on the desk.

“Gold Flavours!” she said scornfully; “can you beat it, Mike? And he

has a hundred thousand a year!”

“You must make allowances for the decadence of the governing classes,”

said the soothing Michael.

He turned and nodded farewell to the girl and with Miss Tenby’s arm in

his he passed out of the room, and Lord Flanborough and his daughter

looked at one another in speechless amazement.

Chapter 2.

MIKE SAID NOTHING--THERE WAS NOTHING TO SAY.

“You might do worse than lunch with me,” said Michael Pretherston.

He stood outside Felton House with the girl whose belongings in one

small Gladstone bag had been deposited on the curb, pending the

arrival of a taxi-cab.

“Why should I lunch with you?” she asked insolently. “I thought you

were going to pinch me.”

“Your vulgarity is appalling!” said Michael, shaking his head in

reproof. “I cannot pinch you in the vulgar sense. I have no desire to

perform that operation in the corporeal sense. You had better

compromise and lunch with me.”

The girl hesitated.

“Think of my reputation,” she said.

“Thoughts of your reputation keep me awake at night,” answered Michael

lightly and called a taxi.

They found a little restaurant in Soho and in an underground cellar

where the bad ventilation was compensated for by a blaze of light,

they ate their simple meal.

“Now, Kate, I want to ask you what your little game is,” said Michael;

“and I need the information because I know it isn’t a little game.”

“I was scared sick over those pearls,” said the girl, ignoring the

question.

“It would have been horrible bad luck to have been taken for

a job I had nothing to do with and such a paltry job, too!”

“You owe me something,” said Michael.

“I owe you more than I can ever repay you,” said the girl

significantly.

“I suppose one of these days,” suggested the detective after an

interval of thought, “you will instruct some of your hired pals,

Gregori or the Colonel or little Stockmar, to inflict on me a painful

injury.”

“You!” said the girl scornfully. “If there were not men like you in

the police we should have been destroyed years ago! You are a sort of

an insurance scheme and it pays us to keep you alive and well. Why,

Crime Street would go into mourning the day you were buried.”

“You are not trying to be rude to me, are you?” he asked.

She looked at him slyly from under her long lashes and her eyes were

dancing with fun.

“Why do you think I went to Lord Flanborough?” she asked.

He shook his head.

“I’m blessed if I know,” he confessed. “Of course, I knew it was you

the moment I heard of the rapid typewriting and the Italian songs. Now

listen: I am not trying to speak to you for your good.…”

“Don’t!” she said laconically.

“But I have often wondered why a well-educated girl and a nice girl,

as far as I know to the contrary, should prefer the life of a crook

to.…”

“To earning £2 or £3 a week and working all day to earn it,” she

finished for him; “to living my life in one little room on a top floor

in Bloomsbury, waiting my turn every morning for my bath. To being

made love to by the assistant manager and sacrificing my immortal soul

for a half-a-crown dinner and a bottle of red wine! It is funny, isn’t

it! I have had the experience for professional purposes and I don’t

like it a bit, Mike.”

She looked at him straight in the eyes.

She had dropped her air of

flippancy, her slang; the voice that spoke was not to be distinguished

from that of any other gentlewoman.

“You see, a woman is differently circumstanced to a man. She wants

nice things and her attitude toward life, and indeed the whole of her

conduct, depends entirely upon the degree of niceness she requires.

Men don’t do things for women for nothing. They lend to their men

friends all the money in the world and are grateful if they get it

back. They expect nothing more than their money and are surprised when

they get it. But if I were a typist in a city office and I borrowed

£2 from the assistant manager or from the chief bookkeeper or a fiver

from one of the partners, why, Mike, I should be booked for supper on

Wednesday. Men want more from women than a _quid pro quo_; they want

two _quid pro quo_. In return for the £2 I borrowed, I should pay

interest well outside the range of the multiplication table. Suppose a

man lent you £2 and asked you in exchange, not only to repay the

money, but to renounce all your dearest principles for the sake of the

loan; if he asked you to betray your friends, where you had been loyal

to them, and lie, where you had been truthful; break your word where

you had been faithful, be a thief where you had been honest? Would you

surrender every reticence, every honourable instinct, every precious

faith?”

Mike said nothing. For there was nothing to say. He paid the bill and

escorted the girl to a cab.

“I am not going to be sorry for you,” he said; “you are having The

Life. One of these days I shall come along and take you; but I shall

hate it. Hop in, Kate!”

Kate literally hopped into the waiting taxi, waved her hand in

farewell and was gone.

Michael Pretherston stood for fully five minutes on the edge of the

pavement, meditating upon what the girl had said.

She had struck a

responsive note in his soul, for she spoke no more than was the truth,

as he knew.

He went, a little sadly, back to headquarters, remembering en route

that he had forgotten to write the report. Should he go back to the

Yard and compose it from memory or should he return to the

unsympathetic atmosphere of Felton House? He decided upon the latter

and surprised Lord Flanborough in the act of taking an afternoon nap.

Michael was full of apologies and was so unusually respectful that his

lordship forgot to be annoyed.

“Moya’s out,” he explained.

“I will endeavour to bear up,” replied Michael, seating himself at his

lordship’s desk and preparing to take a note of the circumstances

which had led to his lordship’s call for assistance. He finished the

report, blotted and folded it and placed the document in his pocket.

“I only want to ask you one or two questions and they concern Kate--or

Miss Tenby, as you call her. I’m afraid I gave you a shock this

morning.”

“It was certainly a surprise,” admitted Lord Flanborough cautiously;

“who is this Kate? We have made a very careful search of the house but

nothing is missing so far as we can tell.”

Michael laughed.

“You needn’t worry about that. Kate is not a pilferer. Her real name

is Katharine Westhanger; they call her Kate and she is the Colonel’s

niece. Her age is eighteen or nineteen, and from a child she has been

brought up to regard the world as her oyster. Her mother was a

wholesome parson’s daughter, her father was a rascal who was kicked

out of the army in ’89 for an offence against the Law of Property. Her

maternal grandfather was General Sir Shaun Masserfield, the greatest

strategist the British army has ever held--Kate inherits his genius

but has not learnt his code.

Her father died when she was a child and

her uncle, who is a greater scoundrel than her father was--the family

on the Westhanger side has a criminal history which goes back at

intervals for two hundred years--completed her education. Kate has

been brought up to be a thief, but a big thief. She is, I believe, the

brains of the biggest criminal organisation in the world. Every member

of the gang has been taken, but no evidence has ever been offered

against Kate. She plans the big swindles and each one is bigger than

the last--but never once have we traced the offence to her door.”

“Why is it that the police--?” began Lord Flanborough.

“The police, my dear Flanborough,” said Michael wearily, “are human

beings who have to deal with human beings. They are not angels, nor

thought readers, nor are they clairvoyant. The laws of this country

are so framed that the criminal has six chances to every one possessed

by his enemy. We know Kate was concerned in that big bank smashing

exploit which took two million crowns from the treasury of the Bank of

Holland. It was Kate who organised the raid upon the London jewellers

in June of last year. Kate is the mother of Crime Street. You don’t

know that thoroughfare, but one of these days I’ll introduce you to

it, if you are curious--but I warn you that if you expect to steep

your soul in sordidness, you will be disappointed--it is the most

respectable street in London. Her ingenuity is remarkable, her

patience beyond praise, and that is partly why I have come back: I

want to know why she was here and what she was doing?”

“As I say…” began Lord Flanborough again.

“For Heaven’s sake,” interrupted Michael, “don’t tell me that you

haven’t missed things! I tell you Kate would not touch a pin in your

house. In the first place she is a well-off woman.

Why in Heaven’s

name should she bother her head about your belongings? I don’t

suppose, if she had the full run of your house, she could find £100

worth of realisable property! No, that is not why Kate came to you.

How long has she been here?”

“Nearly a month,” said Lord Flanborough, a little annoyed that the

result of his own private investigations had so utterly failed to

impress a representative of Scotland Yard.

“What work has she been doing?”

“Ordinary secretarial work for Moya. She came with excellent letters

of recommendation.”

“You can forget those,” interrupted Michael testily; “the gentleman

who wrote them lives at No. 9, Crime Street and his name is Millet.”

“She was a wonderful typist,” began his lordship, who was seeking

about in his own mind for some excuse which would explain why he had

been deceived.

“That I also know. She is, as you say, one of the fastest typists in

the world. In fact, no aspect of her education has been neglected. She

speaks five languages and read French fluently when she was nine. What

work has she done for you?”

Lord Flanborough considered for a while.

“She has copied a few letters and reports.”

“What kind of reports?”

“Reports from our South African companies. You see, Michael, I still

retain the direction of most of my old interests.”

“Were they very important--the reports, I mean?”

“Yes and no,” replied Lord Flanborough slowly; “they were merely

records of output, cost of production and projected shipments.”

“On what other work was she employed?”

“Let me think,” said Lord Flanborough.

“I _am_ letting you!” replied Michael tartly. “You used to have a very

private code-book if I remember rightly.”

“That is true,” said Lord Flanborough, “but of course, she did not see

that.”

“Where did you keep it?”

“In my desk,” said Lord Flanborough.

“Is it possible that she could have seen it?”

“It is possible, but wholly impossible that she could have copied it.”

“For how long a time together was she left alone?”

“Five minutes was the longest period she was left in the library

alone,” said his lordship after consideration.

Michael fingered his chin.

“Did you ever come into the library and find her in a semi-fainting

condition?” he asked.

Lord Flanborough looked at him with open-mouthed amazement.

“Did she tell you?”

Michael shook his head.

“No, she has told me nothing. I gather from your question that there

was such an occurrence?”

“It is remarkable that you should ask the question,” said his

lordship. “I _did_ come in one morning to find the poor girl--er, the

wretched girl, in a semi-fainting condition.”

“And you went out and got her a glass of water and sent for your

housekeeper, I suppose,” said Michael, his lip curling.

“Yes, I did,” admitted his lordship.

“Which means, in plain language,” smiled Michael, “that you surprised

her in the act of examining some of your private documents and that

whilst you were getting the water and calling assistance, she was

replacing whatever she was looking at where she had found it. Did she

on any other occasion draw your attention, on your entering the room,

to some peculiar circumstance, such as one of the pictures not hanging

straight or a broken vase?”

Again Lord Flanborough looked astounded.

“Yes, once she pointed to the china cupboard and asked me who cracked

the glass. As a matter of fact, the glass was not cracked at all,” he

explained.

“But you went over and examined it?”

“Naturally,” said his lordship.

“That was exactly the same trick,” said Michael; “whilst you were

making your inspection she was able to replace any documents she had

been examining and close the drawer--if they were in a drawer.

Now, I

wonder what her game is?”

“You don’t suggest,” began his lordship in alarm, “that she is

scheming to rob me?”

“I hope not,” said Michael gravely; “from the idea of your being

robbed, the imagination reels.”

“I wish you wouldn’t be so sarcastic. I am afraid you have never quite

forgiven Moya--”

“I bless Moya every time I think of her,” said Michael quickly; “she

rendered me the greatest service that one human being can render to

another, when she refused me. I hope to do better than Moya. As Moya’s

father, you utter a pained protest. I know, I know,” said Michael, and

he waved his hand cheerfully from the door.

Chapter 3.

OTHER EYES WATCHED MICHAEL.

Michael Pretherston was back at the Yard in time to catch his chief

before he departed for the day.

Commissioner T.B. Smith, to whose recommendation this young scion of

the aristocracy owed his promotion, was not helpful.

“If we took Kate on any charge it would not prevent the swindle going

forward,” he said; “you may be sure she has mobilized all her

resources and her little army is ready to the last button of the last

gaiter. There is supposed to be a fellow watching her all the time,

but he seems to have missed her rather cleverly. Anyway, I don’t think

there is much to be gained from shadowing her, because she knows she

is under observation and acts accordingly. But I have a word of advice

to you, my young Hibernian friend, and that is to keep a sharp eye on

your own precious life. Kate is afraid of you.”

“She didn’t give me that impression this afternoon,” said Michael

sadly.

“Kate is a bluff; you mustn’t take any notice of what she says. You

accept a friend’s advice and go very carefully to work. I am not so

sure that you didn’t behave indiscreetly this afternoon.”

“That is impossible!” said Michael stoutly, and T.B. Smith laughed.

“The thing to have done was not to have recognized her and to have

kept her under observation, pursuing your enquiries in the usual way.”

“If you can suggest any method by which I could have prevented her

from recognizing me and recognizing the fact that I recognized her I

will admit that I was wrong,” and T.B. Smith agreed.

“You may be right,” he said; “anyway, look after yourself.”

Michael promptly forgot his chief’s advice and spent his evening

making a solitary reconnaissance of Crime Street. Crime Street does

not appear upon any plan of London, but if you will look at any large

survey of the Hampstead district, you will find in a somewhat

irregular tangle of buildings within a stone’s throw of the Heath, a

curious oval which is conspicuous on the plan, not only by its own

symmetry but by the graceful lines of the thoroughfares which radiate

therefrom.

This is Amberscombe Gardens. The centre of the oval is occupied by

four houses, Numbers Two, Four, Six and Eight; the northern side of

the gardens by five houses, Numbers One, Three, Five, Seven and Nine.

Into Amberscombe Gardens from the north run three roads, the first of

which (opening into the oval between Numbers One and Three) being

called The Approach; the second, dividing Numbers Five and Seven,

called Bethburn Avenue; the third between Numbers Seven and Nine,

Coleburn Avenue. On the south side of the oval the arrangement of the

streets is very similar. Originally, the central space had been

occupied by nine houses but these had been pulled down by the

proprietors of the remaining four and a private garden, common to all

four houses, had been laid out by the owners of these properties.

So

that on the southern side of the central oval, there were no

buildings, but a wall bisected at regular intervals by plain garden

doors which form such a common feature of London suburban residences.

In reality, the roadway to the north and south of the plot is all

Amberscombe Gardens, but the oval which curves round to the north was,

at the period this story covers, known to the police as “Crime

Street,” and in this description the nine houses on both sides of the

northern curve were involved.

Number One, the most modest of all the buildings, was in the

occupation of Dr. Philip Garon, an American practitioner who made

frequent visits across the Atlantic and invariably returned to deposit

a very handsome surplus in the local branch of the London and Western

Counties Bank. Dr. Garon was successful as a result of the sublime

assurance of all ocean-going passengers, that the notice,

conspicuously displayed in the smoking-room warning passengers not to

play cards with strangers, did not apply to them.

Number Three, a pretty house smothered in clematis in the proper

season of the year, with its white window sashes and its sober red

front, was the town house of Mr. Cunningham, who, apparently, had no

initial and no Christian name. He was known to his intimate friends as

Mush, the derivation of which is a little obscure. Mr. Cunningham

described himself as independent, which meant no more than that he was

independent of the ordinary necessities of making an honest living. In

a sense, he was by far the best known of the Colony, for Mush had

served two terms of penal servitude, one in an English and one in a

French prison.

He had the reputation of being able to cut holes in

steel safes with a greater rapidity than any other gentleman in his

profession, and it is said, probably with truth, that he had improved

upon the oxy-hydrogen jet and had introduced a new element which

shortened the work by half.

The tenant of Number Five was a gentleman, benign of countenance and

very good to the poor. He was called the Bishop by friends and foes

alike. His real name was Brown and he had been concerned in more bank

swindles than any of the other colonists, though he had only one

conviction to his discredit and that a comparative flea-bite of nine

months’ hard labour.

The owner of Number Seven was described as “Mr. Colling Jacques, Civil

Engineer,” in the local directories. The official police “Who’s Who”

noted that he was a wonderful pistol shot, and recorded, in

parenthesis, that on the occasion of his arrest in connection with the

smashing of the Bank of Holland, no weapon was found upon him. It was

also added that there was no conviction against him in England, though

he, too, had seen the inside of a French prison.

Number Nine was pointed out to sightseers, with a certain amount of

local pride by the guide, as the home of Millet the forger, who had

received on one occasion a fifteen years’ sentence, but had been

released after serving two years, an act of grace on the part of the

authorities which earned for him a certain unpopularity with his peers

and was held to be not unconnected with the subsequent arrest of a few

of his former associates, the suggestion being that Mr. Millet had

turned King’s evidence.

At Number Two, on the “oval” side of the street, lived H. Mulberry, a

respectable and methodical man, who went to his little office in

Chancery Lane every morning of his life by the 9:15 and returned to

his home at exactly 5:30 P.M.

year in and year out. Mulberry was a

begging letter writer on a magnificent scale. He had a wonderful

literary style which seldom failed to extract the necessary emolument

which he sought.

Number Four, a much larger house, indeed the second largest in Crime

Street, was the habitat of “Señor Gregori, a teacher of languages.”

Unfortunately for him, he had in the course of his thrilling career

taught other things than the liquid tongue of Spain. For example, he

had taught the Bank of Chili that their “unforgeable” notes which, it

was boasted, defied photographic reproduction could be turned out by

the tens of thousands and that the six tints in which a gold bond was

printed offered no insuperable difficulty to a clever craftsman with

an artist’s eye and a sense of colour.

In Number Eight lived the two brothers Thomas and Francis Stockmar of

Austrian extraction, who were described as political refugees but were

undoubtedly criminals of a peculiarly dangerous type. The Stockmars

were dour, white-faced men with short bristling hair and were

certainly the least presentable of all the colonists.

Number Six has been left to the last, for this was the most important

house in Crime Street. It was a story higher than any other, built

squarely, with no attempt at beauty. It is said that the third floor

consisted of one room and that from its many windows it was possible

to command, not only all the approaches to the northern side of the

gardens, but those to the south; it has even been suggested that it

was so planned, that, in case of necessity, the house could be

converted into a fortress, from the third floor of which a last

desperate stand might be made. This then was Number Six, the abiding

place of Colonel Westhanger and his brilliant niece.

Michael Pretherston was no stranger to Crime Street.

He had made many

visits to this locality, and it had been at his initiative that the

roadway of Amberscombe Gardens had been dug up one fine morning by a

gang of road-breakers and there had been revealed that remarkable

subterranean passage which connected the one side of the street with

the other. The passageway led from the summer house in the gardens of

the oval to a stable in Number Three.

The Colonists, however, swore stoutly that they knew nothing whatever

of the existence of this passage and that it must have existed years

before they came to the street. The civil engineer, Colling Jacques,

pointed out to the district surveyor that the very character of the

passage suggested that this was some storm water drain which had been

laid down and forgotten by the contractor. Or else it had been laid

down in error and the contractor had been either too lazy or too

rushed to break it up. There were many other explanations, none of

which was wholly acceptable.

Michael, swinging his stick, passed that portion of the road in which

the passage had run and wondered with a reminiscent smile where the

new tunnel was, for that there was a new one, he did not doubt.

Night was falling, and Dr. Philip Garon’s dining-room windows blazed

with light. Mr. Mulberry’s, on the right, was more modestly

illuminated. Mr. Cunningham’s house was in darkness, as also was “The

Bishop’s.” There were lights in the bedroom at Number Seven but Number

Six was black as also was Number Eight.

He saw Millet standing at his garden gate, smoking, and crossed the

road toward him, realizing that the keen-eyed gentleman had already

observed his presence. Millet, a florid man with a genial, almost

fulsome, manner met him with a friendly nod.

“Good evening, Mr. Pretherston,” he said. “I hope you are not looking

for trouble.

”

Michael leant on the top bar of the gate and shook his head.

“I shouldn’t come here for trouble,” he said; “this is the most

law-abiding spot in London.”

Mr. Millet sighed and murmured something about misfortunes which

overtake mankind and added a pious expression of his desire to forget

the past and to end his days in that security and peace which sin

denies its votaries.

“Very pretty,” said Michael blandly, “and how are all our good

neighbours? I was thinking of taking a house here myself. By-the-way,”

he added innocently, “I suppose you don’t know any that are to be

let?”

Mr. Millet shook his head.

“I am all alone here,” he said, “if you were really serious about

wishing to live in this neighbourhood, I should be honoured to act as

your host, Mr. Pretherston.”

“And how is Kate?” demanded Michael, ignoring the invitation.

“Kate?” asked the puzzled Mr. Millet; “oh, you mean, Miss Westhanger.

I haven’t seen her for several days--I think it was last Tuesday

afternoon I saw her last.”

“Yes, at 2:30 in the afternoon,” mocked Michael, “she was wearing a

blue dress with white spots and a green hat with an ostrich feather.

You remember her distinctly because she dropped her bag and you

crossed to pick it up. You needn’t start the alibi factory working,

Millet; I have nothing against Kate for the moment.”

Mr. Millet laughed softly.

“You will have your joke,” he said.

“I will,” said Michael with grim emphasis, “but it is going to be a

long time developing. I haven’t seen the Stockmars lately either.”

“I never see them at all,” Mr. Millet hastened to state. “I have very

little in common with foreigners. Whatever there is against me, Mr.

Pretherston, I am a patriot through and through. I am proud to be

English and I don’t take kindly to foreign gentlemen and never will.

“Your patriotism does you credit, Millet,” said the detective dryly as

he prepared to move on. “I wish you would be patriotic enough to give

me a tip as to what game is on,” he lowered his voice. “You know all

that is happening here and you might do yourself a little bit of

good.”

“If I knew anything,” said the other earnestly, “I would tell you in a

moment, Mr. Pretherston, but here I am, out of the world, so to speak.

Nobody ever consults me and I am glad they don’t. I want to be left

alone to forget the past--”

“Cut all that Little Eva stuff out, Uncle Tom,” said Michael coarsely.

Other eyes had watched Michael, from behind blinds, through

unsuspected peep-holes, a dozen pairs of eyes had followed him as he

took his slow promenade along Crime Street.

Colonel Westhanger, a tall, grey man, stood in that big room on the

third floor of his house, his hands folded behind him, his chin upon

his breast, following every movement of the detective. Gregori,

handsome and lithe, stood at his elbow, shading the glow of his

cigarette in the palm of his hand.

“Colonel _mio_,” he said softly, “I would give much for an opportunity

of meeting that gentleman in a nice dark passage, in one of those old

Harrison Ainsworth houses which were providentially built over a

river.”

“You will have your wish one of these days,” said the Colonel gruffly;

“I don’t like that fellow. He is not one of the ordinary run of

policemen. They are bad enough, but this fellow knows too much.”

He nibbled his white moustache, shook his head and turned away from

the window as Michael took his farewell of the forger.

“Watch him on the other side,” he said, “and send one of the boys out

to follow him.”

He descended the thickly carpeted stairs to the first floor, which was

the living suite.

The drawing-room in which he turned was a

beautifully furnished apartment, and the girl who had been sitting at

the piano, her nimble hands running over the keys, looked up as he

entered.

Chapter 4.

“THE IDEAL CRIMINAL IS A STRATEGIST”.

“Where did he go?” she asked.

“He went to Millet,” said the Colonel, throwing himself down to a

divan and biting off the end of a fresh cigar. “I wonder what the

dickens he wants?” he mused.

Kate Westhanger made a little grimace.

“You can never tell whether a policeman finds his duty a pleasure or

his pleasure a duty,” she said. “I suppose he is just renewing

acquaintance with Crime Street.”

“Don’t use that phrase,” snapped her uncle.

“I shall use whatever phrase I wish,” she said calmly. “You are

getting nervous. Why?”

“I’m not nervous,” he protested loudly; “I am getting old I suppose,

and the job is such a big one. It is almost too big for me and if I

occupied the position I had a few years ago, Kate, I would drop it.

After all, we have made a good deal of money and we might as well all

of us live to enjoy it.”

She was back at the piano again and was playing with the soft pedal

down.

“Can’t you find anything more cheerful than the ‘Death of Asa’?”

growled her relative.

“It is nerves, of course; I am awfully sorry.”

She got up and closed the piano with a bang which made him jump.

“I don’t know what to do about Mike,” she mused.

“Gregori has a solution,” said the Colonel.

“To cut his throat, I suppose,” said the girl coolly. “Gregori is so

elemental and so horrific! I can’t imagine that he ever has cut a

throat in his life, but I suppose he feels that it is in keeping with

his sunny southern nature to talk like that. No, Colonel _mio_,” she

mimicked, “we have stopped short of murder so far and I think we will

remain on the safe side. My theory coincides with Mike’s.

I was

reading an article of his in a Socialistic paper the other day and it

was all about the Right to Live. I don’t believe in killing people. I

believe in bleeding those who have grown apoplectic with their money

and I don’t even know whether I believe in that.”

“What do you mean?” the Colonel looked up at her under his shaggy

brows.

She shrugged her shoulders.

“I mean,” she said slowly, “I never know whether my views are my own

views or whether they are just your views which I reflect like a

mirror. You see, dear,” she said, “I am very young but I have a

logical mind and my logical mind tells me that no girl can have any

very definite views at nineteen, not of her own, I mean. Perhaps when

I am twenty-five I shall look upon you as a terrible person, and all

this,” she spread her hands out, “as something to think of with a

shudder.”

“In the meantime,” said her uncle practically, “you are Miss Ali Baba,

chief strategist of our little army and a very exigent young

lady--by-the-way, Gregori is kicking.”

She looked at him with a contemptuous little twist of her lips.

“There is a great centre forward lost in Gregori,” she said. “What has

moved that dago’s feet?”

“Hush, hush, my child,” cautioned her uncle, “our admirable friend is

upstairs and, anyway, it doesn’t do to speak disrespectfully of one’s

criminal associates. There is a certain punctilio in our profession

which you may have noticed.”

“How queer it sounds!” she said, leaning forward and clasping her

knee. “Do you know, uncle, I cannot think straight. Ever since I was

so high,” she stretched her hand out before her, “I have never known a

desire to secure anything I wanted, save by taking it from somebody

else. At the school in Lausanne I seemed to be amongst the queerest

people and, honestly, although you had warned me, I thought they were

all mad.

All their fathers made money in business, which seems to be a

slow method of stealing which is allowed by the law. Think of the

horrible monotony of working steadily day after day without any

holidays, with no excitement, no adventures, save the artificial

thrill of a theatre and the adventures that meet you on your way

home.”

“I didn’t even know there were those kind of adventures,” said the

Colonel, fingering his trim moustache and enjoying with closed eyes

the fragrance of his cigar.

“Oh, yes,” nodded the girl, “you meet all sorts of men who raise their

hats and say, ‘Good-evening, Miss,’ or ‘Haven’t we met before?’ I

don’t think they have ever said anything else,” she reflected

thoughtfully,--“they all belong to the ‘Good-evening’ or the ‘Met you

before’ school, and they all want to know if you are ‘going their

way.’”

“What happens then?” asked the amused Colonel, carefully removing his

cigar in order that he might laugh without detriment to the

accumulating ash.

“I have only had one experience,” said Kate. “It was with a young man

with a horribly weak chin. He had studied in both schools, for his

‘Good-evening’ was followed by a request for information upon my

immediate plans and I let him walk with me. I expected something very

dreadful but he talked mostly about his mother and the difficulties he

had about getting a latch-key. He wanted to take my arm but I told him

it wasn’t done and then he suggested that I should meet him on Sunday.

By this time I had learnt all about his family, his mother and the

girl he was prepared to sacrifice to retain a continuation of our

intimacy. I also discovered his name was Ernest and that he was the

cleverest man in his office.”

“He wanted to kiss you, I’ll be bound,” said the Colonel.

“I think he did,” admitted the girl, “but he didn’t say so.

All he

said was that he hoped it didn’t rain and asked if he might write to

me. I told him he might, but, unfortunately, he forgot to ask me my

address--” she broke off suddenly, “what is Gregori kicking about?”

“That Madrid affair didn’t go off as well as it might,” said the

Colonel, avoiding her eye.

She nodded.

“I know; and Gregori blames me, I presume.”

“Gregori never blames you,” said the Colonel, “I think Gregori would

knife anybody who said a word against you.”

“No,” she said, nodding her head, her eyes fixed on the opposite wall,

“the Madrid affair went badly, in spite of the fact that there were

forty-two sheets of manuscript in Spanish and English giving the most

elaborate directions. It was a month’s work for me and it was all

wasted and the greater part of a hundred thousand pesetas because

Gregori’s trusted Señor Rahboulla thought he could improve upon my

instructions and joined the train at Cordova in a light grey suit when

I told him to wear the conventional black of the _madrilleno_ and when

I insisted upon his making his entrance to Madrid from Toledo. I knew

that Cordova was watched by the French and Spanish police and I knew

too that they would be looking for a stranger. Rahboulla advertised

himself, was arrested and the chain, which I had carefully pieced

together, was broken. By the time he had shaken off the police and

arrived in Madrid the closing hour of the Prado had been advanced from

six to five and the consequence is, that the Velasquez is still in the

picture gallery and we are a hundred thousand pesetas the poorer.”

The Colonel shook his head.

“You are a wonderful girl and I will admit you are right. Heavens! the

patience required to work out these details!”

“The ideal criminal is a strategist,” said the girl. “He foresees

every move of the enemy and forestalls him.

He makes a diversion at

one point and his real attack at another. He prepares the way for

retreat at the same time as he is preparing his advance. It took me

six months to obtain all the information I wanted and it took six

minutes for Rahboulla to upset our plans.”

She laughed.

“If things go wrong, you blame the general,” she said. “Three years

ago, Gregori the Kicker introduced an Italian into one of our

schemes--the business of the Nottingham Post Office. That went wrong,

too.”

“There I admit you were right,” the Colonel hurried to say; “Tolmini

made a mess of it.”[1]

“And tried to drag us all into it when he was caught,” said the girl;

“he went to prison under the impression that I had led him into a

trap--though the fool was told the mail bags were not to be touched

until the night shift came on duty.”

“Why do you mention him now with such emphasis?” asked the Colonel

curiously.

“Because he’s out of prison--and he’ll be kicking, too,” she replied,

“just as Gregori kicks!”

“‘Let the dead past bury the dead,’” quoted the Colonel. “And how is

the new scheme?”

“Much farther advanced than you think. There are still one or two

roads to be made smooth, one or two outposts to be rushed, some barbed

wire to be cut.”

“By Gad!” cried the Colonel admiringly. “You ought to have been a

soldier, Kate.”

She leant back in the chair with her hands clasped behind her head and

looked at him searchingly.

“You were once a gentleman, uncle,” she said in that direct way of

hers and Colonel Westhanger flushed and frowned.

“Well, my dear uncle,” she expostulated, “you are not a gentleman by

the ordinary code now are you?”

“I have certain instincts,” protested the Colonel gruffly; “hang it

all, Kate, you don’t let a fellow down very lightly.

“I suppose you are still something of a gentleman,” said the girl

reflectively; “the mere fact that you are annoyed at the suggestion

that you are not proves that. But what I mean to say is this: there

was a time when you obeyed another code, when you thought stealing was

a disgraceful thing and robbery under arms a crime. You must have

associated with men on whose word you could rely and who would never

commit a dishonest or a mean action--men who were prepared in battle

to give their lives for you. And you must have commanded men who had

the same views and have punished soldiers who stepped aside from the

straight path and committed little crimes which, compared with yours,

were as pin-heads to the dome of St. Paul’s.”

“I can’t see why you want to talk about the past,” said the Colonel

irritably. He was still a fine figure of a man, grey-moustached, broad

of shoulder, tall and straight of back and had about him that

indefinable something which men who have commanded men never entirely

lose.

“I am merely comparing you with me,” she said; “you have the advantage

of having seen both sides. Tell me, which is the better?”

“Which do you think?” he demanded suspiciously.

She tossed her cigarette into the grate.

“I think this is the better,” she said frankly; “it is very pleasant

and very exciting. And all the good people I have met have been very

dull. I think that is because all good people are dull.”

“There are some good people,” said the Colonel virtuously, “who are

very interesting.”

“Not because of their goodness,” rejoined the girl quickly; “if you

meet a very popular good man it is because there is something about

him which is not absolutely good.

If you hear a man speak of a parson

as a good fellow you will generally discover that he goes to the

National Sporting Club and sees boxing or rides to hounds or does

something which is quite unassociated with his professional duties or

the exercise of his innocent qualities. But you have not answered me.

Which is better?”

“If I had my life to live over again--” began the Colonel with a wry

face.

“That’s silly,” said the girl calmly. “You won’t have your life to

live over again, so why speculate upon the possibility? Anyway, if you

could live your life over again, you could not possibly benefit by

your present experience, because you would not remember it. You have

lived two lives, which is the better?”

“You are in a queer mood, to-night,” said Colonel Westhanger, rising

and stalking past her to the fire-place. “Have you got religion, or

something?”

“Which is the better?” she asked again. “To be a free thief or to be

in the dull bondage of honesty?”

“For your peace of mind the honest life is the better,” said the

Colonel. “You have no sleepless nights, no agony of mind which you

have to conceal with whatever skill you possess at every knock at the

door, no fear of the police, no wondering what the next day is going

to bring forth.”

“Really!” she looked up at him quizzically. “Do honest men never have

any of those experiences? Do honest men get into debt, for example,

and dread the coming of the collector? Does an honest man who is

getting grey feel a little sickening sensation in his heart every time

his employer looks at him thoughtfully?”

The Colonel turned round and snarled over his shoulder.

“As you seem to have all your answers ready-made, I don’t know why you

trouble to ask me,” he snapped; “there are advantages and

disadvantages on both sides of the picture.

”

The girl was in a restless mood and presently she sprang up, walked to

the window, opened the little square of shutter and looked out into

the darkening street. Then she crossed to her little desk at one side

of the fireplace. She sat down and wrote for a while, then, as

suddenly, she dropped her pen and got up again.

“You are going to ask another question,” warned the Colonel.

“Only one,” she pleaded.

“Well, fire away,” he grumbled ungraciously.

“What would induce you to forsake your career and apply your undoubted

talents, as the assize judge said to poor dear Mr. Mulberry, to better

purpose?”

“Wealth,” said the Colonel promptly,--“enough stuff put aside to bring

me in a nice little income. And here again, let me say, Kate, that you

and I could well afford to knock off--”

She interrupted him.

“That is a purely material inducement,” she said. “What

other--spiritual or ethical?”

“Oh, rot!” he snapped. “Why do you ask these fool questions?”

“Because I am wondering,” she said, “what influence could be brought

to bear upon me. The opinion of my fellow creatures? No, I don’t care

what they think. I know they are mostly fools and so why should they

influence me? Wealth? No, if I were rich as Crœsus I should go on,

for the sport of it. Punishment? No, I should use my spare time in

correcting the faults in me which had resulted in my detection. I am

afraid I am incorrigible, uncle, for there is something about this

life which appeals to me no end--and now I am going to dress,” she

said, making for the door.

“Going out?” asked the Colonel in surprise.

She nodded.

“But Gregori--”

“Gregori can wait,” said Kate, “and Gregori bores me. He is always

trying to make love.”

“Is that remarkable?” suggested the Colonel archly.

“It is remarkably annoying,” said the girl. She flung open the door

and stepped back.

Gregori, politest of cavaliers, stood deferentially

in the entrance and she surveyed him coolly.

“Were you listening?” she asked.

“Señorita!” he said, shocked.

She laughed and passed out. Gregori watched her as she mounted the

stairs till she turned out of sight, then he closed the door and came

across to the Colonel.

“Our little friend is hard on me,” he said with no hint of malice in

his voice.

“She is a queer girl, Gregori,” replied the Colonel, shaking his head.

“She is a queer girl,” repeated Gregori; “queer indeed, yes.”

He stroked his little black moustache.

“She doesn’t like me.”

“Who does she like?” snapped the older man.

“You, I trust,” smiled the Spaniard.

The Colonel tossed his head despairingly.

“I hardly know,” he said. “What a reversal of positions!”

The Spaniard took the seat the girl had vacated.

“I know what you are thinking about,” he nodded; “a few years ago she

was the obedient child absorbing our code--to-day she is the

tyrannical mistress of the situation.”

He deftly unrolled and rolled a Spanish cigarette, licked its edges

and fumbled for a match in his waistcoat pocket.

“She is all brain, our Kate,” he said admiringly, “but her

heart--pouf!” he puffed out a cloud of smoke to emphasize the word.

“There is no end to her energy,” he went on; “sometimes I think she is

dangerous and then when I come to consider all things it is impossible

to say that she can be. After all, hers is only the plan. The

responsibility for the bungling is with us--the plan is so perfect

that you can hardly pick a hole in it. She works out to the last

minute detail the chronology of a coup, she dresses it, rehearses it.

She never fails. Yes, it was Rahboulla,” he agreed, “and I was wrong

to kick. What was it she called me, a ‘centre forward’ and a ‘dago’,”

he laughed softly.

“She is very young,” said the Colonel apologetically, “and a little

impetuous of speech--she talks too much, I think.”

“A pretty woman can never talk too much,” said the gallant Gregori;

“she can think too much and talk too little. A person who talks is

like a lighted house with all the blinds up and the doors open, you

know where you are. Now, Colonel _mio_, how far have we got with this

new scheme?”

The Colonel brought a chair in one hand and a light table in the other

to where the Spaniard sat, produced from his inside-pocket a bunch of

memoranda and in a few minutes the men were deep in the discussion of

the most remarkable, the most startling and the most daring enterprise

that Crime Street had ever undertaken.

Chapter 5.

A CHORUS GIRL AT SEBO’S.

Sebo’s Club was crowded, for it was the dinner hour and Sebo’s is

the most extensively patronized of the dining clubs. Here, all that

was beautiful, all that was smart, all that was famous and brilliant

in the world of society, letters and the drama met on common

ground--the inherent and universal desire which humanity has for

careless comfort. A Cabinet Minister and his party sat at the next

table to that presided over by a great revue actress; the owner of a

Derby winner sat back to back against a famous Radical satirist. The

editor of a great London daily could look across his table and without

shifting his eyes could count in his field of vision the pretty dancer

from the Empiredrome, a royal physician, a peer of the realm and a

ragtime singer.

The big dining hall blazed with lights, the little tables were crowded

together so as to leave scarcely room for the waiters who, by some

mysterious dispensation of Providence, seemed able to thread their

ways through impossible spaces.

The noisy band kept up its

rhythmic pandemonium in one corner of the room, but did not drown the

rippling laughter and the buzz of light-hearted talk.

In the little vestibule a young man, very tall and very thin, paced

the tesselated floor with that evidence of resignation which tells so

eloquently the story of the Unpunctual Guest. He was very fair and

very pink. His countenance was vacant and the vacancy was by no means

relieved when he screwed a gold-rimmed monocle into his right eye.

Presently the glass doors swung and a girl came hurriedly toward him,

holding out her gloved hand.

“I am awfully sorry I am late, Reggie,” she said with easy

familiarity.

“If you were an hour late or five hours late or a day late,” said the

young man with gentle ecstasy, “I should be content to wait, Miss

Flemming.”

She flashed a dazzling smile at him.

“I shouldn’t be horribly shocked if you called me Vera,” she said.

The young man went pinker than ever, coughed, stuttered, ran his

gloved finger inside the high upstanding collar about his thin throat,

dropped his eye-glass, retrieved it and did all this in the space of

four seconds, thereby betraying his perturbation and his gratitude.

“You have a table, I suppose?” said the girl when she had returned

from depositing her coat.

“Rather!” said the young man, and added after a second’s thought,

“Rather!”

He fussily shepherded her through the mass of tables where his own

attenuation enabled him to emulate the deeds of the agile serving man

and brought her to a corner table which was smothered with rare

flowers. Heads were turned, sharp eyes focussed the couple, some

smiled, though for the girl the glances held nothing but admiration or

cold-blooded appraisement, according to the sex of the observer.

“Reggie Boltover!” said one young man.

“Who is Reggie Boltover?” asked his companion.

“A human being loosely attached to a million,” was the laconic

description.

The girl was radiant, the smile hardly left her face and the eyes

which glanced shyly up to her tall companion were full of wonder and

delight.

“So this is Sebo’s,” she said. “Isn’t it a dreadfully wicked place?”

Reggie Boltover’s face creased alarmingly--he, too, was smiling.

“My dear Miss--my dear Vera,” he said boldly, “should I bring you to a

wicked place, now I ask you; should I bring you to a wicked place,

should I?”

His conversational powers were not brilliant but his heart was pure.

He was not really a wicked young man about town and his chief

wickedness lay in his implicit belief that he was. He had met the girl

one night by accident. A more daring friend of his, and nearer

approaching Reggie’s own ideal of doggishness, had induced him (he

protesting feebly) to call at a stage-door where he was meeting a

charming friend to take her to supper. The charming friend in the

generous large-hearted way of chorus girls had introduced _her_

friend, Vera Flemming, a new-comer to the ranks of the chorus, and

they had all supped together and Vera had been very charming to Mr.

Reggie Boltover and he had asked her to go with him up the river and

had serious thoughts, because of her evident refinement, of

introducing her to his mother, which shows that Reggie had reached the

most dangerous stage of infatuation. There was really nothing wrong

about Reggie Boltover and nothing remarkably terrible about this

strangely initiated friendship.

Chorus girls are merely shop-girls with a taste for caviare and

peaches.

They are no more sinful than their sisters in the same social

strata and the only difference between them is that, whilst they are

exposed to similar temptations, the chorus girl has a larger field to

pick from and the candidates are much more presentable. A shop-girl

accepts the hospitality of a tea-shop, the chorus-girl goes to the

Ritz. Both have one consuming passion, a desire for good food, for

which they do not have to pay.

Reggie Boltover, who, to do him justice, knew everybody, entertained

the girl for half-an-hour by pointing out the various celebrities in

the room and Vera Flemming was interested without being

enthusiastically so.

“I would rather you talked about yourself,” she said, “you are ever so

much more interesting than these people.”

“Oh, no,” said Reggie, with a little giggle; “oh, no!”

“You are, indeed, you are,” she said earnestly.

“Oh, come,” said Reggie; “oh, come! no! I am not interesting; oh, dear

no!”

His life he admitted frankly was very ordinary. All that he did was to

sign a few cheques, liquidate a few debts, see a few “fellows” about

“things” and “there you are,” said Reggie.

“It must be wonderful to be in a position of power,” said the girl

musingly. “Of course, I come from a very poor family. We only think in

shillings where you think in thousands of pounds. And it is awfully

hard to realize what it feels like to order people to do things

instead of being ordered.”

Reggie Boltover, who had never ordered anybody to do anything in his

life and would not have dared to dispute the judgment of the

innumerable managers and directors whom his sainted father had

appointed in his life-time, wondered himself what it felt like. He had

often meditated, with a shudder, upon the necessity which might one

day arise, for his taking the initiative in the conduct of his

business.

He dimly realized that, in time, all his managers and

directors would die and he had dimly speculated upon the question as

to who would replace them. He had a feeling that perhaps one might go

to Whiteleys and order some new ones, but it had never occurred to him

that at his autocratic word managers and people of that description

could be made out of mud, or that an order affecting the business

which he was supposed to control would be acted upon if he were to

give that order.

“Well, you know,” he said, “I never really tell people to do anything.

You see, I never see them except very occasionally. Of course, they

make reports and all that sort of thing and I have a man who reads

them so everything is all right and I just sign cheques and see a few

fellows and there you are.”

Under the genial influence of her sympathetic interest he expanded a

little and proved that he was not as wholly incompetent as he

pretended to be. For instance, he knew that the iron works and

ship-building yard which still bore his father’s name, and

incidentally his own, made “a deuced lot of money” every year and that

certain other properties made no money.

There was one property of which he spoke with great bitterness but

only because his father, in his life-time, had also spoken of that

matter with similar violence and asperity. Apparently, the one

redeeming feature about Boltover’s Cement Works lay in the fact that

it had no manager and therefore produced no reports. It was in fact a

deserted shell of a building so infamously unprofitable that Boltover

senior (now in Heaven) had directed almost with his last breath, if

you believed Reggie, that his name should be erased from the official

designation of the company.

“You see it was bad cement; you know how cement is made, don’t you?”

“I should love to,” said the girl, her eyes shining, “I have often

wondered.”

“Well,” said Reggie looking round the table for something to

illustrate the object lesson, “you dig in the river and you take out a

lot of stuff and you chuck it in a cart and then you chuck it into a

fire and you pull it out and do something to it and there you are!

That’s cement. Only our cement wasn’t cement, if you understand. That

is what made the beastly thing so awkward.”

“How wonderful!” said the girl. “I shall always remember that.”

“Of course, we’ve got our eyes open,” said Reggie now fairly launched

upon the story of his life, “and one of these days we shall catch a

mug.”

“Catch a--?” asked the girl, puzzled.

Reggie went very pink, but he was excited and grateful at this

demonstration of the girl’s refinement.

“Forgive the vulgarity, Miss--Vera; I mean we shall find a purchaser.

I once nearly sold the beastly thing for £10,000 and the day the deed

was to be signed, they took the poor chap away to a lunatic asylum,

poor old bird, not right in his head, you know. That is why he wanted

to buy our cement works. Comic, isn’t it?

“D’you know,” said Mr. Boltover, suddenly, “when I came round to the

stage door that night I never expected to meet you?”

She looked at him in innocent surprise.

“Didn’t you really?” she said incredulously as though the idea had

occurred to her for the first time, and then, thoughtfully, “I suppose

you didn’t.”

“I didn’t expect to meet you,” repeated Mr. Boltover, who, when he had

got hold of one complete sentence, held tight to it until his groping

mentality had reached out and securely grasped another. “No, I didn’t

expect to meet you, but I’m awfully glad. I feel I owe that young lady

more than I can ever repay.

”

He said this with an unusual display of sentimentality.

“That young lady” was his companion’s chorus girl friend, who at that

moment was retailing to her youthful companion at the far side of the

room such details of Vera’s life as she had been able to secure in a

seven-day acquaintance.

“Vera’s not in our show now, of course,” she said; “I don’t think she

had ever been on the stage before. She’s an awfully fresh kid. Came

late to rehearsals and all that sort of thing, but I like her

immensely.”

She smiled and bowed to Vera who, at that moment, had caught her eye.

“She’s very pretty,” said her companion.

“Yes; isn’t she?” agreed the girl, her interest in her friend suddenly

evaporating.

But there was one in that crowded dining-room whose every disengaged

moment was employed in watching the girl and her companion. It

involved his getting into the way of other waiters and called down

upon his head execrations in Neapolitan, Sicilian and the choicest

slang of the Montmartre. He was a man who had prayed for two years for

such a moment as this, and his soul rejoiced in savage exaltation that

so Heaven-sent an opportunity had come.

As the night wore on his plan took a definite shape. For the

consequence he cared nothing. Here was his opportunity, here was his

enemy. He seized a moment, slipped through the service door and passed

down a flight of stone steps to the crowded kitchen filled at that

moment with a babble of sound as the orders were repeated across the

steaming brass pots and the blistering hot plates. He passed through

the kitchen to the larder department, and found what he sought in the

big cool vault where the butchers worked. It was a long thin knife.

He

waited until the butcher’s back was turned and slipped it up his

sleeve, passed rapidly through the kitchen, ignoring the chef’s demand

as to his business, and reached the warm, bright restaurant again.

He had no time to waste.

The butcher might at any moment detect the theft and the thief hauled

into the service room to explain his conduct. He made his way across

the room to where Mr. Reginald Boltover and his fair companion sat.

Reggie thought the man had a message, but Vera, looking up, saw the

man’s evil face--and knew. She half twisted, half flung herself

against Reginald Boltover as the waiter’s hand came up to strike. She

saw the knife glitter for a space of a second and closed her eyes,

then there was the sound of a struggle and she opened them in time to

see the vengeful man flung backward to the floor and an immaculate

Michael Pretherston standing over him examining the knife with some

interest.

She met the inspector’s eye and smiled, though the smile was forced,

for even as he bowed, she heard the mockery of his surprise.

“Why, Kate!” he murmured. “I’m always meeting you.”

Chapter 6.

KATE CAME TO THE FLAT.

“At 9:40 on the night of the 15th instant I was present at Sebo’s

Club. The room was full of diners and amongst them was Mr. Reginald

Boltover and a girl giving the name of Miss Vera Flemming, who was in

reality Kate Westhanger. At 9:52 an Italian named Emil Tolmini,

employed as a waiter at Sebo’s Club, attempted to stab Kate Westhanger

but was prevented and taken into custody. In the course of the

struggle in which he was disarmed he sustained a slight scalp wound

and permission was given for him to be taken to the kitchen to have

the wound dressed. I regret to state that he succeeded in making his

escape. He is a convict on license (record No. P.C.A./C.C.C. 85943).

He is an old associate of the Crime Street gang and was obviously

attempting to avenge himself upon the girl for some injury, real or

imaginary, which he had suffered.

“I made no attempt to warn Mr. Boltover as to the character of his

companion, but subsequently calling at his flat in Piccadilly on the

pretence that I wished to get information about the attempted murder,

I discovered that he had been introduced to the girl at a theatre

where she was posing as a chorus girl. She had evidently laid a deep

plan to meet him, for what reason it is not clear. He is a very

wealthy man and it may be necessary at a later stage to warn him, but

at present I have taken upon myself the responsibility of refraining

from that act.”

Michael Pretherston ended off the report with his neat signature,

folded it and inserted it into an official envelope which he addressed

to his chief. By good fortune he met that brilliant man coming into

Scotland House as Michael was going out.

“I think you did right,” said T.B., after he had heard the story; “I

wonder what her game is? I have a good mind to detail a man to take

the whole case up.”

“Let me do it,” said Michael, eagerly.

T.B. Smith pursed his lips.

“You are rather a big man for a job like that, Michael,” he said, “it

may turn out to be nothing more than a common or garden chorus girl’s

romance.”

“Kate isn’t the chorus girl type,” said Michael, “if it is big enough

for her to be in it, it is quite big enough for me.”

The chief thought for a moment.

“Very well then,” he said at length, “you can take on the job. Do it

by yourself if you possibly can, I haven’t any men to spare. But keep

in touch with me. Blowing a whistle won’t be of any service to you if

these people mean business and get after you.”

He hesitated again.

“Confound Kate!” he said.

“I suppose you have circulated a description

of the ice-cream merchant?”

All Latin criminals came under this generic description with T.B.

Michael nodded.

“Well, good luck,” said the chief, “but be careful!”

When the young man had gone T.B. beckoned to an officer who was

passing.

“You’re the very man, Barr,” he said; “pick up Mr. Pretherston and

don’t lose him--you may choose your own opposite number.”

The sergeant saluted and hurried out after his charge.

Michael went back to his rooms with a light heart. It was the kind of

job that he liked better than any other. He had not told the chief all

his suspicions. Kate’s game was a big one. High-flyer as she was, she

was out for a height record--that he realised. There was some

association between her month with Lord Flanborough and the careful

cultivation of Reggie Boltover’s acquaintance. When he came to think

of it she must have met Boltover while she was still with Flanborough.

He had taken it for granted that the girl was a resident secretary but

possibly he had arrived at this conclusion in error. So it proved next

morning when he called Lord Flanborough’s house on the telephone and

had a private conversation with the butler. The young lady, during the

time she had been at Felton House, had left every afternoon at four

o’clock.

A little talk with the stage manager at the theatre showed that the

girl had never attended any of the morning rehearsals and had missed

one of the matinées. Michael saw this part of the scheme plainly

enough. Kate, through her spies, had discovered that Boltover had an

acquaintance who had a friend at the theatre. She had come to the

stage with no other object than making a friend of the girl who all

unwittingly was the instrument by which she was to meet Reggie.

The detective knew that this was no chance acquaintance.

He followed

the manœuvres of Kate through all their devious paths. He took the

opportunity in the afternoon to call upon Reggie at his office which

was something between a board room and a boudoir.

Reggie’s theoretical interests were multifarious. He was the nominal

head of a dozen different corporations which his industrious father

had created for his profit. In practice he knew very little about any

of them and nothing about some.

“I hope your lady was not alarmed,” said Michael, with spurious

anxiety.

“Oh, no, the lady was not alarmed; oh, no,” said Reggie, shaking his

head violently. “Oh, dear no. She was not alarmed. Of course, it would

have been different if she had been alone, but being with me,

naturally she--er she--er was not alone.”

“Naturally,” agreed Michael.

“No, she was not alarmed,” said Mr. Boltover, “in fact, she was very

cool, remarkably cool. I have never seen anybody so cool.”

“I hope when you see her again,” said Michael, “you will tell her I

asked.”

“Certainly,” said Mr. Boltover heartily; “certainly I shall tell her

you asked.” And he added after a moment, “When I meet her again.”

“She seemed, if you will forgive the impertinence, so interested in

everything,” encouraged Michael.

“You are quite right,” said Reggie eagerly, “you are perfectly right.

That just describes her. She is interested in everything.”

“It is nice to meet people who are interested in one’s business,”

Michael went on artlessly. “I never mind people being interested in my

business, do you?”

“Oh, dear no,” replied Mr. Boltover in alarm, as though the very

thought that anybody should be discouraged from an interest in his

affairs, caused him acute mental unhappiness; “oh, dear no. Certainly

not. Not at all.”

“Of course,” smiled Michael, “she could not very well understand all

the complexities of your business, Mr.

Boltover--it is such an

enormous one.”

“Well,” hesitated the other, “I don’t know. I am not so sure. She is a

very intelligent young lady. I was talking to her about my business

when this dreadful affair happened and she was so calm that she just

went on talking about it, don’t you know. My business, I mean. I

thought it was a most remarkable instance of coolness. I was telling

one of our directors to-day about it, and he thought it was a

remarkable instance of coolness. Yes, even when I was taking her home

she told me a lot about herself and--things. Her grandfather is a very

wealthy man, a financier. I didn’t know that.”

Michael might have said that he too was unaware of the fact, but he

knew just the moment when a tactless interpolation might dry up the

fount of Mr. Boltover’s eloquence.

“Very intelligent lady indeed,” wandered Mr. Boltover, “oh, yes, I was

talking about her grandfather--he is a very rich man. She thought that

he might be able to take one of our properties off our hands. I was

awfully surprised. Naturally, I did not think she had any money being

in the chorus and all that--I hope I haven’t been indiscreet?” he

asked anxiously. “You possibly did not know that she was on the

stage.”

“Oh, yes, I did,” said Michael with a smile; “you have betrayed

nothing, Mr. Boltover.”

“I am awfully glad,” replied the other, relieved; “what was I saying,

about her grandfather, yes. I think I might sell him that property. I

hate parting with properties--we have refused quite a number of good

offers--sheer sentiment, don’t you know?”

“But perhaps this is not a paying property.”

“Oh, no, not at all,” said Mr. Boltover; “by no manner of means

whatever. Still we don’t like parting with them.

Of course, I talk a

lot of rot about people wanting to buy the works and I always tell

that great joke about a lunatic--ha, ha--but really it isn’t true. No,

not really true, oh, no.”

Michael had never heard the great joke about the lunatic. What he was

anxious to hear were details of Kate’s projected purchase but in this

he was foiled. There was precious little of the business man about Mr.

Reggie Boltover but one lesson he had learnt, and learnt thoroughly,

and that was the art of silence. His revered father was wont to say,

“If you never open your mouth, Reggie, nobody will know what an ass

you are,” and in business, at any rate, Reggie most religiously lived

up to this injunction.

What was the girl’s object?

Michael was puzzled. Strangely enough the obvious never occurred to

him, or if it did he dismissed it without a second consideration. He

did not look upon Kate as the type that would find any amusement,

whatever the profit might be, in the inveigling of a young fool to the

altar. Kate wanted the excitement, not the money. That was her

history. He had first met her when he was in the Special Department

and it had been over a little matter of a King’s messenger’s despatch

bag which on a cross-channel journey had mysteriously disappeared,

though it was practically handcuffed to the owner’s wrist, that he had

first become acquainted with the girl. He was interested in her, but

only mildly so, because, at the time, he arrived at a somewhat hasty

judgment.

It was later, when the strong-room of the “Muranic” was

forced and twenty-five packets of diamonds vanished in mid-ocean and

when he had been in charge of the investigations which had resulted in

the imprisonment of Colonel Westhanger, that he had first formed a

true estimate of the girl’s character--an estimate which he had had

cause to modify, but never to change.

Michael lived in a big block of flats near Baker Street, where he

maintained a somewhat elaborate establishment for an inspector of

police. He had, however, a private income of his own which he had

inherited from his maternal grandmother and as he was a man of simple

tastes and very few extravagant needs, he was able to live very

comfortably indeed. He reached his home a little before 8 o’clock and

was astonished as he came through the lobby of the flat to meet

Beston, his man-servant, clad in fine raiment and going forth.

“Hello, Beston, where are you off to?” he asked in surprise.

The man touched his hat cheerfully.

“I am going to the theatre, sir, and thank you very much for the

tickets,” he said. “Cook went ten minutes ago and I stayed behind to

tidy things up.”

“Oh, cook went ten minutes ago, did she?” said Michael. “That’s good.

When did the tickets arrive?”

“About an hour ago, sir, by a district messenger. It was very kind of

you to wire to us that you were sending them.”

Michael laughed softly.

“Your surprise at my consideration hurts me, Beston,” he said. “I

always do things like that. By the way, did they spell your name

correctly in the telegram?”

“I think so, sir,” said the man in surprise, fumbled in his pocket and

produced the orange slip.

“I am sending you two tickets for the theatre to-night. May not be

home until to-morrow. Pretherston.”

Thus read the wire, which had been handed in at the Strand Office.

Beston sensed some difficulty.

“I hope it’s all right, sir,” he asked anxiously.

“Quite all right,” replied Michael with a cheerful nod. “Don’t wait

for me now, I shall not be in very long.”

He mounted the carpeted stairs, opened the door of his flat and closed

it carefully behind him. He went straight to his study, pulled down

the blinds and drew the thick curtains across the windows, then he

turned on the light, took up the telephone and gave a Treasury number.

“Is that Sergeant Pears?” he asked. “Is there a telegram waiting at

the Yard for me?”

“Yes, sir,” said the sergeant’s voice.

Michael winked at the wall.

“Do you mind opening and reading it?”

There was a little pause and then the sergeant repeated into the

receiver:

“To Inspector Michael Pretherston, Scotland House. Come up by the

earliest train. Am staying at Adelphi. T.B.”

“Handed in at Manchester, I suppose?”

“Yes, sir,” said the sergeant, “at three-fifteen.”

“Is the chief in Manchester?”

“Yes, sir; he went by the morning train.”

“Excellent,” said Michael, “thank you very much, sergeant.”

He hung up the receiver.

This was Kate’s work--the beautiful detail of it, the knowledge she

possessed of T.B. Smith’s movement. She had probably sent a man up on

the same train with the chief and had given him the telegram in

advance, with exact instructions as to the minute it was to be handed

in. Yes, it was Kate. Yet (he became uncomfortable at the thought) it

was not like her to leave things to chance. How came she to miss him

at the Yard? He returned to the telephone and again called up his

assistant.

“What time did the telegram arrive?” he asked.

The sergeant’s voice was apologetic.

“I am very sorry, sir, I am afraid it arrived while you were here,

this afternoon.

It was given to a messenger to take in to you and in

some extraordinary way the constable forgot it. I have reprimanded

him.”

“That’s all right,” said Michael, relieved.

His relief, curiously founded, he might have found it difficult to

explain. It was the relief which the matador feels when he sees the

bull, which steps so proudly into the ring, will put up a good fight.

It was the relief of the huntsman when a strong fox breaks from

covert. He wanted Kate and that extraordinary organization, which he

had set himself to conquer, to be at its best that his victory might

be the more satisfactory.

He looked at his watch. It was five minutes past eight. He knew that

his visitor would give the servants an hour and he must employ that

hour profitably. He began to write rapidly on a pad of scribbling

paper, tearing off the sheets as fast as he had filled them. He had

been working for an hour when he heard a bell tinkle. Some one was at

the front door. He switched out the light, walked into the passage (he

had already removed his shoes) and listened. Whoever was coming had

sent an agent in advance to discover whether the flat was empty. Again

the bell rang. Michael made no sign. It rang a third and last time.

The detective made his way stealthily to the window and slipped behind

the curtains. He had left his study door open, so that he could hear

every sound. He had ten minutes to wait before the faint click of the

lock told him that the door had been opened. He knew that the visitor

would come to the study last, and he proved to be right. Three minutes

passed--as near as he could judge--before he caught the flash of a

lamp which was directed cautiously to the curtained window. The light

passed slowly along the floor until it reached the skirting, travelled

round until it found the lower edge of the drawn curtain.

Through the

slit he had cut in the heavy velvet hangings Michael witnessed the

search. Presently the light went out after focussing itself upon the

electric switch. There was a click and the room was illuminated.

The girl who stood by the desk was soberly dressed and was apparently

in no hurry. She pulled her gloves off slowly, whilst she allowed her

eyes to rove over the littered table. Half a dozen sheets of writing

attracted her attention and when her gloves were removed she picked

the papers up, pulled the big writing chair to the table and sat down

to read. She read the notes through carefully and once she smiled.

When she had finished she put them down, leaned back in the chair and

looked around the room, then,

“Come out, Mike,” she said.

Michael stepped forth without embarrassment.

“I was nearly deceived,” she said, “with your precious account of the

happening at Sebo’s and then I realized that this could not have been

written more than five minutes before. You forgot to blot the last

sheet and the ink is still damp.”

She rubbed her fingers over to prove the fact.

“Why aren’t you in Manchester?” she asked.

The staggering question nearly took his breath away.

“Well, if you aren’t the real Kate!” he said admiringly.

“I’m in your chair I’m afraid,” she said.

“Not a bit.”

He dropped into a deep settee.

“Now tell me all the news. But before we go any farther,” he said with

mock concern, “wouldn’t you like a chaperone?”

“Don’t worry,” she replied, “I have a chaperone.”

“Not in my flat I hope,” he said in a tone of alarm. “You, I can

trust, Kate, but the idea of your low thieving friends being up

against all my movable goods gives me a little pain.”

She fished in her bag and produced a little gold case. She opened it

and took out a cigarette.

“You won’t have one, of course?”

“Not one of yours, Kate,” he said reproachfully. “No, I’ll have one of

my own if you don’t mind.”

“I think you are very rude,” she said with a lift of her brows.

“It’s better to be rudely awake than politely asleep,” he said

meaningly. “When one has to deal with clever criminals one has to take

all sorts of precautions.”

She laughed and looked at him curiously.

“I wonder what made you a policeman?”

“Nature,” he said promptly.

She was puzzled.

“I don’t quite get your humor,” she said.

“Nature provides all things with some form of protection. It gives the

oyster its shell and the tiger its stripes. It gives the squid his

ink-sack and the shark his teeth. Nature always produces antidotes.

When criminals are stupid they have stupid policemen to deal with

them. When criminals are extraordinarily clever, Nature provides the

police force with an officer of unusual intelligence. I came to the

police in blind obedience to the laws of Nature.”

She laughed softly in his face.

“It’s so nice to be able to discuss things with a man of sensibility,”

she said. “Of course, some of my friends are awfully clever and uncle

is very philosophical, but then they all take a very one-sided view of

things, and I think it’s so much better to hear the other side of

every question. You can get two views on all subjects except crime,”

she went on. “If you believe in Darwin’s theory you can meet hosts of

clever people who bitterly oppose it. If you are a Christian Scientist

you can meet hosts of Theosophists. Even if you are a firm believer in

monogamy you can generally hire a Mormon to argue on the other side.

It is only when we come down to crime that you meet the truly insular

view, held by people who know nothing whatever about its finesse, or

the genius necessary to break the laws without leaving a big hole to

show where you went in and another to show where you came out. That is

why I like you, Mike,” she said frankly.

“Any appreciation is very gratifying to me,” said Michael, “but that

which is so enthusiastic that it leads my admirer to break into my

flat to ravish my secret thoughts, is a little overwhelming.”

“I wanted to know what you were saying about me,” she said, “though I

ought to have known that you would not leave things about for me to

read--still,” she justified herself, “to do myself justice, I did not

expect to find your confidential reports on your desk.”

There was a big safe in one corner of the room.

“I was going to open that.”

She nodded toward the strong-box.

“You saw me the other night,” she turned the conversation suddenly.

“At Sebo’s--yes,” he said, “I saw you.”

“What did you think?” she asked quietly.

“I thought you were with the loquacious Mr. Boltover for a special

reason of your own,” he said slowly.

“He _is_ an orator,--isn’t he?” she agreed,--“but he’s quite a nice

boy, really. God didn’t give him brains and it’s not fair to make fun

of a man’s deficiencies.”

“What did you want of Reggie?” asked Michael.

“I just wanted to know all about him,” she said, “that kind of people

are always interesting to me.”

“What did you want of Reggie?” he asked again.

“How insistent you are!” she laughed.

She got up and began strolling about the room, taking down books from

the big bookshelf and examining their titles.

“What catholic tastes you have, Mike--and Tennyson, too. How

depraved!”

“You will find a Browning somewhere,” he said carelessly.

“That’s more encouraging,” she smiled.

“It’s an awfully comfortable

room. Quite like the room I thought you would have.”

She looked at a book plate on the cover of one volume.

“You were at Winchester, I see. So was uncle.”

“The poison and the antidote!”

“You are not fair with uncle. He’s a mental degenerate, too. Crime is

a disease with him.”

“And with you?” said Michael quickly.

“It’s a hobby. It’s a tremendous excitement.”

She put the book down and turned to him.

“You don’t know what it’s like. To work things out and make them

happen, to cover a couple of sheets of paper with writing and then see

all sorts of things move in obedience to those instructions, to see

thousands and tens of thousands of pounds change hands, to know that

men are going long journeys, that special trains are being run, that

telegraph wires are humming all over the Continent, that a dozen

brilliant thief-catchers are working and worrying in a vain attempt to

undo all that twenty or thirty lines of writing have done.”

“This will be used in evidence against you,” warned Michael

flippantly.

The girl was not posing. Of that he was convinced. Her big grey eyes

were brighter, her whole face was alight with the excitement of the

thought, her voice had a new thrill. She was exalted, transfigured at

the thought of the power which her shrewd brain gave to her.

“What did you want of Reggie?” he asked again.

The light faded out of her eyes and she was her normal self again.

“Oh, I wanted to pick his pocket,” she said mockingly; “or, no, I know

something better--I wanted to marry him. He’s worth two millions.”

“I don’t think you will ever marry for money,” said Michael.

“What makes you say that?” she asked quickly.

He shrugged his shoulders.

“That is the estimate I have formed of you. I may be wrong.”

“I shall never marry,” she said with decision.

“I’m not of the

marrying kind. I hate men in some ways. I hate them so much, that it

gives me a real joy to take away the one thing in the world that they

really love. You know the Claude Duval tradition--I mean the idealized

Claude Duval of tradition, not the sneak-thief valet of actuality--of

robbing the rich and never robbing the poor--well, I rob men, and I

never rob women.”

“In fact you rob the people who have the money,” said Michael. “That

isn’t clever.”

“No, but it sounds awfully good. I’m thinking of including it in the

great speech I shall deliver one of these days at the Old Bailey.”

“What did you want from Reggie?” he asked.

“You are almost monotonous,” she laughed. “Well, I wanted

information.”

She turned and again he saw that bright light in her eye and that

eager look in her face.

“I will tell you, Michael Pretherston,” she said, pointing a white

finger toward him. “We will play fair. I am going to do a big thing. I

am going to make the most wonderful steal that the world has ever

known. That is why I found Reggie. That is why I made a martyr of

myself and endured the boredom of Lord Flanborough’s society.”

She clapped her hands like a child.

“It’s a big thing, Michael, but it’s full of complications,

wonderfully full of strategy, and I am going to do it all with your

assistance.”

He jumped up and flung out his hand.

“Put it there, Kate,” he said.

“This is going to be the big thing for both of us and I am going to be

the victor. If you win you have whatever you’re after. If I win, you

have me,” she said with a little laugh.

He looked at her in silence.

“I can almost see you gripping my arm and pushing me into the steel

pen,” she said.

“I can see you sitting in court in a brown--no, a

blue--overcoat, with your hat nicely balanced on your knees, looking

up at me in the dock and wondering how I am going to take it.”

A cloud passed over his face.

“You’re a pessimistic little devil,” he growled. “No, I wasn’t

thinking about that.”

“What were you thinking about?” she asked, her eyes wide open in

surprise.

“I was thinking I’d marry you,” he said.

She looked at him in amusement.

“You’re mad, aren’t you?”

“Yes,” he said; “didn’t you know?”

“Marry you!” she said scornfully. “Great Heavens!”

“You might do worse,” he said with his cheerful smile.

“Can you name anything I could do that would be more hopelessly

degrading than marry a policeman?”

“Yes,” he said, “you might be an old maid and keep cats. You take it

for granted, of course,” he went on, “that I am letting you go now.”

“Naturally,” she replied, “I have given you something to live for.”

“You may be right,” he said quietly and opened the door for her.

They walked down the felt covered passage to the front door.

“I owe you something,” she said as they stood in the doorway. “The

young man from the South nearly put an end to my promising career.”

“A little thing like that is hardly worth mentioning. Good night,

Kate, are you sure it is safe for you to be out alone so late?”

She made a little face at him and went tripping down the stairs. She

turned into the street, but had not gone two paces when a hand caught

her arm.

“Excuse me,” said a voice.

By the light of a street lamp she recognized her captor as a detective

sergeant from Scotland Yard.

Before she could protest a voice spoke from the darkness of the

balcony above and it was the voice of Michael.

“All right, sergeant,” he said.

She shook herself free of the man and looked wrathfully up at the dim

figure.

“I forgot you’d have your nurse handy, Michael,” she jeered.

“Good night, dear,” said the voice from the balcony and to her intense

annoyance she felt an extraordinary sensation wholly new to her, but

which with her quick woman’s wit she correctly diagnosed, as she

hurried angrily along the street.

For Kate Westhanger had blushed for the first time in her life.

Chapter 7.

THE PRINCESS BACHEFFSKI--BEAUTIFULLY DRESSED.

Lord Flanborough gave a dinner party. He was a methodical man and

invariably made his arrangements a long time in advance, and he was

not unnaturally annoyed, when, at the eleventh hour, his daughter

suggested a change in the plans.

“My dear Moya,” he said testily, “don’t be absurd. Surely after what

has passed--after his extraordinary attitude--”

“Oh, daddy, what nonsense!” said the girl. “Michael is really a good

sort and he will be amusing. I really cannot sit out a dinner with all

those boring people, and if you don’t invite him, I shall have a

headache.”

“But, my dear,” protested her father, “Sir Ralph will be quite

entertainment enough, surely?”

“Sir Ralph is the biggest bore of all,” she said calmly. “Please let

me have my way.”

So to his surprise and amusement Michael received an invitation to

dinner, couched in such gracious terms that he formed the wholly

incorrect impression that some other guest had failed Moya and that he

was being called in to relieve her of the responsibility for thirteen

people sitting at table.

It was even a more dreary dinner-party than Moya had imagined.

Sir Ralph Sapson was amusing in his own way, but his own way was not

Moya’s way. He was a stout, handsome, young man on the right side of

thirty, immensely wealthy and, according to her father, immensely

capable.

Though there had been no definite arrangement it was

understood, mainly by Lord Flanborough, that Sir Ralph desired a

closer association with the Flanborough family than his directorships

gave him.

The remainder of the guests were even less entertaining than Sir

Ralph. There were three other members of the peerage. Old Lord

Katstock who was a political lord who had once occupied a position as

under-secretary in some forgotten administration, the Marquis of

Cheddar who was a sporting lord and had theories on the Bruce Low

system of breeding, Lord Dumburton who was a soldier lord, very poor

and very wicked, unless rumour lied, and an assortment of directors

which included Mr. Reginald Boltover who recognized Michael with a

guilty start and took no interest whatever in his dinner but waited

with bated breath for Michael to reveal his guilty secret. There were

two or three ladies who gave Michael the impression that they had been

dipped in diamonds by their herculean maids, there was a thin, dowdily

dressed lady with a hooked nose.

(“Has the Duchess borrowed anything, Moya?” said Michael under his

breath.

“Not from me,” said the girl significantly, “but father is rather

susceptible. She’s an awfully good sort really, but I do wish she

wouldn’t take snuff.”)

Michael knew, or was known to, them all.

“It’s a rum idea of yours, going into the police, Pretherston,” said

Sir Ralph with that air of patronage which he reserved for people

poorer than himself.

“It’s just as rum an idea as your going into trade and keeping shops,”

said Michael.

Sir Ralph smiled indulgently.

“We have to do something to make an honest living,” he said. “I

suppose the reference to the shops is my association with the Colonial

Retail Stores. That makes a hundred thousand a year, Pretherston.

“Then you have a hundred thousand reasons for selling bad jam,” said

Michael; “I’ve given up buying things at your shops.”

“That is a tragedy,” said Sir Ralph with heavy humor. “Try us again

and we will endeavour to merit your patronage.”

“I have another bone to pick with you,” said Michael.

He did not like Sir Ralph Sapson.

“I came up the other day from Seahampton, the railway carriage was

beastly, hadn’t been cleaned for a month, and the train was fifty

minutes late. The London and Seahampton is another of your profitable

ventures isn’t it?”

“I am told that I have an interest in it,” said Sir Ralph, with a

smile at the girl, “but, really, my dear Pretherston, when you find a

railway so badly conducted you ought to complain to the police.”

This amused him so much that he laughed without restraint and was, as

a result, compelled to explain his joke to fourteen people who were

anxious to share it.

Michael had to leave early.

“I should dearly love to stay and play bridge with you,” he said.

“Michael, you are a little horrid, aren’t you?” asked the girl.

“Horrid?” he asked, puzzled.

“You are so practical, you weren’t always like that.”

“And you weren’t always unpractical,” he laughed.

She had hoped--she did not know exactly what she had hoped, but the

new Michael was so unlike the old that she could almost have cried

with vexation. Gone was the old recklessness, the old extravagance

(save in directions annoying to her guests) and the old adoration

which shone in his eyes. There was an unpleasant feeling that he was

laughing at her all the time and that did not add to her happiness.

“I don’t think you’re nice, anyway,” she said; “won’t you come more

often to see us?”

“When you lose a pearl necklace, or find the hired lady

surreptitiously carrying off your provisions, drop a line to Inspector

Michael Pretherston, Room 26, Scotland House and I will be with you in

a jiffy.”

“By which I understand you don’t want to see us at all,” she said

petulantly; “I am sorry I asked you to-night.”

“I, for my part, am very glad,” he said.

Later, when Michael had left, Sir Ralph was to find her a very

unamusing companion, though why she should be annoyed with her

sometime suitor only a woman can understand. She did not love him. In

some ways she rather disliked him, and possibly the underlying reason

for her inviting him at all, was in order to confirm and seal her

indifference. If Michael had been in the least way attentive, had

shown the slightest desire to recover the lost ground and to resume

the old romance, she would have found an intense satisfaction in

checking him and would have gone to bed that night happy in the

knowledge that she had permanently attached to her one for whom she

had not the slightest tenderness.

This is the way of women who, when offered a dish, a dress, a colour,

a material or a man, invariably say, “I would like to see something

else.”

Her abstraction was so marked that Sir Ralph thought she was ill,

which instantly produced that headache which it is every woman’s

privilege to adopt at a moment’s notice.

“You ought to take care of Moya, Flanborough,” he said to his host at

parting, “she’s not at all well.”

“I have noticed it,” said the dutiful parent who had noticed nothing

of the kind and had inwardly remarked that Moya was sulking about

something. “You have an extraordinary eye for things of that kind, Sir

Ralph.

“I understand human beings,” admitted Sir Ralph, “it has been my one

engrossing study in life. It is almost a vice with me. When a man

comes into my office I can generally sum up his character, his

business and his capabilities before he has opened his mouth.”

“It’s a great gift,” said Lord Flanborough solemnly.

Sir Ralph Sapson was in a particularly cheerful mood that night. In

the brief interview which he had had with his future father-in-law he

had not only secured a tacit agreement of his right to be admitted to

the family and an expression of Lord Flanborough’s approval, but he

had clinched a very excellent business arrangement which had been

hanging fire for twelve months--an arrangement which may be briefly

summarized:

Lord Flanborough was the chairman of the Austral-African Steamship

Company which carried merchandise and passengers between Cape Town and

Plymouth. Sir Ralph was the chairman of the London and Seahampton

Railway and was also chairman and a large shareholder in the

Seahampton Dock Improvement Company. The docks had improved much more

rapidly than had the trade which could justify their existence and the

deal which was really a side-line to the more romantic business of a

matrimonial alliance, was that the ships of the A-A line should

shamelessly abandon Plymouth and Liverpool and should have their

headquarters at Seahampton, an arrangement which offered advantages on

both sides, since Lord Flanborough was not without interest in the

Seahampton docks.

The night was chilly, a full moon rode serenely in the skies; there

was a touch of frost in the air and more than a suspicion of frost on

the sidewalk. Sir Ralph Sapson’s car was waiting, but he ordered the

chauffeur to drive home, saying that he would prefer to walk.

Sir

Ralph lived in Park Lane so that he had nearly a mile to cover, but he

was in that mood which made light of so unusual an exercise. He

reached the door of his imposing residence and his hand was on the

bell when he heard his name called. He had noticed as he walked up to

his door that a little distance along the road was a big motor car,

its head lamps gleaming and a chauffeur busy tinkering with the

engine.

“I am afraid you don’t know me,” said a sweet voice.

Sir Ralph raised his hat.

The girl who stood on the sidewalk was obviously a lady. She was as

obviously beautifully dressed, and Sir Ralph who had an appraising eye

valued the ermine cloak she wore at something not far short of a

thousand pounds. A single broad collar of diamonds about her slender

throat was all the jewellery she wore.

“I am afraid I don’t,” he said.

“I only met you once,” said the girl timidly, “in Paris. You were

introduced to me in the foyer of--”

“Oh, yes, at the Opera, of course,” said Sir Ralph who, amongst other

things, was a patron of the Arts.

She nodded and seemed pleased that he had remembered her, a compliment

which Sir Ralph did not fail to observe.

“My car has broken down,” she said, “and I was wondering if I could

beg your hospitality. It is so horribly shivery here.”

She drew her cloak tighter around her.

“With all the pleasure in life,” said Sir Ralph heartily, “but I have

only a bachelor’s establishment, you know,” he laughed.

He rang the bell and the door was opened instantly.

“Put some lights in the drawing room,” he said to the servant. “Is

there a fire there?”

“Yes, Sir Ralph,” said the man.

“Can I get you some coffee or a little wine?”

She had pulled a big chair up before the blaze and was resting her

little white slippers upon the silver fender.

Her shapely hands were

outspread to the fire and Sir Ralph noted that on her fingers there

was no sign of the plain gold circle of bondage.

“You will think it awfully rude in me, but I cannot recall your name,”

he said, when the servant had gone.

“I don’t suppose you do, my name is rather a barbarous one,” she

laughed. “I am the Princess Bacheffski.”

“Why, of course!” said Sir Ralph heartily, “I remember distinctly

now.”

To do him justice, Russian princesses are not unusual phenomena in

Paris and he had a very bad memory for foreign names.

“I suppose I am being very unconventional,” she said with a little

grimace, and for the first time he noticed that she spoke with the

slightest accent, “but needs must when the devil drives, and I had

either to sit in that cold car or grasp the good fortune which fate

threw in my way. And you, Sir Ralph, are looking just the same as when

I saw you last. You are one of the big business men in London, aren’t

you?”

“I have a few interests,” admitted Sir Ralph modestly.

They talked of Paris which Sir Ralph knew, and of Russia through which

he had travelled on one occasion, and of London, and then the coffee

came and a few minutes later, her chauffeur, to tell her that the

repairs had been effected.

“Before I go I want to ask you one favour, Sir Ralph,” she said.

She was a little embarrassed and nervously twisted a ring on her

finger. Sir Ralph saw this and wondered.

“You have only to ask anything, Princess, and it is granted,” he said

gallantly.

She hesitated a moment and bit her lip in thought.

“I am going to take you into my confidence, and I know as a man of

honour” (Sir Ralph bowed) “you will not betray me. I am in London, but

I am not supposed to be in London.”

She looked at him anxiously as she made this confession.

“I understand,” said Sir Ralph, which was not true.

“You have probably noticed--you were so quick at seeing those

things--that I am not wearing my wedding ring. Well,” she hesitated,

“Dimitri and I have quarrelled, and I do not want him to find me. I

haven’t been to the Embassy or to call on any of my old friends.”

“You may be sure,” said Sir Ralph, “that your secret is safe. I may

say,” he added, “that this is not the first time I have been entrusted

with a confidence as delicate.”

“I know I can trust you,” she said, warmly gripping his hand.

“I am staying in a little furnished flat which I have taken in

Half Moon Street. I have a duenna with me for the sake of the

proprieties--Dimitri is so funny about those things--so if a busy man

can spare the time, I am always in between four and five--”

“It will give me the greatest happiness to renew the acquaintance,”

said Sir Ralph and raised her hand to his lips.

Sir Ralph retired to rest that night more pleased with himself than

ever.

Chapter 8.

AN ARTIST MAKES AN EXHIBITION OF HIMSELF.

No man has ever understood a woman, for the simple reason that woman

is unintelligible even to her own kind. If she were not, and if she

were susceptible to explanation by her own sisters, be sure that her

own sisters would lose no time in telling the first man she met all

about her.

Lady Moya Felton possessed that rare combination of talents, beauty

and acumen. She dressed well, she spoke well, and she looked well. She

was a product of Newnham, an institution which, more often than not,

gives the world a being which is something less than a woman and

something more than a babu. This being is crammed with erudition and

for many years fights life with a textbook.

Sometimes she continues to

the end, very self-assured, very confident of the facts she has culled

from the printed page and very determined that she will never

surrender her mechanical facts or her machine-made values. Sometimes,

she succumbs to the humanising influences which daily contact with the

verities of life bring to her and develops into a useful and charming

member of society.

Moya had absorbed just as much of life as she thought was necessary to

her comfort. She stopped short of the supreme lesson which finds

expression in cheerful sacrifice but she was an eminently pleasing

person and never discussed biological justice or gave forth as her own

the shoddy philosophies she had acquired in hall. Therefore, she was

bearable. Moreover, by realising--here her instinct served her--that

Newnham had turned her out fit for nothing better than a church-going

school ma’am, she conveyed an impression of her education rather than

declaimed the fact.

Practical as she was, she had a guilty secret, not only a very dear

one, to be hugged tight to her heart, but one which evoked the unusual

emotion of profound disapproval in the more ordered compartments of

her mind. Moya was a dreamer, a cold-blooded romanticist who had

wonderful adventures with wonderful people whenever she walked or rode

abroad. In the privacy of her big limousine, she would be absorbed in

events of her own creation, wholly monopolised by men and women who

bore no likeness to and had no relation with any person in her

somewhat extensive list of acquaintances. She would often find herself

in situations so absurdly impossible that even the penny novelette

reader would have rejected them with the scorn which their crudity

deserved.

She did not dream of living people, the mere mental

suggestion--for the roving mind has a trick of taking charge at

times--that any of her visionary heroes had his prototype in flesh and

blood ensured the ejection of the offending dream-man and the

substitution of another, more wildly improbable but at the same time

more unlikely to challenge relationship with anybody in the material

world.

She could dream and yet accept the cold practicality of a Ralph Sapson

and calmly consider a marriage so hopelessly prosaic.

That was inexplicable.

For an engaged lover Ralph had been singularly remiss. He had called

once since his unemotional declaration of love. To do him justice he

had skipped the tender demonstrations which usually accompany even the

most formal engagements and had got down to the question of settlement

in the shortest space of time. This was as Moya could wish, for she

also was embarrassed at the thought that a human being might possibly

approach--suffering in comparison--the extravagance, wordless and

intangible as it was, of her shadowy friends.

It is a remarkable circumstance that romance in concrete form did not

come to Moya, until the very week she engaged herself to marry Sir

Ralph Sapson. It came in a curious way. She had driven to Leicester

Square to see an exhibition of pictures. It was one of those

collections which dawn upon London, bringing in its wake a name which

has never been heard before, save in a very select circle and is never

heard again outside of that circle; an orbit which swings beyond the

ken of ordinary mortals.

She went into the gallery and found it a veritable desert. Save for a

young man and a small, pinched and preoccupied girl, wearing a large

pendant in which was inserted the photograph of her uninteresting

fiancé, the place was empty.

The girl with the pendant carried her

excuse in her hand, in the shape of a bunch of catalogues. There was

less excuse for the young man for he was healthy in appearance and it

was not raining.

Moya began a conscientious inspection of the pictures, chiefly

remarkable for their colouring and for the atmosphere which the artist

had managed to secure. Indeed, the pictures were all atmosphere. The

girl made a slow progress along the wall, comparing each framed

atrocity with her catalogue and striving to sense, dimly, something of

the artist’s honourable intentions.

She looked around once to discover what effect the pictures had upon

her fellow sightseer. He was standing before a long panel

representing, if the catalogue had been rightly compiled, “A Blue Wind

on a Green Hill.” His face bore an expression of the deepest gloom,

his hat was tilted to the back of his head and his hands were thrust

deeply into his trousers pockets. The longer he looked at the “Blue

Wind on the Green Hill” the more morose and unhappy did he appear.

This then was the attitude which the new colourist school demanded,

one of fierce but approving antagonism if the paradox be permitted.

She moved up till she was almost by his side, never thinking that in

the presence of the girl with the programmes and the photographic

miniature, he would dare address her. Yet he did.

“What do you think of that one?” he asked without turning his head.

She was taken aback and was prepared to be chilly and non-committal.

She looked at his face and the nearer view was a pleasing one. He was

very fair, very good-looking and had the bluest eyes she had ever seen

in a man. He was also unshaven and his collar was not clean, but he

was well dressed enough and his tone was wholly Oxford--and Balliol at

that.

“I think it is rather weird,” she said.

“So do I,” he nodded vigorously. “I think it is--‘weird’ is the word.

As a work of art how does it strike you?”

She hesitated. She had a full range of studio jargon which she had

acquired in the course of her after-education and could speak glibly

on atmosphere, tone and light. She knew that it was possible to refer

to a still-life study of a bunch of bananas as being “full of

movement” without being guilty of an absurdity. In fact, she knew

enough about art to have occupied a position on any average newspaper

as a critic.

“As a work of art,” she said, “it is original and a little eccentric.”

“Frankly?” he demanded fiercely.

All the time he spoke he was glaring at the picture and had not turned

his head toward her.

“Frankly,” she replied, “I think these are monstrosities.”

He nodded again.

“I agree with you,” he said, “and I know better than anybody else how

monstrous they are--I painted ’em!”

Moya gasped.

“I am awfully sorry,” she began.

“I am sorry, too--that I painted them,” he replied. “I am not sorry

that I exhibited them, because all my friends told me that they were

wonderful and naturally I get some satisfaction from proving that my

friends are mentally deficient.”

He turned round and looked at her and was in turn surprised.

“Hello,” he said, staring at her with his blue eyes wide open, “I

thought you were much older.”

She laughed.

“The fact is I didn’t look at you,” he confessed; “how can anybody

look at anything with these beastly things staring one in the

face--Hi! Emma!”

Fortunately the programme girl was looking his way and realised that

he was speaking to her.

“Your name is Emma, I suppose.”

“No, sir,” said the girl impressively, “my name is Evangeline.”

He turned to the girl.

“Here is an Evangeline whom I thought was an Emma; and here are my

Emmas that I thought were Evangelines,” he said despairingly. “What

made you come to this exhibition?”

“I saw a criticism of the pictures in yesterday’s papers.”

“In the _Megaphone_,” he said accusingly.

“Yes--it was a very flattering criticism, I thought,” said the girl.

He nodded.

“I wrote it myself,” he said without shame.

He turned to the programme girl.

“Tell your master to shut up the gallery, have the pictures packed

away and sent home.”

“But,” said Moya in alarm, “I hope my stupid views won’t influence

you.”

“It isn’t your stupid view,” he said, “it is my original stupid view.

You see, I can’t paint really. I know not the slightest thing about

art, I have never had an artistic education or served under any

master. I am a genius. These works are works of a genius. The frames

cost a lot of money and the amount of paint I have used is prodigious.

There is everything there,” he waved his hand to the covered walls,

“except the know-how.”

She murmured a conventional expression of sympathy, but he did not

invite sympathy, he invited condemnation and seemed to find a comfort

in his own misfortune and was obviously all the happier, that he had

reached a decision on his own merits.

They walked out of the gallery together and Moya wondered at herself.

That she had in so brief a space of time entered into the aspirations

and disappointments of a perfect stranger so that she felt something

of his chagrin was truly amazing.

“I know you,” he said, breaking off in the midst of a sardonic

dissertation on art, “you are Lady Moya Melton or Pelton.”

“Felton,” she suggested, amused.

“Oh, yes, Felton,” he nodded. “I saw your portrait in the academy, a

very bad portrait too.”

“People thought it was rather good,” she demurred.

“Idealised, but Lord, what do I know about art? This char-a-banc de

luxe is yours, I presume,” he pointed to the big limousine.

“It does happen to be mine,” she said; “my father gave it to me on my

twenty-first birthday.”

He inspected it critically.

“I wonder if I know as much about motor-cars as I know about

painting,” he said. “I used to think I knew something about both, but

here, at any rate, is something real, it is a very nice car.”

He opened the door for her and she offered her hand.

“I am so sorry about the pictures,” she said.

“Don’t worry,” he replied cheerfully.

She thought for a moment.

“Can I drop you anywhere?”

He fingered his unshaven chin.

“If you know of a nice deep pond where a man may drown himself without

interference I should be obliged,” he said gravely, then, seeing the

look of alarm in her eyes he laughed. “You probably don’t know my

name,” he said.

As a matter of fact she did not and had been trying throughout the

interview to take a surreptitious look at the catalogue. She knew it

was something like Brixel.

“Fonso Blaxton--” he said shortly. “Fonso stands for Alphonso, a

perfectly rotten name, isn’t it? It would be quite all right for an

artist. If there’s any need to send flowers, my address is Oxford

Chambers.”

He shook hands abruptly, handed her into the car and closed the door.

He waited only the briefest spell and had lifted his hat and vanished

before the car had started.

Moya drove back with so much to occupy her thoughts that she forgot to

dream. So preoccupied was she, that she passed Sir Ralph Sapson and

his chic companion turning into the park before she was aware that he

was bowing to her or had time to note anything more about the lady

than that she was very beautifully gowned and that her sunshade was

tilted at such an angle that it was impossible to see her face.

“Who is your friend?”

Sir Ralph turned with a smirk.

“That, Princess,” he said, “is Lady Moya Felton.”

“Oh, your fiancée,” said the girl, “isn’t it a bore being in London

incognito; I should so much like to have met her.”

“Perhaps some day,” said Ralph.

“I should dearly love to,” murmured the girl; “but please go on, you

interest me so much. I am beginning to realise why you English are so

successful. You seem to know every detail of your business.”

“Oh, dear no,” protested Sir Ralph good-humoredly. “I am rather a

dunce if the truth be told, but one must know something of the

details.”

“Something!” said the girl, raising her eye-brows. “I think you are

very modest. Why, you seem to know the workings of your railway system

from beginning to end.”

Sir Ralph stroked his moustache thoughtfully.

“One has to go into things,” he said vaguely, “and of course one takes

a lot of credit for things which one is not entitled to take credit

for. But the gold train was my idea altogether.”

“I never thought there was so much romance in business,” said the

Princess, then suddenly, “do you mind telling the driver to turn

about, I am tired of the park now.”

He leaned forward and instructed the chauffeur and the big car circled

round.

“I am glad you suggested that,” he said.

“Why?” she asked.

“Did you notice a man in a grey felt hat talking to a lady in a

victoria?”

She shook her head.

“He’s a weird bird,” said Sir Ralph; “he is a policeman, Michael

Pretherston, Lord Pretherston’s brother. I don’t want to meet him,

apart from the fact that he might recognize you, even through that

veil of yours which would deny him so much happiness,” he added

gallantly.

“Tell me some more about the gold train,” she said.

Nothing loath Sir Ralph explained.

He told the story of the Seahampton

Docks and the big liners which would be coming in and the new services

he had inaugurated to meet the increased traffic.

“We shall carry practically the whole of the gold which comes from the

Rand mines,” he said impressively. “Naturally we have to be very

careful although there is not much danger in England. The gold train

is really two big safes on wheels. To outward appearance, they are

just like ordinary closed railway trucks. In reality they are steel

boxes, burglar proof and fire proof. Of course, nothing can go wrong

and even if we had a smash the cars would be uninjured. But I have the

best men on the system to run the train.”

“How very fascinating,” she said intensely interested. “I suppose you

have a most elaborate time-table?”

“I have worked out every detail myself,” he said.

He took a note-book from his pocket.

“I will show you, Princess,” he said impressively.

He turned the gilt-edged leaves until he came to two pages covered

with his fine writing.

“You will get some idea of the work involved in the running of a

special train,” he said; “here are the times. There is the driver’s

name, the fireman’s name, the assistant fireman’s name, the names of

the two guards.”

She looked at the book.

“I cannot read your writing very well,” she laughed; “you must not

forget that my family was very old fashioned and my dear father never

allowed us to learn the Roman alphabet until we were quite grown up.

But I can see what a very difficult business it is.”

She handed the book back to him with a little sigh.

“I am afraid I am very stupid,” she said; “figures always bother me

and I can see that you revel in them. I hate writing, but by the way

your book is filled, it seems that you revel in it! I cannot

understand people who like to write.

It is always an agony for me to

compose an ordinary letter. My thoughts come so much faster than my

poor hand can move.”

She took a pad and pencil from the silver mounted stationery case in

front of her.

“I will show you something,” she said.

She wrote rapidly, resting the pad on her knee and he watched her in

astonishment as she proceeded to fill the sheet.

“There,” she said triumphantly, “that is what I can do best.”

“It looks like shorthand,” he said.

“It is something like Russian shorthand,” said the girl, “and I am

such a lazy person that I always use it whenever I want to write a

note. My secretary, who is the only person in the world who

understands it, transcribes it. I do it because I hate writing.”

“So you are clever, after all, Princess.”

She reached out her little hand and patted his arm.

“You don’t know how clever I am,” she said and they both laughed

together.

Chapter 9.

THE SHAREHOLDERS AND AN INTERRUPTION.

Colonel Westhanger looked at his watch.

“She’s twenty minutes late already,” he said.

Gregori rolled another cigarette and looked enquiringly at Dr. Philip

Garon who was fingering his trim beard and talking with some animation

to the middle-aged pallid man, who was known to the world as Mr.

Cunningham and to the police as an expert safe breaker.

All Crime Street, with the exception of the admirable Mr. Millet, was

present. The Bishop with his large placid face was playing bezique

with Francis Stockmar. Colling Jacques, who had the appearance of a

prosperous butler who had settled down to the management of his own

private hotel, was reading the newspaper. Mr.

Mulberry, that

respectable man with his grey side-whiskers and his sad dog-like eyes,

was discussing Renaissance architecture with the other Stockmar and

the Colonel, pacing the room impatiently, stopped now and again to

fling a word to one or the other.

Presently there was a slight sound in the hall below and the Colonel

went to the door of the room.

“She is here,” he said and passed out to the landing to meet Kate.

She was wearing a dark coat-dress and a big black fox wrap which she

loosened and flung off as she came into the room. It was notable that

the Colonel, who had every right to complain of her unpunctuality, did

not attempt to criticize her for her late arrival, other than to make

mild reference to the fact that he had expected her earlier.

She looked around the room.

“Where is Millet?” she asked.

“Millet is working on the telegrams,” he said and she nodded,

satisfied.

“Everything is ready now,” she said. “Did you see Boltover, Mr.

Mulberry?”

He rose and came toward her with that noiseless step of his.

“A most amiable young man,” he said in his unctuous sing-song voice,

“such a pleasant young man! We had a very long talk together.”

“And?”

“We arranged everything.”

He took a long envelope from his pocket, pulled out a stiff parchment

and handed it to her with the gravity and deference of an ambassador

delivering a treaty to his sovereign lady. She ran her eyes quickly

over the document, turned its crinkling page and read rapidly to the

last flourishing signatures.

“That’s all right,” she said and returned the document.

The long table had been placed in the middle of the room and to this,

without instructions, the whole of the company had drawn. Colonel

Westhanger sat at one end and Kate at the other.

From her bag she took

a thick roll of manuscript, cut the strings that fastened it and

smoothed the sheets out before her. One by one she called their names

at the same time handing them, in some cases one, in other cases two

or three sheets covered with writing.

“You have a week to master all this,” she said, “and in a week’s time

we will meet again and I will see that everybody understands.”

She caught Jacques’ eye.

“About men?” she said. “How many have you arranged for?”

“Sixty,” he said; “I have been bringing them into England for the past

month.”

“Will sixty be enough?” she asked dubiously. “How many did we use for

the Bank of Edinburgh?”

“That was a different job,” said Jacques; “we had to cut through

thirty feet of concrete. I used two hundred and twenty in relays of

thirty.”

“Sixty will be quite enough,” she said after a moment’s thought. “You

will see that I have allowed only for fifty, but if they are the right

kind of people--”

“They are all good men, most of them from Italy, a few of them from

France and one Portuguese. They are the pick of my men and represent

years of organisation.”

“You have full details there, Cunningham,” she said, turning to that

dour man. “I took a shorthand note about the gold train, the driver

and the officials who will be on the train and I have all their

addresses except one. You will find a cross against that; I think the

address is Berne Street, Seahampton, but I had no time to verify it.”

“This will be easy,” said Cunningham, reading his instructions; “these

times won’t be altered, I suppose?”

“If they are, I shall know all about it,” said the girl. “Everyone

must make a note of those instructions in your own code and you must

do it pretty quickly.”

“What’s the hurry?” asked Westhanger, who, alone of the men about the

table, had received no paper.

“I want to see every sheet burnt before we leave the room,” she said.

The Colonel frowned.

“But--” he began.

“I want all the papers burnt before we leave the room,” she said again

emphatically.

Her uncle growled but the others knew her well enough to realize that

she had an excellent reason. Each man in his own way, some in

note-books, some on the back of loose sheets of paper faithfully

transcribed the instructions, using their own pet abbreviations, their

own particular symbols and one by one, as fast as they completed their

copies, the girl collected the papers, heard the instructions read

over, corrected one, amended another and finally gathering all the

sheets in her hand, she walked to the fireplace, deposited them in the

grate and set a lighted match to them.

She watched them burn until they were black ash and put her foot upon

them crushing the embers to dust.

“Are you nervous?” asked the Colonel sarcastically.

“Are you?” she asked coolly.

“Well it does seem a little--”

From the corner of the room came a soft but insistent purr.

The men jumped to their feet.

“Put away the tables quickly,” said the girl under her breath.

They separated the table into three parts. With an agility remarkable

in one of his years the Colonel flung a cloth over each, lifted a pot

of flowers on to one, arranged a photograph on another and left the

third to the bezique players. The girl seated herself at the piano,

opened it and began a soft movement from “Rigoletto.”

“Sing,” she said under her breath.

The obedient Mr. Mulberry shuffled up to her side. He had a pleasing

voice and the girl picked up the strain.…

“I am sorry to disturb the harmony,” said Michael Pretherston from the

doorway.

“May I ask what is the meaning of this intrusion?” demanded Colonel

Westhanger haughtily as half-a-dozen Scotland Yard men crowded into

the room behind their chief.

“It is what is vulgarly known as a raid,” said Michael. “Everybody

will remain where he is while I run a foot rule over him. Parsons, you

will take these gentlemen one by one into an adjoining room and search

him most thoroughly. Mrs. Gray,” he called to the door and a stout

middle-aged woman with a pleasant face appeared, “you will perform the

same kind office for Miss Westhanger.”

“Why not ‘Kate’?” asked the girl scornfully. “You are getting polite

in your old age, Mike.”

“Miss Westhanger,” he repeated suavely.

“Suppose I refuse to be searched?”

“Then I shall convey you to a vulgar police station,” said Michael,

“and the process of search will be carried out in uncongenial

surroundings.”

“I take it that you have a warrant?” demanded Colonel Westhanger.

“My dear Colonel!” said Michael. “Do you imagine I should come without

having gone through that little formality?”

He produced the document.

“Signed by two stipendary magistrates to be absolutely sure,” he said

flippantly; “impound all documents you find, Parsons.”

“Yes, sir,” said the man and led away the first of his victims which

happened to be the docile Mr. Mulberry.

“It is an unpleasant business,” sighed Michael as he watched the girl

pass from the room followed by her searcher, “but then, you will

understand, Colonel, that our profession is full of heartrending

moments. You are still on ticket of leave, I understand?”

“Expired,” growled Colonel Westhanger.

“Pardon me,” said Michael. “I have been misinformed. I would like a

word with you.”

He led the other to the corner of the room out of earshot and the good

humor died out of his voice as he confronted the older man.

“Westhanger,” he said, “who was the tutor of this girl?”

“I don’t quite get you?” said the other insolently.

“Who taught Kate to be a thief--is that plain enough for you?”

“If she is a thief it is a matter of aptitude. I deny that she is a

thief or that she is a party to any illegal act of which my

unfortunate friends may have been guilty--nobody taught her.”

“You are a queer fellow,” said Michael. “I suppose you are just

unmoral.”

“My personal character--” began the other.

“By unmoral, I mean you have no sense of _meum_ and _teum_. In other

words, you are a born thief. You forgive me, but subtlety seems to be

wasted on you. I ask you again, who educated Kate?”

The Colonel smiled.

“Kate has much to thank me for,” he said smugly. “I have been a father

and more than a father to that child and I assure you, Mr.

Pretherston, that you are altogether wrong when you think that she is

a thief. Why do you ask?” he demanded, suddenly breaking off.

“Because,” said Michael looking him steadily in the eye, “I believe

that you have deliberately set yourself to exploit the genius of a

clever child for your own profit. I believe that you, and you only,

have so distorted her viewpoint that you have destroyed her soul. I am

not sure yet,” he admitted, “but when I am--”

“When you are,” sneered the Colonel.

“On one charge or another, I shall put you into prison,” said Michael

simply, “and I shall keep you in prison until you are dead. I will set

myself the agreeable task of ensuring your end in a prison

infirmary--which, I understand, is not a very cheerful place.”

The Colonel shuddered. There was something fateful, there was

something malignant, a scarcely suppressed expression of hate in the

police officer’s tone.

For a second the older man wilted and shrunk

back beneath the fierce intensity in Michael’s voice and then, like

the weakling that he was, he burst into a torrent of abuse which was

founded in fear and energised by rage.

“Damn you,” he hissed; “threaten me!… I will have your coat off your

back, you damned policeman!… You sneaking slop!… Kate’s what she is.

She will beat you and all your flat-footed pals! If she’s bad, you

can’t make her anything else. I made her, yes, I made her! She is

going to beat you, do you hear, and you will never catch her or me. I

made her! You can’t scare me…!”

His shrill voice trembled with anger, he was shaking from head to foot

and the bony fist which shivered in Michael’s face was so tightly

clenched that the knuckles stood out whitely.

“She is not the kind you can cure with psalms, Mr. Policeman! You

can’t pray over her because she has nothing to pray to, do you hear

that? You caught me. You sent me to that hell at Wandsworth and I am

going to get back on you, you and all people like you. Kate’s the

biggest thing you have handled and she is going to break you, break

you!”

“Uncle!”

He turned round to meet the white face of the girl.

“Are you mad?” she asked quietly.

He dropped his eyes before hers.

“He got me rattled,” he muttered.

Michael looked at the searcher and the woman shook her head.

With a nod he dismissed her.

“Not guilty!” he said flippantly.

He looked at the trembling man in front of him with a calm intensity.

“I shall remember a lot of what you said, Westhanger, and you will

hear from me one of these days.”

He walked over to the fireplace, for out of the tail of his eye he had

seen the burnt paper. He thrust a finger gently through the ash.

“Still warm,” he said. “I gather we were a little late.”

He scooped out a handful of the ash and carried it to the light.

A

word or two of the burnt instructions was still faintly visible but

there was nothing to assist him. Nevertheless he had the whole of the

ashes carefully deposited in a box and carried away--he himself being

the last of the police to leave.

He stood in the centre of the room carefully smoothing the nap of his

felt hat and Crime Street waited for the inevitable warning. In this

they were disappointed, for Michael addressed himself solely to Kate.

“I will give you a chance, Miss Westhanger,” he said and they wondered

why he did not employ the more familiar style of address. “You are

about to commit a crime which will render every one of you liable to

long terms of penal servitude. What that crime is, I don’t know, but I

am certain it is what Stockmar would call ‘kolossal.’ It would not

matter to me if everyone of you rotted in prison for the rest of your

lives.”

“Tank you,” said Mr. Stockmar, “dat is fery goot of you!”

“When I say everyone of you,” said Michael, “I exclude Kate. She is a

young girl and if there is one of you who has any pretensions to

manhood, you will get her out of this gang before you go any farther.

If there is one of you who has a mother or a sister or any woman in

the world for whom he has the slightest respect, he will try to save

that child from herself. That is all.”

The meek Mr. Mulberry stood by the piano, his plump fingers ranged

across the keys producing a melancholy symphony.

“We will now sing Hymn 847,” he said, in his melancholy oily voice and

it was in the burst of laughter that this sally provoked, that Michael

Pretherston took his leave, followed at a respectful distance down the

stairs by Colonel Westhanger, who did not breathe freely until the

front door had clanged behind his unwelcome visitor and until the

oiled bolts shot home in their sockets.

“Where’s Kate?” he asked on his return.

“Such nonsense,” growled the elder Stockmar, “she has to the high-room

gone to make scare mit Predderston.”

Michael, at the far end of Crime Street, was taking leave of his

assistants when there cut into the quiet night a sound almost

terrifying in its unexpectedness.

It could only be described as a hollow shriek which rose and fell from

a wailing scream to a throaty sob. It lasted no more than ten seconds

and stopped as unexpectedly as it began.

“What’s that?” asked the startled sergeant.

Michael scratched his chin.

“The Colonel in hysterics,” he suggested callously. Nevertheless, the

noise puzzled him.

Chapter 10.

SIR RALPH LOST A PRINCESS AND FOUND A POLICEMAN.

Michael took the card from the uniformed constable and raised his

eye-brows in surprise.

“Sir Ralph Sapson,” he said, “what the dickens does he want?”

The constable made no reply, for he was neither thought-reader nor

inquisitive.

“Show him in,” said Michael.

Sir Ralph Sapson had never before called at Scotland House or showed

the slightest desire to improve his acquaintance with Michael and the

visit was therefore a little puzzling. Ralph bustled in, less

important than usual and probably somewhat overawed by the difficulty

he had experienced in reaching his objective.

“I daresay you wonder why I have called,” he said.

“As long as it isn’t to take me out to lunch, I don’t care,” said

Michael with a laugh. “Sit down, Ralph, and tell me all your troubles.

By the way,” he said as the thought occurred to him, “I suppose you

are not in any kind of trouble, are you?”

“That’s just it, Michael,” said the other depositing his silk hat

carefully on the ground; “I am really worried over two matters and

knowing what a good chap you are and how very nice you have been to

me--”

“Don’t be silly,” said Michael kindly, “I have not been nice to you

and I am not a good chap. Have you lost something?”

“I want to see you on two matters,” said Sir Ralph, who was given to

preambles; “they are altogether different and one, of course, is not a

police matter at all--I merely want your advice as a friend. Do you

know the Princess Bacheffski?”

“I don’t know Her Royal Highness, Her Serene Highness, or Her Nibs as

the case may be.”

“She is neither,” said the other, “she is the wife of Prince Dimitri

Bacheffski, who is a large land-owner in Poland.”

Michael shook his head.

“The world is filled with the wives of princes who are large

land-owners in Poland,” he said.

“I met her in Paris,” explained Sir Ralph.

“When I said the world,” said Michael, “I meant Paris. What has she

done, stolen your watch?”

“Please don’t be an ass,” said the other testily; “I tell you she is a

princess and enormously wealthy. She had a row with her husband and

came to London and I have seen a great deal of her. Yesterday, when I

called to take her driving, I found that she had gone away, left

without a word, paid her bill at the furnished flat she had taken and

vanished--”

“Gone back to her husband, I suppose,” said Michael; “I have heard of

such things happening. You will not hear from her until a suit is

filed for divorce and then the newspapers will be filled with grisly

details, about your directorships, your early life and your hobbies;

also the Sunday papers will publish your portrait.

”

Sir Ralph wagged his head in despair.

“If I thought you would have taken this kind of view I would not have

come,” he said severely; “there is nothing of that kind in this

business. She is just a lady whom I had helped very slightly and who

had been kind enough to give me her confidence.”

“Do you want me to find her?” said the other in surprise.

“No, that isn’t it,” said Sir Ralph. “The story has a curious sequel.

This morning I was in the city and I met a friend who asked me to

lunch with him. I had a lot of business to get through and it was not

until ten to one that I was able to get away. My car was not in the

city but I thought I should have no difficulty in getting a taxi. When

I got into the street, however, it was pouring with rain and not a

taxi could be had for love or money. It was only a few steps to the

Bank station and I decided to go by tube.”

“Sensation!” said the admiring Michael.

“Well, to cut a long story short,” said Sir Ralph, “I travelled to

Oxford Circus and changed into a train which took me to the Thames

Embankment. Here comes the extraordinary part of the story,” he said

impressively; “as I came up the escalator on the one side, the

Princess passed down on the other.”

“Yes?” said Michael unimpressed.

“She was plainly, even poorly dressed,” said Ralph. “I raised my hat

to her but she stared at me as though she had never seen me before in

her life.”

“You made a mistake probably,” said the other.

“I will swear it was she,” said Sir Ralph emphatically. “There was no

mistaking her. She has a very tiny mole just below the right ear,

which I had seen--”

“Eh?”

Michael was all attention now.

“A tiny mole beneath the right ear,” he repeated, and went on, “dark

grey eyes, large, well marked eye-brows, very delicate mouth and

rounded chin?”

“That is she.

Good Lord!” cried Sir Ralph in amazement. “Do you know

her?”

“Oh, yes, I know her,” said Michael grimly; “now let me hear the story

of this Princess all over again. How did you come to meet her?”

“I met her in Paris. She was introduced to me after the opera,” said

Sir Ralph patiently; “as a matter of fact, I forgot all about it until

she reminded me of the fact.”

“Ah, this is where the story begins,” said Michael; “when did she

remind you of the fact?”

Sir Ralph detailed briefly the unconventional character of the

meeting.

“I see,” said Michael, “her car had broken down providentially just

outside your house. Beautiful and most gorgeously arrayed, how could

you resist her pathetic appeal? And so that is how you met her, is it?

Oh, Kate, Kate!” he shook his head.

“Kate!” asked the bewildered magnate. “What on earth are you talking

about?”

Michael took no notice of the question.

“I must ask you to give me a more detailed account of your meetings.

Of course, you met her afterwards.”

“Yes, I met her. And she was very charming,” said Sir Ralph.

“And particularly interested in business?” asked Michael.

“No, she did not know much about business. There you are wrong. You

are trying to prove that she is an adventuress. She knew nothing

whatever about business,” said Sir Ralph triumphantly; “in fact, I had

to explain things over and over again.”

Michael leant over and patted his arm as he might have done to a

distraught child.

“What things did you explain, little man?” he asked.

Here, however, he lost the trail for, either because he could not or

would not remember, Sir Ralph was very vague at this point. Michael

sat at his desk, his head between his hands thinking rapidly.

First Flanborough, then Boltover, and now Ralph Sapson,--what was the

association?

“Have you any business dealings with Flanborough?” he asked.

“What do you mean?” asked Ralph cautiously.

“Is there any connection between your companies?”

“My dear chap, what a question to ask,” said Sir Ralph. “You know, as

well as I, that all business people, who operate on a big scale, are

associated in some way or other. I run railways and quarries and

things, and Flanborough runs ships and gold mines. I am interested in

his things and he has shares in mine.”

Being a business man he did not tell Michael of the arrangement which

he had entered into for the benefit of the unthriving port of

Seahampton, because it is the way of business men to be mysterious and

uninforming about the commonplaces of commercial intercourse.

“Well, that’s that,” said Ralph after waiting in vain for some

illuminating observation from his friend.

“And what is the other matter?”

Here Sir Ralph found it more difficult to make a beginning.

“It is rather a delicate subject, Michael,” he said, “for it touches

my personal honour.”

“Dear, dear,” said Michael sympathetically, and, if the truth be told,

a little mechanically, because his mind was occupied elsewhere with a

greater and more important problem, than with the personal honour of

the Sapsons.

“And not only that, but the honour of somebody we both admire,” said

Sir Ralph awkwardly. “The fact is, Michael, I am engaged to Moya. It

isn’t generally known, but it is so and naturally I haven’t seen as

much of her as I could have wished in this past week. Also I have been

a very busy man.”

“Naturally,” said Michael sympathetically. “You have already told me

about the Princess, you remember.”

“Well, you are a man of the world,” said Sir Ralph, going very red,

“and you will understand.

Anyway, I haven’t seen as much of Moya as I

could have wished. The fact is,” he blurted out, “Moya is carrying

on!”

“Carrying on,” said the puzzled Michael, “carrying on what, or whom?”

“She meets him every day in the park and they go sketching together in

the country,” said Sir Ralph rapidly. “I haven’t spoken to Flanborough

about it, but it is all rather rotten.”

“If by ‘carrying on’ you mean that Moya is indulging in a flirtation,

it is not only very rotten, but it must have been very awkward for

you,” said Michael, “unless you could be perfectly certain of your

fiancée’s movements, you and your Princess were liable at any moment

to run against her. It was very inconsiderate of Moya. Who is her

friend?”

“A beastly artist,” said Ralph savagely, “a man who had an exhibition

of simply rotten pictures. I don’t think he has a bob in the world,

and he’s a most untidy looking person. I have seen them together with

my own eyes and he treats Moya outrageously. And Moya seems to like

it.”

“Does he beat her or anything?” asked Michael wearily.

He was growing tired of the interview and wanted to be alone to work

out the new combination which had been presented to him.

“He compromises her,” said Ralph with vehemence; “holds her hand and

calls her ‘child’ in public. It is simply disgraceful!”

“You can trust Moya,” said Michael, “she will do nothing which

jeopardises her prospects.”

“She has plenty of money of her own,” interrupted Ralph.

“It is curious how your mind runs to money. I wasn’t thinking of that.

I was thinking of her social prospects. She is a very shrewd girl. A

little romance will do her no harm, Ralph.”

“But, hang it, she’s got me!” said Ralph wrathfully.

“I said ‘romance,’” said Michael with offensive emphasis; “you’re not

‘romance,’ you’re ‘business.’”

But Sir Ralph was not satisfied.

“Perhaps if you saw her and had a few words with her,” he suggested,

“she might take a little notice.”

“I should leave her presence a mental and physical wreck,” said

Michael decidedly. “No, Ralph, you must manage your own love making

without calling in the--er, police.” (Sir Ralph winced.) “I don’t know

Moya well enough to give her advice on so delicate a matter--I only

proposed to her once and that has given me no right to urge your suit.

One question I should like to ask you before you go,” he said as Sir

Ralph gathered up his hat and gloves. “Did the Princess question you

about any bank with which you are associated?”

“I can answer you definitely, that she did not,” replied Sir Ralph.

“You have an altogether wrong impression of that lady--in my

judgment.”

“_Your_ judgment!” said Michael scornfully, as he ushered him out of

the room.

Chapter 11.

LADY MOYA WAS CURIOUSLY UNLIKE HERSELF.

There was a greater reason for Sir Ralph’s perturbation than either

he knew or Michael guessed. Both might have been enlightened, had they

stood on Cannon Street Station one Sunday morning and seen the

distress of Mr. Alphonso Blaxton as the big minute hand of the station

clock grew nearer to nine. The guard was closing the doors of the

carriages and the collector was preparing to shut the gate, when Moya

came flying breathlessly through the barrier.

“Oh, I _am_ so sorry!” she gasped; “my watch stopped.”

Mr. Alphonso Blaxton bundled her into an empty first-class carriage

and jumped in himself as the train moved.

“There’s not another train for three hours,” he said severely.

“We could have gone to church.”

“What a mind!” said the young man in admiration. “I never thought of

church!”

“Anyway, I didn’t lose the train,” she said tartly.

“Have you brought

everything?”

She looked round for the collapsible easel, the paint boxes and the

paraphernalia which usually accompanied their sketching tours.

“I have brought nothing,” he said frankly.

“But how can you sketch?”

“I am not going to sketch,” he said. “I decided that it was too nice a

day to waste.”

She looked up at him and laughed.

“You will never be an artist,” she said, suddenly severe. “To what

part of the country are we going?”

“I thought we would go to Maidstone. There are some lovely drives from

there. I’ve hired a motor car to meet us at the station and I thought

we would go through Sussex and lunch at Seahampton.”

“Not Seahampton,” she said quickly; “my father is at Seahampton

to-day.”

She might have added that Sir Ralph was also at Seahampton, but, for

reasons of her own, she kept that information to herself because Sir

Ralph was not a subject which she had found it necessary to discuss.

She looked at her companion approvingly.

“You are ever so much more presentable than I have ever seen you,

before,” she said, “and you have actually shaved! You are getting less

and less like an artist every day.”

He had a peculiarly sweet smile and a laugh which was all bubbling

youth and happiness. He laughed like a girl, indeed it nearly

approached a giggle. He laughed now as the train sped through the

suburban stations, stretched out his feet on the cushions opposite and

searched for a cigarette. She watched him with glee as he produced,

not the ornate case in which the men of her acquaintance carried the

expensive products of Egypt and Syria, but a gaudy yellow carton

containing fifty of the cheapest cigarettes that ever brought

discredit to the fair State of Virginia.

“Do you like those things?” she asked.

“These ‘yellow perils’? Rather!”

“Your taste is awfully uncultivated, isn’t it?” she bantered; “why

don’t you--” she abruptly attempted to change the subject by an

incoherent reference to a cow which was gazing in a field by the side

of the line.

“Why don’t I smoke gold-laced Machinopolos through an amber and

diamond cigarette holder?” he suggested. “Because, little Moya, I am a

poor hard-working artist who has been saving up all the week for this

bust.”

“I am so sorry,” she said; “I am awfully thoughtless. Won’t you

forgive me?”

“I won’t forgive you,” he said, “unless you keep in your mind the big

fact that I am as immensely poor, as you are immensely rich.”

“Why should I keep that in my mind?” she asked.

“Because,” he said slowly, “until you are immensely poor or I am

immensely rich we shall meet very occasionally and indulge in very

infrequent busts.”

“But what difference does money make?” she faltered.

She found it difficult to speak plainly or even clearly. There was a

lump in her throat which made her voice sound unnaturally hoarse. She

had a strange sinking feeling within her and to her amazement she

found the hand that she put up to brush back a stray curl trembling.

She had never experienced any such sensation before. Her heart was

thumping quickly; she was breathless, hot and cold by turns.

He did not answer. She was seated by his side and she could only see

his face out of the corner of her eyes, then she felt his arm slipping

about her and before she knew what had happened, his lips were pressed

to hers.

This happened in a first-class railway carriage on a non-stop train.

It had happened before to quite common people (as Moya had heard), but

she never thought it would possibly happen to her, or that so vulgar a

proceeding could be so wonderfully sweet.

Sir Ralph and Lord Flanborough had met the local authorities. There

had been a lunch and speeches in which Sir Ralph had distinguished

himself by likening the forthcoming arrival of the Austral-African

mail ship to the return of Ulysses and the landing of the Pilgrim

Fathers. A wireless message from the ship stated that she did not

expect to make harbour until nine o’clock in the evening, and this

explained the earlier festivities. That they were of a sober and

restricted nature, was explained by the fact that the day was Sunday.

Later, it was intended that the sailings of the Austral-African line

from Cape Town should be timed to bring the ships to port on the

Saturday, but there had been no time to alter the arrangements for the

_Charter Queen_ had sailed before Lord Flanborough and Sir Ralph had

definitely decided the date on which the new service should be

inaugurated.

A few press-men who had come down from London for the purpose, with

certain directors and their wives, were shown over the docks; the new

trains were admired and particularly two brand new trucks, the

peculiar character of which was exhibited by Sir Ralph to a select few

of his fellow directors. A safe on wheels was an excellent description

for one of these. Specially strengthened under-carriages, each truck

supported by two bogies, they were designed to carry a tremendous

weight.

“I am sure Lord Flanborough doesn’t mind my telling you,” said Sir

Ralph to the little party, “that this will carry twenty tons of bar

gold to-night.”

“What will be the value of that?” asked one of the interested

audience.

“£2,867,200,” said Sir Ralph impressively; “representing six months’

output of the whole of Lord Flanborough’s gold properties.”

The directors made appropriate noises to signify their astonishment.

There were visitors to Seahampton interested in this great

transportation, who were not invited to participate in the function.

One of these, a dark foreign looking man, went no nearer to the docks

than a little public house in the ancient High Street. He was visited

by a man who was pallid of face and laconic of speech.

“It’s all up!” he said under his breath.

“What is wrong?” said the other in the same tone.

“It is quite impossible to get the driver or the fireman. They are two

old servants of the company, both have money saved and would no more

think of accepting a bribe than Flanborough himself.”

“You didn’t press the matter, I hope?” asked the other quickly.

The pallid man shook his head.

“I went as far as I dared with the driver,” he said. “I found out he

had a son in the army in India and I told him that I had met the boy

and got quite friendly with the old chap--but he is a sea-green

incorruptible, Gregori.”

“I will get on the ’phone to Kate,” said the other. “I suppose we

shall have to hold up the train somewhere--I don’t want to do any

shooting if it can be avoided. Are the drivers armed?”

“It is funny you should ask that,” said the pallid man, sipping his

beer. “The old man is armed for the first time in his life. He was

full of it and quite proud of his ability to loose off a gun.”

Gregori looked very serious.

“Kate must be prepared with the alternative scheme,” he said. “Anyway,

you will join me here with Cunningham at eight o’clock. I am perfectly

prepared for almost all contingencies. Millet has given me a dozen

authorities to meet almost any developments. Did you see the train?”

“I couldn’t get near it,” said the other. “I left just before Sapson

brought his party to make their inspection.

”

Sir Ralph had carried his guests from the siding to the engine shed

and shown them the brand new Atlantic locomotive which was to draw the

train to London.

“They don’t seem to have finished it yet,” said one of the guests, and

pointed to a workman busily drilling a hole in the front plate.

Ralph laughed.

“They omitted to put a bracket for the lamp. You see, I wanted three

green lights in a line for the Gold Train--it is very necessary that

it should be very accurately and easily distinguished and signalled.

By some chance only two of the brackets were in place when the engine

came from the works. It is all the more annoying, because I had

already given definite instructions upon that point, but we shall not

go wrong for a lamp,” he said humorously.

It is agreed that the three hours between two and five on a Sunday

afternoon are the three dullest in the hundred and sixty-eight which

constitute a week. After the guests had left for London Sir Ralph and

Lord Flanborough remained at the little station hotel--Ralph had

already projected a more palatial establishment to meet the increased

traffic--for it had been arranged that they should greet the _Charter

Queen_ on her arrival.

At three o’clock that afternoon Ralph burst unceremoniously into Lord

Flanborough’s private sitting room where his lordship sat dozing.

“Have you had a wire?” he said.

He held a pink form in his own hand.

“A wire! What about?” asked Lord Flanborough startled.

“Read this.”

The telegram was signed “Michael,” and read:

“Simultaneous attempt made to burgle your strong room at

Austral-African office and Flanborough’s safe at headquarters of

mining corporation. Both unsuccessful. Both doors blown out by

nitro-gelatine. Will confirm by ’phone.”

Lord Flanborough looked at the other open-mouthed.

“This is very serious,” he said.

“I have ordered a special to take us to town. We will wait till we get

the ’phone message through.”

Ten minutes after they were in communication with Michael.

“Both doors have been blown out,” he repeated, “and there are one or

two very puzzling features about the burglaries. Nobody could have

been present in either office when the explosions occurred. There was

no fire and, so far as I can see, nothing has been taken away. You had

better come up and examine things for yourself.”

“It is rather awkward,” said Sir Ralph thoughtfully as he hung up the

receiver; “my ‘special’ driver is also the driver of the gold

special.”

“It doesn’t require any great genius to drive a gold special,” snapped

Flanborough; “put another man on to work to-night’s train and let us

get up to town as soon as we can.”

The special was waiting in the station by the time they had reached

the platform. Sir Ralph stayed long enough to give a few instructions

to the superintendent and then boarded the train and was soon flying

northward.

That Sunday morning had been an interesting one for Michael. He had

been aroused by telephone at five o’clock only to learn from an

apologetic operator that the wrong number had been called. Although it

was two hours before he usually rose, he had his bath and dressed and

not waking his servants made himself some coffee.

It was a bright morning, such as so often precedes a day of rain, when

he turned into the deserted street. He had no particular aim or

destination but he was in that mood which invites exercise. He walked

down the Marylebone Road and through Portland Place without meeting

anybody save an occasional policeman and so came to Piccadilly Circus

where he bought a Sunday newspaper from an early vendor and passed

down through Waterloo Place to the Park.

The gates had only just been opened and beyond the park-keepers and a

slouching tramp he met nobody. He sat on one of the garden seats by

the side of the lake, pulled his overcoat about his legs for the

morning was chilly and began to scan the headlines in the newspaper.

There was nothing startling here, but he read the columns

conscientiously.

There was nothing in life which did not interest Michael Pretherston.

He might have taken for his motto _homo sum_; _humani nihil a me

alienum puto_. It was a saying of T.B. Smith’s that Michael could even

write a readable volume on the psychology of dog-fights. Every little

larceny, however sordid, every tiny embezzlement however paltry, every

swindle whether it was carried out by the great confidence men who

“worked London” or by the smaller fry in the half-crown line of

business gave him food for reflection and some little scrap of

information which he stored away for future use.

He was in the midst of a long account of an East End arson charge when

he heard his name called softly and looked up. He jumped to his feet.

“Why, Kate,” he said, “haven’t you got any home?”

The girl was standing a few feet from him with an odd look on her

face.

“I think it must be fate that brought me out this morning,” she said;

“sit down, Mike, and tell me all the news.”

She showed no sign of resentment of his uncavalier treatment.

“Did you follow me here, or did I follow you?”

“I tell you it was fate,” she said. “I could not sleep and I drove my

Mercedes down.”

“And how is the Princess Bacheffski?” he asked as she seated herself

by his side.

“The Princess--?”

“Bacheffski--poor old Ralph! What a thing to put over him!”

She leant forward, her chin on her palm, her elbow on her crossed

knee.

“You frighten me sometimes,” she said.

“I have not been able to make

up my mind whether you are clever or whether you are lucky.”

“I am both lucky and clever,” he said. “Tell me something about your

property in the Ural Mountains,” he said.

“In Poland,” she corrected him.

“Mines, I suppose?”

“There are no mines on my property,” she said calmly; “would you be

greatly surprised if I told you I had an estate in Poland?”

“Nothing you said would surprise me, unless you told me you were going

to be a good girl and respect the law relating to property.”

He folded his paper and dropped it into a wire receptacle provided for

that purpose and she followed the operations with amusement.

“What a tidy soul you are,” she said; “fancy doing things you are told

and obeying even by-laws.”

“We all obey by-laws. You are not so original as you think. For

instance, I observe that you are wearing a little toque--is that the

word?”

“That is the word,” she agreed.

“Toques are fashionable at this present moment. You are obeying the

by-laws. You haven’t the courage to come out in a sky-blue

tam-o’shanter with an ostrich feather because it is against the

by-laws. Also I remark that your dress is very short and very full.

You are not wearing a Roman toga or a Grecian gown, or even a hobble

skirt. Why? Because it is against the by-laws. It is absurd to disobey

one set and slavishly obey another.”

“You are quaint!” was the only answer she gave.

“Will you tell me, Princess?”

“Don’t call me ‘Princess’ if you please,” she said quietly.

“Well, will you tell me, my land-owner, what was the game with Ralph?

He described you with the greatest enthusiasm by-the-way. The night

you met him you were all dolled up to kill. Did you bring down your

birds?”

“I got him,” she admitted.

She was not as bright as usual.

“You are over-doing it,” said Michael; “you are trying to do too much.

Your doctor would probably tell you that you ought not to commit more

than one burglary a month.”

She laughed softly.

“You are very quaint,” she said again.

“You don’t feel like making a full and frank confession, I suppose,”

he suggested; “you would not like to burst into tears and sob out your

young heart on my shoulder?”

“That sob stuff never did agree with me.”

He raised a disapproving hand.

“Kate,” he said, “I have noticed a disposition in you to adopt the

slang which is employed exclusively by American newspaper reporters,

vaudeville artistes and other members of the criminal classes.”

“I will tell you this,” she said sitting upright and looking him fully

in the face, “we are going to do a big thing. The most colossal, the

most daring that has ever been done and we are going to do it to-day.

You want to know why I went to Flanborough’s, why I made up to that

unspeakable person, Ralph Sapson? Those are my two victims. I will

tell you more than this,” she said after a moment’s thought, “in order

to ensure the success of my scheme I have arranged for those two

gentlemen to be out of London on this bright Sabbath day. I can’t tell

you any more, Mike.”

“You are like a serial story, you finish off at the most interesting

place,” he grumbled.

His keen grey eyes searched hers and she met them fairly.

“I wish you weren’t,” he said.

“Weren’t what?” she asked.

“In this business,” he nodded. “I wish you weren’t.”

“Perhaps I will be good one of these days,” she said, “and then you

can recommend me for a job at two-ten-per. I’d make an ideal secretary

for you, Mike. I know all the underworld by name. You could cut out

your finger print department and leave it to Kate.

What would happen,

do you think,” she went on, “if I went to a Salvation Army officer and

said, ‘I have been very wicked but now I am going to be good. Will you

please assist me. I have no money but I’ve a good heart--’ Mike, he

would put me to chopping wood for a week and then he would find me a

place as under-secretary to a housemaid in a strictly religious family

which gave me two evenings and one Sunday a month. You see, Mike, even

at goodliness one has to start at the bottom of the ladder; you can’t

break in on the roof. I hate good people.”

Michael nodded.

“I hate good people, too,” he said, “if they advertise their goodness,

but goodness is not hardness or sourness, it is just--goodness. For

example,” he went on, “I am good.”

“And I am wicked,” she said and appealed with outstretched hands to a

startled duck who had waddled to the railings, “choose between us!”

He laughed but was instantly serious again.

“Your confession puts me in a dilemma. As you are a lady I cannot

believe you are lying, as you are a criminal I dare not take your

word. I am sufficiently acquainted with your methods to know that your

presence is not essential to the committal of a crime, so I can gain

nothing by pulling you in.”

“Poor Mike,” she said mockingly.

“Poor Kate,” he said and the girl detected the note of sincerity in

his voice.

“Kate, you can’t get away with it,” he said; “you have got to fall

sooner or later. Think what it means. Think of that horrible drab life

in Aylesbury, where every minute is an hour and every hour an

eternity; think of the menial things they will set you to do,

scrubbing floors, washing shirts and sewing sacks. Think, how you will

be marshalled to church every Sunday and think how you will be stared

at and jeered at by friends of the Home Secretary who come to visit

the jail.

“When that happens I shall be dead,” she said. “I believe you mean

kindly, Michael Pretherston, and I will tell you this, that you nor

any other human being can make me think or feel any different to what

I think and feel. There is no power on earth that can tear out the

foundations on which my life is built. I have read everything, all the

philosophies, Christian and pagan, and all the arguments from the

feeble evangelism of the tract writer, to the blatant nonsense of the

professional atheist, and I am just where I began. You can’t touch me

by reason or by devotion, by faith or by prayers. I am all

stone--here,” she laid her white hand upon her bosom and he saw the

mocking laughter in her eyes. “Poor Michael!” she said. “Why, if

devotion could change me, think of the chances I have had! I could

have taken Ralph Sapson and made of him a snake ring for my little

finger. I nearly had Flanborough on the point of proposing to me. He

is rather sentimental, did you know that?”

“All people with indigestion are sentimental between paroxysms,” said

Michael sagely.

He gave his hand to the girl though it was unnecessary and helped her

to her feet and they walked out of the park together. Her little

Mercedes was unattended and he cranked it up for her.

“Good-bye, Michael,” she said.

“Au revoir,” said Michael, “we shall meet at the sessions.”

At two o’clock that afternoon a constable on duty in Moorgate Street

heard the first of the two explosions which agitated police circles

that day. Michael was on the spot half-an-hour later and his brief

examination led to the view which he afterwards communicated to Ralph.

It was then he discovered that what the girl had told him was true and

that both Lord Flanborough and Sir Ralph Sapson were out of town.

Curiously enough, though he had been impressed at the time, he had

dismissed the girl’s statement as a piece of bravado on a par with the

badinage in which she usually indulged. He had cursed his folly in

ignoring the warning, all the way from Baker Street to the city and it

was a great relief to discover what was evident, that no attempt had

been made to rifle either the safe in Bartholomew Close or the strong

room in Moorgate Street. The outrages were similar in character; in

both cases the steel doors had been burst open by the application of

an infernal machine. In neither case had the thieves benefited by

their crime. The constable who heard the first explosion said he had

been admitted by the caretaker of the building within three minutes

but in that time had managed to send another policeman, who came up,

to guard the back of the premises. Nobody had either entered or left

in that period.

The explosion in Bartholomew Close had blown a sky-light into the

street. The safe was in a concrete cellar in which a light had been

burning day and night and although this had been extinguished by the

force of the explosion, it was possible for the constable who was

outside to see the safe and obtain a fairly comprehensive view of the

chamber. He, too, had asserted that nobody had entered the room or

left the building after the explosion.

“It is very curious,” said Michael.

T.B. Smith had come at his urgent request and the chief was as puzzled

as his subordinate.

“Did Flanborough say he would come up?”

“He is on his way now,” replied Michael.

“Do you know what I think?” said T.B. after a moment’s thought. “I

think that this is a blind. That there was never any intention of

rifling either the strong room or the safe. There is a big move on

somewhere, Mike, call in all the reserves.

This was an order which Michael heard with pleasure, for he had

already anticipated these instructions, and detectives were at that

moment flocking to Scotland Yard from every point of the compass.

Chapter 12.

A MOTOR CAR WAS MET BY A SPECIAL TRAIN.

Whatever distress animated the bosoms of humanity on that fateful

Sunday afternoon and evening there were two people riotously and

supremely happy, though the car which Alphonso Blaxton drove was an

old one and badly sprung and though every hill it met reduced the two

young adventurers to breathless apprehension for the car had a trick

of stopping with its goal in sight and refusing to budge any farther.

They were happy though no word of love had been spoken between them

from the moment she had drawn from his arms. And their happiness was

such that even a faulty cylinder and a choked carburettor were matters

of little moment.

They had eaten a very bad luncheon in Maidstone without noticing the

fact. They had encountered perils innumerable (the steering gear had

gone wrong and temporary repairs had to be effected without the aid of

a tool chest) and were yet cheerful. They had been bumped and shaken

and jarred but they had had compensation. They had seen the uprising

ridges of the Kentish Rag green and white and starred with flowers.

They had looked through a golden haze across mysterious valleys. They

had heard the songs of birds and had tasted the joys which come only

to those who love youth and young things.

If the clouds were banking up in the west and an occasional puff of

cold wind came to remind them of May’s treachery they, for their part,

saw no cloud in their sky, felt no chill winds in their rosy world.

They reached the top of a particularly trying hill and Alphonso

stopped the car and got down.

Before them the road dipped straightly

down to a level crossing. A mile beyond the railway there was a little

hill which promised no distress of mind.

“Wouldn’t this be a lovely place to paint!” said the girl.

“Don’t let’s talk about art,” he begged with a wry face, “let us talk

of beautiful things--such as tea and shrimps.”

She shrieked with merriment at his feeble jest.

“I wonder what is going to happen,” said the girl becoming grave.

“Happen, how, where?” he asked in surprise.

“About us,” she said.

He took her two hands in his.

“I am going to be tremendously rich.”

“Did I tell you I was engaged?” she asked timidly after a long

silence.

It was nothing less than an act of heroism for her to ask this

question.

“I have a dim idea you said something about it a long time ago,” he

said.

“Did I really?” she asked relieved. “I had a feeling--”

“If you didn’t tell me I saw your ring,” he said and she went red

because she had removed that ring after their second meeting and had

never worn it again.

“I think I have told you that I had £300 a year,” he went on; “now

that we are confessing our handicaps I might as well own up to mine.”

“You told me you were absolutely penniless,” she said severely. “£300

a year is a fortune.”

“£300 a year is only a fortune to the immensely rich, to the poor it

is worse than poverty.”

“You can do a lot with £300 a year,” she said thoughtfully, “and what

shall I do with my money? I can’t throw it away.”

“You will do nothing with it,” he said firmly; “when my £300 a year

has become £10,000 a year we can do things.”

She laughed happily, twisting his watch guard round her finger.

“I cannot understand myself,” she said. “I have been such a selfish

mercenary pig. I didn’t know there was any happiness in the world.

”

For the second time that day he slipped his arm around her, raised her

face to his and kissed her.

“Tea,” he said practically, started the engine and climbed into the

driver’s seat, stretching out his hand to assist her to his side.

The car started with a jerk but ran smoothly down the hill.

“It is rather lucky that gate is open,” he said as the machine

gathered speed. “It would be rather comic if we couldn’t stop the

car.”

A piercing shriek of an engine brought his head round.

“That must be another line,” he said uneasily and put his hand on the

brake; “anyway, the gate is open,” he said relieved.

Again came the frenzied scream of the engine and he heard the thunder

of its wheels. He was fifty yards from the crossing when he saw the

gates begin to move. He pressed on the foot brake without producing

any diminution of speed, gripped the hand brake, pulled it back until

he felt the snap of the rotten handle as it broke. There was nothing

for it but to take a risk. He pushed over the accelerator and the car

leaped forward.…

Car and gate and train seemed to reach the spot simultaneously.

The girl found herself flung headlong into a ditch, fortunately

landing in the soft mud at the bottom. Alphonso’s fall was broken by

the quick-set hedge which ripped his clothes to ribbons and scarred

his face and hands. He picked himself up and went in search of the

girl and found her as she was climbing unsteadily on to the permanent

way.

The train had pulled up with a jerk amidst a chaos of smashed gate and

mangled motor-car. Fortunately, it was slowing at the closed gate at

the time the collision occurred, otherwise these two young people

presenting a fantastic appearance might have ended their promising

careers.

“Are you hurt?” were the first words she asked.

His face was scratched and his clothes were torn but though he had by

far the worse experience his was not the woe-begone appearance which

the girl presented. She was caked with mud, a dab of mud was on her

cheek, her hat was gone and her long brown hair was flying in all

directions.

The passengers of the “special” were perhaps more perturbed than its

victims.

“It is an accident. We have run into a motor-car,” reported the

conductor.

“Is anybody killed?” asked Sir Ralph in alarm.

“No, sir, a young man and a young woman who are more frightened than

hurt.”

“Let us go and look at them,” said Lord Flanborough and stepped down

to the permanent way.

It is a truism that there is no such thing as a paternal instinct and

he would have indeed been a wise father who recognized his child in

such disarray.

He was speechless for a moment.

“Moya,” he gasped hollowly. “Moya! Great Heavens! What were you doing

here?”

He stared round at the scarecrow by her side and at sight of the young

man, Sir Ralph, who had been struck dumb by the apparition, found his

voice.

“I see, I see,” he said bitterly.

“You have the advantage of me,” said the young man, “for I have got a

little piece of Hampshire in my eye.”

The girl swung round to him fumbling for her handkerchief.

“It is nothing, dear,” said the young man, blissfully unconscious of

the identity of the well-fed gentleman who was regarding him so

sternly.

“But, darling, you might be blinded,” pleaded the girl; “please let

me.”

“Moya,” said Lord Flanborough in a pained tone, “may I ask what is the

meaning of this?”

“Oh, I want you to meet Mr. Blaxton,” said the girl going red and

white. “Fonso, this is papa.”

“I should be glad to see you,” said Fonso, groping wildly on the blind

side of him.

“‘Fonso’?” repeated the enraged Flanborough, “and who, may I ask, is

Fonso?”

She fastened back her unruly hair and rubbed her mud-stained cheek

with her handkerchief before she replied.

“I suppose it will come as a shock to you and a greater shock to Sir

Ralph, but Fonso and I are going to be married,” she said.

Alphonso Blaxton blinked at her.

“I haven’t asked you yet,” he said.

“That doesn’t matter,” she replied calmly, “you do want me, don’t

you?” And before her horrified father and her promised husband,

Alphonso took her in his arms and hugged her.

It was an awkward journey back to town. Sir Ralph sat by himself and

rejected all Lord Flanborough’s attempts to discuss the matter. He was

hurt in his pride and, if the truth be told, hurt in his pocket

because an alliance with the family meant a considerable addition to

his fortune.

It is a mistake to believe that rich people do not care for money or

that a man with two millions is wholly indifferent as to whether he

has two or three. Indeed, the reverse is the case. The man who thinks

in thousands is indifferent to a figure or two, the man who counts his

fortune in shillings seldom knows the number of shillings he has. Only

your two-millionaire realizes the full value of money. The thrift of

the millionaire might well serve as an example to the improvident

poor.

“I shall speak to Moya when we get home,” said Lord Flanborough. “I

have never been so distressed at anything so much in my life. It is

disgraceful, Ralph.”

But Ralph did not encourage sympathy.

As a matter of fact, his lordship spoke to the girl before the special

ran into London Street Station.

It required some courage on his part,

for it meant intruding upon the couple in the little stateroom which

ordinarily served as a sleeping apartment when Sir Ralph’s private

coach carried him on night journeys.

He found them a picture of decorum sitting rigidly bolt upright, one

on either side of the carriage, looking out of the window with fine

unconcern; but this attitude was probably due to the fact that the

door of the compartment made a very loud rattling noise when the

handle was turned.

“I want to speak to you alone, Moya.”

“Run away, Fonso,” said the girl with a gaiety out of harmony with her

rigidity of attitude.

Alphonso stepped out of the saloon and closed the sliding door behind

him.

“Now, Moya,” said his lordship with a badly simulated air of

friendliness, “perhaps you will explain?”

“Why I am going to marry Fonso?” she asked, “because I love him. Why

do you think that I should be marrying him?”

“This sounds very much like Michael. It is the way he would talk,”

said Lord Flanborough bitterly. “This shows the danger of letting your

children associate with irregular people. You know very well that you

are engaged to Sir Ralph.”

“I know he gave me a ring and we agreed to get married,” she said,

“but I have changed my mind.”

“But you _can’t_ change your mind,” stormed her father; “it is

impossible that my daughter should marry a wretched artist.”

“He’s not wretched and he is not an artist,” said the girl; “we have

both agreed that he is not an artist and he is going to find something

useful to do.”

“If you marry this man,” he pointed a trembling finger at her, “I will

not receive you as my daughter.”

“I don’t want to be received at all. You married whom you wanted to

marry, didn’t you?”

“I married,” said Lord Flanborough virtuously, “in accordance with the

wishes of my parents.

“Do you mean to say,” said the girl incredulously, “that you had no

voice in it? I cannot imagine it. My dear daddy, it is preposterous to

suggest that a person of your strong character accepted the wife that

somebody else found for him!”

“Well, I admit,” said her father somewhat mollified, “that I had a say

in the matter but I had the sense to choose the right person.”

“That is just what I am doing,” she cried in triumph, “choosing the

right person! And, Daddy, if you are rude to Fonso, I shall be very

rude to Ralph.”

“The man of course is a fortune hunter,” said Lord Flanborough

savagely. “He knows that you have money in your own right and that I

cannot save you from the consequences of your folly.”

“What is Ralph?” she asked tartly.

“Sir Ralph is a very rich man,” said her father with emphasis.

“What does he get with me?” she asked again.

This was the question which Lord Flanborough did not find it

convenient to answer. He knew that marriage with his daughter would

bring to Sir Ralph a much greater fortune than she possessed in her

own right.

“Go and ask your disinterested friend if he will take me without a

_dot_, and if I were to give my own income to found a hospital for

women.”

“I am sure Sir Ralph would answer in the affirmative,” replied Lord

Flanborough.

“Ask him,” she challenged.

He passed out of the compartment scowling at the offending Fonso and

made his way to Sir Ralph. He had not intended putting the question,

but some chance remark of the baronet’s just before the train reached

London gave him an opportunity of introducing the subject.

“Would you care to marry Moya without the settlement we agreed,

Ralph?”

“What on earth do you mean?” asked Sir Ralph, astonished out of his

sulks. Money was a subject which invariably aroused him from the

deepest lethargy.

“I mean,” said his future father-in-law, “suppose I say ‘You love Moya

and all that sort of thing. You are a very rich man, you can afford to

keep her, take her without a settlement,’ what would you answer?”

“Certainly not!” said Sir Ralph furiously, “certainly not! I don’t

understand this business at all, Flanborough, I really don’t

understand it. We made an arrangement and now, it seems, you want to

back out of it. What is the objection to the settlement?”

“I have no objection at all,” admitted Lord Flanborough uncomfortably,

“but Moya thinks that money is a big factor in your choice of her.”

“Of course it is,” said Sir Ralph with brutal directness. “I was very

fond of Moya, but the settlement was a big consideration.”

“I see,” said Lord Flanborough incoherently, “Moya’s idea of course.…”

Michael met them at the station and noticed the constraint of the

party. He understood the reason when a bedraggled Moya and a young

man, whose face was criss-crossed with scratches and whose clothes

were in threads, made their appearance. There was no explanation

possible and Michael wisely asked for none. He handed over Lord

Flanborough and his friend to the care of the city detective officer

in charge of the case and when they had gone he turned to Moya.

“Have you two people been fighting?” he asked.

“Father’s horribly angry with me,” she said, “because I am going to

marry Fonso.”

He stared at her in amazement.

“Do you mean to tell me that you are not going to marry Ralph?”

“I am not,” she said resolutely.

“And this is Fonso?”

The girl nodded.

Michael threw back his head and filled the station with laughter.

“You don’t know Fonso, do you?” she said. “He’s horribly poor. Aren’t

you, dear?”

“Horribly,” admitted the young man but did not seem unhappy.

“And you are going to marry him?” said Michael.

“Of course I am going to marry him,” said the girl wrathfully. “I

didn’t expect that you would disapprove.”

“Disapprove?” he chuckled and catching her up in his strong arms he

kissed her.

“We will all go along and have some grub,” he said; “dash home and

make yourself respectable, Moya. I see your father has left his car

for you. Meet me at Sebo’s in an hour’s time.”

Chapter 13.

THE CHRONOLOGY OF A GREAT THEFT.

It is necessary to tell the story of what was undoubtedly one of the

strangest and most audacious crimes recorded in the annals of crime

with greater detail and at greater length than is ordinarily

necessary. Le Flavier of the French police, who is surely the greatest

living authority on the subject of modern crime, has likened Kate

Westhanger’s masterpiece (he does not refer to her, by the way) to the

first of the Napoleonic campaigns against Italy and has published an

elaborate treatise showing the points of resemblance which are not so

far fetched as some of the critics, in their hasty review of this

work, are justified in saying.

Kirschner, a little quoted authority, but nevertheless a brilliant and

talented philocriminologist, has said that it would be humanly

possible to reduplicate such a crime and that at any rate it would be

wholly impossible to excel the ingenuity which planned the strategics

of the issue.

At 8:30 on the night of May 14th the _Charter Queen_, eight thousand

tons, commander T. Brown, came to her moorings in E-basin, No. 3 Quay

of the Seahampton Docks. She carried a hundred-and-twenty third class

passengers, seventy-four second class and fifty-nine first class

passengers, a general cargo and in her strong-room forty-four

thousand, eight hundred pounds of bar gold.

They were made up of

four-hundred and forty-eight hundred-pound ingots, bearing the stamp

of the Central Rand Gold Extraction Company.

The passengers were landed and despatched by special trains to London,

preceded by another train carrying the mails. The mail train left at

9:27, the passenger at 9:42. By 10:17 the gold ingots had been landed,

checked and conveyed to a waiting train where they were checked again

under the superintendence of Inspector K. Morris of the Dock police.

At 10:22 the engine backed into the train and was coupled up and the

superintendent of the line being unavoidably absent (he was discovered

locked in an empty house the next morning), the driver received his

“right away” from Assistant-Inspector Thomas Massey, who had arrived

that day from London and who spoke to the driver and fireman before

the train pulled out.

“You know this road, I suppose?” he said.

“Yes, sir,” replied the driver. “I have been down here several times.”

The inspector was not wholly satisfied. In the first place, he

resented seeing “foreign drivers” on his road, but the two men had

arrived from London bearing a letter from Sir Ralph to the

superintendent of the road, a letter which afterwards proved to be a

forgery. The letter instructed the superintendent to give the men

charge of the engine, offering, as a reason, their reliability and the

fact that they were two of the best drivers at the North Central,

which railway was under the control of Sir Ralph Sapson.

The train pulled out and from this onward its adventures began.

From the moment it left Seahampton Town station, the train was never

out of sight for longer than ten minutes.

Every signal box along the

line had received special instructions to particularly note its

passing and in addition to the conventional record which is kept of

every train, to notify specially not only to the next box, but to

London the hour of its dispatch. The road may be briefly described.

From Seahampton it ran straight to the market town of Sevilley and

then over the S-shape road across to Tolbridge. It may be remarked in

passing that between Sevilley and the Tolbridge was the level crossing

at which Moya had met with her accident. Between Tolbridge and Pinham

the road pushed straight through uneven ground passing successively

under Tolbridge Hill, Beckham Beacon and Pinham Heights, under each of

which it passed through tunnels, the tunnels being connected nearly

all the way by deep cuttings.

It was a rainy night for the drizzle, which set in at six in the

evening, had continued until there was a veritable deluge. Sevilley

(East) signalbox reported the gold train as having passed at 11:07,

and this fact was supported by the times given by six signalmen

between Tolbridge and Sevilley. The train slowed at Tolbridge and

entered Tolbridge tunnel. Between Beckham tunnel and Tolbridge tunnel

is a signalbox which reported the Special at 11:32. The signalbox was

situated close to the line and rather near the ground and the

signalman states that he not only saw the train pass him in the

pelting rain, but that he saw the tail lights disappear into Beckham

tunnel which is built on a curve.

The times are interesting. At 11:32 the train entered Beckham tunnel.

At 11:42 the signalman on the northern side of Pinham tunnel reported

the train as having passed.

It was raining but owing to the unusual

character of this new service and his natural curiosity to see a

£3,000,000 “special” he had his window open and saw the three green

lights flash past and the red tail lights disappearing in the

distance. Between Beckham signalbox and Pinham signalbox the distance

is five miles, but the theory is that at this point the train slowed

to thirty miles an hour, which accounted for the unusual length of

time it took to traverse this short distance.

At Maidmore, Stanborn, Quexley Paddocks and Catford Bridge, on the

outskirts of London, the train was reported and timed. The next

station to Catford Bridge is Balham Hill and the signalman at Balham

Hill stated at the subsequent enquiry that he was given and accepted

the gold special at 11:53 and lowered the “distant off” and the “home”

signals, at the same time warning the next northern station, which was

Kennington Junction that he had accepted the “:46 up” which was the

official designation of the special.

He waited for ten minutes and saw no sign of the train, whereupon he

called Quexley Paddocks and asked if there had not been a mistake

since the run was not more than seven minutes. Quexley Paddocks

replied that the train had passed through, going at fifty miles an

hour at the moment she had been signalled.

No further news was received and the Catford Bridge signalman,

becoming alarmed, reported to the station-master on duty, who sent two

plate-layers along the line. They walked as far as Quexley Paddocks

but saw no sign of a train. The gold special had disappeared as though

the earth had opened and received it.

All these times had been verified. Every signalman and station-master

was interrogated without in any way shaking the veracity of the

witnesses.

When the plate-layers reached Quexley Paddocks and reported

the disappearance of the train, London was informed. Between Quexley

Paddocks and Catford Bridge the line runs through market gardens and

what is very unusual so close to London, it passes over a level

crossing, the gates of which are electrically controlled from Quexley

Paddocks signalbox.

And here is the most remarkable of the statements that were made. The

signalman, Henry George Wallis, states that after the gold special had

passed and he had brought his signals back to danger, he had noticed a

strange disturbance on the dial of the electrical apparatus by which

the gates were opened or closed and it was discovered the next morning

when he endeavoured to open the gates to allow an army traction engine

to pass that the gates refused to work. That happening, however, was

very thoroughly investigated on the following day.

Michael had dined and supped with Moya and Fonso Blaxton and they had

had a riotous and wholly joyous evening. He had returned to his flat

at half past eleven, calling en route at the Yard, for he was still

very uneasy about Kate’s threat and he was anxious also to find out if

there had been any discovery made in connection with the outrage of

the morning. The case was not in his hands since the crime had been

committed within the jurisdiction of the city police and the city

Criminal Investigation Department had control of the investigations.

T.B. was at the office and had no news to give. Michael went home and

to bed. He was aroused at half past twelve by telephone. It was the

voice of T.B. Smith.

“They’ve done it, Mike. Come down at once.”

“What have they done?” asked Michael with a sinking heart.

“They’ve pinched the blooming train!” said T.B. vulgarly.

A special train had been made up for the police and Michael was on the

platform of Catford Bridge station by half past one, and was reading

the reports which had been transmitted by the various signalmen. To

add to the mystery, a mineral train from Seahampton which had followed

the gold special at half an hour’s interval, but at a slower pace, had

come straight through without noticing anything unusual. It had

crossed the down empty at Tolbridge and that was the only other train

that was met until it reached the suburbs of London where the night

traffic was more general. Sir Ralph was one of the party that went

down to Catford Bridge and a very distressed and worried man he was.

“I asked that fellow Flanborough to come,” he wailed, “and what do you

think the selfish beast said? He said it was my responsibility. Can

you imagine anything more brutal?”

“Is the gold insured?”

Sir Ralph shook his head.

“Not wholly. It was fully insured as far as Seahampton,” he said

grimly. “After that the responsibility is partly mine and partly

Flanborough’s and partly the underwriters’. Isn’t it too awful for

words?”

T.B. came into the waiting room at that moment, clad in oilskins and

sou’wester.

“You had better take complete charge of this case, Mike,” he said.

“Sir Ralph will give you any assistance, I’m sure.”

“Can I have a break-down train?”

“I can bring one down here in twenty minutes,” said Sir Ralph.

“Is it equipped with searchlights?”

Sir Ralph consulted an official.

“We’ve naphtha flares. Will they do?”

“They will do,” said Michael; “put a truck in front of the engine and

arrange the flares so that they light up the line.”

He spent the night in an open truck, slowly passing down the line

searching for some clue which would afford a solution to the mystery.

Particularly thorough was his search of the three tunnels, but they

yielded nothing, and he reached Seahampton as the dawn was breaking

without having made any discovery which would help him.

He went back to town by the break-down train, sleeping in the guard’s

caboose, and reached Quexley in time to receive from the retiring

signalman the story of his eccentric gates.

Michael was interested and with the man for a guide he followed the

course of the controlling wire which passed through a length of iron

piping from the signal box to the gate.

“The electrician tells me that the wire has been cut somewhere,” said

the man. “He has tried his instrument on it.”

“The wire cannot be cut if it is inside the iron casing,” said

Michael.

“It is either cut or fused,” said the man.

The detective walked very slowly, pausing now and again to examine the

black painted pipe. Presently he stopped. He had detected something

and stooped to examine the pipe more closely. It was clear that it had

been freshly painted. He passed his hand round it slowly and suddenly

he felt an unexpected softness.

“This isn’t iron,” he said.

He took out his pocket-knife and scraped. A little hole had been burnt

into the steel by a portable blow-pipe and the wires inside had been

fused together by the heat.

“That explains it,” said Michael. “What effect would this have on the

gates?” he asked.

“Well, you couldn’t open them from the box,” said the man.

“Could you open them by hand?”

“Yes, sir. We’ve got a chap on duty now who does nothing but open and

shut them,” said the man. “While the current is on, they are locked.

They work like ordinary gates, except you have to be very careful when

you lock them.”

Michael waited until a train had passed and then experimented.

The gates opened and closed easily enough.

“What do you mean when you tell me that you have to be careful with

the catch?”

“Well, ordinarily, when you use it without the current,” said the man,

“the catch falls and cannot be lifted except by electric control.”

Michael made an inspection of the “catch.” It was a steel block

working on a pivot and obviously operated magnetically.

“It doesn’t go up or down, now,” said Michael after testing it.

“It looks to me,” said the man, “as though it has been forced up.”

There was no doubt that what he said was true for the detective saw

the unmistakable mark of a jemmy on the wooden casing about the lock.

But why on earth did they want to open the gate? If the train had been

rifled on this stretch of line the need for an open gate would have

been easy to explain. The train would have been stopped here and,

supposing they could force the locks of the safe, the thieves could

have loaded their gold and got away--but no train had been found.

Michael passed through the turnstile and examined the road for

something to guide him to a solution.

It had been raining throughout the night and more than one traction

engine had passed, as was evident from the wheel marks. He explored

the road for a hundred yards and found nothing. Then he tried the

other gate and found that there the catch had also been forced. The

first twenty yards of the road was soft and the wheel tracks were

indistinguishable. At the end of this patch, however, the going was

harder, the crown of the road had drained off the rain and even the

traction engine had left no great impression.

Michael walked a pace or two, then stopped and whistled, and well

might he whistle, for there plain to be seen and not to be confused

with any other track was the deep and narrow furrow and the broad

impression which could have only been made by railway wheels!

He followed the track for another hundred yards where it struck the

main road and a tram line and from there every trace disappeared.

Very weary and dishevelled he presented himself to T.B. Smith and made

his report.

“You don’t seriously suggest that they took a railway train off the

line and put it on the road, do you?” asked T.B. in wonder. “It’s

impossible!”

“Of course it’s impossible,” said Michael irritably; “the whole thing

is impossible. You can’t steal a railway train--but they’ve done it!”

He found with the assistant commissioner Sir Ralph whose agitation was

pathetic.

“It’s pretty rough on me, old man,” said the baronet with that

friendliness which the superior person invariably adopts in a moment

of his misfortune. “I have lost a wife and a railway train in

twenty-four hours. What the dickens are you laughing at?”

“Nothing,” said Michael recovering his gravity. “It was almost worth

everything to see your face!”

Chapter 14.

THE REMARKABLE TRAIN THAT DID STRANGE TRICKS

By six o’clock that evening Michael Pretherston was back again at

his work, passing down from station to station on a pilot engine,

questioning and cross-examining the officials concerned. T.B. Smith

picked him up at Maidmore going down by the ordinary train.

“Have you found anything?”

“I have a theory,” said Michael. “I’d like you to listen to what the

station-master here has to say.”

“Have you questioned him?”

“Not yet,” said Michael, “but I have an idea he will say exactly what

the man at Stanborn said.

”

The inspector who had been on night duty at the time the train passed

proved to be a very intelligent and observant man. He told the same

story, that the rain was falling very heavily and that he had seen the

distant lights of the gold special which had flown through the dark

station at incredible pace.

“Is it not a fact,” said Michael, “that it passed you before you

realized it was gone?”

The man was surprised.

“That is so, sir. It seemed as though I had hardly seen the headlights

come into the station before I saw the tail-lights going out.”

“Did it whistle as it passed through?”

“Yes, sir,” said the man, “a deafening whistle. I remarked to my

porter at the time that it must be trying a new kind of siren. It made

the most fiendish row and you could hear nothing else.”

“It whistled through all the stations where there was somebody on

duty,” said Michael turning to T.B. Smith. “It is a curious fact that

at Stanborn Halt and Merchley which are closed for the night they made

no noise at all. Was the station in darkness?” he said, turning to the

inspector.

“Practically so, sir,” said the man; “there was one light on the down

platform where I was standing, but it was a very dark night and it was

impossible to distinguish anything on the other platform. All that we

saw was the flash of lights and the train had passed before one had

realized that it had gone.”

The inspector at Pinham Heights station had a similar story to tell.

But the Tolbridge junction signalman and the Tolbridge assistant

station-master did not report any whistle or any unusual happening.

T.B. and Michael spent the night at Tolbridge and resumed their

journey at daybreak. It was a slow and laborious business. Once

between Pinham and Beckham Beacon, Michael had stopped the train and

switched it on to a sidetrack.

“Why is there a sidetrack here?” he asked.

The railway official who accompanied him and who by this time was very

weary of the whole business, explained vaguely that it was partly to

provide a very necessary relief for any congestion on this section,

and partly to connect up a “chalk pit or something” which now,

however, was no longer used.

Michael walked along the rusted rails for a quarter of a mile. They

led toward a low line of hills about three miles away. Rank vegetation

grew between the sleepers, for it had been many years since its

private owners had taken the trouble to put this little branch line in

working order.

The road ended abruptly with a big buffer made of sleepers and behind

this the rail drooped limply over a great hole as though there had

been a subsidence of the earth.

Michael turned back and joined T.B.

“It could not have passed over here. The rail is rusty and runs into a

large-sized hole at the other end,” said Michael in despair. “Well, go

on, driver.”

It was a day of enquiries which led nowhere and Michael returned that

night to town, weary and sick at heart. Nevertheless, he had the dim

beginnings of a theory which, however, he refused to communicate to

his chief.

“It is rather fantastic,” he excused himself, “but then, the whole

thing is fantastic. It is obviously impossible to steal a railway

train and carry it through the streets of London without somebody

being attracted by the novelty of the spectacle.”

“Will you see Sir Ralph?” asked T.B. “He has been waiting here for an

hour to meet you.”

“Hasn’t he got a home?” asked Michael irritably.

He saw the distracted baronet but could offer him little hope.

“It is impossible they can get away with it,” said Sir Ralph; “my

expert tells me that it will take them two days to break through the

steel walls whatever they use.

”

A thought struck Michael.

“Have you a large scale map of your southern railway system?” he

asked.

“I will have it sent round to you to-night,” said the baronet. “What

chance do you think there is?” he asked anxiously.

“I think a very poor chance,” said Michael frankly; “you see, Kate

doesn’t take any risk.”

“Kate?” said the baronet.

“You call her the ‘Princess Bacheffski.’ Flanborough calls her ‘Miss

Tenby.’ As ‘Miss Tenby’ she secured Flanborough’s code and through

some of her agents in the telegraph office learned about the shipment.

As ‘Princess Bacheffski’ she wheedled the whole of your wonderful

scheme for bringing gold from Seahampton and probably discovered the

nature of the steel you use.”

“Good heavens!”

Sir Ralph sank into a chair and turned pale.

“You don’t mean to tell me--?”

“That is what I mean to tell you. Didn’t you realize that the whole

thing was a put up job? Why should the car of the Princess break down

at your front door?”

“But she was so beautifully dressed.”

“Why shouldn’t she be beautifully dressed?” asked Michael mercilessly;

“she probably carried twenty thousand pounds’ worth of diamonds.

Wasn’t it worth it? Didn’t you give her information which she could

not have bought for the money?”

“Then you mean to say that she is a common swindler?”

“She is a very _un_common swindler,” said Michael. “There’s only one

thing that puzzles me,” he said, half to himself; “what did she want

of Reggie?”

Mr. Reginald Boltover was interrupted in the delicate business of

dressing for dinner by a peremptory demand that an officer of Scotland

Yard should be admitted. He was relieved to discover that it was

nothing more formidable than Michael.

“I have come to ask you about your friend Vera.”

Mr. Boltover winced.

“My dear fellow,” he said, “don’t mention that lady’s name. It is a

sore subject.

Don’t mention her, dear old fellow, don’t.”

“Don’t be an ass,” said Michael good-humouredly; “you must give me an

idea of the questions which she asked you. What did she talk about?”

But Mr. Boltover’s mind was a blank.

It was his boast that he did not know there was such a thing as

yesterday.

“Did she ask you to give her any information about things you are

interested in?”

“My dear fellow,” said Reggie Boltover, shaking his head, “if she did

I have forgotten it. All I know is that she very seriously compromised

me. I have not been to Sebo’s since.”

“As you are such a perfectly hopeless person,” said Michael, “will you

give me a note to your secretary or your factotum or whatever human

substitute for mentality you possess, instructing him to give me a

full list of your properties?”

“With the greatest pleasure in life, with every happiness,” said

Reggie earnestly, “with the greatest alacrity!”

Armed with this, Michael called the next morning at the office of one

who was frequently referred to by journalists as a “merchant prince,”

and when he came out into Threadneedle Street his step was lighter and

his eye was brighter than it had been for weeks.

“Now, Kate,” he said between his teeth, “this is where you finish!”

He could have had all the men he wanted but he preferred making his

investigation without assistance. He went home and changed into a

knickerbocker suit, took his oldest overcoat, a walking stick and a

Browning pistol with two spare magazines. He did not ask for a special

engine, but travelled to Pinham Heights station by ordinary train. He

showed his authority to the station-master who, however, recognized

him.

“I don’t want anybody to know that I am down here,” he said, “and I

must rely upon your discretion to see that my wishes in this respect

are carried out.

Am I likely to meet any plate-layers or people on the

line between here and Tolbridge?”

“You will meet nobody until you come to Tolbridge box, but be very

careful,” warned the station-master, “the down express goes through

the tunnel in ten minutes. I should advise you not to leave until that

has passed.”

This advice Michael thought it expedient to accept and not until the

rocking train had shrieked through the station and the receding red

lamps were disappearing in the darkness of the tunnel did he walk down

the sloping platform into the six-foot way and pass into the smoking

tunnel.

He could have reached his destination by the high road which runs from

Pinham round the foot of the Beacon, but for reasons of his own, he

preferred to accept the discomforts of the darker way and the uneven

going. He passed through the tunnel after a seemingly interminable

walk and came to the switch line where his engine had been

sidetracked. He followed this until he came to the buffer and the deep

hole beyond.

He examined the buffer very carefully, retraced his footsteps and

examined the rail. It was, as he had seen before, red with rust.

Nevertheless, he went on his knees and examined the rail through a

magnifying glass. Then he wetted his finger and drew it along the red

surface. He looked at his finger. It was red. But it was not the red

of rust.

He walked back, carefully examining every inch of the rail until he

found what he sought. At one place by the side of the actual rail was

a little red spot. It was no larger than a three-penny piece and it

was, to all appearance, rust. But rust does not develop on a wooden

sleeper and he found the counterpart of this spot, a trifle larger on

the wood. Again he wetted his finger and was satisfied.

For this was not rust, but a very common form of distemper employed by

builders.

He went back to the buffer and the sagging rail and climbed down the

hole which was about six feet deep. He had noticed that a quantity of

green stagnant water at the bottom of the hole advertised its age.

Again he drew his hand along the water and examined his palm. It was

green, but his strongest magnifying glass (and he had one of

peculiarly high power) failed to reveal any sign of that florescence

which forms on the surface of water and gives it its peculiar vivid

green. Instead, he saw a number of irregular specks, which were

undoubtedly crystals.

“Which means,” said Michael to himself, “that Kate is an artist even

if Fonso isn’t.”

The green scum which had deceived him at first had been artificially

created. Some chemical had been dissolved and had re-crystallised on

the surface. He dug into the soft earth on the other side without

securing any data as to when the hole had been made, but nearer the

surface and on the rim, he saw the white tendrils of growing

coltsfoot, which were still humid. One tentacle had been shaved away,

but the plant had not yet begun to die, nor the exposed root to

blacken.

“This hole was dug on the night of the robbery,” said Michael, “and

the earth was artistically removed. Kate would depend upon the railway

officials not having bothered to inspect this bit of line.”

As matter of fact, this was so. It was on private property, and after

it left the edge of the railway land it ceased to be their

responsibility. The buffer was also newly erected. He found this when

he had dug down to its foundation. The wood was still dry and there

were blades of grass and tiny fragments of plant in the earth beneath.

He walked round the little pit and reached the rails on the opposite

side. They were rusted as artistically as their fellows.

The line

twisted and curved across level country for a mile before it turned

the shoulder of a hill and disappeared into a gorge, evidently

excavated in the course of the working.

Behind this was another chalk hole, and he gathered from an

examination of the map, that along this further ridge ran a road. The

abandoned cement works had been so built that they were not in view

from the railway itself. Possibly the philanthropic purchaser had

pulled down the one remaining smokestack on his occupation and the

whitened buildings did not stand out against the chalky soil behind

them. He had all the evidence he wanted before he had traversed

one-half of the two miles which separated him from the chalk pits.

The mark of the heavy wheels was visible now. In places the weeds

which grew thickly between the sleepers had been crushed by their

passage. He now left the rail and began moving round in a wide

semi-circle that would bring him to a low neck in the hill. His plan

was to climb the hill from here and work his way back along its crest

until he overlooked the works. He was now in the danger zone.

He shifted his stick to his left hand and slipped out his pistol and

pulled back the cover. It took him an hour to gain the crest of the

neck. He found it more difficult to climb than he had thought.

Evidently chalk had been quarried here and, save in one or two places,

he was faced by a sheer unscalable wall. It was hard climbing all the

way and he was hot and thirsty by the time he reached the top.

From the neck he could only secure a partial view of the works. He had

taken the precaution to bring a pair of prismatic glasses and with

these he surveyed the ground. There was no sign of the train and for a

moment his heart sank.

Then he picked up the rail and followed it yard

by yard and he could scarcely restrain himself from a yell of joy when

he saw the rail led to a big shed, the gates of which were closed.

Originally, this may have been the mill house, but the new tenants had

relaid the line so that it passed into the building. He replaced his

glasses and continued his climb. He was half-way between the neck and

the point which would directly overlook the works when he heard the

hum of a motor car and dropped flat. He was within fifty yards of the

road which was slightly above him, and looking up very cautiously he

saw a car dash past and disappear over the rise.

There was no mistaking its occupant. It was the Spaniard, Gregori.

He rose cautiously and continued his progress, keeping a sharp

look-out for the sentries which he knew would be posted on the road.

The path he followed was a beaten track. He realized this before he

had gone much farther and sought to find a way either to the left or

the right, but without success.

He halted and debated with himself the question as to whether he

should go back. It was madness to attempt to make the capture alone.

Even now, he might have been detected, but if this was the case by the

time he went back and procured assistance the whole gang would have

gone and probably the gold with them. Of the two risks he decided to

take the first.

Little time was given to him to regret this decision. He had taken

three paces when he heard the unmistakable whirr of a lariat. He

turned to face the danger, pistol in hand, but too late. The rope

settled about his neck, he felt a sharp nerve-racking jar and fell

heavily to the ground.

Chapter 15.

AS SIR RALPH SAID, “BUSINESS IS BUSINESS”.

T.B. Smith walked into his outer office.

“Any news of Mr. Pretherston?” he asked.

“No, sir,” was the reply.

“Any news of Barr?”

“No, sir.”

T.B. clicked his lips impatiently.

“Who’s looking after them?”

“Detective-sergeant Grey, sir,” was the reply. “You know we traced him

as far as Pinham Heights. After that he seems to have been lost sight

of.”

“Have you notified the chief constables of Hampshire, Sussex and

Surrey?” asked T.B.

“That has been done, sir,” said the officer. “The local constabulary

are making a search.”

T.B. bit his lips.

“I can understand Mr. Pretherston going,” he said, “but what has

happened to Barr?”

His subordinate very wisely offered no solution.

There were other anxious enquirers. Moya Felton had called that

morning. Sir Ralph had made two visits to headquarters though it was

doubtful whether his anxiety was in any way associated with the well

being of Michael Pretherston.

“I think Michael will find the gang,” said T.B., “though he may be too

late to get the gold.”

“What do I want the gang for?” demanded Sir Ralph wrathfully. “Will

the government give me £2,800,000 for them? The gang can go to the

devil so far as I am concerned. I want the gold.”

“You may get neither,” said T.B.; “at any rate, it ought to be very

pleasing to you, Sir Ralph, that Michael Pretherston is risking his

life to recover your property.”

“Isn’t he paid to do it?” demanded Sir Ralph. “Isn’t that the job of a

policeman? By Gad! Commissioner, one would imagine that Pretherston

was doing something out of the common! I take risks every day of my

life.”

“If you could see my mind,” said T.B. Smith suavely, “you would

realize that you are taking the biggest risk you have taken to-day. I

advise you to go home and get into a calmer frame of mind.”

“When shall I hear anything?” asked the truculent baronet.

“Whenever you are within earshot,” snapped the Commissioner. “Show Sir

Ralph out, constable.

Lord Flanborough did not obtrude his enquiries. He was so far

reconciled to Moya that he could discuss the matter dispassionately,

without reference to the _mésalliance_ which threatened his family.

“I think on the whole, Moya,” he said, “I had better not see Ralph.

After all, business is business and friends are friends; but I

disclaim all responsibility for that gold after it left the ship. It

is Ralph’s business entirely and I simply won’t accept his suggestion

that I share his responsibility to the slightest degree.”

“Will he have to bear the loss?”

“Well, partially bear the loss. A portion will be borne by the

underwriters. Ralph, I am afraid, is a very mean man. I hate saying

anything about my friends but Ralph is really economical to a point of

meanness. I advised him to insure the gold and, to save a beggarly

premium, he only insured half of it. I am very sorry for him,” he

shook his head mournfully as a symbol of his sympathy. “I am very,

very sorry for him, but I think it is better that we do not meet until

this business matter is completely settled. On the whole,” he added

thoughtfully, “perhaps it is better that your engagement with Ralph is

broken off. He has said some very unkind things about you, Moya, which

aroused my anger. I do not think you have been wise but I cannot allow

any person to discuss you uncharitably.”

If the truth be told, Sir Ralph had said very little about the girl

and very much about his lordship, whom he had accused of deliberately

evading his responsibilities. This was at the one interview which they

had had. It pleased Lord Flanborough to pose as a devoted father, but

he did not deceive anybody but himself, for Moya had had a first hand

account of the interview from Ralph who had asked her to use her

influence to bring about a change in Lord Flanborough’s attitude.

It was the day after the disappearance of Michael Pretherston and Sir

Ralph’s nerves were a little shaky. It was unfortunate in the

circumstances that he had decided that afternoon to make a call upon

the man who, a week before, he had fondly believed was to be his

father-in-law. Lord Flanborough had not taken the precaution of

warning his servants that he was not at home to Sir Ralph, so he had

nobody to blame but himself when the door of his study was flung

violently open that afternoon and Ralph Sapson stalked in.

“My dear Sapson,” stammered his lordship, flabbergasted by the

unexpectedness of the visit. “Pray, do sit down.”

“I am not going to sit down. I tell you I am not going to sit down,”

roared, rather than said, Ralph.

“Let me close the door,” said his lordship in alarm. “My dear man,

please remember--”

“I remember nothing except that I am on the brink of ruin. That is

what it means. I am on the brink of ruin,” said Ralph, violently

thumping the desk. “It is going to cost me a million and a half, and

you must bear your share, Flanborough! You are responsible. If it had

not been for your infernal daughter this would not have occurred.”

“My daughter,” said Lord Flanborough and feeling himself on perfectly

safe ground he could speak with hauteur, “is not a matter for

discussion and if you cannot speak respectfully of her, I beg you to

leave this room.”

“If it had not been for your daughter we should have remembered to

send Griggs back.”

“I am not in charge of the railway,” said his lordship with mock

humility. “I cannot order engine-drivers to return to Seahampton. Be

reasonable, Sapson!”

“You have got to bear your share,” said the other doggedly, “you are

morally responsible. I wish I had never thought of bringing your

infernal ships to Seahampton.”

He was haggard and drawn of face.

In two days he seemed to have shrunk

so that his usually well-fitting clothes hung on him loosely.

“Everything can be discussed in a quiet business-like way,” said Lord

Flanborough. “I am very sorry that you have this loss. It is by no

means certain that it is a loss, but business is business--you cannot

expect me to shoulder your responsibilities, my dear friend.”

“It is your responsibility as well as mine,” stormed Ralph, jumping up

from his chair and advancing upon the little man who stepped

cautiously backward, “and I insist upon your accepting your share.”

“Which would amount to?” suggested his lordship.

“About seven hundred thousand pounds,” growled the other.

“Seven hundred thousand pounds! Impossible!” said Lord Flanborough

emphatically.

Ralph turned livid.

“If you don’t,” he hissed, thumping his palm with his fist, “if you

don’t--”

At that moment help came in the shape of Moya. She nodded coolly to

Sir Ralph and crossed the room to her father.

“There is no news of Michael,” she said.

“Dear me,” sighed his lordship.

“Michael!” sneered Ralph. “There is no news of the money! That’s the

important thing, Moya!”

“We are not on the ‘Moya’ terms any more, Sir Ralph,” she said

quietly.

“Rub it in,” groaned the man.

“I don’t want to rub it in. We all have our troubles, but some of us

bear them less courageously than others. It won’t ruin you if you do

lose all this money. You know you are enormously rich.”

“I am not going to lose,” said Sir Ralph doggedly; “your father has to

bear his share.”

“If father is responsible he will bear his share,” said the girl, “but

it is not by any means certain that he is responsible, is it, papa?”

“Certainly not,” said Lord Flanborough, placing a table between

himself and his infuriated partner.

There was a tap at the door and Sibble came in, somewhat furtively.

He looked mysteriously at Moya and she went to him.

“What is it, Sibble?” she asked.

“There’s a man to see you, miss,” he said. “I think it is something

very special.”

“To see me? Who is he?”

“I don’t know who he is, miss, but he has a very special message for

you.”

She went out into the hall. A respectable looking man stood hat in

hand. By his thick coat she thought at first he was an omnibus driver.

In a sense, she was right.

“Are you Lady Moya Felton, madame?”

“Yes,” said the girl.

He handed her a card. She took it. It was a business card announcing

that Messrs. Acton and Arkwright, contractors, were prepared to remove

anything from machinery to furniture and that they had a “larger

number of motor lorries than any other firm doing business in the

south of England.”

“I am afraid there is a mistake,” she said. “I didn’t send for you.”

“No, miss, we’ve brought the goods.”

“The goods?” she said puzzled.

He led the way to the door.

Lining one side of the street and stretching from the house to the

corner of Gaspard Place were ten motor lorries.

“Here’s the name.”

He turned the card over.

“Lord Flanborough, Felton House, Grosvenor Avenue,” said the man

reading it over her shoulder.

“Have you any letter?”

“No, miss, these are all the instructions I had. I was told to bring

the chemicals to his lordship and ask for you.”

“Chemicals?” she said.

Her father had followed her to the door.

“What is it?” he asked.

“This man has brought some chemicals for you.”

“Oh, nonsense, there is some mistake,” said Lord Flanborough. “I am

not a chemist.”

He went down the steps with the girl to the first lorry. She looked

inside and apparently it was empty.

“What is it you have brought?” she asked in surprise.

“There they are, miss, on the floor.”

And then she saw a number of packages wrapped in sacking.

“They’re pretty heavy,” said the man, “considering their size.”

She reached out her hand and tried to draw one toward her. It defied

her efforts. Lord Flanborough tried and succeeded in moving it.

Something in its shape startled him.

“Have you a knife?” he asked the man.

The contractor produced a big clasp knife and opened it.

“Be careful, my lord,” he warned, “they’re dangerous--”

But Lord Flanborough had ripped the canvas package and exposed a dull

yellow ingot. He dropped the knife and stepped back.

“How many wagons are there?” he asked huskily.

“Ten, sir. They’ve all got the same number of packages--and are we to

take them to the Docks?”

Lord Flanborough made a rapid calculation.

“Take them into the basement and put them into the coal cellar,” he

said and went up the steps two at a time and back into his study.

Sir Ralph was still waiting. The rudeness of his host neither

increased nor decreased his irritation.

Lord Flanborough stepped up to him briskly.

“Look here, Sapson,” he said. “What responsibility do you want me to

bear in the matter of this gold?”

“I want you to bear half.”

“I will do more than that,” said his lordship. “I will assume the

whole responsibility for two hundred thousand pounds.”

Ralph swung round.

“You will?” he said incredulously.

“I will.”

“Done,” said Sir Ralph and pulled out his cheque book.

He wrote quickly and nervously but quite legibly enough and handed the

slip to Lord Flanborough, what time his lordship was writing with more

leisure but no less excitement on the other side of the table.

“There’s your cheque,” said Sir Ralph.

“And there’s my note freeing you from responsibility,” said his

lordship.

“I am sorry I have been so unpleasant,” said the baronet wiping his

steaming brow, “but you will understand.”

“I quite understand,” said Lord Flanborough.

“Business is business,” said Ralph.

“Business is business,” repeated his lordship and folding the cheque

slipped it into his pocket.

Chapter 16.

ON THE UNMORALITY OF PROFESSIONAL THIEVES.

The main building of what had once been Boltover’s Cement Works

consisted of four high walls and a slate roof. Here had stood the wash

mills and the revolving knives which had reduced the clay and mud from

the nearby river into slurry. Leading therefrom was the heating

chamber and the kiln house. There was no trace of mill, though the

kilns still stood.

All the machinery had been removed, the concrete floor strengthened

and the only engine visible was a great Atlantic locomotive which had

stood with steam up day and night before the wreckage of two trucks.

In each of these was a rough circular hole and the blistered paint and

the drops of metal which hung upon the edge or had trickled down its

blackened side, told of the terrific heat which had been employed to

break through the steel walls.

Near one wall were a number of small packages neatly stitched in

canvas and ready for removal, and on these sat Mr. Mulberry, the

benignity of whose countenance was somewhat discounted by the fact

that a loaded rifle lay across his knees. Leading from the main

building was a small office approached through a steel door and in

this were seated the seven guiding spirits of the great raid, Francis

Stockmar, Gregori, Colonel Westhanger, Colling Jacques, Thomas

Stockmar, Mr. Cunningham and Kate.

Gregori was talking. He leant across the table, his hands lightly

clasped, his head on one side turned to the girl who sat opposite to

him and a little to his right.

“I think, Kate, we finish here,” he was saying. “Crime Street is

getting a little too warm.”

“I didn’t expect you to lose your nerve,” she said.

“I’m not losing my nerve,” he said with a scowl. “I am afraid of

losing my life, if you want to know the truth. We are watched all the

time. They know you are out of town and are searching for you.”

“They found me,” said the girl coolly. “I am staying at Brighton.”

“We have made a big haul and it will take us a year to get rid of it,”

Gregori went on, “but when we _have_ got rid of it, we shall have

enough to settle down.”

“But why do you want to settle down?” she asked.

“My dear Kate,” said her uncle querulously, “don’t ask absurd

questions. You know there is no reason in the world why we should not

settle down. We have enough money.”

“Exactly what do you mean by settling down?” she insisted. “I am not

being sarcastic. I merely want information. You have taught me that it

is the game and not the prize that is worth while. That has been my

life’s teaching. Why, you told me if you were a millionaire,” she

looked at her uncle under her bent brows, “nothing would induce you to

be ‘dull and honest.’ Those were your words.”

“My dear child,” said Colonel Westhanger, “I have told you lots of

things which have to be interpreted in a liberal spirit. We have had

all the fun we want and now we will--”

He was at a loss in his desire to avoid a tautological repetition of a

certain phrase.

“Settle down,” she suggested; “be dull and honest?”

“But, surely, Kate,” said Gregori impatiently, “you don’t want to be a

hunted beast all your life?”

“Why not?” she asked in astonishment. “It is just as much fun being

hunted as hunting. You have said that a score of times. Does Michael

Pretherston--”

“Oh, hang Michael Pretherston,” said Gregori.

“Does Michael Pretherston,” she went on, “get as much fun out of

chasing me, as I get out of escaping him? Does Michael Pretherston

find the same exhilaration of mind in following on my tracks as I find

in keeping ahead of him?”

“Anyway,” said Gregori. “I have had enough of it and I want to go out

of the business and I advise you to do the same. And there is another

thing, Kate--”

He looked at the Colonel for support, but Colonel Westhanger found it

convenient at that moment to be staring at the skylight.

“What is the other thing?” she asked.

“Well, you know I am fond of you,” he said, “and I want to--” he

floundered.

“Settle down,” she suggested innocently; “what is all this ‘settling

down’ that everybody loves so much? Does it mean we shall never plan

another great coup?” She leant her elbows on the table. “Honestly, I

am not being wilfully dense. I know money is useful, because it helps

one to prepare the way for making more money, but I have not been in

this,” she waved her hand, “in all these things for money. I told

Michael Pretherston so and he believed me.”

“What have you been telling Michael Pretherston?” asked Gregori

suspiciously.

“I told him that,” she said simply.

“But, my dear girl,” said her uncle, “fun and excitement and all that

sort of thing are well enough in their way, but you don’t mean to tell

me, at this hour, that you have not been working for the ‘stuff’?”

“I will tell you as much at this or any other hour,” she answered

immediately.

“I see,” said Gregori with a faint smile, “then really you are what I

would call a criminal artist--art for art’s sake, eh?”

“I mean that,” she said again. “One must not judge one’s successes by

the amount of money one has made.

“That is how I joodge it,” said the thick voice of Francis Stockmar;

“so much mooney, so much sugsess, isn’t it?”

“I tell you frankly,” said Gregori. “I am in this for the money and so

is your uncle. We have taken many risks, some of us have been caught

and some of us,” he said significantly, “have been lucky. I’ve got

thirty years in front of me, with any luck, and so I am going to--”

“Settle down,” suggested Kate ironically.

“I am going to quit.”

“Come, come, be sensible, Kate,” said the Colonel, patting her on the

shoulder. “You have been a very good girl and we owe you almost

everything we have. I am sure everyone agrees that you have been the

brains of our--er--association. The only time when any of us have been

caught is when we have gone out on a side line of our own. Now leave

well alone.”

“When hunters have caught the fox,” she said, “do they leave well

alone and never hunt again? In war, when a soldier comes through a

battle safely, does he leave well alone and never go into action

again? Does the huntsman who is nearly caught by a lion leave well,

and lions, alone?”

“This is different,” said her uncle doggedly.

“But I don’t understand it. If what you say is right, then I am wrong

and have been wrong all my life. I am wrong and the police are right.”

“Of course, they’re right,” said Gregori; “what rubbish you are

talking.”

“The police are right?” she asked in open-eyed astonishment.

“Of course they are right. They must protect society. In five years’

time, when I am settled on my little estate in Spain and my house is

burgled do you imagine I shall not call in the police?”

“I know they are right in their way,” she said, as if she were

speaking her thoughts aloud, “but we are right, too.”

“We cannot both be right,” said Colonel Westhanger.

“I asked you some time ago,” she said, turning to him, “which was the

better life--the dull life or ours. They cannot both be better. The

elementary conditions cannot change. That life must be the best, or

ours.”

“That life is best,” said the Colonel decisively.

She looked at him steadily.

“Then why have you let me live this?” she asked. “You cannot change

me. I cannot change. I cannot!” she said with vehemence and the men

noted with amazement the emotion she displayed. “Nothing can change

me!”

Gregori reached out and took her hand, but she snatched it away.

“I will tell you what can change you, little girl,” he said undeterred

by the rebuff, “love can change you. Give me a chance.”

She looked at him and laughed in his face.

“Will you be good or bad, honest or dishonest? You will only be a half

man, living two lives. Marry you! And am I to go into witness boxes to

testify against your burglar? And prosecute your poachers? I am living

now, what I believe to be the truth. I believe I have the right to

match my wits against the world and take, by my intelligence, what the

old robber barons took by brutal strength. If I pass to the other side

I should be a liar, living a life in which I did not believe. I am

going on.”

“Then you will go on by yourself.”

“Will I?” she asked softly.

“Go out and find somebody who thinks as you think if you can,” sneered

Gregori; “you will be obliged to live a lie, anyway. You will never

meet a man who believes in stealing, who believes in fraud and who

will go on so believing, until he is an old man. You will never meet a

man on the other side of life who would trust you if he knew you, and

he _would_ know you unless you--went on lying.”

He laughed.

“You are in a cleft stick, my little friend, and if you take my tip

you will stick to the friends who know you.”

He laughed again.

“Suppose I come down into Spain and burgle your house--” her eyes lit

up--“and I would do it! Or, suppose, when you have--settled down--and

when you have all deposited your symbols of success in your banks, I

planned a little coup and smashed your banks? I could do it easily and

I would do it,” she said. “What would you do?”

Their faces were a study. The Colonel was stroking his white

moustache. Francis Stockmar was scowling horribly. Mr. Cunningham was

staring blankly at the opposite wall.

“Naturally you would not play such a low-down trick upon your old

friends,” said the Colonel soothingly; “nobody believes you would,

Kate. I mean, it would be tragic for some of us, after spending years

of our lives accumulating a little nest egg to find we had become

beggars in a night. Of course, speaking personally, I should consider

myself exonerated from any responsibility I had in regard to our

relationship and I should have to tell the police--”

“You would call the police, too, would you? Would you, Stockmar?”

“Yas,” said the stolid Austrian, “of goorse. The mooney to recover,

ain’t it?”

“And you?”

“I don’t think you would do anything so treacherous,” said Mr.

Cunningham; “naturally, we would not take that sort of thing lying

down.”

“Naturally,” said Colling Jacques, “the whole matter is this, when we

go back to the respectable world and obey the laws, we, as citizens,

are entitled to the protection which the laws give us.”

“I see. You are, so to speak, touching wood. The wood is the law.”

“That is it,” he said.

Kate got up and walked to the one window of the room and looked out

upon the dreary yard with its tangle of twisted machinery, its rusted

boilers, its chaos of rotting cement bags.

“Well, you can all do as you like,” she turned on them, “but I tell

you this, that if you think you are going to--settle down--at my

expense, and if you think I have been planning and scheming and

play-acting and lying in order that you might all become respected

parish councillors, you have made a mistake. You talk about my

friends, if you are my friends, God help me! There is one man in the

world who is worth the whole crowd of you.”

She was interrupted by a crash as though a heavy body had been thrown

against a door. Somebody fumbled with the lock and Gregori jumped up

and threw it open. They half carried, half pushed a gagged and bound

man through the doorway. Behind him peered the saturnine, malignant

face of his captor, Doctor Garon.

“Got him,” he said triumphantly.

“Who is it?” asked Gregori, staring at the half conscious man.

The girl did not ask. She went suddenly cold, for she knew it was

Michael Pretherston.

Chapter 17.

THE INDEPENDENT STRATEGY OF SEÑOR GREGORI.

It is a fact worth remarking upon, that in all her career, though

she had been associated with the most desperate of criminals, and

though she had been surrounded on all sides by men who would stop at

nothing to gain their ends, Kate had never witnessed an act of

violence. Such arrests of members of the confederation as she had seen

had been very humdrum affairs. The arrival of two strangers, a

consultation carried on in a low tone by a pleasant detective officer,

an urgent call to somebody to “get my hat” and the disappearance, very

often for a long time, of the member affected. She had never seen a

fellow creature man-handled nor did she believe that there was in her

confederates the tigerish malignity which was now displayed.

She

looked from face to face in amazement and horror as they crowded round

the handcuffed figure and flung him into a chair.

Michael had been choked to insensibility at the first attack. With the

loosening of the rope, he had recovered consciousness and put up a

fight, and had been hammered back to insensibility by the three men

who had watched him from the moment he had crossed the open ground to

the east of the railway, and had lain in wait for him. They had

manacled him with his own handcuffs. This he realized, as he came back

to consciousness, with his head throbbing and every bone in his body

aching.

He leant his elbows on the table and buried his face in his hands,

striving to collect his thoughts. It was the cold steel of the

handcuff against his nose which was the starting point from whence he

unravelled the situation. The blow which had felled him had

fortunately been broken by his soft felt hat and he raised his hand

and gingerly felt the bump which Dr. Garon’s loaded cane had raised.

“Now then, wake up,” said Gregori’s voice roughly, “let’s have a look

at you.”

Michael raised his head and looked at the speaker.

“Hello, Gregori,” he said dully. He looked round the room and caught

the girl’s eyes and for a moment held them.

“You seem to have tumbled into it, my young friend,” said Colonel

Westhanger.

Michael slowly shifted his eyes to the speaker and smiled.

“We all seem to have tumbled into it, you worse than anybody. This

means a life sentence for you, Colonel.”

The old man’s face went white.

“It is only bluff,” said Garon; “he is here by himself. I have been

watching him for an hour. You tried to pull off the job on your

lonely!”

“Alone,” said the Colonel and the girl watching him saw his face go

hard. “Alone! Are you sure?”

“Absolutely sure,” said the doctor.

He sat straddle-legged on a chair leaning on the back and puffing the

cigar he had just lighted.

“It would be rather a serious business if you had made a mistake,

wouldn’t it?” drawled Michael. He was recovering his scattered senses

and something of his good spirits. “You fellows had better make the

best of a bad job.”

“What is your idea of the best of a bad job,” sneered Gregori,--“to

take the handcuffs off you and put them on me and the Colonel? If it

means a ‘lifer’ for the Colonel! what does it mean for me? You don’t

suppose I am going back to Dartmoor to build walls for the moor

farmers, do you?”

“What is the alternative?” asked Michael.

“I’ll tell you what is the alternative,” hissed the other thrusting

his face into the detective’s, “it is the only alternative that will

give me any satisfaction--and it is to put you out.”

“Dot is id,” nodded Stockmar.

The girl’s heart almost stopped beating and for a moment she closed

her eyes and gripped tight to the edge of the table. She felt

physically sick and her knees were trembling under her. Fortunately

their attention was fully occupied with Michael and nobody noticed

that she had grown of a sudden peaked and grey. She bit her lips and

by sheer effort of will regained control of herself. She looked at

Michael: that little smile of his still played about the corners of

his mouth and the eyes that were lifted to Colling Jacques were full

of good humor.

“It is you or us, Pretherston,” the engineer was saying; “you don’t

suppose we have been working for this stuff and taken all the risk,

only to see ourselves standing in the dock of the Old Bailey?”

“Winchester,” corrected the detective, “it is a very pretty assize

court--the vaulted ceiling will appeal to you, Jacques. It is in the

Gothic style.”

“One moment,” said the Colonel suddenly.

With a nod he called the men to a corner of the room and for five

minutes there was a whispered consultation. The girl and Michael were

left alone and obeying some impulse which she could not define, she

suddenly turned her back upon him and walked to the window, a

proceeding which Gregori noticed out of the corner of his eye.

Presently the little conference broke up and the Colonel came back

with the others.

“Look here, Pretherston, I am going to make a proposition to you. You

are not a rich man, I take it.”

“My private affairs don’t concern you,” said Michael calmly, “and I

certainly am not prepared to discuss them with you.”

“This job is worth two and a half millions and there are ten of us in

it. Help us to make a getaway and there is not far short of a quarter

of a million for you.”

The girl swung round and looked at Michael. How would he take this

offer? She knew how great was the appeal which money made to men,

especially money easily earnt. She waited in breathless, almost

painful, suspense.

“Two hundred and fifty thousand pounds,” said Michael--“that is a lot

of money. But, why do you put such a proposition to me?”

“It is a lot of money,” repeated the Colonel significantly.

Michael laughed.

“I suppose there was a time in your life,” he drawled, “when if

somebody had offered you money to do a dishonest act, you would have

knocked him down? But perhaps there never was such a time,” he said,

searching the other’s face.

“I no more want to discuss my affairs, than you want to discuss

yours,” said the Colonel gruffly; “here is the proposition,” he

thumped the table, “do you take it?”

Michael shook his head.

“I won’t be rude to you,” he said, “because you are an older man and

because you are going to end your life rather miserably in a very

short time.”

He saw the man wince.

“I am not saying that with the object of offending you,” Michael

continued. “I am just telling you what is the truth. Suppose you get

away from here, how are you going to make your escape from England? By

this time every port is closed to you.”

“I will tell you how we are going to get out of England,” said

Gregori, “we are going to leave by the only route possible, by ship

from London.”

“By ship from London?” it was the surprised voice of the girl.

“We have done a little planning on our own, Kate,” said Gregori with a

grin; “this is our last job. We didn’t tell you because we didn’t

think it was worth while upsetting you. Everything was arranged last

week.”

“Without my knowledge,” she said.

He nodded.

“What do you say, Pretherston? It is your last chance.”

“It isn’t my last chance,” said the other cheerfully.

“What do you mean?”

“That you will find out,” said Michael with a sudden sternness. “I

warn you that your time is very short.”

“Your time will be shorter,” said Gregori with a sinister smile.

“We will give him half-an-hour to think over it,” suggested Jacques;

“put him in the engine room.”

The engine room was the uncomfortable little shed which had been built

on to the mixing shop to accommodate a dynamo. It was now empty save

for a truckle bed on which one of the gang had slept. Padlocked iron

doors led to the mixing room and to the outer world, but to make

doubly sure, Garon volunteered to stand outside the building and keep

guard. Michael was thrust into the little room and the door slammed

upon him.

“Now,” said Gregori when they were back again in the office, “we have

to decide and decide quickly. If we can be sure that this fellow is

alone he has got to be killed.”

“Killed?” said Kate. “Oh, no, no!”

He turned on her with a snarl.

“This is our job. You keep out of this, Kate,” he said.

“I tell you it

must be done, for all our sakes.”

“The first thing,” said the Colonel, “is to get the gold away.”

“It will be loaded on to the trucks to-morrow morning,” said Gregori,

“and we had better keep this fellow alive until it is gone.”

“Are we using our own trucks?”

Gregori shook his head.

“Oh, no,” he said, “that would be too dangerous. I have hired ten,

from a man in Eastbourne who is used to handling machinery. He has no

idea what sort of factory this is and I have told him it is a

preparation of lead we are shipping to the docks. Young Stockmar will

meet the convoy in London. Our own men are on board the ship and will

load the stuff.”

“It is a bit risky,” said Colling Jacques shaking his head, “sending

all that money through London without a guard.”

“It would be more risky to guard it,” said the other calmly, “our only

chance lies in not rousing the suspicion of the contractor who has

promised to come down himself to superintend the carriage to the

docks. His people won’t be allowed to handle any of it and I have told

him especially that it is dangerous to touch the packages--now, Kate,

you must be sensible about this business of Pretherston.”

She shrugged her shoulders and leant back against the window-sill, her

hands behind her.

“I suppose it is necessary,” she said in her cool even tone and the

Colonel heaved a sigh of relief.

“Gad, that’s the way to look at it, my girl,” he said admiringly. “I

knew you wouldn’t fail us.”

She said nothing.

“You said there were ten shares,” she asked presently, “do you count

me--as one who is sharing?”

“You stand in with me, my dear,” said the Colonel, patting her on the

shoulder, “don’t you be afraid. I have never denied you anything, have

I?”

She shook her head.

“I have never been aware that you denied me anything,” she said

absently.

“When is this--” she could not find words to complete the sentence.

“Pretherston,” said Gregori,--“oh, we can’t do anything yet. I think

you will agree, Colonel. We must make absolutely sure that he is not

being followed and that he has not half the Metropolitan police force

within call. I shall do nothing at all till to-morrow night.”

She inclined her head.

“I see,” she said simply and then, “I think I will go to my room.”

They had made her comfortable quarters in what had been once the

foreman’s office. She passed through the great sheds slowly and

stopped for a moment to look at the powerful engine which stood near

the closed doors, a tiny feather of steam at its safety valve, then

she went into her room.

Chapter 18.

THE COLONEL WAS A GENTLEMAN AT THE LAST.

It was ten o’clock the following morning before any of the gang saw

the girl. She had spent a sleepless night revising her philosophies

and arranging the future as she saw it.

Mulberry who had put away his rifle and was appearing in the capacity

of an urbane general-manager greeted Kate with a nod.

He was superintending the transference of the ingots to the waiting

trolleys which stood on the road at the top of the chalk pit and were

approached by a zig-zag path which had been cut in the face of the

bluff by the original owner of the property.

Later Mr. Mulberry climbed up the path to interview the stout

contractor.

“I will pay you in advance,” said Mr. Mulberry beaming benevolently

and producing a wad of notes from his pocket book. “You have full

instructions as to where these packages are to go?”

“Yes, sir,” said the man. “To the Thames Docks and I am to hand them

over to the gentleman who engaged me the day before yesterday.”

“Mr. Stockmar,” said Mulberry.

“That is the name, sir. Are these things valuable?”

Mulberry shook his head.

“Scientifically they are of the greatest value, commercially they are

of no value. You have probably heard of dioxide of lead, the heaviest

metal that the earth holds?”

“I can’t say that I have, sir,” said the contractor frankly. “I am not

much of a scientist.”

“It is a very useful element,” lied Mr. Mulberry glibly, “in the

creation of paper. It is highly inflammable but not explosive so long

as it is handled by experts like my men here,” he waved his hand to

the procession of swarthy labourers who were coming up the hill, each

bearing a package on his shoulder.

“They are Italians, aren’t they, sir?”

Mr. Mulberry nodded.

“They are the only people who can handle this chemical,” he explained.

“I see, sir,” said the master carman wisely, “some of these foreigners

are wonderful chaps with chemicals.”

He looked down into the hollow.

“Mighty nice young lady that, sir,” he said respectfully, not knowing

whether Kate, who had just emerged from the building and was wandering

aimlessly across the yard, was an employee or a friend.

“Oh, yes, that is my confidential secretary,” said Mr. Mulberry.

“Mighty nice, if I may be allowed to say so, very lady-like.”

“Yes, yes,” said Mr. Mulberry.

He lingered long enough to see the last packages laid on the floor of

the last truck, shook hands with the contractor with great affability

and strode nonchalantly down the slope and none to see him would have

imagined that he had just entrusted nearly three million pounds’ worth

of gold, to the tender mercies of a chance carman.

He was half way down the first of the slopes when he met Kate coming

up.

“Kate,” he said in a low voice, “if you are going up to the top and

that fellow asks you who you are, you must tell him you are my

confidential secretary. I hope you don’t mind, I had to explain you.

”

She nodded and continued her slow walk until she came to the road. The

cars were now buzzing preparatory to making a start. The contractor,

whom she had met before, gave her a cheery nod.

“Have you a piece of paper?” she asked.

“I’ve a card, miss,” he said.

“That will do,” she said; “lend me your pencil.”

She wrote a few lines and handed them to the man.

“I am the managing director’s confidential secretary,” she said.

“I know, miss,” replied the man.

He looked at the card with a frown.

“You are to take the trucks first of all to this address and see the

gentleman whose name I have written.”

“But I was told to go straight to the docks.”

She smiled and nodded.

“I know,” she said, “but my chief thinks you had better go here. His

lordship will either accompany you to their destination or he may

store your chemicals for the night.”

He looked at the address.

“The Earl of Flanborough,” he read; “suppose he isn’t there, miss?”

This was a contingency which she had overlooked.

“Ask for Lady Moya Felton--that is his daughter,” she said; “you had

best see her first in any circumstances.”

“I see, miss,” said the man a little impressed. “I know his lordship.

I have often seen him at Seahampton.”

“Now I think you had better go,” said Kate, “before you receive any

fresh instructions.”

The man chuckled, swung himself into the seat of the second car beside

the driver and first one and then the other of the great lorries,

moved slowly down the white road. She watched them until the last one

had passed the crest of the hill, then she slowly descended the

zig-zag path.

She met Gregori in the doorway.

“Where have you been, Kate?” he demanded.

“I have been to see the loot off,” she said flippantly.

“The less you are seen, the better,” he grumbled. “I told that ass,

Mulberry, not to let the man catch a glimpse of you.

Don’t go in, I

want to talk to you.”

He was ill at ease and evidently found it difficult to make a

beginning.

“You know, Kate, I am very fond of you,” he said.

“You have every reason to be.”

“I still have,” he said.

“I am not so sure of that,” she interrupted, “but go on.”

“What do you mean by that?” he asked suspiciously.

“Go on,” she demanded; “where does your fondness lead?”

“It leads to your marrying me,” he said; “your uncle does not object

and we will be married as soon as we reach South America.”

“South America!” she stared at him. “So that is our destination, is

it?” she said slowly. “And I am to marry you when we arrive, by

arrangement with my uncle?”

“That’s about the size of it,” replied Gregori.

“And suppose I make other arrangements?”

“There are no other arrangements you can make,” he said with easy

confidence; “the fact is, Kate, that you have to drop these high and

mighty manners of yours. We stood them very well because it paid us to

stand them, I suppose. But we are all in the same boat--and shall be

literally.” He laughed aloud at the sally. “You hold some queer views,

you know, and we can’t afford to let you run loose.”

She jerked up her head and turned abruptly away and would have left

him but he caught her by the arm and pulled her back.

“When I say you must marry me,” he said, “I mean just what I say.”

“Have I a voice in this arrangement?” she asked, slowly disengaging

her arm.

“You have a voice in it if you agree. You have no voice if you cut up

rough.”

“I see,” she said. “I will think about it. This is not a decision

which I can arrive at in a minute.”

She went to her room and locked the door.

At five o’clock that evening her uncle came for her.

“Have you been to sleep?” he asked.

It was curious, she thought, how the manner and even the tone of these

men had changed in the past few hours. She was so used to an attitude

of deference, almost sycophantic, which they ordinarily displayed,

that the change had come in the nature of a shock. And there was a

change. Even her uncle had dropped his mask of good-nature and now

treated her as a child, and a child that needed to be disciplined.

“I have been thinking,” she said.

He grunted something and walked back with her to the office.

“This fellow, Michael Pretherston, has to be settled with. Do you

understand that?”

“Yes,” she replied.

“The cars will be on the road in half an hour and you and I will be

the first to leave.”

“Do you think so?”

“What do you mean?” he asked sharply. “I warn you, Kate, that I am not

going to stand any monkey tricks from you.”

To this she made no answer but pushed at the iron door that led to the

meeting place and entered. To her surprise, Michael was present. In

addition to his handcuffs his arms had been drawn back by the

insertion of a short stick and secured with ropes. Gregori was sitting

on the table and made no attempt to stand up, which was another piece

of evidence that the hold she thought she had over these men had gone,

if it had ever existed.

“Kate, you can use your persuasion on this fellow,” said Gregori

wearily; “it is his last chance. He has had a night to think it over

and he’s still obstinate.”

The girl walked up to the detective.

“Michael,” she said softly, “would nothing induce you to become--one

of us?”

“Nothing,” he said.

“Nothing that we could give you--that I could give you?”

He looked at her steadily.

“Nothing that I would take from you at that price,” he said quietly.

“Don’t you love your life?”

“‘As dearly as any alive,’” quoted Michael.

“Don’t you love anything in the world? Isn’t there a girl?” she asked

with a little break in her voice.

He nodded.

“There is a girl,” he said and looked past her.

It seemed as though an icy hand had gripped her heart and for a while

she could not frame the next question.

“Isn’t she worth it?” she said, recovering her balance at last.

“She is worth many things,” said Michael, “but not that.”

She looked down at the floor.

“Poor girl,” she said.

“Having tried sentiment,” sneered Gregori, “we will now try a little

practical argument--Pretherston you have got about an hour to live.”

“I shall die in very bad company,” said Michael with a wry face. “I

had hoped at the least that I might die at the hands of a lawful

hangman, as you will die. To be butchered by a cheap cutthroat

half-breed is not a pleasant prospect.”

“Damn you,” said Gregori with passion and struck him in the face.

He would have repeated the blow but the girl slipped between them.

“Michael, you shall die in good company,” she said in so matter of

fact a tone that none of them realized immediately what she was

saying; “that is, if you think I am good company.”

“What do you mean?” gasped the Colonel.

“Why, I think you will kill me, too,” she said with a serenity which

to Michael was wonderful, “because I have betrayed you all.”

Garon came flinging through the door.

“They haven’t turned up,” he screamed, “the wagons have gone.”

“Gone,” said Gregori huskily, “gone where?”

“I have just been on the ’phone,” gasped the doctor; “they went to

Lord Flanborough’s. He has got the stuff.”

There was a dead silence broken by the girl.

“They went to Lord Flanborough’s,” she repeated nodding her head. “I

know that. I sent them there.”

The tension was dreadful, no man spoke, then suddenly Gregori swung

round on the girl and his face was the face of a devil.

“You!” he grated and leaped at her throat.

In that one moment all the scattered atoms of race, of pride, of

kinship united in the distorted brain of Colonel Westhanger. His lean

arms shot out and Gregori fell headlong to the floor.

“Back, you dog!” roared the old man.

It was the last word he uttered. There was a stinging report from the

floor and Colonel Westhanger fell limply across the table with a

bullet through his heart.

The girl who was half fainting with terror shrank back against the

wall as Gregori rose, his still smoking pistol in his hand.

“You are a prophet,” he said harshly; “you said you would die with

Michael Pretherston and by God! you spoke the truth. Put them

together,” he said, “I want to think things out.”

Chapter 19.

MICHAEL DEVELOPED A FONDNESS FOR THE CRIMINAL CLASSES.

The girl rose up from the chair where she had been sitting and

crossed to where Michael lay on the floor where they had thrown him.

He looked up and smiled.

“Why, Kate,” he said faintly, “always… meeting… you.”

She sat down at his side and lifting his head laid it upon her lap.

“That’s nice,” he murmured.

“Why is it nice?” she asked curiously, “because I make a softer pillow

than the stone?”

“That and something more,” he answered.

“What more?” she insisted.

“Oh--because it is you, I suppose,” he said vaguely.

Her lips twitched in amusement.

“But it would be just the same if it were any other person,” she said,

“wouldn’t it, Mike?”

He looked up at her.

“Put your hand on my forehead,” he said.

“Like this?”

She laid her soft palm against his throbbing head.

“What does that do?” she asked after a long interval of silence.

“It just makes my head better--don’t ask a lot of questions.”

Her fingers stole down his face and she gently pinched his nose.

“Oh, Kate,” he murmured sleepily, “I was just going to sleep.

“Then don’t,” she said, “what is the use of dozing--you’ll be dead

soon and so will I.”

She said this very calmly, in the same matter-of-fact tone in which

she might have announced that there would be a roast chicken for

dinner.

“I hope they kill you first,” she said thoughtfully.

“You’re a bloodthirsty little beggar,” said Michael indignantly; “why

do you wish that?”

She shrugged her shoulders and went on pressing back the hair from his

forehead, never taking her eyes from his face.

“I don’t know,” she said at last, “only I want to make sure that

you’re gone and nobody else can have you--and then I shan’t care.”

He did not move; for a second she saw his eyelids quiver, but he lay

still staring past her to the dingy roof of the engine house.

“Say that again,” he whispered.

“Say what again? That I want you to be killed first?” she asked

innocently.

“Mike,” she said suddenly, “who was the girl?”

“Which girl?”

“You know,” she said, “the girl you--care about.”

“Why, you of course,” he said in surprise.

Her hands slipped down from his forehead covering his eyes.

“Say that again,” she mimicked.

“You,” he repeated. “You see I am more obliging than you were.”

“And you would not come in with us, not even for me?”

“Not even for you.”

She did not speak for some time.

“How did you know we were here?” she asked.

“I knew you could be nowhere else,” he said.

“You are an awfully arrogant young man, aren’t you? Do you know how it

was all done?”

He nodded.

“The train ran into the tunnel where you had a long motor-car mounted

with flanged wheels and having three green lamps on the front and two

red tail lamps behind. That was the ‘train’ which the signalman saw

dashing through the rain and you had a horrible siren.”

She laughed softly.

“It was terrible, wasn’t it?” she admitted.

“Do you remember that day

you were in Crime Street? You heard it.”

He recalled the uncanny sound which had then excited his curiosity.

“When you got to the level crossing gates, the car was lifted off the

rail and went on to the road. It followed the tram lines for some

distance where it turned into a convenient garage, which I suppose you

had already arranged for?”

“That’s right,” she nodded.

“The train went no farther than the tunnel. It then backed on to a

side track. Gregori had his Italian workmen ready and fixed up the

buffer which had been dropped--you know the rest. The hole behind the

buffer and the green scum--that was your idea, I suppose.”

“It was cunning, wasn’t it, and did you see the rust I made?”

“It is a fortunate thing you are dying young, Kate,” he said; “you

have a criminal mind.”

“But I haven’t a criminal mind,” she protested; “it is a game, a sort

of highly complicated jigsaw puzzle. Do you ever read detective

stories?”

“Very seldom.”

“But you have read them?” she persisted.

“I have read one or two,” he confessed.

“Did the men who wrote those have criminal minds? It was a game to

them. It was a game to me. I know it is all wrong, horribly wrong, but

I never thought I should realize that much. I thought nothing would

turn me.”

“And what has turned you?” he asked.

She hesitated.

“I don’t know what it is,” she said shaking her head. “It is a curious

feeling that I get when I meet one man in the world. A feeling that

makes my heart turn to ice and makes me tremble. That is all it is,

Mike--how do you think they are going to do it?”

Her thoughts had gone back to the approaching end.

“Heaven knows,” said Michael. “I haven’t any time to think of it. I am

thinking of something else. Why do they keep the steam up in that

engine?” he asked.

“It was Gregori’s idea,” she said; “he had the hole filled in to-day

and the buffer taken down. He thought it might be useful to let the

engine run on to the main line and block it. That is, if we had word

that they were sending a lot of police down to search this part of the

country.”

“Here they are,” said Michael; “help me to sit up.”

She raised him to a sitting position as the door opened and a dim

figure appeared silhouetted against the dusk. It struck a match and

lit a candle and Dr. Garon was revealed. He placed the candle

carefully upon the floor just behind the half-closed door and passed

slowly over to where Michael lay.

“Well, my young sleuth,” he said pleasantly, “the best of friends must

part.”

“Fortunately,” said Michael, “I do not fall into the category of your

friends.”

The doctor hummed a little tune as he took a small leather case from

his pocket.

“You have seen a hypodermic syringe before, I suppose?” he held up the

tiny instrument. “I am going to give you a slight dope, which won’t

hurt you.”

“One moment,” said Michael, “do I understand that this dope

is--final?”

The doctor bowed. From his heightened colour and his unsteady hand

Michael guessed he had been drinking, either to give himself nerve for

his task or to drown the memory of his misfortune.

“Very good,” said Michael. He looked up at the girl and raised his

face and Kate stooped and kissed him on the lips.

“That is it, is it?” said the doctor unpleasantly. “Gregori will be

pleased.”

He caught the manacled wrists of the prisoner and pulled back his

sleeve and the girl’s heart almost ceased to beat.

It was at that moment that the light went out.

“Who is there?” said the doctor releasing his grip on Michael’s arm

and turning quickly.

He took a groping step forward through the darkness.

“Who’s there?” he said again and they heard a soft thud followed by

the sound that a body might make, when it struck the ground.

Michael caught his breath. Suddenly a beam of light danced in the room

and focused upon the prostrate figure of Dr. Garon.

“Got him,” said a well-satisfied voice.

“Barr,” whispered Michael, “where did you spring from?”

“I came through the door,” said the voice. “Did you see it open? That

is what knocked the candle over.”

He flashed the light on his superior.

“They have got the bracelets on you, sir,” he chuckled softly, took a

key from his pocket and with a few deft turns released the other. His

pocket knife finished the work.

Michael stretched his cramped limbs.

“I tried to get in last night but they had too many sentries--I

couldn’t come here or get back to a telephone. I have been lying on

that hillside all last night and all to-day,” said Detective-Sergeant

Barr. “I dared not move until it was dark. I tell you, sir, I had a

bit of a fright. I thought they would get away.”

“Have you a revolver?” asked his chief.

The man slipped a weapon into his hand. They made their way softly

back through the room where the engine was still smoking, through the

little steel door of the office. It was empty save for a shrouded

figure which lay beneath the table. There was a second door in the

room. Michael tried this. It was locked. He heard voices and tapped at

the door.

“Who is there?” said Gregori.

“Open the door,” said Michael.

“Who is there?” demanded Gregori again.

“Open, in the name of the law,” said Michael.

He heard a shuffle of feet and an oath and stood waiting, his pistol

extended but the door did not open. A sudden silence came.

“Is there any way out of here?”

“There is a door leading into the shed where the engine is,” said the

girl.

She was white and trembling… that shrouded figure under the

table had been the last straw.

Michael dashed out into the shed but it was too late.

As his feet crossed the foothold a bullet struck the steel door and

ricochetted to the roof. In the dim light offered by an oil flare he

saw Mulberry and Stockmar hoisting the inanimate figure of Dr. Garon

to the cab of the engine. He fired twice and Cunningham stumbled but

was dragged into the cab. Then with a mighty “schuff!” which

reverberated through the building the engine began to move toward the

closed door. It gathered speed in the dozen yards or so it had to

traverse and then with a crash it struck the gate, splintering and

sending it flying.

Michael flew the length of the shed and arrived at the outer gates in

time to see the engine disappearing round the edge of the bluff. Barr

was at his side and the two men stood helpless, as their enemies

gradually receded into the grey dusk.

“There is a telephone here,” said Michael quickly, “but it is probably

laid for their own purpose.”

“I left my motor-bike on the top of the hill somewhere, sir,” said

Barr.

“Get on to it,” said Michael.

He stood listening to the sound of the locomotive going faster and

faster. A hand touched his timidly.

“Did they get away?”

He slipped his arm round the girl.

“I am afraid they have,” he said.

He was turning back to the shed when the roar of an explosion set the

building trembling.

“What was that?” whispered the girl.

They walked back to the end of the bluff. There was no need for him to

speculate as to the direction from whence the explosion had come, for

a bright red glow two miles away illuminated the whole countryside.

“Something has happened to the engine,” he said.

He did not know till an hour later that running at full speed the

Atlantic had dashed into a down goods train and that the blaze he

witnessed was the blaze of a burning petroleum tank which the wrecked

Atlantic had crushed in its death flurry.

“We have not been able to recognize any of them,” said T.B. “Do you

think Kate Westhanger was with them?”

“Kate Westhanger is no more,” said Michael gravely, and he spoke the

truth for Kate Pretherston was at that moment on her way to France,

where her husband intended joining her just as soon as his resignation

was accepted.

“But why give up the work, Michael?” said T.B.

“I found, sir,” said Michael, “that it was sapping my moral

qualities.”

“Your moral qualities?” said his puzzled chief. “I didn’t know that

you had any. What particular form did the sapping take?”

“I found, sir,” said Michael, “that I was developing a fondness for

the criminal classes.”

Thank you for joining us for this thrilling journey through Edgar

Wallace’s 'Kate Plus 10.' Kate’s blend of charm, cunning, and criminal

genius offers a unique take on the detective genre, where the

mastermind is not the hunter—but the hunted. Wallace’s keen insight

into psychology and crime keeps us guessing until the very end, and

reminds us how thin the line can be between brilliance and

lawlessness. If you enjoyed this classic mystery, be sure to like,

subscribe, and explore more stories from our collection here at

Classic Detective Mysteries.

Key Vocabulary

Vocabulary	Meanings
detective /dɪˈtɛktɪv/ B1	noun - a person, especially a police officer, whose job is to investigate crimes and gather information
criminal /ˈkrɪmɪnəl/ B2	noun - a person who commits a crime adjective - connected with or involving crime
gang /ɡæŋ/ B1	noun - a group of criminals working together
heist /haɪst/ C1	noun - an armed robbery
scheme /skiːm/ B2	noun - a plan, especially for doing something bad or illegal verb - to make a secret plan to do something, especially something bad
pursuit /pərˈsuːt/ B2	noun - the act of trying to catch or reach someone or something
intrigue /ɪnˈtriːɡ/ C1	noun - planning or activity involving much secret or clever trickery verb - to interest someone a lot, especially in a mysterious way
audacious /ɔːˈdeɪʃəs/ C1	adjective - showing a willingness to take bold risks, often recklessly
insolent /ˈɪnsələnt/ C1	adjective - showing disrespect in a rude way
bizarre /bɪˈzɑːr/ C1	adjective - very strange or unusual
anarchist /ˈænərkɪst/ C1	noun - a person who believes in anarchism
nervous /ˈnɜːrvəs/ A2	adjective - worried or anxious
sarcastic /sɑːrˈkæstɪk/ C1	adjective - using sarcasm in speech
reluctant /rɪˈlʌktənt/ B2	adjective - not willing to do something and reluctant to act
arrogant /ˈærəɡənt/ C1	adjective - having or showing an exaggerated belief in one's own importance or abilities
astonished /əˈstɑːnɪʃt/ B2	adjective - very surprised
cunning /ˈkʌnɪŋ/ C1	adjective - intelligent and skilled at deceiving people
maneuver /məˈnuːvər/ C1	verb - to skillfully guide or manipulate events
propose /prəˈpoʊz/ B1	verb - to suggest marriage