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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Agony Column, by Earl Derr Biggers
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Agony Column
+
+Author: Earl Derr Biggers
+
+Posting Date: October 5, 2008 [EBook #1814]
+Release Date: July, 1999
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE AGONY COLUMN ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by An Anonymous Project Gutenberg Volunteer
+
+
+
+
+
+THE AGONY COLUMN
+
+by Earl Derr Biggers
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+London that historic summer was almost unbearably hot. It seems, looking
+back, as though the big baking city in those days was meant to serve as
+an anteroom of torture--an inadequate bit of preparation for the
+hell that was soon to break in the guise of the Great War. About the
+soda-water bar in the drug store near the Hotel Cecil many American
+tourists found solace in the sirups and creams of home. Through the
+open windows of the Piccadilly tea shops you might catch glimpses of
+the English consuming quarts of hot tea in order to become cool. It is a
+paradox they swear by.
+
+About nine o'clock on the morning of Friday, July twenty-fourth, in that
+memorable year nineteen hundred and fourteen, Geoffrey West left his
+apartments in Adelphi Terrace and set out for breakfast at the Carlton.
+He had found the breakfast room of that dignified hotel the coolest
+in London, and through some miracle, for the season had passed,
+strawberries might still be had there. As he took his way through the
+crowded Strand, surrounded on all sides by honest British faces wet
+with honest British perspiration he thought longingly of his rooms in
+Washington Square, New York. For West, despite the English sound of that
+Geoffrey, was as American as Kansas, his native state, and only pressing
+business was at that moment holding him in England, far from the country
+that glowed unusually rosy because of its remoteness.
+
+At the Carlton news stand West bought two morning papers--the Times
+for study and the Mail for entertainment and then passed on into the
+restaurant. His waiter--a tall soldierly Prussian, more blond than West
+himself--saw him coming and, with a nod and a mechanical German smile,
+set out for the plate of strawberries which he knew would be the first
+thing desired by the American. West seated himself at his usual table
+and, spreading out the Daily Mail, sought his favorite column. The first
+item in that column brought a delighted smile to his face:
+
+"The one who calls me Dearest is not genuine or they would write to me."
+
+Any one at all familiar with English journalism will recognize at once
+what department it was that appealed most to West. During his three
+weeks in London he had been following, with the keenest joy, the daily
+grist of Personal Notices in the Mail. This string of intimate
+messages, popularly known as the Agony Column, has long been an honored
+institution in the English press. In the days of Sherlock Holmes it
+was in the Times that it flourished, and many a criminal was tracked
+to earth after he had inserted some alluring mysterious message in it.
+Later the Telegraph gave it room; but, with the advent of halfpenny
+journalism, the simple souls moved en masse to the Mail.
+
+Tragedy and comedy mingle in the Agony Column. Erring ones are urged to
+return for forgiveness; unwelcome suitors are warned that "Father has
+warrant prepared; fly, Dearest One!" Loves that would shame by their
+ardor Abelard and Heloise are frankly published--at ten cents a
+word--for all the town to smile at. The gentleman in the brown derby
+states with fervor that the blonde governess who got off the tram at
+Shepherd's Bush has quite won his heart. Will she permit his addresses?
+Answer; this department. For three weeks West had found this sort of
+thing delicious reading. Best of all, he could detect in these messages
+nothing that was not open and innocent. At their worst they were merely
+an effort to side-step old Lady Convention; this inclination was so
+rare in the British, he felt it should be encouraged. Besides, he was
+inordinately fond of mystery and romance, and these engaging twins
+hovered always about that column.
+
+
+So, while waiting for his strawberries, he smiled over the ungrammatical
+outburst of the young lady who had come to doubt the genuineness of him
+who called her Dearest. He passed on to the second item of the morning.
+Spoke one whose heart had been completely conquered:
+
+MY LADY sleeps. She of raven tresses. Corner seat from Victoria,
+Wednesday night. Carried program. Gentleman answering inquiry desires
+acquaintance. Reply here. --LE ROI.
+
+West made a mental note to watch for the reply of raven tresses. The
+next message proved to be one of Aye's lyrics--now almost a daily
+feature of the column:
+
+DEAREST: Tender loving wishes to my dear one. Only to be with you now
+and always. None "fairer in my eyes." Your name is music to me. I
+love you more than life itself, my own beautiful darling, my proud
+sweetheart, my joy, my all! Jealous of everybody. Kiss your dear hands
+for me. Love you only. Thine ever. --AYE.
+
+Which, reflected West, was generous of Aye--at ten cents a word--and in
+striking contrast to the penurious lover who wrote, farther along in the
+column:
+
+     --loveu dearly; wantocu; longing; missu--
+
+But those extremely personal notices ran not alone to love. Mystery,
+too, was present, especially in the aquatic utterance:
+
+DEFIANT MERMAID: Not mine. Alligators bitingu now. 'Tis well; delighted.
+--FIRST FISH.
+
+And the rather sanguinary suggestion:
+
+DE Box: First round; tooth gone. Finale. You will FORGET ME NOT.
+
+At this point West's strawberries arrived and even the Agony Column
+could not hold his interest. When the last red berry was eaten he turned
+back to read:
+
+WATERLOO: Wed. 11:53 train. Lady who left in taxi and waved, care to
+know gent, gray coat? --SINCERE.
+
+Also the more dignified request put forward in:
+
+GREAT CENTRAL: Gentleman who saw lady in bonnet 9 Monday morning in
+Great Central Hotel lift would greatly value opportunity of obtaining
+introduction.
+
+This exhausted the joys of the Agony Column for the day, and West, like
+the solid citizen he really was, took up the Times to discover what
+might be the morning's news. A great deal of space was given to the
+appointment of a new principal for Dulwich College. The affairs of the
+heart, in which that charming creature, Gabrielle Ray, was at the moment
+involved, likewise claimed attention. And in a quite unimportant corner,
+in a most unimportant manner, it was related that Austria had sent an
+ultimatum to Serbia. West had read part way through this stupid little
+piece of news, when suddenly the Thunderer and all its works became an
+uninteresting blur.
+
+A girl stood just inside the door of the Carlton breakfast room.
+
+Yes; he should have pondered that despatch from Vienna. But such a girl!
+It adds nothing at all to say that her hair was a dull sort of gold; her
+eyes violet. Many girls have been similarly blessed. It was her manner;
+the sweet way she looked with those violet eyes through a battalion of
+head waiters and resplendent managers; her air of being at home here
+in the Carlton or anywhere else that fate might drop her down.
+Unquestionably she came from oversea--from the States.
+
+She stepped forward into the restaurant. And now slipped also into
+view, as part of the background for her, a middle-aged man, who wore the
+conventional black of the statesman. He, too, bore the American label
+unmistakably. Nearer and nearer to West she drew, and he saw that in her
+hand she carried a copy of the Daily Mail.
+
+West's waiter was a master of the art of suggesting that no table in the
+room was worth sitting at save that at which he held ready a chair. Thus
+he lured the girl and her companion to repose not five feet from where
+West sat. This accomplished, he whipped out his order book, and stood
+with pencil poised, like a reporter in an American play.
+
+"The strawberries are delicious," he said in honeyed tones.
+
+The man looked at the girl, a question in his eyes.
+
+"Not for me, dad," she said. "I hate them! Grapefruit, please."
+
+As the waiter hurried past, West hailed him. He spoke in loud defiant
+tones.
+
+"Another plate of the strawberries!" he commanded. "They are better than
+ever to-day."
+
+For a second, as though he were part of the scenery, those violet eyes
+met his with a casual impersonal glance. Then their owner slowly spread
+out her own copy of the Mail.
+
+"What's the news?" asked the statesman, drinking deep from his glass of
+water.
+
+"Don't ask me," the girl answered, without looking up. "I've found
+something more entertaining than news. Do you know--the English papers
+run humorous columns! Only they aren't called that. They're called
+Personal Notices. And such notices!" She leaned across the table.
+"Listen to this: 'Dearest: Tender loving wishes to my dear one. Only to
+be with you now and always. None "fairer in my eyes."--
+
+The man looked uncomfortably about him. "Hush!" he pleaded. "It doesn't
+sound very nice to me."
+
+"Nice!" cried the girl. "Oh, but it is--quite nice. And so deliciously
+open and aboveboard. 'Your name is music to me. I love you more--'"
+
+"What do we see to-day?" put in her father hastily.
+
+"We're going down to the City and have a look at the Temple. Thackeray
+lived there once--and Oliver Goldsmith--"
+
+"All right--the Temple it is."
+
+"Then the Tower of London. It's full of the most romantic associations.
+Especially the Bloody Tower, where those poor little princes were
+murdered. Aren't you thrilled?"
+
+"I am if you say so."
+
+"You're a dear! I promise not to tell the people back in Texas that you
+showed any interest in kings and such--if you will show just a little.
+Otherwise I'll spread the awful news that you took off your hat when
+King George went by."
+
+The statesman smiled. West felt that he, who had no business to, was
+smiling with him.
+
+The waiter returned, bringing grapefruit, and the strawberries West had
+ordered. Without another look toward West, the girl put down her paper
+and began her breakfasting. As often as he dared, however, West looked
+at her. With patriotic pride he told himself: "Six months in Europe, and
+the most beautiful thing I've seen comes from back home!"
+
+When he rose reluctantly twenty minutes later his two compatriots were
+still at table, discussing their plans for the day. As is usual in such
+cases, the girl arranged, the man agreed.
+
+With one last glance in her direction, West went out on the parched
+pavement of Haymarket.
+
+Slowly he walked back to his rooms. Work was waiting there for him;
+but instead of getting down to it, he sat on the balcony of his study,
+gazing out on the courtyard that had been his chief reason for selecting
+those apartments. Here, in the heart of the city, was a bit of the
+countryside transported--the green, trim, neatly tailored countryside
+that is the most satisfying thing in England. There were walls on which
+the ivy climbed high, narrow paths that ran between blooming beds of
+flowers, and opposite his windows a seldom-opened, most romantic gate.
+As he sat looking down he seemed to see there below him the girl of the
+Carlton. Now she sat on the rustic bench; now she bent above the envious
+flowers; now she stood at the gate that opened out to a hot sudden bit
+of the city.
+
+And as he watched her there in the garden she would never enter, as he
+reflected unhappily that probably he would see her no more--the idea
+came to him.
+
+At first he put it from him as absurd, impossible. She was, to apply a
+fine word much abused, a lady; he supposedly a gentleman. Their sort
+did not do such things. If he yielded to this temptation she would be
+shocked, angry, and from him would slip that one chance in a thousand he
+had--the chance of meeting her somewhere, some day.
+
+And yet--and yet--She, too, had found the Agony Column entertaining
+and--quite nice. There was a twinkle in her eyes that bespoke a fondness
+for romance. She was human, fun-loving--and, above all, the joy of youth
+was in her heart.
+
+Nonsense! West went inside and walked the floor. The idea was
+preposterous. Still--he smiled--it was filled with amusing
+possibilities. Too bad he must put it forever away and settle down to
+this stupid work!
+
+Forever away? Well--
+
+On the next morning, which was Saturday, West did not breakfast at the
+Carlton. The girl, however, did. As she and her father sat down the old
+man said: "I see you've got your Daily Mail."
+
+"Of course!" she answered. "I couldn't do without it. Grapefruit--yes."
+
+She began to read. Presently her cheeks flushed and she put the paper
+down.
+
+"What is it?" asked the Texas statesman.
+
+"To-day," she answered sternly, "you do the British Museum. You've put
+it off long enough."
+
+The old man sighed. Fortunately he did not ask to see the Mail. If he
+had, a quarter way down the column of personal notices he would have
+been enraged--or perhaps only puzzled--to read:
+
+CARLTON RESTAURANT: Nine A.M. Friday morning. Will the young woman who
+preferred grapefruit to strawberries permit the young man who had two
+plates of the latter to say he will not rest until he discovers some
+mutual friend, that they may meet and laugh over this column together?
+
+Lucky for the young man who liked strawberries that his nerve had failed
+him and he was not present at the Carlton that morning! He would
+have been quite overcome to see the stern uncompromising look on the
+beautiful face of a lady at her grapefruit. So overcome, in fact, that
+he would probably have left the room at once, and thus not seen the
+mischievous smile that came in time to the lady's face--not seen that
+she soon picked up the paper again and read, with that smile, to the end
+of the column.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+The next day was Sunday; hence it brought no Mail. Slowly it dragged
+along. At a ridiculously early hour Monday morning Geoffrey West was on
+the street, seeking his favorite newspaper. He found it, found the Agony
+Column--and nothing else. Tuesday morning again he rose early, still
+hopeful. Then and there hope died. The lady at the Carlton deigned no
+reply.
+
+Well, he had lost, he told himself. He had staked all on this one bold
+throw; no use. Probably if she thought of him at all it was to label him
+a cheap joker, a mountebank of the halfpenny press. Richly he deserved
+her scorn.
+
+On Wednesday he slept late. He was in no haste to look into the Daily
+Mail; his disappointments of the previous days had been too keen. At
+last, while he was shaving, he summoned Walters, the caretaker of the
+building, and sent him out to procure a certain morning paper.
+
+Walters came back bearing rich treasure, for in the Agony Column of that
+day West, his face white with lather, read joyously:
+
+STRAWBERRY MAN: Only the grapefruit lady's kind heart and her great
+fondness for mystery and romance move her to answer. The strawberry-mad
+one may write one letter a day for seven days--to prove that he is an
+interesting person, worth knowing. Then--we shall see. Address: M. A.
+L., care Sadie Haight, Carlton Hotel.
+
+All day West walked on air, but with the evening came the problem of
+those letters, on which depended, he felt, his entire future happiness.
+Returning from dinner, he sat down at his desk near the windows that
+looked out on his wonderful courtyard. The weather was still torrid,
+but with the night had come a breeze to fan the hot cheek of London. It
+gently stirred his curtains; rustled the papers on his desk.
+
+He considered. Should he at once make known the eminently respectable
+person he was, the hopelessly respectable people he knew? Hardly! For
+then, on the instant, like a bubble bursting, would go for good all
+mystery and romance, and the lady of the grapefruit would lose all
+interest and listen to him no more. He spoke solemnly to his rustling
+curtains.
+
+"No," he said. "We must have mystery and romance. But where--where shall
+we find them?"
+
+On the floor above he heard the solid tramp of military boots belonging
+to his neighbor, Captain Stephen Fraser-Freer, of the Twelfth Cavalry,
+Indian Army, home on furlough from that colony beyond the seas. It was
+from that room overhead that romance and mystery were to come in mighty
+store; but Geoffrey West little suspected it at the moment. Hardly
+knowing what to say, but gaining inspiration as he went along, he wrote
+the first of seven letters to the lady at the Carlton. And the epistle
+he dropped in the post box at midnight follows here:
+
+DEAR LADY OF THE GRAPEFRUIT: You are very kind. Also, you are wise.
+Wise, because into my clumsy little Personal you read nothing that was
+not there. You knew it immediately for what it was--the timid tentative
+clutch of a shy man at the skirts of Romance in passing. Believe me,
+old Conservatism was with me when I wrote that message. He was fighting
+hard. He followed me, struggling, shrieking, protesting, to the post box
+itself. But I whipped him. Glory be! I did for him.
+
+We are young but once, I told him. After that, what use to signal to
+Romance? The lady at least, I said, will understand. He sneered at that.
+He shook his silly gray head. I will admit he had me worried. But now
+you have justified my faith in you. Thank you a million times for that!
+
+Three weeks I have been in this huge, ungainly, indifferent city,
+longing for the States. Three weeks the Agony Column has been my sole
+diversion. And then--through the doorway of the Carlton restaurant--you
+came--
+
+It is of myself that I must write, I know. I will not, then, tell you
+what is in my mind--the picture of you I carry. It would mean little
+to you. Many Texan gallants, no doubt, have told you the same while the
+moon was bright above you and the breeze was softly whispering through
+the branches of--the branches of the--of the--
+
+Confound it, I don't know! I have never been in Texas. It is a vice in
+me I hope soon to correct. All day I intended to look up Texas in the
+encyclopedia. But all day I have dwelt in the clouds. And there are no
+reference books in the clouds.
+
+Now I am down to earth in my quiet study. Pens, ink and paper are before
+me. I must prove myself a person worth knowing.
+
+From his rooms, they say, you can tell much about a man. But,
+alas! these peaceful rooms in Adelphi Terrace--I shall not tell the
+number--were sublet furnished. So if you could see me now you would be
+judging me by the possessions left behind by one Anthony Bartholomew.
+There is much dust on them. Judge neither Anthony nor me by that.
+Judge rather Walters, the caretaker, who lives in the basement with his
+gray-haired wife. Walters was a gardener once, and his whole life is
+wrapped up in the courtyard on which my balcony looks down. There he
+spends his time, while up above the dust gathers in the corners--
+
+Does this picture distress you, my lady? You should see the courtyard!
+You would not blame Walters then. It is a sample of Paradise left at
+our door--that courtyard. As English as a hedge, as neat, as beautiful.
+London is a roar somewhere beyond; between our court and the great city
+is a magic gate, forever closed. It was the court that led me to take
+these rooms.
+
+And, since you are one who loves mystery, I am going to relate to you
+the odd chain of circumstances that brought me here.
+
+For the first link in that chain we must go back to Interlaken. Have
+you been there yet? A quiet little town, lying beautiful between two
+shimmering lakes, with the great Jungfrau itself for scenery. From the
+dining-room of one lucky hotel you may look up at dinner and watch the
+old-rose afterglow light the snow-capped mountain. You would not say
+then of strawberries: "I hate them." Or of anything else in all the
+world.
+
+A month ago I was in Interlaken. One evening after dinner I strolled
+along the main street, where all the hotels and shops are drawn up at
+attention before the lovely mountain. In front of one of the shops I saw
+a collection of walking sticks and, since I needed one for climbing, I
+paused to look them over. I had been at this only a moment when a young
+Englishman stepped up and also began examining the sticks.
+
+I had made a selection from the lot and was turning away to find
+the shopkeeper, when the Englishman spoke. He was lean,
+distinguished-looking, though quite young, and had that well-tubbed
+appearance which I am convinced is the great factor that has enabled the
+English to assert their authority over colonies like Egypt and India,
+where men are not so thoroughly bathed.
+
+"Er--if you'll pardon me, old chap," he said. "Not that stick--if you
+don't mind my saying so. It's not tough enough for mountain work. I
+would suggest--"
+
+To say that I was astonished is putting it mildly. If you know the
+English at all, you know it is not their habit to address strangers,
+even under the most pressing circumstances. Yet here was one of that
+haughty race actually interfering in my selection of a stick. I ended
+by buying the one he preferred, and he strolled along with me in the
+direction of my hotel, chatting meantime in a fashion far from British.
+
+We stopped at the Kursaal, where we listened to the music, had a drink
+and threw away a few francs on the little horses. He came with me to the
+veranda of my hotel. I was surprised, when he took his leave, to find
+that he regarded me in the light of an old friend. He said he would call
+on me the next morning.
+
+I made up my mind that Archibald Enwright--for that, he told me, was
+his name--was an adventurer down on his luck, who chose to forget
+his British exclusiveness under the stern necessity of getting money
+somehow, somewhere. The next day, I decided, I should be the victim of a
+touch.
+
+But my prediction failed; Enwright seemed to have plenty of money. On
+that first evening I had mentioned to him that I expected shortly to be
+in London, and he often referred to the fact. As the time approached
+for me to leave Interlaken he began to throw out the suggestion that he
+should like to have me meet some of his people in England. This, also,
+was unheard of--against all precedent.
+
+Nevertheless, when I said good-by to him he pressed into my hand a
+letter of introduction to his cousin, Captain Stephen Fraser-Freer, of
+the Twelfth Cavalry, Indian Army, who, he said, would be glad to make
+me at home in London, where he was on furlough at the time--or would be
+when I reached there.
+
+"Stephen's a good sort," said Enwright. "He'll be jolly pleased to show
+you the ropes. Give him my best, old boy!"
+
+Of course I took the letter. But I puzzled greatly over the affair.
+What could be the meaning of this sudden warm attachment that Archie had
+formed for me? Why should he want to pass me along to his cousin at a
+time when that gentleman, back home after two years in India, would
+be, no doubt, extremely busy? I made up my mind I would not present the
+letter, despite the fact that Archie had with great persistence wrung
+from me a promise to do so. I had met many English gentlemen, and I
+felt they were not the sort--despite the example of Archie--to take a
+wandering American to their bosoms when he came with a mere letter. By
+easy stages I came on to London. Here I met a friend, just sailing for
+home, who told me of some sad experiences he had had with letters
+of introduction--of the cold, fishy,
+"My-dear-fellow-why-trouble-me-with-it?" stares that had greeted their
+presentation. Good-hearted men all, he said, but averse to strangers; an
+ever-present trait in the English--always excepting Archie.
+
+So I put the letter to Captain Fraser-Freer out of my mind. I had
+business acquaintances here and a few English friends, and I found
+these, as always, courteous and charming. But it is to my advantage to
+meet as many people as may be, and after drifting about for a week I set
+out one afternoon to call on my captain. I told myself that here was an
+Englishman who had perhaps thawed a bit in the great oven of India. If
+not, no harm would be done.
+
+It was then that I came for the first time to this house on Adelphi
+Terrace, for it was the address Archie had given me. Walters let me in,
+and I learned from him that Captain Fraser-Freer had not yet arrived
+from India. His rooms were ready--he had kept them during his absence,
+as seems to be the custom over here--and he was expected soon.
+Perhaps--said Walters--his wife remembered the date. He left me in the
+lower hall while he went to ask her.
+
+Waiting, I strolled to the rear of the hall. And then, through an open
+window that let in the summer, I saw for the first time that courtyard
+which is my great love in London--the old ivy-covered walls of brick;
+the neat paths between the blooming beds; the rustic seat; the magic
+gate. It was incredible that just outside lay the world's biggest city,
+with all its poverty and wealth, its sorrows and joys, its roar and
+rattle. Here was a garden for Jane Austen to people with fine ladies
+and courtly gentlemen--here was a garden to dream in, to adore and to
+cherish.
+
+When Walters came back to tell me that his wife was uncertain as to the
+exact date when the captain would return, I began to rave about that
+courtyard. At once he was my friend. I had been looking for quiet
+lodgings away from the hotel, and I was delighted to find that on the
+second floor, directly under the captain's rooms, there was a suite to
+be sublet.
+
+Walters gave me the address of the agents; and, after submitting to an
+examination that could not have been more severe if I had asked for the
+hand of the senior partner's daughter, they let me come here to live.
+The garden was mine!
+
+And the captain? Three days after I arrived I heard above me, for the
+first time, the tread of his military boots. Now again my courage began
+to fail. I should have preferred to leave Archie's letter lying in
+my desk and know my neighbor only by his tread above me. I felt that
+perhaps I had been presumptuous in coming to live in the same house with
+him. But I had represented myself to Walters as an acquaintance of the
+captain's and the caretaker had lost no time in telling me that "my
+friend" was safely home.
+
+So one night, a week ago, I got up my nerve and went to the captain's
+rooms. I knocked. He called to me to enter and I stood in his study,
+facing him. He was a tall handsome man, fair-haired, mustached--the
+very figure that you, my lady, in your boarding-school days, would have
+wished him to be. His manner, I am bound to admit, was not cordial.
+
+"Captain," I began, "I am very sorry to intrude--" It wasn't the thing
+to say, of course, but I was fussed. "However, I happen to be a neighbor
+of yours, and I have here a letter of introduction from your cousin,
+Archibald Enwright. I met him in Interlaken and we became very good
+friends."
+
+"Indeed!" said the captain.
+
+He held out his hand for the letter, as though it were evidence at
+a court-martial. I passed it over, wishing I hadn't come. He read it
+through. It was a long letter, considering its nature. While I waited,
+standing by his desk--he hadn't asked me to sit down--I looked about
+the room. It was much like my own study, only I think a little dustier.
+Being on the third floor it was farther from the garden, consequently
+Walters reached there seldom.
+
+The captain turned back and began to read the letter again. This was
+decidedly embarrassing. Glancing down, I happened to see on his desk
+an odd knife, which I fancy he had brought from India. The blade was
+of steel, dangerously sharp, the hilt of gold, carved to represent some
+heathen figure.
+
+Then the captain looked up from Archie's letter and his cold gaze fell
+full upon me.
+
+"My dear fellow," he said, "to the best of my knowledge, I have no
+cousin named Archibald Enwright."
+
+A pleasant situation, you must admit! It's bad enough when you come
+to them with a letter from their mother, but here was I in this
+Englishman's rooms, boldly flaunting in his face a warm note of
+commendation from a cousin who did not exist!
+
+"I owe you an apology," I said. I tried to be as haughty as he, and fell
+short by about two miles. "I brought the letter in good faith."
+
+"No doubt of that," he answered.
+
+"Evidently it was given me by some adventurer for purposes of his own,"
+I went on; "though I am at a loss to guess what they could have been."
+
+"I'm frightfully sorry--really," said he. But he said it with the London
+inflection, which plainly implies: "I'm nothing of the sort."
+
+A painful pause. I felt that he ought to give me back the letter; but he
+made no move to do so. And, of course, I didn't ask for it.
+
+"Ah--er--good night," said I and hurried toward the door.
+
+"Good night," he answered, and I left him standing there with Archie's
+accursed letter in his hand.
+
+That is the story of how I came to this house in Adelphi Terrace. There
+is mystery in it, you must admit, my lady. Once or twice since that
+uncomfortable call I have passed the captain on the stairs; but the
+halls are very dark, and for that I am grateful. I hear him often above
+me; in fact, I hear him as I write this.
+
+Who was Archie? What was the idea? I wonder.
+
+Ah, well, I have my garden, and for that I am indebted to Archie the
+garrulous. It is nearly midnight now. The roar of London has died away
+to a fretful murmur, and somehow across this baking town a breeze has
+found its way. It whispers over the green grass, in the ivy that climbs
+my wall, in the soft murky folds of my curtains. Whispers--what?
+
+Whispers, perhaps, the dreams that go with this, the first of my letters
+to you. They are dreams that even I dare not whisper yet.
+
+And so--good night.
+
+THE STRAWBERRY MAN.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+With a smile that betrayed unusual interest, the daughter of the Texas
+statesman read that letter on Thursday morning in her room at the
+Carlton. There was no question about it--the first epistle from the
+strawberry-mad one had caught and held her attention. All day, as she
+dragged her father through picture galleries, she found herself looking
+forward to another morning, wondering, eager.
+
+But on the following morning Sadie Haight, the maid through whom this
+odd correspondence was passing, had no letter to deliver. The news
+rather disappointed the daughter of Texas. At noon she insisted on
+returning to the hotel for luncheon, though, as her father pointed out,
+they were far from the Carlton at the time. Her journey was rewarded.
+Letter number two was waiting; and as she read she gasped.
+
+DEAR LADY AT THE CARLTON: I am writing this at three in the morning,
+with London silent as the grave, beyond our garden. That I am so late in
+getting to it is not because I did not think of you all day yesterday;
+not because I did not sit down at my desk at seven last evening to
+address you. Believe me, only the most startling, the most appalling
+accident could have held me up.
+
+That most startling, most appalling accident has happened.
+
+I am tempted to give you the news at once in one striking and terrible
+sentence. And I could write that sentence. A tragedy, wrapped in mystery
+as impenetrable as a London fog, has befallen our quiet little house in
+Adelphi Terrace. In their basement room the Walters family, sleepless,
+overwhelmed, sit silent; on the dark stairs outside my door I hear at
+intervals the tramp of men on unhappy missions--But no; I must go back
+to the very start of it all:
+
+Last night I had an early dinner at Simpson's, in the Strand--so early
+that I was practically alone in the restaurant. The letter I was about
+to write to you was uppermost in my mind and, having quickly dined, I
+hurried back to my rooms. I remember clearly that, as I stood in the
+street before our house fumbling for my keys, Big Ben on the Parliament
+Buildings struck the hour of seven. The chime of the great bell rang out
+in our peaceful thoroughfare like a loud and friendly greeting.
+
+Gaining my study, I sat down at once to write. Over my head I could
+hear Captain Fraser-Freer moving about--attiring himself, probably, for
+dinner. I was thinking, with an amused smile, how horrified he would be
+if he knew that the crude American below him had dined at the impossible
+hour of six, when suddenly I heard, in that room above me, some stranger
+talking in a harsh determined tone. Then came the captain's answering
+voice, calmer, more dignified. This conversation went along for some
+time, growing each moment more excited. Though I could not distinguish a
+word of it, I had the uncomfortable feeling that there was a controversy
+on; and I remember feeling annoyed that any one should thus interfere
+with my composition of your letter, which I regarded as most important,
+you may be sure.
+
+At the end of five minutes of argument there came the heavy thump-thump
+of men struggling above me. It recalled my college days, when we used
+to hear the fellows in the room above us throwing each other about in
+an excess of youth and high spirits. But this seemed more grim, more
+determined, and I did not like it.--However, I reflected that it was
+none of my business. I tried to think about my letter.
+
+The struggle ended with a particularly heavy thud that shook our ancient
+house to its foundations. I sat listening, somehow very much depressed.
+There was no sound. It was not entirely dark outside--the long
+twilight--and the frugal Walters had not lighted the hall lamps.
+Somebody was coming down the stairs very quietly--but their creaking
+betrayed him. I waited for him to pass through the shaft of light that
+poured from the door open at my back. At that moment Fate intervened in
+the shape of a breeze through my windows, the door banged shut, and a
+heavy man rushed by me in the darkness and ran down the stairs. I knew
+he was heavy, because the passageway was narrow and he had to push me
+aside to get by. I heard him swear beneath his breath.
+
+Quickly I went to a hall window at the far end that looked out on the
+street. But the front door did not open; no one came out. I was puzzled
+for a second; then I reentered my room and hurried to my balcony. I
+could make out the dim figure of a man running through the garden at
+the rear--that garden of which I have so often spoken. He did not try
+to open the gate; he climbed it, and so disappeared from sight into the
+alley.
+
+For a moment I considered. These were odd actions, surely; but was it my
+place to interfere? I remembered the cold stare in the eyes of Captain
+Fraser-Freer when I presented that letter. I saw him standing motionless
+in his murky study, as amiable as a statue. Would he welcome an
+intrusion from me now?
+
+Finally I made up my mind to forget these things and went down to find
+Walters. He and his wife were eating their dinner in the basement. I
+told him what had happened. He said he had let no visitor in to see the
+captain, and was inclined to view my misgivings with a cold British eye.
+However, I persuaded him to go with me to the captain's rooms.
+
+The captain's door was open. Remembering that in England the way of the
+intruder is hard, I ordered Walters to go first. He stepped into the
+room, where the gas flickered feebly in an aged chandelier.
+
+"My God, sir!" said Walters, a servant even now.
+
+And at last I write that sentence: Captain Fraser-Freer of the Indian
+Army lay dead on the floor, a smile that was almost a sneer on his
+handsome English face!
+
+The horror of it is strong with me now as I sit in the silent morning in
+this room of mine which is so like the one in which the captain died. He
+had been stabbed just over the heart, and my first thought was of that
+odd Indian knife which I had seen lying on his study table. I turned
+quickly to seek it, but it was gone. And as I looked at the table
+it came to me that here in this dusty room there must be finger
+prints--many finger prints.
+
+The room was quite in order, despite those sounds of struggle. One or
+two odd matters met my eye. On the table stood a box from a florist in
+Bond Street. The lid had been removed and I saw that the box contained
+a number of white asters. Beside the box lay a scarf-pin--an emerald
+scarab. And not far from the captain's body lay what is known--owing to
+the German city where it is made--as a Homburg hat.
+
+I recalled that it is most important at such times that nothing be
+disturbed, and I turned to old Walters. His face was like this paper on
+which I write; his knees trembled beneath him.
+
+"Walters," said I, "we must leave things just as they are until the
+police arrive. Come with me while I notify Scotland Yard."
+
+"Very good, sir," said Walters.
+
+We went down then to the telephone in the lower hall, and I called up
+the Yard. I was told that an inspector would come at once and I went
+back to my room to wait for him.
+
+You can well imagine the feelings that were mine as I waited. Before
+this mystery should be solved, I foresaw that I might be involved to a
+degree that was unpleasant if not dangerous. Walters would remember that
+I first came here as one acquainted with the captain. He had noted, I
+felt sure, the lack of intimacy between the captain and myself, once
+the former arrived from India. He would no doubt testify that I had been
+most anxious to obtain lodgings in the same house with Fraser-Freer.
+Then there was the matter of my letter from Archie. I must keep that
+secret, I felt sure. Lastly, there was not a living soul to back me up
+in my story of the quarrel that preceded the captain's death, of the man
+who escaped by way of the garden.
+
+Alas, thought I, even the most stupid policeman can not fail to look
+upon me with the eye of suspicion!
+
+In about twenty minutes three men arrived from Scotland Yard. By that
+time I had worked myself up into a state of absurd nervousness. I heard
+Walters let them in; heard them climb the stairs and walk about in the
+room overhead. In a short time Walters knocked at my door and told me
+that Chief Inspector Bray desired to speak to me. As I preceded the
+servant up the stairs I felt toward him as an accused murderer must feel
+toward the witness who has it in his power to swear his life away.
+
+He was a big active man--Bray; blond as are so many Englishmen. His
+every move spoke efficiency. Trying to act as unconcerned as an innocent
+man should--but failing miserably, I fear--I related to him my story
+of the voices, the struggle, and the heavy man who had got by me in the
+hall and later climbed our gate. He listened without comment. At the end
+he said:
+
+"You were acquainted with the captain?"
+
+"Slightly," I told him. Archie's letter kept popping into my mind,
+frightening me. "I had just met him--that is all; through a friend of
+his--Archibald Enwright was the name."
+
+"Is Enwright in London to vouch for you?"
+
+"I'm afraid not. I last heard of him in Interlaken."
+
+"Yes? How did you happen to take rooms in this house?"
+
+"The first time I called to see the captain he had not yet arrived from
+India. I was looking for lodgings and I took a great fancy to the garden
+here."
+
+It sounded silly, put like that. I wasn't surprised that the inspector
+eyed me with scorn. But I rather wished he hadn't.
+
+Bray began to walk about the room, ignoring me.
+
+"White asters; scarab pin; Homburg hat," he detailed, pausing before the
+table where those strange exhibits lay.
+
+A constable came forward carrying newspapers in his hand.
+
+"What is it?" Bray asked.
+
+"The Daily Mail, sir," said the constable. "The issues of July
+twenty-seventh, twenty-eighth, twenty-ninth and thirtieth."
+
+Bray took the papers in his hand, glanced at them and tossed them
+contemptuously into a waste-basket. He turned to Walters.
+
+"Sorry, sir," said Walters; "but I was so taken aback! Nothing like this
+has ever happened to me before. I'll go at once--"
+
+"No," replied Bray sharply. "Never mind. I'll attend to it--"
+
+There was a knock at the door. Bray called "Come!" and a slender boy,
+frail but with a military bearing, entered.
+
+"Hello, Walters!" he said, smiling. "What's up? I-"
+
+He stopped suddenly as his eyes fell upon the divan where Fraser-Freer
+lay. In an instant he was at the dead man's side.
+
+"Stephen!" he cried in anguish.
+
+"Who are you?" demanded the inspector--rather rudely, I thought.
+
+"It's the captain's brother, sir," put in Walters. "Lieutenant Norman
+Fraser-Freer, of the Royal Fusiliers."
+
+There fell a silence.
+
+"A great calamity, sir--" began Walters to the boy.
+
+I have rarely seen any one so overcome as young Fraser-Freer. Watching
+him, it seemed to me that the affection existing between him and the man
+on the divan must have been a beautiful thing. He turned away from his
+brother at last, and Walters sought to give him some idea of what had
+happened.
+
+"You will pardon me, gentlemen," said the lieutenant. "This has been a
+terrible shock! I didn't dream, of course--I just dropped in for a word
+with--with him. And now--"
+
+We said nothing. We let him apologize, as a true Englishman must, for
+his public display of emotion.
+
+"I'm sorry," Bray remarked in a moment, his eyes still shifting about
+the room--"especially as England may soon have great need of men like
+the captain. Now, gentlemen, I want to say this: I am the Chief of the
+Special Branch at the Yard. This is no ordinary murder. For reasons
+I can not disclose--and, I may add, for the best interests of the
+empire--news of the captain's tragic death must be kept for the present
+out of the newspapers. I mean, of course, the manner of his going. A
+mere death notice, you understand--the inference being that it was a
+natural taking off."
+
+"I understand," said the lieutenant, as one who knows more than he
+tells.
+
+"Thank you," said Bray. "I shall leave you to attend to the matter, as
+far as your family is concerned. You will take charge of the body. As
+for the rest of you, I forbid you to mention this matter outside."
+
+And now Bray stood looking, with a puzzled air, at me.
+
+"You are an American?" he said, and I judged he did not care for
+Americans.
+
+"I am," I told him.
+
+"Know any one at your consulate?" he demanded.
+
+Thank heaven, I did! There is an under-secretary there named Watson--I
+went to college with him. I mentioned him to Bray.
+
+"Very good," said the inspector. "You are free to go. But you must
+understand that you are an important witness in this case, and if you
+attempt to leave London you will be locked up."
+
+So I came back to my rooms, horribly entangled in a mystery that is
+little to my liking. I have been sitting here in my study for some time,
+going over it again and again. There have been many footsteps on the
+stairs, many voices in the hall.
+
+Waiting here for the dawn, I have come to be very sorry for the cold
+handsome captain. After all, he was a man; his very tread on the floor
+above, which it shall never hear again, told me that.
+
+What does it all mean? Who was the man in the hall, the man who had
+argued so loudly, who had struck so surely with that queer Indian knife?
+Where is the knife now?
+
+And, above all, what do the white asters signify? And the scarab
+scarf-pin? And that absurd Homburg hat?
+
+Lady of the Carlton, you wanted mystery. When I wrote that first letter
+to you, little did I dream that I should soon have it to give you in
+overwhelming measure.
+
+And--believe me when I say it--through all this your face has been
+constantly before me--your face as I saw it that bright morning in the
+hotel breakfast room. You have forgiven me, I know, for the manner
+in which I addressed you. I had seen your eyes and the temptation was
+great--very great.
+
+It is dawn in the garden now and London is beginning to stir. So this
+time it is--good morning, my lady.
+
+THE STRAWBERRY MAN.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+It is hardly necessary to intimate that this letter came as something of
+a shock to the young woman who received it. For the rest of that day the
+many sights of London held little interest for her--so little, indeed,
+that her perspiring father began to see visions of his beloved Texas;
+and once hopefully suggested an early return home. The coolness with
+which this idea was received plainly showed him that he was on the wrong
+track; so he sighed and sought solace at the bar.
+
+That night the two from Texas attended His Majesty's Theater, where
+Bernard Shaw's latest play was being performed; and the witty Irishman
+would have been annoyed to see the scant attention one lovely young
+American in the audience gave his lines. The American in question
+retired at midnight, with eager thoughts turned toward the morning.
+
+And she was not disappointed. When her maid, a stolid Englishwoman,
+appeared at her bedside early Saturday she carried a letter, which
+she handed over, with the turned-up nose of one who aids but does not
+approve. Quickly the girl tore it open.
+
+DEAR Texas LADY: I am writing this late in the afternoon. The sun is
+casting long black shadows on the garden lawn, and the whole world is
+so bright and matter-of-fact I have to argue with myself to be convinced
+that the events of that tragic night through which I passed really
+happened.
+
+The newspapers this morning helped to make it all seem a dream; not a
+line--not a word, that I can find. When I think of America, and how
+by this time the reporters would be swarming through our house if this
+thing had happened over there, I am the more astonished. But then, I
+know these English papers. The great Joe Chamberlain died the other
+night at ten, and it was noon the next day when the first paper to carry
+the story appeared--screaming loudly that it had scored a beat. It had.
+Other lands, other methods.
+
+It was probably not difficult for Bray to keep journalists such as these
+in the dark. So their great ungainly sheets come out in total ignorance
+of a remarkable story in Adelphi Terrace. Famished for real news, they
+begin to hint at a huge war cloud on the horizon. Because tottering
+Austria has declared war on tiny Serbia, because the Kaiser is to-day
+hurrying, with his best dramatic effect, home to Berlin, they see all
+Europe shortly bathed in blood. A nightmare born of torrid days and
+tossing nights!
+
+But it is of the affair in Adelphi Terrace that you no doubt want to
+hear. One sequel of the tragedy, which adds immeasurably to the mystery
+of it all, has occurred, and I alone am responsible for its discovery.
+But to go back:
+
+I returned from mailing your letter at dawn this morning, very tired
+from the tension of the night. I went to bed, but could not sleep.
+More and more it was preying on my mind that I was in a most unhappy
+position. I had not liked the looks cast at me by Inspector Bray, or his
+voice when he asked how I came to live in this house. I told myself
+I should not be safe until the real murderer of the poor captain
+was found; and so I began to puzzle over the few clues in the
+case--especially over the asters, the scarab pin and the Homburg hat.
+
+It was then I remembered the four copies of the Daily Mail that Bray had
+casually thrown into the waste-basket as of no interest. I had glanced
+over his shoulder as he examined these papers, and had seen that each of
+them was folded so that our favorite department--the Agony Column--was
+uppermost. It happened I had in my desk copies of the Mail for the past
+week. You will understand why.
+
+I rose, found those papers, and began to read. It was then that I made
+the astounding discovery to which I have alluded.
+
+For a time after making it I was dumb with amazement, so that no course
+of action came readily to mind. In the end I decided that the thing for
+me to do was to wait for Bray's return in the morning and then point out
+to him the error he had made in ignoring the Mail.
+
+Bray came in about eight o'clock and a few minutes later I heard
+another man ascend the stairs. I was shaving at the time, but I quickly
+completed the operation and, slipping on a bathrobe, hurried up to the
+captain's rooms. The younger brother had seen to the removal of the
+unfortunate man's body in the night, and, aside from Bray and the
+stranger who had arrived almost simultaneously with him, there was no
+one but a sleepy-eyed constable there.
+
+Bray's greeting was decidedly grouchy. The stranger, however--a tall
+bronzed man--made himself known to me in the most cordial manner. He
+told me he was Colonel Hughes, a close friend of the dead man; and that,
+unutterably shocked and grieved, he had come to inquire whether there
+was anything he might do. "Inspector," said I, "last night in this room
+you held in your hand four copies of the Daily Mail. You tossed them
+into that basket as of no account. May I suggest that you rescue those
+copies, as I have a rather startling matter to make clear to you?"
+Too grand an official to stoop to a waste-basket, he nodded to the
+constable. The latter brought the papers; and, selecting one from the
+lot, I spread it out on the table. "The issue of July twenty-seventh," I
+said.
+
+I pointed to an item half-way down the column of Personal Notices. You
+yourself, my lady, may read it there if you happen to have saved a copy.
+It ran as follows:
+
+"RANGOON: The asters are in full bloom in the garden at Canterbury. They
+are very beautiful--especially the white ones."
+
+Bray grunted, and opened his little eyes. I took up the issue of the
+following day--the twenty-eighth:
+
+"RANGOON: We have been forced to sell father's stick-pin--the emerald
+scarab he brought home from Cairo."
+
+I had Bray's interest now. He leaned heavily toward me, puffing. Greatly
+excited, I held before his eyes the issue of the twenty-ninth:
+
+"RANGOON: Homburg hat gone forever--caught by a breeze--into the river."
+
+"And finally," said I to the inspector, "the last message of all, in the
+issue of the thirtieth of July--on sale in the streets some twelve hours
+before Fraser-Freer was murdered. See!"
+
+"RANGOON: To-night at ten. Regent Street. --Y.O.G."
+
+Bray was silent.
+
+"I take it you are aware, Inspector," I said, "that for the past two
+years Captain Fraser-Freer was stationed at Rangoon."
+
+Still he said nothing; just looked at me with those foxy little eyes
+that I was coming to detest. At last he spoke sharply:
+
+"Just how," he demanded, "did you happen to discover those messages? You
+were not in this room last night after I left?" He turned angrily to the
+constable. "I gave orders--"
+
+"No," I put in; "I was not in this room. I happened to have on file in
+my rooms copies of the Mail, and by the merest chance--"
+
+I saw that I had blundered. Undoubtedly my discovery of those messages
+was too pat. Once again suspicion looked my way.
+
+"Thank you very much," said Bray. "I'll keep this in mind."
+
+"Have you communicated with my friend at the consulate?" I asked.
+
+"Yes. That's all. Good morning."
+
+So I went.
+
+I had been back in my room some twenty minutes when there came a knock
+on the door, and Colonel Hughes entered. He was a genial man, in the
+early forties I should say, tanned by some sun not English, and gray at
+the temples.
+
+"My dear sir," he said without preamble, "this is a most appalling
+business!"
+
+"Decidedly," I answered. "Will you sit down?"
+
+"Thank you." He sat and gazed frankly into my eyes. "Policemen," he
+added meaningly, "are a most suspicious tribe--often without reason. I
+am sorry you happen to be involved in this affair, for I may say that
+I fancy you to be exactly what you seem. May I add that, if you should
+ever need a friend, I am at your service?"
+
+I was touched; I thanked him as best I could. His tone was so
+sympathetic and before I realized it I was telling him the whole
+story--of Archie and his letter; of my falling in love with a garden; of
+the startling discovery that the captain had never heard of his cousin;
+and of my subsequent unpleasant position. He leaned back in his chair
+and closed his eyes.
+
+"I suppose," he said, "that no man ever carries an unsealed letter of
+introduction without opening it to read just what praises have been
+lavished upon him. It is human nature--I have done it often. May I make
+so bold as to inquire--"
+
+"Yes," said I. "It was unsealed and I did read it. Considering its
+purpose, it struck me as rather long. There were many warm words for
+me--words beyond all reason in view of my brief acquaintance with
+Enwright. I also recall that he mentioned how long he had been in
+Interlaken, and that he said he expected to reach London about the first
+of August."
+
+"The first of August," repeated the colonel. "That is to-morrow. Now--if
+you'll be so kind--just what happened last night?"
+
+Again I ran over the events of that tragic evening--the quarrel; the
+heavy figure in the hall; the escape by way of the seldom-used gate.
+
+"My boy," said Colonel Hughes as he rose to go, "the threads of this
+tragedy stretch far--some of them to India; some to a country I will not
+name. I may say frankly that I have other and greater interest in the
+matter than that of the captain's friend. For the present that is in
+strict confidence between us; the police are well-meaning, but they
+sometimes blunder. Did I understand you to say that you have copies of
+the Mail containing those odd messages?"
+
+"Right here in my desk," said I. I got them for him.
+
+"I think I shall take them--if I may," he said. "You will, of course,
+not mention this little visit of mine. We shall meet again. Good
+morning."
+
+And he went away, carrying those papers with their strange signals to
+Rangoon.
+
+Somehow I feel wonderfully cheered by his call. For the first time since
+seven last evening I begin to breathe freely again.
+
+And so, lady who likes mystery, the matter stands on the afternoon of
+the last day of July, nineteen hundred and fourteen.
+
+I shall mail you this letter to-night. It is my third to you, and it
+carries with it three times the dreams that went with the first; for
+they are dreams that live not only at night, when the moon is on the
+courtyard, but also in the bright light of day.
+
+Yes--I am remarkably cheered. I realize that I have not eaten at
+all--save a cup of coffee from the trembling hand of Walters--since
+last night, at Simpson's. I am going now to dine. I shall begin with
+grapefruit. I realize that I am suddenly very fond of grapefruit.
+
+How bromidic to note it--we have many tastes in common!
+
+EX-STRAWBERRY MAN.
+
+
+The third letter from her correspondent of the Agony Column increased
+in the mind of the lovely young woman at the Carlton the excitement and
+tension the second had created. For a long time, on the Saturday morning
+of its receipt, she sat in her room puzzling over the mystery of
+the house in Adelphi Terrace. When first she had heard that Captain
+Fraser-Freer, of the Indian Army, was dead of a knife wound over the
+heart, the news had shocked her like that of the loss of some old
+and dear friend. She had desired passionately the apprehension of his
+murderer, and had turned over and over in her mind the possibilities of
+white asters, a scarab pin and a Homburg hat.
+
+Perhaps the girl longed for the arrest of the guilty man thus keenly
+because this jaunty young friend of hers--a friend whose name she did
+not know--to whom, indeed, she had never spoken--was so dangerously
+entangled in the affair. For, from what she knew of Geoffrey West, from
+her casual glance in the restaurant and, far more, from his letters, she
+liked him extremely.
+
+And now came his third letter, in which he related the connection of
+that hat, that pin and those asters with the column in the Mail which
+had first brought them together. As it happened, she, too, had copies
+of the paper for the first four days of the week. She went to her
+sitting-room, unearthed these copies, and--gasped! For from the
+column in Monday's paper stared up at her the cryptic words to Rangoon
+concerning asters in a garden at Canterbury. In the other three issues
+as well, she found the identical messages her strawberry man had quoted.
+She sat for a moment in deep thought; sat, in fact, until at her door
+came the enraged knocking of a hungry parent who had been waiting a full
+hour in the lobby below for her to join him at breakfast.
+
+"Come, come!" boomed her father, entering at her invitation. "Don't sit
+here all day mooning. I'm hungry if you're not."
+
+With quick apologies she made ready to accompany him down-stairs.
+Firmly, as she planned their campaign for the day, she resolved to put
+from her mind all thought of Adelphi Terrace. How well she succeeded
+may be judged from a speech made by her father that night just before
+dinner:
+
+"Have you lost your tongue, Marian? You're as uncommunicative as a
+newly-elected office-holder. If you can't get a little more life into
+these expeditions of ours we'll pack up and head for home."
+
+She smiled, patted his shoulder and promised to improve. But he appeared
+to be in a gloomy mood.
+
+"I believe we ought to go, anyhow," he went on. "In my opinion this war
+is going to spread like a prairie fire. The Kaiser got back to Berlin
+yesterday. He'll sign the mobilization orders to-day as sure as fate.
+For the past week, on the Berlin Bourse, Canadian Pacific stock has been
+dropping. That means they expect England to come in."
+
+He gazed darkly into the future. It may seem that, for an American
+statesman, he had an unusual grasp of European politics. This is easily
+explained by the fact that he had been talking with the bootblack at the
+Carlton Hotel.
+
+"Yes," he said with sudden decision, "I'll go down to the steamship
+offices early Monday morning."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+His daughter heard these words with a sinking heart. She had a most
+unhappy picture of herself boarding a ship and sailing out of Liverpool
+or Southampton, leaving the mystery that so engrossed her thoughts
+forever unsolved. Wisely she diverted her father's thoughts toward
+the question of food. She had heard, she said, that Simpson's, in the
+Strand, was an excellent place to dine. They would go there, and walk.
+She suggested a short detour that would carry them through Adelphi
+Terrace. It seemed she had always wanted to see Adelphi Terrace.
+
+As they passed through that silent Street she sought to guess, from an
+inspection of the grim forbidding house fronts, back of which lay the
+lovely garden, the romantic mystery. But the houses were so very much
+like one another. Before one of them, she noted, a taxi waited.
+
+After dinner her father pleaded for a music-hall as against what he
+called "some highfaluting, teacup English play." He won. Late that
+night, as they rode back to the Carlton, special editions were being
+proclaimed in the streets. Germany was mobilizing!
+
+The girl from Texas retired, wondering what epistolary surprise the
+morning would bring forth. It brought forth this:
+
+DEAR DAUGHTER OF THE SENATE: Or is it Congress? I could not quite
+decide. But surely in one or the other of those august bodies your
+father sits when he is not at home in Texas or viewing Europe through
+his daughter's eyes. One look at him and I had gathered that.
+
+But Washington is far from London, isn't it? And it is London that
+interests us most--though father's constituents must not know that. It
+is really a wonderful, an astounding city, once you have got the feel of
+the tourist out of your soul. I have been reading the most enthralling
+essays on it, written by a newspaper man who first fell desperately
+in love with it at seven--an age when the whole glittering town was
+symbolized for him by the fried-fish shop at the corner of the High
+Street. With him I have been going through its gray and furtive
+thoroughfares in the dead of night, and sometimes we have kicked an
+ash-barrel and sometimes a romance. Some day I might show that London
+to you--guarding you, of course, from the ash-barrels, if you are that
+kind. On second thoughts, you aren't. But I know that it is of Adelphi
+Terrace and a late captain in the Indian Army that you want to hear now.
+Yesterday, after my discovery of those messages in the Mail and the call
+of Captain Hughes, passed without incident. Last night I mailed you my
+third letter, and after wandering for a time amid the alternate glare
+and gloom of the city, I went back to my rooms and smoked on my balcony
+while about me the inmates of six million homes sweltered in the heat.
+Nothing happened. I felt a bit disappointed, a bit cheated, as one might
+feel on the first night spent at home after many successive visits to
+exciting plays. To-day, the first of August dawned, and still all was
+quiet. Indeed, it was not until this evening that further developments
+in the sudden death of Captain Fraser-Freer arrived to disturb me. These
+developments are strange ones surely, and I shall hasten to relate them.
+
+I dined to-night at a little place in Soho. My waiter was Italian, and
+on him I amused myself with the Italian in Ten Lessons of which I am
+foolishly proud. We talked of Fiesole, where he had lived. Once I rode
+from Fiesole down the hill to Florence in the moonlight. I remember
+endless walls on which hung roses, fresh and blooming. I remember a
+gaunt nunnery and two-gray-robed sisters clanging shut the gates.
+I remember the searchlight from the military encampment, playing
+constantly over the Arno and the roofs--the eye of Mars that, here in
+Europe, never closes. And always the flowers nodding above me, stooping
+now and then to brush my face. I came to think that at the end Paradise,
+and not a second-rate hotel, was waiting. One may still take that ride,
+I fancy. Some day--some day--
+
+I dined in Soho. I came back to Adelphi Terrace in the hot, reeking
+August dusk, reflecting that the mystery in which I was involved was,
+after a fashion, standing still. In front of our house I noticed a taxi
+waiting. I thought nothing of it as I entered the murky hallway and
+climbed the familiar stairs.
+
+My door stood open. It was dark in my study, save for the reflection of
+the lights of London outside. As I crossed the threshold there came to
+my nostrils the faint sweet perfume of lilacs. There are no lilacs in
+our garden, and if there were it is not the season. No, this perfume had
+been brought there by a woman--a woman who sat at my desk and raised her
+head as I entered.
+
+"You will pardon this intrusion," she said in the correct careful
+English of one who has learned the speech from a book. "I have come for
+a brief word with you--then I shall go."
+
+I could think of nothing to say. I stood gaping like a schoolboy.
+
+"My word," the woman went on, "is in the nature of advice. We do not
+always like those who give us advice. None the less, I trust that you
+will listen."
+
+I found my tongue then.
+
+"I am listening," I said stupidly. "But first--a light--" And I moved
+toward the matches on the mantelpiece.
+
+Quickly the woman rose and faced me. I saw then that she wore a
+veil--not a heavy veil, but a fluffy, attractive thing that was yet
+sufficient to screen her features from me.
+
+"I beg of you," she cried, "no light!" And as I paused, undecided, she
+added, in a tone which suggested lips that pout: "It is such a little
+thing to ask--surely you will not refuse."
+
+I suppose I should have insisted. But her voice was charming, her manner
+perfect, and that odor of lilacs reminiscent of a garden I knew long
+ago, at home.
+
+"Very well," said I.
+
+"Oh--I am grateful to you," she answered. Her tone changed. "I
+understand that, shortly after seven o'clock last Thursday evening, you
+heard in the room above you the sounds of a struggle. Such has been your
+testimony to the police?"
+
+"It has," said I.
+
+"Are you quite certain as to the hour?" I felt that she was smiling at
+me. "Might it not have been later--or earlier?"
+
+"I am sure it was just after seven," I replied. "I'll tell you why: I
+had just returned from dinner and while I was unlocking the door Big Ben
+on the House of Parliament struck--"
+
+She raised her hand.
+
+"No matter," she said, and there was a touch of iron in her voice.
+"You are no longer sure of that. Thinking it over, you have come to the
+conclusion that it may have been barely six-thirty when you heard the
+noise of a struggle."
+
+"Indeed?" said I. I tried to sound sarcastic, but I was really too
+astonished by her tone.
+
+"Yes--indeed!" she replied. "That is what you will tell Inspector Bray
+when next you see him. 'It may have been six-thirty,' you will tell him.
+'I have thought it over and I am not certain.'"
+
+"Even for a very charming lady," I said "I can not misrepresent the
+facts in a matter so important. It was after seven--"
+
+"I am not asking you to do a favor for a lady," she replied. "I am
+asking you to do a favor for yourself. If you refuse the consequences
+may be most unpleasant."
+
+"I'm rather at a loss--" I began.
+
+She was silent for a moment. Then she turned and I felt her looking at
+me through the veil.
+
+"Who was Archibald Enwright?" she demanded. My heart sank. I recognized
+the weapon in her hands. "The police," she went on, "do not yet know
+that the letter of introduction you brought to the captain was signed by
+a man who addressed Fraser-Freer as Dear Cousin, but who is completely
+unknown to the family. Once that information reaches Scotland Yard, your
+chance of escaping arrest is slim.
+
+"They may not be able to fasten this crime upon you, but there will be
+complications most distasteful. One's liberty is well worth keeping--and
+then, too, before the case ends, there will be wide publicity--"
+
+"'Well?" said I.
+
+"That is why you are going to suffer a lapse of memory in the matter of
+the hour at which you heard that struggle. As you think it over, it
+is going to occur to you that it may have been six-thirty, not seven.
+Otherwise--"
+
+"Go on."
+
+"Otherwise the letter of introduction you gave to the captain will be
+sent anonymously to Inspector Bray."
+
+"You have that letter!" I cried.
+
+"Not I," she answered. "But it will be sent to Bray. It will be pointed
+out to him that you were posing under false colors. You could not
+escape!"
+
+I was most uncomfortable. The net of suspicion seemed closing in about
+me. But I was resentful, too, of the confidence in this woman's voice.
+
+"None the less," said I, "I refuse to change my testimony. The truth is
+the truth--"
+
+The woman had moved to the door. She turned.
+
+"To-morrow," she replied, "it is not unlikely you will see Inspector
+Bray. As I said, I came here to give you advice. You had better take it.
+What does it matter--a half-hour this way or that? And the difference is
+prison for you. Good night."
+
+She was gone. I followed into the hall. Below, in the street, I heard
+the rattle of her taxi.
+
+I went back into my room and sat down. I was upset, and no mistake.
+Outside my windows the continuous symphony of the city played on--the
+busses, the trains, the never-silent voices. I gazed out. What a
+tremendous acreage of dank brick houses and dank British souls! I felt
+horribly alone. I may add that I felt a bit frightened, as though that
+great city were slowly closing in on me.
+
+Who was this woman of mystery? What place had she held in the life--and
+perhaps in the death--of Captain Fraser-Freer? Why should she come
+boldly to my rooms to make her impossible demand?
+
+I resolved that, even at the risk of my own comfort, I would stick to
+the truth. And to that resolve I would have clung had I not shortly
+received another visit--this one far more inexplicable, far more
+surprising, than the first.
+
+It was about nine o'clock when Walters tapped at my door and told me
+two gentlemen wished to see me. A moment later into my study walked
+Lieutenant Norman Fraser-Freer and a fine old gentleman with a face that
+suggested some faded portrait hanging on an aristocrat's wall. I had
+never seen him before.
+
+"I hope it is quite convenient for you to see us," said young
+Fraser-Freer.
+
+I assured him that it was. The boy's face was drawn and haggard; there
+was terrible suffering in his eyes, yet about him hung, like a halo, the
+glory of a great resolution.
+
+"May I present my father?" he said. "General Fraser-Freer, retired. We
+have come on a matter of supreme importance--"
+
+The old man muttered something I could not catch. I could see that
+he had been hard hit by the loss of his elder son. I asked them to be
+seated; the general complied, but the boy walked the floor in a manner
+most distressing.
+
+"I shall not be long," he remarked. "Nor at a time like this is one in
+the mood to be diplomatic. I will only say, sir, that we have come to
+ask of you a great--a very great favor indeed. You may not see fit to
+grant it. If that is the case we can not well reproach you. But if you
+can--"
+
+"It is a great favor, sir!" broke in the general. "And I am in the odd
+position where I do not know whether you will serve me best by granting
+it or by refusing to do so."
+
+"Father--please--if you don't mind--" The boy's voice was kindly but
+determined. He turned to me.
+
+"Sir--you have testified to the police that it was a bit past seven when
+you heard in the room above the sounds of the struggle which--which--You
+understand."
+
+In view of the mission of the caller who had departed a scant hour
+previously, the boy's question startled me.
+
+"Such was my testimony," I answered. "It was the truth."
+
+"Naturally," said Lieutenant Fraser-Freer. "But--er--as a matter of
+fact, we are here to ask that you alter your testimony. Could you, as a
+favor to us who have suffered so cruel a loss--a favor we should never
+forget--could you not make the hour of that struggle half after six?"
+
+I was quite overwhelmed.
+
+"Your--reasons?" I managed at last to ask.
+
+"I am not able to give them to you in full," the boy answered. "I can
+only say this: It happens that at seven o'clock last Thursday night I
+was dining with friends at the Savoy--friends who would not be likely to
+forget the occasion."
+
+The old general leaped to his feet.
+
+"Norman," he cried, "I can not let you do this thing! I simply will
+not--"
+
+"Hush, father," said the boy wearily. "We have threshed it all out. You
+have promised--"
+
+The old man sank back into the chair and buried his face in his hands.
+
+"If you are willing to change your testimony," young Fraser-Freer went
+on to me, "I shall at once confess to the police that it was I who--who
+murdered my brother. They suspect me. They know that late last Thursday
+afternoon I purchased a revolver, for which, they believe, at the last
+moment I substituted the knife. They know that I was in debt to him;
+that we had quarreled about money matters; that by his death I, and I
+alone, could profit."
+
+He broke off suddenly and came toward me, holding out his arms with a
+pleading gesture I can never forget.
+
+"Do this for me!" he cried. "Let me confess! Let me end this whole
+horrible business here and now."
+
+Surely no man had ever to answer such an appeal before.
+
+"Why?" I found myself saying, and over and over I repeated it--"Why?
+Why?"
+
+The lieutenant faced me, and I hope never again to see such a look in a
+man's eyes.
+
+"I loved him!" he cried. "That is why. For his honor, for the honor of
+our family, I am making this request of you. Believe me, it is not easy.
+I can tell you no more than that. You knew my brother?"
+
+"Slightly."
+
+"Then, for his sake--do this thing I ask."
+
+"But--murder--"
+
+"You heard the sounds of a struggle. I shall say that we quarreled--that
+I struck in self-defense." He turned to his father. "It will mean only
+a few years in prison--I can bear that!" he cried. "For the honor of our
+name!"
+
+The old man groaned, but did not raise his head. The boy walked back
+and forth over my faded carpet like a lion caged. I stood wondering what
+answer I should make.
+
+"I know what you are thinking," said the lieutenant. "You can not credit
+your ears. But you have heard correctly. And now--as you might put
+it--it is up to you. I have been in your country." He smiled pitifully.
+"I think I know you Americans. You are not the sort to refuse a man when
+he is sore beset--as I am."
+
+I looked from him to the general and back again.
+
+"I must think this over," I answered, my mind going at once to Colonel
+Hughes. "Later--say to-morrow--you shall have my decision."
+
+"To-morrow," said the boy, "we shall both be called before Inspector
+Bray. I shall know your answer then--and I hope with all my heart it
+will be yes."
+
+There were a few mumbled words of farewell and he and the broken old man
+went out. As soon as the street door closed behind them I hurried to the
+telephone and called a number Colonel Hughes had given me. It was with a
+feeling of relief that I heard his voice come back over the wire. I told
+him I must see him at once. He replied that by a singular chance he had
+been on the point of starting for my rooms.
+
+In the half-hour that elapsed before the coming of the colonel I walked
+about like a man in a trance. He was barely inside my door when I began
+pouring out to him the story of those two remarkable visits. He made
+little comment on the woman's call beyond asking me whether I could
+describe her; and he smiled when I mentioned lilac perfume. At mention
+of young Fraser-Freer's preposterous request he whistled.
+
+"By gad!" he said. "Interesting--most interesting! I am not surprised,
+however. That boy has the stuff in him."
+
+"But what shall I do?" I demanded.
+
+Colonel Hughes smiled.
+
+"It makes little difference what you do," he said. "Norman Fraser-Freer
+did not kill his brother, and that will be proved in due time." He
+considered for a moment. "Bray no doubt would be glad to have you alter
+your testimony, since he is trying to fasten the crime on the young
+lieutenant. On the whole, if I were you, I think that when the
+opportunity comes to-morrow I should humor the inspector."
+
+"You mean--tell him I am no longer certain as to the hour of that
+struggle?"
+
+"Precisely. I give you my word that young Fraser-Freer will not be
+permanently incriminated by such an act on your part. And incidentally
+you will be aiding me."
+
+"Very well," said I. "But I don't understand this at all."
+
+"No--of course not. I wish I could explain to you; but I can not. I
+will say this--the death of Captain Fraser-Freer is regarded as a most
+significant thing by the War Office. Thus it happens that two distinct
+hunts for his assassin are under way--one conducted by Bray, the other
+by me. Bray does not suspect that I am working on the case and I want to
+keep him in the dark as long as possible. You may choose which of these
+investigations you wish to be identified with."
+
+"I think," said I, "that I prefer you to Bray."
+
+"Good boy!" he answered. "You have not gone wrong. And you can do me a
+service this evening, which is why I was on the point of coming here,
+even before you telephoned me. I take it that you remember and could
+identify the chap who called himself Archibald Enwright--the man who
+gave you that letter to the captain?"
+
+"I surely could," said I.
+
+"Then, if you can spare me an hour, get your hat."
+
+And so it happens, lady of the Carlton, that I have just been to
+Limehouse. You do not know where Limehouse is and I trust you never
+will. It is picturesque; it is revolting; it is colorful and wicked. The
+weird odors of it still fill my nostrils; the sinister portrait of it is
+still before my eyes. It is the Chinatown of London--Limehouse. Down
+in the dregs of the town--with West India Dock Road for its spinal
+column--it lies, redolent of ways that are dark and tricks that are
+vain. Not only the heathen Chinee so peculiar shuffles through its
+dim-lit alleys, but the scum of the earth, of many colors and of many
+climes. The Arab and the Hindu, the Malayan and the Jap, black men from
+the Congo and fair men from Scandinavia--these you may meet there--the
+outpourings of all the ships that sail the Seven Seas. There many
+drunken beasts, with their pay in their pockets, seek each his favorite
+sin; and for those who love most the opium, there is, at all too regular
+intervals, the Sign of the Open Lamp.
+
+We went there, Colonel Hughes and I. Up and down the narrow Causeway,
+yellow at intervals with the light from gloomy shops, dark mostly
+because of tightly closed shutters through which only thin jets found
+their way, we walked until we came and stood at last in shadow outside
+the black doorway of Harry San Li's so-called restaurant. We waited ten,
+fifteen minutes; then a man came down the Causeway and paused before
+that door. There was something familiar in his jaunty walk. Then the
+faint glow of the lamp that was the indication of Harry San's real
+business lit his pale face, and I knew that I had seen him last in
+the cool evening at Interlaken, where Limehouse could not have lived a
+moment, with the Jungfrau frowning down upon it.
+
+"Enwright?" whispered Hughes.
+
+"Not a doubt of it!" said I.
+
+"Good!" he replied with fervor.
+
+And now another man shuffled down the street and stood suddenly straight
+and waiting before the colonel.
+
+"Stay with him," said Hughes softly. "Don't let him get out of your
+sight."
+
+"Very good, sir," said the man; and, saluting, he passed on up the
+stairs and whistled softly at that black depressing door.
+
+The clock above the Millwall Docks was striking eleven as the colonel
+and I caught a bus that should carry us back to a brighter, happier
+London. Hughes spoke but seldom on that ride; and, repeating his advice
+that I humor Inspector Bray on the morrow, he left me in the Strand.
+
+So, my lady, here I sit in my study, waiting for that most important day
+that is shortly to dawn. A full evening, you must admit. A woman with
+the perfume of lilacs about her has threatened that unless I lie I shall
+encounter consequences most unpleasant. A handsome young lieutenant has
+begged me to tell that same lie for the honor of his family, and thus
+condemn him to certain arrest and imprisonment. And I have been
+down into hell, to-night and seen Archibald Enwright, of Interlaken,
+conniving with the devil.
+
+I presume I should go to bed; but I know I can not sleep. To-morrow
+is to be, beyond all question, a red-letter day in the matter of the
+captain's murder. And once again, against my will, I am down to play a
+leading part.
+
+The symphony of this great, gray, sad city is a mere hum in the distance
+now, for it is nearly midnight. I shall mail this letter to you--post
+it, I should say, since I am in London--and then I shall wait in my dim
+rooms for the dawn. And as I wait I shall be thinking not always of
+the captain, or his brother, or Hughes, or Limehouse and Enwright, but
+often--oh, very often--of you.
+
+In my last letter I scoffed at the idea of a great war. But when we
+came back from Limehouse to-night the papers told us that the Kaiser had
+signed the order to mobilize. Austria in; Serbia in; Germany, Russia
+and France in. Hughes tells me that England is shortly to follow, and
+I suppose there is no doubt of it. It is a frightful thing--this future
+that looms before us; and I pray that for you at least it may hold only
+happiness.
+
+For, my lady, when I write good night, I speak it aloud as I write; and
+there is in my voice more than I dare tell you of now.
+
+THE AGONY COLUMN MAN.
+
+
+Not unwelcome to the violet eyes of the girl from Texas were the last
+words of this letter, read in her room that Sunday morning. But the
+lines predicting England's early entrance into the war recalled to her
+mind a most undesirable contingency. On the previous night, when the war
+extras came out confirming the forecast of his favorite bootblack, her
+usually calm father had shown signs of panic. He was not a man slow
+to act. And she knew that, putty though he was in her hands in matters
+which he did not regard as important, he could also be firm where he
+thought firmness necessary. America looked even better to him than
+usual, and he had made up his mind to go there immediately. There was no
+use in arguing with him.
+
+At this point came a knock at her door and her father entered. One look
+at his face--red, perspiring and decidedly unhappy--served to cheer his
+daughter.
+
+"Been down to the steamship offices," he panted, mopping his bald head.
+"They're open to-day, just like it was a week day--but they might as
+well be closed. There's nothing doing. Every boat's booked up to the
+rails; we can't get out of here for two weeks--maybe more."
+
+"I'm sorry," said his daughter.
+
+"No, you ain't! You're delighted! You think it's romantic to get caught
+like this. Wish I had the enthusiasm of youth." He fanned himself with a
+newspaper. "Lucky I went over to the express office yesterday and loaded
+up on gold. I reckon when the blow falls it'll be tolerable hard to cash
+checks in this man's town."
+
+"That was a good idea."
+
+"Ready for breakfast?" he inquired.
+
+"Quite ready," she smiled.
+
+They went below, she humming a song from a revue, while he glared at
+her. She was very glad they were to be in London a little longer. She
+felt she could not go, with that mystery still unsolved.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+The last peace Sunday London was to know in many weary months went by,
+a tense and anxious day. Early on Monday the fifth letter from the young
+man of the Agony Column arrived, and when the girl from Texas read it
+she knew that under no circumstances could she leave London now.
+
+It ran:
+
+DEAR LADY FROM HOME: I call you that because the word home has for me,
+this hot afternoon in London, about the sweetest sound word ever had. I
+can see, when I close my eyes, Broadway at midday; Fifth Avenue, gay and
+colorful, even with all the best people away; Washington Square, cool
+under the trees, lovely and desirable despite the presence everywhere of
+alien neighbors from the district to the South. I long for home with an
+ardent longing; never was London so cruel, so hopeless, so drab, in my
+eyes. For, as I write this, a constable sits at my elbow, and he and
+I are shortly to start for Scotland Yard. I have been arrested as a
+suspect in the case of Captain Fraser-Freer's murder!
+
+I predicted last night that this was to be a red-letter day in the
+history of that case, and I also saw myself an unwilling actor in the
+drama. But little did I suspect the series of astonishing events that
+was to come with the morning; little did I dream that the net I have
+been dreading would to-day engulf me. I can scarcely blame Inspector
+Bray for holding me; what I can not understand is why Colonel Hughes--
+
+But you want, of course, the whole story from the beginning; and I shall
+give it to you. At eleven o'clock this morning a constable called on
+me at my rooms and informed me that I was wanted at once by the Chief
+Inspector at the Yard.
+
+We climbed--the constable and I--a narrow stone stairway somewhere at
+the back of New Scotland Yard, and so came to the inspector's room.
+Bray was waiting for us, smiling and confident. I remember--silly as the
+detail is--that he wore in his buttonhole a white rose. His manner of
+greeting me was more genial than usual. He began by informing me that
+the police had apprehended the man who, they believed, was guilty of the
+captain's murder.
+
+"There is one detail to be cleared up," he said. "You told me the other
+night that it was shortly after seven o'clock when you heard the sounds
+of struggle in the room above you. You were somewhat excited at the
+time, and under similar circumstances men have been known to make
+mistakes. Have you considered the matter since? Is it not possible that
+you were in error in regard to the hour?"
+
+I recalled Hughes' advice to humor the inspector; and I said that,
+having thought it over, I was not quite sure. It might have been earlier
+than seven--say six-thirty.
+
+"Exactly," said Bray. He seemed rather pleased. "The natural stress
+of the moment--I understand. Wilkinson, bring in your prisoner. The
+constable addressed turned and left the room, coming back a moment later
+with Lieutenant Norman Fraser-Freer. The boy was pale; I could see at a
+glance that he had not slept for several nights.
+
+"Lieutenant," said Bray very sharply, "will you tell me--is it true that
+your brother, the late captain, had loaned you a large sum of money a
+year or so ago?"
+
+"Quite true," answered the lieutenant in a low voice.
+
+"You and he had quarreled about the amount of money you spent?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"By his death you became the sole heir of your father, the general. Your
+position with the money-lenders was quite altered. Am I right?"
+
+"I fancy so."
+
+"Last Thursday afternoon you went to the Army and Navy Stores and
+purchased a revolver. You already had your service weapon, but to shoot
+a man with a bullet from that would be to make the hunt of the police
+for the murderer absurdly simple."
+
+The boy made no answer.
+
+"Let us suppose," Bray went on, "that last Thursday evening at half
+after six you called on your brother in his rooms at Adelphi Terrace.
+There was an argument about money. You became enraged. You saw him and
+him alone between you and the fortune you needed so badly. Then--I am
+only supposing--you noticed on his table an odd knife he had brought
+from India--safer--more silent--than a gun. You seized it--"
+
+"Why suppose?" the boy broke in. "I'm not trying to conceal anything.
+You're right--I did it! I killed my brother! Now let us get the whole
+business over as soon as may be."
+
+Into the face of Inspector Bray there came at that moment a look that
+has puzzling me ever since--a look that has recurred to my mind again
+and again,--in the stress and storm of this eventful day. It was only
+too evident that this confession came to him as a shock. I presume so
+easy a victory seemed hollow to him; he was wishing the boy had put up a
+fight. Policemen are probably like that.
+
+"My boy," he said, "I am sorry for you. My course is clear. If you will
+go with one of my men--"
+
+It was at this point that the door of the inspector's room opened and
+Colonel Hughes, cool and smiling, walked in. Bray chuckled at sight of
+the military man.
+
+"Ah, Colonel," he cried, "you make a good entrance! This morning, when I
+discovered that I had the honor of having you associated with me in the
+search for the captain's murderer, you were foolish enough to make a
+little wager--"
+
+"I remember," Hughes answered. "A scarab pin against--a Homburg hat."
+
+"Precisely," said Bray. "You wagered that you, and not I, would discover
+the guilty man. Well, Colonel, you owe me a scarab. Lieutenant Norman
+Fraser-Freer has just told me that he killed his brother, and I was on
+the point of taking down his full confession."
+
+"Indeed!" replied Hughes calmly. "Interesting--most interesting! But
+before we consider the wager lost--before you force the lieutenant to
+confess in full--I should like the floor."
+
+"Certainly," smiled Bray.
+
+"When you were kind enough to let me have two of your men this morning,"
+said Hughes, "I told you I contemplated the arrest of a lady. I have
+brought that lady to Scotland Yard with me." He stepped to the
+door, opened it and beckoned. A tall, blonde handsome woman of about
+thirty-five entered; and instantly to my nostrils came the pronounced
+odor of lilacs. "Allow me, Inspector," went on the colonel, "to
+introduce to you the Countess Sophie de Graf, late of Berlin, late of
+Delhi and Rangoon, now of 17 Leitrim Grove, Battersea Park Road."
+
+The woman faced Bray; and there was a terrified, hunted look in her
+eyes.
+
+"You are the inspector?" she asked.
+
+"I am," said Bray.
+
+"And a man--I can see that," she went on, her flashing angrily at
+Hughes. "I appeal to you to protect me from the brutal questioning of
+this--this fiend."
+
+"You are hardly complimentary, Countess," Hughes smiled. "But I am
+willing to forgive you if you will tell the inspector the story that you
+have recently related to me."
+
+The woman shut her lips tightly and for a long moment gazed into the
+eyes of Inspector Bray.
+
+"He"--she said at last, nodding in the direction of Colonel Hughes--"he
+got it out of me--how, I don't know."
+
+"Got what out of you?" Bray's little eyes were blinking.
+
+"At six-thirty o'clock last Thursday evening," said the woman, "I went
+to the rooms of Captain Fraser-Freer, in Adelphi Terrace. An argument
+arose. I seized from his table an Indian dagger that was lying there--I
+stabbed him just above the heart!"
+
+In that room in Scotland Yard a tense silence fell. For the first time
+we were all conscious of a tiny clock on the inspector's desk, for it
+ticked now with a loudness sudden and startling. I gazed at the faces
+about me. Bray's showed a momentary surprise--then the mask fell again.
+Lieutenant Fraser-Freer was plainly amazed. On the face of Colonel
+Hughes I saw what struck me as an open sneer.
+
+"Go on, Countess," he smiled.
+
+She shrugged her shoulders and turned toward him a disdainful back. Her
+eyes were all for Bray.
+
+"It's very brief, the story," she said hastily--I thought almost
+apologetically. "I had known the captain in Rangoon. My husband was in
+business there--an exporter of rice--and Captain Fraser-Freer came often
+to our house. We--he was a charming man, the captain--"
+
+"Go on!" ordered Hughes.
+
+"We fell desperately in love," said the countess. "When he returned
+to England, though supposedly on a furlough, he told me he would never
+return to Rangoon. He expected a transfer to Egypt. So it was arranged
+that I should desert my husband and follow on the next boat. I did
+so--believing in the captain--thinking he really cared for me--I gave up
+everything for him. And then--"
+
+Her voice broke and she took out a handkerchief. Again that odor of
+lilacs in the room.
+
+"For a time I saw the captain often in London; and then I began to
+notice a change. Back among his own kind, with the lonely days in
+India a mere memory--he seemed no longer to--to care for me. Then--last
+Thursday morning--he called on me to tell me that he was through; that
+he would never see me again--in fact, that he was to marry a girl of his
+own people who had been waiting--"
+
+The woman looked piteously about at us.
+
+"I was desperate," she pleaded. "I had given up all that life held
+for me--given it up for a man who now looked at me coldly and spoke
+of marrying another. Can you wonder that I went in the evening to his
+rooms--went to plead with him--to beg, almost on my knees? It was no
+use. He was done with me--he said that over and over. Overwhelmed with
+blind rage and despair, I snatched up that knife from the table and
+plunged it into his heart. At once I was filled with remorse. I--"
+
+"One moment," broke in Hughes. "You may keep the details of your
+subsequent actions until later. I should like to compliment you,
+Countess. You tell it better each time."
+
+He came over and faced Bray. I thought there was a distinct note of
+hostility in his voice.
+
+"Checkmate, Inspector!" he said. Bray made no reply. He sat there
+staring up at the colonel, his face turned to stone.
+
+"The scarab pin," went on Hughes, "is not yet forthcoming. We are tied
+for honors, my friend. You have your confession, but I have one to match
+it."
+
+"All this is beyond me," snapped Bray.
+
+"A bit beyond me, too," the colonel answered. "Here are two people who
+wish us to believe that on the evening of Thursday last, at half after
+six of the clock, each sought out Captain Fraser-Freer in his rooms and
+murdered him."
+
+He walked to the window and then wheeled dramatically.
+
+"The strangest part of it all is," he added, "that at six-thirty
+o'clock last Thursday evening, at an obscure restaurant in
+Soho--Frigacci's--these two people were having tea together!"
+
+I must admit that, as the colonel calmly offered this information, I
+suddenly went limp all over at a realization of the endless maze of
+mystery in which we were involved. The woman gave a little cry and
+Lieutenant Fraser-Freer leaped to his feet.
+
+"How the devil do you know that?" he cried.
+
+"I know it," said Colonel Hughes, "because one of my men happened to be
+having tea at a table near by. He happened to be having tea there for
+the reason that ever since the arrival of this lady in London, at the
+request of--er--friends in India, I have been keeping track of her every
+move; just as I kept watch over your late brother, the captain."
+
+Without a word Lieutenant Fraser-Freer dropped into a chair and buried
+his face in his hands.
+
+"I'm sorry, my son," said Hughes. "Really, I am. You made a heroic
+effort to keep the facts from coming out--a man's-size effort it was.
+But the War Office knew long before you did that your brother had
+succumbed to this woman's lure--that he was serving her and Berlin, and
+not his own country, England."
+
+Fraser-Freer raised his head. When he spoke there was in his voice an
+emotion vastly more sincere than that which had moved him when he made
+his absurd confession.
+
+"The game's up," he said. "I have done all I could. This will kill my
+father, I am afraid. Ours has been an honorable name, Colonel; you know
+that--a long line of military men whose loyalty to their country has
+never before been in question. I thought my confession would end the
+whole nasty business, that the investigations would stop, and that
+I might be able to keep forever unknown this horrible thing about
+him--about my brother."
+
+Colonel Hughes laid his hand on the boy's shoulder, and the latter went
+on: "They reached me--those frightful insinuations about Stephen--in a
+round about way; and when he came home from India I resolved to watch
+him. I saw him go often to the house of this woman. I satisfied myself
+that she was the same one involved in the stories coming from Rangoon;
+then, under another name, I managed to meet her. I hinted to her that
+I myself was none too loyal; not completely, but to a limited extent,
+I won her confidence. Gradually I became convinced that my brother was
+indeed disloyal to his country, to his name, to us all. It was at
+that tea time you have mentioned when I finally made up my mind. I had
+already bought a revolver; and, with it in my pocket, I went to the
+Savoy for dinner."
+
+He rose and paced the floor.
+
+"I left the Savoy early and went to Stephen's rooms. I was resolved to
+have it out with him, to put the matter to him bluntly; and if he had
+no explanation to give me I intended to kill him then and there. So, you
+see, I was guilty in intention if not in reality. I entered his study.
+It was filled with strangers. On his sofa I saw my brother Stephen
+lying--stabbed above the heart--dead!" There was a moment's silence.
+"That is all," said Lieutenant Fraser-Freer.
+
+"I take it," said Hughes kindly, "that we have finished with the
+lieutenant. Eh, Inspector?"
+
+"Yes," said Bray shortly. "You may go."
+
+"Thank you," the boy answered. As he went out he said brokenly to
+Hughes: "I must find him--my father."
+
+Bray sat in his chair, staring hard ahead, his jaw thrust out angrily.
+Suddenly he turned on Hughes.
+
+"You don't play fair," he said. "I wasn't told anything of the status of
+the captain at the War Office. This is all news to me."
+
+"Very well," smiled Hughes. "The bet is off if you like."
+
+"No, by heaven!" Bray cried. "It's still on, and I'll win it yet. A fine
+morning's work I suppose you think you've done. But are we any nearer to
+finding the murderer? Tell me that."
+
+"Only a bit nearer, at any rate," replied Hughes suavely. "This lady, of
+course, remains in custody."
+
+"Yes, yes," answered the inspector. "Take her away!" he ordered.
+
+A constable came forward for the countess and Colonel Hughes gallantly
+held open the door.
+
+"You will have an opportunity, Sophie," he said, "to think up another
+story. You are clever--it will not be hard."
+
+She gave him a black look and went out. Bray got up from his desk. He
+and Colonel Hughes stood facing each other across a table, and to
+me there was something in the manner of each that suggested eternal
+conflict.
+
+"Well?" sneered Bray.
+
+"There is one possibility we have overlooked," Hughes answered. He
+turned toward me and I was startled by the coldness in his eyes. "Do you
+know, Inspector," he went on, "that this American came to London with
+a letter of introduction to the captain--a letter from the captain's
+cousin, one Archibald Enwright? And do you know that Fraser-Freer had no
+cousin of that name?"
+
+"No!" said Bray.
+
+"It happens to be the truth," said Hughes. "The American has confessed
+as much to me."
+
+"Then," said Bray to me, and his little blinking eyes were on me with
+a narrow calculating glance that sent the shivers up and down my spine,
+"you are under arrest. I have exempted you so far because of your friend
+at the United States Consulate. That exemption ends now."
+
+I was thunderstruck. I turned to the colonel, the man who had suggested
+that I seek him out if I needed a friend--the man I had looked to to
+save me from just such a contingency as this. But his eyes were quite
+fishy and unsympathetic.
+
+"Quite correct, Inspector," he said. "Lock him up!" And as I began
+to protest he passed very close to me and spoke in a low voice: "Say
+nothing. Wait!"
+
+I pleaded to be allowed to go back to my rooms, to communicate with my
+friends, and pay a visit to our consulate and to the Embassy; and at the
+colonel's suggestion Bray agreed to this somewhat irregular course. So
+this afternoon I have been abroad with a constable, and while I wrote
+this long letter to you he has been fidgeting in my easy chair. Now he
+informs me that his patience is exhausted and that I must go at once. So
+there is no time to wonder; no time to speculate as to the future, as to
+the colonel's sudden turn against me or the promise of his whisper in my
+ear. I shall, no doubt, spend the night behind those hideous, forbidding
+walls that your guide has pointed out to you as New Scotland Yard. And
+when I shall write again, when I shall end this series of letters so
+filled with--
+
+The constable will not wait. He is as impatient as a child. Surely he is
+lying when he says I have kept him here an hour.
+
+Wherever I am, dear lady, whatever be the end of this amazing tangle,
+you may be sure the thought of you--Confound the man!
+
+YOURS, IN DURANCE VILE.
+
+
+This fifth letter from the young man of the Agony Column arrived at the
+Carlton Hotel, as the reader may recall, on Monday morning, August
+the third. And it represented to the girl from Texas the climax of the
+excitement she had experienced in the matter of the murder in Adelphi
+Terrace. The news that her pleasant young friend--whom she did not
+know--had been arrested as a suspect in the case, inevitable as it had
+seemed for days, came none the less as an unhappy shock. She wondered
+whether there was anything she could do to help. She even considered
+going to Scotland Yard and, on the ground that her father was a
+Congressman from Texas, demanding the immediate release of her
+strawberry man. Sensibly, however, she decided that Congressmen from
+Texas meant little in the life of the London police. Besides, she night
+have difficulty in explaining to that same Congressman how she happened
+to know all about a crime that was as yet unmentioned in the newspapers.
+
+So she reread the latter portion of the fifth letter, which pictured her
+hero marched off ingloriously to Scotland Yard and with a worried little
+sigh, went below to join her father.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+In the course of the morning she made several mysterious inquiries of
+her parent regarding nice points of international law as it concerned
+murder, and it is probable that he would have been struck by the odd
+nature of these questions had he not been unduly excited about another
+matter.
+
+"I tell you, we've got to get home!" he announced gloomily. "The German
+troops are ready at Aix-la-Chapelle for an assault on Liege. Yes,
+sir--they're going to strike through Belgium! Know what that means?
+England in the war! Labor troubles; suffragette troubles; civil war in
+Ireland--these things will melt away as quickly as that snow we had
+lastwinter in Texas. They'll go in. It would be national suicide if they
+didn't."
+
+His daughter stared at him. She was unaware that it was the bootblack
+at the Carlton he was now quoting. She began to think he knew more about
+foreign affairs than she had given him credit for.
+
+"Yes, sir," he went on; "we've got to travel--fast. This won't be a
+healthy neighborhood for non-combatants when the ruction starts. I'm
+going if I have to buy a liner!"
+
+"Nonsense!" said the girl. "This is the chance of a lifetime. I won't
+be cheated out of it by a silly old dad. Why, here we are, face to face
+with history!"
+
+"American history is good enough for me," he spread-eagled. "What are
+you looking at?"
+
+"Provincial to the death!" she said thoughtfully. "You old dear--I love
+you so! Some of our statesmen over home are going to look pretty foolish
+now in the face of things they can't understand, I hope you're not going
+to be one of them."
+
+"Twaddle!" he cried. "I'm going to the steamship offices to-day and
+argue as I never argued for a vote."
+
+His daughter saw that he was determined; and, wise from long experience,
+she did not try to dissuade him.
+
+London that hot Monday was a city on the alert, a city of hearts heavy
+with dread. The rumors in one special edition of the papers were denied
+in the next and reaffirmed in the next. Men who could look into the
+future walked the streets with faces far from happy. Unrest ruled the
+town. And it found its echo in the heart of the girl from Texas as she
+thought of her young friend of the Agony Column "in durance vile" behind
+the frowning walls of Scotland Yard.
+
+That afternoon her father appeared, with the beaming mien of the victor,
+and announced that for a stupendous sum he had bought the tickets of a
+man who was to have sailed on the steamship Saronia three days hence.
+
+"The boat train leaves at ten Thursday morning," he said. "Take your
+last look at Europe and be ready."
+
+Three days! His daughter listened with sinking heart. Could she in three
+days' time learn the end of that strange mystery, know the final fate
+of the man who had first addressed her so unconventionally in a public
+print? Why, at the end of three days he might still be in Scotland Yard,
+a prisoner! She could not leave if that were true--she simply could not.
+Almost she was on the point of telling her father the story of the whole
+affair, confident that she could soothe his anger and enlist his aid.
+She decided to wait until the next morning; and, if no letter came
+then--
+
+But on Tuesday morning a letter did come and the beginning of it brought
+pleasant news. The beginning--yes. But the end! This was the letter:
+
+DEAR ANXIOUS LADY: Is it too much for me to assume that you have been
+just that, knowing as you did that I was locked up for the murder of a
+captain in the Indian Army, with the evidence all against me and hope a
+very still small voice indeed?
+
+Well, dear lady, be anxious no longer. I have just lived through the
+most astounding day of all the astounding days that have been my portion
+since last Thursday. And now, in the dusk, I sit again in my rooms, a
+free man, and write to you in what peace and quiet I can command after
+the startling adventure through which I have recently passed.
+
+Suspicion no longer points to me; constables no longer eye me; Scotland
+Yard is not even slightly interested in me. For the murderer of Captain
+Fraser-Freer has been caught at last!
+
+Sunday night I spent ingloriously in a cell in Scotland Yard. I could
+not sleep. I had so much to think of--you, for example, and at intervals
+how I might escape from the folds of the net that had closed so tightly
+about me. My friend at the consulate, Watson, called on me late in
+the evening; and he was very kind. But there was a note lacking in
+his voice, and after he was gone the terrible certainty came into my
+mind--he believed that I was guilty after all.
+
+The night passed, and a goodly portion of to-day went by--as the poets
+say--with lagging feet. I thought of London, yellow in the sun. I
+thought of the Carlton--I suppose there are no more strawberries by this
+time. And my waiter--that stiff-backed Prussian--is home in Deutschland
+now, I presume, marching with his regiment. I thought of you.
+
+At three o'clock this afternoon they came for me and I was led back
+to the room belonging to Inspector Bray. When I entered, however,
+the inspector was not there--only Colonel Hughes, immaculate and
+self-possessed, as usual, gazing out the window into the cheerless
+stone court. He turned when I entered. I suppose I must have had a most
+woebegone appearance, for a look of regret crossed his face.
+
+"My dear fellow," he cried, "my most humble apologies! I intended to
+have you released last night. But, believe me, I have been frightfully
+busy."
+
+I said nothing. What could I say? The fact that he had been busy struck
+me as an extremely silly excuse. But the inference that my escape from
+the toils of the law was imminent set my heart to thumping.
+
+"I fear you can never forgive me for throwing you over as I did
+yesterday," he went on. "I can only say that it was absolutely
+necessary--as you shall shortly understand."
+
+I thawed a bit. After all, there was an unmistakable sincerity in his
+voice and manner.
+
+"We are waiting for Inspector Bray," continued the colonel. "I take it
+you wish to see this thing through?"
+
+"To the end," I answered.
+
+"Naturally. The inspector was called away yesterday immediately after
+our interview with him. He had business on the Continent, I understand.
+But fortunately I managed to reach him at Dover and he has come back
+to London. I wanted him, you see, because I have found the murderer of
+Captain Fraser-Freer."
+
+I thrilled to hear that, for from my point of view it was certainly a
+consummation devoutly to be wished. The colonel did not speak again. In
+a few minutes the door opened and Bray came in. His clothes looked as
+though he had slept in them; his little eyes were bloodshot. But in
+those eyes there was a fire I shall never forget. Hughes bowed.
+
+"Good afternoon, Inspector," he said. "I'm really sorry I had to
+interrupt you as I did; but I most awfully wanted you to know that you
+owe me a Homburg hat." He went closer to the detective. "You see, I have
+won that wager. I have found the man who murdered Captain Fraser-Freer."
+
+Curiously enough, Bray said nothing. He sat down at his desk and idly
+glanced through the pile of mail that lay upon it. Finally he looked up
+and said in a weary tone:
+
+"You're very clever, I'm sure, Colonel Hughes."
+
+"Oh--I wouldn't say that," replied Hughes. "Luck was with me--from the
+first. I am really very glad to have been of service in the matter, for
+I am convinced that if I had not taken part in the search it would have
+gone hard with some innocent man."
+
+Bray's big pudgy hands still played idly with the mail on his desk.
+Hughes went on: "Perhaps, as a clever detective, you will be interested
+in the series of events which enabled me to win that Homburg hat? You
+have heard, no doubt, that the man I have caught is Von der Herts--ten
+years ago the best secret-service man in the employ of the Berlin
+government, but for the past few years mysteriously missing from our
+line of vision. We've been wondering about him--at the War Office."
+
+The colonel dropped into a chair, facing Bray.
+
+"You know Von der Herts, of course?" he remarked casually.
+
+"Of course," said Bray, still in that dead tired voice.
+
+"He is the head of that crowd in England," went on Hughes. "Rather a
+feather in my cap to get him--but I mustn't boast. Poor Fraser-Freer
+would have got him if I hadn't--only Von der Herts had the luck to get
+the captain first."
+
+Bray raised his eyes.
+
+"You said you were going to tell me--" he began.
+
+"And so I am," said Hughes. "Captain Fraser-Freer got in rather a
+mess in India and failed of promotion. It was suspected that he was
+discontented, soured on the Service; and the Countess Sophie de Graf was
+set to beguile him with her charms, to kill his loyalty and win him over
+to her crowd.
+
+"It was thought she had succeeded--the Wilhelmstrasse thought so--we at
+the War Office thought so, as long as he stayed in India.
+
+"But when the captain and the woman came on to London we discovered that
+we had done him a great injustice. He let us know, when the first chance
+offered, that he was trying to redeem himself, to round up a dangerous
+band of spies by pretending to be one of them. He said that it was his
+mission in London to meet Von der Herts, the greatest of them all; and
+that, once he had located this man, we would hear from him again. In the
+weeks that followed I continued to keep a watch on the countess; and I
+kept track of the captain, too, in a general way, for I'm ashamed to say
+I was not quite sure of him."
+
+The colonel got up and walked to the window; then turned and continued:
+"Captain Fraser-Freer and Von der Herts were completely unknown to
+each other. The mails were barred as a means of communication; but
+Fraser-Freer knew that in some way word from the master would reach him,
+and he had had a tip to watch the personal column of the Daily Mail. Now
+we have the explanation of those four odd messages. From that column
+the man from Rangoon learned that he was to wear a white aster in his
+button-hole, a scarab pin in his tie, a Homburg hat on his head, and
+meet Von der Herts at Ye Old Gambrinus Restaurant in Regent Street, last
+Thursday night at ten o'clock. As we know, he made all arrangements to
+comply with those directions. He made other arrangements as well. Since
+it was out of the question for him to come to Scotland Yard, by skillful
+maneuvering he managed to interview an inspector of police at the Hotel
+Cecil. It was agreed that on Thursday night Von der Herts would be
+placed under arrest the moment he made himself known to the captain."
+
+Hughes paused. Bray still idled with his pile of letters, while the
+colonel regarded him gravely.
+
+"Poor Fraser-Freer!" Hughes went on. "Unfortunately for him, Von der
+Herts knew almost as soon as did the inspector that a plan was afoot to
+trap him. There was but one course open to him: He located the captain's
+lodgings, went there at seven that night, and killed a loyal and brave
+Englishman where he stood."
+
+A tense silence filled the room. I sat on the edge of my chair,
+wondering just where all this unwinding of the tangle was leading us.
+
+"I had little, indeed, to work on," went on Hughes. "But I had this
+advantage: the spy thought the police, and the police alone, were
+seeking the murderer. He was at no pains to throw me off his track,
+because he did not suspect that I was on it. For weeks my men had been
+watching the countess. I had them continue to do so. I figured that
+sooner or later Von der Herts would get in touch with her. I was right.
+And when at last I saw with my own eyes the man who must, beyond all
+question, be Von der Herts, I was astounded, my dear Inspector, I was
+overwhelmed."
+
+"Yes?" said Bray.
+
+"I set to work then in earnest to connect him with that night in Adelphi
+Terrace. All the finger marks in the captain's study were for some
+reason destroyed, but I found others outside, in the dust on that
+seldom-used gate which leads from the garden. Without his knowing,
+I secured from the man I suspected the imprint of his right thumb. A
+comparison was startling. Next I went down into Fleet Street and luckily
+managed to get hold of the typewritten copy sent to the Mail bearing
+those four messages. I noticed that in these the letter a was out
+of alignment. I maneuvered to get a letter written on a typewriter
+belonging to my man. The a was out of alignment. Then Archibald
+Enwright, a renegade and waster well known to us as serving other
+countries, came to England. My man and he met--at Ye Old Gambrinus, in
+Regent Street. And finally, on a visit to the lodgings of this man who,
+I was now certain, was Von der Herts, under the mattress of his bed I
+found this knife."
+
+And Colonel Hughes threw down upon the inspector's desk the knife from
+India that I had last seen in the study of Captain Fraser-Freer.
+
+"All these points of evidence were in my hands yesterday morning in
+this room," Hughes went on. "Still, the answer they gave me was so
+unbelievable, so astounding, I was not satisfied; I wanted even stronger
+proof. That is why I directed suspicion to my American friend here. I
+was waiting. I knew that at last Von der Herts realized the danger he
+was in. I felt that if opportunity were offered he would attempt
+to escape from England; and then our proofs of his guilt would be
+unanswerable, despite his cleverness. True enough, in the afternoon he
+secured the release of the countess, and together they started for the
+Continent. I was lucky enough to get him at Dover--and glad to let the
+lady go on."
+
+And now, for the first time, the startling truth struck me full in the
+face as Hughes smiled down at his victim.
+
+"Inspector Bray," he said, "or Von der Herts, as you choose, I arrest
+you on two counts: First, as the head of the Wilhelmstrasse spy system
+in England; second, as the murderer of Captain Fraser-Freer. And, if you
+will allow me, I wish to compliment you on your efficiency."
+
+Bray did not reply for a moment. I sat numb in my chair. Finally the
+inspector looked up. He actually tried to smile.
+
+"You win the hat," he said, "but you must go to Homburg for it. I will
+gladly pay all expenses."
+
+"Thank you," answered Hughes. "I hope to visit your country before long;
+but I shall not be occupied with hats. Again I congratulate you. You
+were a bit careless, but your position justified that. As head of the
+department at Scotland Yard given over to the hunt for spies, precaution
+doubtless struck you as unnecessary. How unlucky for poor Fraser-Freer
+that it was to you he went to arrange for your own arrest! I got that
+information from a clerk at the Cecil. You were quite right, from your
+point of view, to kill him. And, as I say, you could afford to be rather
+reckless. You had arranged that when the news of his murder came to
+Scotland Yard you yourself would be on hand to conduct the search for
+the guilty man. A happy situation, was it not?"
+
+"It seemed so at the time," admitted Bray; and at last I thought I
+detected a note of bitterness in his voice.
+
+"I'm very sorry--really," said Hughes. "To-day, or to-morrow at the
+latest, England will enter the war. You know what that means, Von der
+Herts. The Tower of London--and a firing squad!"
+
+Deliberately he walked away from the inspector, and stood facing the
+window. Von der Herts was fingering idly that Indian knife which lay on
+his desk. With a quick hunted look about the room, he raised his hand;
+and before I could leap forward to stop him he had plunged the knife
+into his heart.
+
+Colonel Hughes turned round at my cry, but even at what met his eyes now
+that Englishman was imperturbable.
+
+"Too bad!" he said. "Really too bad! The man had courage and, beyond
+all doubt, brains. But--this is most considerate of him. He has saved me
+such a lot of trouble."
+
+The colonel effected my release at once; and he and I walked down
+Whitehall together in the bright sun that seemed so good to me after the
+bleak walls of the Yard. Again he apologized for turning suspicion my
+way the previous day; but I assured him I held no grudge for that.
+
+"One or two things I do not understand," I said. "That letter I brought
+from Interlaken--"
+
+"Simple enough," he replied. "Enwright--who, by the way, is now in the
+Tower--wanted to communicate with Fraser-Freer, who he supposed was a
+loyal member of the band. Letters sent by post seemed dangerous. With
+your kind assistance he informed the captain of his whereabouts and the
+date of his imminent arrival in London. Fraser-Freer, not wanting you
+entangled in his plans, eliminated you by denying the existence of this
+cousin--the truth, of course."
+
+"Why," I asked, "did the countess call on me to demand that I alter my
+testimony?"
+
+"Bray sent her. He had rifled Fraser-Freer's desk and he held that
+letter from Enwright. He was most anxious to fix the guilt upon the
+young lieutenant's head. You and your testimony as to the hour of the
+crime stood in the way. He sought to intimidate you with threats--"
+
+"But--"
+
+"I know--you are wondering why the countess confessed to me next day.
+I had the woman in rather a funk. In the meshes of my rapid-fire
+questioning she became hopelessly involved. This was because she was
+suddenly terrified she realized I must have been watching her for weeks,
+and that perhaps Von der Herts was not so immune from suspicion as he
+supposed. At the proper moment I suggested that I might have to take her
+to Inspector Bray. This gave her an idea. She made her fake confession
+to reach his side; once there, she warned him of his danger and they
+fled together."
+
+We walked along a moment in silence. All about us the lurid special
+editions of the afternoon were flaunting their predictions of the horror
+to come. The face of the colonel was grave.
+
+"How long had Von der Herts held his position at the Yard?" I asked.
+
+"For nearly five years," Hughes answered.
+
+"It seems incredible," I murmured.
+
+"So it does," he answered; "but it is only the first of many incredible
+things that this war will reveal. Two months from now we shall all have
+forgotten it in the face of new revelations far more unbelievable." He
+sighed. "If these men about us realized the terrible ordeal that
+lies ahead! Misgoverned; unprepared--I shudder at the thought of the
+sacrifices we must make, many of them in vain. But I suppose that
+somehow, some day, we shall muddle through."
+
+He bade me good-by in Trafalgar Square, saying that he must at once
+seek out the father and brother of the late captain, and tell them the
+news--that their kinsman was really loyal to his country.
+
+"It will come to them as a ray of light in the dark--my news," he said.
+"And now, thank you once again."
+
+We parted and I came back here to my lodgings. The mystery is finally
+solved, though in such a way it is difficult to believe that it was
+anything but a nightmare at any time. But solved none the less; and I
+should be at peace, except for one great black fact that haunts me, will
+not let me rest. I must tell you, dear lady--And yet I fear it means the
+end of everything. If only I can make you understand!
+
+I have walked my floor, deep in thought, in puzzlement, in indecision.
+Now I have made up my mind. There is no other way--I must tell you the
+truth.
+
+Despite the fact that Bray was Von der Herts; despite the fact that
+he killed himself at the discovery--despite this and that, and
+everything--Bray did not kill Captain Fraser-Freer!
+
+On last Thursday evening, at a little after seven o'clock, I myself
+climbed the stairs, entered the captain's rooms, picked up that knife
+from his desk, and stabbed him just above the heart!
+
+What provocation I was under, what stern necessity moved me--all this
+you must wait until to-morrow to know. I shall spend another anxious day
+preparing my defense, hoping that through some miracle of mercy you may
+forgive me--understand that there was nothing else I could do.
+
+Do not judge, dear lady, until you know everything--until all my
+evidence is in your lovely hands.
+
+YOURS, IN ALL HUMILITY.
+
+
+The first few paragraphs of this the sixth and next to the last letter
+from the Agony Column man had brought a smile of relief to the face of
+the girl who read. She was decidedly glad to learn that her friend no
+longer languished back of those gray walls on Victoria Embankment. With
+excitement that increased as she went along, she followed Colonel Hughes
+as--in the letter--he moved nearer and nearer his denouement, until
+finally his finger pointed to Inspector Bray sitting guilty in his
+chair. This was an eminently satisfactory solution, and it served the
+inspector right for locking up her friend. Then, with the suddenness
+of a bomb from a Zeppelin, came, at the end, her strawberry man's
+confession of guilt. He was the murderer, after all! He admitted it! She
+could scarcely believe her eyes.
+
+Yet there it was, in ink as violet as those eyes, on the note paper that
+had become so familiar to her during the thrilling week just past. She
+read it a second time, and yet a third. Her amazement gave way to anger;
+her cheeks flamed. Still--he had asked her not to judge until all his
+evidence was in. This was a reasonable request surely, and she could not
+in fairness refuse to grant it.
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+So began an anxious day, not only for the girl from Texas but for all
+London as well. Her father was bursting with new diplomatic secrets
+recently extracted from his bootblack adviser. Later, in Washington, he
+was destined to be a marked man because of his grasp of the situation
+abroad. No one suspected the bootblack, the power behind the throne;
+but the gentleman from Texas was destined to think of that able diplomat
+many times, and to wish that he still had him at his feet to advise him.
+
+"War by midnight, sure!" he proclaimed on the morning of this fateful
+Tuesday. "I tell you, Marian, we're lucky to have our tickets on the
+Saronia. Five thousand dollars wouldn't buy them from me to-day! I'll be
+a happy man when we go aboard that liner day after to-morrow."
+
+Day after to-morrow! The girl wondered. At any rate, she would have that
+last letter then--the letter that was to contain whatever defense
+her young friend could offer to explain his dastardly act. She waited
+eagerly for that final epistle.
+
+The day dragged on, bringing at its close England's entrance into the
+war; and the Carlton bootblack was a prophet not without honor in a
+certain Texas heart. And on the following morning there arrived a letter
+which was torn open by eager trembling fingers. The letter spoke:
+
+DEAR LADY JUDGE: This is by far the hardest to write of all the letters
+you have had from me. For twenty-four hours I have been planning it.
+Last night I walked on the Embankment while the hansoms jogged by and
+the lights of the tramcars danced on Westminster Bridge just as the
+fireflies used to in the garden back of our house in Kansas. While I
+walked I planned. To-day, shut up in my rooms, I was also planning. And
+yet now, when I sit down to write, I am still confused; still at a loss
+where to begin and what to say, once I have begun.
+
+At the close of my last letter I confessed to you that it was I who
+murdered Captain Fraser-Freer. That is the truth. Soften the blow as I
+may, it all comes down to that. The bitter truth!
+
+Not a week ago--last Thursday night at seven--I climbed our dark stairs
+and plunged a knife into the heart of that defenseless gentleman. If
+only I could point out to you that he had offended me in some way; if I
+could prove to you that his death was necessary to me, as it really
+was to Inspector Bray--then there might be some hope of your ultimate
+pardon. But, alas! he had been most kind to me--kinder than I have
+allowed you to guess from my letters. There was no actual need to do
+away with him. Where shall I look for a defense?
+
+At the moment the only defense I can think of is simply this--the
+captain knows I killed him!
+
+Even as I write this, I hear his footsteps above me, as I heard them
+when I sat here composing my first letter to you. He is dressing for
+dinner. We are to dine together at Romano's.
+
+And there, my lady, you have finally the answer to the mystery that
+has--I hope--puzzled you. I killed my friend the captain in my second
+letter to you, and all the odd developments that followed lived only in
+my imagination as I sat here beside the green-shaded lamp in my study,
+plotting how I should write seven letters to you that would, as the
+novel advertisements say, grip your attention to the very end. Oh, I am
+guilty--there is no denying that. And, though I do not wish to ape old
+Adam and imply that I was tempted by a lovely woman, a strict regard for
+the truth forces me to add that there is also guilt upon your head.
+How so? Go back to that message you inserted in the Daily Mail: "The
+grapefruit lady's great fondness for mystery and romance--"
+
+You did not know it, of course; but in those words you passed me a
+challenge I could not resist; for making plots is the business of
+life--more, the breath of life--to me. I have made many; and perhaps you
+have followed some of them, on Broadway. Perhaps you have seen a play of
+mine announced for early production in London. There was mention of it
+in the program at the Palace. That was the business which kept me in
+England. The project has been abandoned now and I am free to go back
+home.
+
+Thus you see that when you granted me the privilege of those seven
+letters you played into my hands. So, said I, she longs for mystery and
+romance. Then, by the Lord Harry, she shall have them!
+
+And it was the tramp of Captain Fraser-Freer's boots above my head that
+showed me the way. A fine, stalwart, cordial fellow--the captain--who
+has been very kind to me since I presented my letter of introduction
+from his cousin, Archibald Enwright. Poor Archie! A meek, correct little
+soul, who would be horrified beyond expression if he knew that of him I
+had made a spy and a frequenter of Limehouse!
+
+The dim beginnings of the plot were in my mind when I wrote that first
+letter, suggesting that all was not regular in the matter of Archie's
+note of introduction. Before I wrote my second, I knew that nothing but
+the death of Fraser-Freer would do me. I recalled that Indian knife I
+had seen upon his desk, and from that moment he was doomed. At that
+time I had no idea how I should solve the mystery. But I had read and
+wondered at those four strange messages in the Mail, and I resolved that
+they must figure in the scheme of things.
+
+The fourth letter presented difficulties until I returned from dinner
+that night and saw a taxi waiting before our quiet house. Hence
+the visit of the woman with the lilac perfume. I am afraid the
+Wilhelmstrasse would have little use for a lady spy who advertised
+herself in so foolish a manner. Time for writing the fifth letter
+arrived. I felt that I should now be placed under arrest. I had a faint
+little hope that you would be sorry about that. Oh, I'm a brute, I know!
+
+Early in the game I had told the captain of the cruel way in which I had
+disposed of him. He was much amused; but he insisted, absolutely, that
+he must be vindicated before the close of the series, and I was with him
+there. He had been so bully about it all. A chance remark of his gave me
+my solution. He said he had it on good authority that the chief of
+the Czar's bureau for capturing spies in Russia was himself a spy. And
+so--why not a spy in Scotland Yard?
+
+I assure you, I am most contrite as I set all this down here. You must
+remember that when I began my story there was no idea of war. Now all
+Europe is aflame; and in the face of the great conflict, the awful
+suffering to come, I and my little plot begin to look--well, I fancy you
+know just how we look.
+
+Forgive me. I am afraid I can never find the words to tell you how
+important it seemed to interest you in my letters--to make you feel that
+I am an entertaining person worthy of your notice. That morning when you
+entered the Carlton breakfast room was really the biggest in my life. I
+felt as though you had brought with you through that doorway--But I have
+no right to say it. I have the right to say nothing save that now--it
+is all left to you. If I have offended, then I shall never hear from you
+again.
+
+The captain will be here in a moment. It is near the hour set and he is
+never late. He is not to return to India, but expects to be drafted for
+the Expeditionary Force that will be sent to the Continent. I hope the
+German Army will be kinder to him than I was!
+
+My name is Geoffrey West. I live at nineteen Adelphi Terrace--in rooms
+that look down on the most wonderful garden in London. That, at
+least, is real. It is very quiet there to-night, with the city and its
+continuous hum of war and terror seemingly a million miles away.
+
+Shall we meet at last? The answer rests entirely with you. But, believe
+me, I shall be anxiously waiting to know; and if you decide to give me a
+chance to explain--to denounce myself to you in person--then a happy man
+will say good-by to this garden and these dim dusty rooms and follow you
+to the ends of the earth--aye, to Texas itself!
+
+Captain Fraser-Freer is coming down the stairs. Is this good-by forever,
+my lady? With all my soul, I hope not.
+
+YOUR CONTRITE STRAWBERRY MAN.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+Words are futile things with which to attempt a description of the
+feelings of the girl at the Carlton as she read this, the last letter
+of seven written to her through the medium of her maid, Sadie Haight.
+Turning the pages of the dictionary casually, one might enlist a
+few--for example, amazement, anger, unbelief, wonder. Perhaps, to go
+back to the letter a, even amusement. We may leave her with the solution
+to the puzzle in her hand, the Saronia a little more than a day away,
+and a weirdly mixed company of emotions struggling in her soul.
+
+And leaving her thus, let us go back to Adelphi Terrace and a young man
+exceedingly worried.
+
+Once he knew that his letter was delivered, Mr. Geoffrey West took his
+place most humbly on the anxious seat. There he writhed through the long
+hours of Wednesday morning. Not to prolong this painful picture, let us
+hasten to add that at three o'clock that same afternoon came a telegram
+that was to end suspense. He tore it open and read:
+
+STRAWBERRY MAN: I shall never, never forgive, you. But we are sailing
+tomorrow on the Saronia. Were you thinking of going home soon? MARIAN A.
+LARNED.
+
+Thus it happened that, a few minutes later, to the crowd of troubled
+Americans in a certain steamship booking office there was added a
+wild-eyed young man who further upset all who saw him. To weary clerks
+he proclaimed in fiery tones that he must sail on the Saronia. There
+seemed to be no way of appeasing him. The offer of a private liner would
+not have interested him.
+
+He raved and tore his hair. He ranted. All to no avail. There was, in
+plain American, "nothing doing!"
+
+Damp but determined, he sought among the crowd for one who had bookings
+on the Saronia. He could find, at first, no one so lucky; but finally he
+ran across Tommy Gray. Gray, an old friend, admitted when pressed that
+he had a passage on that most desirable boat. But the offer of all the
+king's horses and all the king's gold left him unmoved. Much, he said,
+as he would have liked to oblige, he and his wife were determined. They
+would sail.
+
+It was then that Geoffrey West made a compact with his friend. He
+secured from him the necessary steamer labels and it was arranged that
+his baggage was to go aboard the Saronia as the property of Gray.
+
+"But," protested Gray, "even suppose you do put this through; suppose
+you do manage to sail without a ticket--where will you sleep? In chains
+somewhere below, I fancy."
+
+"No matter!" bubbled West. "I'll sleep in the dining saloon, in a
+lifeboat, on the lee scuppers--whatever they are. I'll sleep in the
+air, without any visible support! I'll sleep anywhere--nowhere--but I'll
+sail! And as for irons--they don't make 'em strong enough to hold me."
+
+At five o'clock on Thursday afternoon the Saronia slipped smoothly away
+from a Liverpool dock. Twenty-five hundred Americans--about twice the
+number the boat could comfortably carry--stood on her decks and cheered.
+Some of those in that crowd who had millions of money were booked
+for the steerage. All of them were destined to experience during that
+crossing hunger, annoyance, discomfort. They were to be stepped on, sat
+on, crowded and jostled. They suspected as much when the boat left the
+dock. Yet they cheered!
+
+Gayest among them was Geoffrey West, triumphant amid the confusion. He
+was safely aboard; the boat was on its way! Little did it trouble him
+that he went as a stowaway, since he had no ticket; nothing but an
+overwhelming determination to be on the good ship Saronia.
+
+That night as the Saronia stole along with all deck lights out and every
+porthole curtained, West saw on the dim deck the slight figure of a
+girl who meant much to him. She was standing staring out over the black
+waters; and, with wildly beating heart, he approached her, not knowing
+what to say, but feeling that a start must be made somehow.
+
+"Please pardon me for addressing--" he began. "But I want to tell you--"
+
+She turned, startled; and then smiled an odd little smile, which he
+could not see in the dark.
+
+"I beg your pardon," she said. "I haven't met you, that I recall--"
+
+"I know," he answered. "That's going to be arranged to-morrow. Mrs.
+Tommy Gray says you crossed with them--"
+
+"Mere steamer acquaintances," the girl replied coldly.
+
+"Of course! But Mrs. Gray is a darling--she'll fix that all right. I
+just want to say, before to-morrow comes--"
+
+"Wouldn't it be better to wait?"
+
+"I can't! I'm on this ship without a ticket. I've got to go down in a
+minute and tell the purser that. Maybe he'll throw me overboard; maybe
+he'll lock me up. I don't know what they do with people like me. Maybe
+they'll make a stoker of me. And then I shall have to stoke, with no
+chance of seeing you again. So that's why I want to say now--I'm sorry
+I have such a keen imagination. It carried me away--really it did!
+I didn't mean to deceive you with those letters; but, once I got
+started--You know, don't you, that I love you with all my heart? From
+the moment you came into the Carlton that morning I--"
+
+"Really--Mr.--Mr.--"
+
+"West--Geoffrey West. I adore you! What can I do to prove it? I'm going
+to prove it--before this ship docks in the North River. Perhaps I'd
+better talk to your father, and tell him about the Agony Column and
+those seven letters--"
+
+"You'd better not! He's in a terribly bad humor. The dinner was awful,
+and the steward said we'd be looking back to it and calling it a banquet
+before the voyage ends. Then, too, poor dad says he simply can not sleep
+in the stateroom they've given him--"
+
+"All the better! I'll see him at once. If he stands for me now he'll
+stand for me any time! And, before I go down and beard a harsh-looking
+purser in his den, won't you believe me when I say I'm deeply in love--"
+
+"In love with mystery and romance! In love with your own remarkable
+powers of invention! Really, I can't take you seriously--"
+
+"Before this voyage is ended you'll have to. I'll prove to you that I
+care. If the purser lets me go free--"
+
+"You have much to prove," the girl smiled. "To-morrow--when Mrs. Tommy
+Gray introduces us--I may accept you--as a builder of plots. I happen
+to know you are good. But--as--It's too silly! Better go and have it out
+with that purser."
+
+Reluctantly he went. In five minutes he was back. The girl was still
+standing by the rail.
+
+"It's all right!" West said. "I thought I was doing something original,
+but there were eleven other people in the same fix. One of them is a
+billionaire from Wall Street. The purser collected some money from us
+and told us to sleep on the deck--if we could find room."
+
+"I'm sorry," said the girl. "I rather fancied you in the role of
+stoker." She glanced about her at the dim deck. "Isn't this exciting?
+I'm sure this voyage is going to be filled with mystery and romance."
+
+"I know it will be full of romance," West answered. "And the mystery
+will be--can I convince you--"
+
+"Hush!" broke in the girl. "Here comes father! I shall be very happy to
+meet you--to-morrow. Poor dad! he's looking for a place to sleep."
+
+Five days later poor dad, having slept each night on deck in his clothes
+while the ship plowed through a cold drizzle, and having starved in
+a sadly depleted dining saloon, was a sight to move the heart of
+a political opponent. Immediately after a dinner that had scarcely
+satisfied a healthy Texas appetite he lounged gloomily in the deck chair
+which was now his stateroom. Jauntily Geoffrey West came and sat at his
+side.
+
+"Mr. Larned," he said, "I've got something for you."
+
+And, with a kindly smile, he took from his pocket and handed over a
+large, warm baked potato. The Texan eagerly accepted the gift.
+
+"Where'd you get it?" he demanded, breaking open his treasure.
+
+"That's a secret," West answered. "But I can get as many as I want. Mr.
+Larned, I can say this--you will not go hungry any longer. And there's
+something else I ought to speak of. I am sort of aiming to marry your
+daughter."
+
+Deep in his potato the Congressman spoke:
+
+"What does she say about it?"
+
+"Oh, she says there isn't a chance. But--"
+
+"Then look out, my boy! She's made up her mind to have you."
+
+"I'm glad to hear you say that. I really ought to tell you who I am.
+Also, I want you to know that, before your daughter and I met, I wrote
+her seven letters--"
+
+"One minute," broke in the Texan. "Before you go into all that, won't
+you be a good fellow and tell me where you got this potato?"
+
+West nodded.
+
+"Sure!" he said; and, leaning over, he whispered.
+
+For the first time in days a smile appeared on the face of the older
+man.
+
+"My boy," he said, "I feel I'm going to like you. Never mind the rest.
+I heard all about you from your friend Gray; and as for those
+letters--they were the only thing that made the first part of this trip
+bearable. Marian gave them to me to read the night we came on board."
+
+Suddenly from out of the clouds a long-lost moon appeared, and bathed
+that over-crowded ocean liner in a flood of silver. West left the old
+man to his potato and went to find the daughter.
+
+She was standing in the moonlight by the rail of the forward deck, her
+eyes staring dreamily ahead toward the great country that had sent her
+forth light-heartedly for to adventure and to see. She turned as West
+came up.
+
+"I have just been talking with your father," he said. "He tells me he
+thinks you mean to take me, after all."
+
+She laughed. "To-morrow night," she answered, "will be our last on
+board. I shall give you my final decision then."
+
+"But that is twenty-four hours away! Must I wait so long as that?"
+
+"A little suspense won't hurt you. I can't forget those long days when I
+waited for your letters--"
+
+"I know! But can't you give me--just a little hint--here--to-night?"
+
+"I am without mercy--absolutely without mercy!"
+
+And then, as West's fingers closed over her hand, she added softly:
+"Not even the suspicion of a hint, my dear--except to tell you that--my
+answer will be--yes."
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Agony Column, by Earl Derr Biggers
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