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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 40897 ***
+
+THE BURGLARS' CLUB
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: "'MAY I ASK WHAT YOU EXPECT TO FIND HERE?'"
+
+(_p. 4._)]
+
+
+
+
+
+THE BURGLARS' CLUB
+
+A ROMANCE IN TWELVE CHRONICLES
+
+
+BY HENRY A. HERING
+
+
+    _WITH SIXTEEN ILLUSTRATIONS
+    BY F. H. TOWNSEND_
+
+    B. W. DODGE AND COMPANY
+    NEW YORK
+    1906
+
+
+
+
+    COPYRIGHT 1905, 1906,
+    BY
+    HENRY A. HERING.
+
+
+
+
+THE TWELVE CHRONICLES.
+
+
+                                            PAGE
+       I. SIR JOHN CARDER'S CIGARS             1
+      II. THE BISHOP OF BISTER'S CROZIER      18
+     III. THE LUCK OF THE ILLINGWORTHS        38
+      IV. THE FELLMONGERS' GOBLET             63
+       V. AN OUNCE OF RADIUM                  87
+      VI. THE BUNYAN MS.                     109
+     VII. THE GREAT SEAL                     136
+    VIII. THE LION AND THE SUN               158
+      IX. THE HORSESHOE AND THE PEPPERCORN   184
+       X. THE HOLBEIN MINIATURE              207
+      XI. THE VICTORIA CROSS                 233
+     XII. THE LAST CHRONICLE                 253
+
+
+
+
+LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
+
+
+  "'MAY I ASK WHAT YOU EXPECT TO FIND HERE?'"       _Frontispiece_
+  "MR. KASSALA HAD THEN THE PLEASURE OF INSPECTING
+        THE CROZIER"                                _Face p._ 26
+  "HE SAW THE FIGURE PASS A WINDOW"                           28
+  "SHE HAD SHOWN HIM THE SECRET OF ITS HIDING-PLACE"          40
+  "A CRY OF DESPAIR ESCAPED HIM"                              50
+  "'YOU ARE A THIEF'"                                         92
+  "'I NEARLY BRUSHED AGAINST YOU'"                           108
+  "'HEY! BUT WHAT ABOUT THAT HOLE IN THE WINDOW?'"           134
+  "'YOU MAY GO ON WITH YOUR MOST INTERESTING WORK'"          142
+  "SUDDENLY HE ROSE, TOOK THE DRAFT OF THE TREATY, ETC."     174
+  "INSTEAD OF THE DRAFT, THERE, ON A PURPLE VELVET
+        CUSHION, WAS THE GLITTERING ORDER OF THE LION
+        AND THE SUN"                                         178
+  "'SOFTLY, MY LORD,' SAID CUNNINGHAM, 'I AM COVERING
+        YOU, YOU OBSERVE'"                                   192
+  "THERE WAS THE UNMISTAKABLE SOUND OF AN APPROACHING
+        CAR"                                                 198
+  "LUCAS DROPPED IT CAREFULLY INTO THE POCKET OF HIS
+        NORFOLK JACKET"                                      218
+  "HE WAS WALKING IN HIS SLEEP, CONSCIOUS OF NOTHING"        250
+  "MR. MARVELL . . . THANKED THE COMPANY FOR THE GIFT,
+        WHICH HE WOULD TREASURE"                             278
+
+
+
+
+      "'HE'S one of us,' the burglar explained. 'You see, we
+      are men who have pretty well exhausted the pleasures
+      of life. We've all been in the Army or the Navy, all
+      of us are sportsmen, and we are bachelors; so there
+      isn't much excitement left for us. We've started a
+      Burglars' Club to help things on a bit. The entrance
+      fee is a town burglary, the subject to be set by our
+      president, and every other year each member has to
+      keep up his subscription by a provincial line.'"
+
+
+
+
+THE BURGLARS' CLUB:
+
+A ROMANCE IN TWELVE CHRONICLES.
+
+
+
+
+I.
+
+SIR JOHN CARDER'S CIGARS.
+
+
+SIR JOHN CARDER, head of the well-known firm of Carder and Co.,
+merchants, of Manchester, sat in his warehouse. It was one o'clock in
+the morning. Since half-past eight he had been alone in the building;
+and there in his snug private office, before a cheery fire and beneath
+electric light, Sir John prepared to meet what he conceived to be his
+fate.
+
+He was insolvent. For some time past he had suspected that this was the
+state of things. Now he was sure of it. The yearly balance sheet placed
+in his hand the previous day by his cashier, together with sundry
+figures from his own private ledger, placed the fact beyond the region
+of dispute. Because he felt himself unequal to the situation, Sir John
+had shut himself up in his office--and on the desk in front of him was a
+loaded revolver.
+
+Sir John had strong antiquarian tastes. His bachelor home in Withington
+was a positive museum of curiosities, from Phoenician pottery down to
+files of English newspapers when the Georges were kings. In his office
+he kept more personal relics of bygone times, and he was now sorting out
+the drawers of a big bureau, full of them.
+
+He had been severely trained in method by the most orderly of fathers,
+and had saved every written communication he had received since the age
+of seventeen. It is therefore quite understandable why his accumulation
+of letters was so large, and partially understandable how he came to
+have before him four bulky parcels of them, respectively endorsed with
+the names of Mary, Nell, Kitty, and Flip. The dates of these, be it at
+once understood, were not contemporaneous, though a careful investigator
+might have detected a little overlapping. The letters marked Flip, it
+ought also to be stated, came first in point of time.
+
+Sir John lingered long over these bundles, and read many of the letters.
+They interested him greatly, and in their perusal he almost forgot the
+evening's ultimate objective. Connected with these particular letters
+was a batch of photographs, on which he gazed with tender reminiscence.
+Then there were other matters of more public character--a missive, for
+instance, from the Prime Minister, informing him that his Majesty
+intended to confer upon him the honour of knighthood, his Commission in
+the Volunteers, and some I.O.U.'s from a member of the House of Lords.
+
+All these, and many others, Sir John threw on the desk in front, ready
+for the final holocaust. With the feeling of a true collector he had not
+the heart to destroy them singly.
+
+Then, from another drawer, he drew forth his balance sheets for twenty
+years, and glanced them through with almost as much interest as he had
+felt for his letters. Once, it seemed, he had been worth close on a
+hundred thousand pounds. An infatuated belief in a South American
+concession, followed by a succession of lean years in trading, had
+frittered all this, and more, away.
+
+While he was gazing gloomily at these recording figures the door gently
+opened, and a man stood on the threshold--a man with his coat buttoned
+tightly up to the neck, with his cap brought down over his eyes, a man
+with a lamp--in short, a burglar. Sir John stared at him dumbfounded.
+Then he glanced at the revolver, but it was out of reach. The burglar
+followed his look, and caught up the weapon.
+
+Now thoroughly aroused, the knight indignantly exclaimed:
+
+"You needn't add murder to your other crimes, my man."
+
+"Sir," replied the burglar, "it would grieve me to have to anticipate
+your own intentions."
+
+Sir John was struck, as much by the melodious voice of the burglar as by
+his answer. Nevertheless, in his most magisterial voice he demanded:
+"What are you doing here?"
+
+"Watching an elderly gentleman in an interesting situation."
+
+"You are impertinent!" flared Sir John.
+
+"A thousand pardons. A burglar should, I believe, be merely brutal."
+
+"May I ask what you expect to find here?" continued the merchant. "We
+rarely keep enough money on the premises to make it worth your while."
+
+"Postage stamps?" insinuated the other.
+
+Sir John ignored the suggestion. "Certainly not enough to make it worth
+your while. It may be a matter of penal servitude for you."
+
+"You open up a wide philosophic question," said the burglar suavely.
+"What is worth your while in this world? 'Uneasy is the head that wears
+a crown.' You seem worried yourself, Sir John--going through your papers
+at this time o' night, with a loaded pistol by you."
+
+The merchant was annoyed at the burglar's perspicacity, and he could not
+think of an effective rejoinder. His visitor advanced to the bureau. The
+photographs immediately engaged his attention. "Ha!" he exclaimed
+approvingly. "But it really isn't fair. One, two, three, four. Greedy
+man!"
+
+"Will you kindly leave my private matters alone?" said the incensed
+knight. Then, with a sudden inspiration, he made a reckless dash for
+freedom by grabbing at the telephone handle, turning briskly, and
+shouting down the receiver, "Help! Thieves! Help!" But before he had
+called again the burglar had raised his revolver and had severed the
+connecting wire with a shot. "What an absurd idea," he said. "Why, the
+operator isn't awake yet."
+
+Sir John sank back into his chair, feeling it was very likely that the
+burglar would adopt some extremely unpleasant form of revenge for the
+want of confidence he had just displayed. But his visitor did nothing of
+the sort. He also seated himself, and addressed the knight in grave
+reproof.
+
+"If that's a sample of your best business method I'm surprised you've
+done so well in things," he said. Then without waiting for a reply,
+"Where do you keep your cigars?"
+
+The merchant stretched out his hand and passed a box to him. The burglar
+rolled one knowingly between his fingers, then replaced it, and gave the
+box back.
+
+"I don't care for tenpenny whiffs, Sir John. I want your real
+cigars--such as you keep for your most eminent visitors--such as you
+should have offered me, as a matter of course."
+
+With a sigh Sir John rose, unlocked a cabinet, and produced a box marked
+"TOPMANN. SUBLIMES. HABANA," which he handed to his visitor.
+
+The burglar examined it carefully before he expressed his satisfaction.
+Then he took a cigar therefrom, inspected it with marked approval, lit
+it, and then dropped the box into a capacious pocket.
+
+"Those are exceptionally fine cigars," the knight remarked, with a touch
+of resentment in his voice.
+
+"I know it. I've come all the way from town to fetch 'em," the burglar
+answered.
+
+Sir John was surprised. "It's a long way and a dangerous mission for
+such an object."
+
+"Isn't it?" said the burglar, with provoking complacency.
+
+"And may I ask how you come to know of them?" asked Sir John, whose
+curiosity was aroused.
+
+"I don't mind telling you, since I've got them safe. You opened this box
+for a particular guest at the Chamber of Commerce dinner a month ago."
+
+"Lord Ribston?"
+
+"Yes; he spoke about them at the Burglars' Club. It was my turn, and
+here I am--don't you see?"
+
+"The Burglars' Club!" exclaimed Sir John, in much surprise. "I've never
+heard of such an institution. And pray what has Lord Ribston, an
+ex-Cabinet Minister, to do with it?"
+
+"He's one of us," the burglar explained. "You see, we are men who've
+pretty well exhausted the pleasures of life. We've all been in the Army
+or the Navy, all of us are sportsmen, and we are bachelors; so there
+isn't much excitement left for us. We've started a Burglars' Club to
+help things on a bit. The entrance fee is a town burglary, the subject
+to be set by our President, and every other year each member has to keep
+up his subscription by a provincial line. 'Sir John Carder's prime
+cigars by Wednesday,' was the item fixed for me at our club meeting last
+week, and I've got 'em easy," said the burglar, with much professional
+complacency.
+
+"You astonish me," Sir John said. "In fact, I've never heard a more
+amazing thing in my life. But isn't it rather risky, telling me all
+this?"
+
+"Not a bit. No one would believe you if you split on us, and you
+wouldn't find our club if you wanted to. But you wouldn't split. A man
+who smokes Topmann's Sublimes couldn't do such a thing if he tried."
+
+Sir John acknowledged this speech with a bow. "But I'm greatly surprised
+Lord Ribston should belong to such a club," he said. "No offence to you
+intended," he added hastily, feeling that his remark was hardly polite.
+
+"And no offence taken," said the burglar magnanimously. "Do you know,
+Sir John, there are a good many things going on in town that would be
+likely to astonish you a great deal more than this little club of ours
+if you only knew of 'em?" Then, after a moment's pause, "As you've
+helped me so nicely in this cigar business I shall be delighted to do
+you a good turn. Can I be of any use to you?"
+
+In saying this the burglar's eyes travelled involuntarily to the pile of
+papers on the desk. Sir John's did the same, and he sighed.
+
+"Well," he replied in an outburst of confidence that astonished himself,
+"I'm in a hole."
+
+"I thought as much," said the other. "I've been in a good many myself in
+my time, so perhaps I can help you to get out."
+
+The knight shook his head gloomily. "I don't think so. There's nothing
+for it but a bullet."
+
+"Great Scott!" exclaimed the burglar. He plunged his hand into his
+pocket, and produced the box of cigars. "Try one of these," he said,
+offering them to Sir John. "I can recommend 'em for big occasions."
+
+The merchant smiled sadly, but took the consolation offered. "You see,"
+he explained, "it's my pay-day to-morrow. There's nine thousand pounds
+in cash wanted, and I've nothing towards it."
+
+"Beastly awkward," said the burglar sympathetically. "I know what it
+feels like. Tell 'em to call again."
+
+"I can't. If I don't pay I must file my petition."
+
+"File your banker!" exclaimed the other. "Don't you do anything rash.
+There's many a man lived to regret ever dreaming of insolvency. I
+suppose you've realised all your assets?"
+
+"Every one," said Sir John, "except things like these," and he pulled
+out the I.O.U.'s from the pile of papers.
+
+The burglar looked at them. "Well?" he said inquiringly. "You've had
+these three years. Why the blazes haven't you got your money?"
+
+"The Marquis of Chillingford hasn't got any money," replied the knight
+sorrowfully.
+
+"I know he hasn't to-day, but he had yesterday, and he may have
+to-morrow. Why, man, he scooped in a cool ten thou' when Tadpole won the
+Derby."
+
+"You don't say so!" exclaimed Sir John.
+
+"But I do. If you will lend money to lords, why the blazes don't you
+take in the sporting papers, and keep an eye on your friends? Tommy
+Chillingford is far too busy a man to remember these bits of paper, but
+I'm sure nothing would have pleased him more than to have paid you back
+your money if you'd suggested it at the time. He's had a run of
+confounded bad luck since then, but he'll bob up serenely one of these
+days, and you take my tip and get in that time. What else have you in
+this line?"
+
+The knight opened a drawer, and therefrom produced a bundle of
+promissory notes and dishonoured cheques.
+
+"What a philanthropist you've been in your day!" said the burglar
+admiringly, as he examined them. "I wish I'd known you earlier. Ah!"
+and he pulled out a draft. "What's wrong with this?"
+
+"That's another impecunious peer," said Sir John. "He proposed me for
+the Carlton," he added apologetically.
+
+"Then may I be impecunious," replied the burglar. "Dicky is a
+millionaire in South America."
+
+"I've not come across his name in that light," said the merchant
+dubiously.
+
+"He's changed it. Calls himself Thompson now. This thing is worth its
+face value, and that's two thousand pounds. Why, man, you must tender it
+at once for payment."
+
+For a moment the knight's face brightened.
+
+"But wait a bit," continued the burglar. "There's a six-years' limit for
+presentation, isn't there? This was due March 12th, 1897, and it's
+now--oh, Great Scott!--it's now March 18th, 1903! Too late by a week!
+Old man, you are unlucky! Two thousand solid sovereigns missed by a
+week, and you wantin' 'em all the time. It's beastly hard lines. Do have
+a light."
+
+But Sir John was too limp to smoke. "A millionaire in South America!" he
+gasped. "Why, he went out at my request to see if a concession I have
+there was worth anything. He reported adversely, and I've heard nothing
+about him since then."
+
+"What is your concession?"
+
+From the pile in front the knight found an imposing-looking parchment,
+decorated with the signature of a President and the seal of a State. He
+handed it to the burglar, who read it through carefully. Then he laid it
+down.
+
+"Sir John Carder," he said gravely, as a judge addressing a prisoner,
+"you are an unmitigated donkey. You must forgive the insult, but really
+the provocation is simply awful. I've lived in the Argentine, and if
+this concession of yours isn't the very one Mr. Thompson is now working
+for his own benefit I'm a double-dyed Dutchman."
+
+Sir John gazed at him open-eyed. "I can't believe you," he said.
+
+"Don't, if it hurts you," the burglar replied; "but I'll make a
+proposal, to show you I have no doubts about it myself. If you'll have
+me as equal partner with you in this concession matter, and leave me to
+manage it my own way, I'll take over your pay-day to-morrow, and be
+jolly well pleased with the bargain."
+
+"You'll meet my payments to-morrow!" gasped Sir John, who for some
+little time had been wondering whether he were awake or asleep, or in a
+post-mortem delirium consequent on a revolver shot. "You'll meet my
+payments!"
+
+Once more the burglar pulled out the cigar box. "Do have another," he
+said persuasively.
+
+Sir John took one mechanically, but after trying in vain to light it he
+put it down.
+
+"Oh, Dicky Thompson," soliloquised the burglar, "this explains a good
+deal. We all marvelled at your luck, for we knew you didn't deserve it.
+You once sold me a spavined mare. If this isn't retribution I don't know
+what is. Now, Carder, let's get to bed. You must give me a shakedown
+somewhere. We've to be very spry and early to-morrow. There's our
+partnership to fix up first thing, and I've to show these cigars at the
+Burglars' Club in the evening, and on Saturday I sail for South America
+with this precious document and a sharp legal practitioner. And I'll
+take your revolver with me in case the lawyer gets hoarse. Oh, I was
+forgetting. A telegram form, please. Where do you bank? County and
+City. Right. It's nine thousand you want, isn't it? Right again." The
+burglar filled up the form, counted his words, took the necessary stamps
+from his pocket book, and affixed them. "Now, we'll just drop this in
+the first pillar-box we meet, and by the time we've signed our
+partnership there'll be enough at the County and City to meet your
+payments."
+
+Sir John looked at him admiringly. "Are there many as smart as you at
+the Burglars' Club?" he asked.
+
+"Smarter," said the burglar modestly. "I'm about the clumsiest of the
+lot. Some day I'll tell you how Ribston stole the Bishop of Bister's
+crozier, and then you'll know why he is generally all there in the
+House. But come along now. All right; you close up and put the lights
+out. I'll take a short cut, and be waiting outside."
+
+It was fully five minutes before Sir John had locked up his papers and
+had put on his coat. As he emerged from his warehouse door he was
+promptly collared by a policeman, while another seized him firmly from
+behind. A third was in possession of the handcuffed burglar, and an
+inspector stood by with a box of cigars under his arm.
+
+"Pore old pard!" said the burglar, with ostentatious sympathy. "They've
+nabbed us both at larst."
+
+"Now come along quietly, will you?" said the first policeman to the
+struggling knight.
+
+"Leave go!" shouted his indignant charge. "I'm Sir John Carder."
+
+The policeman laughed derisively, but something in the voice made the
+inspector flash his light on him.
+
+"Sir John it is," he gasped.
+
+The policemen released their hold, and gazed ruefully at their late
+prisoner.
+
+"What do you mean by this, Markham?" demanded Sir John.
+
+"Very sorry, sir. Hope you'll overlook it. We caught this chap
+red-handed, and he said he was working the job with a pal who was
+tidying things up a bit."
+
+"Well, he was quite right. He is a friend of mine."
+
+The inspector was more astonished than ever. "He came through one of the
+packing-room windows, Sir John," he expostulated, "and he had a boxful
+of cigars in his pocket."
+
+"Not full, inspector," said the burglar, sadly. "I told you my friend
+would explain matters, but you wouldn't listen."
+
+"Release him," said Sir John.
+
+The inspector unlocked the handcuffs, saluted stiffly, turned his men
+round, and was marching off with them, when the burglar called out, "My
+cigars, please."
+
+The inspector came back, handed the box over, saluted even more stiffly
+than before, and retired.
+
+Sir John and the burglar watched the retreating escort out of sight.
+
+"It's been a narrow squeak for both of us to-night," said the burglar
+reflectively.
+
+"It has," replied Sir John.
+
+Then they turned the corner together.
+
+
+
+
+II.
+
+THE BISHOP OF BISTER'S CROZIER.
+
+
+THE Bishop of Bister's dinner hour was eight o'clock. With unfailing
+regularity, when at the palace, he entered the drawing-room at 7.58 in
+order to collect his family and any guests. His annoyance may therefore
+be understood when at 7.55 on the night in question a servant brought
+him a card on which was written:
+
+"Georgiowitch Kassala, Mush, L. Van, Khurd., craves audience."
+
+"The gentleman is in the examination room, my lord," the servant added.
+
+"A very awkward time for calling," said the Bishop, consulting his watch
+unnecessarily. Then, with a sigh, "Ask your mistress to keep dinner back
+ten minutes."
+
+His lordship ambled to the examination room. A big man in a loose blue
+cassock-like garb rose at his entrance--a big-limbed, red-bearded man,
+with enormous eyebrows. He rose, bowed low, and sank on his knees,
+caught hold of the prelate's hand, caressed it gently, and finally
+kissed it. The Bishop was embarrassed. He preferred that sort of thing
+to be done before an audience, when he would play his part with the best
+of them, but with no spectators at all he felt uncomfortable.
+
+"Rise," he said gently.
+
+The red-bearded man obeyed. "I am--" he began. "I have come--ah, perhaps
+I had better show you my papers. I have a letter from my Patriarch."
+This in excellent English, with just a trace of a foreign accent.
+
+From his capacious pocket he drew out a bundle of papers. He abstracted
+a letter therefrom, and handed it with evident pride to the Bishop.
+
+It was apparently Greek, yet it was not the language his lordship of
+Bister had learnt at school and college. Here and there he saw a word he
+almost knew, yet the next one to it was a perfect stranger. He glanced
+at the end. There was a big seal, an extraordinary date, an impossible
+name.
+
+His visitor seemed to appreciate the position. "Our Patriarch is old,"
+he said. "He is no longer facile to read. I sometimes have difficulty
+myself, though I know his writing well. May I read it to you?"
+
+He did this with great fluency and emphasis; but the Bishop understood
+nothing, though occasionally he thought he caught the sound of a
+fleeting particle.
+
+The letter was finished. "And this," said the reader, producing a blue
+document, "is more earthy." It was, being from Scotland Yard, informing
+all and sundry that the bearer, Georgiowitch Kassala, a Christian
+priest, was authorised to collect subscriptions for the church of Saint
+Barnabas at Mush, in Khurdistan.
+
+"Ah!" said the Bishop, with perhaps a shade of disappointment in his
+voice. "I hope you have been successful."
+
+"Your Grace, I have travelled far, and not without recompense. To all I
+have said, 'If you give me money it is well, but if you do not it is
+still well.' Some have replied, 'Then we'll leave it at that,' but many
+have responded. See--here is my subscription book. I have begged from
+Batoum to Bister. I have received money in fifteen different coinages,
+of which the English is the finest and difficultest. Perhaps my most
+interesting contribution is this--see, a kopeck from Lassitudino
+Hospidar, the heathen cook of a Bulgarian wind-jammer, in memory of his
+maternal uncle, who died from the bite of a mad dog at Varna. And now,
+being in Bister, I thought, although it is late, I will at once call
+upon his Grace the Bishop, whose fame has reached our little town of
+Mush, whose name is known by the deep waters of Van."
+
+His lordship sighed. The west end of his cathedral was sinking below the
+surface. At the present rate of subsidence the Dean had calculated that
+only the gargoyles would be above ground in the year 3000. This had to
+be stopped. There was a matter of underpinning for a start, but it costs
+money to underpin the west end of a cathedral. And all the while the
+usual subscription lists had to be headed from the Palace, and there was
+more than the usual depression in agriculture. The Bishop felt that it
+was a singularly inappropriate moment to contribute to a church in
+Khurdistan, yet it would not do to discount his own fair fame in that
+far distant land. He must think the matter over. Meantime he would offer
+his guest such hospitality as would compensate for the smallness of his
+contribution.
+
+"My friend," he said, "your Patriarch shall not appeal to me in vain,
+although, as you may well believe, I have many calls upon my purse. But
+we will speak again of this. You will, of course, spend the night under
+my roof, and now, if you will join us at dinner I shall be very
+pleased."
+
+The priest's face broke into smiles. "You are most kind," he replied. "I
+shall be glad." Then he glanced doubtfully from the Bishop's evening
+dress to his own raiment.
+
+"Tut, tut," said his lordship pleasantly. "'A wash and a brush up,' as
+our saying is, and you'll be all right. Come along."
+
+It was 8.15 when they entered the drawing-room. "My dear," said the
+Bishop appeasingly to his hungry wife, "I have brought a visitor from
+Mush, in Asia Minor. Mr.--er--Kassala--Mrs. Dacre--my daughters."
+
+The visitor bowed low before the ladies. The Bishop thought he was going
+to kneel, so restrained him with a gentle hand. "Here," he went on, "is
+my chaplain, Mr. Jones, who will be greatly interested to hear of your
+work at home. And this," he concluded, "is our friend, Mr. Marmaduke
+Percy."
+
+Then they moved to the dining-room.
+
+At dinner Mr. Kassala conducted himself with ease, and spoke with great
+fluency on many matters; so much so that Mr. Marmaduke Percy, no doubt
+feeling that the Asiatic was monopolizing too much attention, asked him
+somewhat abruptly where he had acquired his excellent English.
+
+"I had it from one of your countrymen, sir," replied Mr. Kassala
+pleasantly. "He was engaged in the smuggling of aniline dyes into
+Persia. Of course, I did not know his real occupation, or I should have
+had nothing to do with him. He pretended to import chocolates and acid
+drops and--barley-sugar, I think he called it--and such-like things; but
+they were all filled with aniline colours. In return for language
+lessons he got me to introduce him to the chief of the Persian frontier
+Customs, whom he bribed for his purposes. He made a large fortune before
+the Shah discovered that the colours of the Palace carpets were fading.
+My friend, the chief of the frontier Customs, was beheaded, and three
+dyers were put into plaster of Paris; but the Englishman escaped. His
+name was Benjamin Watts. Do you happen to know him, sir?"
+
+The episcopal circle was justly shocked at this recital of their
+countryman's perfidy, and Mr. Percy warmly repudiated any knowledge of
+Mr. Watts.
+
+The Bishop found his guest profoundly interesting, and he twice made
+notes in his pocket-book about Asiatic matters. The ladies left the room
+regretfully.
+
+The chaplain, who was of an extremely bashful temperament, now put a
+question that had been trembling on his tongue all the dinner hour.
+
+"Is not your village somewhere near Mount Ararat?"
+
+"Certainly. We can see its snow-capped summit quite plainly from Mush.
+With a telescope we can even discern where the Ark rested after the
+Flood."
+
+The Bishop looked at his guest reprovingly, for jokes on such matters
+grieved him deeply.
+
+"I mean it, your Grace," said Kassala. "Surely you heard that the Ark
+itself was discovered about three months ago?"
+
+"What?" exclaimed the Bishop and the chaplain together. "The Ark
+discovered?"
+
+"Certainly," Kassala replied. "My venerable Patriarch had long suspected
+that remnants might be found preserved in the perpetual ice, so he
+sought the assistance of Professor Papineau, of Prague, who was
+travelling in the East. After months of--what do you call
+it?--pro--yes--prospecting--this gentleman discovered an enormous chunk
+of ice bearing some resemblance in outline to the object of their
+search. The only possible way to remove the ice was by blasting, and
+Professor Papineau inserted a charge of dynamite. A fatal mistake was
+made in the size of the charge, with the result that the whole enormous
+chunk was blown to atoms. Embedded in the fragments were found what were
+apparently portions of a leviathan ship, which my Patriarch and
+Professor Papineau regard as being the veritable vessel built by Noah.
+In no other way but by a universal deluge could it have got on Mount
+Ararat. But for the mistake made in the size of the charge the structure
+of the Ark might have been at any rate partially preserved. It was a
+terrible misfortune, only to be compared to the destruction of the
+Parthenon by the Venetians. Professor Papineau was for a long fortnight
+ill in bed with remorse. He reads a paper on the whole incident at the
+forthcoming Oriental Congress at Prague.
+
+"But perhaps I have been indiscreet. Evidently the news has not reached
+your country, and the Professor may wish to be the first to give it to
+the world. He might resent my telling you, and my Patriarch would be
+grieved. I beg you to keep the information inviolate until you read of
+Professor Papineau's paper at Prague."
+
+[Illustration: "MR. KASSALA HAD THEN THE PLEASURE OF INSPECTING THE
+CROZIER."
+
+(_p. 27._)]
+
+The Bishop and the chaplain nodded their assent. They seemed to have no
+words left in them. After breathing-space they both pulled out their
+pocket-books, and made some memoranda.
+
+Later the conversation turned on vestments, and such matters. "Do you
+know, your Grace," said Mr. Kassala, "I have heard that you are the only
+bishop with a pastoral staff. Is that so?"
+
+"No. It's the other way about. I'm the only bishop who hasn't one. I
+alone share with the archbishops the dignity of a crozier. The old
+crozier of the see is now kept in our chapter house. It was too old for
+use, so last year the ladies of the county presented me with a new one.
+If you like, I will show it you. Mr. Jones, I wonder if you would mind
+bringing my crozier from the library?"
+
+Five minutes later the chaplain re-appeared, bringing a long case with
+him. This was duly opened, and Mr. Kassala had then the pleasure of
+inspecting the crozier presented by the ladies of the county. It was of
+ebony and gold, and was richly jewelled. It was a work of art well worth
+the encomiums bestowed upon it by the Asiatic.
+
+"With your permission, your Grace," he said, "I should very much like to
+make a water-colour sketch of it in order to show to my Patriarch, who
+is deeply interested in such matters. He has a very fine crozier
+himself. Would you allow me?"
+
+"By all means," said the Bishop.
+
+"Thank you. I will do it before breakfast in the morning. I am an early
+riser. I suppose I may find it in this room?"
+
+The Bishop nodded, but Mr. Percy intervened. "Allow me to take care of
+it over-night, Bishop. I don't think you ought to leave such a valuable
+article about. There is always the possibility of burglars. I am told
+there is a gang in the district just now."
+
+The Bishop smiled good-humouredly. "I don't think we need consider that
+eventuality," he said. "But as you like. Now shall we join the ladies?"
+
+Perhaps Mr. Kassala was hardly as entertaining in the drawing-room as he
+had previously been. He seemed a little preoccupied. At eleven the house
+party retired to rest, Mr. Percy carefully carrying to his room the case
+containing the crozier.
+
+[Illustration: "HE SAW THE FIGURE PASS A WINDOW."
+
+(_p. 28._)]
+
+The Reverend Arthur Jones, his lordship's chaplain, was a light sleeper
+at best, and to-night the excitement of Mr. Kassala's visit kept him
+particularly wide-awake. His thoughts were with the unhappy Professor
+Papineau. He was wondering whether it would not be kind to send him a
+letter of sympathy, when his attention was attracted by a noise outside
+his room. He jumped out of bed and opened his door quietly. Someone was
+stealthily walking along the corridor. He saw the figure pass a window,
+and the moonlight fell upon Mr. Kassala. In great wonderment Mr. Jones
+followed. A turn of the passage brought the Asiatic to the head of the
+great staircase, and here he stopped so suddenly that the chaplain
+almost ran into him. For two minutes Mr. Kassala paused in a state of
+indecision. Then he advanced to a door, and gently opened it. Mr. Jones
+was paralysed with horror. It was the Bishop's bedroom. What could
+Mr. Kassala want there? Determined to save his beloved chief, Mr. Jones
+followed. As he entered the room there was an exclamation from the
+Bishop. Mr. Jones turned involuntarily. As he did so, Mr. Kassala
+collided with him. The Bishop sprang out of bed, and switched on the
+electric light. "Mr. Kassala!" he exclaimed. "And Mr. Jones! Pray, what
+is the meaning of this?"
+
+"A thousand pardons, your Grace," said the Asiatic. "I have mistaken the
+room. I wanted Mr. Percy."
+
+At this moment the next door opened, and Mr. Percy appeared.
+
+"What's the matter?" he asked.
+
+"That's what I should like to know," said the prelate. "Mr. Kassala says
+he is looking for you."
+
+"Indeed! What for?"
+
+"I--er--was wondering if you had a camel-hair paint brush?" said Mr.
+Kassala.
+
+"Well, you needn't wonder any longer. I haven't," Mr. Percy replied.
+
+"And what do you want, Mr. Jones?" asked the Bishop sternly.
+
+"Nothing, my lord, nothing," said the unhappy Jones. "I was only
+following Mr. Kassala."
+
+"Then perhaps you'll follow him to bed," remarked the Bishop drily. "I
+hope I shall have a more satisfactory explanation in the morning."
+
+Here, no doubt feeling that the situation was hardly in keeping with his
+dignity, the Bishop closed his door. Mr. Percy did the same, while Mr.
+Kassala and the shivering Jones returned to their corridor.
+
+Mr. Kassala seemed rather amused than otherwise at the situation, but
+Mr. Jones was permeated with distress. "Cheer up," said the Asiatic, as
+he turned into his room. "If you will meddle in other people's business
+you're bound to suffer for it."
+
+There was no sleep for the unhappy chaplain that night. He was in love
+with the eldest Miss Dacre, who, he had reason to believe, returned his
+affection, and he had determined to see her father on the subject on the
+morrow. But after the events of that night such an interview was highly
+inadvisable. Yet he had acted from the best and most creditable of
+motives. Only by hearsay was he acquainted with the habits and customs
+of the East, but he felt sure that honest Asiatics would not be found
+prowling about a palace in the midnight hours. What did Mr. Kassala
+want in the Bishop's room? Was it theft or--something worse? Was this
+self-styled priest the emissary of some Eastern organization bent upon
+destroying the flower of the Western hierarchy? Was he a Thug? Mr. Jones
+shuddered at the possibilities of the situation.
+
+Ha! What was that? Again a creak outside. For a moment he listened
+breathlessly. Then he opened his door again. Good gracious! there was
+Mr. Kassala once more slinking down the corridor.
+
+Hastily putting on his dressing-gown, Mr. Jones followed, with nerves
+strung to their highest tension. This time the Asiatic walked with no
+uncertain step. As he passed the Bishop's door the chaplain's heart gave
+a bound of relief. He stopped at Mr. Percy's door, and tapped gently.
+The light in the room was turned on, and the door opened by Mr. Percy
+himself. Mr. Kassala entered, and the door closed noiselessly behind
+him.
+
+For some minutes Mr. Jones stared at the door in blank amazement. Then
+he turned round, and walked slowly back to his own room. In times of
+great perplexity he was accustomed to look for guidance to Mr. Paley's
+"Evidences." Mechanically he now took down the well-thumbed volume from
+its shelf, and opened it. He sat for many hours staring at the print
+without ever turning the page.
+
+"Where is Mr. Kassala?" were the Bishop's first words on entering the
+breakfast-room the next morning. Although his lordship had betrayed no
+consciousness of his existence Mr. Jones felt that the inquiry was
+levelled at him.
+
+"I do not know, my lord," he answered.
+
+"John," said the Bishop to his butler, "will you inform Mr. Kassala that
+breakfast is on the table?"
+
+In a few minutes John returned with the information that Mr. Kassala's
+room was empty, that his bed had not been slept in, and that nobody had
+seen him that morning.
+
+"This is very singular," said his lordship. Then, after a pause, "One
+hardly likes to say so, but I must confess my confidence in the _bona
+fides_ of Mr. Kassala has been shaken. You spoke about burglars last
+night, Marmaduke, in reference to my crozier, which seemed to have a
+peculiar attraction for Mr. Kassala. I hope it is safe."
+
+"I put the case on the top of my wardrobe last night, and it was there
+five minutes ago," said Mr. Percy.
+
+"I wonder what his object could be in coming here, and then leaving us
+in this extraordinary manner. Perhaps you can throw some light on that
+very peculiar incident in the middle of the night, Mr. Jones?"
+
+"I heard a noise, my lord, and followed Mr. Kassala to see what he was
+doing. I haven't the faintest idea why he went into your room, unless it
+really was, as he said, that he had mistaken it for Mr. Percy's."
+
+"But what should he want with Mr. Percy?" asked Mrs. Dacre.
+
+"Perhaps Mr. Percy will answer that?" said the chaplain, with much
+meaning in his voice.
+
+Mr. Percy fixed the eyeglass and looked coolly at the chaplain. "How on
+earth should I know, Jones?" he said. With this oracular remark he
+returned to his egg.
+
+The chaplain was bursting with indignation at Mr. Percy's concealment of
+his midnight interview with Mr. Kassala. He longed to expose him, but
+shrank from the necessity of a painful scene.
+
+"Mildred," said Mrs. Dacre suddenly, "let us look through the
+drawing-room silver at once. I hope the equestrian statuette of your
+father is safe."
+
+While the ladies were ticking off their household gods, Mr. Percy went
+to his room to pack, and Mr. Jones followed.
+
+"May I have his lordship's crozier?" asked the chaplain.
+
+"Certainly. Here you are. But you do look unhappy, Jones! Whatever is
+the matter?"
+
+Mr. Jones took the case without replying. "The key was in the lock last
+night," he remarked.
+
+"Was it? Then it must have dropped out somewhere. Perhaps it's on the
+floor." But it did not seem to be there, although both Mr. Percy and the
+chaplain looked very carefully for it.
+
+"Never mind," said the former, after five minutes' fruitless search. "It
+will probably turn up after I've gone. Remember, that I'll be
+responsible for any damage."
+
+The chaplain was very pale. "Mr. Percy," he said, "I know of your
+midnight interview with Mr. Kassala."
+
+Once more Mr. Percy fixed his monocle. "Do you, old man?" he replied.
+"Then I won't be the one to get you into trouble over it. You may rely
+on me. If you don't say anything, I shan't. Now good-bye. It'll take me
+all my time to get my things together. My man's ill, and I'm out of
+practice."
+
+Mr. Jones left the room more bewildered than ever. His lordship, after
+leaving stringent instructions regarding Mr. Kassala, should he again
+appear, went by the noon train to town with Mr. Percy.
+
+Mr. Jones appeared singularly distracted that day, and Miss Dacre gazed
+at him with much concern. He spent the evening alone with Paley, and
+about eleven o'clock, with firm determination on his face, he forced the
+lock of the crozier case. His worst fears were realised. In place of the
+crozier of ebony, gold, and jewels, the present of the ladies of the
+county, there reposed in the purple velvet lining a common bedroom
+poker!
+
+At that very moment the Bishop of Bister's crozier lay on the table of a
+London mansion. Twelve men were gathered round it, complimenting their
+host upon it. Their host, by the way, was lately his Majesty's Secretary
+of State for Egypt. He was now attired in a long blue cassock-like garb,
+such as Asiatic priests may wear.
+
+"By the burglary of the Bishop of Bister's crozier Lord Ribston's
+subscription has been paid for the next two years," said one of the men,
+making a cypher note in a book.
+
+"Hear, hear! Bravo! Good for the Ribston Pippin!" was the general
+chorus.
+
+"Gentlemen," said the man in the priestly garb, rising to his feet
+amidst applause, "I am proud once more to have been able to fulfil the
+mandate of our Club. With your permission, I will now pack up the bauble
+so that it may be returned by the midnight express in order to ease the
+mind of a most worthy man, his lordship's chaplain. But before I do so I
+wish to propose a new member--Mr. Marmaduke Percy. You will recollect
+that his name was brought forward twelve months or so ago, but he was
+not considered equal to the demands that are occasionally made upon the
+members of this honourable fraternity. I have reason to believe that we
+did Mr. Percy an injustice. Yesterday, at any rate, he saw through my
+disguise, and divined my purpose. He could easily have betrayed me. But
+he behaved in a sportsmanlike way, and for that reason I now propose
+that he should become one of us. Major Armytage is seconding. You will
+have an opportunity of voting for Mr. Percy at our next meeting. Is
+there any further business before us, Mr. Secretary?"
+
+The Secretary consulted his book. "I note that Mr. Danby Travers'
+subscription is due," he said.
+
+"Good old Danby! Pile it on! Make it thick enough!" was the varied cry.
+
+"Gentlemen," said the Secretary, "we meet on Tuesday next, and Mr. Danby
+Travers will then be asked for the Black Pearl of Agni, the property of
+the Illingworths."
+
+
+
+
+III.
+
+THE LUCK OF THE ILLINGWORTHS.
+
+
+DANBY TRAVERS was annoyed. He was one of the founders of the Burglars'
+Club. His entrance fee had been the temporary abstraction from the Crown
+Jewels of the Koh-i-noor itself. Two years ago he had kept up his
+membership by the burglary of the Duchess of Guiseley's emeralds; and
+now, by the unkindness of Fate or the simple cussedness of his
+committee, he could only renew his subscription by purloining the Black
+Pearl of Agni. It showed the folly of becoming the champion jewel
+burglar of the club.
+
+Of course it was pure coincidence, for only four people knew that he was
+in love with Mary Illingworth. Mary knew it, because he had told her;
+Lord and Lady Illingworth, because they had been fatuously consulted in
+the matter; and he, Danby Travers, because of a stuffy, despairing
+feeling somewhere in his chest from the moment of awakening in the
+morning down to the last gleam of consciousness at night. But the
+Burglars' Club did not know it, nor did they know that Lord Illingworth
+had told him that in future he was not to cross the baronial threshold;
+and all because, despite his brilliant record in India and at
+Hurlingham, he, Danby Travers, was as poor as a chapel mouse.
+
+Therefore he received the mandate of the club with something less than
+his usual urbanity. But reflection brought a Mephistophelean suggestion
+of comfort. He had been unable to rob Lord Illingworth of his fairest
+daughter. He would at any rate purloin his most valued jewel.
+
+The Black Pearl of Agni was world-renowned. During the military
+operations in the Western Deccan in 1803 it had been looted by a certain
+Major Illingworth, of the Bengal Native Infantry, from a rich temple
+dedicated to the Hindoo God of Fire. From that day his fortunes had
+prospered amazingly. Promotion came for the asking; wealth by marriage
+and bequest. Influence, social and political, had followed, and a title.
+Succeeding generations had added to the score. Two descendants of the
+sepoy major had attained Cabinet rank, and the present peer had won the
+Derby. The Luck of the Illingworths had become proverbial.
+
+[Illustration: "SHE . . . HAD SHOWN HIM THE SECRET OF ITS HIDING-PLACE."
+
+(_p. 40._)]
+
+The jewel was kept at Knowlesworth. Travers knew the place well. He had
+spent a fortnight there, and there he had made love to Mary Illingworth.
+She had shown him the Pearl; and, because he was to be her husband, had
+shown him the secret of its hiding-place. Little did he think at the
+time that the next occasion on which he entered that room would be as a
+burglar--an amateur one, it is true, but still a burglar.
+
+No wonder that Danby Travers was annoyed. The only justification for his
+conduct that he could think of was that the temporary loss of the Pearl
+would probably have a beneficial effect on Lord Illingworth's character.
+
+He had received the secretary's intimation on the Friday morning. He had
+to show the Pearl at the next meeting of the club--on the following
+Tuesday night. That gave him four days for the business.
+
+Knowlesworth was sure to be full of visitors, for Lord Illingworth had
+succeeded a late Master of Balliol in entertaining the most
+distinguished week-end parties in the country. Travers turned to the
+_Post_, certain to find the list. Ah! here it was:
+
+"Lord and Lady Illingworth are having a large party at Knowlesworth,
+entertaining the Bohemian Ambassador and Countess Polsky, the Duke of
+Strathpeffer, the Marquess and Marchioness of Bridlington, the Dean of
+Penzance, Professor Rawson, and others."
+
+"What a crew!" thought Travers. "Wouldn't Strathpeffer be pleased if I
+came a cropper! I wonder he can go there after Mary's last refusal. I'll
+wait till they thin a bit. Some are sure to go on Monday, so Monday
+night is my best time for the job. Now for Bradshaw."
+
+On the following Monday night, Travers took a second-class ticket at
+Charing Cross in order to minimise the chance of running against
+friends. From sheer curiosity he chose a compartment in which two
+singular-looking men were already seated. The weather was by no means
+cold, yet they were swathed in winter clothing. Thick mufflers were
+round their necks. Their faces were partly hidden by the wraps, and
+partly shaded by the broad brims of silk hats built about the time of
+the Crimean War. But their race was unmistakable--to Travers at least.
+They were Hindoos--the tall one probably a man of caste, the podgy
+person possibly a Baboo.
+
+In his interest at coming across these strange people Travers forgot his
+ultimate objective. He settled himself in his corner, prepared either to
+join in conversation with, or merely to watch, his quaint
+fellow-travellers.
+
+On his entrance they had turned their eyes upon him, but they had
+resumed their conversation. As the train got on its way they raised
+their voices, and, confident of not being understood, they spoke with
+absolute unrestraint. Travers, with knowledge derived from ten years'
+service in the Madras and Indian Staff Corps, was easily able to follow
+their talk.
+
+"At last," said the tall man, as the train moved out of the station.
+
+"At last," repeated the other. "Buck up. Now is the conclusion of your
+spacious quest."
+
+"Say rather the beginning. So far it has been easy, despite the horror
+of mingling with these barbarians. To lose caste was foreseen, but now
+we enter upon the unknown."
+
+"Nevertheless, I take the liberty of emphasising the necessity of
+bucking up. To-morrow you will be a thrice happy man, and I will weave a
+garland of marigolds for your honourable head. Gosh!" This as the train
+entered a tunnel with a hideous shriek. "It is a taste of the
+underworld," he added.
+
+The tall man shuddered, and remained silent. As the train emerged his
+companion gave a very creditable imitation of the whistle and the
+tunnel.
+
+The tall man smiled sadly.
+
+"Ramma Lal," he said, "I envy you your merry disposition. It was in a
+good moment that I met thee in Bombay, _baboo-jee_. You have served me
+well in guiding me hither, and in enlivening me on the long journey."
+
+"Your honour is pleased to be excessively gracious," said the Baboo with
+absurd complacency. "Indeed, my tip-top spirits have been of much
+service to myself and many other honourable gentlemen, and have been
+extraordinarily admired by English ladies." He pulled out his watch. "In
+the space of half an hour we shall have arrived at our long-intended
+destination."
+
+"So soon? Show me the plan again to refresh my memory."
+
+The Baboo produced a piece of paper, over which they bent their heads.
+
+"Here is the railway station at which we shall dismount. This pink
+streak is the highway-road along which we shall travel, eventually
+reaching the big brass gates belonging to ancestral home. A little
+beyond is a diminutive wall, which we ascend and descend. Then we step
+across the park and round the lake. Here and here. This sepia mark is
+water. Now we are in the pleasure garden. This is the hinder part of the
+house. Here is the right wing. The fifth window in the second row. That
+is your bull's eye."
+
+"Go on," said his companion, gloomily.
+
+"Your honour will divest yourself of polished hat and other garments,
+which you will transfer to my care in summer house. Here, behold it,
+painted in vermilion. You will climb up to the window. Inferior but
+friendly servant has arranged that it shall open easily. Once in the
+room the deed is as good as accomplished. You know the hiding-place of
+the jewel."
+
+Travers started. "The hiding-place of the jewel!"
+
+"Yes," said the gloomy Hindoo; "I know it. But Krishna Bürkut knew it
+twenty-five years ago, and the Swâmi Râm Nâth knew it fifty years ago,
+and yet another Swâmi seventy-five years ago, but none of these restored
+it to the Temple of Agni. All failed in their quest, and never regained
+their caste. I too shall fail."
+
+"Allow me to have the felicity of indicating at least one point of
+difference between your honour and gentlemen mentioned," replied the
+Baboo. "Your honour has intelligent assistant, while enumerated
+catalogue had not. Have the kindness to point out fly in our ointment.
+It is distinguished by its absence. The jewel is yours."
+
+"Perish the jewel!" cried the other Hindoo in a sudden outburst of fury.
+"Why couldn't the _Huzoor_ have left it alone, or have taken another
+jewel? Why should he have singled out the one above all others necessary
+to the happiness of Agni? And why should I, of all the priests of the
+Temple, be chosen to restore the sacred stone? Here, with five thousand
+miles of space between us, I declare to you, Ramma Lal, I do not fear
+the wrath of Agni. I call him humbug. I read Shakespeare. I write him an
+ass. I am doubtful even of Vishnu and Siva."
+
+Travers paid no attention to Ramma Lal's reproachful reply. He was lost
+in amazement. Here, on the very night he had chosen for purloining the
+jewel, two other men were on the same errand. Stop. There was a reason
+for their date. They had mentioned twenty-five, fifty, and seventy-five
+years. It was evidently an anniversary. Every twenty-five years an
+attempt had to be made to restore the jewel to the Temple of Agni. Three
+attempts had already been made in vain, and now, on the hundredth
+anniversary of the theft by Major Illingworth, another attempt was in
+progress.
+
+At any rate, he was forewarned. The house was a mile and a half away
+from the station by the main road on which the Hindoos were going. He
+knew a cut across the fields which shortened the distance by half a
+mile. He would gain ten minutes. In that ten minutes he had to obtain
+the Pearl.
+
+The train pulled up at Knowlesworth station. The two Hindoos stepped
+out. Travers followed. He watched them start along the road; then he
+briskly cut across country.
+
+The church clock struck eight as he reached the terrace in front of the
+hall. From the beginning he had matured only one plan of campaign. He
+knew the rules of the house, and he would take advantage of them. From
+eight to nine the men-servants were busy in the dining-room. Anyone
+could open the main outer door and enter. He might, of course, be seen,
+and in this eventuality Travers relied upon his being known to allay
+suspicion. He was in evening dress, and temporarily, at any rate, would
+strike a servant as being one of the guests.
+
+The nominal dinner-hour was eight. It had been his intention to enter at
+8.20 in order to allow for any delay either on the part of the kitchen
+or the guests. Dinners at Knowlesworth were notoriously unpunctual, and
+if he entered now he might run into the house party or meet stragglers
+on the stairs. He must wait. But the Hindoos were marching down the
+road. Each instant brought them nearer. In ten--no, in eight
+minutes--they would be in the garden. Yet he dare not enter.
+
+He waited impatiently in the shadow of the great portico. It was now
+8.10. He would make an attempt.
+
+He slowly pushed back the heavy door, and entered the vestibule. This
+was cut off from the hall by big glass doors, and then by heavy
+curtains. Still more carefully he opened the inner door, and then
+quickly closed it again. Through the opening had come the sound of
+voices and laughter. They were gathered in the hall before the fire,
+waiting for the summons to dinner. So there he stayed, cursing the
+unpunctuality of the house, and unquietly reflecting that a casual
+remark as to the present state of the weather might lead to the glass
+door being opened and himself ignominiously disclosed.
+
+And Mary would witness his humiliation. Nay, she might even be the
+innocent cause of it. She was within half a dozen yards of him now,
+separated only by some glass and a curtain. Yet he could not speak to
+her--could not even see her. Ah! that was her laugh. And that
+Strathpeffer's raucous voice. Hang Strathpeffer!
+
+It was now 8.15. The Hindoos were in the garden. The situation was
+distracting. At any moment they might enter the Temple room.
+
+Ah! there was the sound of movement within. The guests trooped past the
+door. Their voices died away. All was still.
+
+It was nineteen minutes past eight. Travers hesitated no longer. He
+unbuttoned his top-coat, and, with cap in hand as though he were a guest
+just come in from a stroll before dinner, he opened the hall door.
+
+No one was in sight. He crossed the hall, and stepped lightly up the
+stairs. At their head he passed a maid. She certainly took him for a
+guest.
+
+He went straight down the great corridor, and then branched to the left.
+It was the third door ahead. He pulled back the panel as Mary had shown
+him, undid the bolt from within, and entered. The room was in darkness.
+He struck a light, half expecting to find the Hindoo disclosed. No, he
+was alone, and the Pearl still there.
+
+It was a room without furniture. In the centre was a replica of the
+great idol of Agni at the temple from which the Pearl had been looted.
+The god sat there, smug, cross-legged, and hideous. The eyes fascinated
+the beholder. The left one was of marble; the right made of a stone
+worth a prince's ransom--the one known throughout the world as the Black
+Pearl of Agni. At the god's knees, their holders resting on the floor,
+were two gigantic candles. Travers lit them.
+
+[Illustration: "A CRY OF DESPAIR ESCAPED HIM."
+
+(_p. 51._)]
+
+Then he stepped quickly to the idol, and sought the left hand of the
+god. He pressed the nail of the fourth finger. The god's right eyelid
+lifted, and the complete stone was disclosed. Travers quickly abstracted
+it, released the lid, and put the Pearl in his pocket.
+
+His object was accomplished. But what was that? Listen.
+
+There was a sound at the window. The Hindoo was there--beaten by half a
+minute.
+
+Travers turned to the door. Then, impelled by an overpowering curiosity
+to see the end of the drama, he slipped to another window, and got
+behind the curtain.
+
+There was a faint whistle from below. Hang it, what a fool he'd been!
+The Baboo had seen the momentary disarrangement of the curtain, and had
+observed his figure against the light, and now he was alarming his
+friend. But the latter heeded not. Perhaps he was too excited to
+understand, or even to hear him.
+
+The sash was raised, the curtain pulled back, and the Hindoo stepped
+into the room. He was almost naked, and his bare limbs shone with a
+coating of oil. He took one step forward, and looked up eagerly into the
+idol's face. Then a cry of despair escaped him. The stone for which he
+had travelled five thousand miles was not there. He had lost his caste.
+It could never be regained, since he had failed in his quest. Never
+again could he see his native land. Under the crushing blow he sank, a
+comatose heap, on the floor.
+
+The minutes passed, and Travers shifted uneasily behind the curtain.
+There were sounds from the garden--then approaching footsteps in the
+corridor. The door was flung open, and Lord Illingworth burst into the
+room, revolver in hand. The Duke of Strathpeffer followed with other
+guests, and some footmen. The Hindoo stared dully at them, but did not
+move. He was promptly seized.
+
+"The Pearl--where is it?" demanded Lord Illingworth.
+
+The Hindoo did not reply.
+
+Lord Illingworth pointed to the empty socket, and repeated the question,
+but the Hindoo merely shook his head.
+
+"Search him," said Lord Illingworth.
+
+He was searched, but, of course, nothing was found.
+
+Lord Illingworth stood over him.
+
+"Where is the Pearl?" he thundered, but again the Hindoo shook his head.
+
+"Bring in the other man," said Lord Illingworth.
+
+The Baboo entered, limp and crestfallen, in charge of two stablemen. A
+boy carried a silk hat and some winter clothing.
+
+"Ask him what he has done with the Pearl," said the peer.
+
+Ramma Lal put the question.
+
+"I have not got it. It was not here when I came."
+
+The Baboo repeated this to Lord Illingworth.
+
+"It is a lie," he replied. "It was here an hour ago. I saw it myself."
+
+"The _sahib_ knows that thou liest," said Ramma Lal to his friend. "Tell
+him a finer tale."
+
+But the Hindoo only protested his innocence.
+
+"What does he say?" demanded Lord Illingworth.
+
+"He says," replied the facile Baboo, "that no sooner had he taken the
+Pearl than there was the flash of fire and much smoke. When it cleared
+away the stone had vanished. Doubtless Agni the god had come for his
+own."
+
+Lord Illingworth blazed with fury.
+
+"He has swallowed it," he said. "We shall have to cut him open."
+
+Ramma Lal translated this terrific threat. The Hindoo gave a yell.
+Despair lent him strength. With a serpentine twist he slid from the
+grasp of one of his captors and knocked up the arm of the other. The
+window was still open. He sprang through it into the darkness of the
+night.
+
+Lord Illingworth ran to the window, fired blindly, and then rushed from
+the room. The others followed. Only the Baboo, his two captors, and the
+boy with the clothes remained.
+
+"Come along," said one of the grooms.
+
+"Stay for one moment, I beseech you," said Ramma Lal, "and let me
+worship Agni the god."
+
+"None of yer blarney," returned the man. But the other, who was of a
+romantic temperament, said, "Wot's the odds? Let the heathen do it if he
+wants."
+
+"You see, gentlemen," said the Baboo eagerly, "it is my very last
+opportunity. I shall be lifelong imprisoned for the inauspicious event
+of this evening. It is positively my last appearance in the open. Let me
+worship Agni as I do in my own land. No Englishman has yet witnessed the
+entire ceremony. It shall not take long. I will compress my
+supplications. Five minutes will be ample dispensation."
+
+The grooms looked at each other. Their curiosity settled the matter.
+
+"We'll give you four minutes, so look sharp," said one.
+
+"Thank you," replied Ramma Lal gratefully. "Agni will bless you for your
+beneficence."
+
+The men released their hold. One closed the window, the other shut the
+door, and placed himself before it.
+
+Ramma Lal took off his silk hat, muffler, and coat. He advanced to the
+idol and salaamed low three times. Then he raised his eyes and sang.
+
+Travers knew the song. It was a ribald ditty of the bazaars, and it had
+as much to do with the worship of Agni as with the laws of gravitation.
+
+He watched the Baboo with increasing interest. He had evidently some
+ulterior object in view, but what was it? Ah!
+
+Ramma Lal had gradually approached the idol. Still singing, he had bowed
+his head till it had almost touched Agni's knees. Travers hardly saw the
+movement of the hands. Only an Oriental could have done it so swiftly.
+The two candles were suddenly extinguished, and the room was in absolute
+darkness.
+
+With loud imprecations the two grooms rushed to where the Baboo had
+been--to collide with each other, and incidentally bring down the huge
+candlesticks. Then recovering, they dashed about the room in search of
+their prisoner, only to seize the boy who had the clothes. Finally one
+of them struck a light.
+
+They were alone with the boy. The window was again wide open.
+
+The men leaned out. There was no moon. The lights of the searchers
+flashed in the distance. They turned blankly to each other.
+
+"There'll be pop to pay for this," said the boy, who was still suffering
+from rough usage in the dark. "You'll both jolly well get sacked."
+
+"All your blamed fault for lis'nin' to his tommy rot," said the one man
+savagely to his companion.
+
+"Who'd have thought he was so cunnin'?" rejoined the other. "Wot's the
+good of talkin' here? Come out an' look for him. He may have broke his
+neck," he added hopefully.
+
+Again the lights flashed in the garden, and then gradually extended
+beyond. Travers waited until he was sure there was no one below. Then he
+emerged from his recess, and followed the Indians through the window.
+Leaving the park to the searchers, he kept to the main avenue, and soon
+gained the high road. A ten-mile walk brought him to Dorton junction,
+where he just missed the last train to town.
+
+The sun was high when Danby Travers reached his rooms, and it was late
+in the afternoon when he awoke. The morning papers and his letters were
+at his bedside. He at once opened one of the former, curious to see if
+there was any reference to the events of the previous night.
+
+Good heavens! What was this?
+
+      "BURGLARY AND FIRE AT KNOWLESWORTH.
+
+      THE ILLINGWORTH PEARL STOLEN.
+
+      THE HALL GUTTED.
+
+      "Knowlesworth Hall, the historic seat of the
+      Illingworths, was last night the scene of two
+      extraordinary events.
+
+      "Lord and Lady Illingworth were entertaining one of
+      their famous week-end parties at dinner when a daring
+      and successful attempt was made to steal the
+      celebrated Pearl of Agni, the largest known black
+      pearl in the world.
+
+      "A native Indian was found in a summer house in the
+      Italian garden by a servant. As several determined
+      attempts to steal the Pearl had already been made, the
+      safety of this remarkable jewel was at once called
+      into question. Lord Illingworth and his guests hurried
+      to the Temple room, where the great Pearl was kept,
+      and there found another native, who was promptly
+      secured. The Pearl was missing, and the strictest
+      search failed to bring it to light. It is believed
+      that the thief has swallowed it, a fact which it is to
+      be hoped that the X-rays will be able to demonstrate.
+
+      "Owing to gross mismanagement somewhere, the two
+      natives escaped from custody, and it was midnight
+      before they were again apprehended--one of them at
+      Dorton, in a state of collapse from fear and cold; the
+      other at Lingfield, defiant, but suffering from a
+      sprained ankle. They will be brought up to-morrow at
+      the Dorton Petty Sessions.
+
+      "Scarcely had Lord Illingworth and his guests retired
+      to rest after an exciting evening than they were again
+      alarmed, this time by an outbreak of fire in the
+      Temple room. Its cause is unknown, but the flames,
+      assisted by a high wind, spread with extraordinary
+      rapidity, in spite of the prompt measures taken by the
+      Hall fire brigade. Engines quickly arrived from
+      Lingfield and Dorton, but the supply of water was
+      totally inadequate, and it soon became evident that
+      the whole structure was doomed. At the moment of
+      telegraphing, the fire was raging furiously, but all
+      sleeping in the house had been rescued without injury.
+
+      "In one night Lord Illingworth has lost his great
+      family jewel and his ancestral seat. The 'Luck of the
+      Illingworths' seems to have deserted him.
+
+      "It is a remarkable coincidence that a fire consumed
+      the Hindu Temple of Agni the night that the Pearl was
+      taken from it by Major Illingworth in 1803.
+
+      "Agni is the Hindu God of Fire."
+
+"Thank Heaven, Mary's safe!" ejaculated Travers. "I hope she hasn't had
+a great fright." Then, after a pause, "And Ramma Lal caught, after all!
+He deserved a better fate. What an uncommon good thing I got the Pearl!
+If I hadn't taken it, the Indians would have been well on the way to
+Bombay with it by now, and if neither of us had taken it, the stone
+might have been burnt up. Would it, though? There mightn't have been a
+fire at all. Rummy notion that Agni should blaze the whole show in
+revenge for my desecration! It shan't interfere with my feelings of
+satisfaction. I'm a public benefactor--an Illingworth benefactor,
+anyway. I shall explain this to my lord at an early date. Hullo, what's
+this? A lawyer's letter. I can tell 'em by the smell. What's he
+threatenin' this time?"
+
+But it wasn't a threat. It was simply an intimation that under the will
+of Colonel Thomas Archer, a distant relative lately deceased, he, Danby
+Travers, succeeded to the whole estate, a bequest made "on account of
+intrepidity shown in the recent Iráwadi campaign." The income therefrom,
+the solicitor added, was estimated at about £3,000 per annum, and he
+would be pleased to have an expression of Mr. Danby Travers's wishes
+with respect to the same.
+
+£3,000 a year! Travers jumped out of bed and executed a series of
+gyrations. £3,000 a year! That meant Mary. But did it? It was a fortune
+to him, but how would Lord Illingworth view it? Well, if he didn't like
+it he needn't. Mary and he were now independent of everybody.
+
+He made his way to the Burglars' meeting in a blur of happiness. He was
+rather late. Other men were there already, and they one and all
+congratulated him.
+
+"Aren't you rather premature?" he asked. "You haven't seen the Pearl
+yet."
+
+"Bother the Pearl," said Altamont. "We mean the title."
+
+"What the deuce are you drivin' at?"
+
+"Haven't you seen the papers?"
+
+"Crowds of 'em, and lawyers' letters too. My head's buzzin' with 'em.
+What is it this time?"
+
+"Your cousin tumbled down some stone steps in Vienna last night, and you
+are Lord Travers now--that's all!"
+
+Danby sat down. This final stroke of fortune was too much for him.
+
+"I can't say I'm sorry," he blurted at length. "Bertram wouldn't have
+been sorry if it had been me. And I'm glad about the title because
+of----. Here, I say, you fellows, what's come over the world since last
+night?"
+
+"The Black Pearl of the Illingworths has changed hands, we hope," said
+the Secretary, who wanted to start the business of the evening.
+
+"The Black Pearl has, and the Luck of the Illingworths went with it.
+They've had a fire, and I've got a bequest and a title. Perhaps you
+fellows'll be more superstitious in future. That's what brought my luck,
+anyway." Saying which, he produced the Black Pearl of Agni.
+
+To his unbounded joy and immense surprise Lord Illingworth received the
+missing stone from London during the course of the next day.
+
+The Indians had been remanded for a week, pending further inquiries, and
+as they had obviously not stolen the jewel after all, Lord Illingworth
+declined to prosecute, and they were released from custody. An unknown
+friend interested himself in the natives. One of them, a Baboo, was sent
+back to Bombay by an early steamer. The other, who refused to return to
+India, thanks to the same unknown benefactor, was put in the way of
+earning his living by teaching Hindustani. He has since gone over to the
+Mohammedan faith.
+
+With repossession of the Pearl, good fortune came once more to the
+Illingworths. In making excavations consequent on rebuilding the Hall, a
+coal seam was discovered, which eventually doubled the family wealth.
+
+The Black Pearl of Agni is now protected from burglars by many quaint
+electrical conceits. When the next anniversary comes round any Indian
+visitors will have a very lively time of it.
+
+Later on in the year a marriage took place between Mary, younger
+daughter of Lord and Lady Illingworth, and Danby, ninth Baron Travers, a
+nobleman who had been mentioned in despatches in the Iráwadi campaign,
+and who was not unknown at Hurlingham. His clubs were the Marlborough,
+Brooks's, and the Burglars'.
+
+
+
+
+IV.
+
+THE FELLMONGERS' GOBLET.
+
+
+"MR. SEPTIMUS TOFT,--Sir," the letter ran. "The 'tecs are on the scent.
+If you want any further information meet me at the Blue Lion, Monument,
+at nine-thirty to-morrow evening without fail.--Yours, etc., J. DRIVER."
+
+Mr. Toft stared at the letter with much disgust and more alarm. It was
+certainly a regrettable communication for a commercial magnate, a
+magistrate, and a pillar of society to be obliged to attend to. It would
+have troubled him had it come before Bowker had absconded, but now it
+was much worse. Bowker would have shared the anxiety, and interviewed
+"J. Driver." He could have guessed on what particular scent the
+detectives were engaged, and his fertile ingenuity would have suggested
+an obvious way of circumventing them, whereas Mr. Toft's unaided vision
+saw none.
+
+"Nine-thirty to-morrow evening." Mr. Toft smiled feebly at the humour of
+the situation. To-morrow evening at eight o'clock he was advertised to
+take the chair at a Young Men's Mutual Improvement meeting, and the
+gentleman who was to deliver the evening's lecture occupied the post of
+his Majesty's Solicitor-General. "He will probably have to prosecute me
+on behalf of the Crown," thought Toft; so he determined to propitiate
+him by special attention to his discourse and by frequent applause.
+
+On the following evening Mr. Toft made his way to the Blue Lion. The
+lecture had not been a success as far as he was concerned. Try as he
+might, he could not concentrate his thoughts on the subject. He had
+applauded at wrong places. Once a titter from the audience had resulted,
+and the Solicitor-General had turned on him a look of pained surprise.
+In the agony of the moment he had pulled the table-cloth, and the glass
+of water thereon had upset, incidentally splashing the lecturer. The
+titter developed into a laugh, through which a legal glare had petrified
+him.
+
+At nine o'clock the lecture was over. The Solicitor-General listened in
+silence to Mr. Toft's apologies, and then bowed coldly. Mr. Toft felt
+that he was lost indeed if it came to the Law Courts, and hurried away
+to his appointment in a state of feverish anxiety. He had come to the
+lecture in a soft wide-awake hat and the oldest top-coat in his
+wardrobe. He now donned a woollen muffler, and put on a pair of smoked
+glass spectacles. This was his idea of disguise. It was simple, but
+ineffective; for the highly-respectable mutton-chop whiskers, the weak
+mouth, and cut-away chin were as noticeable as ever. His most casual
+acquaintance would have recognised him, and would merely have concluded
+that he was engaged in something disreputable.
+
+At the Monument he dismissed his cab, and made his way to the Blue Lion
+Inn. It was a fifth-rate house in a fourth-rate street. Mr. Toft had
+never been in such an unpleasant place in his life, and he groaned as he
+thought that the exigences of commerce had driven him there in his old
+age without even the excuse of foreign competition.
+
+It was 9.45 when he entered the inn, and he hoped that the quarter-hour
+he was late would impress J. Driver with the conviction that he, Toft,
+was not at all particular about keeping the appointment. Apparently it
+did strike Mr. Driver in this way, for as the be-muffled and
+be-spectacled gentleman in the soft hat entered the tap-room a sarcastic
+voice loudly expressed the hope that he hadn't permanently injured his
+constitution by running. Mr. Toft was grieved at the publicity given to
+this remark. He sat down by the speaker, and murmured excuses; but Mr.
+Driver, if it were he, would have none of them. "When I says 9.30 I mean
+9.30, and not 9.50, nor 9.60, nor yet 9.70. If my time won't suit you,
+yours won't suit me. I'm off," he said.
+
+Mr. Toft was alarmed. "Sit down, please," he said, clutching the rising
+figure. "I'm sure I'm very sorry. I had made an engagement before your
+letter came, and I couldn't very well put it off. What will you have to
+drink?" he added adroitly.
+
+"Gin and bitters," was the prompt response, and Mr. Driver sat down.
+
+Mr. Toft now had leisure to take stock of his surroundings. J. Driver
+was a dark-haired man with a bold, clean-shaven chin. His voice was deep
+and emphatic, and his eye was piercing. He was broad and muscular, and
+would probably be a good boxer, thought Mr. Toft. He glanced at the
+drinkers at the other tables, but finding their eyes were fixed stolidly
+on him he looked elsewhere. He had noticed eyes and noses--that was all.
+
+"Now to business," said Mr. Driver. "You know my name, and I know yours.
+That's where we're equal. You're in a beastly hole, and I aren't. That's
+where the difference comes in."
+
+"I don't understand," said Mr. Toft. "In fact, I haven't the faintest
+idea what you are alluding to."
+
+"Garn," said J. Driver, with a dig in the ribs that made him jump.
+"Garn! you old dodger. What about Government contracts?"
+
+"What about them?" asked Mr. Toft, shrinking from his familiarity.
+
+"What about them?" echoed the other. "What about work you never did, for
+which you've got false receipts? What about contracts executed with
+inferior stuff? What about commissions to officials, tips to men, and
+plunder all round?"
+
+Mr. Toft paled at this catalogue of his business achievements. "You are
+misinformed," he said. "My firm does not do such things."
+
+J. Driver thrust his tongue into his cheek. "Then how did you get your
+contracts, Septimus?" he asked.
+
+"By honest competition in the open market," replied Mr. Toft loftily.
+
+Mr. Driver laughed derisively. "Lord!" he said at last, "I wish I had
+your artless style. Stick to it, Mister, in the prisoner's dock. It may
+pull you through."
+
+"I presume you haven't asked me here simply for the purpose of insulting
+me?" said Mr. Toft, with some dignity.
+
+"What a man you are!" Mr. Driver replied, with unstinted admiration.
+"You must be a thought-reader, Septimus--a bloomin' thought-reader.
+You're quite right; I haven't. I've come for the loan of a key, and one
+of your visitin' cards."
+
+"A key?" said Mr. Toft, relieved, though much surprised.
+
+"The key of the plate chest of the Fellmongers' Company."
+
+Mr. Toft raised his eyebrows. "You're joking," he said.
+
+"Do I look like a joker?" replied his companion fiercely. "Do I look
+like a joker?" he repeated loudly, banging his fist on the table so that
+all turned their eyes in the direction of the noise. Mr. Toft implored
+him to restrain his feelings.
+
+"Don't rouse 'em then!" said the man. "Have you got the key on you?"
+
+"Er--yes," responded Mr. Toft.
+
+"Then hand it over."
+
+"My dear sir," began the unhappy Septimus.
+
+"I'm not your dear anything," said the other; "so don't you pretend that
+I am. I'm as meek and pleasant as a cow to those that treat me fair and
+square, but when I'm irritated I'm a roarin' bull. Hand me the key."
+
+"I can't."
+
+"You can't. Right'o!" said Mr. Driver, rising. "At present the Admiralty
+only suspect. To-morrow they'll know, and you'll know too, Septimus
+Toft, when you get five years without the option of a fine."
+
+"Please, please don't speak so loudly," begged Mr. Toft, beside himself
+with fears and anxieties. Then, to put on time whilst he collected his
+scattering thoughts, "What do you want to do with the key?"
+
+"Wear it with my medals, of course," said the man sarcastically. "If you
+want further pertic'lers you won't get 'em, but I promise to return the
+key within forty-eight hours, and all your plate'll be there."
+
+"It's a very extraordinary idea," said Mr. Toft incredulously.
+
+"It is; and I'm a very extraordinary man, and you're a bloomin' ordinary
+one. Will you let me have the key and a visitin' card, or not?"
+
+"If anyone asks how you got them what will you say?"
+
+"Say I took 'em from you while you were asleep in an opium den, or when
+we met in a tunnel--any blessed thing you like."
+
+Mr. Toft scarcely heard him. He was thinking over the pros and cons of
+the situation as rapidly as his nervous system would allow. He was
+Treasurer of the Fellmongers' Company, and he alone had the key of the
+plate safe. In the ordinary course of events he would be elected Prime
+Warden next year, but if there were any trouble about the plate he might
+not be. Better that, though, than a public exposure of his business
+methods. The key might have been stolen from him. Everyone lost keys now
+and then. Of course no one could think that the theft was to his
+advantage, and it would save him from all bother at the Admiralty--but
+would it?
+
+"If I let you have the key," he asked, "how do I know that you won't
+come in a similar way again?"
+
+"Give it up," said Mr. Driver. "Never was good at riddles, and I didn't
+come here to be asked 'em neither. What the blazes do I care about what
+you'll know or what you won't know? I know what I know, and that's
+enough to account for your hair bein' so thin on top. If you don't hand
+me that key without any more rottin' I'll just drop this in the first
+pillar-box I come across." He pulled out a fat blue envelope and
+flourished it in front of Mr. Toft's blinking eyes. It was addressed to
+the Financial Secretary of the Admiralty, and was marked on one side
+"Important," and on the other "Private and Urgent." There was an immense
+seal with the impression of a five-shilling piece.
+
+"Your death-knell's inside," said Mr. Driver. "Hear it rattle," and he
+shook the envelope in Mr. Toft's ear. "But it wants a stamp, or the
+Government might not take it in. On such trifles do our destinies
+depend, Septimus. Have you got a stamp?" He put an anticipatory penny
+on the table.
+
+Mr. Toft hesitated no longer. From one end of his watch-chain he
+detached a gold key, which he handed covertly to Driver.
+
+"Now your visitin' card."
+
+Mr. Toft produced one, and handed it over. "You'll give me that letter
+now," he pleaded.
+
+J. Driver shook his head, tore up the packet, and put it into the fire.
+"Better there," he said oracularly. "Now, Toft, my boy, don't worry.
+You'll have that key back by Friday, and all your spoons'll be in the
+box. If you don't interfere you'll never hear of me again, and the
+Admiralty won't either; but if you take one step behind my back I'll do
+all I've threatened, and a lot more, and you'll be building Portland
+Breakwater on Christmas Day. By-bye, Septimus."
+
+With this Mr. Driver rose, and stalked out of the room. After a modest
+interval Mr. Toft followed.
+
+At 9 a.m. on the following morning the bell of the Fellmongers' Company
+pealed vigorously. The porter hurried to answer it, and found a lady on
+the doorstep. She was neatly dressed, and was strikingly handsome. She
+might be twenty-five years old. A boy carrying a portfolio and a
+strapped-up easel stood behind.
+
+"Is this the Fellmongers' Hall?" she asked.
+
+"It is, Miss."
+
+"I want to know if you will be good enough to allow me to copy a
+painting you have on your walls? I do not know if it is necessary to
+have any written permission, or where to apply for it."
+
+"The 'All is open to the public under my supervision," said the porter
+pompously. "Come inside, please."
+
+"Thank you," replied the lady. "Put those things down, Johnnie. That's
+right. I'll let you know when to come for them. Good-morning."
+
+"We don't often 'ave hartists 'ere, miss," remarked the porter, "and I
+sometimes thinks as pictures is wasted on gentlemen dinin' with City
+Companies. They ain't runnin' pertic'ler strong on hart just then. Which
+one is it you want?"
+
+"I don't know the title," replied the artist, "but I shall know the
+picture when I see it. It's a portrait."
+
+"P'raps Nicholas Tiffany," the porter suggested, "the first warden of
+the company, painted by 'Olbein. Born 1455. Lived to the ripe age of
+ninety-four, and died regretted by his sovereign and his country. His
+estates were seized by his creditors. Here he is, miss."
+
+The man opened the door of the Livery Room, the walls of which were hung
+with many pictures. "This is Tiffany," he said, pointing to a
+disreputable-looking portrait.
+
+The lady looked at it doubtfully. "The painting I want is the one
+nearest to the door of the plate room," she said.
+
+"Then it's a good bit away from it, miss. The plate room is off the
+Banqueting 'All, and they are all windows on that side. The pictures are
+opposite."
+
+"Dear me," said the lady. "How very stupidly I have been informed.
+Please show me the room."
+
+The porter led the way, and threw open the door with pardonable pride.
+"The Banqueting 'All of the Honourable Company of Fellmongers!" he
+exclaimed. It was the famous hall in which heads of City Companies and
+ruling sovereigns are intermittently entertained. Down one wall were
+ranged portraits of eminent fellmongers. The other three were pierced
+by doors and windows.
+
+"Which is the plate room?" asked the lady.
+
+"This is the door of the plate room," the porter replied. "Anyone
+enterin' without authority, day or night, sets in action two peals of
+electric bells, and aut'matic'ly discharges a revolver shot through the
+sky-light."
+
+"How very interesting!" the lady remarked. "Now I must find my picture."
+She looked round the room, and finally selected one.
+
+"Jeremiah Crumpet," said the porter. "A haberdasher by birth, but
+eventually Junior Warden of our Company. Painted by Merillo. Never
+gettin' beyond pot'ooks 'imself, he founded the Company's Schools at
+Ashby de la Zouch."
+
+"I'm sure that's the man," said the artist. "I'll bring my things in if
+I may. Is there a Mrs. ----? Jeckell, thank you. I should like to see
+her about some water for my paints."
+
+"I'll tell you what, Maria," said Mr. Jeckell some hours later. "If
+she's a hartist I ought to be President of the Royal Academy. I never
+saw such drawin' in my life. She can't get his face square nohow. He's
+smilin' in the picture, but she's made him lockjawed an' moonstruck. She
+says if she can't get him right she'll have to turn him into a
+shipwreck. She must be what the papers call an himpressionist. She spoke
+twice about the plate room, so I've wheeled my chair into the 'all to
+keep my eye on her. I'll go back now and see what she's hup to."
+
+Mr. Jeckell would have wondered less at her drawing if he could have
+seen the note the lady had referred to in his absence:
+
+"An attempt will be made during the next three days to steal a cup from
+the plate chest at the Fellmongers' Hall. For certain reasons warning of
+this must not come to the authorities from without. Apply for permission
+to copy painting or to sketch interior, and watch. Should any other than
+the Company's servant enter the plate room suggest doubt as to his
+credentials, and do all you can to secure his arrest. Another agent will
+watch the premises from 5 p.m. to 9 a.m."
+
+While Mr. Jeckell was on his way to his chair there came another peal
+from the front-entrance bell. A man in a bowler hat, and carrying a
+handbag, was outside.
+
+"Mr. Toft has sent me for the Nelson Goblet," he said.
+
+The porter was surprised. "Got a note?" he asked.
+
+"The guv'ner gave me this," said the man, handing a card, "and the key."
+
+"What does he want it for?" Mr. Jeckell asked.
+
+"Got a big guzzle on at 'ome. Wants to cut an extra dash in
+centre-pieces."
+
+Mr. Jeckell shook his head gravely, but made no remark. "Come along," he
+said shortly.
+
+He led the way across the vestibule into the Banqueting Hall, where,
+behind her easel, a lady was evidently busy with her picture. He stopped
+at a door, which he unlocked, and both men passed through. Barely had
+they done so when the artist ran from behind her easel into the outer
+hall. "Mrs. Jeckell! Mrs. Jeckell!" she called out.
+
+The porter's wife appeared.
+
+"A man has gone into the plate room with your husband. I'm sure he is a
+thief. Warn Mr. Jeckell to get full authority before he does what this
+man wants."
+
+"Gracious me!" cried the alarmed Mrs. Jeckell. "A thief! He may be
+murderin' Samuel!"
+
+She rushed across to the plate room, and in a minute a storm of voices
+proceeded therefrom. Finally the three emerged, two hot and flurried,
+and the stranger, looking cool and determined, carrying a bag in one
+hand and a gold cup in the other. The porter hung on to his arm.
+
+The artist was in front of the door. When she saw the man with the bag
+and cup she gave a little gasp of surprise, and a wave of colour
+overspread her face.
+
+The man seemed equally astonished. "You!" he said at last.
+
+"They're both thieves," whispered Mrs. Jeckell to her husband. "They're
+acting in collision. I'll shout for the perlice while you keep 'em." And
+she ran from the room.
+
+"You are in danger," said the artist rapidly in French. "Put the cup in
+your pocket. Give me the bag, and knock the porter down."
+
+The man obeyed with the promptitude of a soldier. Leaving Mr. Jeckell
+prostrate on the floor, they hurried from the Hall. At the street door
+was Mrs. Jeckell, wildly beckoning to a distant policeman.
+
+"You take down there," said the artist. "Good-bye." She ran off in the
+opposite direction, still holding the bag, and dived down a side street.
+
+Mrs. Jeckell grew frantically insistent to the policeman, who now came
+up. "Which one?" he puffed.
+
+"The man. No, it's in the bag. Both of 'em," she cried.
+
+At this moment her husband appeared at the door, with blood streaming
+from his nose. "They've killed Samuel," cried his horrified wife,
+running to him; but the policeman, though he wore the badge of St. John
+of Jerusalem on his arm, dashed down the street after the lady.
+
+By the time he returned, after a fruitless pursuit, Mr. Jeckell's nose
+had stopped bleeding. "Did you hever?" said the porter. "What the blazes
+did she mean by first givin' the alarm and then aidin' and abettin'? And
+she looked so innercent-like, too. The first hartist as I've ever
+encouraged, and the larst. Whatever will Mr. Toft say, Maria? It's as
+much as my place is worth. After all these years of faithful service,
+too!"
+
+But Mr. Toft was less demonstrative than might have been expected.
+
+The next gathering of the Burglars' Club proved the most important in
+the history of the Club since its foundation. Every detail of it is
+firmly impressed on the memory of each member present; yet they never by
+any chance refer to that meeting. One and all would like to forget
+it--if they could.
+
+It was held at Marmaduke Percy's rooms, his Grace of Dorchester, the
+President of the year, being in the chair.
+
+The Secretary read the minutes, and concluded: "The business of the
+evening is the payment of an entrance fee--the Nelson Goblet of the
+Fellmongers' Company--by Martin Legendre Craven, fourth Baron Horton, a
+cadet member of the Club."
+
+Lord Horton entered, bowed, and amidst general applause, placed on the
+table a richly-chased goblet of gold.
+
+"Lord Horton's entrance fee being paid," said the President, "I now move
+that he be enrolled as a full member." Carried unanimously.
+
+"My lord, you are one of us."
+
+Lord Horton advanced to the table and looked round with calm
+deliberation. He was a notable man--the best amateur low comedian of
+his day, a traveller who had pressed far into Thibet, a diplomatist at
+the mention of whose name the Turk shifted uneasily in his seat and
+fixed his eyes despondently on the floor. He had won his V.C. in China.
+He had done many things.
+
+"Your Grace, my lords and gentlemen," he said. "I thank you. In
+accordance with the usual custom of your Club I will explain how I have
+been able to fulfil my appointed duty. I received an intimation that the
+Nelson Goblet of the Fellmongers' Company was my entrance fee, and at
+once took steps to procure it. The matter was hardly difficult. A list
+of the Company showed me that the treasurer and plate-keeper was a
+certain Mr. Toft. The directory informed me that he was a steam-tug
+owner and a contractor to the Admiralty. Inquiry there told me he was
+under suspicion of bribery and corruption. I played on this little
+weakness of his, and, if I am not mistaken, I frightened him into the
+paths of virtue for the rest of his days. In return, he lent me the key
+of the plate safe of his Company. In broad daylight I proceeded for my
+booty. To my surprise, I found that I was expected. Someone had placed
+an agent on the spot to warn the custodian of the building of my
+intention. An alarm was raised. My lords and gentlemen, at whose
+instigation was that alarm raised?"
+
+Lord Horton paused. Members looked at each other in mystified amazement.
+What on earth was he driving at? Was he waiting for a reply?
+
+The silence grew painful. "Who instigated that alarm?" again the speaker
+asked.
+
+A voice replied, "Presumably Mr. Toft."
+
+"'Presumably Mr. Toft.' Sir Francis Marwood, I thank you for the
+suggestion. To continue. An alarm was raised by the agent of someone
+unknown. This agent was a lady who did not know that she was betraying
+an old friend. A minute later we were face to face. Instantly she
+pierced through my disguise, and by her presence of mind and fertility
+of resource alone did I escape."
+
+"Like Sir Francis Marwood, I thought my betrayer was Mr. Toft, and I
+hastened to interview that gentleman. I found him in a state of extreme
+nervous prostration, but I left him convinced that it was not he who had
+betrayed me. So your suggestion, Sir Francis Marwood, is wrong. Can you
+give me another clue?"
+
+Sir Francis did not reply. He looked uncomfortable at the attention
+bestowed upon his remark.
+
+"My next step was to trace the lady who had helped me. That also was not
+difficult. I did not know she was in England, but being here I concluded
+that the Foreign Office would have her address. I was not mistaken. I
+found my friend, and learnt that she had her instructions to raise an
+alarm from--mark the name well, gentlemen--from Sir Francis Marwood, a
+member of this Club."
+
+Had a live shell fallen into their midst it would probably have caused
+less consternation than did this announcement. There was an involuntary
+exclamation from everyone. For a moment all eyes were fixed on Sir
+Francis. Then each man drew himself up and stared blankly into space.
+
+"The fame of your Club had reached me, and the novelty of its membership
+appealed to me." Again Lord Horton was speaking. "I felt that its risks
+would give a pleasing zest to civilian life, but I did not know that
+members were allowed to pay off old scores on each other through its
+medium. Last year I considered it my duty to advise against Sir Francis
+Marwood's appointment to Lisbon. This was his revenge. I was prepared to
+run any and all risks from without, but did not anticipate betrayal from
+within. Gentlemen, you have done me the honour to elect me as a member
+of your Club. I have paid my subscription. Now I beg to tender my
+resignation."
+
+"No, no!" responded on all sides. Then cries of "Marwood! Marwood!"
+
+"Order!" called the Duke. "Sir Francis Marwood, we are waiting."
+
+Sir Francis rose. He was a man of some distinction in the diplomatic
+world.
+
+"Gentlemen," he said, making a desperate attempt to speak his words
+lightly; "I really did not anticipate the matter would be taken up in
+this serious way. I do not dispute the accuracy of Lord Horton's
+statement, though I absolutely deny the motive he has ascribed to me.
+The reason of my action was simple. This Club was formed by us, not
+merely for passing time, but for keeping up our wits in degenerate days.
+To such a man as Lord Horton I felt that the purloining of the
+Fellmongers' Goblet must fall flat indeed. I have read the marvellous
+account of his adventures in Thibet, and I felt that some further spice
+of danger in this particular affair was necessary to make it worthy of
+Lord Horton's reputation. I took the liberty of supplying it, though
+perhaps in so doing I exceeded my rights. If so, I tender my regrets."
+
+Sir Francis resumed his seat amidst loudly expressed disapprobation.
+
+The President rose. "Gentlemen," he said, "you have heard Lord Horton's
+charge and Sir Francis Marwood's reply. Our Club can exist only as long
+as there is absolute good faith between its members, and I never dreamt
+of anything less than this being possible. Two duties are obviously
+mine. The first, Sir Francis Marwood, is to inform you that you are no
+longer a member of the Club. The second is to express our sincere
+regrets to Lord Horton, and our earnest hope that he will reconsider his
+resignation."
+
+Sir Francis rose, pale and defiant. "So be it, Duke. Some day you may
+regret this. Horton, you and I have a big score to wipe out now." Then,
+with an ugly sneer, "It is hardly necessary to say that the F.O. will no
+longer require the services of a lady who cannot be depended upon; but
+Lord Horton's interest will no doubt find her another situation."
+
+"Stop!" thundered Horton. "A lady has been mentioned. Two years ago this
+same lady saved my life in Russia. I asked her to marry me, and she
+refused, because, absurdly enough, she thought it would spoil my career.
+We did not meet again till yesterday. Marwood, instead of an injury, you
+did me the greatest service in the world.
+
+"A week ago I was offered the post of British Agent at Kabul. It was a
+post after my own heart, but single-handed I should have failed in it.
+With this lady as my wife anything would be possible. Yesterday I begged
+her to reconsider her decision, and to help me in my career. I am proud
+to say she consented. We are to be married at once. Because bachelors
+alone are eligible as members of your Club, I am forced to confirm my
+resignation. Gentlemen, and Sir Francis Marwood, good-evening."
+
+Thus did Lord Horton leave the Burglars' Club for married life,
+happiness, and his brilliant after-career.
+
+
+
+
+V.
+
+AN OUNCE OF RADIUM.
+
+
+"IT seems likely," said the President, with singular irrelevance, "that
+there will be a slump in radium."
+
+"All South Africans are down," remarked Chillingford gloomily. "What in
+the world are you fellows laughing at?"
+
+"It isn't a mine, Tommy. It's a horse. Won the Nobel Stakes," Marmaduke
+Percy called out.
+
+"Order, gentlemen, if you please," continued the President. "I was
+remarking on the probability of a slump in radium. This is what to-day's
+paper says:
+
+"'£896,000 was recently quoted as the market price for a single pound of
+radium. We suggest that it would be advisable for any holder to realise
+promptly, as Professor Blyth has discovered a method of obtaining this
+remarkable element from a substance other than pitch-blende. He has
+already isolated one ounce avoirdupois--at yesterday's price worth
+£56,000--which has been exhibited to a select number of scientists at
+his laboratory at Harlesden Green.
+
+"'It seems likely that radium will no longer remain the toy of the
+conversazione, but that it will take its place among the great forces of
+civilisation. As a moderate-sized cube of it is sufficient to warm the
+dining-room of an average ratepayer for something like two thousand
+years, we shall no doubt find in this element the motive power of the
+future. The smoke nuisance of our great towns will disappear, ocean
+coaling stations will no longer be necessary, and incidentally about a
+million workers in the coal trade will be thrown out of employment.'
+
+"This, gentlemen, is from the _Daily Argus_ of to-day."
+
+"Take your word for it, old man," "Carried _nem. con._," and sundry
+other similar cries greeted the speaker.
+
+The Duke waved his hand disparagingly. "Our secretary informs me," he
+went on, "that the subscription of Major Everett Anstruther is now due.
+It is suggested that he should produce this £56,000 worth of radium at
+our next meeting in payment thereof; although I believe that is
+something less than the value of membership of our Club."
+
+That is why, on April 4th last, Major Everett Anstruther climbed the
+wall at the back of Professor Blyth's house at Harlesden.
+
+His methods were those of the average burglar. He forced back the catch
+of one of the windows, drew up the sash, and stepped gently down from
+the window-sill into the room.
+
+He was in the Professor's laboratory, a one-storeyed building joined to
+the dwelling-house by a corridor.
+
+Anstruther turned on his portable electric light, and took his bearings.
+He was in an ordinary scientific laboratory, surrounded by induction
+coils, Crookes' tubes, balances, prismatic and optical instruments, and
+other and more complicated apparatus, the use of which he could not
+guess.
+
+He walked slowly round, observing every corner. Where was the radium? He
+had read up the subject, and had learnt of its power to penetrate almost
+any substance, and now he turned off his light, hoping to see its rays.
+
+There was nothing but absolute darkness.
+
+He resolved to explore further. He opened the door gently. In front of
+him was the passage leading to the house. At his left another door--wide
+open.
+
+He stopped before it in mute surprise and admiration.
+
+On a table in the middle of the room was a luminous mass. The wall
+behind was aglow with a dancing, scintillating light. The rest of the
+room was in darkness, save for the dim light cast by the glowing mass
+and the phosphorescent screen behind.
+
+It was the radium! How could the Professor leave it in so exposed a
+place? No doubt it was there that it had been exhibited to the
+scientists--but £56,000 worth left on a table for anyone to handle! It
+was absurd. Only a professor would have done it.
+
+But it wasn't for him to grumble at the peculiar methods of learned men,
+and with a cheerful heart Anstruther stepped lightly into the room.
+
+As he did so the door closed behind him with a click. The Major paused.
+"That's queer," he thought. "I didn't feel a draught, and I didn't touch
+the door."
+
+Luckily the laboratory was isolated from the rest of the house, so the
+slight noise would not have been heard. He waited for some minutes to
+reassure himself; then he stepped back to the door and gently turned the
+knob, without result. He pushed; pulled and pushed; lifted and pushed;
+pressed down and pushed; tried in every way he could think of, but the
+door would not open.
+
+He examined it carefully. Save for its knob its surface was absolutely
+plain. There was no keyhole or latch.
+
+"Trapped, by Jove!" Anstruther exclaimed under his breath; and as his
+unpleasant situation dawned upon him he felt more uncomfortable than he
+had ever done in his life before. In fact, he felt physically ill.
+
+"Confound it!" he thought. "It's deuced annoying, but it isn't as bad as
+all that. I don't know why it should bowl me over. Perhaps there's
+another way out of this den."
+
+He walked round the room, feeling the wall for some shutter, even
+searching the floor for a trap-door. There was none. Save for a
+telephone and the table, he encountered nothing but plain surface.
+
+"Of all the infernal holes to be in," he muttered. "Trapped like this,
+and all through my own carelessness." And then it occurred to him that
+he, Everett Anstruther, late a major of his Majesty's Horse Guards Blue,
+and now member of Parliament for Helston, would in a few hours be haled
+away to prison on a charge of attempted burglary. A pleasant situation,
+truly!
+
+He felt ill--worse than before. His head ached, and his temples
+throbbed. What on earth did it mean? He had been in tight places
+before--once in Italy, when his life wasn't worth a moment's purchase,
+and then he was absolutely cool. But now----
+
+[Illustration: "'YOU ARE A THIEF.'"
+
+(_p. 93._)]
+
+He started as if a pistol had been fired. A bell had rung behind him--an
+electric bell. It was the telephone bell, and it was still ringing. He
+watched it in dismay. It would rouse the whole house. Lift down the
+receiver, of course. He did so. The bell stopped. He put the receiver to
+his ear.
+
+"Are you there?" a voice asked.
+
+He did not reply. There was no need. While the receiver was off the bell
+wouldn't ring.
+
+"If you don't answer I shall wake the house," came the voice, as if in
+answer to his thoughts.
+
+The Major groaned inwardly. "Yes, I'm here," he replied.
+
+"Good. How do you feel?"
+
+"Oh, pretty tollollish," he answered. "Must be the doctor," he thought.
+
+"What is your name?"
+
+"Smithers," said the Major, with a sudden inspiration. "John
+Smithers."
+
+"John Smithers," came the slow response. "Thank you. Your age last
+birthday?"
+
+"It seems to me he has been examining Blyth's factotum for life
+insurance," thought the Major. "Lucky I caught on so well. But what an
+extraordinary idea to collect these statistics at something after
+midnight."
+
+"Age last birthday, please," came down the wire again.
+
+"Thirty-five," replied the Major. "Nothing like the truth in an
+emergency," he added to himself.
+
+"John Smithers, aged thirty-five," was repeated. "Late occupation?"
+
+"Soldier."
+
+"Good. Very good. Late occupation, soldier. Any pension?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"What a fool you are to risk it for a bit of radium."
+
+The Major stepped back in sheer amazement. "What did you say?" he asked.
+
+"Whatever made you risk your pension for a bit of radium?"
+
+"Don't know what you mean."
+
+"Then I'll explain. You are a thief, locked up in Professor Blyth's dark
+room. Isn't that so?"
+
+"Who are you?" asked the Major in dismay.
+
+"Professor Blyth."
+
+"The devil!" Anstruther ejaculated.
+
+"No, sir--Professor Blyth," came the response.
+
+"Where are you?" asked the Major.
+
+"I am in the room at the end of the corridor. I can observe the door of
+your room from where I stand, and I have a loaded revolver in my hand."
+
+"What are you going to do?"
+
+"That depends upon you. I can either send for the police, and give you
+in charge, or I can take scientific observations with your
+assistance--whichever you prefer."
+
+"What do you mean by scientific observations?"
+
+"You are locked up in a room twelve feet square with an ounce of
+radium."
+
+"Well?"
+
+"You are the first man in the world who has been locked up with an ounce
+of radium in a room twelve feet square, and your sensations would be of
+scientific value. If you care to describe them to me by telephone so
+long as you are conscious, I will not prosecute; otherwise I will place
+the matter in the hands of the police. Which do you prefer to do?"
+
+"You are remarkably kind to offer me the alternative. I think I prefer
+to describe my sensations."
+
+"Thank you. I am really very much obliged to you, John Smithers; but I
+ought to warn you beforehand that you will be put to great personal
+inconvenience. If you decide to try the experiment I shall not release
+you for some hours. I shall certainly not break off in the middle,
+however ill you feel."
+
+"I have told you my choice," said Anstruther curtly.
+
+"Right. Stop, though. What sort of a heart have you?"
+
+"Strong."
+
+"Good. You'll need it. Got a watch?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Can you take your pulse?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"You are a real treasure, John Smithers. I'm glad you called. You've
+been fifteen minutes in the room. What is your pulse?"
+
+"Seventy-three."
+
+"Thank you. Can you read a clinical thermometer?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"On the ledge of the telephone, where the paper is, you will find a
+tube. Got it? There's a thermometer inside. Please take it out, and read
+it carefully."
+
+"Ninety-seven," said the Major.
+
+"Thank you. I had no idea the army was so intelligent. How the papers do
+deceive us! Now put the thermometer under your tongue for two minutes,
+and then let me know what it registers."
+
+"Ninety-nine," came the eventual response.
+
+"Thank you. Horse or foot soldier, Smithers?"
+
+"Horse."
+
+"Horse. Thank you. Married?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Good again, Smithers. No one dependent upon you, I hope? Have you a
+headache?"
+
+"It's enough to give me one, answering all your questions."
+
+"Please describe symptoms, and not attempt to diagnose them. Have you a
+headache?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"How's your heart?"
+
+"Beats irregularly."
+
+"Probably it will. Respiration?"
+
+"It's rather choky here. Can't you let me have a breath of fresh air?"
+
+"On no account, Smithers--on no account. I'm surprised at your
+suggesting such a thing. That will do for the present. I'll ring up
+again shortly, and I'm always here if you want me. You might take a
+little gentle exercise now."
+
+The major hung up his receiver. The room seemed to be much lighter now.
+The radium glowed more brightly, and the scintillations on the wall
+behind had increased in intensity. He advanced towards the radium, and
+was immediately conscious that his discomfort increased. There was a
+smarting sensation on the front of his body, as if it were exposed to
+fire. His breathing became more difficult, his headache increased. He
+drew back to the wall, and the symptoms became less marked.
+
+The bell rang again. "I ought to inform you, Smithers," said the voice,
+"that no good at all would result from your attempting to destroy the
+radium. As a matter of fact, if you broke or crushed it you would feel
+very much worse. The particles would fly all over, and you would inhale
+them. The symptoms would be intensely interesting if you would care to
+experience them, but I won't answer for the consequences. I just want
+you to understand that you can't possibly escape from this important new
+element when once you are imprisoned in a room with it, especially when
+the room is only twelve feet square."
+
+The major did not reply. He hung up his receiver in silence.
+
+At the other end of the telephone was Robert Blyth, F.R.S., D.Sc., etc.,
+etc., a little red-haired man, whose researches on the Mutilation and
+Redintegration of Crystals are of world-renown.
+
+He was a grave little man as a rule. Only when on the verge of some
+discovery, or when watching the successful progress of an experiment,
+did he wax cheerful. He did this now as he surveyed his notes of the
+report of John Smithers, a horse-soldier, in durance vile in the
+adjoining room.
+
+"Pulse, 73; temperature, 99; heart, irregular. Good. Respiration
+difficult. Well, that's understandable. He's been in there thirty-one
+minutes. Thanks to a strong constitution, he's scarcely felt anything
+yet; but now he'll have trouble. John Smithers, you are going to have
+an exceedingly bad time of it. If you weren't a criminal I should
+hesitate in giving it you. As it is, you must suffer for the cause of
+science. Your experience will, no doubt, make you hesitate before you
+attempt another crime."
+
+The professor tilted back his chair. "Strange," he mused, "how brain
+controls matter to the end. Here's John Smithers in the next room--a
+strong man admittedly--cribbed, cabined, and confined by a man he could
+probably crumple up with one hand. It was a stroke of genius to
+advertise my discovery in the papers. The criminal classes all read them
+now, and I thought I should probably attract a thief. I placed the
+radium in the middle of the room, and painted the wall behind with
+sulphide of zinc so that he couldn't possibly miss it. I easily
+constructed a threshold that closed the door when stepped upon. And then
+I had only to wait."
+
+Here the bell rang. "Aha, Smithers, you are growing impatient. Well?"
+
+"Are you a Christian?" came the reply.
+
+"I hope so. Why?"
+
+"Do you call this Christian conduct, to imprison me here with this
+infernal block of fire? I tell you, man, it's poisoning me. It's choking
+me. It's getting to my brain. If you are a Christian, come down and let
+me out."
+
+"None of that hysterical sort of talk, Smithers," said the Professor
+sternly. "It's no good appealing for mercy. You are a thief, and you've
+got to be punished. Pull yourself together, and show what you are made
+of. You don't know what a lot of good your sufferings may do to
+humanity. I shall publish a full account of them in the _British Medical
+Journal_, and I am sure your family will be proud of you when they read
+it."
+
+"I haven't got a family, and if I had they shouldn't read your
+jibberings. I tell you that if you don't let me out I shall do something
+desperate!"
+
+"You can't," said the Professor. "There's nothing in the room except the
+radium and the telephone. If you knock the radium about you'll only make
+things worse for yourself, and if you damage the telephone you cut off
+your only link with the outside world. Be a man, Smithers. You've read
+of the Black Hole of Calcutta. The sufferings of the prisoners there
+were far worse than yours."
+
+"You are a scientific vampire--a howling chemical bounder!" came the
+response.
+
+"Tut, tut!" said the Professor serenely. "Do try and be calm. Take a
+stroll round. You might put the thermometer under your tongue again, and
+let me have the record. Nothing like filling your leisure moments with
+useful occupation."
+
+"Poor beggar!" he said to himself. "He's just beginning to realise
+things. Five centigrammes of radium chloride killed eight mice in three
+days; how long will it take an ounce of radium bromide to render a
+strong man insensible? That's the problem in rule of three, and it's
+high time that someone worked out the answer.
+
+"Well?" in reply to the bell.
+
+"Temperature, 102; pulse, 100. Look here, Blyth, I'm going dotty. If you
+won't have pity on me as a Christian, I appeal to you as a family man.
+Your people wouldn't like to hear of this, I'm sure."
+
+"Pulse 100," repeated the Professor. "Jerky, I suppose?"
+
+"Did you hear my appeal to you as a family man?"
+
+"Now, Smithers, you agreed to help me with my scientific observations,
+and I wish you'd keep to the letter of the agreement. Is your pulse
+jerky?"
+
+"It is, and my hands are fairly itching to close round your throat, and
+my toes would like to kick you into eternity. Blyth, if I die, I'll
+haunt you and your family to the fifth generation. If you don't end up
+in a madhouse it won't be my fault. You scoundrel! You contemptible----"
+
+Again the Professor hung up the receiver. "Strange," he soliloquised,
+"how mentally unbalanced these common men are! I can't imagine myself
+giving way to such ravings, whatever situation I was in. That's the
+advantage of birth and education. Yet, judging from the way in which
+Smithers expresses himself, he must be a man of very fair education.
+It's birth alone that tells in the long run," and the Professor stroked
+his stubble chin complacently.
+
+The minutes passed. "He ought to be feeling it now. I'll ring him up."
+The Professor did so, but there was no reply. "He can't have collapsed
+already--a horse-soldier of thirty-five." Once more he rang. This time
+there was a slow response.
+
+"Why didn't you come before?" said the Professor irately.
+
+"I'm not your servant. I was thinking how I'd like to chop you into
+mincemeat, Blyth, and scatter you to the crows. My head's
+splitting--splitting, do you hear? I shall go dotty, looking at this
+infernal heap of fire. Those moving specks of light behind are all
+alive, Blyth. They're grinning at me. They're choking me. And there you
+sit like a scientific panjandrum with a little round button on top. And
+you call yourself a Christian and a respectable family man. You are a
+disgrace to your country. Come down and let me out. Send for the police.
+I don't care."
+
+"Smithers," said the Professor, "I'm ashamed of you. A horse soldier
+going on like a nurserymaid! I shall not send for the police. You agreed
+to this experiment, and you've got to see it through. Please remember
+that. How's your pulse?"
+
+"Blyth, it's 120! It's ticking like a clock. I believe it's going to
+strike."
+
+"Keep cool, Smithers. Have your hands a bluish tinge?"
+
+"They seem to be green."
+
+"Green? Preposterous!"
+
+"They may be blue really. I'm colour blind."
+
+"Colour blind, Smithers, and a soldier? I'm surprised at you. I suspect
+they're only dirty. Do you feel a tingling at the finger tips?"
+
+"Yes, and at my toe-tips too."
+
+"Excellent! And your temperature?"
+
+"One hundred and three. Man, I'm in a fever. I can't breathe. My head's
+on fire."
+
+"You've only been in there an hour and a quarter. You're just beginning
+to get acclimatised, Smithers," said Professor Blyth callously, as he
+hung up the receiver.
+
+"I wish Cantrip were here," he soliloquised. "'Deoxygenation of the
+blood corpuscles, followed by coma.' Bah! Radium acts on the nerve
+centres, and will ultimately produce paralysis. Cantrip is an ass. I
+always told him so."
+
+The bell rang. "Blyth," said the prisoner, "listen to me. If you don't
+let me out, I'll swallow the radium. It can't make me feel worse, and it
+may finish me off quicker."
+
+"Nonsense, Smithers, don't talk like a fool. It would only add to
+any--er--inconvenience you are now experiencing."
+
+"I don't care what it would do. I----"
+
+The Professor cut him off impatiently. "I'm disappointed in John
+Smithers," he thought. "He has no stamina. A man of low birth,
+evidently. A mere mountain of muscle. I know the species."
+
+For a while he paced the room. Then he rang the bell, but this time
+there was no coherent response. The gasps sounded like, "Sit on her
+head, Blyth--keep her down, man. Whoa, mare!--mind that fencing--snow
+again--what ho! she bumps--all down the road and round the corner----"
+
+"For heaven's sake, keep cool, Smithers," cried the Professor. "I want
+some more observations. Don't lose your head yet. You've all the night
+in front of you."
+
+"Squadron, right wheel! Draw swords! Charge! Down with 'em! Boers, Japs,
+and Russians. Get home, lads! Give it 'em hot! Hurrah! I've killed a
+sergeant-major." Then indistinct mumbling and cackling laughter came
+through the telephone.
+
+The Professor was disturbed. The end had come sooner than he had
+expected, for John Smithers had only been there an hour and a half, and
+he had calculated on a much longer time. But the symptoms were, on the
+whole, what he had expected. Green hands, though. What if the
+extremities were blue after all, and Cantrip right?
+
+He rang the bell. There was no response. Once more, and yet again. Still
+there was silence.
+
+The Professor hung up the receiver gloomily. "I'm afraid I shall have to
+go to him. He's unconscious, and continued exposure might be serious."
+
+He went down the corridor, pulled back the bolts, and opened the door.
+The room was in absolute darkness. The Professor was intensely
+surprised. "What on earth has he done with the radium?" he thought.
+"Good heavens! Surely he hasn't really swallowed it!"
+
+He stepped carefully across the threshold towards the electric pendant
+in the centre of the room. He started. The door had closed behind him
+with a loud click. He switched on the light, and peered round the floor
+for John Smithers. He was alone. Neither Smithers nor the radium was
+there!
+
+At that moment the telephone rang.
+
+"Are you there?" came a voice.
+
+"Is that you, Smithers?" said the Professor, in blank amazement.
+
+"It is, Blyth. How's your temperature? You'll find the thermometer on
+the telephone where you left it."
+
+"You scoundrel! You consummate scoundrel! How did you get out?"
+
+"For goodness' sake, Blyth, keep cool."
+
+"If you don't release me immediately I'll hand you over to the police."
+
+"You can't get 'em, old man. You can only talk to me."
+
+"What have you done with the radium?"
+
+"Got it here, Blyth; and I'm taking ever such a lot of care of it. I
+read all about it before I came, and I know just what it fancies. I
+brought a nice quarter-inch thick lead case, with a smaller one fixed
+inside, and the half-inch of intervening space made up with quicksilver.
+I've had the radium in the inner case most of the time, and it's as
+quiet as a lamb, nicely bottled up with its rays. In fact, I think it's
+gone to sleep. I've had quite a cheerful time with you to talk to,
+Blyth. You don't know how amusing you've been."
+
+"Smithers," stuttered the Professor, "you are an insolent fellow as well
+as a consummate scoundrel."
+
+"Tut, tut, Blyth! Do keep cool. Think how humanity will benefit from
+your present inconvenience. I'll look out for your article in the
+_British Medical Journal_, and I won't contradict it, though my pulse
+never went above seventy-three nor my temperature over ninety-nine, and
+wouldn't have done that if I'd bottled the radium at once instead of
+stopping to chatter with you. But you really ought to have kept a
+smarter look-out as you went in. I nearly brushed against you as I
+closed the door behind me. Well, bye-bye, old man, and many thanks for
+the radium. It will help my pension out nicely. I'll leave the receiver
+off the telephone, so that you don't disturb your family. I wouldn't
+worry, Blyth. Think of the Black Hole of Calcutta, and be a man!"
+
+[Illustration: "'I NEARLY BRUSHED AGAINST YOU.'"
+
+(_p. 108._)]
+
+Before Anstruther had reached the laboratory the Professor was hammering
+on the wall, and shouting at the top of his voice. The Major hurried
+through the window, climbed the garden wall, and had found his bicycle
+before the prisoner was released. By the time that the police were
+informed, he was well on his way to town.
+
+And that is how Major Everett Anstruther was able to renew his
+subscription to the Burglars' Club.
+
+
+
+
+VI.
+
+THE BUNYAN MS.
+
+
+ANSTRUTHER sat down amidst vociferous applause.
+
+"Gentlemen," said the Duke, "I think we may heartily congratulate Major
+Anstruther on the foresight and ingenuity displayed in renewing his
+subscription. I am sorry we cannot keep the radium as a memento, but,
+according to our rule, it has to be returned to Professor Blyth at once.
+This particular burglary has been so satisfactory that I think we may
+with advantage again turn to the daily Press for our next item. I read
+yesterday---- Let me see--where is it? I cut out the paragraph. Ah! here
+it is:--
+
+"'Yet another priceless possession is leaving the Eastern hemisphere.
+Thirty pages of 'The Pilgrim's Progress,' all that is left of that
+immortal work in the handwriting of John Bunyan, has been waiting for
+offers at Messrs. Christie's rooms since November last. The highest bid
+from the United Kingdom was £45 10s., at which price the precious
+manuscript did not change hands. We now hear that £2,000 has been
+offered and accepted. The purchaser is Mr. John Pilgrim, the Logwood
+King, of New York. At the present rate of denudation it seems likely
+that fifty years hence the original of Magna Charta will be the only
+historical manuscript left in the country.'"
+
+"Shame--shame!" greeted the reading of the paragraph.
+
+"I am glad that you agree with the newspaper," said the Duke blandly. "I
+read that paragraph at breakfast yesterday, and since then I have learnt
+that Lord Roker's subscription is due. It seems to me more than a
+coincidence that these two matters should come together. It is a
+national disgrace that the manuscript of that remarkable, I believe
+unparalleled--er--effort of Mr. Bunyan should leave the country. For one
+night longer, at any rate, it must remain in the possession of
+Englishmen. My lord of Roker, you will kindly produce the Bunyan MS. at
+our next meeting, on the 23rd inst., in settlement of your
+subscription."
+
+At 5 p.m. on Monday, April 18th last, a new arrival registered himself
+in the visitors' book at the Ilkley Hydropathic Establishment as James
+Roker, Jermyn Street, S.W. He was a good-looking, straight-built man of
+thirty or thereabouts. He was of an unobtrusive disposition, but was
+obviously well-informed, for in the smoke-room after dinner, when in a
+discussion on the internal resources of Japan, the date of Queen Anne's
+death came up, the new arrival gave it authoritatively as 1745, and so
+settled the matter.
+
+The next morning brought letters addressed to Lord Roker. Five minutes
+after the arrival of the post the news spread, and at breakfast he was
+the cynosure of all eyes.
+
+It was the first time that a nobleman had stayed at the Hydro, excepting
+the doubtful instance of Count Spiegeleisen in 1893, but to provide for
+possible emergencies the management had thoughtfully placed a Peerage on
+the bookshelves. This volume was now thoroughly investigated, and it was
+learnt that James, Lord Roker, was heir to the Earldom of Challoner, and
+that he was born on April 25th, 1870. His birthday obviously would occur
+the following week, and an enterprising lady suggested the propriety of
+arranging for a concert and a representation of Mrs. Jarley's waxworks
+in honour of the occasion.
+
+The only person in the place who seemed annoyed by his arrival was Mr.
+John Pilgrim, a gentleman from New York.
+
+"That's why he was so darned civil to me last night," he thought. "He
+knows how fond Fifth Avenue girls are of the British peerage, and he
+thinks he's only got to drop his handkerchief for Marion to pick it up.
+I call it a bit thick of him. I'm glad she's away for the day. I asked
+him to look round this evenin', so reckon I'll have to be civil; but
+I'll stand no nonsense. If he tries his sawder on me durin' the day I'll
+let him know."
+
+There was no occasion--or, indeed, opportunity--to let Lord Roker know
+anything during the day, for he went to Rylstone the first thing after
+breakfast, and only re-appeared at dinner-time.
+
+The toilettes of at least eighteen ladies were more elaborate than usual
+that evening, but they were lost on Lord Roker, who, after half an hour
+in the smoke-room, tapped on Mr. Pilgrim's door at 8.30.
+
+"Good-evenin', my lord," said Mr. Pilgrim, with studied politeness.
+"Will you sit there? Cigar, sir? I can recommend these. I hope you had a
+pleasant day. How do you like the Hydro?"
+
+"Thank you," said Lord Roker, as he took the Bock, and settled himself
+in the chair indicated. "I have been away in the country all day, so I
+haven't seen much of the Hydro yet. It seems all right. At any rate, you
+have got pretty snug quarters."
+
+"Yes," said Mr. Pilgrim, with some complacency. "You see, I'm samplin'
+the British Isles, gettin' the best I can lay hands on, and am storin'
+my purchases here. This room is furnished with Heppendale an'
+Chipplewhite's masterpieces, collected by my daughter. Paintin's by
+Jones an' Rossetti. In the nex' cabin I've got those historical sundries
+I mentioned. But before we look at them I want you to give me some
+information."
+
+"I shall be delighted to do so, if I have it."
+
+"You have it, sir. I may as well explain what I want. I have come over
+to see Europe for the first time, but I wanter know more about it than
+Americans do as a gen'ral rule. I'm not content to visit Shakespeare's
+tomb an' see over Windsor Castle, and then think I've done the old
+country. I wanter know the people who inhabit her to-day, and you can't
+get to know them on board trains. That's why I've come to this Hydro. I
+get here what my secretary calls a symposium of the whole nation. So I'm
+studyin' people here with the idea of writin' a book on my return. What
+are your views on things in gen'ral, my lord?"
+
+"My dear sir, that's a big order. But I may say I'm pretty well
+satisfied with things in general."
+
+"You are an hereditary legislator, I believe," said Mr. Pilgrim.
+
+"I may be some day," replied Lord Roker; "but at present I am not."
+
+"Then what is your pertic'ler line in life?"
+
+"If you mean business or profession, I have none. I'm a drone."
+
+"A drone, sir! I'm delighted," exclaimed Mr. Pilgrim, with marked
+interest. Then, "Hello, Marion. Back again."
+
+Roker turned, and there, framed in the doorway, was a living Romney
+picture--a radiant girl.
+
+She came forward, the light playing on her red-brown hair.
+
+"Lord Roker--my daughter," said Mr. Pilgrim.
+
+The girl smiled and shook hands.
+
+"I hope I'm not interrupting a very serious deliberation," she said,
+half hesitating.
+
+"Indeed not," Lord Roker hastened to assure her, fearful lest this
+delectable vision should vanish.
+
+She took the chair he offered.
+
+"Well, what have you gotten at York?" inquired Mr. Pilgrim.
+
+"You'd neither of you guess. Three grandfather's clocks."
+
+"Three!" exclaimed Mr. Pilgrim. "Sheraton?" he added.
+
+"No; just grandfather's clocks, and the dearest ones you ever saw."
+
+"I could bet on that," said her father. "Are they genuine?"
+
+"They are all dated, and Mr. Tullitt got pedigrees with each of them.
+One of them tells the moon, and one the day of the month. We shall have
+to hire an astrologer to regulate them and start them fair. Mr. Tullitt
+says he works best on board your railroad car, as noise suits him, so I
+shall fix the three clocks up in his den here to keep him happy. I
+reckon he'll know when it's lunch time, anyway. But what have you been
+doing, dad?"
+
+"Makin' a few notes. At present I'm gettin' some valu'ble information.
+Lord Roker says he's a drone."
+
+"Then I'm sure that Lord Roker does himself an injustice," she said,
+turning her smiling eyes upon him.
+
+Roker shook his head.
+
+"I toil not, neither do I spin."
+
+"What do you do all the time?" she asked.
+
+"I shoot and fish and hunt, and--er--once a year I see the Eton and
+Harrow cricket match."
+
+"Gosh!" exclaimed Mr. Pilgrim. "He shoots and fishes and hunts, and once
+a year he goes to a cricket match."
+
+"I said the Eton and Harrow match."
+
+"Cert'nly. They must give it some name, I reckon. An' what do you do
+when you can't shoot, an' fish, an' hunt?"
+
+"I add up my lists of kills and catches."
+
+"This is downright interestin'," said Mr. Pilgrim. "What do you shoot
+an' hunt?"
+
+"Birds and foxes."
+
+"You seem to fancy small fry, sir. Did you never hanker after
+elephants?"
+
+"Never. If I had a Maxim or a Gatling gun I might turn my attention to
+elephants, but I'm not going to buy one for the purpose."
+
+Mr. Pilgrim looked hard at his guest, but Lord Roker bore the scrutiny
+impassibly.
+
+"May I ask how you get your dollars?" the American continued.
+
+"I have an income from my father. I don't mind telling you the
+amount--three thousand a year."
+
+"Dollars?"
+
+"No; pounds sterling."
+
+"That's a tidy figure; but did you never wanter make that three thousand
+into thirty thousand?"
+
+"I have suggested an increase to my father, but not such a big one as
+that. I asked him to make it five, but he would not. Some day perhaps he
+may, but thirty thousand is out of the question."
+
+"I should suppose it was. I didn't mean an increase in your allowance.
+Did you never think of dippin' into trade, and increasin' it that way?"
+
+"Never."
+
+"Doesn't fancy elephants or trade," Mr. Pilgrim soliloquised. "Well, I
+reckon it takes all sorts of swallows to make a summer. Your father must
+have been in a good way of business."
+
+"Not a bit of it. He inherited all he has from his ancestors."
+
+"And how did the original ancestor make his pile?"
+
+"In war, in the time of Edward III. He had the good fortune to capture a
+Royal Prince, two dukes, and a marshal of France. We are still living on
+the ransoms he got."
+
+"I'd like to have known the original ancestor," said Mr. Pilgrim.
+"Reckon he'd have tackled elephants if he'd only got a pea-shooter."
+
+"Father," broke in Miss Pilgrim, "I'm sure Lord Roker is tired of
+answering questions. Don't you think it's our turn to do something now?"
+
+"That's so," said Mr. Pilgrim, who long since had forgotten his unkind
+suspicions of his visitor's intentions. "I hope I haven't worried you
+too much, my lord. It isn't every day that I get the chance of
+interviewin' a future hereditary legislator. I promised last night to
+show you some historical curiosities. We'll just go an' rout out my
+secretary, Tullitt, who has the keepin' of 'em."
+
+They adjourned to the next room, and found Mr. Tullitt busy at his desk.
+He opened various cabinets and drawers for them.
+
+"This," said Mr. Pilgrim, "is the original warrant signed by Henry
+VIII., consignin' his sixth wife to the Tower of London for beheadin'
+purposes. He had it penned in Latin to frighten her more. The writ was
+never served, as Henry changed his mind, an' decided to keep her on the
+throne.
+
+"Here, sir, is my last purchase--thirty pages of 'The Pilgrim's
+Progress,' written by John Bunyan in Bedford Jail. I paid ten thousand
+dollars for that, an' I'd have paid twenty before missin' it. You see,
+my name is John Pilgrim, an' it seemed to me that I have a sort of claim
+on that book--a kind of relationship. Anyway, there's my two names on
+the title-page.
+
+"Moreover, I've got on so well since I started life in a Chicago
+stock-yard that 'Pilgrim's Progress' would best describe my record. If
+it wasn't irreverent, I'd have called the autobiography I'm writin' by
+the name of that book; but as I can't do so, I've bought the original
+manuscript. You'll handle it carefully; it's not in first-rate repair."
+
+Mr. Pilgrim showed his guest other historical treasures, and would have
+gone on indefinitely had not his daughter compassionately intervened.
+The rest of the evening was spent in conversation, and in listening to
+coon songs witchingly sung by Miss Pilgrim to her accompaniment on a
+harpsichord, once the property of Mrs. Thrale of Streatham, a friend of
+the immortal Dr. Johnson.
+
+"Good-night, my lord," said Mr. Pilgrim at eleven o'clock. "P'raps
+you'll be kind enough to look round in the mornin'. I shall make a few
+notes of the information you've given me, and my secretary will lick
+them into shape."
+
+"Right," said Lord Roker, with his eyes beyond Mr. Pilgrim, fixed on an
+enchanting vision of brown and gold, seated in the basket chair before
+the fire.
+
+On the following morning Lord Roker found Mr. Pilgrim's secretary before
+a typewriter which he seemed to be working against time. A pile of
+correspondence lay around him. He finished the sheet on which he was
+engaged, and then, with a sigh of relief, he turned to his visitor.
+
+"Mornin', my lord; I have this ready for you."
+
+He handed a type-written sheet to Lord Roker, who sat down and read:
+
+      "Some day I may be an hereditary legislator. At
+      present I'm a drone. I fish, shoot birds, and hunt
+      foxes, and once a year I attend a cricket match. Birds
+      are more suited to the bore of my gun than elephants.
+      If I had a Maxim I might tackle elephants. I am in
+      receipt of an income of three thousand pounds sterling
+      a year from my father, who refuses to increase the
+      amount. I am otherwise well satisfied with the
+      universe.
+
+      "My record last year was:
+                     Birds............
+                     Fishes...........
+                     Foxes ..........."
+
+"I've left space for the mortality returns, and any note you may wish to
+add," said the secretary courteously. "Kindly fill in the figures, and
+initial the sheet if you find it correct. Your name will not appear if
+Mr. Pilgrim makes use of the information."
+
+Lord Roker referred to his pocket-book for statistics, and then inserted
+the figures required. The note he added was: "_De mortuis nil nisi
+bonum._"
+
+"Good kills, all of 'em," he explained.
+
+The secretary took the sheet and placed it methodically in a folio
+labelled "Britishers."
+
+"Is Mr. Pilgrim anywhere about?" Lord Roker asked. "Or Miss Pilgrim?"
+
+"I believe that Miss Pilgrim is in the grounds, but Mr. Pilgrim has gone
+across the moors in his motor to shed a tear at the residence of the
+late Charlotte Brontë. A wonderful man is the boss, my lord. It takes me
+all my time to file the information he gathers. It will be midnight
+before I have fixed Charlotte up."
+
+"Your hours are long," said Lord Roker, sympathetically.
+
+"They are; and they are getting longer. Your country is just waking up
+to the fact that John Pilgrim is here. We had a big mail to-day. Outside
+proper business there were twenty begging letters from tramps and
+prodigals, eighteen asking for subscriptions, and two which we could not
+decipher. Four town councils mixed us up with Andrew Carnegie and wrote
+demanding Free Libraries. I reply to them all."
+
+"Then I won't trespass any longer on your time."
+
+Mr. Tullitt pulled out his watch.
+
+"Snakes!" he exclaimed. "I always have fifteen minutes' dumb-bell
+exercise now to keep me in form. Good-mornin', my lord." His visitor
+left him standing in position with his dumb-bells.
+
+Now when Lord Roker turned in his chair and first saw Miss Marion
+Pilgrim he was confounded. When she spoke--and to her beauty there was
+added an infinite charm of frankness and joy of life--he fell hopelessly
+in love. Only once before had this happened to him, and, singularly
+enough, she also was an American--a dark-eyed Boston girl he met in
+Rome. He had been refused because his position and his prospects
+rendered the match an impossibility--to her father; for he was not at
+that time heir to an earldom. Since then he had gone unscathed through
+the perils of many seasons in many capitals, only to be finally routed
+while in pursuit of the commonplace profession of a burglar.
+
+That he had aroused any interest in her heart he did not for a moment
+suppose, but perhaps there might be a remote chance of winning her. If
+there were, how could he imperil his hope of success by running the
+risks attendant on the burglary? If she could give him the slightest
+hope he would resign his membership of the Burglars' forthwith. It was
+ridiculous to have to rush matters, but he had to know his fate at once.
+He could not even put it off till to-morrow, for he knew she was going
+to Knaresborough for the day with her father.
+
+He met her on the golf links. They played in a foursome in the morning.
+In the afternoon they had a round together.
+
+She was in capital form. Her splendid health and energy were a delight
+to the eye. Perhaps it was owing to this distraction that he foozled
+some of his drives, and twice got badly bunkered. His play went steadily
+from bad to worse, and she won by three up and two to play.
+
+"I don't think you were playing your best game," she said as they
+returned. "It strikes me that you were thinking about something else all
+the time."
+
+"You are quite right. I never played worse, and I was thinking about
+something else."
+
+"Something very serious, I reckon."
+
+"Very."
+
+"Is it anything I could help you in?"
+
+"You are very kind, Miss Pilgrim. All day, and most of last night, I
+have been deliberating on an important step."
+
+"What sort of a step?"
+
+"Whether I ought not to resign my membership of a certain club."
+
+"Is that all?"
+
+"You see, I was one of the founders, and I like it. But sometimes the
+conditions of membership seem impossible. At any rate, I have felt them
+so since last evening."
+
+"What are the conditions?"
+
+"I can't tell you them all, but one is that you have to be a bachelor--a
+confirmed bachelor."
+
+"Well, you are one, aren't you?" she asked gently.
+
+"I don't know. At any rate, I may not always be. In fact, I----"
+
+"Don't you be in a hurry to change," said Miss Pilgrim. "Don't imitate
+that king of yours. Judging from the document dad showed you, Henry the
+Eighth wanted to be a bachelor again, and then decided to remain a
+married man, all in one day. You Britishers are so variable."
+
+"It may seem very absurd, Miss Pilgrim, but I have to make up my mind
+without delay. And you can help me in the matter. May I--dare I----"
+
+"One minute, Lord Roker," she interrupted quickly. "You ought to be very
+careful before you think of changing your state. Teddy Robson waited
+twelve months before I promised to marry him."
+
+"Teddy Robson!" exclaimed Lord Roker.
+
+"Yes; this is his picture." She pulled a locket from her dress, and
+showed him the miniature of a nice, clean-looking lad. "He's the son of
+Josh. K. Robson, the Fustic King," she explained.
+
+"Fustic?" repeated Lord Roker, with intense gloom.
+
+"It's a wood that dyes yellow. Dad is the Logwood King, you know.
+Logwood dyes black. When I marry Teddy, the two firms will amalgamate,
+and we shall pretty well control the output of the West Indies."
+
+"I see," said Lord Roker; "or, rather, I hear."
+
+"That'll be in the fall. If ever you come over to the States mind you
+look us up. Teddy will give you some big game shooting. I guess you like
+it, whatever you told dad. You've done things. Mrs. Stilton told me at
+breakfast this morning that you had got a decoration for distinguishing
+yourself in action."
+
+"Oh, that was years ago."
+
+"Not more than a hundred," she said gravely. "And I reckon you don't let
+the flies settle much. Gracious! but it's six o'clock, and I've letters
+to mail. I must run. But don't you be in a hurry about retiring from
+that club."
+
+"That's the second," said Lord Roker enigmatically, as he watched her
+vanish, "the second--and the last."
+
+Lord Roker made no attempt to purloin the Bunyan MS. that night. He
+thought it possible that the indefatigable Mr. Tullitt might prolong his
+labours on Charlotte Brontë into the early hours of the morning, and,
+being of a thoughtful temperament, he was unwilling to interrupt them.
+He had still two nights at his disposal. The next day he spent chiefly
+on the links. He did not allow his thoughts to linger regretfully on his
+hopeless love. He gave his whole attention to the game, and retrieved
+his reputation by beating the professional's record. In the evening he
+played his part in progressive bridge with marked success: and then at
+1.30 a.m., when the whole establishment was presumably fast asleep, he
+descended from his bedroom window by a stout rope, and made his way to
+the wing occupied by Mr. Pilgrim. He found the window of Mr. Tullitt's
+room, and was busily engaged for the next half-hour in opening it.
+
+He then dropped into the room, and turned on his light.
+
+Three grandfather's clocks were solemnly ticking in three separate
+corners. The fire was still flickering in the grate. A pile of letters,
+addressed and stamped, was ready for the post. A batch of correspondence
+was docketed and endorsed. The waste-paper basket was full to
+overflowing.
+
+Lord Roker gave one glance round, and then tried the door. It was, as he
+expected, locked on the outside. He placed some chairs and other
+obstacles in front of it to impede progress should an alarm be raised,
+and lit the gas in order to add to Mr. Tullitt's reputation for
+over-work. Then he turned to the drawer in which the Bunyan MS. was
+kept. It was locked. He produced a bundle of keys, and finally opened
+it. There was a document inside, but instead of being time-stained,
+foxed, and torn, it was modern and neat. Moreover, it was type-written,
+and endorsed, "Notes on the late C. Brontë, Haworth, Eng., 1904."
+
+Lord Roker turned this out in disgust, hoping to find the Bunyan MS.
+below; but he was disappointed. The manuscript was not there.
+
+He replaced the Notes in the drawer and turned his attention elsewhere.
+He opened every drawer and portfolio, looked on every shelf and in every
+corner, but in vain. There was no sign of the Bunyan MS.
+
+Determined not to be baffled--for his credit as a burglar was at
+stake--Lord Roker resumed his search, and again went over the ground.
+Three times at least was he disturbed--when the grandfather's clocks
+went off at the hour and the half-hour with alarming wheezes and groans.
+When they had finished with 3.30 he had to admit himself beaten. The
+manuscript had no doubt been removed to another room. It was desperately
+annoying, but he had still twenty-four hours to find out where it was,
+and to get it. He gave up the search reluctantly, made his way through
+the window, and up the rope to his bedroom.
+
+Soon after breakfast that morning word went round the Hydro that the
+Bunyan MS. had been stolen from Mr. Pilgrim's rooms--the manuscript for
+which he had just paid £2,000.
+
+A hole cut in one of the window-panes pointed to the method by which
+entry had been made, but no clue to the thief had been left behind. The
+police had been informed, and a detective was coming.
+
+Only the Bunyan MS. was missing--that alone of the many portable and
+valuable treasures in Mr. Pilgrim's possession. It showed a literary
+instinct in the thief which was as surprising as it was unusual, for it
+would be impossible for him to make any profitable use of his booty
+without certain discovery. The more one reflected about it the more
+perplexing it was.
+
+To Lord Roker it was humiliating in the extreme. To fail in his mission
+was exasperating; but the annoyance was increased tenfold with the
+knowledge that he had been forestalled. Someone else--a professional, no
+doubt--had been on the same errand. He had not dallied over the
+enterprise, and he had won the stakes for which he played, and now he,
+Lord Roker, would have to appear empty-handed at the Burglars'--he, a
+founder of the Club, would be the first man who had to resign through
+incapacity to carry out the terms of his membership; it was galling
+indeed. Even the neat hole he had made in the window had been placed to
+the credit of the other burglar.
+
+At 6 p.m. he went upstairs to dress. The evenings were chilly, and he
+occasionally had a fire. He sat down before it now to finish his
+cigarette, and moodily watched the flames while his thoughts turned on
+the unsatisfactory nature of all earthly affairs.
+
+Suddenly he gave an exclamation of extreme surprise, jumped out of his
+chair, and caught hold of a bit of half-burnt paper projecting from the
+grate. It was perhaps three inches long, and two across. Half of it was
+ash that fell away as he touched it. On the scant margin left was
+written, in stiff, archaic English, "Ye Slough of Desp----"
+
+"Amazing!" he cried. For the fragment he held in his hand was part of
+the missing MS.!
+
+In another instant he had seized his water-jug and emptied the contents
+on the fire, putting it out, and deluging the hearth. Then he rang the
+bell, and sent an urgent message for Mr. Pilgrim.
+
+Five minutes later the American entered. Roker handed him the fragment,
+and pointed out where he had found it.
+
+"Seems a pretty expensive way of li'tin' fires," said Mr. Pilgrim,
+grimly. "Allow me to ring for the help."
+
+"Did you lay this fire?" he asked the maid who responded.
+
+"No, sir. That's Jenny's work."
+
+"Send Jenny up, then," said Mr. Pilgrim, now on his knees searching the
+grate for more traces of the MS., but searching in vain.
+
+In a few minutes Jenny entered.
+
+"Did you lay this fire?" Mr. Pilgrim asked again.
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"What sort of paper did you use for it?"
+
+"Newspaper. Oh, I know! I laid it yesterday morning with some old
+rubbishy stuff I found on your floor, sir."
+
+"Old rubbishy stuff you found on my floor!" cried Mr. Pilgrim. "What do
+you mean, girl?"
+
+"I was lighting your fire yesterday morning, sir, and found I'd used up
+all my paper, so I got some out of your waste basket. There was a dirty
+lot of rubbishy paper lying on the floor beside it, so I took that as
+well, and used it up for my morning fires."
+
+"How many fires did you lay with it altogether?"
+
+"Your two, sir, this one, and the one in the hall."
+
+"Then this is the only one of the lot that wasn't lit yesterday?"
+
+"Yes, sir. I hope it wasn't anythink important that I used."
+
+Mr. Pilgrim sat down.
+
+"Important! Not a bit, my girl. It just cost me ten thousand
+dollars--that's all."
+
+"It wasn't what they say you've lost, sir, was it?" said the girl. "Oh,
+sir, I'm that sorry. But all I can say, sir, is that it was on the
+floor, and it didn't look fit for wrapping sossingers in."
+
+"Go!" shouted Mr. Pilgrim. "You're a born fool." Then, after a long
+pause, he added, "I'm much obliged to you, Roker. Now come along. I must
+see my secretary. I suspect he's another mortal fool in disguise."
+
+Mr. Pilgrim's secretary was busy, as usual--this time taking down a
+letter from Miss Pilgrim's dictation.
+
+[Illustration: "HEY! BUT WHAT ABOUT THAT HOLE IN THE WINDOW?"
+
+(_p. 135._)]
+
+"Excuse me a minute, Marion," said Mr. Pilgrim. Then to his secretary,
+"You said you were readin' that blamed Bunyan MS. the night before last.
+Just describe when you got it out, and what followed."
+
+"I'd finished my transcript of your notes on Miss Brontë, sir, about
+11.30, and, having half an hour to spare, I thought I'd just run over
+that old manuscript again. John Bunyan had his own notions about
+caligraphy, and he was a bit freer in his spelling than any man I'd come
+across, so I rather fancied him. While I was reading, you may remember
+calling me to your room to take down that cable to Boston and the letter
+of confirmation. It was 12.30 when I left you, and I'd clean forgotten
+about the manuscript. I turned the light out, and went to bed. A quarter
+of an hour afterwards I remembered I'd left Bunyan out, so I came back
+here. I couldn't find the matches, but just felt round for the MS., and
+put it back in the drawer, and locked it."
+
+"You derned hayseed!" burst in Mr. Pilgrim. "You have your p'ints, but
+at this pertic'ler moment I think you're more suited for raisin'
+cabbages than for secretary work. If you can't tell the difference in
+the handle of a Bunyan MS. and your notes on Charlotte Brontë in the
+dark, you might know a banana from a potato in daylight.
+You're--you're---- Man, you put the Brontë notes in the drawer, and left
+Bunyan out--brushed him on the floor in the dark, an' the help lit the
+fire with him. Gor!"
+
+The secretary collapsed.
+
+"Never mind, Mr. Tullitt," said Miss Pilgrim. "It was entirely a
+mistake. I might have done it myself. It comes of working so late. Dad,
+I guess there's plenty more old manuscripts in the British Isles waiting
+for dollars to fetch them."
+
+"I reckon there's only one Bunyan MS.," said Mr. Pilgrim, solemnly, "and
+that's gone to light Hydropathic fires because my secretary doesn't
+carry wax vestas in his pyjamas. Hey! But what about that hole in the
+window?"
+
+Mr. and Miss Pilgrim, the secretary, and Lord Roker stared blankly at
+it.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+And that is why Lord Roker was not able to show the Bunyan MS. at the
+next meeting of the Burglars' Club.
+
+
+
+
+VII.
+
+THE GREAT SEAL.
+
+
+THE Hon. Richard Hilton stared at the type-written letter with distinct
+feelings of pleasure. This is what he read:--
+
+      SIR,--I have the honour to inform you of your election
+      as a member of the Club, conditional upon your
+      attendance on the 5th proximo with the Great Seal of
+      the United Kingdom, procured in the usual way.--Yours
+      faithfully,
+
+                                         THE HON. SECRETARY.
+
+"That's good," he ejaculated. "Ribston's a trump. But what on earth's
+the Great Seal of the United Kingdom, and where is it to be found?"
+
+Mr. Hilton's library was chiefly devoted to sport and fiction, and he
+could find no reference to it therein. He had therefore to make
+inquiries outside, when he learnt that the Great Seal of the United
+Kingdom was the property of the Lord Chancellor for the time being, that
+it was a very important object indeed, its impression being requisite at
+the foot of the highest documents of State; and, consequently, that its
+unexpected absence might very well upset the nation's affairs and
+incidentally bring serious trouble upon anyone who had tampered with it.
+
+Mr. Hilton's sporting instincts were roused. "It seems to me," he
+thought, "that this is going to be the best thing I have had on since I
+walked across Thibet disguised as a second-class Mahatma. But where does
+the Chancellor keep the thing?"
+
+He skimmed through many biographies of Lord Chancellors with very little
+result. One of them, it appeared, kept the Great Seal with his silver,
+another always carried it about with him in a special pocket, and slept
+with it under his pillow; while a third stored it at the Bank of
+England. History was discreetly silent as to how the other hundred and
+one keepers of the Great Seal guarded their property.
+
+Mr. Richard Hilton contemplated his notes with disgust. "I never could
+rely on books," he said. "There's nothing for it but to find out for
+myself. The present man probably keeps it where any other common-sense
+fellow would. He'll have a library, so it may be there. He's a good
+liver, so it may be in a secret bin in his wine cellar; he's a
+sportsman, so it may be in a gun-case under his bed. I shall have to
+look round and find out. Where does he live?"
+
+His lordship's town residence was Shipley House, Kensington Gore. Hilton
+took a walk in that direction. The house looked as unpromising and
+unsympathetic a subject for robbery as a metropolitan magistrate could
+have wished. The spiked railings in front and the high wall at the back
+would have suggested to most people the impossibility of the enterprise;
+but Mr. Hilton simply noted these items with interest, and then
+adjourned to a light lunch at his club to think the matter out.
+
+It was one o'clock in the morning when Mr. Hilton scaled the wall at the
+rear of the Lord Chancellor's house. Though it was nine feet high, it
+presented no difficulties to an ex-lieutenant in the navy; but he got
+over carefully, for he was in evening dress, believing that to be the
+safest disguise for a general burglar. He dropped lightly on the turf,
+and then made his way across to the house and commenced a careful
+inspection of the basement windows. To his intense surprise, he found
+the lower sash of one of them to be open. This astonishing piece of good
+luck meant the saving of at least an hour. With a cheerful heart he
+entered the house, finding his way by the electric flashlight which he
+carried.
+
+His passage to the great hall upstairs was easy. Here he halted to take
+his bearings. He was at the foot of the marble stairs for which Shipley
+House was famous. Once they had stood in front of Nero's villa at
+Antium; but, oblivious of his historic surroundings, Mr. Richard Hilton
+stood wondering which of the four doors on his left led to the library.
+One after another he cautiously opened them, only to find living or
+reception rooms. He crossed the hall, and got into the billiard-room.
+Where on earth was the Lord Chancellor's den? Ah! those heavy curtains
+under the staircase. He passed through them. There was a short passage,
+with a door at the end. Hush! what was that? He listened intently. It
+was nothing--merely nervous fancy. He turned the handle of the door, and
+entered.
+
+He was in the Lord Chancellor's library. But, Heavens! he was not there
+alone.
+
+For a moment he drew back in dismay; but the singularity of the other
+man's occupation arrested him.
+
+He was kneeling on the floor before the wall at the far end of the room.
+He had a lamp or candle by his side. What on earth was he doing? Had he
+surprised the Lord High Chancellor, the keeper of the King of England's
+conscience, worshipping by stealth at some pagan shrine?
+
+What were the rites he was performing? Curiosity impelled Mr. Hilton
+forward. As he drew nearer, the situation unfolded itself. He had done
+the Lord Chancellor an injustice. It was not he.
+
+A man was kneeling before a safe built into the wall. He was drilling
+holes into the door by the light of a lamp.
+
+He was a real burglar!
+
+The humour of the situation struck Mr. Hilton so keenly that he nearly
+laughed. For some time he watched the operation, expecting each moment
+to be discovered. Then, as the man continued absorbed in his work, Mr.
+Hilton sank noiselessly into an easy chair behind him. To prepare for
+contingencies, his hand had stolen to his coat pocket, and now held a
+small revolver.
+
+For half an hour longer he continued to admire the businesslike methods
+of the burglar. The door of the safe had now been pierced through all
+round the lock. The man turned to reach another tool. In so doing his
+eye caught sight of a patent leather boot and a trouser leg, where
+before there had been empty space. The phenomenon fascinated him. He
+slowly turned his head, following the clue upward until his eyes were
+level with the barrel of Mr. Hilton's revolver. His jaw fell, and he
+stiffened.
+
+"Please keep as you are for a minute," said a low voice from behind the
+weapon. "I wish you to understand the situation. There is no immediate
+cause for anxiety. I am--er--a friend in disguise. You may go on with
+your most interesting work. I shall give no alarm. Do you understand?"
+
+"Who the blazes are you?" asked the burglar.
+
+"Your curiosity is natural. I am in your own noble profession--a
+top-sawyer or a swell mobsman, I forget which; but I have the
+certificate at home."
+
+"None of yer gammon," said the burglar. "Can't you put that thing down
+an' say wot yer game is."
+
+"William," Mr. Hilton replied, "I wish you clearly to understand that
+you have nothing at all to do with my game. You go on drilling those
+nice little holes. When you've got that door open we'll discuss matters
+further. Please proceed."
+
+[Illustration: "'YOU MAY GO ON WITH YOUR MOST INTERESTING WORK.'"
+
+(_p. 141._)]
+
+"D'you take me for a mug?" asked the burglar defiantly.
+
+"I shall, if you don't go on with your work. This instrument goes off on
+the slightest provocation, and the wound it makes is very painful."
+
+The burglar turned, and resumed his work; but he did not seem to have
+much heart in it, nor to derive much encouragement from Mr. Hilton's
+occasional promptings. Every now and then he looked round suspiciously.
+Another half-hour passed before he had prized the bolts back, and the
+door was open.
+
+For the moment the two men forgot everything but their curiosity, and
+both looked anxiously inside. Every shelf and pigeon-hole was rummaged,
+but there was nothing but letters and documents. There were two drawers
+below. The locks of these had to be picked. In the last one the burglar
+pounced on a bag of money and some notes.
+
+"Got 'im!" he cried triumphantly.
+
+"What?"
+
+"Two 'underd an' fifty quid. 'E gets it on the fust of ev'ry month to
+pay 'is washin' bill."
+
+"How did you know that?"
+
+"From a pal at the bank. I've 'ad this in my eye for a year or more, but
+I've mos'ly been a-doin' time since I----" He stopped short suddenly,
+evidently regretting his outburst of confidence.
+
+"Now put that money back," said Mr. Hilton.
+
+"Wot for?"
+
+"Because I tell you."
+
+"Arfter all the trouble I've 'ad? No bloomin' fear."
+
+"Put it back. You shan't lose by it."
+
+"Wot d'ye mean?"
+
+"I'm looking for something myself. It isn't in the safe, but it may be
+in some other drawer in the room. If I find it I'll give you £250
+myself."
+
+"Name o'Morgan, or am I speakin' to Lord Rothschild?" said the burglar
+sarcastically. "You don't 'appen to 'ave the chink on you?"
+
+"I haven't; but see, you can have this watch and chain, and my sovereign
+purse, and these links, and I think--yes, here's a tenner. You can have
+this lot till I give you the money."
+
+The burglar was impressed.
+
+"Cap'n," he said, "you've a free an' easy way in 'andlin' walubles wot
+soots me down to the ground. I wish we could 'ave met sooner. It would
+'ave saved my ole woman many a weary six months. But wot's the need to
+leave the chink? S'pose we takes the bag, an' leaves the notes?"
+
+"You've got to leave the lot, William," said Mr. Hilton decisively.
+
+The burglar turned thoughtfully away from the safe. "Wot is it you're
+lookin' for?" he asked. "'As the guv'n'r cut you orf with a bob, an' are
+you a-goin' to alter the ole bloke's will?"
+
+"I'm looking for a seal."
+
+"Stuffed?" asked William, with a sportsman's interest.
+
+"No. A seal for stamping wax. It's a big one, made of silver, and about
+six inches across. Let's try these drawers in the desk."
+
+There were six of them. Four were open, the other two locked. It took
+some time to open these. They were full of legal matter. Then they
+turned their attention to a set below some bookshelves. While the
+burglar was busy with the locks Hilton turned over the papers on the
+desk. The first was headed, "House of Lords: Gibbins _v._ Gibbins.
+Judgment of Lord Ravy." Another read, "Gibbins _v._ Gibbins. Judgment of
+Lord McTaughtun." Beside them was the half-written judgment of the Lord
+Chancellor himself.
+
+Mr. Richard Hilton looked at these legal feats without interest.
+Mechanically he lifted the lid of the desk. A large leather case fitted
+exactly into the compartment below. He pulled it out. It was stamped
+with the royal arms.
+
+"Here. Cut this, please."
+
+The flap was cut, and Hilton drew out a richly embroidered and
+betasselled silk purse.
+
+He looked eagerly inside.
+
+"Hurrah!" he cried in his excitement. For it was the Great Seal of the
+United Kingdom.
+
+The burglar examined it critically, and then felt its weight. "Five
+quid," he said, putting it down contemptuously.
+
+Hilton dropped it carefully into his pocket.
+
+At this moment the electric light was suddenly switched on, and the
+whole place was brilliantly illuminated. They both turned sharply
+towards the door. There in his dressing-gown stood an old gentleman.
+Hilton had often seen those classic features in photographs or the
+illustrated papers. He recognised them at once. It was the Lord
+Chancellor.
+
+"What are you doing here?" came the stern judicial voice.
+
+"We are--er--we are making the Home Circuit, my lord," said Hilton
+deferentially. "May I ask your lordship to be good enough to lower your
+voice. You perceive that I am armed."
+
+"You would dare to fire on me, sir?" said the Lord Chancellor.
+
+"I hope it will not be necessary; for in that case your lordship would
+not hunt next season with the Bister Vale. Will you please take that
+seat?"
+
+His lordship sank into the chair. "You are a bold man," he said, after a
+pause.
+
+"A bold, bad man, I fear, my lord. And so is my partner, Mr. William
+Sikes here. Aren't you, William?"
+
+William did not reply. He was gazing intently at the Lord Chancellor.
+
+"Ain't yer name 'Ardy?" he asked. "'Enery 'Ardy?"
+
+"It used to be," replied his lordship.
+
+"I thought so," said Mr. Sikes. "Then I says to yer face you're a
+bloomin', footlin' rotter."
+
+"'Gently, brother, gently, pray,'" said Hilton.
+
+"A bloomin', footlin' rotter," repeated Mr. Sikes with the earnestness
+of conviction. "An' I've waited five-an'-twenty year to tell you so."
+
+"Ah," said the Lord Chancellor, with some interest. "How is that?"
+
+"I once paid you to defend me at the Dawchester 'Sizes respectin' a mare
+wot 'ad follered me inter 'Ampshire. A sickenin' 'ash you made of it.
+You got two quid fer the job, an' I got two year. I b'lieve you woz
+boozed."
+
+"Pray forgive William, my lord," said Hilton. "He forgets himself
+strangely when he's excited. We have a lot of trouble with him at home."
+
+William glared at him. "I ain't forgot that bloke's ugly mug, any'ow. I
+swore I'd be quits with 'im one day, an', holy Moses, it's my go now."
+Saying this, he clutched his jemmy, and advanced threateningly towards
+his lordship.
+
+"Stay, you fool!" Hilton cried. "If you dare to touch him I'll shoot
+you. Get back."
+
+William hesitated.
+
+"If you don't get back before I count three I'll lame you for life.
+One--two----"
+
+William retired sullenly.
+
+"My lord," said Hilton, "I must draw this painful interview to a close.
+Your presence excites William, and he's always dangerous when excited.
+We will retire. Before I go, I wish to give you my word of honour that
+anything we may take away with us to-night will be again in your
+possession within forty-eight hours."
+
+"Your word of honour, sir!" repeated his lordship with withering
+contempt.
+
+"You are ungenerous, my lord. You force me to remind you that but for my
+interference William would undoubtedly have had his revenge upon you
+to-night, and the Woolsack have lost its brightest ornament. In return,
+I ask your lordship to give me your own assurance that you will not
+raise any alarm for the next half-hour. If you do not we shall have to
+bind and gag you."
+
+"Don't you be such a fool as to trust 'im," said William. "I'll do the
+gaggin'," he added, with enthusiasm.
+
+"Shut up, William," said Mr. Hilton. "If his lordship gives his word you
+may be sure he will keep it--even with thieves. The age of chivalry is
+not yet past, although you are still alive. My lord, do you agree?"
+
+"I am in your hands. I promise."
+
+Hilton bowed. He pointed to the door to his companion.
+
+"My tools," said William, going round the desk to collect them. A minute
+later the two had left the room. In five minutes they had scaled the
+outside wall, and within the half-hour were in Richard Hilton's rooms.
+
+Mr. William Sikes looked round him admiringly.
+
+"I understand your feelings, William," said Mr. Hilton, "but my windows
+and doors are every night connected with a burglar-alarm, and my man,
+who was once a noted bruiser, is close at hand. I don't really think it
+would be safe for you to call again. Now you want your money. I will
+write a cheque out, payable to bearer, and give it you. If you make
+yourself nice and tidy they will cash it for you in the morning over the
+counter at my bank."
+
+"I don't like cashin' cheques at banks," said William. "I never was any
+good at it," he added pensively. "Ain't you got any rhino in this 'ere
+shanty?"
+
+"Let me see. You have a tenner of mine in your pocket. Perhaps I can
+give you some more." Hilton opened a bureau, and produced a cash-box.
+"You see where I keep it, William," he remarked pleasantly. "I shall
+have to find another place for it in future--you are so very impulsive.
+Ah, here we are. Three fivers and two--four--six in gold. That makes
+twenty-one. And where's the sovereign purse I gave you? Thank you. Here
+are four more: that makes twenty-five; and you have ten: that is
+thirty-five. Now I'll make a cheque out for the balance--what is it?
+Yes; two hundred and fifteen pounds. . . . Here it is. Perhaps your
+friend at the Lord Chancellor's bank will present it for you before
+three o'clock this afternoon, when I shall suddenly find that I have
+lost the cheque, and shall stop payment."
+
+"Wot do you do that for?" asked William suspiciously.
+
+"I must do it for my own protection, William, as I'm afraid it wouldn't
+be wise for me to have any direct transactions with you. But until three
+o'clock the game is in your hands. Now it's time for you to have your
+beauty sleep. I am much obliged for your assistance. Good-night. Oh, by
+the way, let me have my watch, please--and the links. William, I'm
+afraid you were forgetting them."
+
+"Blow me, but I was," said William frankly, as he dived into his
+capacious pockets. "My mem'ry ain't wot it used to be, an' I knows it.
+Wot with work an' worry, an' worry an' work, it don't 'ave a fair
+chance. 'Ere you are, Cap'n." And William placed the jewellery in Mr.
+Hilton's hands with obvious regret. Then his host showed him off the
+premises.
+
+It was now four o'clock. Hilton pulled out the Great Seal, and locked it
+up in a secret drawer in his bureau. Then he retired to rest, in the
+happy consciousness of a night well spent.
+
+He rose late that morning, and it was one o'clock before he left his
+rooms. In Piccadilly, on the news posters:
+
+    "THE
+    GREAT SEAL
+    OF
+    ENGLAND
+    STOLEN,"
+
+at once caught his eye. He bought a paper, and turned to the column with
+curious interest.
+
+      "A daring robbery was perpetrated in the early hours
+      of this morning at Shipley House, Kensington Gore, the
+      residence of the Lord Chancellor. His lordship, being
+      unable to sleep, came downstairs about two o'clock,
+      intending to complete an important judgment. In the
+      library he found two burglars, who succeeded in
+      decamping before his lordship could obtain assistance.
+
+      "The Great Seal of England, and £250 in gold and notes
+      are missing.
+
+      "This is probably the most audacious burglary of
+      modern times, for the Lord Chancellor is the head of
+      the judicial system of the country, and, after
+      Royalty, is only second in importance to the
+      Archbishop of Canterbury.
+
+      "England is to-day without a Great Seal of State, a
+      position unparalleled since it was stolen from Lord
+      Thurlow's residence in 1784. Only once before had it
+      been missing--when James II. threw it into the Thames
+      at Lambeth.
+
+      "Great inconvenience has already been caused by its
+      absence, as the treaty between England and Korea was
+      to have been signed to-morrow, and the Great Seal
+      affixed thereto. We understand that the Privy Council
+      will meet in the morning at Buckingham Palace in order
+      to deal with the situation thus created.
+
+      "We are informed that the police have an important
+      clue which will lead to the apprehension of at least
+      one of the criminals. We do not know whether any
+      special penalty is attached to the theft of the Great
+      Seal, but a century ago the perpetrator of the crime
+      would undoubtedly have been hanged."
+
+Richard Hilton stared at this in blank amazement. The pains and
+penalties did not disturb him, but "£250 in gold and notes missing" held
+him spellbound. Suddenly light dawned upon him, and he burst out with
+"Done! And by William! That was when he collected his tools, and I
+wasn't watching. The scoundrel! Hi! hansom! . . . Cox's Bank. Sharp!"
+
+Ten minutes later he was at the bank counter.
+
+"I have lost a cheque for £215, payable to bearer, made out to self and
+endorsed. Please stop payment," he said.
+
+"Very sorry, Mr. Hilton," replied the teller. "It was presented first
+thing this morning, and I cashed it in gold."
+
+That evening the meeting of the Burglars' Club was held at the house of
+Lord Altamont, an ex-colonel of the Welsh Guards. There was a record
+attendance. The robbery of the Great Seal had excited general interest,
+but to members of the Club the accompanying details were of the gravest
+importance.
+
+After the usual opening formalities had been gone through, Lord Ribston
+rose.
+
+"Mr. President, I crave leave for Mr. Richard Hilton, a cadet member of
+this club, to speak."
+
+Assent was given by the general silence, which was maintained when
+Hilton entered.
+
+"Mr. President, my lords and gentlemen," he began, "I regret exceedingly
+that I have to make my first appearance in your midst with an apology. I
+take it that you have all seen the paragraph in the papers stating that
+the Great Seal is missing from the Lord Chancellor's House, and, in
+addition to that, £250 in notes and gold. No explanation is needed as to
+the absence of the Great Seal, for that resulted from the mandate of
+your club. The other item calls for a clear and explicit statement of
+the facts of the case."
+
+Here Hilton gave an account of the robbery from his first meeting the
+burglar to his parting from him, concluding, "So now, gentlemen, I
+suggest that I deserve your sympathy rather than your blame; for not
+only has Mr. Sikes relieved me of £250, but I have promised the Lord
+Chancellor to return anything we took away with us. I shall, therefore,
+have to send him a further like sum. I do not grudge the loss of £500,
+since I have been enabled to qualify as a member of your club, but I do
+most sincerely regret that my bungling has led to even a temporary
+suspicion that the taint of professionalism has been brought into your
+midst. My lords and gentlemen, I am in your hands. Here, at any rate, is
+the Great Seal of the United Kingdom."
+
+The last words were lost in tumultuous applause. Each member rose to his
+feet and acclaimed the speaker, and then they crowded round him and
+shook hands.
+
+"Gentlemen," said the President, when order had been restored, "I move
+that Mr. Richard Hilton be now formally enrolled as a member of the
+Club, and in your name I welcome him as one who has already added lustre
+to our annals. The circumstances of his entry are so unusual that, as a
+mark of our appreciation, I beg to move that the provincial line due
+from him in the usual course of things in two years' time be hereby
+excused, and that, as an exception to our rule, Mr. Hilton be elected
+for a term of four years."
+
+The proposition was carried by acclamation.
+
+"Your Grace and gentlemen, I thank you," said the beaming Richard
+Hilton.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The Privy Council met at ten on the following morning, and ordered a new
+seal to be engraved; but at noon a postal packet was delivered at
+Shipley House, which, on being opened, disclosed an old biscuit tin,
+then tissue paper, then cotton-wool, and finally the Great Seal of the
+United Kingdom.
+
+The treaty between England and Korea was signed with the usual
+formalities at three in the afternoon.
+
+Later in the day the Lord Chancellor received from five different
+quarters registered parcels, each weighing about a pound avoirdupois.
+Each packet contained fifty sovereigns.
+
+Thus within forty-eight hours his lordship had received all the stolen
+property. In consideration thereof he cancelled his instructions to
+Scotland Yard to follow up a clue which Mr. William Sikes had
+incautiously given about a Dorset horse robbery in the late 'seventies.
+
+His lordship also advertised his acknowledgments in the agony column of
+the _Times_, and asked for the favour of an explanation of the whole
+incident. This was not forthcoming, and the matter remained for some
+time the one unsolved riddle of his lordship's life.
+
+Mr. William Sikes, with the £500 so ingeniously obtained, retired from
+the burglary profession, and bought a little public house known as the
+"Goat and Compasses." For some reason or other he altered the name to
+"Seal and Compasses," thereby causing much mystification to future
+antiquarians in that particular district.
+
+In recalling his conduct on the night in question, Mr. Sikes spends some
+of the happiest hours of his life.
+
+To Mr. Richard Hilton the events of that night were also eminently
+satisfactory. He was the only loser, but he had gained more than he had
+lost, for the laurels of the Burglars' Club were his.
+
+
+
+
+VIII.
+
+THE LION AND THE SUN.
+
+
+THE visit of His Royal Highness Ali Azim Mirza, nephew of the Shah,
+accompanied by the Grand Vizier, Hasan Kuli, is fresh in our memories.
+The mission of the Prince was to invest a distinguished personage with
+the insignia of the Lion and the Sun in order to mark the Persian
+monarch's appreciation of the Garter which had been recently conferred
+upon him. The Mission duly returned with its object accomplished.
+Outwardly everything happened as was anticipated, and there are but few
+who know how nearly we approached to a war with Russia as a consequence
+of the visit, while still fewer are aware that such a calamity was
+averted by a cadet member of the Burglars' Club.
+
+In the unwritten annals of the Club the incident stands out prominently.
+It is well that it should be recorded before it is forgotten.
+
+The special Mission was due to arrive in London on the 10th of the
+month. It was to leave on the 16th. Lord Denton had placed his town
+house at the disposal of the Prince and his retinue during their stay.
+
+On the 4th, Mr. Birket Rivers, a cadet member of the Burglars' Club,
+received an intimation that his entrance fee could be paid on the 13th
+by the production of the insignia of the Order which the Prince was
+bringing with him.
+
+On the evening of the 8th, John Parker, a footman in the employ of Lord
+Denton, called by request on Mr. Rivers at his rooms in the Albany.
+
+"You wished to see me, sir?"
+
+"Ah, Parker, how are you getting on?"
+
+"Very well, thank you, sir."
+
+"You are going to have great times, Parker. When does Lord Denton
+leave?"
+
+"To-morrow, sir."
+
+"Are all the servants staying behind?"
+
+"Only about half of us, sir. The Persians bring their own cooks and
+men."
+
+"Quite so. Are you remaining?"
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"Good. I want you to let me take your place."
+
+Parker opened his eyes very wide. "Beg pardon, sir," he said, feeling
+sure he had misunderstood the last remark.
+
+"I want to take your place as footman in Denton House while the Persians
+are there. If you will help me to do so, Parker, there's ten pounds for
+you."
+
+Parker scratched his head. "I should like the ten pounds, sir; but I
+don't see how I'm to get it. They'd never mistake you for me, sir,
+though we are about the same build. Mr. Bradshaw would spot the
+difference at once."
+
+"Who is Mr. Bradshaw?"
+
+"The butler, sir. He's pretty well left in charge of the house."
+
+"Listen, Parker. The Prince comes the day after to-morrow. At eleven
+o'clock in the morning of that day you've got to be taken ill. Tell
+Bradshaw you can't work, and you think it's something infectious. Tell
+him that your cousin, James Finny, who is only staying on with me till
+he hears of a place, would jump at the job. Send me word, and I will
+turn up at once."
+
+"Mr. Bradshaw might know you, sir."
+
+"I don't think so. I've never been at the house. Besides, I shall shave
+off my moustache. Anyway, Parker, I'll take care you lose nothing by it,
+even if I should be found out."
+
+John Parker left a quarter of an hour later, ten pounds richer than he
+came. In his pocket he carried a letter which eventually reached Mr.
+Rivers by special messenger at noon on the 10th. It ran:
+
+      DEAR JAMES,--Come immediately. I am ill, and Mr.
+      Bradshaw says you can take my place.--Your loving
+      cousin,
+
+                                         JOHN PARKER.
+
+With his moustache shaved off, and attired in a painfully respectable
+ready-made suit, Rivers presented himself at Denton House at one
+o'clock. He found Mr. Bradshaw in a highly-wrought condition.
+
+"So you're Parker's cousin? A pretty mess he's landed me in!"
+
+"I hope he's not very bad, sir."
+
+"I hope he is. I hope he'll die," said Mr. Bradshaw vengefully. "You've
+lived with Mr. Rivers?"
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"Can you announce visitors?"
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"Go to that door, and announce the Lord Mayor."
+
+Rivers--or, rather, James Finny--flung open the door, and announced in
+stentorian accents, "His Worship the Lord Mayor of London."
+
+"You hass!" shouted Mr. Bradshaw. "You only worship him when you're in
+the prisoners' box. I 'spect that's where you met him. Call him 'his
+Lordship' when he's a-wisitin'. Now again."
+
+James obeyed.
+
+"Bravo--that's better!" said another voice. It proceeded from a mite of
+a man who had approached noiselessly, and who now stood rubbing his
+hands approvingly. "But it's rather late for rehearsals, Mr. Bradshaw,
+isn't it?" he added.
+
+"Parker's taken ill," said Mr. Bradshaw savagely. "He's sent this screw
+to take his place."
+
+"So thoughtful of Parker," murmured the little man. "What's your name,
+and where do you come from?" addressing the candidate for office.
+
+"James Finny, sir--from Mr. Birket Rivers."
+
+"Mr. Birket Rivers," reflected the other. "Ah, to be sure--Mr. Birket
+Rivers, the young millionaire. Drives a team of spanking bays at the
+Four-in-Hand meets. Attaché at Constantinople, or something. Came into
+money and left the Service. Wishes he'd stopped in it, I believe. A
+very active young gentleman. Oh, yes, I've heard of your master--your
+late master, James Finny."
+
+The little man was studying him intently all the time. Then he fixed his
+eyes on Rivers' hands. He lifted the right one, looked at it, and passed
+on.
+
+There was a loud ring, and a footman entered with "Please, Mr. Bradshaw,
+there's the gentlemen come from the hembassy."
+
+The butler bustled to the door. "Go up to Parker's room, and change into
+his things at once, and then come down to me in the 'all," he said to
+Rivers.
+
+"Yes, sir," Rivers replied. "Beg pardon, Mr. Bradshaw, who was that
+small gentleman wot just left us?"
+
+"That small gentleman," said Mr. Bradshaw, with swelling dignity, "is
+Mr. Marvell, from Scotland Yard; so you'd better be careful, Finny."
+
+Prince Ali Azim, accompanied by the Vizier and a numerous suite, arrived
+that afternoon, and the whole household was thenceforth kept busy
+attending to the wants, numerous and peculiar, of the Persians. Rivers'
+chief duties were to attend to the hall door, and to help to wait at
+meals. He did his work to the satisfaction of Mr. Bradshaw, and never a
+day passed without Mr. Marvell, who was installed as the protecting
+angel of the establishment, staring fixedly at him, and then passing
+some word of commendation in a tone that brought the blood to his face.
+
+"A shocking habit you have of blushing, James Finny," the little man
+would say as he toddled away.
+
+And all the time the new footman was trying to find out where the Order
+of the Lion and the Sun was kept.
+
+It was the 12th before he ascertained that it was in one of three
+despatch boxes kept in a bookcase in the library.
+
+The Burglars' meeting took place on the 13th. He must purloin it before
+then--that very night, if possible.
+
+At five o'clock the Vizier was taken ill.
+
+"Some of Parker's leavin's, I'll be bound," said Mr. Bradshaw. "Same
+symtims. Looks all right, and talks despairin' of pains an' shivers.
+Won't have a doctor, neither. If the Wizzer pipes out, Finny, your
+preshus cousin'll be responsible."
+
+At 8 p.m. the Prince and his suite, with the exception of the invalid
+Vizier, set out for the Alhambra and supper at the Carlton. Mr.
+Marvell, as usual, followed closely in their wake.
+
+At nine o'clock James Finny was off duty. "Now or never," he thought. He
+watched his opportunity, and then, unperceived, entered the library, and
+there hid himself behind a curtain, intending to wait till the household
+was asleep, and then to open the despatch box from his bunch of skeleton
+keys. He had been there perhaps half an hour when the door opened, and,
+to his amazement, the Vizier entered. He was followed by a servant
+bringing coffee and cigarettes. There were cups for two.
+
+The minutes passed slowly. The Vizier looked impatiently at the clock,
+then strode up to one of the windows, pulled back the heavy curtain,
+raised the blind, and looked out. Rivers' pulses quickened. What if the
+Vizier were to come to his window?
+
+"Ha!" exclaimed the Persian, replacing the curtain, and resuming his
+seat.
+
+The door opened, and a bemuffled object made its appearance. The Vizier
+rose. The servant withdrew, and the object emerged from its wraps.
+Rivers knew the man at once. He had met him at Constantinople. It was
+Count Moranoff.
+
+The Vizier bowed.
+
+The newcomer responded, and then gave a sigh of relief.
+
+"_Peste!_ but it was warm, Vizier," he said. "I am delighted at last to
+have the honour and the supreme pleasure of meeting you."
+
+"Your Excellency," replied the Vizier, "the fame of Count Moranoff has
+for long inspired me with an intense wish that we should meet. Allah has
+at last granted the desire of my life. Will your Excellency seat
+yourself? Here is coffee _alla Turca_."
+
+The count drew up his chair, and took the proffered cup. As he lit a
+cigarette, his eyes travelled appreciatively over the portraits of a
+dozen Dentons, famous in the service of their country. "It is fitting we
+should meet here," he said, "surrounded by these illustrious gentlemen,
+who look on, but cannot move. It is prophetic."
+
+"It is Kismet," said the Vizier gravely.
+
+"Kismet, assisted by two statesmen," returned the Count. "Exactly. But I
+mustn't lose time, Vizier, as our moments are precious." He put his hand
+into his breast pocket, and produced a document. "Here is the draft of
+our understanding, arranged so far as is possible with three thousand
+versts between us. Now we must discuss the final details. I have
+indicated my suggestions, and if they meet with your approval it will be
+possible for us to sign before you leave London."
+
+The Persian watched the smoke rings float upward. "There is no haste,"
+he said. "'Fruit ripens slowly under grey skies,' as our poet sings."
+
+"Quite so--quite so," said the Russian, conscious of an error. "This
+year--the next will do. Our treasury has many drains upon it. We are not
+anxious to add to the number."
+
+The Vizier smoked imperturbably. "The skies are grey here," he said at
+length, "but this London holds some wonderful men. One I met
+yesterday--an American. He is young. His hair is still flaxen. Yet he
+spoke of money as though it grew on rose trees. Half a million roubles
+are as nothing to him. He gave that sum for an Italian picture--an old,
+shabby-looking thing such as my master would not place in his anterooms.
+He owns oil mines, railways, banks. Allah! what does that flaxen-haired
+youth not own? My heart ached at the number of his possessions."
+
+"These Americans talk," replied the Count. "Half they say is false, half
+exaggeration."
+
+"Sometimes, no doubt," said the Vizier, "but not always. I know this man
+is rich. He is one of the new kings of the earth. We have already had a
+transaction together," and he sighed contentedly.
+
+"There are kings and kings," replied the Russian. "There are also
+emperors. Your Excellency is now in negotiation with one who controls
+the destinies of countless millions--men and roubles. When last I saw
+his Majesty he said, 'Tell his Excellency the Grand Vizier that I would
+his wisdom could be added to that of my counsellors. When the wishes of
+my heart respecting the new treaty are consummated he will honour me by
+accepting half a million roubles.'"
+
+The Persian gazed reflectively into space. "Your master is great," he
+said, "and he is generous. His rewards make glad the hearts of poets. He
+is the joy of the poor. Would that I were a poet or poor. So should my
+voice praise him also."
+
+The Russian's eye gleamed, but he continued suavely:
+
+"So said my royal master, 'Half a million roubles shall be his when the
+treaty is signed; five hundred thousand more when the Russian flag
+floats in the Persian Gulf.'"
+
+The Persian leaned back resignedly.
+
+"Great is the power of your master," he said. "As Russia is bigger than
+America, so does his power exceed that of the flaxen-haired gentleman I
+met yesterday. The Americans are numbered by tens, your master's
+subjects by hundreds of millions. Besides, it is always more agreeable
+to deal with a first-class diplomatist. Let me look at the draft."
+
+Count Moranoff handed over the document. The Vizier read it slowly. The
+terms were fairly comprehensive. Behind his curtain Rivers breathed hard
+at their audacity, and his blood tingled at the thought that it rested
+with him to checkmate this daring move. The statesmen discoursed
+frankly, and there was no disguise of the object in view. India was
+eventually to be attacked by Russia, who was prepared to pay for
+facilities granted. The north-eastern province of Persia was a necessary
+factor of the scheme, and a railway was to be commenced at once from
+Astrabad to Meshed. But the most striking part of the plan was the
+acquisition by Russia of a port in the Persian Gulf. The Isle of Kishm
+was to be ceded to her. The only discussion between the two statesmen
+was with regard to the Island of Ashurada in the Caspian. The Vizier
+demanded its evacuation by Russia in partial payment for Kishm, but more
+particularly as a sop to the Persian people. After much demur this was
+finally agreed to by Moranoff, in addition to the annuity of two million
+roubles granted to the Shah.
+
+The Vizier folded up the document.
+
+"My secretary shall transcribe this to-morrow," he said, "and we can
+sign after our return from Windsor. Strange, is it not," he
+soliloquised, "that our former negotiations came to a head when the
+English Mission brought the Garter, and our new one is to be consummated
+while we are in the act of returning the compliment? These English are
+fated to be hoodwinked."
+
+"When men such as you and I get together, my dear Vizier----" began the
+Russian sententiously. Then he stopped short, for the door had suddenly
+opened.
+
+The Persian turned angrily, and then rose to his feet as a tall,
+richly-dressed man entered. It was the Prince Ali Azim.
+
+"Vizier," said the Prince abruptly, "whom have you here? Your
+physician?"
+
+The Vizier's face had assumed a bland smile, and instinctively he
+endeavoured to cover the treaty. But the Prince saw the movement.
+
+"Why hide the prescription, Vizier?" he said.
+
+The Russian's face grew livid, but the Vizier regained his usual
+composure.
+
+"Your Royal Highness," he said, "permit me to present his Excellency
+Count Moranoff."
+
+"Ten thousand pardons, Count," said the Prince, slightly returning the
+Count's profound inclination. "You will, perhaps, understand my mistake
+when I tell you that the Vizier is far from well. He has, no doubt,
+concealed the fact from you, but he was too ill to accompany me this
+evening to the hall of music. Hence my surprise at finding him here. I
+fear that his extraordinary zeal for affairs has led him prematurely
+from his bed. I am sure that you would not wish him to trespass unduly
+on his strength."
+
+"Your Royal Highness's surmise is correct," said Moranoff. "It would,
+indeed, be an international calamity were the Vizier to break down. I
+hope I have not hastened that end." He again bowed profoundly to the
+Prince, refused the Vizier's offer of assistance with his wraps, and
+then, with a cold adieu to him, left the room.
+
+"Now, Hasan Kuli," thundered the Prince when they were alone, "what
+intrigue is this?"
+
+"Your Royal Highness's suspicions are uncalled for. Moranoff and I are
+old friends by correspondence. We had never met personally, and he
+naturally seized this opportunity."
+
+"I did not know he was in England," said the Prince. "The Russian
+Ambassador incidentally referred to him to-day as being in Petersburg. I
+left you in bed, full of toothache and indigestion. I return
+unexpectedly, and find you deliberating with a Russian who is supposed
+to be five hundred _farsakhs_ away. Give me that paper."
+
+The Vizier reluctantly produced it, and the Prince read it through.
+
+"Ah," he said, as he refolded it. "I see you are making a cat's-paw of
+me again. My mission here is to do away with any ill-effects consequent
+on our treaty with Russia. You will remember that when we were fooling
+the English Mission in Teheran I knew nothing of the treaty just
+concluded with Russia. My uncle and you delighted to keep me in the
+dark; yet all the time it was I who did the work. Was it his Majesty the
+Shah who played at billiards and cards with the English? Was it you who
+fought them at lawn tennis. Bah! I laugh at the thought. But I played at
+all. I lost my money at cards and billiards, and I suffered defeat at
+lawn tennis till the perspiration rolled down me, and my legs gave way.
+And you smoked and laughed, and got all the profit. I, who worked, got
+none. Now I have come over land and sea with the Order of the Lion and
+the Sun. Again I do the work--again I know nothing. I find you
+intriguing behind my back. You treat me as a child; but you forget that
+some day I may be Shah. You play with fire, Vizier."
+
+"Your Royal Highness, I beg you to believe that I have acted for what I
+thought was the benefit of our country."
+
+"And your own pocket," added the Prince. "How much plunder do you get
+out of this?"
+
+The Vizier held up his hands in horror. "Your Royal Highness," he said,
+"is nothing ever done disinterestedly--from pure patriotism?"
+
+[Illustration: "SUDDENLY HE ROSE, TOOK THE DRAFT OF THE TREATY, WENT TO
+THE DESPATCH BOXES, AND PLACED IT IN ONE OF THEM."
+
+(_p. 175._)]
+
+"Not by Hasan Kuli," sneered the Prince. "Please save yourself useless
+declamation. You may as well know my terms at once. The price of my
+acquiescence in this matter is one million roubles."
+
+The Vizier gasped.
+
+"One million roubles!" he exclaimed. "Does money grow?"
+
+"So far as I know, it does not," replied the Prince acidly. "But you may
+as well spare yourself unnecessary questions. These are my terms.
+Arrange with Moranoff to-morrow, or take it from your own profit--I care
+not which; but unless a portion of the money is forthcoming before we
+leave this cursed land I will----"
+
+"You will betray us?"
+
+"I do not explain my intentions to Viziers," replied the young man
+haughtily. "You understand me, I hope. Here is your treaty." He tossed
+the document on the table and left.
+
+The Vizier threw himself on a sofa, and groaned aloud. He lay there
+long--so long that Rivers, behind the curtain, was stiff and weary. And
+there was the Vizier, now apparently dozing at intervals--perhaps
+going to make a night of it.
+
+Suddenly he rose, took the draft of the treaty, went to the despatch
+boxes, and placed it in one of them. His body intervened between Rivers'
+view of them, but the watcher followed his movements as best he could.
+Then the Vizier turned to the door, and clicked out the light as he
+passed through.
+
+Rivers stretched himself, but he did not venture to stir from behind the
+curtain for some time. At length he stepped out, turned on his portable
+electric light, crossed the room, and stood before the despatch boxes.
+
+There were three, all exactly alike. One held the insignia of the Lion
+and the Sun. That was--yes, that was the bottom one. The treaty was in
+the middle one. The top one was unimportant. Rivers lifted out the
+middle one, and essayed to open it with his keys, but in vain. Then he
+tried the bottom one--that containing the Persian Order--but with no
+better success. The box would have to be forced open elsewhere. Yet he
+dare not carry it across the hall. Other means had to be found for
+getting it out of the room, and the way had occurred to him as he stood
+behind the curtain.
+
+One box he might pass safely through this instrumentality, but only one.
+Two would court defeat. Which box was he to take--the one that held the
+Order of the Lion and the Sun, the object of all his scheming, or the
+other, in which lay the treaty?
+
+Rivers' mind had taken its resolve at the instant he had seen the draft
+placed therein. Since Moranoff had appeared, he had lost all immediate
+interest in the Burglars' Club. Whether he became a member or not was of
+little moment, but it was a matter of national importance that the
+Foreign Secretary should see the draft of the treaty. The Earl of
+Ancoats was hard to convince of anyone's dishonesty. His own honour was
+so untarnished that he refused to believe less of others. He had
+declined to take hints about the former treaty between Russia and
+Persia, and now, with the Shah's Mission at his door, he would probably
+refuse to believe that this was but another blind, covering a further
+and bolder intrigue. Lord Ancoats must see the treaty.
+
+Rivers took the middle box across to the window, then drew up the blind
+and waited. The red-coated sentry passed. Could he manage it before the
+soldier was round again?
+
+Ah! here was his chance.
+
+He opened the window gently. "Hi!" he called out to the passing hansom.
+The man pulled up, got down, and came to the window.
+
+"I want you to take this box straight to Lord Ancoats. He lives in Eaton
+Square. Tell him Mr. Birket Rivers sent it, and he must open it at once.
+I will see him in the morning about it. Here's a sovereign. If Lord
+Ancoats gets it within an hour, I'll give you another sovereign
+to-morrow. Here you are. Cut along. Drive like blazes."
+
+As the man mounted his seat, the sentry came round the corner. Rivers
+cautiously closed the window, and drew the blind. He then pulled a chair
+behind the curtain, and went to sleep on it till four o'clock, when he
+made his way to his own room.
+
+First thing in the morning he sent a message to John Parker, who turned
+up in good health at ten o'clock, and claimed his post back.
+
+Half an hour later Rivers left, assured of Mr. Bradshaw's offer of the
+next vacancy in the household. He drove straight to the Albany, and then
+to Eaton Square. The Earl was at the Foreign Office. Within the hour his
+lordship received him.
+
+"Well, Mr. Rivers," said Lord Ancoats, producing the despatch box from a
+safe. "What is the meaning of this?"
+
+[Illustration: "INSTEAD OF THE DRAFT, THERE, ON A PURPLE VELVET CUSHION,
+WAS THE GLITTERING ORDER OF THE LION AND THE SUN."
+
+(_p. 178._)]
+
+"It explains itself, my lord."
+
+"Indeed," said the statesman drily. "What do you think it contains?"
+
+"The draft of a new treaty between Russia and Persia."
+
+"Open it."
+
+Rivers did so, and, instead of the draft, there on a purple velvet
+cushion was the glittering Order of the Lion and the Sun!
+
+Rivers was stupefied.
+
+"Was there nothing else?" he asked in bewilderment.
+
+"No, sir; and perhaps you will now explain how you came into possession
+of this, and why you sent it to me. It is surely the property of the
+Persian Mission."
+
+Lord Ancoats' demeanour was not reassuring, but Rivers plunged boldly
+into the matter.
+
+"Last night, at Denton House, Count Moranoff visited the Persian
+Vizier," he commenced.
+
+"How do you know that?"
+
+"I saw him. I was present at the interview--unknown, of course. He
+brought with him the draft of a treaty supplementing the last one. It
+had chiefly reference to the acquisition of a Russian port in the
+Persian Gulf."
+
+"Ah!" said Lord Ancoats, "that's a bold move. Go on, please."
+
+"The Vizier placed the draft in one of three despatch boxes like this. I
+thought this was the one, and I sent it here so that your lordship could
+read the treaty for yourself. I deeply regret that I made a mistake in
+the box, but I can give the gist of the treaty from memory."
+
+"Please do so now."
+
+Rivers' memory was good, and the words of the treaty had burnt
+themselves on his brain. He recited the terms without hesitation. The
+minister heard him in silence, making notes.
+
+"Thank you, Rivers," he said at the end. "You will please let me have
+that in writing in time for to-morrow's Cabinet." Then he got up and
+paced the room. "It is an unfortunate situation. I think we shall be
+able to meet the political side of it, but the investiture takes place
+at Windsor to-morrow, and this discovery is, to say the least,
+embarrassing. However, we have to thank you for being forewarned. You
+evidently anticipated this move."
+
+"I'm afraid not, sir. It was as much luck as anything else on my part."
+
+"But you were at Denton House?"
+
+"I was there on other business," said Rivers frankly.
+
+Lord Ancoats looked grave. "Well, Mr. Rivers," he said, "I will not
+inquire too closely what that other business was. You have rendered a
+service to the State which will not be forgotten. Now, what about this?"
+pointing to the box.
+
+"I will see that the Vizier gets it."
+
+"At once?"
+
+Rivers hesitated. Only then did he remember he now had in his possession
+what he wanted. He could pay his entrance fee.
+
+"I will see that it is at Denton House by the morning," he said.
+
+Lord Ancoats watched him intently.
+
+"Does the Burglars' Club meet to-night?" he said quietly.
+
+"I--I beg your pardon," stammered Rivers.
+
+Lord Ancoats laid a kindly hand on his shoulder. "I was only told of
+that institution within the hour," he said, "and till a moment ago I
+didn't believe the information. Take my advice, Rivers, and leave it.
+Its existence, you see, is known to some of the outside world. As a
+friend I warn you that you will be watched to-night. Don't spoil your
+career. Why did you leave the Service? Oh, I remember; but you're not
+satisfied with merely killing time, are you? Will you come back to us?
+The First Secretaryship at Vienna is vacant. Would you take it?"
+
+Rivers' face beamed. "I'd jump at it, my lord."
+
+"Then be ready to start in a week. Never mind thanks. I am still your
+debtor. Now about this box? You might be unable to restore it. We must
+adopt other means."
+
+Lord Ancoats opened the door of an adjoining room with, "Come forward,
+please." And the little detective whom Rivers had last seen at Denton
+House that very morning entered briskly.
+
+"I believe you have met before?" said Lord Ancoats.
+
+Rivers was too astonished to reply.
+
+"Yes, I have met James Finny--I beg pardon--Mr. Birket Rivers," said the
+detective drily.
+
+"Mr. Rivers has explained the mystery very satisfactorily, Marvell,"
+said Lord Ancoats. "The box should be restored without delay. Will you
+do this, please?"
+
+Mr. Marvell tried to look pleased, but signally failed in the attempt.
+
+"Certainly, my lord," he replied.
+
+There was a knock at the door, and a clerk appeared with a card in his
+hand.
+
+"I must leave you now," said the Minister. "Rivers, next week, remember.
+I am much obliged for your assistance, Mr. Marvell."
+
+With this the Secretary for Foreign Affairs left the room.
+
+The detective took up the box.
+
+"How on earth did you come into this matter, Mr. Marvell?" asked Rivers.
+
+"Very simply, sir. When Lord Ancoats got the box he telephoned to
+Scotland Yard, and I was sent for at once. As a matter of fact, I opened
+the box for his lordship. You're sure you wouldn't like to restore it
+yourself? The Vizier is ill in bed, and it won't be wanted till
+to-morrow."
+
+"Sorry to disappoint you, Mr. Marvell," Rivers laughed; "but I'm sure
+it's safer in your hands."
+
+Mr. Marvell nodded grimly. "Sooner or later, sir. Sooner or later," he
+said, as he walked to the door; "but don't try to be a footman next
+time."
+
+With these enigmatical remarks the interview terminated.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+On the following day the investiture of the Lion and the Sun took place
+at Windsor. After the ceremony Prince Ali Azim and the Vizier had a
+private interview with the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs. It
+was noted at the time that the Persians emerged looking singularly
+subdued.
+
+That evening, in reply to a friendly question addressed by the Leader of
+the Opposition, Lord Ancoats took the opportunity to assure the House
+that the paramount influence of England in the Persian Gulf would be
+maintained at any cost, and a month later the Union Jack floated by the
+side of the Arab Sultan's flag on the castle towers of Muscat.
+
+This was the answer given to the Russian intrigue. That it was so
+effective and complete was owing to the action of Mr. Birket Rivers,
+sometime a cadet member of the Burglars' Club.
+
+
+
+
+IX.
+
+THE HORSESHOE AND THE PEPPERCORN.
+
+
+THE President rose and read: "'March 29th is the anniversary of the
+Battle of Towton. For valour on that desperate field John de Mallaby
+received from Edward IV. the Barony of Tadcaster, and an appropriate
+grant of land in Yorkshire, at a yearly rental of a peppercorn and a
+golden horseshoe. That rent is still paid by the Barons--now Earls--of
+Tadcaster. His late lordship used to bring his annual acknowledgment to
+town in a state coach with outriders, but the present peer takes it to
+his Sovereign by motor-car, attended only by a chauffeur.'
+
+"In this paragraph, my lords and gentlemen," continued the Duke, "we see
+indicated the quest of our distinguished fellow member Captain Prescott
+Cunningham, whose subscription is now due."
+
+"What is the quest, Mr. President?" inquired Cunningham. "Am I to
+capture the peer or the motor-car?"
+
+"Neither, sir," replied his Grace of Dorchester. "You will kindly
+produce the horseshoe and the peppercorn intended for the King on the
+29th. Our meeting is arranged for the 28th, so that we may return the
+trophies in question, and enable his lordship of Tadcaster to continue
+in possession of his remarkably low-rented estate."
+
+The Right Honourable John de Mallaby, D.L., F.R.S., M.A., Eighteenth
+Baron and Seventh Earl of Tadcaster, lived chiefly at his Westmorland
+seat, Kirkdale Castle, which an ancestress in the time of George the
+First had obligingly brought into the family in addition to her own good
+looks.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A certain Mr. Shaw arrived one day of March last at the Golden Lion Inn,
+Kirkdale, and there spent a few days, talking much with the landlord and
+frequenters of the inn, and taking walks in the neighbourhood of the
+Castle. On the latter occasions he might have been seen gazing somewhat
+disconsolately at the battlemented walls which had several times defied
+an army.
+
+Once when he was so occupied, a thin, grizzly, stooping gentleman had
+passed, and with him a handsome dark-eyed girl. He learnt that this was
+the Earl himself, a scientific and somewhat eccentric widower, and his
+only child Eva, a _débutante_ of last season.
+
+Prescott Cunningham--for so was this Mr. Shaw designated in the more
+accurate books of the Registrar-General--soon gave up any idea of
+entering the Castle in his quest of the peppercorn and horseshoe. The
+task of finding them there was too big. He had learnt that on these
+annual occasions Lord Tadcaster, accompanied by his chauffeur, left the
+castle in his motor-car four days before the King received him. He also
+learnt full particulars of the route followed and of the halting places,
+and it was his final plan of campaign to waylay his lordship on the
+road, and, unashamed, to rob him of the articles desired.
+
+Having spent three days in coming to this conclusion, Cunningham moved
+on to Bolton Abbey, through which village he knew that his lordship
+would pass on his way to Harrogate, where he would spend the night of
+the 25th.
+
+At five o'clock on the day in question, the Tadcaster Panhard drew up at
+the Devonshire Arms at Bolton Abbey, and Cunningham saw to his
+amazement that, instead of the Earl and his chauffeur, it contained his
+lordship and a lady--his daughter.
+
+Cunningham groaned in spirit. To tackle two men single-handed might be
+counted sporting, but a woman--hang it all!
+
+Mine host hurried to the door to assist his guests.
+
+"Has your lordship lost Mr. Ackill?" he asked.
+
+"I hope not," replied the Earl. "Achille hurt his hand with a backfire
+this morning, and I sent him on by train to Harrogate to have it
+attended to. You got my note? Dinner at six?"
+
+"To the minute, my lord."
+
+The intervening time was chiefly spent by the Earl in confidential
+communion with his motor, through the intermediary of a spanner and an
+oil can.
+
+While he was so engaged, and Cunningham was lounging near the door,
+reflecting on his bad luck, another car drove up, and two loudly-dressed
+men emerged from their wraps. They entered the hotel, drank thirstily,
+and talked without restraint.
+
+Lady Eva de Mallaby passed through the hall soon afterwards. Struck by
+her beauty, one of the motorists, with the comradeship of one sportsman
+to another, addressed some remark to her, with a generous smile and a
+casual hat-lift.
+
+Lady Eva, showing a trace of surprise, stared icily at the man and
+passed on.
+
+"Hoity, toity," said the motorist, without any sign of shame. "But I'd
+like to have the breaking-in of you, Miss. Wouldn't you, Sammy?"
+addressing his companion.
+
+"Too expensive," said Sammy. "Give me a four-year-old, like I bought
+to-day from Sir William, an' I'm 'appy."
+
+"You're a bloomin' materialist, that's what you are, Sammy," retorted
+the other--"a bloomin' materialist." He lingered lovingly over the
+rounded phrase, and drained his glass again.
+
+Twenty minutes later the sound of a gramophone percolated the house.
+
+Lord Tadcaster was at dinner.
+
+It was his daily custom to dine to the accompaniment of music. When at
+home his private band officiated; when he was on his travels a
+musical-box or gramophone supplied the necessary melody.
+
+This was an eccentricity of the peer, who had decided, after long and
+recondite diagnosis, that music assists the digestion, and that certain
+music is more suited to a particular food than another. Therefore he
+swallowed his soup to a dreamy prelude, his fish to a fugue. The
+_entrée_ was expedited by Beethoven, the joint disappeared to a
+triumphal march. Sweets demanded a waltz, cheese nothing more than a
+negro melody; but with wine and dessert were combined all the
+possibilities of Grand Opera.
+
+Cunningham had learnt particulars of all this when at Kirkdale, and now
+he listened to the programme emanating from the private dining-room. No
+doubt owing to the absence of Achille, the music occasionally gave out,
+but by the intermittent tunes Cunningham was still able to gauge the
+progress of the meal. The omission of a sonata denoted limitation of the
+repast, and when the strains of "Lucia di Lammermoor" throbbed on the
+air Cunningham mounted his motor-cycle, and took the road that led
+through Blubber-houses.
+
+A run of three-quarters of an hour brought him to the confines of
+Haverah Park, almost within sight of Harrogate. It was here that he had
+decided to waylay the motor-car.
+
+It was a lonely spot indeed. Moorland, grim pasture land, lean fir
+trees, stone walls and limestone road, was all that met the eye. All was
+cold and stern. Cold and stern was his business that night; and there,
+close to the wood granted by John o' Gaunt to one Haverah, and tenanted
+since Doomsday by the winds of the centuries, he waited.
+
+The air was springlike, but the wait was long and weary. The only
+satisfactory thing about it was that he had time to note the small
+amount of traffic on the road. A solitary dogcart was all that passed in
+an hour.
+
+The moon rose in cold splendour. The stars appeared. Cunningham knew
+only one of them by name--Betelgeuse, a red star, the apex of a triangle
+of which three stars formed the base. The name had struck him as
+remarkable, and he once had called a bull pup after it. For a moment he
+thought of his dog's untimely end.
+
+But was the Panhard never coming? Perhaps there had been a puncture, and
+in the absence of a chauffeur Lord Tadcaster was stranded. Possibly he
+had returned to Bolton Abbey, or taken train forward, or, since he was
+short-handed, he might have altered his route and gone by the easier
+road through Otley. In that case, he, Prescott Cunningham, was lost to
+the Burglars' Club.
+
+Ah! There was the toot of a motor in the far distance, again repeated.
+It was the Tadcaster toot--a base twentieth century substitute for the
+cry that on the field of Towton in 1461 led another John de Mallaby to a
+barony and an estate.
+
+Cunningham recovered his cycle, be-straddled it, and gently mounted the
+rise in front. The Panhard dashed up the hill, its acetylene lamps
+glaring like man-o'-war searchlights.
+
+Cunningham advanced his spark. The motor responded, and sprang eagerly
+after the car. They were leaving him behind. He slowly opened his
+throttle valve. Now he was making pace. He was gaining on them yard by
+yard, hand over fist. He was only a hundred yards behind
+now--fifty--twenty-five. Could he do it? The psychological moment had
+come.
+
+He drew his revolver and aimed at the near back tyre of the car in
+front. Ah! he had missed. He hit it with his second shot. It split with
+a rousing bang. The car listed and dragged. It swerved across the road
+in violent curves, but Cunningham saw by the slowing of the speed that
+the driver had thrown out his clutch. At last it stopped.
+
+[Illustration: "'SOFTLY, MY LORD,' SAID CUNNINGHAM; 'I AM COVERING YOU,
+YOU OBSERVE.'"
+
+(_p. 192._)]
+
+"What's the meaning of this outrage, you scoundrel?" cried the
+infuriated motorist.
+
+"Softly, my lord," said Cunningham, now on his feet, and advancing with
+revolver in hand. "I am covering you, you observe!"
+
+"A highwayman, by George!" exclaimed the peer. "And Edward VII. on the
+throne. A highwayman on castors!"
+
+"Your lordship evidently recognises the situation," said Cunningham.
+"This will save time and trouble, I hope."
+
+"I suppose you want my purse?" replied the peer. "This comes of
+travelling without my chauffeur," he added plaintively. "By George, if
+Achille were here, he'd worry you. If I were ten years younger I'd
+tackle you myself."
+
+"Regrets are futile, my lord," said Cunningham, "but a purse will not
+satisfy me."
+
+"Oh, you want two, do you? Eva, I'm afraid you'll have to give him yours
+as well. Shockin' luck for this to happen the first time we've
+travelled alone. I oughtn't to have let you come."
+
+"Don't worry, dad, please," said Lady Eva. "I'm sorry I haven't got a
+purse, highwayman," she continued contemptuously, throwing back her
+thick veil to see what manner of man this could be, "but the few loose
+sixpences I have in my pocket are quite at your service."
+
+"You may keep them, madam," Cunningham replied, with as much dignity as
+the occasion would permit. "I do not ask for money. I simply want the
+loan of a peppercorn and golden horseshoe until the 29th."
+
+"By George, he must be an antiquarian highwayman or a curio-collector
+gone mad," said his lordship. "D'ye think, sir, I'll give you what I'm
+taking to the King?"
+
+"His Majesty shall have them, and from your hands, on the proper day. I
+simply ask for the loan of them till then."
+
+"You must think that I'm a fool," said the Earl. In an instant he had
+grabbed the hoop of one of the heavy acetylene lamps, and pulled it from
+its socket. "Take that, you blackguard!" he yelled, flinging it with all
+his force at the cyclist.
+
+Cunningham dodged the missile, which crashed to the ground with light
+extinguished.
+
+"Hands up, my lord," he shouted, "or I fire."
+
+The discomfited peer obeyed him.
+
+"You are quite at my mercy," said Cunningham sternly. "The peppercorn
+and horseshoe at once, if you please, or I shall have to use force. I
+trust you will avoid a scene before your daughter. You may lower your
+right hand to your pocket."
+
+The Earl did as he was bid, drew out the precious packet, and handed it
+to Cunningham.
+
+"Thank you, my lord," he replied. "You are wise. I promise you they
+shall be returned on the morning of the 29th. To what address?"
+
+"I don't believe you," retorted the peer. "But I stay at Claridge's.
+Now, if you've anything of a sportsman about you, you'll go on to the
+Queen Hotel at Harrogate and tell my chauffeur, Achille Petibon, to come
+with a repairer at once. We can't spend the night here. I've got a spare
+cover and tube in the tonneau, but I can no more fit them than fly. My
+finger-nails are far too brittle."
+
+"I will convey your message with the greatest pleasure, my lord,"
+replied Cunningham. "I sincerely regret the inconvenience I have caused,
+though you may not think so."
+
+For a moment there was a pause, and Cunningham could have gone. Yet he
+hesitated.
+
+The moon shone down upon a desolate moorland glade, lighting up the
+green sward by the trees. The excitement of the adventure, the flush of
+victory, a pair of bright eyes, and the memory of some half-forgotten
+romance stirred his blood.
+
+"One final favour, my lord," he said.
+
+"No more, sir. By George, if I were ten years younger----"
+
+"You carry a gramophone with you."
+
+"You are remarkably well informed as to my luggage, sir. I do, but it's
+too bulky for you to carry away. They're cheap enough. A man of taste
+like yourself ought to be able to afford one of his own."
+
+"I don't want to take it away, my lord. I simply want the favour of a
+dance tune and a lady's hand."
+
+For a moment the Earl looked puzzled. Then he exclaimed: "By George!
+Claude Duval up to date! No, sir, I'll be hanged if----" His lordship
+stopped suddenly. He was keen of hearing, and as he spoke he had heard,
+or thought he heard, a distant car. Even if it meant a dance with his
+daughter, he would detain the man until assistance arrived. In a moment
+he had altered his voice.
+
+"On second thoughts, sir," he said, "I don't know. After all, it's a
+tradition of your--er--profession. Perhaps you will oblige the
+gentleman, Eva." As he spoke he pressed the girl's hand so that she
+might know that something lay behind his words. "Where's the
+gramophone?" he asked. While searching for the instrument his lordship
+actually started whistling, lest the highwayman should also hear the
+car.
+
+"Ah, here it is," he said aloud. Then, in a whisper to his daughter,
+"Car coming. Distract his attention." In his anxiety his lordship even
+hummed as he hurriedly manipulated the instrument, inserting the first
+record that came to hand.
+
+He wound up the toy, and a baritone voice sang raucously:--
+
+    "Egypt! my Cleopatra! I ain't no flatt'rer,
+              But dis is true,
+         (I'm a-goin' to tell her)
+     Egypt! if you don't want me. . . .
+
+In a trice Lady Eva had found a more suitable record, and after a
+momentary pause the instrument struck up "The Darkie Cake Walk," as
+played by the New York Municipal Band, at Manhattan Beach, Long Island,
+U.S.A.
+
+"May I have the honour?" asked Cunningham, hat in hand, with a low bow.
+
+Lady Eva inclined coldly, and took off her wraps. The man was certainly
+polite. He led her as though she were a princess, and any misgivings
+were soon at rest.
+
+It was a quaint scene. It is doubtful if Betelgeuse had ever looked down
+upon a quainter. The firs formed a sombre background. The moon
+illuminated the green sward in front, and on it a highwayman and a lady
+motorist stepped to a catching dance tune, emanating from a gramophone
+on a Panhard motor, controlled by a peer of the realm. The light of an
+acetylene lamp shone like a gigantic foot-light illuminating the front
+of the green stage.
+
+The floor was not an ideal one, though cattle had cropped it close and
+the winds had swept it dry, but the pair were accomplished dancers.
+Thrice had they paced the length of the floor. Now they turned again,
+hand in hand, with heads thrown back, and uplifted feet. There was the
+unmistakable sound of an approaching car. Cunningham must have heard it,
+but recklessly he continued the dance.
+
+[Illustration: "THERE WAS THE UNMISTAKABLE SOUND OF AN APPROACHING CAR."
+
+(_p. 198._)]
+
+With a toot it hove into sight, and Lord Tadcaster turned his own horn
+into a prolonged howl, signifying unimaginable trouble. This, and the
+unusual scene at the side, brought up the oncoming car to a smart halt.
+They backed abreast of the Panhard.
+
+"Robbery! Help!" cried the Earl.
+
+The two occupants of the new car hardly heard him. They were lost in
+astonishment. As the dancers reached the verge of the road in the full
+flare of the light, they were greeted with a round of applause. With a
+snap Lord Tadcaster turned off the gramophone.
+
+"Well, I'm jiggered!" said one of the newcomers. "If it ain't little
+Hoity Toity!"
+
+The peer had jumped from the Panhard. "Help me to secure this
+highwayman," he said, pointing to Cunningham. "He has robbed me."
+
+The man who had just spoken also got down, but his companion remained on
+the car, stolidly surveying the scene.
+
+"Come along," said the peer to his recruit. "I think we can manage
+him between us."
+
+"Stow it, old man," said the motorist. "You collar the highwayman, and
+I'll look after the lady."
+
+He brushed past the Earl, and, with proffered arm, smirked, "May I have
+the next dance, Miss?"
+
+Lady Eva drew back. The man came still nearer. Instinctively she touched
+Cunningham's arm for protection.
+
+"Stand back, sir!" he commanded.
+
+"Who the juggins are you?" sneered the man. "This old buffer says you're
+a highwayman, but you seem to think you're a bloomin' bobby. You git,
+and let me have my partner for the high-kick lancers."
+
+"If you come one step nearer I'll thrash you," said Cunningham.
+
+The man needed no further encouragement. He even dared to touch the
+lady's arm. A second later he measured his length on the turf.
+
+His friend tumbled from his seat with anxious chivalry.
+
+"'Ere, you leave my pal alone," he said, rolling up to Cunningham.
+
+"Shut up, Sammy," said the other, rising slowly to his feet. "Now, look
+you here, Mr. Highwayman," he continued vindictively. "You've had your
+score, now I'll have mine. Either this lady has a hop with me to my own
+time and tune, and gives me a kiss at the end, or----"
+
+"Or what?"
+
+"Or I ride on to Harrogate, and give the police information of highway
+robbery."
+
+"There's your car," said Cunningham. "Ride on."
+
+"He's not likely to wait for the arrival of the police," said the Earl
+ruefully, yet anxious for the departure of these impossible helpers.
+
+"I shall be back with a bobby in twenty minutes," the man rejoined, "and
+we'll telephone to every town in the district so that he can't escape.
+I'm not in fightin' form myself to-night, so I'd rather do it in proper
+legal style. I'll bring a solicitor if I can find one. Now, young
+feller," he continued, "you'd better consider well. It'll be a twelve
+months' touch for you for robbery and six for 'sault and battery. Are
+you going to let your friend sacrifice himself on the altar of nonsense,
+Miss? I think our steps 'ud soot each other amazing."
+
+Cunningham advanced on him threateningly. "If you dare to speak another
+word to the lady you'll find yourself on the ground again," he said.
+
+The man retreated before him, and Sammy fled. "Right 'o," said the
+former. "You've had your choice. It's plank and skilly for you now. Get
+up, Sammy." He bundled his friend into his seat, himself followed, let
+in the clutch, and they disappeared.
+
+"Oh, I'm so sorry," said the girl.
+
+"Please don't worry about it," replied Cunningham. "The whole thing is
+the result of my own folly. It serves me jolly well right if I suffer
+for it."
+
+"Hadn't you better try to escape now?" she asked, only remembering his
+protection of her.
+
+Cunningham shook his head. "I think not," he replied. "It's probably all
+a ruse on his part to get me away. Then he might return and--and annoy
+you."
+
+Lady Eva was silent.
+
+"By George, sir," said the Earl, "I like your spirit. What the deuce do
+you want with that peppercorn and shoe? Give me 'em back and I'll say no
+more about it all."
+
+Cunningham smiled a little sadly. "I'm afraid I can't. But you shall
+have them on the morning of the 29th without fail. Perhaps you'll
+believe me now." Then, after a pause, he added: "I'll make a dash for it
+if they aren't back in a quarter of an hour. In that case, I shall
+conclude that they really have gone to give the alarm."
+
+The minutes passed. Lady Eva bit her lips in thought. Cunningham looked
+alternately from her to Betelgeuse and the moon. The peer stared
+stolidly into space.
+
+"Look here," said Cunningham suddenly. "Aren't we wasting time? Why wait
+for assistance? I think I can put on a new tyre, if you will allow me.
+Where are your spare tubes and covers, and your jack?"
+
+His lordship accepted the offer with alacrity, and the two men were soon
+busy round the wheel.
+
+Cunningham ceased work for a moment to take Lady Eva her furs, and
+assist her into them. She sat down on a tree stump, holding the
+remaining lamp, and turning its light on the work.
+
+She did this mechanically. All the while she was thinking gravely.
+Suddenly a smile passed over her face, and she nodded approvingly.
+
+The men were so busy that they did not pause at the sound of the
+returning car. Sammy's friend was better than his word. They had barely
+been gone fifteen minutes.
+
+"That's the highwayman--that young feller. Arrest him for robbery!"
+shouted the motorist, as he brought his car to a standstill, and a
+policeman sprang down.
+
+"Is that the charge, sir?" said the policeman to Lord Tadcaster.
+
+What the Earl would have replied is uncertain, for before he could
+answer Lady Eva had intervened.
+
+"Robbery! What in the world do you mean?" she cried, standing up, and
+flashing the light on the policeman.
+
+"That gentleman has taken me off my beat to arrest a man for highway
+robbery."
+
+"That gentleman is mistaken," replied the girl. "We've had a breakdown.
+Surely that is the person who promised to send assistance from
+Harrogate. We want a repairer, not a policeman."
+
+"Don't you believe her!" cried the motorist. "Ask the old 'un."
+
+"Is that so, sir?" inquired the officer.
+
+"You have heard my daughter," replied the Earl, astonished but loyal.
+"Of course it is so."
+
+The motorist's mouth opened, but no words came forth. He was absolutely
+speechless at this change of front.
+
+"Anyway, there's an assault an' battery," said his friend hopefully. "'E
+knocked 'im down," pointing to the protagonists of the drama.
+
+"For insulting a lady, I think," said Cunningham.
+
+"Gor!" snorted the driver, recovering his speech. "Sold again, Sammy!"
+And with a frightful hoot they passed into the night.
+
+"Well, I'm blowed!" exclaimed the policeman, with intense disgust. "And
+'ere I am, miles off my beat."
+
+"My friends won't be long before they are ready to start again,
+officer," said Cunningham, "and they'll no doubt give you a lift to
+Harrogate. In the meantime you might relieve the lady of the trouble of
+directing the light. Thank you," he whispered to Lady Eva, as he took
+the lamp from her. Her eyes met his and smiled.
+
+The new tyre was at last adjusted. The Earl, Lady Eva, and the policeman
+got on board and sped away, Cunningham accompanying them on his
+motor-cycle.
+
+In the outskirts of Harrogate the policeman resumed his interrupted
+beat, the richer by an unusual experience and a sovereign.
+
+At the town itself Cunningham said his adieus.
+
+"A thousand thanks for your generosity, my lord," he added. "You will
+not find it misplaced," and with a low bow to Lady Eva he took the road
+to the right.
+
+The Earl watched him go regretfully, for after all he had the horseshoe
+and peppercorn. What Lady Eva's feelings were she could not have stated
+precisely.
+
+The Earl of Tadcaster and his daughter arrived at their hotel in time to
+stop a relief expedition, organised by the anxious Achille; and under
+his care they resumed their journey the next day.
+
+On the evening of the 28th, Captain Prescott Cunningham renewed his
+subscription to the Burglars' Club; and at 9 a.m. on the 29th there was
+delivered at Claridge's Hotel a registered packet containing a
+peppercorn and a golden horseshoe, which the eighteenth Baron Tadcaster
+presented to his sovereign that afternoon at Buckingham Palace.
+
+Later on in the day a couple of new tyres, "With Mr. Duval's compliments
+and apologies," also reached the peer.
+
+Here the story ends--for the present. This happened last March.
+Cunningham now attends every possible dance, dinner, and reception,
+hoping that some day Lady Eva and he may meet again; and as for Lady
+Eva, does she not dream daily of witching moonlight, a greensward dance,
+and a brave and gallant partner?
+
+
+
+
+X.
+
+THE HOLBEIN MINIATURE.
+
+
+MR. ADOLPH MEYER, the friend of nations, the associate of kings, and the
+hope of the impecunious, had built himself a house on St. George's
+Island, off the coast of Hampshire.
+
+As Mr. Meyer's origin was German, and the country of his adoption was
+England, it was perhaps natural that he should have gone to Tuscany for
+the architecture of his marine residence. Its boldly projecting
+cornices, its rusticated base and quoins, the consoles of its upper
+windows, all betrayed its Florentine birth; but the lower windows,
+reaching to the ground, were such as we associate with the name of
+France, and were doubtless intended as a compliment to the great and gay
+nation living directly across the water.
+
+To the south, a terrace, bounded by a low wall set with dogs, apparently
+petrified by their own ugliness, separated the villa from the beach.
+
+To the west were the orchid houses. To the north, before the front of
+the house, lay the bowling green; beyond it a wood, through which ran
+the path leading to the landing-stage and the neighbouring island of
+Great Britain.
+
+A spiral staircase at the east end of the house led to the observatory
+containing the powerful equatorial telescope through which, as
+opportunity offered, Mr. Meyer was wont to gaze thoughtfully at the
+satellites of Jupiter, the canals on Mars, and other eccentricities of
+the heavens.
+
+There was, of course, a fountain--between the bowling green and the
+cypress trees. There was also a sundial bearing a sentence of cryptic
+import; and in the woods, at the least expected places, stood marble
+columns, broken and ivy-wreathed, or supporting busts of Socrates,
+Pallas, Homer, and other appropriate notabilities.
+
+Inside the house were treasures that had cost the ransom of a
+millionaire.
+
+Meyer was a bachelor, and here he spent his week-ends, absorbing ozone
+enough to see him through till the following Saturday, and maturing
+Titanic schemes for the Federation of the World and the confounding of
+rival financiers.
+
+Once only had he brought a guest with him--an African Pro-Consul--who
+had with much difficulty, though with ultimate success, joined his
+outward-bound ship from Meyer's electric launch.
+
+Each year a local mayor called, admired, wondered, and retired.
+Occasionally some venturesome tourist was captured and turned back.
+Other visitors were rare; and their reception depended on the mood of
+the lord of the island.
+
+One day last April a stranger with a camera rowed across from England.
+At the landing-stage he informed the man in charge that he had business
+with Mr. Meyer. This was telephoned to the house.
+
+"What business?" came the reply.
+
+"Particular business," said the newcomer.
+
+"What particular business?"
+
+"Pictures," was the answer.
+
+This was transmitted, and the reply taken.
+
+"You can go," said the man, hanging up the receiver. "Straight up the
+path, and through the woods. Turn to the left at the busk of 'Omer."
+
+Ten minutes later the visitor was shown into a room facing the sea, in
+which Mr. Meyer was seated by the open window, reading from a gigantic
+folio.
+
+He was a short, podgy man, with black curly hair, a rounded nose, and
+bright eyes. His moustache and imperial did not conceal the
+extraordinary firmness of his mouth and jaw.
+
+He rose as his visitor entered. He was, as usual, attired in a
+frock-coat and grey trousers. Once he had been in flannels when an
+emergency had arisen demanding City attire, which was not immediately
+forthcoming. Mr. Meyer had lost an opportunity in life through
+carelessness. Therefore on land he ever afterwards wore a frock-coat,
+except when in evening dress or pyjamas. The occasion should never again
+find him wanting.
+
+"You wished to see me on business?" he asked. "What is it?"
+
+His visitor, who was cast in a finer, less decided mould--a
+good-looking, clean-shaven man of something over thirty--replied:
+
+"I came to ask for permission to photograph the inside of your place."
+
+"You are not from Mr. Holzmann, den?" said Meyer, curtly.
+
+"No."
+
+"You said your business was imbortant."
+
+"So it is--to myself."
+
+Meyer looked sharply at him. "Why do you want to photokraph my place?"
+
+"For insertion in a magazine."
+
+"Which makkazine?"
+
+"Any that will take the article--I am not proud. It is important that I
+should make some money. I have seen many interesting reproductions of
+interiors of the stately homes of England in the periodicals, but never
+one of your house. Hence my appearance. I hope I may have your
+permission."
+
+"Why should I krant you bermission?" said Meyer. "I live here in
+solitude. I do not bring visitors. I do not want dem. Your intrusion is
+imbertinent."
+
+His visitor flushed. "Sorry if I have annoyed you," he said; "but it did
+not seem such a great favour to ask. Most people are glad to have
+pictures of themselves and their houses in the papers."
+
+"Most people are fools, as Dommas Carlyle said. Have you a family?"
+
+"I am not married."
+
+"Dere is no excuse for a sinkle man taking pictures of people's
+interiors. It is not de work for a man like you. I shall not encourage
+such tomfoolery. No, I do not give you bermission. But stay. Dere is an
+orkit from de mittle of Africa of which I should like to have a
+picture--de _Cypripedium Meyeri_--a new species which I have had de
+satisfaction to detect. Berhaps you would be kind enough to photokraph
+it for me, and your journey would not be altokedder lost. Come along.
+What is your name, please?"
+
+His visitor handed him a card on which was printed "John Lucas, 140,
+Brixton Gardens, London, W."
+
+"You have come a long way," Mr. Meyer observed.
+
+"A very long way, sir. Perhaps you wouldn't mind letting me look round
+your house, even if I may not photograph it. I am interested in domestic
+architecture and--er--curios."
+
+Mr. Meyer looked intently at his visitor.
+
+"Yes, Mr. Lucas," he said slowly, "I will also show you round my house,
+since you have come so far, and are interested in domestic architecture
+and curios. I have blenty of both. Den we will photokraph de orkit."
+
+Mr. Meyer led the photographer through his villa, pointing out its
+architectural beauties, and indicating the various treasures which it
+contained.
+
+Mr. Lucas was profuse in his expressions of appreciation. "Are you not
+afraid of burglars?" he asked.
+
+"I am afraid of noding," replied Mr. Meyer. "Odderwise I should not be
+here to-day in dis Tuscan Villa. I have gone into de question of dieves,
+and tink I should be able to meet de situation."
+
+They had made a tour of the rooms, had ascended the heights of the
+observatory and inspected the electric plant at its base.
+
+"Is dere anyting else you would like to see?" asked Mr. Meyer politely.
+
+"I believe that you collect miniatures. Might I look at them?"
+
+"Come dis way."
+
+In a corner of the marble hall there was a cabinet facing a window.
+Meyer stood before it. "See," he said; "I bress dis button, and it
+releases de trawers. So."
+
+The shutter flew back, and the drawers were free. Meyer opened them, one
+by one, and indicated their contents. "Dey are all choice examples of de
+best masters. Dese are Gosways. Dis is an Engleheart," and so on. He
+went through the collection till he had shown the last drawer but one.
+He was about to close the cabinet when Mr. Lucas asked: "Have you any
+Holbeins?"
+
+"One," replied Meyer, "and dere was I necklecting to show it to you. Dis
+last trawer is de most imbortant of de lot." He opened it and drew forth
+a small square frame. "Here is de latest addition to my collection. A
+krand Holbein. You notice de blue backkround, characteristic of dat
+kreat master, and de wonderful thin bainting. You can almost see through
+it. It is a bortrait of Meyer of Basle, berhaps a relation of mine,
+berhaps not. It does not matter. It is a fine picture. Don't you tink
+so?"
+
+Lucas handed it back. "I envy you," he said.
+
+"Dere is no need," Mr. Meyer responded, as he closed the cabinet. "'Enfy
+no man till he is dead,' said de old Kreek philosopher, and I am very
+much alife. Now come to de orkit house, and photokraph de _Cypripedium
+Meyeri_."
+
+An hour later, after taking photographs of the rare exotic from every
+point of the compass, Mr. Lucas made his way to the landing-stage, and
+from thence he rowed thoughtfully across to Bournemouth.
+
+On the following Monday night a boat with a solitary oarsman put off
+from the mainland, and after several changes of route was successfully
+beached on the south shore of St. George's Island. Under the protection
+of the trees its occupant--none other, indeed, than Mr. John
+Lucas--stealthily approached the Tuscan Villa, which stood out in bold
+relief in the vivid moonlight.
+
+He gained the terrace, and, keeping as much as possible within the
+shadow of the balustrade and dogs, he crept to the fourth window, the
+one at which Mr. Meyer was sitting on the preceding Saturday.
+
+There is no use disguising the fact any longer. Mr. Lucas was a burglar,
+and he now proceeded to act after the manner of his craft. After
+affixing some adhesive material to the pane, he began to cut out a
+square of the window. The glass was thick, so the process was long, but
+Mr. Lucas toiled at it with a patience and perseverance worthy of a
+better cause. Only once did he desist--to follow the suggestion of a
+sudden impulse, and try all the windows of the house. But each was
+fastened, and Mr. Lucas resumed his original labour.
+
+It was fully an hour before he drew out the square of glass which
+enabled him to undo the catch inside. Then nearly as long passed before
+the removal of a second square at the foot allowed him to unscrew the
+bottom fastening.
+
+The window was open at last, and Lucas stepped inside.
+
+It was the second burglary of his life, and he reflected that so far all
+that had happened was greatly to the credit of his professional
+abilities. A moment afterwards he was chilled by the later thought that
+nothing in particular had happened so far, and that the possibilities of
+the near future were very great indeed.
+
+With his stealthy entry into Mr. Meyer's villa the personality of that
+gentleman had suddenly oppressed him. At Bournemouth all that day, with
+the sun shining, and the band playing popular airs, Mr. Meyer had
+occurred to him merely as an eccentric German gentleman; but now, at
+something after midnight, in the deathly stillness of his villa, Mr.
+Lucas only remembered the Teuton's sharp, decisive utterances, his
+piercing glances, and his large general reputation for unpleasantness as
+an enemy. Perhaps it was the sight of Mr. Meyer's empty chair that had
+brought this train of thought to his mind. The big folio he had been
+reading was still at its side. Lucas flashed his electric pocket light
+on the open page. "Love's Labour's Lost" met his eyes. This struck him
+as ominous.
+
+Lucas pulled himself together. What had he to do with empty chairs, and
+old folios, and omens? He was a burglar, out for the night on urgent
+business. Let him attend to it, and keep his dreams and soliloquies for
+the daytime. He walked across the polished floor, his rubber soles being
+absolutely noiseless. He raised the heavy curtain, and passed beneath it
+through the archway.
+
+There in front of him was the marble hall, bathed in coloured moonlight.
+The fountain played softly to the tones of gold, azure and red cast from
+the stained-glass window. If Mr. Lucas had been conversant with Keats he
+would doubtless have thought of St. Agnes' Eve; but presumably Mr. Lucas
+did not, for, keeping well to the wall, he stole quickly across to
+where stood the case containing the miniatures.
+
+[Illustration: "LUCAS DROPPED IT CAREFULLY INTO THE POCKET OF HIS
+NORFOLK JACKET."
+
+(_p. 218._)]
+
+"You bress de button, and it releases de trawers. So." He smiled as Mr.
+Meyer's pronunciation came back to him. He followed the instructions,
+and the drawers were free.
+
+Cosway and Engleheart did not detain him to-night. He opened the bottom
+drawer. There lay the Holbein for which Mr. Meyer had recently paid
+three thousand guineas. Lucas dropped it carefully into the pocket of
+his Norfolk jacket, shut the drawer, and closed the case.
+
+So far all was well--very well indeed. Only a few yards, a curtain, and
+a few yards more, lay between him and freedom. Then again there fell
+upon him a sense of Mr. Meyer's personality. What had that man not done?
+He had browbeaten an Emperor, hoodwinked a couple of wily Chancellors,
+and decimated the ranks of rival practitioners. Was he, John Lucas, a
+mere tyro in the burglary profession, able to outwit the smartest man of
+the day? Had he only to break a window, step across a floor, seize a
+treasure, and depart?
+
+No--it was impossible. The very ease with which everything had been
+accomplished was the worst sign of all. "I have gone into de question of
+dieves, and tink I should be able to meet de situation." Meyer's words
+came back to him now. He himself was in town--Lucas had seen him depart
+that morning, to make it absolutely certain--but his myrmidons were
+doubtless hidden around. An electric shock would suddenly hold him fast,
+and Meyer's butler or stage manager, or whatever he was called, would
+appear and wing him--unless the servants were asleep in their master's
+absence. But nothing was ever left to chance in Mr. Meyer's life or his
+house. The very silence was eloquent of impending catastrophe.
+
+Again Mr. Lucas reproached himself with nervous folly. "It is only my
+second burglary," he reflected apologetically. He stepped across the
+hall, and once more raised the curtain.
+
+"Ah!"
+
+The room, which ten minutes ago was dark and empty, was now brilliantly
+illuminated, and there was Mr. Adolph Meyer, seated in his chair!
+
+Meyer rose and came forward. "Ah, Mr. Lucas," he said, "dis is indeed a
+pleasure. Not altokedder unexbected, I admit; but it is always
+satisfactory to find one's conclusions brove correct. I taught you would
+have to return to make some final notes on my domestic architecture and
+my curios. You have seen my place by day. Now you visit me by night. Dat
+is charming."
+
+Lucas stood by the curtain, overwhelmed with confusion. Not by a word
+did Mr. Meyer betray any resentment at his presence, but there was a
+thinly disguised vein of banter in his speech that made the burglar's
+pulses quicken.
+
+"Berhaps you have not noticed de view I have here, Mr. Lucas," said
+Meyer. "Come and look."
+
+He threw open the window wide. The moon was playing on the waters of the
+Channel. Clouds were scurrying across the sky. A lighthouse flashed in
+the far distance.
+
+"I like dis view," said Meyer. "De sea is always de same--deep and
+treacherous. One always knows what to exbect, but man you never know.
+How do you look upon de sea, Mr. Lucas?"
+
+"Good for boating, and--er--bathing," responded Lucas desperately.
+
+"Goot for boating and bading," repeated Meyer. "Dat is so. You are
+practical. Dat is where you islanders have the advantage over us
+treamers. But somehow the treams have a habit of outlasting de practice.
+I do not tink of boating and bading when I look on de sea. I tink of all
+dat is above it, and below it. On de top, ships carrying men and women
+and children to continents; below de waves, dead men and women and
+children, dose who have died by de way, floating by de cables which are
+carrying words dat make and unmake nations and men. Life and death are
+dere togedder. Did you never tink of de sea in dat way, Mr. Lucas, when
+you was not studying domestic architecture and curios?"
+
+"I can't say that I have," said Lucas, trying vainly to rise to the
+situation. A man with a weapon he could have met and fought any day, at
+a moment's notice, but smooth words and soliloquies, how could he meet
+them, though there was a hidden meaning in every phrase, a subtle danger
+indicated in every intonation?
+
+"I should practise it den, Mr. Lucas," said Meyer gravely. "A little
+more tinking and a little less action is de new brescription de doctors
+are giving to dis country." He turned away from the window, after
+closing it. He did not appear to notice the two great holes in the glass
+which stared him in the face.
+
+"Den I shut my window tight, for fear of dieves, Mr. Lucas," he went on,
+"and go to my observatory, where we went de odder day. I go up dose
+steps to my delescope, and bring de stars widdin speaking distance. Have
+you ever spoken wid de stars, Mr. Lucas?"
+
+"No," replied the burglar curtly.
+
+"Ah, I taught not. Somehow you did not give me dat imbression. You
+should study de moon for a bekinning, Mr. Lucas. It is a poor worn-out
+star of a sort. What does it tell of? Of life run down, as many men's
+are. But after all, de moon had its day. It was not cut off in its
+prime, like some men's lives are, Mr. Lucas, because of a comet-like
+taught, or a meteor suggestion of evil. A kreat science is astronomy,
+Mr. Lucas. Do you not tink so?"
+
+Mr. Lucas did not reply.
+
+"Why do I speak of dese things, Mr. Lucas?" said Meyer with increasing
+earnestness. "Because you are young, very young, dough you are nearly
+so old as me. I speak of dem because you are wasting your life entering
+my house in de mittle of de night to take photokraphs, when de stars are
+singing outside, and de world is calling for de man who, as Dommas
+Carlyle says, is not dere. What would Dommas Carlyle have said if he had
+known dat you were here all de time, taking photokraphs in Mr. Adolph
+Meyer's villa--robbing Mr. Meyer, widout de excuse of necessity?"
+
+Lucas made an attempt to speak, but Meyer stopped him. The little man's
+voice rose, his eyes gleamed, his very stature seemed to swell. The room
+was full of him.
+
+"Be silent, sare," he said, with a gesture of an emperor. "I am
+speaking! Listen! I know what you will say: It is for sport dat you do
+dis--sport dat eats up your race, and makes men like me your master. You
+take your gun and kill. See," pointing through the window at a
+problematical object. "Dat bird--dat beautiful white gull. It is
+flying--seeking for food or its mate. You shoot it----"
+
+"Never!" shouted Lucas indignantly.
+
+"You do. I know you do. You take dat wonderful ding we call life--for
+sport. You rob me. Dat is a smaller ding, but it is sport also. Mein
+Gott! but you shall rob and kill no more."
+
+He struck a bell. Lucas backed to the wall to be ready for emergencies.
+A little sharp-featured man entered.
+
+"Here he is, Mr. Marvell," said Meyer. "I have got him red-handed and
+cold-souled."
+
+"That's right, sir," said the little man briskly, producing a pair of
+handcuffs. "I'll take him across to Bournemouth, and we'll have him up
+at the police court in the morning."
+
+Mr. Meyer did not appear to have heard him. "Strange, is it not?" he
+resumed, "dat you and I and Mr. Marvell, de clever detective, should be
+here, Mr. Lucas? No, I will call you by your broper name. Sir Rubert
+Inkledree, I ask you to listen."
+
+He took up a red volume from the table.
+
+"Dis is a useful book," he said, as he opened it. "We are all entered up
+here, all our public appearances, dat is--not our midnight
+photokraphings. Ah, here it is:
+
+"'Sir Rubert Inkledree, seventh baronet, born 1868, only son of sixth
+baronet and Mary, daughter of Viscount Morecambe. Educated Eton and
+Christ Church, Oxford. Owns twenty tousand acres. Address: Inkledree
+Castle, Leicestershire; 57, Brook Street, W. Clubs: Bachelor's,
+Boodle's, Turf.'
+
+"Dat is fine--for a bekinning," continued Meyer; "but what an end, Sir
+Rubert, in dis room wid Mr. Meyer whom you have robbed, and a detective,
+and de Bournemouth Police Court in de morning. Dat is not very fine. Now
+listen akain."
+
+He turned over the leaves and read:--
+
+"'Adolph Meyer, born 1864. Financier. Son of Jacob Meyer of Düsseldorf.
+M.A. London University, Commander of de Victorian Order, Chevalier of de
+Legion of Honour. Address: 16, Lombard Street, E.C., and St. George's
+Island, Bournemouth.' Dat is all. Dere are no clubs and no acres. I have
+de orders because I did service to England and France. I am M.A. of
+London University because, when I was a young man behind de counter in
+de bank all day, I worked for my dekree by night; and now I am here, and
+you are where I like to put you, Sir Rubert Inkledree."
+
+"Bournemouth Police Station," suggested Mr. Marvell, who was aching to
+get to business.
+
+"Bournemouth Police Station?" repeated Mr. Meyer slowly. "No, Mr.
+Marvell; I tink not. I am Master of Arts of London University and reader
+of Blato, letting alone de odder dings. He shall go free, and Mr.
+Marvell, you will blease forket de incident. I telekraft for you on
+Saturday. You came, but dere was noding. Dat is what you will report,
+please, at Scotland Yard.
+
+"But you, Sir Rubert, you will not forket. You will remember. You will
+neider kill nor rob akain, because it is de wish of Mr. Adolph Meyer,
+who makes you free instead of sending you to de Police Station.
+
+"Also, Sir Rubert, I suchest dat you give up dat Club dat Mr. Marvell
+speaks of. See, you have my Holbein in your pocket. Take it, since you
+want it. Show it to your friends, and say dat Mr. Meyer, who is M.A. of
+London University, Commander, Chevalier and tcheneral treamer, says dat
+dey had better disbant, for de stars are singing, and Mr. Marvell is
+watching."
+
+Mr. Marvell folded up his handcuffs methodically, and replaced them in
+his pocket. He was too well trained to show the intense disgust he felt
+at the turn the proceedings had taken.
+
+Again the burglar endeavoured to speak, but once more Mr. Meyer
+commanded silence.
+
+"Mr. Marvell will see you to your boat, Sir Rubert," he said. "I drust
+dat you will weigh my words well. It is not often dat I say so many, and
+dey have caused me some inconvenience to speak, as I am not accustomed
+to spend Monday nights in my marine villa. To be here I had dis
+afternoon to postpone an interview wid de Turkish Ambassador, which I
+have since learnt by telekram from Constantinople has been misconstrued.
+De Sultan will not sleep much to-night, and in de morning newspapers
+dere will be talk of drouble in de Balkan States. Some peoples will be
+fearing war, Sir Rubert, and all on account of you and your midnight
+photokraphings. I wonder what Dommas Carlyle would say to a mess like
+dat. Goot night."
+
+Mr. Meyer turned abruptly on his heels, and left the room.
+
+"Come along, Sir Rupert, please," said Mr. Marvell. In the brilliant
+moonshine they went along the terrace by the stone dogs, and down the
+steps to the beach. They found the boat by the trees.
+
+"How did Mr. Meyer come to suspect my errand?" said Ingletree suddenly.
+
+The detective smiled a wan smile.
+
+"Well, sir," he replied, "I wasn't present when you saw him on Saturday,
+but I think that Mr. Meyer read you through as if you were a
+book--printed in pretty big letters, too. It was a rather thin tale,
+that about the magazine article, and when you asked to see round the
+house Mr. Meyer was certain that you had some special object in view.
+When you inquired after the miniatures he knew what you were after, as
+the papers had lately been full of the Holbein. To make sure on the
+point he didn't show it to you, and of course you asked to see it. Then
+he telegraphed to Scotland Yard, and they sent me."
+
+"How did you find out who I was, and why I wanted the miniature?"
+
+"Ah," said Mr. Marvell drily, "I'll tell you that some day later on, Sir
+Rupert. We shall probably meet again."
+
+Then the baronet put out to sea, and the detective went back to the
+Tuscan Villa.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+On the following evening, at the meeting of the Burglars' Club, the
+Secretary produced the Holbein miniature, and read a letter from Sir
+Rupert Ingletree which accompanied it. Then the President rose.
+
+"My lords and gentlemen," he said, "we have just heard the singular
+adventure which has befallen one of our members. The Holbein miniature
+is here, but only owing to the goodwill of its owner. Sir Rupert
+Ingletree is at liberty owing to the forbearance of the same gentleman.
+Under the circumstances I think we have no option but to accept the
+resignation of Sir Rupert, who does not appear to have acted with the
+adroitness which is a necessary qualification of our members. It may
+well be that you or I would have done no better under similar
+circumstances, but I need hardly remind you that in this club we judge
+only by results, and the results in this instance are not satisfactory.
+
+"There is a further matter to consider--a message from Mr. Meyer, which
+demands a reply. Colonel Altamont, as the _doyen_ of our club, we look
+to your premature grey hairs for guidance."
+
+Altamont rose amidst general applause.
+
+"Your Grace, my lords and gentlemen," he began. "It is surely
+unnecessary to ask for my opinion on the situation. Our existence is
+now known to the outside world. Twice has this detective, Marvell, been
+within reach of us. Someone has betrayed us, and I for one do not intend
+to rest until I have traced that traitor. But this is not the matter
+before us now.
+
+"Though Mr. Meyer objects to sport, he has behaved like a perfect
+sportsman. (Hear, hear.) For his courtesy we wish to express our hearty
+thanks and appreciation; but for his suggestion that we should disband
+we surely have one answer only, and that is: Never, never, never."
+
+The words were re-echoed on all sides.
+
+"Our club would indeed have fallen on degenerate days," continued
+Altamont, when quiet was restored, "if the fact of its existence being
+known were promptly to bring about its end. Surely the fact that we are
+watched should give an added zest to our proceedings, which have been
+all too monotonously serene. The knowledge that Scotland Yard is acting,
+and that we carry our personal liberty in our hands, should spur us on
+to the Homeric deeds for the perpetration of which we exist.
+
+"Ingletree's postscript is pathetic, and vividly shows the present
+unbalanced state of his mind. He asks whether we consider that under Mr.
+Meyer's terms he is at liberty to fish. My own feeling is that I would
+have suffered a long period of incarceration rather than have
+surrendered my right to act as a free and independent Englishman; but
+Ingletree, having accepted his liberty on Mr. Meyer's stupendous terms,
+has surely forfeited his right to again take life in any form. If he so
+much as nets a minnow he has no option but to surrender himself
+forthwith at the Bournemouth Police Station.
+
+"We all regret the loss of our once brilliant member, but it is obvious
+from Ingletree's behaviour during the last few days that he is not the
+man he was when he paid his entrance fee by the production of--what was
+it, Mr. Secretary?--the Mace of the House of Commons?"
+
+"No, sir," replied the Secretary. "That was Mr. Henderson's fee. Sir
+Rupert Ingletree entered with the Portland Vase, from the British
+Museum."
+
+"Ah, quite so. Thank you. And a very smart bit of work it was, I
+remember. It is regrettable that Sir Rupert could not be here in person
+this evening to advance any extenuating circumstances; but as he is
+probably under the surveillance of Scotland Yard we appreciate his
+reason for adopting the medium of the Postmaster-General for
+communicating with us. I therefore propose that Sir Rupert Ingletree's
+resignation be accepted, and that, with the Holbein picture, which we at
+once return to its owner in accordance with our rule, we send a letter
+expressing our appreciation of Mr. Meyer's magnanimity, and our regret
+that we are unable to disband. We can leave it to our Secretary to couch
+this in the neat epigrammatic style for which he is famed in the
+Chancelleries of Europe."
+
+
+
+
+XI.
+
+THE VICTORIA CROSS.
+
+
+"IT seems to me," said his Grace of Dorchester, "that the Army has been
+abominably neglected by us. On looking through our archives, I do not
+come across the record of a single military achievement. In the Church
+and in the State, in Diplomacy and Commerce, in Science, Art, and
+Literature, our activities are marked, but we have unaccountably left
+the Services alone. Our enemies--if such there be--might unkindly
+suggest that we have purposely refrained from interfering with the most
+vigorous portion of the community. To avoid this reproach, and to make
+good the omission, I therefore propose a series of three military raids,
+the first to be immediately undertaken by Mr. Maxwell-Pitt, who will
+have the opportunity of renewing his subscription at our next meeting by
+the production of the last Victoria Cross bestowed by His Majesty."
+
+As the result of inquiries, Mr. Maxwell-Pitt learned that the last
+Victoria Cross had been given to Captain Sefton Richards, who had
+rescued a wounded soldier from the Somali, and, single-handed, had kept
+the enemy at bay till support arrived.
+
+"H'm!" reflected Maxwell-Pitt. "He'll be a tough customer to tackle. It
+strikes me that if I pull this off I shall have earned the Blue Riband
+of the Club. I wonder where the beggar is stationed?"
+
+Further inquiries elicited the fact that Captain Richards was at present
+spending his well-earned leave with his sister, who lived at Bamburn, in
+Lincolnshire.
+
+The next meeting of the Club had been fixed for the 22nd of the month.
+On the 19th Maxwell-Pitt set out for Bamburn.
+
+It was an ancient country town. Once it had been an ecclesiastical
+centre--as its minster still bore witness--but now it was given up to
+the sale of sheep and the manufacture of chocolate. In its outskirts was
+a number of highly eligible residences, and in one of these, the bequest
+of an uncle who was the inventor of chocolate caramels, lived Miss
+Richards.
+
+Maxwell-Pitt learnt some of this from the local directory, and some from
+the waiter at the inn, the night of his arrival; and on the following
+morning he made his way to the neighbourhood of Burgoyne Lodge--so Miss
+Richards' house was styled--and sat down on a seat thoughtfully provided
+by the local district council. He waited there a long time, apparently
+deeply absorbed in the columns of a sporting paper, but in reality
+rarely taking his eyes from the house.
+
+At eleven o'clock his patience was rewarded. The gate opened, and two
+people came out. The man--tall, straight, and bronzed--was obviously
+Captain Richards, the lady probably his sister. Mr. Maxwell-Pitt saw
+them disappear along the road in the direction of the town, and then he
+approached the house to take in its bearings. It was the last building
+on the road, and it was closely surrounded by a belt of trees; behind
+the trees were thick bushes. This screen effectually concealed the house
+from the road--for the inventor of chocolate caramels had been a recluse
+by nature--so, in order to obtain a better view of it, Maxwell-Pitt got
+over the wall, and peered through the bushes.
+
+It was a solid Georgian dwelling, with two windows on each side of the
+door. Which window should he attempt to force? The end ones would be
+farthest from the hall, and perhaps the safest. Or would it be better to
+try the back? Confound it!
+
+His eyes had been so intently fixed on the house that he had omitted to
+notice an occupant of the garden, but now he was aware that a trimly and
+plainly gowned little woman who was engaged in cutting flowers had
+stopped in her work, and was watching him. The position was ridiculous.
+What excuse could he offer? He turned round, got over the wall again,
+and walked quickly away, with the conviction that he had made a blunder,
+criminal in a professional, and unpardonable even for an amateur.
+
+During the afternoon, while he was walking down the main street of the
+town, wondering at the number of sheep the land contained--for it was
+market day--he came face to face with the same good-looking, dapper
+little person he had seen in the grounds of Burgoyne Lodge. She had
+appeared from a side street, and no escape was open to him. He fixed his
+eyes on the celebrated Perpendicular architecture of the minster tower,
+hoping to escape her attention, but, to his surprise, she stopped him.
+
+"Pardon me, I think we have seen one another before," she said slowly,
+and with a marked foreign intonation.
+
+"Of course we have," he replied, as he took off his hat. "I remember the
+occasion perfectly. How do you do?" Then he added, unblushingly, "And
+how is your sister?"
+
+"I thank you," she answered. "My sister would, no doubt, be quite well
+if I had one. But please do not make romances. I saw you this morning at
+Burgoyne Lodge. I know what you want."
+
+"The dickens you do!" he exclaimed in blank amazement. "And pray what is
+it?"
+
+"I think it is something that does not belong to you," she said, her
+dark eyes looking steadily at him.
+
+"Indeed! And how do you know that?"
+
+She shrugged her shoulders expressively. "_Cela n'importe_," she
+answered. "If you please, let us walk on so that we do not draw
+attention. Yes, I know what you want, and I think that I can assist you
+a little."
+
+"It's very good of you to suggest it," said Maxwell-Pitt as they walked
+along the street; "and I'm sure I'm much obliged to you. I'm not
+accustomed to this sort of business, you know."
+
+"You have made the same business once before," she said.
+
+"You are really remarkably well informed," he replied. "The least you
+can do is to tell me how you come to know these things."
+
+"Do not waste the time," she said impatiently. "I am Adèle, Miss
+Richards' maid. She is in town with her brother, the captain. They must
+not see us together. When do you intend to--to----" She hesitated.
+
+"To pick mushrooms, shall we call it?" he answered.
+
+"To--pick--mushrooms?" she repeated, with a puzzled look. Then she
+smiled. "Ah, I understand. Yes, when do you intend to pick the fine
+mushrooms?"
+
+"As soon as I know where they are, and how to get them. If you assist me
+it will, of course, make matters easy for me."
+
+"To-night?"
+
+"Mademoiselle, you are a thought-reader. You anticipate my wishes.
+To-night, by all means."
+
+"Then I will see that one of the windows is left unlatched. _Mon Dieu!_
+Meet me here at this place at nine o'clock." With this she turned
+abruptly round the corner they were passing, and disappeared into a
+shop.
+
+Maxwell-Pitt glanced ahead, and saw Captain and Miss Richards
+approaching. They might not have seen him with the maid, for they were
+in earnest conversation. Captain Richards only glanced casually at him
+in passing.
+
+"Well, this is what I call remarkable--simply re-markable," said
+Maxwell-Pitt to himself as he walked to his hotel. "How on earth should
+she know of the V.C. business, and, what is more, that I had to pay my
+entrance fee by a previous burglary? Who could have told her? I wonder
+why any member should be so extremely anxious to assist me. . . . Stop!
+Was it really a member? There's that man Marvell--the detective. He has
+been present at two former burglaries--called in by accident, certainly,
+but he has his eye on us, and perhaps he now has some means of finding
+out in advance the task set to members. The remarkably obliging Adèle
+may be merely a female detective. She may assist me to get into the
+house, and show me where the V.C. is, and then, when I get it, her
+friend Marvell will appear. In that case Richards and his sister are in
+the know, and this apparently casual meeting just now, and Adèle's
+annoyance, was pre-arranged to throw me off the scent. It seems to me,
+Maxwell-Pitt, that you'll have to be very careful what you are about, or
+you'll be landed to-night, and by a woman."
+
+That evening he kept his appointment at the street-corner. The maid was
+late. The clocks had chimed the quarter before she came, hot and
+breathless--not her cool, nonchalant self of the morning.
+
+"It has been so difficult to leave," she explained. "Miss Richards would
+have me to read to her after the dinner. Walter Scott! And me dying all
+the time to be here, Mr.---- What shall I call you?"
+
+"Jones," said Maxwell-Pitt, "is a dreamy, romantic name, very suitable
+for a mushroom picker."
+
+"Yes; Jones is a beautiful name," she replied. "Have you decided to pick
+to-night, Mr. Jones?"
+
+"I should like to."
+
+"You wish me to leave that window open?"
+
+"If you will."
+
+"And what do you give me, if you please?"
+
+"I beg your pardon?"
+
+"What am I going to have of it all?"
+
+"'All.' That is rather a big word for the little mushroom I shall take
+away; but if you would like some memento of the occasion, what shall it
+be? A bracelet?"
+
+"A bracelet? _Comment!_ Absurd! With my help, _m'sieu_, it will not be a
+little mushroom, _point du tout_. For me myself I demand fifty pounds."
+
+Maxwell-Pitt stared at her blankly.
+
+"What is it now?" she cried angrily. "_Mais_, you are too stupid--more
+stupid than the ordinary Englishman. Miss Richards has some fine pearls,
+and her diamonds are _magnifiques_, and I can give them to you. This is
+not to be another Wedderburn mistake."
+
+"Ah, quite so--quite so," replied Maxwell-Pitt, who was absolutely
+nonplussed by the turn the conversation had taken. Then he drew his bow
+at a venture. "Wedderburn made a bit of a mistake, didn't he?" he said.
+
+She looked at him sharply. "'He.' Who's 'he'? You know precisely that I
+speak of the burglary at Wedderburn 'Ouse last week, where you were not
+very clever."
+
+"Oh, of course, of course. I understand," said Maxwell-Pitt.
+
+"Of course you do understand. Why do you so pretend to me? I knew it was
+you when I saw you seeking round our 'ouse. I saw you were big and dark,
+with a long moustache, like the butler at Wedderburn 'Ouse said. How
+else did you think I could have known you were a burglar? You are to
+look at only like a gentleman?"
+
+"Ah, I see--I see," said Maxwell-Pitt, the light at last breaking in
+upon him. "It seems that I have done friend Marvell an injustice."
+
+"I do not know who your friend is, nor what you talk about," said
+Mademoiselle Adèle. "I must return at once. Is it to be a bargain or
+not? Fifty pounds is little compared to your share."
+
+"Mademoiselle," said Maxwell-Pitt, "you are not only an accomplished
+thought-reader, but you appear to have the business instinct strongly
+developed as well. You can quite understand that when I planned
+this--er--botanical expedition I did not anticipate such a drain on my
+resources. In plain words, I haven't fifty pounds on me."
+
+"You can get it, and come to-morrow night instead."
+
+"There will still be time," said Maxwell-Pitt thoughtfully.
+
+"Of course there will. Now I go. It is settled?"
+
+"Yes; I'll come to-morrow night and bring fifty pounds with me."
+
+"In gold sovereigns, please."
+
+"In gold, if you wish it."
+
+"Good. And I'll have the jewellery ready. The pearl necklace cost more
+than a thousand sovereigns. There will be no need to take anything else,
+I hope. That big mushroom should satisfy you enough."
+
+"Amply. I don't want any more jewels, but where does Captain Richards
+keep his decorations--his Victoria Cross, for instance?"
+
+"You don't want that?"
+
+"I do."
+
+"It is only worth a few centimes--not half a franc, they tell me."
+
+"Never mind its value. I am a collector of such trifles, and want this
+specimen particularly."
+
+"He won it in battle. It would be cruel--abominable--to take it. You
+cannot have it."
+
+"Mademoiselle Adèle, your scruples do you credit; but, after all, are
+mushroom-pickers the people to talk about scruples? Here you are
+planning what is, in plain English, the robbery of your employer, so why
+stick at a trifle like that?"
+
+"_Écoutez_, Mr. Jones. You are only a burglar, so your opinion is no
+matter, but I shall tell you why I do this thing. I come to your country
+to get riches. I am clever, but there are no riches, even for clever
+people, in my own valley of the Durance. First I was maid to one lady
+with a title so long," and she extended her arms to their full width. "I
+was 'appy. Then I met an aëronaut--you understand, one who makes
+ascensions in a balloon--who talked my language like myself. He
+persuades me to leave my place and marry him. I was idiot to do so. Then
+one day he goes up in his balloon at--what you call it?--Birmingham, for
+a brief voyage. But he disappears in the clouds. He sends me postcard
+from Ostend to tell me that he is landed all-right. Then I never found
+him again."
+
+She paused dramatically. Maxwell-Pitt felt that something was demanded
+of him, and hastened to murmur some words of sympathy, but she did not
+listen.
+
+"Then I took a place again as lady's maid," she went on. "There was
+trouble over some jewels. They blamed me. Bah! I was innocent. But they
+say 'No,' and 'You go at once,' and 'No character.' So I am alone in
+England, with no money and _mon mari_ gone. I come here, and I think
+this lady so kind to take me without a character written. Then I find
+the ones who have the characters written will not stay with her--not one
+month--so that is why she takes me. She is black slave-driver, and her
+temper--_mon Dieu_, it is dis-graceful! It is a horrible time here. Then
+there is Alphonse, who is waiter at the Élysée Palace, who wants me to
+marry him and assist him to found a restaurant, and I must continually
+tell him 'Wait.'
+
+"When I see you, Mr. Jones, I see my way to escape from it all. It came
+at one jump--the thought, 'I will help him, and he will give me fifty
+gold sovereigns, and I shall go to Belgium at once. My 'usband is either
+dead, or I find him and tell him what I think of him, and get a
+divorce, and then return and marry the good Alphonse, who adores me.' So
+you see that I am no common thief. Bah! As for madame's jewellery, _ça
+ne fait rien_. She is rich. I shall be glad to have annoyed her. But at
+once I tell you, you shall not have the Victoria Medal. That is not to
+be. Captain Richards is the only man in this miserable country who has
+been kind to me. And he is a brave soldier. I shall not permit that you
+annoy him."
+
+"I promise to return it."
+
+"Then for why do you take it?"
+
+"That is my affair. I will bring the fifty pounds to-morrow night, but I
+must have the cross whether you help me to get it or not. Where does he
+keep it?"
+
+"Keep it? _Attendez._ Oh, I know. In the strong box locked in his
+bedroom. He is a man to shoot certain, and he always has his pistol to
+hand. You will give me the money instantly you are in the 'ouse, for if
+you go upstairs you will be a dead man at once. I tell you so myself."
+
+"That is an extremely unpleasant prospect. I must see my lawyer--my
+_notaire_, mademoiselle--in the morning, and arrange my affairs. Which
+window will you unlatch for me?"
+
+"The one at the front, the nearest to where you stood when I saw you. If
+you will come at one o'clock I will be in the room with the beautiful
+pearls. Now I must fly. _Bon soir, cher_ Mr. Jones."
+
+On the following morning Maxwell-Pitt paid his hotel bill and went up to
+town. In the evening he returned with his bicycle, getting out at the
+station beyond Bamburn. At a few minutes to one o'clock he entered the
+grounds of Burgoyne Lodge, and made his way stealthily to the window
+fixed on. It open noiselessly, and he clambered through. Mademoiselle
+Adèle was not there. Perhaps she was reading Sir Walter Scott to Miss
+Richards. He would wait for half an hour, at any rate, before making any
+move. Perhaps Adèle had thought better of her determination about the
+cross, and would bring it with her rather than risk trouble.
+
+He sat down and mused. A queer life, that of a burglar. Reminiscences of
+detective tales came back to him. He thought of Sherlock Holmes. The
+doings of the Burglars' Club would have puzzled him at first. Then there
+was his great predecessor, Poe's Dupin, the detective of The Murders in
+the Rue Morgue, of The Mystery of Marie Rogêt, and The Purloined Letter.
+Ah, The Purloined Letter! They were searching for that all over, probing
+every inch of space in the house for it, and there it was all the time,
+underneath their noses, hanging in a card-rack beneath the mantelpiece.
+Maxwell-Pitt rose and flashed his light over the mantelpiece. There was
+the usual assortment of odds and ends, but the V.C. was not there. No;
+it was too much to expect. Where did Richards keep it? Adèle had
+hesitated before replying that it was in the strong box in his bedroom.
+It might be--or it might not. Here, at any rate, were obvious traces of
+its owner--his letters and pipe on a side table, his service magazines
+on the chair. If the V.C. wasn't on the mantelpiece, it might be
+elsewhere in the room.
+
+There was a bookcase with a cupboard and drawers. He opened the
+bookcase, but closed it quickly at the sight of the serried ranks of the
+"Encyclopædia Britannica." He had no better luck in the cupboard, but in
+the first drawer he pulled out, his eye was at once caught by two small
+cases. He eagerly opened one, to find the South African Medal, but in
+the second--ye gods! It was the Victoria Cross!
+
+Maxwell-Pitt's fingers closed over it. At this moment the door opened
+gently.
+
+"Who is there?" whispered a voice.
+
+By this time he had moved to the table. He turned his light on again.
+
+Adèle was there--pale and excited. From a pocket which she must have
+specially constructed she produced a large case. She opened it,
+disclosing a necklace of large pearls.
+
+"Here it is," she whispered. "Where are the fifty sovereigns?"
+
+Maxwell-Pitt drew out a bag and gave it to her. She opened it, and
+looked at the contents, then put it in her pocket.
+
+"Now go," she said. "_Vite!_"
+
+Maxwell-Pitt moved towards the window. "I don't want this," he said,
+pointing to the case.
+
+"You don't want it?" she exclaimed in astonishment. For a moment they
+stood there facing one another. Then a sudden thought struck her. She
+went to the bookcase, opened the drawer, and saw only one case there.
+
+"You are more clever than I thought," she said. "I wished to take these
+away upstairs to-night, but the Captain he remained here late, and then
+madame wanted me. You have got the medal, but you shall not go away with
+it. Give it back to me."
+
+[Illustration: "HE WAS WALKING IN HIS SLEEP, CONSCIOUS OF NOTHING."
+
+(_p. 250._)]
+
+Maxwell-Pitt shook his head.
+
+Her eyes blazed in anger. "You will not? _Mon Dieu!_ then I sound the
+alarm."
+
+"How will you account for this?" said Maxwell-Pitt, pointing to the case
+on the table.
+
+"I do not know. I do not care," she answered. "Give me the medal, or I
+ring."
+
+Her hand clutched the bell rope. "Shall I ring or not?" she demanded.
+
+Again there was a sound at the door. Once more he turned off his light.
+The door opened wide, and Captain Richards entered, carrying a lighted
+candle in his hand.
+
+Maxwell-Pitt and Adèle stood there transfixed. The light shone full on
+them, but Captain Richards took no heed of them. His eyes were fixed,
+staring into space. He was walking in his sleep, conscious of nothing
+that was going on around him. He placed his candle on the side table,
+sat down in his easy chair, drew the book-rest towards him, and
+leaned back, staring vacantly at the pages of the open book.
+
+Adèle released the bell rope and held a warning finger to her lips. She
+stepped lightly to Maxwell-Pitt. "Sh! it is dangerous to awaken him,"
+she whispered. "Once they awakened my cousin suddenly when he walked
+like that in his sleep. He was never the same here again," and she
+tapped her forehead. "Now go at once, but softly."
+
+He clambered out, and then looked back through the window into the room.
+
+Adèle picked up the jewel case and put it into her pocket. There she
+touched the bag of gold. She pulled it out, looked at it for a moment,
+then stepped hastily to the window and flung it from her into the
+garden. She leaned out, and whispered, vindictively, "Take your money. I
+shall help the police. They shall catch you before the clock is round."
+
+Then she stepped gently to the door. It closed behind her, and the
+sleep-walker was alone in the room.
+
+Maxwell-Pitt picked up the bag of gold, and then cycled thirty miles. He
+caught an early train to London, and that evening he renewed his
+subscription to the Burglars' Club by exhibiting the Victoria Cross
+lately bestowed on Captain Sefton Richards by His Majesty.
+
+On the following day, to his great astonishment, Captain Richards
+received the cross in a registered postal packet, with no word to
+explain the reason of its temporary absence; and a few days later a
+larger postal packet came for Mademoiselle Adèle, which, on being
+opened, disclosed to her enraptured eyes fifty sovereigns.
+
+Thus did Maxwell-Pitt attempt to atone for the burglary he had
+perpetrated. "After all," he thought, "the only person who will have
+been seriously inconvenienced by the transaction is the balloonist in
+Belgium--and he deserves it."
+
+
+
+
+XII.
+
+THE LAST CHRONICLE.
+
+
+GILBERT BROWN, second Baron Lothersdale, was generally regarded as being
+the best business man in the country. His talent for affairs was
+doubtless hereditary, as his father had successfully kept a big emporium
+before seeking the parliamentary honours which led to higher things. His
+son, in his turn, entered Parliament, and quickly ran the gamut of two
+under-secretaryships and the Cabinet. The Lord Lieutenancy of Ireland
+and the Governor-Generalship of India would undoubtedly have been his,
+but for the impossibility of associating Brown's Bayswater Bazaar with
+those regal positions.
+
+When, therefore, the last of six successive schemes for the
+reorganisation of the British Army had fallen to the parliamentary floor
+and broken in pieces, it was felt that there was only one man who could
+tackle the matter, and bring it to a successful issue. Lord
+Lothersdale's tenure of the Postmaster-Generalship was remembered with
+pride by a grateful nation. Under his management the reply-postcard
+business, which had hitherto dragged and lost money, had become a
+popular and remunerative department, while his penny-in-the-slot form of
+application for Government annuities was an innovation as brilliant in
+conception as it was profitable in results.
+
+When the country learnt that to Lord Lothersdale had been entrusted the
+task of reforming the Army it heaved a sigh of content, for it knew that
+the work was now as good as done; and when the news reached the
+Continent the officers of the Great General Staff of the German Army
+were noticed to wear a sad and pensive look unusual to them.
+
+To accomplish the work that in the past twenty years alone had cost
+thousands of lives and millions of money, besides incidentally
+destroying six first-class parliamentary reputations, Lord Lothersdale
+retired to Moors, his Berkshire seat, and there, in his study
+overlooking the deer park, he accumulated his evidence and dictated his
+Report.
+
+From time to time paragraphs appeared in the papers that Lord
+Lothersdale was busy at his work, or that he was making progress
+therein, and at last word went round that he was now putting the final
+touches to his Report, which would be laid before the Cabinet the
+following week.
+
+Then it was that his Grace of Dorchester decided that Mr. Drummond Eyre
+must show the same Report at the next meeting of the Burglars' Club, if
+he wished to continue his membership thereof.
+
+George Drummond Eyre was a Leicestershire man, an ex-guardsman, and a
+shooter of big game. He received the news of his mission without
+comment, and proceeded to make himself acquainted with the habits of his
+lordship of Lothersdale. He was still pursuing these investigations when
+he read in the _Morning Mail_:--
+
+      "Lord Lothersdale is just completing his work of
+      reorganising the British Army on paper with the
+      thoroughness which we associate with his name. Not
+      content with revising the duties attached to the
+      highest offices, with altering the length of service,
+      and the pay of officer and private, his lordship is
+      actually winding up with suggestions for a new
+      full-dress uniform for our soldiers. The traditional
+      red is to be discarded, and hues more in keeping with
+      the aesthetic taste of the age will supplant it, in
+      the hope of attracting a superior class of men to the
+      army. We hear that Mr. Bower, the eminent tailor, was
+      last week at Moors, and that to-day a member of his
+      staff will arrive there with sample uniforms for his
+      lordship's inspection. History is in making at Moors."
+
+"Good!" said Eyre, with obvious satisfaction, as he read this paragraph.
+"This fits in well. I'm in luck's way."
+
+That was at nine o'clock in the morning. At ten o'clock he drove up to
+Mr. Bower's well-known establishment, and sent in a card on which was
+printed in unostentatious letters, "Mr. Luke Sinnott," and in the bottom
+corner "Criminal Investigation Dept., New Scotland Yard."
+
+In a few minutes he was shown into Mr. Bower's private room.
+
+Mr. Bower was a ponderous gentleman. In a higher station of life he
+would have been a Dean.
+
+"What can I do for you, Mr. Sinnott?" he inquired, eyeing his visitor
+over the top of his gold-rimmed glasses.
+
+"I have come on important business, sir," said the pseudo-Sinnott. He
+went back to the door, and closed it cautiously, then deposited his hat
+and gloves on the table with a precision which impressed the tailor
+with a sense of deep mystery.
+
+"I think you have just been to Moors," he said, after these
+preliminaries.
+
+"That is so," replied the tailor, with unnatural indifference.
+
+"And one of your people is going there to-day with some sample
+uniforms?"
+
+"I am going there to-day with a sample uniform."
+
+"Quite so. You are aware that Lord Lothersdale is working on a very
+important report?"
+
+"Of course I am."
+
+Mr. Sinnott came a step nearer to the tailor, and dropped his voice to
+an impressive whisper.
+
+"What I am going to tell you," he continued, "is in the strictest
+confidence. A Continental Power that shall be nameless, but whose
+identity you, as a man of the world, will be able to guess, is moving
+heaven and earth to get to know what that report contains. It is certain
+that whatever Lord Lothersdale suggests will be carried out by our
+government, and this will immediately influence the military policy of
+the Power in question. Moreover, there are some secret portions of this
+report which will never be made public. Therefore this foreign power is
+striving to get sight of it before it leaves Lord Lothersdale's hands.
+
+"One spy has already been detected and warned off by our man who is
+established in the village, but we have just learnt that another agent
+has obtained admission to the house itself, by taking service as a
+footman. On a previous occasion we alarmed Lord Lothersdale, without any
+real grounds, as it eventually turned out, and we should not care to
+repeat the incident. It is therefore essential that I, who know this
+man, should have the opportunity of seeing if he really is there,
+without anyone--not even his lordship--knowing who I am. With your
+assistance this will be possible; and I have come from Scotland Yard to
+ask you to allow me to go with you to Moors to-day, ostensibly as
+connected with your firm. If you will assist us in this matter you will
+not find us ungrateful. Scotland Yard does not forget, and some day it
+may be in our power to be of use to you. In the meantime, you will have
+done your country a great service."
+
+Mr. Bower was considerably impressed by this speech. He had come back
+from Moors full of importance. He was most certainly assisting in
+preserving the integrity of the empire, and it was quite in keeping with
+this feeling that he should take part in the international complication
+outlined by his visitor. He appeared to weigh the matter judicially for
+a few minutes. Then he said solemnly, "We will give you our co-operation
+in this affair, Mr. Sinnott."
+
+"Thank you, Mr. Bower," said the "detective."
+
+So at one o'clock that afternoon Mr. Bower, accompanied by his new
+assistant, took train for Moors. In another compartment travelled a
+sample corporal of the British Army, who was to show off the uniform
+which Mr. Bower had designed under Lord Lothersdale's instructions.
+
+It was a two-hours' journey, but Mr. Sinnott found it all too short in
+Mr. Bower's improving society, for that gentleman expounded views on
+life from a new standpoint.
+
+"No, sir," he said, "things are not what they used to be.
+Gentlemen--noblemen, especially, I regret to state--do not display that
+intelligent attention to dress which they used to, even within my own
+recollection Lord Lothersdale is a notable exception, but enumerate any
+other statesmen you like, and if left to their own unaided judgment--I
+say it with all due deference--they would go to pieces. I assure you,
+upon my honour, at the end of six months you would be liable to mistake
+any one of them for a foreigner. You would scarcely think it, Mr.
+Sinnott, but no less than five members of the present Government are too
+busy to give a thought to their dress at all."
+
+"You don't say so!" exclaimed Mr. Sinnott.
+
+"I do. 'Bower,' they say, 'keep your eye on us, and whenever you think
+that we are gettin' shabby make us some new clothes, and we will wear
+them. We leave it all to you.' It is flatterin', sir, I suppose, to have
+such reliance placed in your judgment, but it demonstrates the absence
+of--shall I term it proper self-respect?--which is deplorable,
+absolutely deplorable. It has made me a firm believer in the
+degeneration of the race.
+
+"Of course, to keep the Cabinet well-dressed is the principal object of
+my existence, and I flatter myself that under my superintendence the
+present Cabinet will compare favourably in taste and style with any
+previous one. But it is anxious, even harassin' work to decide what
+particular cut, colour, and texture will most suitably harmonise with
+each individual temperament. They cannot afford the time for interviews,
+so I have to anticipate the movements of ministers, and go out of my way
+to meet them. I track them down, as it were, and make my observations in
+the street, as best I can. Would you believe it, Mr. Sinnott, I was one
+day actually arrested for suspiciously followin' the Secretary of State
+for India? His trousers were positively baggin' at the knees. I couldn't
+take my eyes off them, and one of your smart young constables took me to
+Bow Street. Most humiliatin', I call it; and all because of my devotion
+to duty and the honour of the nation."
+
+"Shocking," said Mr. Sinnott. "I sympathise with you, Mr. Bower. I
+should like to know the name of that constable."
+
+"His name was Simpson--Archibald Simpson," replied the tailor.
+
+Mr. Sinnott made a note of the name, and Mr. Bower continued:
+
+"But, as I previously observed, Lord Lothersdale is a horse of another
+colour, if I may make use of such an expression. It is an inspiration to
+meet him. He is the busiest gentleman in England--bar none--but he is
+never too busy for a try-on or for a consultation. He is gifted, sir. He
+has ideas that would amaze you. The single-breasted frock-coat was his
+creation. What do you think of that?"
+
+"You do astonish me, Mr. Bower. I had no idea of it."
+
+"I knew you had not--that is where the greatness of the man comes in. It
+is his conception, and he is fully aware that the credit of it is
+attributed to me--but he does not mind. There is no petty jealousy of
+the profession about him. Then, silk breeches for evenin' wear. That is
+another of his grand ideas. You must have silk breeches if you visit at
+Moors, or you do not receive a second invitation. He is drastic in his
+methods, is my lord--a regular Roman. Mark my words, Mr. Sinnott, if the
+fashion takes it will be owin' to the influence of Lord Lothersdale, and
+once get the nation into silk breeches, and you do not know to what
+heights it may attain. It will be the beginnin' of a new era, the like
+of which no man livin' has known. I only hope I shall be here to
+witness its dawn."
+
+Mr. Bower's eyes glistened, and his cheeks flushed in anticipation. Even
+Mr. Sinnott caught a little of his enthusiasm.
+
+It was half-past three when they reached Moors. Lord Lothersdale could
+not see them until after dinner. At that moment a Japanese
+Surgeon-General was with him, explaining how they managed their field
+hospitals in the Far East. He had come by special permission of the
+Mikado, and had to return to the seat of war by the six o'clock train.
+
+At nine o'clock the corporal was arrayed in the proposed new uniform for
+the Line--a taking arrangement in heliotrope, the outcome of Lord
+Lothersdale's creative genius and Mr. Bower's executive ability.
+
+At nine-thirty they were admitted into Lord Lothersdale's study. The
+great man was in a genial mood, the result, no doubt, of an instructive
+afternoon and a good dinner.
+
+He walked round the corporal, and inspected him critically.
+
+"By Jove! Bower," he said at last, "you've done the trick. Capital! And
+your idea of primrose facings was quite right, after all."
+
+"I am glad that you approve of it, my lord," said the beaming tailor.
+
+"I do. And the country will, too. There'll be some recruiting when this
+gets out." Then he knitted his brows. "I think the cuffs are a shade too
+deep, though. I'm sure they are. But half-an-inch--no, a quarter--will
+put it right."
+
+"A quarter-of-an-inch off the cuff facin's. Make a note of that," said
+Mr. Bower to his assistant, who had his pocket-book ready.
+
+"You'll have it done by breakfast time, please," said Lord Lothersdale,
+"so that I can see how it looks by daylight. A photographer will be
+here, as I want some coloured prints for the Appendix."
+
+Then the little deputation withdrew. The whole interview had not
+occupied more than five minutes, and most of that time the tailor's
+assistant had been taking his bearings, and trying to locate the report.
+That was surely it--a business-like foolscap volume on the desk. The
+secretary was writing in it when they entered, and later on he had
+carefully put it in the top left-hand drawer. The assistant manoeuvred
+round to the desk during the interview, and after taking particulars of
+the alterations required, he laid down his notebook, and deliberately
+left it there.
+
+At two o'clock in the morning, when the whole household was presumably
+fast asleep, Mr. Bower's assistant suddenly remembered that he had left
+his notebook downstairs, and decided to recover it at once rather than
+wait till morning. He therefore made his way cautiously to Lord
+Lothersdale's study. He accomplished the return journey without any
+untoward event happening; but he brought back with him, in addition to
+the notebook, a manuscript volume, which he deposited in his handbag.
+
+The alterations in the cuff facings were duly made by breakfast time. At
+nine o'clock Lord Lothersdale approved of the result. By nine-fifteen
+the corporal had been photographed in several attitudes--one of which
+now adorns the recruiting posters--and by nine-thirty the party was
+driving to the railway station, incidentally meeting a troop of Hussars
+on the march to Moors for purposes of the Appendix.
+
+"That is what I call business," said Mr. Bower, as they took their seats
+in the train at the last moment. "No time is lost in dealin' with Lord
+Lothersdale. I hope that you got to know all you wanted."
+
+"All," replied Mr. Sinnott. "We have evidently been misinformed, for the
+man I wanted is not there. If we'd made a fuss about it to Lord
+Lothersdale we should have been sorry. As it is, we are very much
+obliged to you, Mr. Bower, and we shan't forget it."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"The next business," said the Hon. Sec. at the Burglars' Club meeting
+that same evening, "is the payment by Mr. Drummond Eyre of his
+subscription for the next two years by the production of Lord
+Lothersdale's Report on the Army."
+
+"Here it is," said Eyre, producing a manuscript volume.
+
+A subdued murmur of applause ran round.
+
+The President took up the book and glanced at it. "This seems to be in
+order," he said, turning to the end. "Lothersdale signs----"
+
+He broke off suddenly. The door had opened without any warning, and a
+little sharp-featured individual entered, followed by half a dozen other
+men.
+
+"In the name of the King," said the first comer, "I arrest George
+Drummond Eyre for feloniously stealing, taking, and carrying away
+certain papers, namely a Report, the property of the Right Honourable
+Gilbert Brown, Baron Lothersdale, and I arrest all others present as
+accessories."
+
+Members rose to their feet, and simultaneously made a move towards the
+door, with the evident intention of resisting the intrusion.
+
+Mr. Marvell--for it was he--held up his hand warningly. "There are more
+men outside," he said. "Resistance is useless."
+
+"Where's your authority for all this?" demanded the Secretary.
+
+"Here, sir," said Marvell, pulling out a bundle of papers from a
+capacious pocket. "Here are the warrants. 'Mr. George Drummond Eyre,'"
+he called out, reading from the pile. "Here you are, sir. 'The Duke of
+Dorchester.' Here, your Grace. 'The Earl of Ribston.' Here, my lord.
+'Mr. Hilton,' 'Major Anstruther,'" and so on through the list of
+members. "You will find these quite in order, I think. Now, gentlemen,
+if you please. I have concluded that you would prefer to ride. Thompson,
+fetch the hansoms round."
+
+"Stop!" called out Ribston. "What are you going to do with us?"
+
+"Take you to Vine Street Station."
+
+"Nonsense. We're not criminals."
+
+"You can argue that out with the magistrate to-morrow, my lord," said
+the detective. "Here are the warrants, and I'm going to execute them. If
+the proceedings are not in order, you can claim reparation in the usual
+way. Now, gentlemen, please. If you will give your word to come quietly
+you will save time and trouble."
+
+"Does the Home Secretary know of this?" asked the Duke.
+
+"We don't report police court details to the Home Secretary," said
+Marvell, acidly. "No, sir, he doesn't."
+
+"Then I demand to see him before these warrants are executed," said
+Dorchester.
+
+"Impossible, your Grace," said Marvell, who twice before had been
+defrauded of his legitimate prey. Not again was he going to run the risk
+of undue favour staying the hand of Justice. He had now in his
+possession a batch of prisoners so notable that next day his name would
+ring from one end of the world to the other. "Impossible," was the
+obvious reply.
+
+"May I write a letter?" asked the Duke.
+
+"No, your Grace, you may not," replied Marvell firmly. "You are now a
+prisoner, and you will please come with me without more delay. Now,
+gentlemen, will you pass your words to come quietly? You can cause
+trouble if you like, but we are more than equal to you in numbers, so
+there could only be one end to the matter."
+
+Dorchester consulted Ribston and the Secretary. The others nodded
+reluctant consent. Word was given, and they passed out. The house doors
+were flung open, and they filed into the street, where a dozen hansoms
+were in line, a dozen policemen in waiting, and a small but inevitable
+crowd had collected.
+
+"Ask Colonel Altamont to see the Home Secretary at once," said
+Dorchester to his butler, as he was helped into his coat.
+
+The old man stood there petrified by the horror of the proceedings. He
+had been in the family for generations. Three Dukes of Dorchester had he
+known in all their glory. Kings, Queens, and Potentates had flitted in
+and out of the ducal mansion with his masters, and now he had lived to
+see the last of the line taken away like a thief, for some terrible
+crime. He heard the Duke's words to him, but they conveyed no impression
+to his brain. He did not reply. The police, the bustle in the hall, the
+crowd outside, the driving away of the prisoners, all was as a horrible
+nightmare to him.
+
+"His Grace said you were to tell Colonel Altamont to go at once to the
+Home Secretary, Mr. Bolton," said the footman, who had held the Duke's
+coat.
+
+"Ha!" said Bolton, waking from his stupor. He caught hold of a hat, and
+ran out of the house.
+
+Altamont had not been able to be present that evening. Business of
+importance had detained him, and he had only just got back to his rooms
+when Bolton turned up. He started off at once to the Home Secretary, and
+after exasperating interviews with a footman, a butler, and a private
+secretary, was at length admitted to the presence of that high
+personage, who was in his dressing gown, and considerably annoyed at
+this interruption to his slumbers.
+
+The Colonel explained the situation.
+
+"Is that all?" asked the Home Secretary when he had finished.
+
+"All, sir!" cried the indignant Colonel. "Dorchester, Ribston,
+Anstruther, and a dozen others, arrested by your policemen, and you ask
+'Is that all?'"
+
+"Colonel," said the Minister, emphasising his remarks with his
+forefinger in Old Bailey style, "Dorchester, Ribston, and the whole lot
+should have known better--very much better. They've had their sport, and
+now they've got to pay for it. I can't interfere. If the jury recommend
+them to mercy I'll give them the benefit of any doubt, and will save
+them from hanging; but that's all I can promise. Now have a whiskey and
+soda, and go to bed."
+
+Altamont declined the whiskey and soda, and left the Minister
+indignantly. On his doorstep he was promptly arrested by Marvell, who
+had a couple of warrants left over after depositing his prisoners at
+Vine Street. The last warrant could not be served that night, as the
+member in question happened to be visiting a friend in Nova Zembla.
+
+Mr. Marvell took good care that the news of the arrest of the Duke of
+Dorchester, the Earl of Ribston, and the other more or less
+distinguished members of the Burglars' Club, should be at once
+communicated to the Press in case some influential friend should
+intervene at the last moment, and once more defraud him of his due. The
+morning's papers were full of the news, with the result that the
+Marlborough Street Police Court was filled to overflowing long before
+the proceedings commenced. The Peerage, the Diplomatic Service, the
+Commons, the Army and the Navy, the Stage and Sport, were well
+represented. Every inch of space, including the bench itself, was
+filled, and fair women and brave men were turned away.
+
+Half a dozen ordinary cases were quickly disposed of. Then the
+extraordinary case was called, and the spectators involuntarily rose to
+their feet as the Burglars filed into the dock, and took their stand two
+deep behind the brass rail. A murmur of sympathy went round as they
+stood there--some of them obviously interested in the proceedings,
+others apparently bored by them--all well-groomed, straight set-up men,
+though their evening dress looked incongruous enough in the daylight,
+and their crumpled shirt-fronts did not show to advantage.
+
+One by one the prisoners' names were called. One by one the prisoners
+answered.
+
+Then counsel for the Crown stood up, and having stated that the charge
+against the prisoners was that of stealing a Report, the property of
+Lord Lothersdale, he opened his case and called the first witness--Mr.
+Bower.
+
+Mr. Bower entered the box, and adjusted his pince-nez with extreme
+nicety. Under counsel's lead he detailed how the so-called Sinnott had
+introduced himself.
+
+"I had no doubt at all as to his _bona fides_," said the tailor,
+lingering lovingly over the Latin words; "but immediately afterwards I
+had a wire from Moors asking me to postpone my visit to his lordship. I
+rang up Scotland Yard to inform Mr. Sinnott of the alteration, and
+learnt that he was unknown there. Then I informed the authorities of the
+whole matter, with the result that our original intention was followed,
+and every facility allowed to Mr. Sinnott for carry out his plans."
+
+"Done! By Jove!" gasped Eyre.
+
+Lord Lothersdale's secretary then gave evidence that the Report now
+produced in court was the property of his lordship.
+
+"Of course," he added smilingly, "the real Report is still at Moors.
+This one, though signed for the present purpose by Lord Lothersdale, has
+no value. It was drawn up three years ago by a former Secretary of State
+for War," he explained.
+
+Then there was formal evidence of the arrest from Mr. Marvell, who was
+allowed to speak at length.
+
+"For some time past, your worship," he said, "we have been aware of the
+existence of what is called 'The Burglars' Club,' composed of noblemen
+and gentlemen such as your worship sees before you. Our information was
+derived in the first instance from a discharged servant of one of the
+members. In revenge for his dismissal he told us of proceedings he had
+witnessed at his master's house on one occasion, when he was concealed
+behind a curtain in the room.
+
+"He furnished us with a list of members, and ever since then we have had
+them under observation. These gentlemen amuse themselves by stealing
+articles of great value or of public interest. We know for a fact that
+at one time and another they have obtained unlawful possession of the
+Koh-i-noor Diamond, the Mace of the House of Commons, Lord
+Illingworth's Black Pearl, an ounce of Radium from Professor Blyth's
+laboratory, and even the Great Seal of the United Kingdom itself."
+
+"Good old burglars!" called out an admiring listener at the back of the
+court.
+
+"Silence!" shouted an indignant usher.
+
+"We have waited, your worship, until we could interfere successfully,
+knowing that it was only a question of time for us to do so. I have
+twice been called in on the occasion of a burglary committed by a member
+of the club, and in each case--of course against my wishes--no charge
+was made. In this particular instance the member walked straight into
+the trap."
+
+This closed the case for the Crown, and counsel proceeded to urge the
+seriousness of the offence, and the necessity for a severe sentence, not
+only as a just punishment, but as an example.
+
+Counsel for the prisoners now rose. He was the famous Mr. Spiller, who
+had earned the well-deserved sobriquet of "The prisoner's pal."
+
+He stood up with a twinkle in his eye, and an air of confidence that
+gladdened the hearts of the ladies on the bench.
+
+"Your worship," he began, "I shall not detain the Court more than a very
+few minutes, for I admit all the evidence that has been tendered. The
+last witness gave a list of articles illegally taken by my clients. If
+he wishes, I will add to the list another half-dozen instances of equal
+importance."
+
+"Bravo! Go it, Spiller!" called out the sympathiser at the back, whose
+sporting instincts were too strong for him. This time he was surrounded
+by ushers and ejected.
+
+"But, sir," continued counsel, when quiet had again been restored, "I
+must emphasize a point which has been completely and unaccountably lost
+sight of by the prosecution. Not one of the articles taken by my clients
+has been retained by them for longer than twenty-four hours. Within that
+period every article has been restored to its owner. Restitution has
+always been made, and compensation given whenever compensation was
+necessary.
+
+"We in this court have many times had occasion to admire the abilities
+of Mr. Marvell as a detective, but I would now suggest that he should go
+through a course of Stephen's 'Commentaries' in order to obtain a little
+knowledge of the law which he is in the constant habit of putting into
+force. I cannot too strongly denounce the unwarrantable action of
+Scotland Yard in submitting my clients to the indignity of an arrest and
+these proceedings upon the evidence in their possession. They must
+know--or their office-boy or charwoman is capable of instructing them in
+the fact--that by English law no person can be guilty of larceny who
+does not intend permanently to deprive its owner of the article of which
+he has gained possession. Mere conversion, though accompanied by
+trespass, is nothing more than a civil wrong, for which possibly my
+clients might be liable to a farthing damages.
+
+"Surely," concluded Mr. Spiller, "life is dull and prosaic enough
+without this high-handed and unwarranted attempt of Scotland Yard to
+extinguish an original, if not laudable, effort on the part of my
+clients to add to the dexterity and the gaiety of the nation. Your
+worship, I submit there is no evidence against my clients, and ask for
+the immediate discharge of the prisoners."
+
+As Mr. Spiller spoke, the countenance of the prosecuting counsel was
+observed to become exceedingly gloomy, while Mr. Marvell's complexion
+turned distinctly green.
+
+[Illustration: "MR. MARVELL . . . THANKED THE COMPANY FOR THE GIFT,
+WHICH HE WOULD TREASURE."
+
+(_p. 280_)]
+
+Then the magistrate spoke. He began with the usual reprimand to the
+spectators, and the usual threat to have the place cleared if the
+ordinary decencies of a Court of Justice were not maintained. Then he
+turned to the prisoners, and said:
+
+"I am sorry to see men of your social position in the dock before me,
+but you have only yourselves to thank for it. Your counsel has spoken of
+your laudable and original effort to add to the gaiety of the nation.
+People's idea of humour varies, and, personally, I see nothing very
+funny in what you have done. I certainly think that your efforts might
+have been more worthily engaged. Some of you are members of the Houses
+of Parliament, and I really do not know how you reconcile this club with
+your position as the law-makers of the land; but of course it may be
+that this is part of the humour to which your counsel referred. With
+regard to the legal aspect of the matter, it is clear that no criminal
+offence has been committed, though if Lord Lothersdale desires, you may
+have to answer elsewhere a claim for damages. You are discharged."
+
+It was in vain that the ushers tried to stop the cheers that went up as
+the magistrate concluded, and as the doors of the dock opened and the
+prisoners came forth. But one little man crept away from the well of the
+court, unnoticed and unrejoicing.
+
+Two days later a special meeting of the Club was held, at which it was
+proposed by Colonel Altamont and seconded by the President:--
+
+"That, as according to the decision of the Marlborough Street Police
+Court magistrate, the proceedings of the Burglars' Club are neither
+criminal nor humorous, and its members run no danger of suffering
+personal inconvenience, it is hereby resolved that the Club has no
+connection with Sport, and therefore no reason for existence, and that
+it be disbanded forthwith."
+
+A fortnight later the disbanding of the Club was celebrated by a dinner,
+the guest of the evening being Mr. Marvell. After dessert the detective
+was presented with the minute-book of the Club, which had been kept in
+cipher by the Hon. Sec., who alone had the key to it. The ex-President,
+in making the presentation, expressed the hope that Mr. Marvell would
+spend many happy and profitable years in endeavouring to decipher it.
+
+Mr. Marvell, in reply, thanked the company for their kind reception of
+him, and for the gift, which he would treasure. He would certainly
+follow his Grace's suggestion and endeavour to decipher the minutes, and
+he still hoped that with this additional evidence and a more intimate
+acquaintance with the "Commentaries" of Mr. Stephen, he would before
+long be enabled to return their hospitality at His Majesty's expense.
+
+Mr. Marvell's speech was received with acclamation; but his hopes have
+not been realised.
+
+This is the last chronicle of the Burglars' Club.
+
+
+    PRINTED BY CASSELL AND COMPANY, LTD., LA BELLE SAUVAGE, E.C.
+    10.500
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Transcriber's Note:
+
+Obvious punctuation errors repaired.
+
+Page 87, the first word was placed in small capitals in the HTML version
+and all capitals in the text version to conform to the rest of the book.
+
+Page 207, "Adolf" changed to "Adolph" (MR. ADOLPH MEYER, the friend)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Burglars' Club, by Henry A. Hering
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 40897 ***