Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 12, No. 60, November 1948

A Case for Deduction by M. P. Shiel and John Gawsworth

Copyright, 1947, by John Gawtwarth

In 1895 M. P. Shiel, that comparatively unsung genius of the weird and the fantastic, had his first book published. The three short stories in prince zaleski were a frank throwback to Poe’s Dupin trilogy which had first appeared in book form exactly half a century before. Like Poe, however, Shiel wearied of his eccentric sleuth and abandoned him — for precisely another half century.

And therein lies our tale...

It is not commonly known that in 1945 Mr. Shiel revived the character of Prince Zaleski — he wrote a fourth Zaleski short story especially for EQMM, but strangely enough we were not even aware of the epic event until it was too late. The details were sent to us by John Gawsworth, a personal friend and at times a collaborator of Mr. Shiel’s. As Gawsworth expressed it, the return of Prince Zaleski nearly cost Mr. Shiel his life. The fourth, and last, Zaleski story was written in October 1945, when the author was past eighty. As soon as the manuscript was finished, Mr. Shiel walked to Horsham to mail it to EQMM’s First Annual Short Story Contest. The effort was too much for the grand old man: he fainted and was taken to a hospital. When he recovered Mr. Shiel was uncertain whether or not he had actually posted the manuscript. In any event, the story never reached EQMM, and no trace of the original was ever found. Mr. Shiel died on February 17, 1947 and the mystery of the missing manuscript will probably remain a mystery forever. But think: if an accident of fate had not intervened, we should have gained possession of the only Prince Zaleski manuscript extant!

While we cannot bring you a new Prince Zaleski story — and now that Mr. Shiel is dead all hope for the resurrection of Prince Zaleski is gone — we can bring you a Shiel story which, according to the author himself, has never been published in the United States. It is a story, moreover, that was written by Mr. Shiel in collaboration with his good friend John Gawsworth. It is a story, too, that reveals Mr. Shiel’s genius for the weird and the fantastic, and yet within the framework, within the technical boundaries, of the modern detective story.

So, dear reader, hone thy logic — one of the great Old Masters is throwing down the gauntlet. Whet thy wits, dear reader — one of the Old Foxes is laying down the clues. And just before the end, when Mr. Shiel says (through his character, Uncle Quintus) that he has “provided you with sufficient clues to solve the problem,” we shall have a few more words to say — by way of warning!

“Since you pride yourself on solving mysteries,” said my Uncle Quintus, puffing from a petty pipette the smoke of some preparation of cannabis which had followed him from the East, “I will give you some facts in the case of a young artist friend of mine, Aubrey Smith; enough, I should think, for you to elucidate and explain his troubles to me, without my telling you the successful conclusions arrived at by the detective in charge. That would interest you?”

“Indeed, yes,” I replied, and settled down into my fireside armchair to listen attentively and to make notes.

“Well,” pursued my Uncle Quintus, “that night when he was to rescue two lives from — death, maybe, Aubrey Smith, as was his way on Wednesdays, spent the evening with his sweetheart, Hylda, at Rose Villa, her home in Clapham. Rut from the moment when she opened the door to Aubrey that evening, Hylda had a feeling that this Wednesday was in some way special and different from the rest.

“ ‘Quite a beauty,’ she said of the bouquet which Aubrey handed her, but with a touch of reproach she said it, since Aubrey could ill afford such displays. Every Wednesday, it was true, he brought a bouquet, but this was a mass that must have cost ten shillings.

“She wondered why, and he knew that she wondered, there was such a sympathy between their natures, yet he offered no explanation; and she wondered why he was in black, with a black tie...

“Captain Hood himself — Hylda’s father — noticed it, as they sat to dinner, and made the remark, ‘Why, Aubrey, you look as if you were in mourning tonight.’

“ ‘But you know, sir,’ said Aubrey, ‘that I am the last of the crew — I haven’t a relative now to mourn for.’

“But he said it with shy eyelids, and Hylda, to whose ken his soul was an open book, understood that this evening Aubrey, for some reason, was concealing something or other from her.

“That startled her heart! There was the big bouquet, the black garb... What, then, was in the wind? Her eyes, when he was looking at his plate, kept silently inquiring it of his face.

“Once when Captain Hood had limped his lamed leg to his ingle-nook to muse there over his cheroot as usual, Aubrey looked as if disposed to tell something; Hylda by this time had withdrawn her pampered Lupot fiddle from its silk covering, and had it at her chin, Aubrey was accompanying her on the piano, and all down Rosehill Road faces were looking out from the rows of oriels, as was usual on Wednesday evenings, to hear the music — for Hylda, the hope of the Royal College, could make her fiddle discourse strange sorrows. She and Aubrey had done the Sonata in F, and were about to give a Lied, when, in the interval, their hands met as they turned the leaves of the second book, their hands and their eyes, and Hylda smiled, and he smiled; and he began then to say, ‘Hylda, perhaps I had better tell you—’ when Captain Hood from his nook called out, ‘Aubrey, let me hear that last melody of the Wallenstein that I like’; and Aubrey called back: ‘Quite so, sir,’ and started to render it.

“After which for hours they wearied out the ear with sweetness, and through it all Hylda waited to hear, but Aubrey said nothing.

“ ‘Dear heart,’ she whispered to him at the door near eleven when he was going, gazing up a moment on his breast into those girl-beguiling eyes of Aubrey, ‘God keep you.’

“He stooped to kiss her — a steepish stoop, he was so high up compared with her — saying, ‘We’ll meet for luncheon tomorrow at the Circus,’ and he went, she gazing after him, he in the falling snow waving his hat back at her — the most picturesque old hat on this planet, in such an egregious tone of green, turned down over the nose, with Art Student and Latin Quarter written all over it — and he was gone from her.

“He took train at Clapham Junction for Victoria, and from Victoria was off afoot (to save ’bus fare!) to his little flatlet in Maida Vale.

“It was during this tramp that he rescued the two lives.

“In an alley behind the Edgware Road it was. At that very spot, earlier in the night, a hungry man, who had desired to go to prison, had broken a street lamp; and just there, as Aubrey passed, stood a cab and a barrow, blocking the way; at the same moment a motor-car came round a corner, and, its driver not apparently sighting the barrow under the cab’s shadow, dashed on. Out of Aubrey’s mouth a shout of warning broke; in the rashness of the moment he even ran out from the pavement, so that, although the driver at once had his brakes on, Aubrey was knocked staggering, as the car bumped softly upon the barrow.

“In a moment there stood with him an old man and a young lady from the car, the old man saying: ‘My dear sir! are you hurt?’

“ ‘Not a bit!’ Aubrey cried.

“ ‘Papa, this is you in the rôle of chauffeur,’ the young lady remarked — in a queer species of whisper, husky, rapid, which, however (though the noise of the engine, running free, was in the ear), Aubrey could still hear.

“ ‘Now, Laura!’ — the old man turned upon her to insist that he was an accomplished chauffeur, then requested that Aubrey must go home with him for a glass of whisky, rather confirming Aubrey’s surmise that he was talking to an Irishman.

“ ‘But, sir, really—’ he began to say.

“ ‘Yes, come,’ Laura said to him in that same whispered way, and he gathered that her voice, owing to some affection of the vocal chords, was gone.

“ ‘Yes, come.’ There she stood, almost as tall as her tall father, draped in a pony-skin coat, its opening framing her face. ‘Yes, come.’ And now he went.

“ ‘An adventure!’ he said, as the three passed into a house in Brook Street: ‘on my birthday, too’ — this fact not having been mentioned to his sweetheart, Hylda Hood; and although he and Hylda had been engaged since they were thirteen, Hylda still remained ignorant what day his birthday was.

“ ‘Your birthday?’ from the old man, whose name had now turned out to be Sir Phipps O’Dowdy O’Donague: ‘now, that’s singular. I’ll give you some whisky for it — come on!’

“Aubrey was brought into an apartment with silken walls and two brawling fires; and here, pointing to a picture, he said at once, ‘Why, I saw that in last year’s Academy.’

“ ‘Ego pinxi,’ Laura said with a curtsey.

“ ‘Awfully well done,’ he breathed under it.

“ ‘Praise from Raphael.’ She curt-seyed again.

“ ‘Who told you that I am an artist?’ he asked.

“ ‘I may be dumb,’ she said, ‘but I’m not blind.’

“ ‘You dumb?’ he cried: ‘not quite, I think!’

“Her tongue flew as she sat stooped forward before him, her chin on her fists, flew in that breathy throat-whisper that went on as busily as a threshing-machine, or paddle-boxes threshing the sea; and he, listening with one ear to her and with the other to her father — for they fought against each other, speaking together in a race — thought that he had never lighted upon a pair of such live and brilliant beings. Father and daughter tossed rains of repartee at each other, jeered at each other, despaired of each other, yet were evidently chums. Neither could sit still six minutes. Sir Phipps jumped up to show the latest novel by Bourget, Laura jumped up, humming, to dash her hand over the piano keys, to show a Welsh crowth, or a miniature of Coquelin. Before twenty minutes Aubrey was at home with them; and once — the whisky had then come, and Laura had run out for a moment — Sir Phipps furtively took from out of his breast pocket a photograph, and furtively gave Aubrey a glimpse of it — the photograph of a lady.

“ ‘Well, the old sinner!’ was Aubrey’s first thought; his second was: ‘How perfect a beauty!’

“ ‘La Rosa,’ whispered the old man, thinking apparently that Aubrey would know the name; but Aubrey had no notion who La Rosa was.

“He wanted to take the photograph to feast his eyes on it; but now they could hear Laura’s steps, and Sir Phipps hurriedly hid it.

“After this for hours Aubrey could hardly find a chance to say ‘Now I must go’: if he did, it was at once drowned in talk, and he passed a merry night, which was only marred by one awkward moment, when, during another absence of Laura, Sir Phipps hurriedly drew a check, and held it out to Aubrey.

“ ‘My good sir!’ Aubrey breathed with shy eyelids.

“ ‘Tush!’ Six Phipps said, ‘you are only a boy, and I an old fellow whose life you have saved — your birthday, too.’

“ ‘Yes, sir,’ — from Aubrey, with a breath of laughter, ‘but really — I am only sorry that these things can’t be done.’

“ ‘Oh, well, we won’t quarrel over it’ — Sir Phipps tore the check in shreds.

“Aubrey could hear Big Ben striking three, as he stepped out into streets now powdery with snow, over which a late and waning moon had moved up, revealing him to Laura, who at a window peered after him till he disappeared. Laura at that window then clasped her hands behind her neck, and stretched, and then, alone in the room, lay sideways on a sofa, and mused. What a tall, rough-clad fellow! she thought; his dash of dark mustache did not cover his rich lips; he had a modest way of lowering his eyelids, which was both shy and disdainful; he threw out odd breaths of laughter: and under the eyelids, eyes all beauty, like the Moonlight Sonata, drowsy, brown, brown. She turned, and stretched, murmuring, ‘Yes, charming,’ with half a yawn, and half a laugh, and said ‘Ah!’

“Aubrey, for his part, on getting home, sat up yet an hour smoking cigarettes, thinking it out, and soon came to the conclusion that he would go no more to the O’Donagues. Laura was a remarkable creature, he thought! So lively, vital — and pretty; even the loss of her voice somehow added to her: just as she was, she was — she, was ‘just so’ His brain kept comparing Laura with Hylda: Hylda was little, Laura big; Hylda was fair, with a broad face, dimples in her smile, bright eyes that laughed; Laura was dark, and had gaudy eyes. Which was the prettier — Laura or Hylda? Certainly, Laura was as far prettier than Hylda as La Rosa was more lovely than Laura. But Hylda was good, born good to the heart — was Laura good? Laura was glitter, Hylda was gold; if Laura was a genius, Hylda was an angel. ‘Well, the birthday has come, and the birthday has gone,’ he murmured at last; and tossing off the mourning clothes, he turned in to bed.

“The next day at luncheon in their usual Piccadilly tea shop, on his relating the adventure to Hylda, she overwhelmed him with questions as to Laura — Laura’s looks, Laura’s throat-whisper, Laura’s touch, and was she really so very clever? ‘And are you expected to go back?’ — her eyes fastened on his face, for wherever she was with him, she could not help it, she could see nothing but him alone; she hung only upon him, her soul dancing in her gladdened glances: ‘did they seem really to want you again?’

“ ‘I think so,’ Aubrey answered; ‘but I’m not going, all the same.’

“ ‘Why not?’

“ ‘Hard to say quite why.’ His eyes dropped from her face.

“But Aubrey was not to escape the baronet so easily, for only a week later that Rolls car which he had saved from a shock drew up before his block of flats, the O’Donague mounted many stairs to him, and, glancing round Aubrey’s cheap but chaste interior, remarked: ‘Now, this is a charming den I find you in!’ while Aubrey stood all shy eyes at the honor, and brought forth liqueurs. The fact was, that the old baronet had an absolute need of someone new to whom to give peeps of Salvadora Rosa’s photograph and make a confidant of, and his fancy had fixed upon Aubrey: so that within a month or two now, Aubrey, without having ever set eyes on her, knew La Rosa by rote. She turned out to be a lady with something of a European fame, Spanish by birth, divorced wife of a Polish Count; and what mainly made her notorious, apart from some duels and suicides which had been due to her; was the fact that she had a little daughter whom her ex-husband had for years been seeking to sneak from her: for this child, on attaining her eighteenth year, would be as rich as Croesus: so Salvadora Rosa, who seemed to have a keen sense of the good of money, stuck to the child, though its father was its lawful guardian. At that moment, Sir Phipps told Aubrey, though scores of secret emissaries in several countries were intriguing to get at the child, probably no soul but Salvadora Rosa and her own agents had any notion where the child was.

“ ‘Must be a clever sort of lady,’ Aubrey remarked.

“ ‘Clever as ten monkeys!’ Sir Phipps cried out.

“ ‘Rich?’

“ ‘She is like a bank or the Severn — sometimes full, sometimes empty,’ Sir Phipps O’Dowdy O’Donague answered: ‘it comes and it goes, like a maid’s flushes and the monthly moon. At present, it strikes me, she is rather hard up — embarrasée, her little tongue calls it, with a roll on the r.’

“ ‘Take care she doesn’t get what she wants from you, sir.’

“ ‘My dear fellow, you are talking of a lady.’

“ ‘I beg pardon,’ Aubrey said.

“But he seemed destined to have to hear of La Rosa: although he did not go to Brook Street (save once to a crush-reception, when he got only glimpses of Miss O’Donague) Brook Street came to him. One day, looking out of the window, down there in the street he saw a gig roll slowly past, the reins in a lady’s hand, and the lady was Laura O’Donague. He watched with interest to see if she glanced up at his windows, but she did not. However, one day some three months later he opened his door to a rap, and there, to his amazement, was the busy breath of Laura, whispering: ‘I have to talk to you about Papa. It is serious.’

“It was all about La Rosa and her Papa that she had come!

“ ‘You have a lot of influence over Papa, let me tell you,’ she said, seated within the nook made by the half-round seat that surrounded Aubrey’s fireplace: ‘he never so took to anyone as to you; and you have to speak to him.’

“Aubrey began to say: ‘I’m rather afraid—’

“But she said: ‘No, really, you don’t know how serious it is: he is getting more and more entangled with this lady, and three days ago, just after getting home from her place, had a most strange illness...’

“ ‘Oh, I say, Miss O’Donague!’

“ ‘You have no idea of this woman,’ Laura said — ‘she sticks at nothing. I have never seen her, but one night last week, at the Mansion House, Detective-Sergeant Barker — ever heard of Barker? — impressed upon me that she’s most dangerous, said that the woman’s hungers are like a tiger’s, and it is only because she is so much deeper than the European police that she can continue her career.’

“Aubrey, with puckered brows, sat at a loss what to say, but in the end promised to use his ‘influence with poor Papa,’ and after an hour’s windstorm of whispering, Miss O’Donague at last accused herself of being unconventional in coming alone, and left him.

“Two months later, in July, he spent a weekend with the O’Donagues at Clanning, their seat in Gloucestershire, and then, as they went to Italy, saw them no more for some months.

“It was autumn when the O’Donagues returned to England, passed a fortnight in Gloucestershire, and then were in London once more, La Rosa having also been abroad at the same time; and shortly after she was back, they were back.

“Aubrey was at work one afternoon in November on a Kermesse, when the O’Donague anew came breezily in.

“ ‘I am now straight from Regent’s Park [Regent’s Park meant Salvadora Rosa]; got back from Italy three weeks ago, then went down to Clanning — beastly unpleasant thing happened down there — give me a glass of liqueur: I don’t feel well today, boy.’

“ ‘What unpleasant thing, sir?’ — Aubrey presented liqueur.

“ ‘Not seen it in the papers? Little girl of seven lost from the village — vanished — I knew her quite well; little thing named Ada Price — black-haired — Welsh — nice little thing — child of one of my underkeepers — the whole countryside searched, everybody very excited, and the burden of it all on me — Oh, I say, I feel bad, Aubrey.’

“Even as he sipped the liqueur Sir Phipps became pale, and presently Aubrey had to accompany him below to his car, the baronet was so tottery. However, Sir Phipps did not look mortally ill, and it was profoundly shocking when at nine o’clock that night Aubrey got a telegram: ‘Papa died in the car on the way home from you. I wish to see you. Laura O’Donague.’

“So he was gone, the gay, the bountiful old fellow, with his gray imperial and regal brow. Aubrey’s heart smote him at the thought of the daughter who, he knew well, would be very deeply bereaved, and he hurried to her in Brook Street.

“He found her in the baronet’s bedroom, however, quite her average self, chatty, agile, showing no sign that anything out of the common had happened. Only once, when she thought that he was not looking, he saw her shake her head at her father’s portrait, and smile sorrowfully at it, with the reproach of love. From the chauffeur she already knew all the old man’s movements that afternoon: how he had passed from Regent’s Park to Aubrey’s.

“ ‘He was hardly ten minutes with me,’ Aubrey told her. ‘First he spoke of his doings since his arrival from Italy, then of an unpleasant thing happening down at Clanning, and then, saying he felt bad, asked for a liqueur.’

“ ‘He isn’t lying there poisoned, is he?’ asked Laura quite calmly over the baronet on his bed.

“ ‘Oh, I say, don’t—’ Aubrey breathed, shrinking.

“ ‘Aubrey, this world isn’t done all in water colors,’ she said to him.

“Aubrey’s eyes dropped. Laura had called him ‘Aubrey’! And even in the presence of that sternness on the bed, some nerve of him that ran down from his crown to his feet thrilled throughout, his brow rushing into brown with a blush.

“That wild word ‘poison,’ however, was only that one time uttered, since there was nothing to suggest such a thing to any mind, and as Sir Phipps’s physician had long been aware that the baronet was suffering from ‘tobacco heart,’ liable to sudden dilatation, the death certificate and verdict were in accordance.

“All during that funeral week Aubrey was so much with Laura, driving with her, acting the lackey, that actually on three days of it he did not see Hylda at all.

“On returning from the grave-side, ‘Now for some Hylda!’ he sighed to himself with a certain hunger, like one yearning for fresh air and rest; but the first thing the next morning for him was yet a telegram from Laura in the words:

“More death — I should like to see you.’

“When he went to her it was to learn that an old person, known as Davenport, a butler, for over thirty years in the service of Sir Phipps, had suddenly ceased to live on returning from the funeral — a new woe which had the effect of throwing Laura O’Donague into an extraordinary passion of anguish. At her father’s death her self-control had been so complete as to appear even cold to everyone; hut less careful, maybe, in this lesser case, at this second stroke she broke out into torrents of tears, terrible tantrums, hysterias, that astounded her household. Aubrey, however, found her in a condition of mere depression and ill-temper, like a child sullen after punishment. She would hardly speak to him, and when he touched her hand, saying, ‘Laura, I am sorry,’ she replied: ‘Oh, my back is broad. Why did you come?’

“ ‘Did you not send for me? What about this poor Davenport,’ said Aubrey: ‘at what hour—?’

“ ‘Oh, pray don’t mention to me the name of Davenport,’ said she; ‘I am soaked with death.’

“Aubrey wondered why he had been sent for, since she snapped at everything which he could find to say; and before long left her alone to her sorrows.

“It was still too soon for him to go to the tea shop to Hylda, so he went home once more, and it was as he now opened his flat-door that he saw on the floor the note which was to play nine-pins with his whole life.

“It came from some attorneys, and it was a breathless Aubrey Smith whose eyes perused these lines:

“ ‘... have the pleasure to inform you... by the last will of the late Sir Phipps O’Dowdy O’Donague... you become the life-legatee of the sum of £175 per annum... shall be pleased to see you at your convenience... Ife & Siemens...’

“So good, so large, the old man! A good heart that wished one well! Aubrey’s eves sprang water, and then — he ran. Outside, he found walking too slow now, a ’bus too slow, he sprang into a cab — for the tea shop. But he was too soon, Hylda had not come, and now he paced impatiently about, counting the seconds, waiting for the appearance down Piccadilly of a neat figure with a winged toque on her head. Anyhow, all was well now, his way clear. Just that little sum each year, the difference it would make! In three days’ time he could be married... For four years now, since she was seventeen, Hylda and he had been ever on the jump of being married, but always the same tiny trouble — no money to buy things with. The old captain on his half-pay had none, Aubrey’s masterpieces had had no market. Now it was well.

“ ‘I haven’t really worked, you know, Hylda,’ he said to her in the tea shop that day: ‘I see it now. I seem to be the laziest beggar going, somehow. But won’t I work now!’

“ ‘Dear, you have worked hard,’ she answered, ‘and this is your well-earned reward.’

“ ‘But, Hylda, tell me frankly,’ Aubrey said, ‘is it not a fact that we can be married straight away?’

“ ‘Dear, there seems to be no reason why not,’ Hylda answered; ‘you know that I can usually win Papa.’

“ ‘Then, let’s take a half-holiday and go now straight down to Clapham...’

“ ‘Really so eager for me?’ she asked gravely.

“ ‘Eager is hardly the word: I’m afraid I am a little off my nut.’

“ ‘All right, let’s go, then...’

“It was soon settled: for though Captain Hood, who was of an unmodern school, would not hear of the Registry Office, but must have a church wedding, he agreed that the banns should be given in immediately.

“And now came busy days for Aubrey Smith. His den was too small to take Hylda into, so that had to be changed; and since they were an artist pair, no ordinary purchases would do for the furnishing of that home: stern were Aubrey’s exclusions of this and that, delicate his selections, not of the dearest, nor even of the best, but of the best for his idea and dream; and all this needed time. At night he would come home worn out, lacked the time to call on the attorneys, as he had been asked to, forgot Laura O’Donague’s existence, and of the small sum in his bank spent every penny on the strength of his fresh wealth.

“Once only — one forenoon — he saw Laura for a moment close to Hyde Park Corner, she all mourning black in her car; and she stopped to besiege Aubrey’s ear with her busy breath-whispering, asking, ‘Have you heard?’

“ ‘What?’ he asked.

“ ‘About the woman.’

“ ‘Which woman?’

“ ‘Why, La Rosa.’

“ ‘No, not heard.’

“ ‘Not one penny does she touch! Papa has left her thirty thousand pounds on a life-policy — that’s why she poisoned him...’

“ ‘Oh, Laura, really you are not to say such things even in fun.’

“ ‘Not one penny does she touch, though! I mean to fight it in every possible way — “undue influence” — When are you coming?’

“ ‘Soon.’

“ ‘I don’t want you.’

“ ‘Then I won’t come.’

“ ‘Yes, do. Goodbye—’ She was away.

“It was on that same night, five days before his wedding day, that Aubrey found awaiting him at home yet another letter from the lawyers, this one stating that, as his legacy was, by the terms of the will, to be paid on his birthday, the firm would be glad if he would send them a certificate of birth.

“Having read it, Aubrey sat down, and with his brow on his hand stared there at the floor without a motion for an hour; and though no moan broke from him, his head hung low, like a man who has received a grievous blow, upon whom gloom and ruin have suddenly swooped.

“It would have been far better, he thought, then, if he had never met that motor-car that night of his birthday, and many times he asked himself with torture why he had ever mentioned to Sir Phipps that that was his birthday: for it was clear that the baronet’s idea in thus drawing the will was to remind him through life of the rescue he had effected that night: and Aubrey buried his head, shaking it from side to side, asking himself how he was to tell Hylda that they could not, after all, marry, how he was to make her understand that it was no mere delay that had arisen, but a permanent matter — unless he was to reveal to her now a thing, an old tale of sin and sorrow, a strange and ominous date, which he had so far very artfully contrived to hide from her ken. How tell her this now? How overthrow now all her hopes — for years perhaps? How pay for the ordered articles of furniture that were waiting for payment?

“But on a sudden he started, he was up, with the cry, ‘ Smith’!

“There was more than one Aubrey Smith in the world!

“However, he hesitated a little, scratched his forehead, with a puckered nose, asking himself ‘Would it be quite pretty?’ But the relief, the gaiety, revealed in his grimace, proved that his mind had really decided, whatever scruples might come between; and suddenly he had snatched his hat, and was away with a rush.

“In a cab he drove to a dreary by-street near Russell Square, to a boarding house in it, where in answer to his query if Mr. Aubrey Smith was in, a girl answered him: ‘I think he is — right at the top, the door facing the stairs’; and with careful footsteps Aubrey climbed through a darkness that had a fusty odor, high up, till he saw light through a keyhole, tapped at the door, and now a man in a rather ragged dressinggown appeared, peering, demanding, ‘Who is it?’

“ ‘Your namesake, Smith.’

“ ‘O-ho-o-o!’ cried the other Smith. ‘My dear fellow, come in* — he bent cordially over Aubrey’s hand; however, he suddenly added, ‘Wait a moment,’ turned back inwards, was heard whispering to someone, and it was two minutes before he returned to let Aubrey in.

“This Aubrey Smith the Second was a man of fifty, handsome, with the rather exaggerated manner which some judges call ‘fascinating’ (he had been schooled, and had lived, mainly abroad); a military mustache, a ducal carriage; and here was a man of contrasts — cousin of a nobleman, had hobnobbed with princes, living now in a den with holes in the carpet and a broken teapot on the hob. What that head of his did not know of this world was not worth knowing; and who could converse of it more charmingly? Yet there he was, aging and a failure. He had had a career! Had been frozen out of the British-Indian army, had sung in Italian Opera at La Scala, had been forbidden evermore to show his nose in Monte Carlo.

“ ‘My dear fellow!’ Smith cried, ‘you are the very man, for I have now a scheme at hand that should bring us in the coolest five thousand each without fail.’

“Aubrey laughed, for many were Smith’s schemes, and now he was about to do something astounding in wines, now to sell a mine, to buy a public house, or build flats: but nothing ever happened: so Aubrey said ‘I, too, have a scheme.’

“Instantly Smith was gravity itself; a look of eagerness and business rushed to those old eyes that had seen so much: but at that moment, before Aubrey could say more, a girl of seven, running in from an inner room, was before them.

“At this Smith looked very put out, and was about to bundle her back out of sight, when Aubrey said, ‘This your little girl, Smith? I’m sure I didn’t know that you had a child,’

“ ‘A neighbor’s child’ — from Smith shyly.

“ ‘Isn’t she a little beauty.’

“ ‘Come, come, young lady, into the next room!’ Smith now said in French.

“ ‘Alors, tu es française, mademoiselle?’ Aubrey asked.

“ ‘Oui, monsieur,’ the black-haired child replied, with quite a nice bow of the head, and, catching up a doll out of the fender, she ran away back in.

“ ‘Look here, it’s like this, Smith,’ Aubrey now said, sitting on a shaky chair before Smith on the bed, ‘I have just been left a legacy—’

“ ‘O ho-o-o!’ Smith cried with pantomime eyes and a round mouth, ‘that’s talking! My dear fellow.’

“ ‘Smith, when is your birthday? Aubrey asked suddenly.

“ ‘Birthday? Three days’ time — the twenty-fifth—’

“ ‘Good!’ Aubrey breathed: ‘I thought I remembered hearing you say that it is in November. Well, as this legacy of mine — it isn’t much, one hundred and seventy-five pounds a year — is to be paid on my birthdays, you have to get your birth certificate, and go and take the money for me, as if you were I.’

“ ‘But stay — I don’t quite see what’s what,’ Smith said. ‘Why am I to assume your personality in this way? Is it because you are urgently hard up, and my birthday comes first?’

“ ‘No, of course,’ Aubrey shyly replied: ‘It isn’t that: I wish it was merely that; it is something much deeper.’

“ ‘O-ho-o-o!’ Smith cried aloud with a round mouth in his theatrical way: ‘ha! ha! that’s how the land lies — I see!’

“ ‘So, then, you will, Smith.’

“ ‘My dear chap, I’m your man.’

“ ‘Good! And, I say, Smith, I offer you ten per cent.—’

“ ‘Not one little soul’ Smith cried; ‘it would be odd if I couldn’t do you a service of that sort without asking to be tipped. You need merely hand me say thirty shillings now for necessary expenses...’

“So it was settled. Aubrey gave Smith all the facts of the case, also his address, where they were to meet and dine together at seven on the third night thence, Smith undertaking to bring the hundred and seventy-five pounds with him; and Aubrey went away light of heart.

“But at seven on the third night thence no Smith turned up; and after waiting till eight, till nine, a terrible fright sprang up in Aubrey’s heart; and he flew to Bloomsbury to see Smith.

“He was told at Smith’s boarding house that Smith had gone away; and no one was aware where Smith had gone to.

“The next morning — the morning before his wedding day — Aubrey gathered from a clerk in the outer office at Ife and Siemens, the attorneys, that Mr. Aubrey Smith had duly presented himself and got the hundred and seventy-five pounds of Sir Phipps O’Dowdy O’Donague’s legacy; and feeling too unwell to face Hylda just then, longing only for a hole to hide himself in, Aubrey went home to his new flat.

“It was about two hours afterwards that a curious incident occurred to him there: on the landing outside his flat door was a man crouching with his ear at the keyhole, listening patiently, with a grimace of eagerness on his face, till suddenly he ran soft-footed down the three flights of stairs to the street door, where he whistled, and now another man ran to him from round a corner.

“ ‘He has the child at this moment in his flat!’ the first man, whose name was Barker, whispered to the second.

“ ‘Sure?’ the other asked.

“ ‘Has a child, anyway, if not the child, for though I couldn’t hear much distinctly, I distinctly heard a child say, Now that I am seven years of age—’

“ ‘Let’s pounce upon him sharp!’ Upon which the two men, running up, pressed Aubrey’s electric bell.

“Aubrey did not answer it at once, and Barker, his ear at the keyhole, could clearly hear a scurry and whispering within; fully two minutes passed, and then Aubrey appeared.

“ ‘Your name, I think, is Mr. Aubrey Smith?’ Barker asked.

“ ‘Yes.’

“ ‘We may mention that we are police officers. Are you living alone in this flat, may I ask?’

“ ‘Yes.’

“ ‘You haven’t a child of seven now with you, for example?’

“ ‘No, I’m not married.’

“ ‘There are more ways of having a child of seven than by being married. We should like to look through the flat.’

“ ‘My good sir, what is it all about? I am engaged...’

“ ‘Listen, sir.’ Barker said, ‘we have with us no warrant to force a search; but, take my tip, it will be better for you to consent, whether you are innocent or guilty.’

“ ‘Of what?’

“ ‘You are believed to have in your custody the child Ada Price, abducted from the village of Clanning, Gloucestershire, on the 3rd instant. You were seen talking to the child on a road—’

“ ‘I!’ Aubrey cried, with a breath of laughter.

“ ‘Look here, quick, is it yes or no?’

“ ‘Well, if you insist, you can search, since that will comfort you,’ Aubrey now said; ‘but do get it over, officers.’

“The men, now coming in, went first into the newly-furnished drawing-room, and were looking round it when Aubrey did what certainly appeared a suspicious thing — ran down the hall passage, and turned the door key of his new studio. The officers, peeping, of course saw what he did; and when, after looking through the other rooms, they came near to the studio door, Aubrey made a halt.

“ ‘Not in there,’ he whispered to them with shy eyes.

“ ‘How is that?’ Barker wished to know.

“ ‘Oh, I say, don’t raise your voice,’ he whispered, blushing; ‘there s someone in there.’

“ ‘We are well aware of that: let’s have a look at her’ — now Barker pounded upon the door.

“ ‘My good sir, Will you be so good as to go to the devil,’ Aubrey now said in an agonized low tone. ‘Come, go out of my flat.’

“The detective scribbled something in his notebook, and without any other word the two turned, went away.

“They did not, however, go far — one of them, at least — for when Aubrey went out afterwards to go down to Hylda’s, he saw that he was watched, and understood that he would soon hear from them anew.

“Down there at Clapham the dining-room table was aglitter with wedding gifts, for many were the girl friends of Hylda, many were coming to the wedding, and bright that day were Hylda’s eyes to the moment when she opened the door to Aubrey; but instantly now, though he put on his bravest looks, her face clouded.

“ ‘All not well?’ she asked him presently, with a look.

“He could not utterly kill his bride’s brightness, and replied: ‘Why not?’

“The next morning, his wedding day, he discovered that all his wealth was seventeen-and-sixpence; and having with the sixpence sent a ‘good morning’ telegram to Hylda, at a loss now how to spend the time till one o’clock, he took his gun and went down to Grange House, a friend’s place in Surrey, where there was some shooting, thinking that he would at least shoot his bride’s dinner and borrow a five-pound note. He came back rather in a haste, a little late, with a hare and a rabbit, but without the five-pound note, since his friend was away from home, and three at a time he stormed up the flights of stairs to dress: for already it was a quarter to one. On the other hand, the church was hardly three hundred yards away up the street, so that he had no journey to make.

“At three minutes to one Hylda’s bridesmaids were there, ready, waiting in the church porch for her; a knot of people, and a policeman, stood in the street to see; inside, the organist, a personal friend of Hylda’s, was amusing his fingers with the tune of O Perfect Love; the clergyman stood ready. As the church clock struck one, a carriage bearing the bride, all in heliotrope voile with white orchids, bearing also the bride’s father, drove round a corner; and one minute afterwards Aubrey, a late and troubled bridegroom, flew down his stairs and out upon the pavement.

“It was just then that at a window above him a girl-child, looking out, cried gleefully aloud in French to some person behind her: ‘O, monsieur! look! a wedding!’ and upon this, the person popped his head out, to look.

Hylda, at the moment, was being handed out of her carriage, but her eyes were on Aubrey coming: and she stood hesitant, one foot on the carriage step, in wonderment at what she saw.

“For, as the child cried ‘O, monsieur, look!’ Hylda saw that Aubrey heard and glanced up, and as the man above popped out his head, she saw that Aubrey saw him, although the man instantly pulled himself back; at which Aubrey seemed to become possessed, for, immediately stopping in his career toward the church, he darted back into the house.

“She was so amazed that there, with her slipper on the carriage step, she remained, staring at the building into which Aubrey had vanished; the eyes of everyone, in fact, had turned from the bride, everyone awaiting in silence what the next instant would bring with it; till in about two minutes, or less, the sound of a gun-shot rang out of the house; from the window at which the child had cried out a cloud of smoke was seen to drift; and now the policeman in the crowd began running...

“He had not, however, run halfway to the house, when out of it darted a dark-haired child, howling, washed in blood, staring, staggering; ten yards from the building she dropped to the ground and lay silent; and as the policeman approached her, out of the door dashed two men, one in a dressing-gown, the other Aubrey, his coat bellying behind him — pelting, both of them, with white, wild faces, the man flying, Aubrey chasing — away from the church; and without delay, leaving the wounded girl on the ground, the policeman, too, blowing his whistle, was pursuing the two, and a fourth man, who had been watching the place on Detective-Sergeant Barker’s behalf, joined in.

“The two, however, in their agony of eagerness, easily distanced the two policemen.

At the same moment, Hylda felt her senses almost fail her, and in a sort of vision saw her hither prostrate, half on the carriage step, halt on the street, breathing hard in a rather queer way...

“It was nearly two weeks after that distracted wedding day of hers, when, one morning, Hylda Hood presented herself before Laura in Brook Street.

“ ‘I do hope I don’t come too early—’ Hylda began.

“ ‘Not even a little. Sit down. I am glad — I am very glad — that you have come. Do you know, I know you quite well — for years, it seems — I could have drawn your face just from Aubrey’s chatter of you, and here you are exactly as I conceived you. Only — in black. Why in black?’

“Hylda, looking downwards, after a moment said: ‘My father was buried yesterday, Miss O’Donague.’

“ ‘Oh! poor—’ Laura breathed, shrinking, then in an impulse ran and knelt and kissed Hylda’s hands.

“ ‘He had not been strong for some time,’ Hylda remarked, ‘and what has happened was all too much for him. I should have come to you before, but have been ill myself; now I feel called upon to make some sort of effort to confront all this mystery, though I’m afraid—’

“ ‘Oh, courage, we shall win to the surface yet,’ said Laura. ‘Seek and you shall find: I believe in that. I take it that you have not heard from poor Aubrey?’

“ ‘No,’ — low in tone.

“ ‘Why? Why?’ Laura asked of herself, staring.

“ ‘There can be only two reasons,’ Hylda said; ‘either he is no longer alive, or he is in some situation in which he finds it impossible to write.’

“ ‘But what kind of situation can that be? Perhaps he is conscious of having done something wrong, and shrinks from writing—’

“ ‘He?’ — from Hylda with raised eyebrows; then she smiled, saying, ‘Excuse me, I am always assuming that others know him with the same certainty as I do.’

“ ‘But how can you say not, in that undoubting way, Miss Hood? Of the two guns found together in the other man’s flat one was Aubrey’s, and the gunshots found in the child’s throat fit Aubrey’s gun, not the other man’s; so Detective-Sergeant Barker was telling me—’

“ ‘How can he know which of the two is Aubrey’s gun?’ Hylda asked.

“ ‘Aubrey’s initials are on it!’

“ ‘Still, Aubrey would hardly have taken up a loaded gun for any reason... It may be that the other man’s initials are the same as Aubrey’s—’

“ ‘It may be, of course.’

“ ‘And as to this other man,’ Hylda asked, ‘no trace of him yet?’

“ ‘None!’ Laura spun round with a laugh, ‘he has disappeared from the face of creation as completely as Aubrey has. It strikes me that the pair of them have been up to something, so both are in hiding.’

“ ‘Aubrey would not hide, I assure you, Miss O’Donague,’ replied Hylda.

“Laura, looking contemplatively at her, remarked: ‘Do you know, I think we are going to be friends?’

“ ‘We won’t be foes?’ asked Hylda.

“ ‘Let’s hope not. I am a ripping good hater.’

“ ‘And I am a good lover — if I love. But will you tell me now everything that you know?’

“Laura, now sitting by Hylda’s side, told how ‘the other man’ who had vanished with Aubrey round that street corner had taken the flat in Aubrey’s block of buildings only two days before the wedding day, and had moved into it without waiting to have the flat repapered. He had taken it in the name of ‘Hamilton Jones,’ but it had been ascertained by the police that this was not really his name. ‘Jones’ had bought his furniture in Tottenham Court Road only the day before he moved into his new abode, an abode whose hall door happened to face Aubrey’s; and whether this ‘Jones’ had taken that flat knowing that Aubrey was there, or just by chance, or what was the nature of the relation between him and Aubrey, remained all a mystery. As to the wounded child, she was a little maid of seven, of an extraordinary beauty — foreign, it was believed, since dark, and since she wore a diamond medallion of the Madonna about her throat, and as her costume was found to be luxurious in the extreme, it was doubted if she really belonged to this ‘Hamilton Jones,’ whose furniture was cheap. There was no name on the child’s linen, only a bird in blue silk. She was then lying in St. George’s Hospital, had not yet spoken, but would recover; and Laura had thrice been to see her.

“To all which Hylda listened with her eyes on the floor, and then a sigh rose from the depths of her; her pretty, broad face looked rather drawn and pale; and Laura, sitting by her, whispered:

“ ‘Don’t be too sad; wait, I’ll find him for you; it will be all right’; and she took a hand of Hylda’s, saying, ‘What lovable hands you have, Miss Hood — Hylda! These warm little mortal hands, imperfect and dear: I am going to kiss this left one near the heart’ — she kissed it, mourning, ‘Don’t grieve, don’t grieve, my heart bleeds for you’; and playing with the hand; while Hylda smiled at her, she asked, ‘What are these dents in the flesh of the first and second fingers? — Funny...’

“ ‘They are due to years of interval-stopping on the violin,’ Hylda said.

“ ‘Of course, that’s it. I have heard that you are a virtuoso, and I demand to hear you soon. Are you still at the College?’

“ ‘Nominally; but all that’s over for me now, I’m afraid.’

“ ‘But why?’

“ ‘My father had no money to leave me, Miss O’Donague: I shall have to earn my living.’

“Up started Laura at this, dancing, clapping her palms, crying, ‘Oh, how jolly!’

“ ‘Hardly for me,’ said Hylda.

“ ‘For me, yes,’ cried Laura. ‘For that means you living with me! Do you know, I dreamed it? Yes, one night: and here it is, come to pass. Why, I want a companion! I have actually been inquiring—’

“ ‘Miss O’Donague, you are very good—’

“ ‘Call me Laura this instant!’

“Hylda looked at her with dimples in her smile, but said nothing.

“ ‘Why, how jolly!’ cried Laura; ‘just think, always to be together now, and we’ll talk of Aubrey all day, and be good to each other, and bear with each other, and read each other’s letters, and go incognito on sprees to Venice on our own, and down to Clanning — did Aubrey tell you about Clanning?’

“ ‘He told me,’ said Hylda, ‘and of that child lost down there. By the way, he had a most ludicrous story to tell me on the day before our wedding day about two men going to his flat and as good as charging him with having stolen the child. Has she been found, do you know?’

“ ‘I think not.’

“ ‘Aubrey said that the two men entered his flat and searched all through—’

“ ‘Ah?’ said Laura, smiling to herself with downcast eyes.

“ ‘Yes, and insisted that they had actually heard the child speaking in the flat.’

“ ‘Oh?... Poor old Aubrey! he was in for it those few days, wasn’t he?’

“ ‘Haven’t you heard anything of this incident before?’

“ ‘Well, yes, I think I heard something of it from — Barker,’ and Laura jumped up anew from the sofa, opened a book on a table, looked at it, humming, cast it aside.

“ ‘She doesn’t invariably utter everything that she is thinking,’ thought Hylda; and she added aloud: ‘To what could such a delusion of these officers have been due?’

“Laura pouted, asking: ‘How can you be sure that it was a delusion?’

“ ‘Because there was no one at all in Aubrey’s flat, so no one could have been heard in it!’

“ ‘I see. But since Detective-Sergeant Barker vows that he heard the child with his own ears in the flat, what answer can be made to that? Maybe Aubrey saw the child down at Clanning, fell in love with her, for she was very pretty, and — nicked her.’

“ ‘Miss O’Donague,’ said Hylda very gravely, ‘we seem to disagree on the subject of Aubrey; so perhaps we had better not talk much of him.’

“ ‘Meaning that I am in love.’

“ ‘Did I imply that?’

“ ‘You exhaled it. But when did Aubrey tell you about his little legacy? When did he say he was going to draw it?’

“ ‘He told me on the fourth day before the wedding day that he meant to draw it in two days’ time,’ answered Hylda.

“ ‘So his birthday was two days before the wedding day?’

“ ‘Birthday? What has his birthday to do with it?’

“ ‘So you don’t know — he never told you — that the legacy was to be paid on his birthday?’

“ ‘I — no — you must be mistaken — he never mentioned it.’

“Hylda’s eyes were so large with scare and amazement, that Laura leaped up laughing and could not help saying, ‘What, are there things which Aubrey kept dark from you?’

“Hylda was dumb; spoke only with her eyes, which dwelt upon Laura with reproach.

“ ‘There, now I have wounded you,’ said Laura ruefully, darting suddenly anew to her, ‘because I am an ungenerous mean beast who kicks when one is down... He forgot to mention it to you, that’s all. You are so sensitive, so finely strung, and to bruise you is like trampling brutally upon a lute that breathes music to every breeze... But, dear, it is so: he was to be paid on his birthdays, it was papa’s whim. When is his birthday?’

“ ‘I — don’t happen to know,’ said Hylda in a maze; ‘it must have been two days before the wedding day, since he said he was going to draw the legacy on that day.’

“ ‘No, it wasn’t, then,’ said Laura decisively: ‘for the wedding day was in November, but it was not in November that he rescued Papa in the car: and that day was his birthday. It was, if I remember right, an evening in March.’

“ ‘He said that that night was his birthday?’

“ ‘Aye — told papa.’

“ ‘Then, that was why he brought me that specially large bouquet that Wednesday night. But why, why was he in black?’ Hylda wondered.

“Laura, whirling a gold breloque about her forefinger, murmured, ‘It is curious that he never told you, or that you never asked him, as to his birthday!’

“Hylda said, ‘I have always had an instinct of anything which Aubrey did not wish to discuss, so never asked him that — not directly, that is; twice indirectly I have: but he never mentioned it.’

“But now, before she could say more, a footman, looking in, announced Detective-Sergeant Barker.

“ ‘Don’t go,’ Laura said to Hylda, ‘Barker and I are pals — he says the Force missed something when I was born a woman.’

“Barker came in — a man who, though his grade in the police was not high, would have received a telegram addressed to ‘Barker, London’ — or to ‘Rob Roy,’ his name among the cracksmen, others of the ‘gentry’ naming him ‘Old Moore.’ Tallish, forty, agile, he had an agreeable smile beneath his mustache, and a wary gaze out of the tail of his eye. His teeth seemed excellent, but three in front were false, to replace the three knocked forty degrees inward by the maulers of ‘Fred the Freak,’ and that cheek-scar was from a stab by a Greek in a Soho club-raid. Since he had had occasion, some months before, to warn Laura with regard to her father’s intimacy with the notorious Salvadora Rosa, or La Rosa, he had seen her several times in respect to various phases of the same matter; and she, fascinated by the extraordinary existence which this man lived, had sat chin on fist to hearken to histories of his hundred and one disguises as cab-driver, or street-artist, or weak-minded curate, of the clicking of the ‘snips’ on the wrists of the Dresden bank-robbers, the Frameley forgers, famous ‘receivers,’ crib-crackers, of kind deeds done among those beasts of society, and tiger-struggles on the stairs of benighted lairs. In he now came, bowing, hat in hand, and Laura in her frank way gave him her hand, saw him seated, saying:

“ ‘You already know Miss Hood of the vanished bridegroom, Sergeant Barker?’

“ ‘I have that honor,’ says Barker.

“ ‘We were just talking,’ Laura remarked, hand on hip, with her saucy air, her dark hair parted at the side — ‘this lady derides the idea that you heard anyone in Mr. Aubrey Smith’s flat that day when, as you affirm, you heard the child in it.’

“ ‘A lady is invariably right,’ the detective admitted.

“ ‘What did you hear the child say, if one may ask?’ Hylda demanded, paying no attention to his politeness.

“ ‘Surely you may ask, Miss Hood. There was little to be heard, you understand, with a thick door between, but I distinctly heard a child utter the words: “Now that I am seven years of age.” As to that, I give you my word.’

“ ‘How miraculous this thing!’ Hylda murmured. ‘There was no one in the flat!’

“ ‘Mr. Aubrey Smith told you that, did he?’ Barker asked.

“ ‘He told me of the incident, and did not tell me that there was anyone.’

“ ‘Negative evidence,’ Barker laughed. ‘To me, now, he admitted that there was someone in the flat, implying that it was a lady; but then I heard the child, and knew who it was.’

“ ‘Lady,’ Hylda breathed.

“ ‘You see now, Hylda’ — from Laura: ‘a detective, like a lady, is invariably right, except when a detective and a lady differ, and then both are sure to be wrong.’

“ ‘Did he — actually say that there was a lady?’ Hylda asked.

“ ‘No,’ said the detective, ‘but he looked, or tried to look, shy when we came to the locked door—’

“ ‘Locked door?’ Hylda’s eyes dropped.

“ ‘Ah, the incident of the locked door was never told you, I see,’ said Barker; ‘but it is well, Miss Hood, for us all to know what’s what. I was allowed to look all through the flat, you see; but when it came to that locked room — ah, that was another affair; and it was “there’s someone in there” in a whisper, with shy looks.’

“Laura, standing against a cabinet with her arms spread out like one crucified, and her head thrown back, looked down upon Hylda, contemplating her suffering; while Hylda, now quite gaunt, looked at the carpet.

“ ‘Never mind, dear,’ said Laura; ‘there’s some explanation.’

“Suddenly Hylda flushed, and looking up with a smile, her eyes bravely met Laura’s, as she said: ‘I know that, Miss O’Donague’; then, turning to Barker, she asked: ‘And you seriously believe, Sergeant Barker, that it was the lost child from Clanning that Mr. Smith had in that locked room?’

“ ‘I believe that it was, Miss Hood, and I know that it was a child.’

“ ‘Then, what do you say has become of this child?’

“ ‘Ah, there now you ask one of the most difficult questions of all in this extraordinary matter,’ said Barker. ‘The house, of course, was closely watched from that moment, and he never brought out the child — that we know; nor is the child now in the building: vanished is the word — unless the child whom I heard in his flat is the same child whom he shot; but, then, the shot child is foreign... By the way, that’s one of the questions I have to ask you now, Miss O’Donague: you know little Ada Price, and you have seen the wounded child in hospital: do you not see a likeness between the two?’

“ ‘It did not strike me,’ Laura replied.

“ ‘Kindly look at little Ada’s photo,’ said Barker, producing it, and Laura, looking at it, now said: ‘Yes, I do rather see it now: only the wounded child is much more beautiful.’

“ ‘Still, you notice that they are alike... And now, Miss O’Donague, I must next say to you what will be greatly against the grain.’

“ ‘Oh?’ said Laura. ‘My grain or yours?’

“ ‘Both our grains.’

“ ‘Ah, they both run the same way. But I am dying to hear—’

“ ‘Well, the Home Office has issued an order for the exhumation of your father’s body.’

“Laura stood pale, then darting three steps at him with a face of wrath, ‘You wouldn’t dare!’ she breathed.

“ ‘Now, do not take it to heart,’ Detective-Sergeant Barker said gently. ‘If it could be avoided, it wouldn’t be done. But in the circumstances—’

“ ‘What circumstances, pray, Sergeant?’

“ ‘Why, I have heard you hint yourself that he was poisoned!’

“ ‘I was not in the least serious,’ Laura answered: ‘a natural death! So why is this outrage perpetrated?’

“ ‘No, don’t take it to heart — think of the circumstances: your father dies suddenly on the way home from Mr. Aubrey Smith’s, where, as you yourself have told me, he had had something to drink; to Mr. Smith’s he had gone from Madame Rosa’s; to both Mr. Smith and to that lady, as we know, he has left sums of money, so that both stood to profit by his death.’

“ ‘Oh, my poor Papal’ Laura mourned, falling into a sofa, her hands over her face.

“But neither anger nor grief could avail to change the process of the Government machine, and within some days, by the time Hylda’s household effects had been sold, and Hylda herself was a part of Laura’s household, the disinterred coffin of the old baronet lay open one Thursday morning in December under the eyes of the responsible persons.

“Never, maybe, did the eyes of men light on a wilder sight than those eyes that day, on a more woeful, on a more bewildering. They refused to believe their five wits! That sight seemed to be an evil dream that one feels to be a dream:

“1. The baronet’s throat was most brutally butchered right into the inner carotids, with gashes jagged as by some blunt cutter.

“2. His mouth was crowded full of some substance resembling powdered glass.

“3. In his stomach was discovered enough prussic acid to kill thirty persons.

“There,” concluded my Uncle Quintus, “I have now given you by my method of narration far more information than Detective-Sergeant Barker had to go on at this point in the mystery. Indeed, I have provided you with sufficient clues to solve the problem, if you have the aptitude that you claim for such work. Tell me now, before we go up to bed, what do you make of these strange affairs?”

It was a wild night, rags of gusts tormented the tapestries, the flicker only of the fire lighted us. My uncle bent forward and applied a match to a three-branched candelabra. I arranged my few half-illegible notes on my knee and prepared to answer this formidable query.

“Uncle Quintus,” I said, “as I see it, there are nine questions that need answering. If in each instance I surmise right, I should reach the same conclusion — the successful conclusion — that you tell me Detective-Sergeant Barker arrived at. Let me, first of all, read you my questions. I will then attempt to answer them.

“(1) What is the mystery of that ‘strange and ominous date,’ Aubrey Smith the First’s birthday?

“(2) Who stole the black-haired, seven-year-old, Welsh, Ada Price from Clanning?

“(3) Was the O’Donague poisoned when he died in his car?

“(4) Is any significance to be attached to the death of Davenport, the butler?

“(5) Who is the black-haired, seven-year-old, French-speaking little girl found living with Aubrey Smith the Second in the squalid by-street near Russell Square?

“(6) Who uttered the phrase ‘Now that I am seven years of age’ from behind locked doors in Aubrey Smith the First’s new flat?

“(7). Which Aubrey Smith shot the black-haired, seven-year-old, French-speaking little girl?

“(8) What happened to the two Aubrey Smiths subsequent to their chase on the young painter’s wedding day?

“(9) What is the explanation of the atrocities revealed by the exhumation of the O’Donague?”

Editor’s note: Why don’t you too accept Uncle Quintus’s challenge? Can you deduce, determine — or, yes, divine — the answers to the nephew’s nine questions? We use the word “divine” advisedly. As a verb, “divine” means to perceive through sympathy or intuition — and that is perhaps what you will have to do to see all the truth behind Mr. Shiel’s riddle. For remember that M. P. Shiel, that wonderful man, was unique: his “cases for deduction” were never cut-and-dried affairs, susceptible wholly to sheer and unadulterated logic. He always permitted a margin for imagination. As we once wrote of Mr. Shiel’s work, he created a kind of rich and redolent romanticism; a kind of bizarre bravado, full of flamboyant and fantastic felony, wild and wilful wiliness. Take all this into account: allow for Shielesque shenanigans, both in the use of the English language and in the conception of ideas. Only thus can you match wits with that strange man and savor his stories to the deep...

“Now, Uncle, if you will permit, I will expound. If it will not irritate you, I will tabulate my answers in just the same manner as I have tabulated my questions.

“These are my surmises. You can tell me, when I have done, exactly where I have gone astray.

“(1) Aubrey Smith the First was born on the 29th of February in Leap Year, and so only had a birthday every four years, which explains his despair over his legacy (since £175 every fourth year would not be sufficient to marry on) and his appeal that his namesake should collect his money annually for him. On that four-year birthday he wore mourning — perhaps because his birth had cost his mother her life?

“(2) Count Poldoff’s emissaries stole Ada Price, since they had reason to believe that she resembled the child they were searching for. Once the opportunity presented itself, they intended substituting their prisoner for the Count’s daughter.

“(3) The O’Donague was not poisoned when, to all appearance, he died in his car. He was neither poisoned nor dead! — was buried alive in a coma!

“(4) The death of Davenport, the butler, was a natural one; but there was a significance, I suspect, attached to it, a significance which I will explain in answering my last question.

“(5) The black-haired, seven-year-old, French-speaking little girl living in squalor with Aubrey the Second was Count Poldoff’s daughter. Brought over by La Rosa from France, where for some years, no doubt, she had been educated and brought up as French in some obscure convent, she was entrusted by her mother to her agent, Aubrey Smith the Second. You will remember that La Rosa was abroad at the same time as the O’Donagues were in Italy; it was then, I think, that the child came to England. The fact that her mother was financially embarassée explains the squalor, too, of her agent’s circumstances.

“(6) Aubrey Smith the First uttered ‘Now that I am seven years of age’ in his new flat — uttered it to Laura, who, in her unconventional way, was visiting him. He had let her know that his birthday was the 29th of February, and he meant by ‘now that I am seven’ that he had had seven birthdays — or rather six.

“(7) Aubrey Smith the Second shot his little charge — unintentionally. Aubrey Smith the First’s gun was unloaded when he dashed upstairs to take it, to intimidate his betrayer. The child, no doubt, got shot in some scuffle between the two. The initialed gun, of course, belonged to Aubrey Smith the Second, being probably a relic of his British-Indian Army days.

“(8) Aubrey Smith the Second flying before Aubrey Smith the First made for Regent’s Park and La Rosa. Here he found sanctuary, and his pursuer, coming upon him, was seized and imprisoned by man-servants of La Rosa.

“(9) The atrocities on the body of the O’Donague were self-inflicted. Davenport the butler had placed in his master’s coffin before interment a bottle of poison. The only significance of the butler’s death is that when the exhumation took place he was not there to explain. Sir Phipps, I fancy, must once have been nearly buried alive in a coma, and so have made his old servant swear that whenever he was being buried, he, the butler, would put poison in the coffin. Sir Phipps must have waked in the grave, drank the poison. In his agony he ground the glass of the bottle in his teeth, and cut his throat with the broken glass. Barker may well have found a statement among the butler’s papers to the effect that the butler placed the poison there.

“I think, Uncle, that these are the facts, which the police must have discovered. Hylda, I suppose, married her Aubrey the First when, on La Rosa’s mansion being searched, that young man was released. Count Poldoff recovered his daughter from the Hospital. Laura retired to Clanning and painting.”

My Uncle Quintus looked at me approvingly. “My boy,” he said — and never before had he praised me so highly — “you are right in nearly everything: I am pleased to note that you have the family brain. And now to bed. A cuneiform stele’s due from Khosabad tomorrow: you will give me your views on that.”

The laboratory of Dr. Alexander O. Gettler, city toxicologist, is a huge room which looks like something a surrealist designed after a bad night. Green and yellow bottles bubble over Bunsen burners. The fluid in a beaker turns blue and then red. Human bones that glow in the dark decorate a wall panel. Nearby is a bottle of poisoned liquor with which Ruth Snyder hoped to eliminate her paramour, Judd Gray, after he had helped her murder her husband. Strange death weapons form a neat pattern in a glass case. All of these are reminders of the part Dr. Gettler, a short, stocky man, has played in prominent murder cases in New York City.