Flynn’s Weekly Detective Fiction. Vol. 27, No. 2, September 24, 1927

“Four of us met that night in a shanty in South Africa and founded a partnership of a sort—”

Chapter I Four Strangers

Through the long, narrow chink where the heavy curtains failed to meet could be seen the riding lights of vessels swinging on the tideway of the dark river. Directly below, a white glare told of the Embankment lamps, and across the farther bridge lighted trams made thunderous progress. Big Ben chimed the half hour after midnight.

Very faintly, to the ears of the two men in the luxurious sitting room of the riverside suite, came the strains of dance music from the ballroom beneath them. Apart from this, the place was heavily still with that stillness which seems always to rest on the upper regions of great hotels.

Mr. William Smith sat back in his deep, padded chair and puffed reflectively at his cigar, his somewhat mild blue eyes never swerving in their regard of the man seated opposite him. He was rather unimposing — William Smith.

Of average height and build, with the slightest of stoops about his shoulders, there was no hint in his outward physical appearance of the virile strength contained within his apparently non-muscular body. Only his thick, heavily knockled fingers were out of the ordinary.

His sparse, fair to ginger hair had been allowed to grow very long at the left temple, and was brushed and plastered down across the bald patch on the top of his head, leaving a “parting” at the left hand side which just escaped the top of his ear. His clean-shaven face was burned brown by suns such as England never knows.

His mouth was overlarge, ugly, and a complete set of too perfect false teeth showed hideously white through the slightly parted lips. His blue eyes held a quality of ingenuous inquiry which had proved Smith’s passport through life.

He was in dinner clothes, neat, quiet, and his only personal ornamentation was a single diamond winking on the index finger of his left hand. Smith knew a lot about diamonds. He had dealt in them illicitly when the name of Bill Smith was something to whisper from the Rand to Table Mountain.

“Well, my lord?” he asked gently.

The tall, dark man opposite him flared: “Oh, for God’s sake stop calling me ‘my lord.’ ” He got to his feet, lithe, easy, just too well dressed, but with a little air of distinction about him which separated him from William Smith by a gulf which might never be bridged. “Let us drop all these hints and get down to facts. Was Trevelyan one of your... your — confederates?”

“I know Trevelyan very well,” admitted Smith gently.

Lord Bordington caught his breath. He stood, glaring down at Smith for a few moments, his hands hard clenched. Smith sipped at the Scotch and soda by his side. In those seconds of unspoken physical threat he took his eyes, for the first time, from Bordington.

Bordington sat down. Something seemed to have gone from him — something striking and keen. He looked smaller as he huddled in the chair. He repeated: “Give me the facts. All of them.”

Smith smiled. “You’ve done well, my lord. Six months ago you were a poor man. You will remember Bordington was for sale — one hundred thousand pounds was the price, wasn’t it? — and nobody would buy it.

“Great name, great collection of pictures, great traditions — all going to the deuce, because you have the misfortune to live in what I might term the gold age, the age when gold is all men strive for.

“Have you ever reflected, by the way, on the power of money? I don’t mean the power of its possession; but its actual power. It’s dead — yellow, minted gold, printed paper, written checks; but it controls you and me and all the destinies of the earth. A long while ago man was a fool. He created money for his own convenience and now money is likely to destroy him. Already it is his master.” He shrugged his shoulders. “For my part” — with an ugly grin — “I am content to be a slave.”

Bordington looked at him hollowly. “I don’t want to listen to cheap philosophy. I want to know why you asked me to call here and see you. Who — what — is this Fellowship of Strangers?”

“An interesting question,” observed Smith. “And one I will willingly answer, seeing that you are hardly likely to betray the confidence. The Fellowship of Strangers was formed about twenty years ago in a certain town in South Africa which shall be nameless, but which lies between the Matoppo hills and the Great Karoo. Tells you very little, eh?

“Let me see, I said twenty years. Perhaps it was a little longer. Anyhow, the last echoes of the Boer War were dying. There were a number of masterless men kicking around. I was one of them. I was about twenty-six at the time.

“There were four of us met one night in a shanty outside a diamond town. It was a tough shop — bad whites, worse blacks, hell-fire to drink, and life hanging on a thread. The other three were named Goort, Bradley, and Pink.

“Goort was big and brutal. Bradley was older than we were — a fellow nearly forty — a stiff proposition who still could remember the days when he was at Eton. Pink was a year my junior. Funny how names sometimes fit.

“He was little and slim — looked as though he had got tuberculosis, but hadn’t. Was a non-smoker and non-drinker. Yellow hair and gray eyes. It was he who killed Goort afterward. I saw him do it. He got him in Du Toit’s Pan Road in Kimberley at three o’clock in the morning. Threw a knife at him from a doorway. However—”

Bordington helped himself to a cigar. His hands were shaking so that he could hardly hold the matchflame to its tip.

Smith’s even voice droned on: “We four — that night — stood together in a bit of a scrap — nothing. We formed a partnership) — The Fellowship of Strangers — and we got down to things. Not going to trouble you with all we did. But when Pink killed Goort he lifted from round Goort’s waist a belt with fifty thousand dollars in it. When Bradley... er... died — snakebite, you know — the thing got into his bed one night—”

Bordington leaned forward, his face gray. “You devil! Did you put the snake—”

Smith shook his head. “No. I paid a ‘boy’ to do it. I’m no good at snakes myself.”

Bordington sat back as though pushed roughly. “Go on,” he said, through his teeth.

“As I said, when Bradley died, Pink and I shared something like seventy-five thousand. We were in fair circumstances. Then — various things happened. Pink lost his money. I came to Europe with about fifty thousand pounds, the only member of the Fellowship left. The Fellowship still exists, but in a different guise. There is no longer equal partnership. I have a number of men working for me on commission. Trevelyan is one of them.”

“I see. You are the head of the gang of criminals of whose existence we have always been confident.”

“The newspapers have paid me certain compliments,” admitted Smith.

Bordington studied him, and in the silence of that examination tried to conceive the depth of the man’s villainy. He could picture the horror of those hidden years in South Africa, years whose adventurings had been but grimly hinted at in Smith’s recent account. They had been a formidable quartet, Goort, Bradley, Pink, and Smith.

But Goort had gone — murdered openly by Pink; Bradley had gone, killed cunningly by Smith; and — last of all — the little devil, Pink himself, had been ground flat by the master scoundrel.

Chapter II Blackmail and a Curse

“And now,” added Smith, “we will talk about you. As I have already said, you have been lucky. Six months ago a pauper; to-day a man of comparative affluence. It is something on which to congratulate oneself. There is, however, one little fly in the ointment. There always is. This side of paradise I guess there are more flies than ointment. And in that connection I’ll give you a word of advice. Never write letters.”

Bordington’s tongue touched his lips. “I thought so,” he said softly.

Smith smiled with some geniality. “Of course. You’re no fool. That’s why you accepted my invitation to come here. You guessed that note had strayed; that Trevelyan had forgotten to burn it.”

Smith selected another cigar. “When a man with a title, and holding a responsible official position in his majesty’s government, finds the old family home, everything his forefathers prized, in danger of coming under the hammer, it’s a great temptation to him to do something crooked — a kind of honorable dishonor, if that’s not too involved. D’you get me? He sacrifices himself to save the face of his ancestors, kind of thing.”

Bordington, who had been hanging his head, looked up at Smith. “You are a shrewd man,” he said. “You read me very correctly!”

“My job,” said Smith pleasantly. “I’ve earned my living by reading people correctly. However, there it is. It was nothing — that matter with Trevelyan. I’ll admit that. Just a bit of information which wasn’t supposed to leak out — and your moniker on what I believe the historians call a scrap of paper. Well, that was what we were after — that scrap of paper and your signature. The information was nothing to us.”

Bordington nodded mechanically. For the moment he was not seeing Smith, but before his eyes was a mind picture of the scene in the Hotel de Paris the previous winter, when Trevelyan had dined him well, when just too much Pol Roger had been drunk, when Trevelyan seemed the finest of fine fellows and the whole world’s arms were outflung generously.

That was when the scrap of paper had been signed. They had been clever. Trevelyan, darkly handsome, young, gifted with an Oxford accent and impeccable manners, had “worked” Bordington six months before that night.

“What do you want?” asked Bordington. “I presume you wish to sell me my signature?”

“Exactly. There’s nothing subtle about me. I’ve evolved no wonderful plot for your undoing. We’ll get down to tacks. Blackmail’s my game — and the price isn’t in cash. The money Trevelyan gave you enabled you to get into South Russian oils when the bottom was out of that particular market.

“You got in, my lord, because you knew in your official capacity that the Soviet at last intended to come to a real trading arrangement, and that South Russian oils would benefit. Well, the shares you bought at six or eight shillings each now stand at so many pounds. You’re a rich man. It was shrewd of you.

“Perhaps, I knew something, eh? Perhaps I was able to balance the offer and the exact opportunity so that the temptation was too strong for you. Which brings me to my point. Your Government — I acknowledge none — is concluding a treaty with a certain Eastern power which, of late, has been suffering from serious internal disturbances.

“The treaty is secret. Nobody is supposed to know of its existence. But it will restore order. It will set the finances of that country on a sound basis. It will do a lot of things — so rumor informs me. Unfortunately, I can get no details. Now, to speak more clearly, I will mention that Che Fiang Railways and Goldfields Limited, the mining company which owns its own railway to the sea, and has rights over a territory as big as Scotland. It’s good enough bust.

“It’s shares stand in pence — pound shares, mark you, quoted at pence. A man with my small capital could buy Che Fiang Railways almost clean out — provided he knew it was worth buying. If this treaty does all my rumor tells me, Che Fiangs are the swiftest road to fortune that this decade has shown us. I want you to supply me with the terms of the treaty, so that I can judge for myself; and in consideration thereof, you shall, with your own hands, burn that scrap of paper.”

As Bordington opened his lips, Smith held up his hand. “A moment, before you start in on the righteous indignation business. I’m not a spy. That old international guff is worked out. I’m a financier — a backer of long-priced starters on the stock markets of the world; and all I ask for is a little information straight from the horse’s mouth, so to speak. I’m putting you in on Che Fiangs, mind you.

“There’s a tip for you in it, as well. And the treaty won’t be harmed in the slightest. I’m not selling it to Germans in disguise. I just want to know if your treaty will so far put things right that the richest gold district in the world will be permitted to get down to proper work. Once I know that, I’ll forget everything.”

Bordington shook his head. “You’re wrong, Smith. You’ve misjudged me. I shan’t do it.” He spoke evenly, but there was strain in his eyes.

Smith stared straight at him. “All right.” He seemed undisturbed. “I’m not going to jump at you, my lord. I’ll give you time. You’ve got a wife and a daughter, I think. Daughter’s likely to make a good marriage, I hear. You’ve got a name, and a family tree. I don’t go much on those things myself — but some folks think they count a hell of a lot.

“You’ve got all those — and I’ve got a newspaper. It’s only a little newspaper; but it’s good enough. I bought it cheaply. A provincial sheet of the type which I believe is usually designated ‘the local rag.’ I shan’t send your scrap of paper to the head of his majesty’s government. I shan’t send it to The Times.

“I shall reproduce it in my little newspaper. That’ll be enough. I shall keep on reproducing it in the middle of the front page until all the press of Great Britain starts wondering. Then I’ll sit back for you to take action.”

Bordington, of a sudden, took to walking about the room in swift, staccato movement. He stopped in the middle of this striding and wheeled passionately on Smith.

“One day,” he said tensely, “your sins will find you out, Smith.”

Smith nodded. “One day’s always a bit ahead, my lord. Now there’s that detective fellow — Murray — the secret service guy that’s supposed to be hunting down what you call the mysterious gang of criminals.” Smith’s eyes lighted. “By the way, who is he? Is it all bluff? Or is there such, a fellow?”

Bordington said shortly: “I don’t know anything, except that Murray actually exists; and I hope to God hell catch you.”

Smith examined him for a second, and was apparently satisfied that he spoke the truth. “Hm. Pretty close at headquarters, aren’t they, if a man like you doesn’t know Murray. Anyhow, if ever he has the luck to hit my trail he’ll find it the thinnest he’s ever followed.

“But to get back to business. I’m giving you forty-eight hours from now. At midnight two nights hence, you’ll come along with a rough copy of the provisions of the treaty. If you don’t, the following day my little newspaper puts a jolt into Fleet Street with the scoop of the season.”

Smith stood up. His manner was casual. He might almost have been recapitulating the principal points of an ordinary business arrangement. Bordington seemed hardly to have heard him. He was still walking about the room. He turned to Smith.

“Damn you,” he said, quietly, “I refuse. Do you hear?”

“Think about it,” smiled Smith. “Forty-eight hours. And don’t forget — if you try to blab — that old newspaper wall still come out with the glad news. Pinch me, and you cut your own throat. I’d advise you to be sensible. Allow me.”

He preceded Bordington to the door and opened it. His eyes were more ingenuous than they had been all through the interview. His smile was almost pleasing.

And then his face changed. Bordington, for the first time, realized that the man could be disturbed, shocked, perhaps almost frightened. Reaching the doorway, beside Smith, Bordington was conscious of a curious odor, as though some outlandish tobacco had been smoked in. the corridor outside the room.

Then Smith laughed. The laugh was short, caught at quickly, without mirth.

“That’s damn funny,” he said. “I’ve not smelled that for a long time. Pink took to smoking — just before the end — and, like lots of folk who wait a long time before doing a thing like that, he had strange tastes. He got the stuff from a Boer farmer near Bloomfontein. But still—”

He lost his attitude of tension. His old smile came back. “Good night, my lord. Forty-eight hours.”

Bordington walked down the corridor. He was hardly conscious of his going. In his head were thundering a thousand phrases, a thousand defiances, which he might have hurled at Smith. He wondered if he had taken it all lying down; if his silence had been the paralyzed silence of absolute terror; if his lack of outward emotional display had impressed Smith with a sense of indifference toward the fate of the treaty and his trust. He was filled with a reeling despair. He walked blindly.

He turned the corner at the broad, quiet, dimlit landing, and went toward the elevator. Near the decorated iron gates a man, who was waiting, saw him and turned swiftly away. He was a little, slim fellow, and he walked with a pronounced limp. But Bordington did not see him. He had eyes only for the figures of his own thoughts.

While Bordington went down in the lift, the cripple limped downstairs.

Chapter III “Don’t Sell!”

Kathleen — she called herself Kitty — Willis had dark brown hair, very wavy, bobbed and delicious, brown eyes, very deep and wide and laughing, and lips so lusciously red that they were certainly made more for kissing than for anything else. In addition, the some hundred and twelve pounds of her were lithe, slimly and beautifully fashioned, and specially designed by nature for the wearing effectively of modern feminine garments.

All of this sounds somewhat highly colored, but it is a true and faithful account of the thoughts of Jim Lansdale as he lay back in a punt and watched her movements as she poled the placid craft through the still, slow waters of the Bord.

They had met about ten days previous. Kitty had arrived in Bordington on a walking tour; had met Jim, who was secretary to the lord of the manor — Lord Bordington — in the way that pretty girls have of meeting presentable young men; and the walking tour seemed to have come to an abrupt and altogether satisfactory conclusion.

“Well,” said Kitty, looking down at Jim. “I’ll give you a penny for them.”

“They’re worth more than that,” said Jim.

“Are they? Or are you afraid to confess that you were feeling ashamed to lie and watch me do all the work.”

“I’ll do it. I’d rather. Only you made me lie down here. Let me have a go.”

“You lie still. Did the old man come back this morning?”

“Yes, unfortunately. Very early. Caught a train from London about one o’clock. In a devilish temper, too. Went straight to his study and began messing about with papers from his private safe.”

“Kept you up, eh? Which accounts for the attack of laziness to-day?”

“No. He got me up. He always does. But he sent me back to bed again. I’m never allowed to see what’s in the private safe. It’s the big brown safe which is my pigeon. The other contains all the state secrets and the names of the crowned heads of Europe. The only folk in whose presence it’s opened are potentates from the seat of government.”

“How perfectly thrilling. By the way, does he know I went to tea in your quarters yesterday and that you showed me round the castle?”

“No. He probably wouldn’t mind, anyhow. But I’d rather he didn’t know. He seems worried lately, and I’ve got an idea that there are big things on — somewhere. He’s neglected all the various work attached to the estate, and I’ve had very little to deal with except departmental routine stuff, which he never sees.”

Kitty poled on. It was dreamily, lazily glorious. Trees crowded down to the edge of the narrow stream, breaking now and again to show gleams of still water where arms of the river invaded the front line of the land’s defenses. There was sunshine striking down through the trees in shafts of light like the sun’s rays in a great cathedral. Flies danced across the shimmering surface of the water, and only little splashings and wood sounds disturbed the quietness.

“This,” said Jim, “is the life. Why fellows want to slave in offices and factories long after their youth is spent, amassing millions, I never can tell. There can only be a negative satisfaction in dying in harness and knowing that your decease will be anounced on the placards and that somebody will write your obituary. The paths of fortune hunting lead only to the grave.”

Kitty looked at him quickly. “Is that poetic outlook — sufficient for the day, a loaf of bread, a bottle of beer, and thou beside me singing in the midst of the buttercups on a sunny day — or is it just a facile expression of laziness?”

“Both,” grinned Jim. “But, honestly, I believe in work when you’re young and fit for it. But I reckon there’s something wrong with a fellow who goes on like mad piling up cash — for the sake of cash and — power. That’s what it is, you know. Power.

“When a rich man dies they all tell the old, old story of how his enterprise and his initiative gave work to thousands. Probably they did. But did he go on just for the sake of giving work to thousands? Not on your sweet and gentle life, old girl. He went on because he’d got hold of power with both hands — and loved it.”

“You’re probably right; but it doesn’t destroy the fact that his initiative and whatever else you said did give work to thousands. There’s something to be said for the big capitalist, the man with the driving force and the restless get on or get out spirit.

“He possesses at least one great and admirable quality which is not always recognized by his street corner detractors, and that is a tremendous courage. But still, we can’t argue on a day like this. And neither of us is a capitalist. What made you take to secretarial work, Jim? Weren’t you born in the East?”

“Yes.” Jim dangled his hand in the water and looked away. “My father held an official position out East. He had a good salary, I believe — quite an important man in a small way. He sent me to Cambridge. I was to go in for the diplomatic service. But — he died. My mother never survived me.”

There was a short silence. Kitty was eying Jim curiously, and in her expression was something Jim, had he looked at her, would not have easily been able to read.

He added: “When my father’s affairs were cleared up, it was found that he was in a financial mess. He had put all his money into some gold business over there — Che Fiang Gold Mines, or something. It’s a concession territory. I’ve got all the script of the stock now; but it’s hardly worth the paper it’s written on.

“My father was evidently one of the prime movers in it, because he had a great many founders’ shares, and they give me a large amount of control. But I’ve often contemplated selling them. I expect the concession will be revoked and what little is left will go by the board. It’s happened out there before. His death prevented me getting into the service, and so when Bordington offered me this job I took it.”

“I shouldn’t sell,” said Kitty quietly.

Jim looked up sharply. “Why?” The monosyllable was jerked, as though her advice was unusually startling.

“Oh — I don’t know. On the principle of never say die, I suppose. I believe in hanging on, you know. But have I surprised you?”

“No” — slowly. “Only — it’s rather curious, your saying that. Of course, Bordington knows I hold this stock; and last night, when he came back from London, he asked me about it. He never mentions it in the ordinary way. Although he seemed so worried, he — perhaps I was mistaken — kind of forced himself to geniality.

“You know what I mean. You can usually read that sort of thing in a man. He spoke in a fatherly fashion — the middle-aged, successful man taking an interest in the striving lad. He said he should like a gamble in Che Fiangs, and was willing to risk a bit. He offered me eighteen pence a share for my holdings.

“The London Stock Exchange quotation is eight pence. It seems rather decent of him. He’s always been decent to me, and I take it as a kind of friendly lift. He thinks there’s a slim chance of their pulling round, but a bigger chance of their dropping, and he considers he can afford to help me out.”

Kitty nodded. “May be.” She looked slightly puzzled, and said no more.

They reached the little quay beside the meadow, just beyond the fringe of the trees, and Jim helped Kitty ashore.

“Well,” he said, as he held her hand after she had stepped on to the bank. “What about selling?”

“Selling?” She hesitated, and then laughed. “I’d forgotten your old stock. Do what you like, Jim. I don’t understand stocks and shares. Never worry about them.”

“No.” His grip tightened as she attempted to withdraw her hand. “Kit. Isn’t it possible for you to stay after tomorrow? Can’t you wire for an extension of your holiday?”

She shook her head. “My dear old thing, Barker’s bank never gives extensions of holidays to its feminine employees. If I’m not back by Monday morning there’ll be a run on the bank, and one of the Big Five will be wiped out of existence.”

His face clouded. “That’s pretty rotten, isn’t it? And we’ve had such a gorgeous time. Like waking up from a dream. I shan’t like Bordington when you’re gone.”

She was trembling slightly. They had been pals all through the ten days behind them, chatting on all kinds of subjects except this one, and — somehow — the ten days, to her, at least, had been the happier for it. If ever she might look back on them and name them as happy in the light of that knowledge she so steadfastly withheld from him.

Looking up into his face she was conscious of something within her — stirring slowly, so that she wanted to run and hide her eyes.

She said, very steadily: “Jim, will you leave go of my hand?”

He stared at her earnestly. “Yes. I’m sorry.”

They walked across the meadow together, and neither spoke until they reached the lodge gates of Bordington Park. There Kitty smiled.

“You’re ever so fine, Jim. I’ll see you to-morrow.”

“Of course.” He spoke absently, his eyes devouring her.

He stood and watched her as she swung down the road; but she did not look back. She dared not.

There were many strange people who would have been very surprised to have seen Kit Willis’s eyes in those moments; for they were filled with tears.

Chapter IV Night Work Interrupted

Bordington Manor showed dark against a dark, starless sky — a black mass, hunched high, edged by battlements, with a dull gleam of glass showing here and there as the night’s faint light touched tall, mullioned windows.

In the shadow of the wall, a darker shadow moved — silent, swift, decisive. It reached a long window, coming to the ground from the full height of the lower story, and there it stayed for a moment. There was a barely audible click, and the swift shadow had vanished.

Inside, despite the blackness of the place, the shadow moved with unerring precision, as though the whole of the great mansion’s interior was familiar. Up the broad staircase, to the left along the picture-hung gallery, to the left again toward the house front, and so to the door of the study.

The door offered little resistance. It was opened — and pushed gently close — within a few seconds. A thin, pencil-like ray of light plunged into the heart of the room’s darkness, arched around swiftly, and settled on the face of a safe let into the right-hand wall.

The light went out.

The shadow was at the safe, eyes closed, ear pressed to the cold, hard surface, slim fingers slowly turning the knob of the combination, ears and nerves tautened for the sliding of the wards.

It was a splendid safe, but it had to cope with a matchless safe-breaker. For fifteen minutes its perfectly balanced mechanism refused to betray itself by sound or “touch;” but at last super-acute senses and hearing triumphed and the safe surrendered.

With the opening of the ponderous door, the safe-breaker drew a deep, gasping breath and sat down. The strain and the concentration had been tremendous, and every nerve in the lithe, taut body was vibrating.

It was when the reaction was passing that there came a movement at the door, a click, and the room was flooded with light. In the doorway was Lord Bordington, and in his hand was a pistol.

“Stand perfectly still,” he said, for the burglar had leaped to her feet. “A woman, eh?”

He stepped forward, and indicated a chair. “Sit down there and lay your hands palm downward on the tabletop where I can see them. Right.” He scanned the safe swiftly. Obviously, nothing had been disturbed.

“Just in time, it seems.” He surveyed his prisoner curiously. “You’re a very clever girl — too clever and too pretty to be doing this sort of work. You opened that by ear and touch, eh?”

“Yes.” She was perfectly at her ease.

“What’s your name?”

Her lips closed tightly. Bordington smiled. “That’s not in keeping, is it? Anybody with your brains shouldn’t boggle at a point like that. What is it?”

“Willis — Kathleen Willis.”

Bordington frowned. “I don’t remember it.” He was trying to recollect if, in his official capacity, he had ever encountered the name among those of the few notorious criminals likely to be capable of opening his safe.

“You wouldn’t. This is the first time I’ve been caught.” A sudden urgency showed in her eyes. “I suppose there’s no chance of your remembering that tag about the qualities of mercy?”

“Shakespeare, eh?” He laughed quietly, although his eyes were haggard. “No. Mercy is the doctrine of the foolish.”

“The fools are the wise men,” she countered. “They keep their consciences clean.”

He sat down opposite her. “You’re a quick little devil; upon my word. And cool, too. Not afraid, eh?”

“Not a bit — except — well, there is a reason why I don’t want to be handed over to the police. It’s a reason which nearly caused me to abandon to-night’s job and sacrifice a lot of time spent in preparation. That’s all.”

“Hm. Pathetic—” dryly. “By the way. How did you know the exact spot in which to cut the burglar alarm of the hall window? And how is it you came straight to this room? You see, I’ve been for a walk in the grounds. Affairs keep me up late. I have to think a lot.”

The former haggardness returned to his eyes. He was remembering that on the following night he had to render an account to William Smith.

“I found the window swinging gently open. I went straight to my room, got this gun, and came down here. Now there was no disturbance in the house. You’ve only just got the safe open. You can’t have been in the place more than twenty minutes, because I left the front door twenty-five minutes ago. So — how is it?”

She shrugged her shoulders. “I’m a good guesser,” she said. Her eyes were defiant on his.

“Have you bribed or pumped one of my servants?”

“I never bribe — and I’m no great shakes with a pump handle.”

He leaned forward across the table. “Listen — tell me the name of the fool or rogue who has allowed you to get acquainted with this house — and you can walk away. You’ve done no harm, so I can let you go.”

Again her shoulders lifted. “Take me to jail,” she said.

His lips curled. “Honor among thieves?”

“No. The imp of the perverse. Ever read that story, by the way? Creepy thing, isn’t it? I like Poe when I’m in some moods.”

He regarded her quizzically. “You’re a quaint little thing — slinging Poe and Shakespeare at me in the middle of a discussion on housebreaking.”

“Chacun a son gout,” she said. “You probably know quite a lot about them, and nothing about housebreaking. We must have a common ground for conversation, mustn’t we?”

“I suppose we must. So you won’t betray your pal, or your dupe. Well — perhaps it’s admirable, though hardly business. Are you armed?”

“Yes. I’ve got a seven-shot automatic pistol in a little pocket at the front of my gown. Do you want it?”

“I think it’s better. You can give it to me, can’t you?”

She looked at him. “You’ll allow me to take the gun from my pocket? Men have been shot from under the table before now.”

“I know. But I don’t think you’re the shooting sort. Anyhow” — with a little bitterness — “I’m not so sure that I’d mind being shot.”

She pushed the pistol across to him. “Thanks.” He sat back and studied her. She was, he thought, and she must realize it, in a desperately tight corner. Hitherto, on her own statement — which he believed, seeing that her name was entirely unfamiliar to him — she had escaped the clutches of that law she broke.

She did not know the soul-breaking ordeal of prison life. She was confident in her youth and her fresh beauty, her agility of body and wit. She bore herself with incredible courage, although the night was likely to see set on her forehead the brand of the outcast.

Before morning she would be with the lost. Within a few hours her record and her finger-prints, her photograph and her measurements would be at Scotland Yard. She would be marked down, pariah, hunted. At his entry through the door behind him her life had snapped.

She must know all this. She must! And yet she would not escape it by betraying her confederate; and she faced the prospect of it with an equanimity which, while astonishing him, gave birth to admiration within him.

A younger and less experienced man might have been tempted to set her free. A man with more humor in him might have talked lightly of a “a good smacking,” and have turned her out.

But to Lord Bordington as he sat and looked at her, an idea came.

It was somewhere about this time on the previous night that he had talked to William Smith, and in all the hours since, that formidable individual’s commonplace figure had loomed largely in his mental pictures. He saw Smith now, as unperturbed as this girl opposite him — but not more cool, nor more unperturbed.

He realized again, sickeningly, the man’s threat, his power, his personality. But opposite him was a personality, not threatening, but just as impressive. If Smith was a striking thing, so was this girl. If Smith, in his quiet, unimpassioned way, was a living, vital force, so was this girl.

Kitty, eying Bordington with some interest, saw his eyes light suddenly. His next words astonished her.

“I’d like to talk to you. I’ve got a proposition to put before you, which it might pay you to hear. Do you smoke?”

“A little — but I’d rather not, just now.” Her eyes were guarded.

He walked across to a sideboard and helped himself to whisky and soda and a cigar. He carried the pistols with him, dropping them into his pocket. Kitty sat still. Bordington asked a question which astonished her still more.

Chapter V A Compact

“Would you like to earn fifty thousand pounds?”

“Earn — what?” she asked.

“Fifty thousand pounds.”

“Are you talking sense?” She inclined toward coldness.

“Absolutely.” His voice told her more than the word. He was terribly in earnest. “I’ve got some work for you to do. If you care to do it — and if you do it successfully — you can have your freedom and fifty thousand pounds.”

She smiled. Despite his intense agitation, he was able to note that the smile was deliciously sweet and enticing.

“It’s an awful lot of money. You’ve awakened my flagging interest in your conversation. What have I got to do?”

“Commit another burglary,” said Bordington calmly.

Her brows knit. “I think you’re mistaken in me. I’m not to be hired.”

“I don’t wish to hire you,” said Bordington smoothly. “I wish to take you — for one night only — into partnership with me on an affair which, unfortunately, I can’t altogether explain to you, but which is of tremendous importance, not only to me, but to the world at large.”

Her forehead was clear once more. She smiled again. “I begin to feel very important. You’re a government man, aren’t you? Is it all about spies, and boxes at the opera, and beautiful women and Russian grand dukes?”

He laughed too. “No. Unfortunately, the usual concomitants have been left out. It’s to do with a very dangerous man with a very commonplace name. It touches on large sums of money, but little else. And the stage is one of London’s biggest hotels.”

“Which?” she asked quickly.

He hesitated a moment, then: “The Magnificent.”

“Ah!” The exclamation was very low. After a pause, she added indifferently: “It’s a fine place. I’ve stayed there often. Look here — you can’t expect me to accept this offer of yours without hearing it.

“I’ll admit that you know nothing about me except what’s pretty bad; but if you wish to go any further with this matter you’ll have to accept my word on one point. You must tell me your plan, and as much of the circumstances as you feel necessary, and you must accept my word that if I turn the whole thing down I shall not betray your confidence.

“If I may be permitted for one moment to pick up my little tin trumpet and blow it right heartily, I would point out to you that I’ve kept faith with the... er... person who foolishly allowed me to get a sight of the interior of your house; so if that’s any indication of my feelings on such points of honor, you may consider yourself fairly safe.”

Bordington was silent for quite a long time. She endured his scrutiny carelessly, but with reassurance in her eyes. At last he said: “I think I can trust you in that. Anyhow” — with a short laugh — “it’s rather absurd to worry about it. Because if you accept, I’ve to trust you far more. I’ll tell you all I think necessary, and you can judge for yourself.”

“Thanks,” she said; and there was an acknowledgment of compliment in her tone which drew a quick look from him and settled what slight fears of her probity he might have entertained.

“To begin with,” said Bordington, “I want to emphasize that there is a considerable element of danger in the affair.” He paused. “That is, perhaps, hardly emphatic enough. It’s being in the service which brings one to these guarded phrases. But understand — if you accept my offer, you pit yourself against a deadly dangerous man.

“Within the past twenty-four hours he has acknowledged himself guilty of a particularly dastardly murder. Heaven alone knows what other sins lie to his account. He values human life as nothing, and he is also quick, cunning, and possessed of immense courage.”

Kitty said slowly: “I think I will have a cigarette, after all. Thanks very much. Who is this man?” She looked serious. Bordington’s words had evidently impressed her.

Bordington considered his reply before giving it, and decided that he might as well tell everything not actually relevant to the treaty.

“You are — a thief,” he said, hesitating over the accusatory title.

She smiled. “Don’t spare me. Well?”

“You will therefore have heard, among your friends, of the Fellowship of Strangers.”

He saw a light flash and die in her eyes. It was confirmation of all that he had said regarding William Smith. He realized, in fact, that he need never have described Smith, but have merely stated who he was. Evidently the fellowship had a particular notoriety in the underworld.

“Is — your pal — one of them?” asked Kitty.

“He is the chief of the fellowship,” said Bordington.

He saw her lips purse in a silent whistle. She kept her eyes on his face. “You haven’t said enough,” she observed. “Your description of him is watered down. The chief of the fellowship, eh? My word! That man’s got a reputation which makes the most hardened crooks in London shudder. Who is he?”

“His name will convey little to you. It’s Smith — William Smith. But, as a matter of fact, the fellowship, as such, doesn’t now exist. It has been... er... dissolved. Smith, actually, is the head of a little band of ordinarily clever criminals who carry out his instructions and find benefit to themselves in doing so. Now you know the man you’re up against, and what’s behind him, do you still wish to hear the rest?”

Kitty nodded. “Yes. I’m with you so far. I never mind a little excitement; and fifty thousand pounds is a lot of money, isn’t it?”

“Plus freedom,” said Bordington gravely.

“Yes — and other things.” He thought a shadow crossed her eyes, but, if it did, it was gone so quickly that he could not be certain of its presence.

He proceeded to his further explanation.

“To-morrow night I have to meet this man Smith in the sitting room of his private suite in the Hotel Magnificent. I can give you the number of the suite and the exact situation of the sitting room. I will confess something to you. That man holds a paper by means of which he can threaten me with ruin. In exchange for it, he demands another paper — which I am taking to him to-morrow night. When I hand him over the paper he wants, he will hand me the paper he holds. Is that clear?”

“Quite. Ordinary blackmail, eh?”

“Perhaps. At any rate, I shall bum, on the spot, the paper Smith hands me. You will be outside the room. When I leave the room you will know that I am safe, in so far as his threat against me is concerned.

“You will then get into his room — at once, before he has had time to study the paper I have given him — and steal it from him. The method of stealing I leave to you. You will probably need a weapon, and the best method would be to hold him up with a pistol. In the moment that you deliver into my hands the paper you obtain from Smith, you receive fifty thousand pounds and your freedom.”

She regarded him curiously. “Can’t you do it yourself? Can’t you take a pistol with you, get your precious paper, bum it, and then demand back that which you’ve given him?”

Bordington shook his head. He was quite frank in his reply. “No. To begin with, to make open confession, I’m afraid of him. Probably I’m influenced by my position; but he seems to me a man of infinite resource, and were I to pit myself against him I would feel as though I endeavored to cope with an unknown quantity.

“I should have no confidence in myself. Further, things might go wrong. You never know what will happen in a big hotel. I have a name, a reputation. Smith, if things went wrong, would tell the whole story. It would be difficult for me — even though the paper were burned — to deny complicity were I caught in his room threatening him with a pistol.

“It isn’t done by men in my position. But you are different. If things go wrong... well — you are what you are. There still will be fifty thousand pounds for you, by the way, if things go wrong like that, and you are caught; but I’m afraid you’ll have to serve a sentence, and you will have to keep your mouth shut as far as my participation in the affair is concerned.

“Does it appear a reasonable proposition to you? You see, if you rob Smith, he will never know that I am behind you. You must make him think you are an ordinary hotel burglar, and you must keep up that pose to the end — whatever happens.”

Kitty nodded. “It’s quite clear,” she said. “And I see your viewpoint.” She examined the tip of her cigarette. “You’re asking more than you know. This man is a very powerful force in the underworld — so powerful that until to-night I’ve never been able to learn his name. The people who work for him are afraid to breathe it. It’s that kind of thing which gives you an idea of his influence. I know of one man connected with him — a flash hotel crook named Trevelyan; but even from Trevelyan I’ve never learned anything, and neither has anybody else.”

Bordington stirred in his chair. “I’ve met Trevelyan,” he said bitterly.

Kitty laughed. “He’s the fellow who got you into the mess, eh?”

“Yes. But are you willing to accept this commission?”

He waited anxiously for her reply, realizing, as he did so, how she had impressed him, how true was that conception of her personality. He wanted her on his side — an ally — and even as he wanted her, his shifting thoughts, his basic weakness, was seeing another opportunity in this chance meeting.

She said: “I’ll do it. Tell me all the details — the time I meet you, where, and the rest.”

He told her everything.

He let her out by the window through which she had entered the house, and she vanished, wraithlike, into the darkness of the park. He went upstairs slowly. He knew he would not sleep all through the night, but he felt somewhat comforted by the strange alliance he had just formed.

He did not go to bed, but went to the study and sat down and wrote to his wife, who was in Paris with his daughter.

Kitty, streaking across the park, turned and looked back at the fringe of the outer tree-belt, just as the moon slid from behind the banked clouds and bathed the manor in pale light. There was somebody standing at a window in the left wing — the window of a room she knew. The somebody was Jim Lansdale.

Sight of him made Kitty run.

The following morning Lord Bordington did two things, both of considerable importance. The first was to send for Jim Lansdale and talk to him about Che Fiangs. The second was to drive over to Bordington in his car and see his solicitor.

When Jim came into the room, Bordington said: “We had a burglar last night, Lansdale. Came in through the hall window — cut the burglar alarm in the right place, and made the cleanest entry imaginable. Must have been disturbed, however, because nothing has been touched.”

He looked hard at Jim as he spoke, and told himself that Jim looked a little pale and hard, keener than usual. Jim received the information with appropriate astonishment, and expressed himself as being glad that the break-in had proved abortive.

Bordington said no more on the subject. He could realize a change in Jim, and, for the moment, its significance eluded him; but he wondered whether Jim would be able to tell how it came about that the particularly pretty burglar of the previous night had had so complete a knowledge of the interior lay-out of the manor.

“About Che Fiangs, Lansdale. I’m still in the same mind regarding a purchase. The country’s in an unsettled state just now, and hardly looks like pulling round; but there’s always a chance, and I’d like to take it. Is eighteen pence a decent price to you?”

Jim hesitated. It was more than a decent price. It was somewhere in the neighborhood of a shilling above the stock exchange quotation. Had the offer come from anybody else but Bordington, he would have suspected an ulterior motive behind its munificence; but Bordington had always been more than kind to him, and he saw in the figures named only another evidence of his employer’s generosity.

In fact, it was this generosity which largely persuaded Jim to accept the offer. It seemed that he must hurt Bordington if he turned down so advantageous a proposal, made, as it apparently was, in the friendliest possible spirit.

“It’s a tall price,” he said. “Above the market quotation. And of course it will suit me, if it suits you.”

“Right,” smiled Bordington. “Then we’ll call it a deal. I’m going to London again to-day, and I’ll see my brokers and get it put through.”

As a matter of fact, he telephoned his brokers from the offices of his solicitor, instructing the stock exchange man to buy all the Che Fiang shares on offer that day. By four o’clock that afternoon, when the stock exchange closed, Che Fiangs had risen a few pence, there were some dealings on the curb outside, and cleverly distributed purchasing by his brokers had placed Lord Bordington well on the road to obtaining a commanding position in the company’s control.

Chapter VI After the Transaction

William Smith waited in the luxurious sitting room of his suite in the Hotel Magnificent. It was a warm night, oppressive, and there was a hint of thunder in the atmosphere. The trams on the Embankment sounded unusually loud. London seemed tense, expectant, breathless. All noises were magnified.

Smith looked at his watch. Bordington would come. That was a certainty. A man like Bordington could not afford to risk his name and standing for the sake of such a betrayal as Smith proposed. Smith was a sound judge of character. He knew that Bordington, weak, and unstable though he was, would never have made a great surrender.

Anything of vital importance to his country would have been zealously preserved as secret. But this information about the treaty was of little moment — on the face of it. It was, in effect, an inspired “tip” to a man who wished to make money swiftly on the Stock Exchange.

Smith had spoken the truth when he said he had no interest in international affairs. He did not wish to sell the terms of the treaty to any foreign power.

Smith, thinking of the treaty and Lord Bordington, tried to tell himself that Bordington was not guilty of any great breach of confidence; but he knew all the time that he was.

He picked up the Evening Standard, and, for the first time, glanced down its column of Stock Exchange notes. There had been “some activity” in Che Fiang shares. Smith’s brow wrinkled. Apparently purchasing had been going on not only in London, but in Manchester, Glasgow, and at other places. The purchasing had been done through various brokers, and while it had given rise to much wordy speculation, it had not induced a deal of financial speculation on the part of the House.

The price of the shares had risen from eight pence to one shilling and sixpence — eighteen pence — bid. The general consensus of opinion seemed to be that somebody with more money than sense was indulging in a thousand to one against gamble. There still appeared to be plenty of sellers.

Smith tossed the newspaper aside. In the morning he would be able to secure more detailed news of what was going on. It was rather curious — this rush on Che Fiangs — but— His telephone bell rang. “Mr. Mallison” wished to see him. Mr. Mallison was Lord Bordington.

Smith ordered that he should be shown up at once. He waited. The room was very still. Through the wide open window no breath of air came. He had the door of his bedroom closed, and the door to the valet’s room on the other side of the room was also closed. Besides these communicating, interior doors, each of the rooms had an outer door leading into the usual small lobby, which, again, had a main door giving on to the corridor of the hotel. Outside each window a balcony stretched.

Bordington came into the room, and Smith went to meet him with hand outstretched.

“How do, my lord,” he said. “I’m pleased to see you behaving sensibly.”

Bordington looked down at his hand, and then into his eyes.

“This seems entirely unnecessary,” he said curtly. “I haven’t long to spare, and I don’t propose to waste time by indulging in ridiculous expressions of esteem. Have you the paper you promised?”

“I sure have. But sit down. If we’re not going to fall on each other’s necks, there’s no reason why we shouldn’t behave like human beings. Have a drink?”

A whisky, Bordington decided, would not hurt him. Smith splashed out a couple of stiff pegs, and, lifting his glass, squinted through it at the light.

“Here’s to honesty,” he said. “It’s the best policy — when the other fellow practices it.” He pushed across a box of cigars. “By the way. You’ve seen the evening papers to-night?”

Bordington shook his head. “I hardly ever read an evening newspaper.”

Smith grinned. “Don’t come that House of Commons stuff here, for God’s sake,” he pleaded. “Is it a fact, you haven’t seen ’em?”

“I have said so.”

“Hm.” Smith considered him closely, and decided that he was telling the truth; also, he decided something else — something the denial was intended to make him decide — that Lord Bordington had nothing to do with the purchase of Che Fiangs during the day.

Had Bordington been the buyer, and knowing to what interview he came that night, he would most certainly have studied the evening papers in order to discover what comments they had to make on the day’s dealings. Smith was making the little error that so many very clever men make.

He forgot — to paraphrase the bon mot of a famous figure in history — that a clever man can be more clever than his neighbors most of the time, but not more clever than they all the time; that, in fact, to everybody of intelligence come moments when they are far above the average in perception and swiftness of thought.

Smith added: “Somebody’s been getting into Che Fiangs up to their neck.”

Bordington permitted a little flicker of indifferent surprise to show in his eyes. “Is that so?”

“I said it,” retorted Smith. “Who d’you reckon it ’ll be?”

Bordington shrugged his shoulders. “I can’t tell. What does the House say?”

Smith indicated the Evening Standard. “Nothing much. No sensational rise in price — considering. The Times might have more to say to-morrow. They’ll have all night to think about it. An evening paper can’t be expected to hand up so much stuff. I wonder what the extent of the purchases are?”

Bordington finished his drink. His hand was quite steady.

“May I be permitted to remind you that I didn’t come here to discuss stocks and shares?” he asked. “If you’ll carry out your part of the bargain, I’ll carry out mine. I’m rather anxious to get the thing over and bid you good-by. I don’t find your company or your conversation very entertaining.”

Smith laughed. “That’s it,” he said cheerfully. “Don’t mind me. Well — let’s have a look at that treaty.”

“Where is my note?” asked Bordington.

“Here.” Smith tossed a folded paper On to the table. Bordington reached out to get it, but Smith’s hand dropped across it. “A moment, my lord. Business is business. Stand back a bit. Thanks” — as Bordington got to his feet. “Look at it.” He spread the paper flat, so that Bordington, out of reach, could see it quite plainly. “Genuine?” he asked.

“Yes.” Bordington was displaying his first signs of agitation.

“Right. On that sideboard is a candle and matches. I’m going to lay this paper on the sideboard. You’ll lay the treaty copy on the table. While you’re burning your note, I’ll pick up the treaty. Is it suitable?”

“Yes.”

Bordington was very tense. He half suspected and expected treachery. The elaborate precautions against trickery further heightened his nervousness.

Smith walked over to the sideboard and dropped the note beside the candlestick. Bordington deposited the copy of the conditions of treaty on the table. It was all done with a solemnity which was almost ridiculous.

Bordington burned his note, after a brief examination of it, with pitiful eagerness. Its genuineness was beyond all doubt. In fact, Smith had decided that it was of no further use to him. He was too wily not to realize that persistent blackmail is likely to prove disastrous to the blackmailer. He believed on big, sure strokes — and finishing.

He scanned the treaty conditions. They were complicated, couched in legal language, and were not too clear to the eyes of a layman without some consideration; but there was enough there to show him that unless Lord Bordington was an exceptionally clever faker, the thing was a true copy.

Bordington turned round. His eyes were shining. The note was a heap of crushed carbon in the candlestick, for he had smashed the crinkled remains with his fingers.

“That’s that,” he said. It was like a prayer of thankfulness.

Smith grinned. “Feel better, eh? Glad to see you picking up. I like people to be happy. Unfortunately, in business, one has to do certain things. However, all’s well that ends well. Watch the stock markets for the next few days and see me wading into Che Fiangs. I suppose it’s no use offering to shake hands? Well, well. We all have our likes and dislikes, don’t we?”

Bordington said: “Good night,” and turned to the door.

Smith, as on the previous occasion, preceded him. “Let me do the honors,” he said. He was aggressively, insultingly cheerful. “Don’t slide out as though you’d committed a felony. I’m sorry to part with you. You’re a man with a good business sense. I hate those guys who think it shows strength of mind to go round kicking against the pricks. So long.”

Bordington walked straight across the little outer lobby, out through the outer door and into the corridor. He did not look at Smith.

As Smith shut the door, Bordington glanced round. The girl, he decided, should be ready. He was to be given time to get downstairs and out of the hotel — five minutes, they had calculated — and then she would strike. It had been a good plan, securing her services. She was a poised, daring, witty little thing, and she might prove a match for Smith if she came on him unawares and when he imagined himself absolutely safe.

If Smith, afterward, loosed on her the whole of the underworld, that was her funeral — not Lord Bordington’s. Bordington would pay her fifty thousand. It was up to her to insure her personal safety.

He took the elevator, came to the marble floored entrance hall, and stepped out.

Meantime, Smith closed the outer door, stepped across the lobby, and into his sitting room. There, he came to a standstill, rigid, bent forward slightly, his face like a beast’s.

Standing between the parted curtains, crookedly, thin, peaked face thrown forward, one shoulder hunched, cripple fashion, with a gun held low against gray flannel trousers, was a slim, weakly man.

“Pink, by God!” said Smith.

Pink smiled.

“Hello, my lord! Pardon, my lord—” mimicing Smith’s voice of a few minutes before; and then, snarling: “Sit down — you dog!”

Smith walked toward the chair Lord Bordington had just vacated.

Chapter VII The Stupendous Bluff — Called

In this, the most stupendous moment of his life, all Smith’s reserve of power and self-control came to his aid. The man; before him had stepped back over the edge of death to confront him. Any second might be his last. He knew Pink well — the fellow’s complete disregard for human life, his fiendish rages, the immense passions which flared in the wasted, stunted body. Pink, in a rage, was more terrifying than many giants.

Pink dropped into a chair. “You’ll fold you arms, Bill Smith; and if you move a blessed finger I’ll kill you where you sit. I want to talk to you.”

Smith folded his arms. He was watching Pink steadily, and his commonplace face showed no signs of any emotional or mental disturbance.

“Fancy your coming back,” he observed.

“Yes — fancy,” drawled Pink. He leaned forward. “You wanna choose a higher cliff — the next one you push me over — Bill Smith.”

“I will,” said Smith coolly.

Pink’s gun hand moved suggestively. Smith did not flinch.

“I been listening,” said Pink.

“I gathered that.”

Pink cocked his head to one side. “Don’t you talk educated these days? Got up, too. Funny what other people’s money’ll do for a man, ain’t it?”

“Extraordinary. And more extraordinary what one will do for other people’s money. But you said you had been listening. Is that statement relevant to this interview?”

“Aw — can that high falutin’ talk. I listened twice — first time you talked to that bloke — and this time — and I’ve got a line on the whole bag of tricks.”

Smith permitted himself to smile, although his eyes remained watchful. “The same old Pink,” he said. “You were always good at getting lines on things.”

Pink nodded. He looked haggard and drawn and ill. He stared hard at Smith — not seeing the man sitting before him, but seeing a high bluff on the Karoo in the pitiless blaze of the African sun — seeing himself standing near the edge of that bluff, hearing the first slight sound which told him of Smith’s presence behind him — feeling once more the twinge of terror which leaped through his heart as he turned — too late — and hearing his own wild cry as he went hurtling out and down to the stones far below.

“You’re deep,” he said. “By God, you are! Deep at killin’ and twistin’. It’s easy for a snake to find it’s way into a man’s bed; easy for a man to slip over the crumblin’ edge of a bluff; and hard for anybody to say as anybody’s put the snake in its place or pushed the bloke that fell. You’re a good killer, Smith — but when you started in on killin’ me, you started wrong.”

“Apparently, I did,” said Smith. “As I believe you observed earlier in this conversation, I miscalculated the requisite height. But the past is past. We were discussing the present. About this eavesdropping business. What of it?”

“This.” Pink leaned forward. “I want half of all you scoop on this stock deal.”

“And if you don’t get it?”

“I’ll kill you.”

“When?” asked Smith. He might even have been amused, by the light in his eyes.

“What d’you mean?” snapped Pink. “See here, Smith. I’ve not searched the face of the earth for you for years to be chivvied. You get that tight. If I hadn’t overheard what I did the last time I was here, and to-night, you’d have been dead by now.”

“Really? Let me explain. I can’t give you half of the proceeds of the deal now — because the deal has not come off yet. If you leave me alone to clear the deal — you might find difficulty in killing me. It’s now or never. Pink, it seems to me.”

It was the most courageous thing William Smith had ever done in his life. It was the biggest bluff he had ever put up. It had its effect.

Pink momentarily, but visibly, faltered. He said harshly: “What’ve you got up your sleeve, Smith?”

“I? Why?”

“Cheeking me like this.”

Smith laughed. “Nothing, Pink. How can I?”

Pink stared at him uncertainly. Bill Smith, thought Pink, knew how dangerous he — Pink — was. Their past association must have taught him that. He had robbed and tried to murder Pink. He knew that Pink had sought him across the wide earth to take his life. And yet he was undisturbed. He indicated to Pink the vital necessity for immediate and drastic action.

It was not logical. Smith was no man to take mad chances. He knew something which was hidden from Pink. Suddenly, Pink wondered if he sat in a position of deadly peril! The thought set his flesh creeping, for, like most physically weak folk, he had an inordinate love of his own life.

He was remembering all Smith’s cunning in the years that were gone; how Smith had never been cornered, had never tasted the bitterness of defeat and failure. The terror of the man’s name in those old days was revived in Pink’s memory. Smith had been the unnamed leader of the Fellowship, despite their vows of equality, and that period of his captaincy had left its mark on the innermost mind of the twisted, broken little devil now facing him.

Pink leaned forward. Suffering had distorted both his mind and body. The broken wreck a Boer had found at the bottom of the bluff and had patched up into some semblance of manhood was not the balanced deadly creature who had crossed hands and sworn the oath that night the Fellowship of Strangers was formed. William Smith was realizing that. Pink was dangerous — but not too dangerous. Thus reasoned Smith.

Pink snapped: “I asked you what you’ve got up your sleeve.” His eyes blazed. His wasted form was racked by a violent emotion which swept through him like the breath of a typhoon. “I say this, Smith — I’ll hang for you. I mean it. If I get you — they can do what they like with me. Now, am I in on this deal or not?”

“I fail to see how you can be,” said Smith. He had a consciousness of increasing peril. Bluff would hardly succeed with the desperate man opposite him. He wondered what he could do to thwart Pink. “You see, Pink, I shouldn’t play straight with you any more than you’d play straight with me. The deal’s not through yet, as I’ve said, and once you let up on me — you’ve lost me.”

Again Pink was uncertain. It was the most amazing thing to which he had ever listened. He had expected lies, cajolery, wide promises; instead, he received the blunt truth. When one deals habitually in lies the truth is apt to deceive.

Smith was now tense and strained, although he managed to preserve an appearance of indifference. There was death for him in the mounting decision in Pink’s eyes. Pink intended to kill. Something shook inside Smith. For the first time in his life the cold fingers of fear lightly touched his heart.

Death — when the biggest coup of his career was reaching its consummation! Death — from this man he thought dead.

Pink mouthed something. The oath broke the silence startlingly. The gun came up—

And the door of Smith’s bedroom opened.

“Drop that!” It was a feminine voice, clear, steady, commanding.

Pink and Smith turned, the former with his mouth agape, the latter with his hands dropped to the arms of his chair, his body leaned forward, as though to leap to his feet.

He saw the girl uncertainly — very beautiful — just an impression of her. She was talking again to Pink.

“Drop that gun!”

Pink’s pistol fell to the floor. He sat back in his chair, huddled up, his tongue seeking his lips.

The strange girl took command of the situation. She stepped forward and picked up Pink’s pistol, swinging it in her left hand. To Smith she said: “He’d better go, hadn’t he? One can’t fight in a big hotel. It isn’t done.”

Smith nodded. Events had been rather swift.

The girl tossed her head back. “Get out!”

Pink slid past her to the door, muttering, his red-rimmed eyes shooting from her to Smith and back again. At the door he stopped, angry of a sudden.

“All right — Smith — you and your side-kick — I—”

He went out, slamming the door.

On that, Smith found his tongue. “Who the hell are you?”

His rescuer smiled. “I’m Kitty Willis, and I’m supposed to be employed by Lord Bordington to rob you.”

Chapter VIII As One Thief to Another

Smith got to his feet and, walking to the sideboard, helped himself to a neat whisky. He felt he needed something. He had tricked Bordington, met a man back from the grave, stared into the eyes of death, and listened to a naive confession — all in the space of half an hour; and it was a fairly full program even for Bill Smith.

Also, he wanted a moment in which to collect his thoughts. Danger from Pink was temporarily past, but there was sure to be some reaction. Smith was older than he had been in Africa, and his nervous system was not quite so elastic. Smith, after all, was only a very clever and scoundrelly human being, and not the superman type unencountered outside the pages of fiction.

Kitty watched him with an air of indifferent interest which concealed a swift summing up of his capabilities so far as she was able to judge them in the first few moments of this first encounter. She had listened to his conversation with Pink, and that alone had been a trumpeted warning for her. Few men could have faced Pink as Smith had faced him.

Smith swallowed his whisky and turned round. He was altogether composed. He twisted the tip of a cigar between his finger and thumb, breaking the outer leaf.

“That’s an amazing statement,” he said. “I’d like to hear it all. Sit down.”

Kitty dropped into her chair. Her little pistol was back in her pocket. She laid Pink’s gun carelessly on the table and left it there.

“It about covers all the ground,” she said. “Lord Bordington has offered me fifty thousand pounds to recover a paper which, I understand, he has just handed you.”

Smith’s eyes narrowed. Bordington was not quite so “easy” as he seemed. It had been a cute idea to employ this nonchalant young woman to steal back the document after he had seen his own incriminating note burned. Smith’s quick brain summed it all up at once. If anything had gone wrong Bordington would not have been implicated.

“Why have you split?” he asked.

Kitty shrugged her shoulders. “Bordington’s no use to me. You might be. Directly he told me that Fellowship of Strangers stuff I knew what I intended to do.”

“He told you that, did he?” asked Smith, and was conscious of error. He had been so confident that Bordington was too afraid to mention their connection to anybody, that he had seen no harm in talking of his past in order further to frighten Bordington. Now he found that Bordington had babbled to a woman thief.

“He did,” agreed Kitty. “Of course, I’d heard of you. And I was anxious to meet you. So I pretended to fall in with his wishes.”

“How did you get into touch with him?”

“Oh — I decided to break into his place — Bordington Manor. I was shown over it by... by somebody who didn’t know who I was, and I got a good idea of its interior layout, and where was the safest place to get in. Unfortunately, Bordington was suffering from insomnia, and he came down for a walk, and caught me. He seemed worried. Had you on the brain, I expect. Then he told me a lot of things about you, put up this proposition — that I should steal the paper and get fifty thousand as payment for doing so — and here I am.”

“Who showed you over the place?”

Kitty’s momentary hesitation was not lost on Smith. “Bordington’s secretary. A young fellow named Jim Lansdale.”

“Hm. Friend of yours?” Smith watched her closely.

“No. I — met him.”

“Ah! Flirtation, eh?”

“Perhaps.”

Smith laughed quietly. “That’s useful. It’s one of the methods barred to me. No nice-looking young men — or women — will flirt with me. That’s where you get a start of me. Well, it’s real good of you to have called off that thug just now, and to have tipped me about Bordington. I’d like to take you to dinner one time to express my appreciation.”

“I don’t want to go to dinner,” said Kitty calmly. “I want something more than that.”

“Hello — another participant in the stock deal?”

“No. You can keep your stock deal, if you wish to, although I reckon I’ve helped in it a good bit; because by now that document could have been mine. I want to be in the Fellowship.”

“What?” Smith stood staring down at her.

“I want to be in with you. I’ve heard a lot about you, and I reckon you and I could do big things. You’ve just admitted that I’ve got advantages that you don’t possess. Mind — I’m not coming in like Trevelyan. I know him.

“He’s only half a man. I’m in fifty fifty with you. I can give you some names of people to go and see. There’s Danson, the jeweler in Piccadilly — the biggest fence in London. Ask him. And there’s Stocky Wellbow, and Gertz. Ask any of them. They’ll tell you about me.”

She had mentioned three of the most notorious and cunning criminals outside the Fellowship, and, to Smith, it was as good as is a reference from a great bank to an honest man. He knew all three men personally, and they would answer any questions he cared to put.

He was on the point of curtly turning down the proposition when he decided to have another look at her. She was poised and delightfully fresh and beautiful. She looked less like an habitual criminal than anybody Smith had ever encountered. He had just had an example of her calmness in the little encounter with Pink, and her subsequent behavior. He had big things on his hands, and there was Pink lurking in the background. Pink—

His cunning brain was working swiftly. She had flirted with young Lansdale, Bordington’s secretary, in order to obtain admission to the manor. She looked the most innocent thing in the world.

It was himself — or Pink — for death — and quickly.

He could not see clearly ahead, but, half formed, there was a plan in his brain, as he answered.

“Come and see me to-morrow at noon. By then, I’ll have talked to Danson and the other two and found out what they have to say about you. If their word’s good, we’ll probably fix up something.”

“Right,” said Kitty. She got up and went to the door. “By the way, you need not be afraid of my talking about the Fellowship, even if you turn me down. I’m not built like that. And there’s another thing. Bordington’s not such a fool as you seem to think him. Watch your step, comrade, or you might get tripped.”

“Oh — I’m all right.”

“Ye-es,” hesitantly; and then: “By the way, is it the truth that that fellow Murray, the Secret Service man, is out to get the Fellowship?”

“I’ve heard it. Bordington said he was. Why?”

“Well — I’m not windy. But Murray’s the chap who got Heine, the German, wasn’t he? Kind of mystery being — working behind the scenes, known only to the Home Secretary and the commissioner for police. I’d like to repeat my warning about watching your step. I only asked about Murray because it’s as well to know how we stand. It makes no difference to my offer to join you.”

“Offer?” Smith laughed.

“Sure! You don’t think I’m on my hands and knees, begging, do you? Good night!”

She went out.

Chapter IX Where the Next Blow?

Smith drew at his cigar. “A cute little dame,” he soliloquized. “If those three give her a good character I’ll take her. I think she’ll get Pink for me.”

Smith always preferred to “arrange” for other people to do his killing, if possible.

The following morning, at precisely eleven ten, Smith had a shock. The House had just opened, and his brokers were on tiptoe for the purchase of Che Fiangs — price limit one shilling and eight pence. In ten minutes they telephoned Smith.

The buying of the previous day had been disclosed as extensive. The overnight price was ignored when the market opened, and Che Fiangs were offered at three shillings — buyers. In effect, the price had risen sensationally, and there were people willing to pay it.

Ten minutes later came the startling information that Che Fiangs were not easy to obtain. There were rumors going round the House, and holders who had long regarded the shares as a dead loss were now sticking to their holdings in the hope of a complete recovery.

Somebody had struck hard at Smith, and his coup had fallen to the ground. He had secured a few hundred Che Fiangs at something like five shillings each — face value one pound — but now the price was soaring, there was every prospect of a heavy gamble in the shares developing, and Smith was virtually shut out.

In a week or two the details of the treaty would be known, so that instead of the bottom falling out of the rush — as so often happens — and the market collapsing, holders would realize that they had only to wait to insure the stability of their purchase.

Smith was beaten.

He could buy on a market rising like a rocket, if he wished, and get his brokers to pay anything demanded on the floor; but his tremendous scheme for acquiring vast wealth with a gesture had failed. Whoever had bought on the day before Bordington handed Smith the copy of the treaty had already made a large fortune, and must make more.

By noon Che Fiangs stood at ten shillings. Nobody could say what they would be by night time. Manchester, Birmingham and Glasgow had only stray packets of a few hundreds on offer. Paris and New York were buying. There seemed no sellers anywhere. Such is the rapidity with which a substantial rumor flashes through the financial meshes of the world.

At midday Kitty arrived, looking very cool and radiant in a simple white gown. Smith met her in the palm court, for she pointed out that it was hardly seemly for her to go up to his suite. He was morose.

“What’s wrong?” she asked. “Has somebody let you down?”

“Badly. The stock deal’s off. I could still make money, if I wished, but somebody’s queered the pitch as far as money for nothing is concerned.”

Kitty laughed. It was a very musical laugh, but it did not lighten the heart of William Smith, as it should have done. “Have you seen the three gentlemen I mentioned?” she asked.

He nodded curtly. “Yes.” His eyes were curiously interested for a moment. “You seem to hit the high spots, my girl. Danson couldn’t say enough. Is it right that you’re the holdup man who cleaned out Ikey Levenheim after he’d double crossed his partner in crime, Horman?”

“If Danson stud so?” observed Kitty demurely. “You see, it’s so easy robbing thieves. They think they’re clever. I shouldn’t have touched Ikey, only I learned that he was cheating Horman, his accomplice, who was doing all the work. So I sat by and let Ikey cheat to the limit, and then I just helped Ikey get rid of the spoils. It was very simple — because Ikey had to keep on bolting for fear of Horman. He couldn’t come back and raise things against me.”

Smith rubbed his chin. “Well, if anybody can put one on Levenheim they deserve a medal. I’m pleased to know you. I’ve decided to take you in — not fifty fifty — but sixty forty. I get the big end.”

“It ’ll do,” said Kitty calmly. “I mentioned equals because it’s always better to ask for more than you expect. What’s the move now that the stock deal’s off?”

“I don’t know. I’ve got to think. A funny thing’s happened. That fool, Trevelyan, has gone and got lost. I telephoned a place I know last night, asking for him, and he hasn’t been seen for three days.”

“Bolted?” asked Kitty laconically.

“Hardly. There’s no reason why he should. He stood for a percentage on this deal.”

Kitty shrugged her shoulders. “Then he’s not lost. He’s probably away somewhere.”

“But he was told to stand by. My men usually do what they’re told to do.”

There was a doubt in Smith’s voice which caused Kitty to look at him quickly. “You’re thinking of that fellow, Pink,” she said. “He can’t possibly have done anything to Trevelyan. I should say he’s never heard of him. He’s not starting the systematic wipe-out business — working up from the bottom.”

Smith confessed: “I was thinking of him. I’m beginning to wonder if I got rattled a bit — what with Pink coming, and this deal dropping through. I’ve got to think about the deal. I want to know who put me away, and who has queered the pitch.”

They chatted for a little while, and at last Smith said: “I can’t ask you to lunch. I don’t want to be seen about with you too much. It’s a rule of mine. Give me an address, and I’ll notify you when you’re wanted.”

Kitty handed him a card. It contained an address in Kensington. “I’ve got a service flat there,” she explained.

She was preparing to leave when a boy walked through the palm court calling a number in that peculiar sing-song voice which appears to be a requisite gift with all hotel page boys. Smith lifted his hand, and the boy came over to him.

“The man is waiting, sir,” he said.

Smith took the sealed envelope the boy held, opened it, glanced at the letter inside, for what seemed to Kitty an overlong time, and then took out his wallet. From the wallet he extracted a five-pound note.

“Give the man this, and tell him there is no answer,” he said.

The boy, with a look of surprise, accepted the note, and departed on his errand. Smith glanced across at Kitty.

“This is disturbing,” he said. “I’ve got here a message in code. It’s from Brixton prison. It’s been smuggled out to a certain address, and passed on to me. Trevelyan sent it.”

“He’s caught?” asked Kitty quickly.

Smith nodded. “Yes, and he says that from what the plainclothes men who took him said, he gathers that Murray supplied the information which puts him away. Your concern about Murray seems to be justified.”

Kitty was looking serious. “I know it is,” she said with conviction. “I’ve got a feeling. You know how it is. A woman gets a thing into her head — without logic — but it’s right, all the same. I’ve got a feeling about Murray. He’s nearer than we imagine. And the fact that he can lift Trevelyan out of your lap, and you not know it, proves how dangerous be is becoming.”

She left Smith deep in thought. Murray, the unseen, the unknown, the scoffed at, had struck silently and swiftly and effectively. Smith wondered where the next blow might fall — and when.

Chapter X The Heart Rules

Kitty ever afterward admitted it as a mistake; but it was a mistake which she excused on all kinds of different grounds, excused, in fact, so cunningly that she almost justified it. She went down to Bordington to see Jim Lansdale.

She knew she was acting foolishly. There was a loud outcry within her against the journey; but she went. It was sufficient answer to the arguments of common sense and the outcry of instinct.

Bordington was very delightful in the afternoon sunshine — she traveled there straight from her meeting with Mr. William Smith — a winding street bordered by quaint cottages, with a gabled inn displaying a swinging sign, a glimpse of church spire above massed greenness, soft half-timbered houses, and mellow warmth over it all.

There was a dog asleep on the cobbled pavement, and a cat sat on a window ledge and surveyed him contemplatively. An old man was dozing on the bench outside the inn. Save for the low monotone of an English summer, there was no sound, and no other sign of life.

Kitty strolled slowly. After the Strand this was wonderfully refreshing and restful. She had once heard an Irish girl describe London as a great, gloomy old place which had forgotten how to be young and, having passed middle-aged restfulness, was drifting toward senile decay. She wondered if the description was justified, as she walked along the village street at Bordington.

She was in a mood for meadows and fields and the songs of birds. We all get like that sometimes — especially on a warm, sunny day, when the Strand and Piccadilly stink of wood blocks and burned petrol, and the clamor of London makes the heated head reel.

Kitty determined to think rurally. It was an escape from thinking of Bill Smith and his affairs and of Jim Lansdale. She looked through the bottle-glass windows of the little shop and watched bluebottles and flies vainly assaulting the impregnable sides of glass jars filled with sticky sweets. She inspected critically yards of tape, cheap stockings and all kinds of other things, displayed in the window on the other side of the door of the same shop.

She stroked the cat, and said: “Hello, old boy,” to the dog, as he opened one eye, cocked it at her, and then closed it. She smiled ravishingly on the old man as he touched his hat; and she stepped lightly into the cool, shadowed interior of the low-roofed, beamed inn.

They were pleased to see her. She had, she said, come back for at least one night. Her old bedroom was given her. It looked out across the garden, blazing with roses, and, beyond the garden, across fields and rolling woodland. Half right, above the trees, Kitty could see, in the heat hazed distance, the twisted chimneys of Bordington Manor. Jim Lansdale was there. She wondered what he was thinking — whether of her, or merely of his work. She sat on the edge of her bed and felt unhappy, which was very unusual for Kitty.

The evening was dreary. She wandered in the direction of the manor — of course, by chance — and did not see Jim Lansdale; which, also, of course, was extremely unimportant, and did not at all account for there being something suspiciously like tears in her eyes when she snuggled down between silk and dean linen soon after sunset.

She was up early, and ate a delicious breakfast, in which cream and fresh fruit predominated. Then she went for another stroll, and though there were many delightful walks in the neighborhood, her feet took her once more in the direction of the manor.

She met Jim Lansdale.

It was at a crossing in the path through the woods. The sunshine made leaf-shadow patterns on the path. There was a shimmering halo of white fire above the swaying treetops. There were birds’ songs on the quivering air, and butterflies drew trembling lines of color against the restfulness of the undershadows.

Jim walked round the corner — and so they met face to face.

Kitty’s heart leaped and dropped with a bang. She was suddenly trembling and felt afraid — for the first time in her life. She looked up at Jim, and tried to smile, but the smile was a pitiful failure.

He glanced at her, and she saw his face change. It was as though a door had shut in it — barring her from all sight of his thoughts and emotions. He raised his hat and stopped.

“I thought you’d gone away,” he said. There was no intimacy in his tone.

“I had.” She knew it was an utterly ridiculous remark, but it was the only one she could think of at the moment. With this, she surveyed him curiously. It was funny that she could talk calmly to such a formidable being as Bill Smith and find herself tongue-tied and afraid in the presence of Jim Lansdale.

There was a struggle taking place inside him. Despite the closed door, some signs of it showed in his eyes.

“Are you staying long this time?” he asked.

“No. To-day.”

They stood silent for what seemed to Kitty a very long time.

At last Jim burst out: “You said you would see me on that following day — but you bolted without a word. And — I saw you the night before — running across the park in the middle of the night.”

She bit her lip. For an incredible moment she found herself actually contemplating telling him all the truth; but the moment passed.

“Yes, Jim,” she said nervously. “Are you going to the manor now?”

He stared at her. She had not answered his implied question. “I was going that way,” he said.

“So was I.”

She looked up at him. Her eyes were wide with appeal. The signs of struggle in his increased. He was understanding that she was unhappy.

“We’d better go together, then,” he said.

They walked side by side along the path. Jim did not utter a word. He was filled with burning thoughts — with indignation against her for running away from Bordington without a word, after telling him that she would see him on the morrow; for her lack of explanation of her extraordinary behavior on the night he had seen her bolting across the park after midnight.

And she wished she had not come. It had been foolish. It had been surrender to a feminine weakness which, in her game, was best suppressed entirely. Heartache had brought her, a longing to see his face and hear his voice, perhaps to reassure him in some inexplicable fashion. It was abortive and productive only of pain. She should have stayed away and forgotten — if forgetting were possible.

She could stand the silence no longer. “Did you keep your. Che Fiangs?” she asked. It were better to talk about his affairs than continue this meaning silence.

He looked quickly at her. “No. I sold them to Bordington.”

“I say! You didn’t!” She began to understand. It was Bordington who had “queered Bill Smith’s pitch.”

“I did.” He made the assertion in a tone which demanded why she should be concerned about it; and then, evidently relaxing a little, he added: “I’m wondering if he did me; if he knew that something was going to happen?”

“I told you not to sell,” said Kitty.

He stopped and faced her. “Why?” His eyes were challenging. “Did you know something, too?”

She contrived to look bewildered, but there was something pitiful in it as well.

“Of course not. But I had a feeling—” she stammered.

“Oh, I see.”

They walked on. It was the most horrid walk Kitty had ever taken in her life. His heavy footfalls seemed to sing “Be sure your sins will find you out.” She glanced at him from time to time. He was walking very erect, looking straight ahead.

So they reached the farther end of the woodland and came to the edge of the meadows which reached up to the kitchen gardens behind the manor.

There, Jim looked down and sideways at Kitty. The sun was coming through the trees on her. She looked fragile and deliciously dainty and sweet. Her lips were quivering ever so slightly. He remembered all those days on the river and across the footpaths. She had been fine, then. She had been a real pal, sensible, full of fun, loyal.

Urgent excuses for her began to form in his thoughts. A young man can always find a host of excuses for a pretty girl, once he has surrendered himself to contemplation of her prettiness and consideration of what good qualities she possesses. He commenced to reproach himself — a dangerous sign. He had been pretty beastly to her. Perhaps there was a perfectly solid explanation available as to why she had failed to keep her appointment with him and why she had been in the manor park after midnight that night.

It was all very well for a fellow to condemn a girl; but, these days, girls were so easily condemned. Perhaps he should have given her a chance. Anyhow, she had come back, and it was absolutely obvious that she was none too happy. A few minutes before he had found a negative exultation in her unhappiness — a kind of “serve her right — let her suffer” feeling. Now, he wanted to go to some quiet place and kick himself for a brute. Thus does the stronger sex display its inherent weakness.

In the shadow of the outer line of trees he stopped.

“I say,” he began, “I’m awfully sorry about Che Fiangs. You see—”

“What do you mean?” asked Kitty. She did not look at him. Once more, as when first she met him, she was trembling.

“Well — I mean — being short with you. It was decent of you to ask about them. I suppose I was an ass not to take your advice. And — about that — I mean, I wasn’t insinuating anything. It was an awfully rotten thing to ask you if you knew anything. You quite understand, don’t you?”

“Of course,” said Kitty. Now she wanted to cry, which was altogether too awful to contemplate. Also, she was perilously soft toward him, and it made her want to tell him the truth far more — which was likewise too awful to contemplate.

She was happy that he had forgiven her; terribly unhappy that she had ever invited forgiveness by coming down.

Jim went on in his stammering way: “I had rather a dust-up with Bordington last night about it. I mentioned casually about the rise. You know — nothing was meant. I gave him credit for having acted decently and for being lucky. He jumped down my throat.”

“Yes?” asked Kitty. She wasn’t listening particularly. She was wondering whether she could look up at him and retain her self-control.

“Went absolutely off the deep end. Asked me if I was insinuating anything. Of course, that made me wonder. I mean vehement declarations of innocence without accusation usually point to guilt, don’t they?”

“I suppose so,” said Kitty. He was, she thought, nicer than ever. He hadn’t suspected Bordington. It was just what he would not do. It wasn’t in him to suspect anybody — not even herself.

“I said something. One does in those moments. We had a bit of a set to.”

“You quarreled?” asked Kitty.

“I suppose you’d call it that. I walked out. I expected to be fired this morning, but he seemed all right. He had a letter in handwriting I’ve never seen before which seemed to amuse him, and he told me I need not hang around all the morning as he was expecting a visitor. But the butler gave me a good look over and two of the maids. They must have heard the dust-up, I suppose.”

“Yes,” said Kitty awkwardly.

Again they were silent. The subject of Che Fiangs was exhausted, and there seemed nothing else to talk about. Lansdale’s quarrel with Bordington, seeing that it had produced no serious after effects, was of little importance at the moment. Both had a consciousness that all their talk had been in circles, carefully evading the centerpoint of interest — themselves.

At last Jim said: “Are you staying here for long, this time? I thought you had to be back.”

“I — got a day off, and came down.”

“Why?” The question was a little eager, quick.

“I — thought — I ought to see you, and apologize for bolting — like I did.”

“Oh, that’s all right. I’m sorry I was so cut up when I first saw you. I ought to have understood.”

So he was accepting her presence in the park that night! He did not intend to push the matter further. Kitty was unutterably miserable. It was like deceiving a child. He wanted to believe in her, and, despite herself, he persisted in doing so.

She wanted to run away. She was drifting toward the edge of a precipice, and she knew it. Soon, by these halting steps, he would come again to declaration of love, and this time she would not be strong enough to stop him.

Coming down to Bordington had been sheer, stupendous folly, playing with fire; and both he and she were likely to get burned.

He stepped a little closer to her.

“Kitty—” he said, unsteadily.

She tried to answer him, but could not. Her eyes were misted, so that she did not see clearly. Her face was pitifully pale.

A shot rang out.

In the stillness of the morning it sounded like a hammer blow on glass at night time.

It came from the direction of the manor, short, sharp, vicious.

There was a great cry. Something broke through by the kitchen garden, and ran — a man running like mad. Kitty saw him for but a moment, before he vanished into the undergrowth which, at that point, reached down from the woodland toward the gardens; then he had vanished.

“What was that?” asked Jim, voicing the usual exclamation in such a crisis.

“Come on!”

Kitty gathered her skirts and ran toward the manor.

Jim came after her.

Chapter XI Deadlock of Foes

After Kitty had left him on the day he accepted her offer of partnership, Bill Smith gave considerable thought to the matter of Che Fiangs. At first, when he received the information his brokers had to give him, he had been too enraged calmly to consider the whole situation; but his rage soon passed. Years and experience had long since taught William Smith the futility of anger.

Somebody — who knew — had spoiled the market. Somebody — who knew—

Bill Smith turned that over in his mind for a long time — all the afternoon, in fact. And in this consideration of it he remembered the words of that strangely wise little beauty who had just become his partner. She advised him to watch his step in regard to Bordington, who was not such a fool as he seemed.

Of course, he wasn’t. William Smith had long since realized that. No man reaches — and holds — a position of eminence if he is a fool. He might reach it — by influence — but it’s the holding of it that is the acid test.

Slowly, he concluded that Bordington was the man who had scooped the pool ahead of him. He wrote to Bordington that night, a curt note, telling him that he proposed to call on him the following day on an important matter.

The next morning — the morning on which Kitty met Jim Lansdale — Bill Smith was in Bordington.

He was received with the deference due to an expected visitor, and was shown into the great paneled library, which, looking out across the tennis courts, was the pleasantest room in the pleasant house. Smith glanced out of one of the tall windows.

There were the courts, en-tout-cas, grass, and hard green courts. To the left of them was a stretch of flower-bed dotted lawn. To their right was a tall, clipped hedge cutting off the kitchen gardens which spread all across the rear of the manor. It was a wonderful place, Smith reflected.

In fact, all these old English homes were wonderful places — monumental, unattainable without the passage of time. In an incredibly sentimental moment he felt almost regretful that, one by one, they should be trampled beneath the onward marching feet of so-called progress.

Lord Bordington came into the room, and Smith turned to meet him.

Bordington was suavely polite: “I hope I haven’t kept you waiting. You’re a few minutes ahead of your time. But sit down. I don’t know whether you drink in the morning. There’s a bottle and syphon on that sideboard.”

Smith shook his head. He took a cigar, and dropped into a chair. “About Che Fiangs,” he said abruptly.

“Yes? You have apparently been busy. I see there have been some interesting movements in the quotations.”

Smith scowled and took the unlighted cigar from between his lips. “Very busy,” he said. “Only somebody has been busier.”

Bordington’s eyebrows lifted slightly. He did not say anything.

Smith got to his feet. He was ever unable to sit down when agitated.

“You’ve done me,” he said, with brutal directness.

“I’m afraid—” began Bordington coldly.

Smith waved him to silence. “Shut up a minute. That girl spilled the beans to start with.”

“Ah!” It was a little, quiet exclamation. Bordington was suddenly watchful.

Smith went on. There was the suggestion of a mirtless laugh in his voice: “Set a thief to catch a thief, eh? Well, it’s an old saying, but all the old sayings aren’t true. It was a good plan, but it fell down on one point — the character of the girl. You thought fifty thousand was fair bait. She was a high flyer, though. She preferred partnership with me.”

“Is that so?” asked Bordington. “Well, it may interest both you and her to know that I have asked the Home Office to put Murray on her trail for a theft of the copy of the treaty from my safe on the night I met her.”

Smith lit his cigar. He wanted to think. There was some admiration in his eyes when he next looked at Bordington, who, all this time, had remained standing.

“By God! That’s cute of you, eh? You reckoned she’d split to me, or just bolted. You knew I’d got the treaty. So you put the blame on to her. You’re pretty deep.”

“I endeavor to practice intelligent anticipation,” agreed Bordington.

“Hm.” Smith drew reflectively at the cigar. This man whom he had once trapped was difficult to hold. He began to appreciate the abilities of the lost Trevelyan, who had managed to secure Bordington’s signature. “Now listen. I’ve come here to level things a bit. I’ve got the treaty, and I can tell my story as to how it reached me. You’ve cornered Che Fiangs.”

Bordington laughed. “As frankness seems the dominant note of this interesting conversation, I might as well confess that I have. I hold a controlling interest in the company’s affairs. I shall smash anybody who tries gambling in the shares. Do you understand that?”

“Oh — I understand it, all right. I spotted the red light quick enough to keep out.”

“I presumed that you would, although it pained me to have to come to the conclusion. I should have dearly liked to have smashed you. Which brings me to a little point. You said just now that I fell down in a little scheme on my reading of the character of that girl — Willis, was her name? May I point out that you also fell down on a little scheme, through failure correctly to read character? Mine?”

“How’s that?” asked Smith.

“Well — you held my piece of paper and you wanted the treaty copy for a certain purpose. I was in this position. I must either risk ruin or hand you the copy, whereby you would profit. But it suddenly occurred to me that if I removed from your reach the opportunity of profiting by receipt of the treaty copy, my handing of the same to you was largely innocuous.

“In other words, once your precious scheme for the purchase of Che Fiangs fell down the copy wasn’t worth — to you — the paper on which it was written. It was a sound scheme, and it was an alternative to the more direct plan of getting the girl to steal the copy. It has succeeded.

“Within a couple of weeks, the provisions will be no longer secret. The thing is signed, and nothing can hold it back from enforcement. It is now of little value to any outside government, because it is un fait accompli. As a matter of fact, it was only valuable to a financier who contemplated a gamble in Che Fiangs. In addition, by the way, I have made an extremely large fortune.”

Smith heard it all without apparently being very moved. He admired Bordington as a man who had called check to him so far; one of the very few men who had ever done so. He admired Bordington for his lack of resort to forceful methods. He could never imagine Bordington threatening with a gun — like, say, Pink. Bordington would, however, get there just the same; get farther, in fact.

Smith paid one of the few compliments of his life. “My lord,” he said, unconsciously using the mocking appellation he had employed when he had Bordington in his power, “if you’d been in The Fellowship we’d have bossed the universe.”

Bordington smiled. “I’m not ambitious,” he said drily.

“No?” Smith studied him, standing with his back toward one of the windows, and facing Bordington squarely. “Well, we’ve chucked all the bouquets, and we’ve handed out all the explanations; so now we’ll get down to brass tacks. This is how I see it — plainly and without frills.”

“I can imagine you abhor frills,” observed Bordington. His lips were still smiling, but his eyes were very watchful. Though he had scored so far, he did not delude himself into thinking that the formidable man facing him was anywhere near to defeat. Bill Smith was not so easily beaten as all that.

“Yes,” said Smith. “I’ve got your treaty. To-morrow, unless you and I come to an arrangement, it’s going to be published word for word in my paper. Not only that, in heavy letters on the front page, is going to be given a full account of your little stunt at Monte Carlo — how you met Trevelyan and that girl he had’ in tow; how they got you to sign the paper; how you sold the treaty to me for that same scrap of paper.

“Further,” — Smith leaned forward slightly — “Trevelyan, who’s now in jail, will swear that it’s all true. He’ll turn King’s evidence, my lord. D’you get that? I’ll pay him to do it. I’ll make it worth his while. He’ll make a written confession, signed, sealed, delivered, and all the rest of it.

“I’ll have the girl over from Paris. I’ll pay her, too. I’ll put ’em in the box against you. I’ll break you — into little bits — if I break myself in doing so.”

His tone had increased in intensity as he spoke. His voice did not lift, but, rather, seemed to drop, so that he appeared to hiss the conclusion of this increasing threat.

Bordington listened intently. There was peril ungauged in it. He might face it through. His anticipatory move of advising the Home Secretary that the treaty had been stolen by a girl burglar — seen running across the park at night — might serve to negative Smith’s statement; but it might not.

Smith had a devil of a lot of mud to throw, and a devil of a lot of people to throw it. Some of it might stick. He, Bordington, had a wife and daughter in Paris, where the daughter expected to make an admirable match. There must inevitably be a scandal. His daughter’s future was at stake, to say nothing of his wife’s honor and the honor of his name.

Smith, he realized, was an adept at marshalling to best advantage forces which appeared half beaten.

“What do you want?” he asked quietly. “I would say, by the way, that I ask the question not because I contemplate immediate surrender to your threats, but so that I can weigh the whole situation — whether it will be better to meet you or fight you.”

“Don’t fight,” said Smith flatly. “It hurts. Even if you kill the other fellow he usually manages to leave marks on you. The war showed us that. Fighting’s not worth the candle. It’s only for history books and tales of romance. Compromise is the strongest suit in the human pack.

“You bite on that. I’ll tell you what I want right now. All you’ve made on Che Fiangs at the end of six months. Here — I’ll put it more plainly. You sell me your Che Fiang holdings now at two shillings a share. That more than covers you. Leaves you with a bit of profit, in fact.”

Bordington shrugged his shoulders. “You are too generous. I couldn’t possibly presume on you.”

Smith grinned. “Not you! But they’re my terms. Or — exposure.”

Bordington stood silent, looking down at the polished top of the table. Smith tried to read his thoughts by studying his face; but failed entirely to do so. He reckoned he had won. Bordington must surrender. He dared not face this thing through.

Bordington spoke at last.

“I’ll sell for five shillings each,” he said. “That’s a fair profit for me, and an immense profit for you. The shares stand at nearly par now.”

Chapter XII For the Crime

Smith shook his head. The enemy had committed the blunder of giving a little. The banners of weakness were waving over the opposing forces. Smith drove home his blow.

“In three minutes,” he said coolly, “there’ll be no question of buying — only of a deed of gift.”

Bordington looked up at him quickly.

“I mean it,” said Smith. “I’m not here for my health, and my time’s money — your money. That, I guess, is what was meant by the fellow who first coined the phrase.”

Bordington’s fingers rapped nervously on the tabletop. With a gesture, Smith had reversed the positions. Bordington had not foreseen this display of resource. He reckoned that Smith would give up the fight when he found that he was balked on Che Fiangs. Instead, Smith had merely joined the battle more closely, and looked like boring through to victory.

“I shan’t take two shillings,” he said.

“All right.” Smith stubbed the ash of his cigar on to the carpet. “You’ll take nothing. I don’t care. Only you don’t want to be such a fool; that’s all.”

“Suppose I defy you?” asked Bordington quickly.

“I shall be surprised at you,” replied Smith. “I just now paid you a compliment. Don’t make me reverse it. See here, you can get out of this business slightly on the right side. Why the devil you want to be obstinate and make a fuss, God only knows. I’m putting up a fair proposition. In sixty seconds it ceases to hold good. Now then — two bob or nothing? What is it to be?”

As he asked the question, muffled by the closed windows, he heard a crack. There was the crashing splinter of broken glass behind him. Something went under his elbow — for his right arm was lifted in the act of conveying the cigar to his lips — went so close to his side that it touched his jacket.

Bordington suddenly stiffened, his hand gone to his chest, his face rigid, surprised, agonized.

He dropped flat at Smith’s feet, and when Smith went to his knees beside him and lifted him, he found that he had been shot through the chest in the region of the heart.

Bordington’s face twisted into a ghastly semblance of a grin. His last words were: “Smith — I think it’s — nothing! I hold Che Fiangs now — eh?”

His head fell back.

Smith straightened himself. The Che Fiang deal was definitely off. Just when he had won, just when the cards seemed to be running all his way, the hand of death had stacked the pack against him and the jackpot was scooped into all eternity.

Further, there was danger. He was Bill Smith, of The Fellowship. The police knew him, but could fasten nothing on him. He now stood above a dead man, a famous man, murdered in his library. There were running feet in the corridor beyond the door. The whole vast house was waking to clamorous life.

Murder!

The word suddenly leaped at Smith. Murder — and the ultimate punishment under law.

It would be ironic if he went to the gallows for a crime he had never committed. He had an almost irresistible inclination toward panic. Unconsciously, he had bitten through his cigar, and the glowing section lay on the carpet. He ground it with his heel.

He wanted to run away. While he knew it was foolish — for all the house was aware of his presence — the impulse was almost uncontrollable. He actually turned toward the broken window through which the bullet had come.

With that movement he stopped dead.

A young man was pelting across the tennis courts, taking the nets in fine style, like a hurdler.

Behind him, twinkling, Smith had a vision of a pair of exquisitely silk-sheathed legs, decked by rosetted garters. He saw the owner of those self-same adornments as the young man’s running carried him out of the line of direct vision, and he caught his breath.

For this was his new partner — Kitty Willis. Smith waited for her to come.

Chapter XIII Life Calls in Its Debts

In the few seconds during which he waited for the arrival of his somewhat astonishing and apparently ubiquitous partner, Bill Smith reviewed his own position with lightning speed. He repeated that he was of The Fellowship, known to the police, but immune from their more distressing attentions only because they were unable to prove anything against him.

That was one vital point. The second — and to be taken into account with it — was the fact that murder had been done in his presence. Those were points against him.

There was a point for him. He had been in the room. The whole household could swear to that. Whereas the broken glass clearly indicated that the shot had been fired from outside. Also, medical evidence would attest wounding from a distance.

Seeing things a little more calmly, Smith decided that while he stood not the slightest risk of being accused of murder, he might be accused of being an accessory to the fact, or he might be asked a whole lot of awkward questions which he would find it difficult to answer.

The young man arrived, and so did Kitty Willis. Kitty looked at Smith and then at Bordington. Jim Lansdale was already on his knees by Bordington’s side.

Smith said tersely: “Shot from somewhere outside.”

“Where was he standing?” asked Kitty. There was something in her voice which drew a quick look from Lansdale — something hard and decisive.

“Where he fell,” said Smith, “He dropped in a heap right on the spot.”

“So!” Kitty went and stood behind Bordington. To Lansdale’s intense surprise, she appeared almost unmoved by the dreadful thing on the floor. There were now people knocking on the door, and Jim, while watching Kitty, called out to them to enter. The butler, a footman, and a maid showed outside.

Kitty, meantime, looked across Bordington’s body to the broken glass and straight through.

“Somebody shot him from behind the hedge,” she said. “Half a minute.”

She slipped out of the window and ran across the corner of the nearest tennis court, keeping a straight line with the body and the broken pane of glass.

“Cute dame that,” commented Smith. “Who is she?”

“Ye-es,” said Jim slowly, and watched Kitty with a little bewildered frown.

Kitty returned. “Somebody who limps came in through the little gate on the farther meadow, walked up the path near the hedge, squeezed through the hedge, fired his shot, and bolted. I get the limp from examining the newly dug bed of potatoes. He plunged straight across that after firing the shot. The right footmarks are heavier and more clearly defined than the left, which smudge and drag every time.”

She looked at Smith as she finished, and Smith knew, as well as though she had told him, that it was Pink who had fired the shot. Pink had meant to kill him — Smith. That accounted for the bullet going so close. Instead, Pink had missed, and had killed Bordington. It was a stupendously tragic mistake.

In all this Smith was conscious that somebody was telephoning for the police. He waited. He felt calm and collected. He would bluff through the whole situation. He studied Kitty and Jim Lansdale, and wondered why Kitty had been down to Bordington. Kitty looked at ease — too much so.

Smith decided that she was very disturbed. Jim Lansdale was obviously bewildered. Girl bank clerks don’t act as Kitty acted when first she arrived in the library. Girl bank clerks aren’t so composed in the face of dreadful and sudden death as was Kitty. Her behavior indicated a long experience of alarums and excursions denied to the ordinary sheltered girl.

The police came, the local superintendent, a sergeant, and a constable. They brought the official doctor with them, and an atmosphere of terriffic excitement. Bordington knew not murder. Its most hectic crime was an occasional drunk and disorderly with violent assault charges; and these were so few and far between that the last one was almost forgotten.

That murder should have been committed, and that the murdered man should be the lord of the manor, was an upheaval of the very first class. The doctor made his examination. Photographs were taken. The body was moved from its position on the floor. The superintendent began to ask questions.

He started with William Smith, and William Smith had a perfectly straightforward story to tell. He produced his card, giving his address as the Hotel Magnificent, London.

He had, he said, come down to see Lord Bordington on important private business which concerned only themselves, and Lord Bordington had been shot while the conversation was in progress, the bullet apparently coming from the direction of the kitchen garden hedge and, as the policeman could see, breaking the window in transit.

William Smith was put on one side. Jim Lansdale was questioned. He told nothing except that he had heard the shot and come running to the spot.

The butler, the footman and the maids had much the same tale to tell — a shot and a rush to the scene of the crime.

Then the superintendent turned to Kitty. He stared for a moment. His eyes ran over her. He appeared to be repeating something to himself — like a description of a “wanted” person. Then he said: “Is your name Kathleen Willis?”

“Yes.” If Kitty looked momentarily in the direction of Jim Lansdale, if in her eyes flickered, almost imperceptibly, a swift appeal, nobody noticed it. She seemed cool and collected and watchful.

The superintendent said briefly: “You are the person who was wanted in connection with the Levenheim business. Got away with it on a technical error of law, eh?”

Kitty nodded. “I stuck up Mr. Levenheim,” she said. “He deserved it. He’d robbed Horman, after getting Horman to break into the Consolidated Syndicate’s place. You people got all the goods back from me. I’d only robbed a thief. There was no reason why I shouldn’t get off.”

Jim cried: “Kitty!”

She looked at him. She seemed very jaunty. “All right,” she said. “It’s true. But you can prove that I didn’t kill Bordington. I was with you at the time.”

“Oh, God!” murmured Jim.

Kitty’s lips were just a shade tighter when she looked at the policeman. “Because I was wanted over the Levenheim deal, and because I happened to be around at the moment Lord Bordington was killed, it isn’t up to you to start investigations on the premise that I did the killing,” she said. “A limping man shot Bordington, and the dug-over potato bed behind the hedge will prove it.”

“When I want you to teach me my duty I’ll ask you,” snapped the superintendent. “I want you to answer some questions.”

He elicited from her the fact that this was her second visit to Bordington, and that she was on friendly terms with Jim Lansdale, who, all the time, stood back against the wall, white and drawn.

At the finish the superintendent said: “Why did you come to Bordington, and why have you so sedulously cultivated Mr. Lansdale’s friendship?”

Kitty looked him straight in the eyes. “That’s not relevant to the crime,” she said. “I shan’t answer.”

The superintendent’s face flushed with anger. He knew that Kitty need not answer any of his questions unless she desired to do so; and she was correct in her assertion as to irrelevance, in so far as facts went up to that moment. She had a complete alibi. She had, beyond all doubt, been with Jim Lansdale when the shot was fired.

Suddenly the inspector turned to Smith. “These two people,” he said, indicating Jim and Kitty. “Where did they come from?”

Smith answered slowly. “They were running across the tennis courts when I saw them.”

This was true. The superintendent said: “Ah!” as though he had scored an important point.

They were all allowed to go. Kitty went out alone through the window. Jim Lansdale still stood by the wall. He did not look at her as she went. He was like a man stricken over the head, dazed and half stunned.

Bill Smith followed in Kitty’s footsteps. Somehow, Smith felt uneasy.

They traveled up to London together, but Kitty did not speak all the way, until, nearing the terminus, Smith said: “What’s got you? Wind up?”

“No. I was wondering why life always calls in its debts at the very worst moment.”

Chapter XIV Each Moves in His Way

A week later the superintendent made an interesting discovery. Bordington’s affairs were in perfect order, and so his will was quickly proved. It left everything to his wife save a section of his holdings in Che Fiangs — those shares he had bought cheaply from Jim Lansdale — and which he now left to Lansdale.

There was an explanatory paragraph, which said that he knew he had actually cheated Lansdale in the purchase of the shares, and that Lansdale must inevitably discover this. But the shares had been temporarily necessary to him for “private reasons of control,” and he left them to Lansdale as some compensation. They were now worth some two pounds each, and were still rising, and so Jim Lansdale found himself a comparatively rich man.

But the superintendent saw something else in it all. The man, William Smith, had said Lansdale and Willis had come running across the tennis courts immediately after the shot was fired. Beyond all doubt, the shot had been fired from beyond the courts. Willis was a notorious woman thief. Jim Lansdale had, on Bordington’s own statement, a reason for anger against Bordington; and by Bordington’s will he was likely to benefit immensely.

Was it possible that, as Bordington’s secretary, he had been able to learn the contents of the will, without Bordington being aware of this?

The superintendent was inclined to think it possible, even while he was unable to see how it might have been effected. Lansdale was consorting with a criminal. He had refused to make any statement regarding his relations with her, and became solidly and curiously dumb every time the police mentioned her name.

This was a fact the superintendent marked against him; for the superintendent had no romance in his soul.

He found himself facing this situation. A young man, poor, cheated by his employer, and yet possibly knowing that he would become wealthy should his employer die, on the friendliest terms with a woman who had no equal in the realms of crime.

There were all the ingredients there for a highly satisfactory murder.

Further, it had been cunningly done. They had shot Bordington from behind the hedge of the kitchen garden, and then come running across the tennis courts as though the shot had alarmed them.

The superintendent was building up a pretty theory. He got more and more excited and self-satisfied as he went on.

Not only had they done all this, but they had provided for something else. They had most daringly shot Bordington while he was talking to somebody — choosing that moment so that that somebody could provide them with an alibi.

In effect, they had wanted somebody to see them come running in an alarmed state across the tennis courts, and who could they have had better than a man who was with Bordington when he was shot?

In all this the superintendent saw the workings of the clever brain which had defeated Levenheim, master crook. The woman would have designed it all; the man have executed it. It was the old tale of Adam and Eve.

The woman thought of it — the man did it. The superintendent told himself that he had found an apt comparison. It rather tickled him. He actually forgot to set a police trap for motorists on the only straight and safe piece of road around the district.

And that talk of the woman’s about a cripple and the potato bed. That was cute, if you like. Anybody can imitate the mark made by a cripple on recently dug earth, if they practice a little. The superintendent did it himself.

The woman was clever. She provided for everything — even for a mythical murderer. Nobody had seen the cripple. Nobody had found the marks save herself. William Smith, on being questioned, had stated that she had gone straight to the spot in the hedge where the marks commenced.

That was a little error, thought the super. She should have cast around a bit. But she wanted to get things done. She wanted to hammer home her defensive evidence before anything else was discovered.

The superintendent devoted a long hot afternoon and evening to full consideration of all these points; and found at the finish that, momentarily the woman was out of his reach. There were strong grounds for suspecting Lansdale, because he had had something to gain.

The woman, also, might have had something to gain, provided that there could be proved to have existed between herself and Lansdale anything more than a mere casual friendship. Suppose, for instance, Lansdale had promised to marry her, or take her away with him, or provide for her in any way whatsoever.

That was all right; but she was just outside the circle for the time being. It was another indication of her cleverness, thought the superintendent. She was as elusive as the proverbial eel.

But even eels were caught — provided the hook was baited right.

The superintendent decided that the hook in this case might be Jim Lansdale. There were no scientific methods about the superintendent’s workings. He was a believer in the sound police routine of constant questioning, watching, burrowing, working. He didn’t pick up cigarette ends, sniff them, analyze them, decide they were made in Constantinople and that, therefore, the murderer was a Chinaman with one eye, who was addicted to drinking whisky.

There was none of that stuff about the superintendent. He fastened on to some salient fact, and he stuck to it until it revealed another salient fact. He had the patience of Job and the pertinacity of a bulldog.

In addition, far more important, he had the wonderful and complex organization of the British police behind him. He believed that all murders were committed for a motive, and that that motive fell under one of a few heads — revenge, anger, jealousy and love of money.

There was money in this. It provided the motive.

On the following day he found Jim Lansdale up at the manor busy on Bordington’s affairs.

That evening the London newspapers had something to scream in heavy headlines.

James Lansdale, the late Lord Bordington’s secretary, had been detained on suspicion of complicity in the murder of his employer, and was being closely questioned by the local police.

That same evening, also, Kitty Willis telephoned Bill Smith at the Magnificent and asked him to meet her within an hour. They met at a quiet Soho restaurant and dined. Kitty seemed her usual self.

Smith said: “Seen the papers?”

Kitty nodded. “Yes. That superintendent’s a fool. I know Lansdale didn’t do it, because I was with him all the time. It was Pink. Which brings me to the reason why I wanted to see you.”

“What is it?” asked Smith.

Kitty looked straight at him. “Pink’s tried once,” she said slowly, “and he has failed. He has, inadvertently, committed a crime which might hang him one day — especially if one of us cared to go to the police and tell them everything. You can bet that he knows you suspect him. Pink wants to get you. He’ll hang afterward gladly; but he must get you. It seems to me that there’s a crisis at hand.”

“In what way?” asked Smith.

“Why — if you don’t slip into it, and get Pink — he’ll kill you. I’m not running in harness with you in order to uphold a private vendetta. I want the board cleared and work begun, and I’ll confess that I’m afraid of work with Pink around. I think it’s time you finished with Pink.”

Smith nodded. “You’re right. But how? Killing is dangerous. There’s enough trouble brewing over this Bordington affair.”

Kitty looked contemptuous. “I’m not talking about murder. It may surprise you, but I don’t believe in killing. But Pink is a murderer. He has killed Lord Bordington. I think my evidence might hang him.

“If the police had only taken the trouble to accept my theory as correct, and had made inquiries in the district, they would have found that a man answering to Pink’s description came down to Bordington by train. However, that’s neither here nor there. What we know is that Pink did it. We don’t want trouble with Pink.

“I suggest that we get hold of him and threaten him with exposure regarding the killing of Bordington. We might pay him a certain sum to clear, on condition that he signs a confession — some such arrangement as will absolutely tie his hands. And then we’ll book him a passage to the other side of the earth and see him on the ship. Is that all right?”

“It sounds fairish,” agreed Smith. “Who’s to find him?”

“I reckon you can do that. You’ve got a gang. I haven’t. It’s easy to get into touch with a man like Pink if you want to. By the way, I’d be present at the Interview, eh?”

Smith grinned. “Protection?”

“Well, two to one is better I think. Pink might be awkward.”

“You’re right. I’ll fix an appointment with him — not here, of course — and let you know. We’ll go along separately. We’ll both get there within five minutes of each other. Is it understood?”

“Right.”

Twenty-four hours later Kitty was notified by Bill Smith that if she presented herself at No. 14a Danden Street, Rotherhithe, London, S. E. at 8 P.M. on the following night and asked for Mr. Pink, she would please Mr. William Smith. Pink was found, and all that remained was to dispose of him. Evidently he was willing to discuss terms.

It is now necessary briefly to chronicle two occurences of some importance to the people concerned in the affairs of Bill Smith.

At eleven o’clock in the morning of that day when Kitty was due to meet Messrs. Pink and Smith in conclave, Jim Lansdale was brought before an extremely altered superintendent. The man had lost his bluster and his official manner.

Jim, surveying him, realized by the outward and visible signs that he had been not rapped over the knuckles, but heavily banged. As a matter of fact, the superintendent was perilously near to reduction in rank.

A certain somebody had told him that while he was an expert at trapping speeding motorists he was apparently useless for the investigation of the lesser crimes, such as murder. He had overlooked a vital point in the investigations — and overlooked it because it was supplied by a woman crook, whom he had made up his mind to suspect.

Jim Lansdale was released unconditionally. As he turned to go he said: “There was a girl gave you her address. I’ve never bad it, but I’d rather like it, if it isn’t asking for something that’s not permissible.”

The superintendent looked him over. “If you take my advice, young man, you’ll keep away from her,” he said. “She’s dangerous.” And then: “All right. I’ll give you her address.” He did so. He was probably wrong in acting thus, but he was a rattled man.

Jim read the address three times in ten minutes, as he walked toward the manor. At the end of fifteen minutes he had come to a decision.

He would go to London by the first available train and ask Kitty whether it was all true.

The second event of importance was that within an hour or so of Jim’s release Bill Smith had an urgent call from a certain shady solicitor, a call which took him straight to that solicitor’s office in the city. He found that the man was acting for Trevelyan who, curiously enough, had, since Smith received the note in code, been moved from his original prison to another.

Smith was with the solicitor for an hour. When he left there was a hint of a pallor beneath his bronze. He had used the telephone at the solicitor’s office, and the number for which he asked was a Surrey number.

He did not return to the Hotel Magnificent for the rest of that day.

Chapter XV These Was a Slip

Kitty reached Danden Street, Rotherhithe, at eight o’clock exactly. She found it a short thoroughfare, joining two others of similar aspect, a street composed of two parallel brick walls of uniform ugliness, in which, at regular intervals, had been knocked large and small holes for doorways and windows. The houses had minute cemented forecourts, fronted by iron railings.

Some of the iron gates were useless, because the progeny of the district appeared to spend their time in swinging on them, to the detriment of their hinges. Danden Street was not slum. But it was desperately, perilously poor — the kind of street one finds by hundreds in our big cities, where folk hang to life’s edge by their finger tips.

Kitty knocked at the door of No. 14a and asked for Mr. Pink. A woman who looked as though the weight of the world’s troubles rested on her bent shoulders told her he was upstairs in the back room — “what he used as a bed sittin’ room, him bein’ fond of sittin’ alone and readin’, and not much struck on pitchers or comp’ny.”

There were two children clinging to the woman’s skirt. She was wiping her hands on a coarse apron. The odor of washing drifted through the house. It was eight o’clock in the evening. Kitty went upstairs through a mist. The mist was across her eyes.

Kitty knocked on the door of the top back room and was bidden enter. Pink was sitting on the edge of a bed, facing the door. On his knee was a gun. He cried out when he saw Kitty, and, as she closed the door behind her, he exclaimed: “What do you want?”

“I’m waiting for Smith,” said Kitty. “We’re partners, you know. We’re in this together.”

Pink scowled at her. “I owe you one,” he said. “You cheated me that night I had him.”

Kitty smiled. “All in the game, Mr. Pink. May I sit down?”

Pink nodded gloomily. He sat leaning forward, with the gun dangling between his legs, loosely held by the butt and trigger. He did not look again at Kitty. She might not have existed.

The minutes passed — five — ten — fifteen.

Kitty began to feel uneasy. What had happened to Bill Smith? Why had he not come? Had things gone wrong? She was as near to panic as ever she had been in her life with that thought.

Pink stirred.

“Bit late, ain’t he?”

“A little.”

Pink settled down into his hunched attitude once again. Five minutes more slipped into eternity.

Kitty kept control of herself. Something was wrong. Bill Smith would never have been late for this appointment — certainly not as late as this.

There was a hitch — an unforseen error — a slip — somewhere; and, at this juncture, a slip might mean death.

“What’s Smith’s game?” demanded Pink suddenly. “Keeping me hanging about with you. What’d he want me for, anyhow?”

“He wanted to come to some arrangement over things,” said Kitty.

Pink sneered. “He’s got a hope.”

Kitty leaned forward. “Listen, Pink. I’m not in the game so far as you and Smith are concerned, so perhaps I can put it better than he can. If you kill him, you’ll kill yourself. You’ve got years of life before you, and Smith’s willing to admit that he owes you something. He proposes to buy you off — with two things, silence and money.”

“Silence?” repeated Pink. “What’s that mean?”

“About Bordington,” said Kitty quietly.

“Eh?” It was sharp, snapped. Pink’s face was alight, his eyes cunning. “What the hell are you talking about?”

“Murder,” said Kitty composedly.

It was a tense moment. She saw Pink’s fingers involuntarily tighten on the gun. Her own hand was clutching her little pistol in the pocket at the front of her gown.

Pink took a deep breath. “I don’t know what you mean,” he said.

“You do. You killed Lord Bordington.”

“That’s a blasted lie. See here! I’ll—” Pink’s voice lifted.

Kitty shook her head. “Don’t get excited. I know you did it. Smith knows you did it. We have absolute proof. So why deny it? We wish to make it a basis for bargaining, and I can’t get any farther while you keep shouting out useless denials.”

Pink’s tenseness relaxed a little. His tongue touched his lips.

“I don’t know how you found out,” he said. “Guessed, I suppose, eh? I was after Smith, curse him. I must have missed him by less than an inch. Saw his coat twitch. That fool Bordington was right in the line, and got it fair. I ducked pretty hard, you can bet.”

“Yes,” said Kitty. “And now that we quite understand that you killed Bordington, I want to say that Smith’s offer is this: He will pay you, a certain sum down — I can’t tell you how much, because he’s not here — pay your first-class passage to any distant country you wish, and keep his mouth shut about Bordington, if you call things a deal. Does it appeal to you?”

Pink gloomed a little. “I swore I’d get Smith,” he muttered. “Swore it. It was the first words I spoke when I came round.”

“Yes, but it was a long time ago,” urged Kitty. “You can view things more sensibly now. That matter between Smith and yourself can be ended better than by bullets. You’ve already killed Bordington in attempting to kill Smith. The next time you might kill yourself — at the hands of the law. Smith has only to telephone Scotland Yard, and you’ll hang.”

“I’d blow the whole game,” said Pink savagely.

“What game?” asked Kitty.

He scowled at her. “About Smith.”

“But you can prove nothing. That’s just the point. You’ll hang, and Smith will live on; whereas by taking his offer you get freedom. Now I can’t stay any longer. Am I to tell Smith that you’re considering the suggestion?”

“If you like.” Pink got up. “Where is Smith to-night?”

“I don’t know. I wish I did.” There was something in Kitty’s voice which aroused suspicion in Pink’s eyes.

“You’re afraid,” he said. “Is anything wrong?”

“Well — I don’t know. He should have been here. He was anxious to be here. I can’t understand it.”

“All right.” Pink grinned. “I hope he’s collared. I’ll be waiting for him when he comes out. Tell him I’m thinking about his proposition.”

Kitty went. She hurried. She made straight for the nearest telephone box and was inside it for some time. She was tense and strained.

Things were wrong. It drummed in her head. There had been an unforeseen slip somewhere.

She took a taxi homeward. There seemed nothing else to do.

And Pink, sitting in his bedroom after she had gone, found the door of it opened without preliminary knocking. He tried to reach for his gun, but he found that he was too late.

Chapter XVI “The Nearest But Not Near Enough”

Kitty’s flat at Kensington was situated in a block of so-called mansions standing in a quiet square. It was as nice as any place situated in the heart of London ever could be. Which means to say that its sunshine was always robbed of half its violet rays by tons and tons of smoke; that it was invaded many times during the winter by hideous fog; and that always there came to it, threateningly, the roar of ceaseless traffic.

In the hot weather it was afflicted by the smells of burned petrol and heated woodblocks. In compensation for these deficiencies one could, of course, always get a taxi at the door, and there were many theatres, music halls and picture houses and restaurants near at hand. Of such is life composed.

Open country and swinging seas have nothing on a good picture house and a London taxi ride. Besides, she lived near the cognoscenti, whatever they may be. “Everybody” lived in London, although when “London was empty” it always seemed just as full, an enigma inexplicable up to this very day.

On the little things of everyday life great issues may sometimes hang.

Kitty’s flat door had two locks — one of them an ordinary lock with a doorknob each side. This could be locked by turning the key, or left latched so that the door could be opened from either side by use of the knob. This was never locked.

It was reenforced by a Yale lock, which was the strong point of the door’s defenses. The Yale was the fellow who was designed to keep out the burglars. Everybody knows that a Yale lock can be put out of action by turning back the little knob and slipping up a small catch, when the tongue of the lock is held back. When Kitty’s Yale lock was in that position, the flat door could be opened by turning the knob of the lock below the Yale.

Kitty reached her flat and put the key in the Yale lock. She was perturbed. All the way from Rotherhithe she had wondered what had become of Smith; and the more she wondered the stronger grew her conviction of peril.

She had bought an evening paper on her way, and had read that Jim Lansdale was released, a knowledge which brought her some thankfulness and a curious sense of shame. Behind her anxiety was a gnawing unhappiness.

She let herself into the flat.

The front door gave entry to a little square hall, very tasteful in decoration, from which the various rooms opened. The doors of some of these rooms were not closed, and Kitty had a swift glimpse of her own bedroom, delicate, perfumed; and a swift glimpse of a mirror in the sitting room. Reflected in that mirror was Bill Smith.

Kitty’s hand went up to the Yale lock. She closed the door. She walked into the sitting room.

It was an act of terrific courage.

She could have bolted, but her jaunty spirit refused to find refuge in flight. Besides — she wanted something — something of which the night had hitherto cheated her.

She said: “Why didn’t you come along to Pink’s? And how did you get here?”

“Your maid let me in,” said Smith. “She’s tied up on her bed now, and gagged.”

“I see,” said Kitty; and told herself that, for once, her assurance had made her overstep the mark. She had been a fool to come into the flat. “Well?”

Smith got to his feet and leaned against the mantelshelf. He looked changed, harder than ever, more terrible.

He said: “You’re a clever woman.”

Kitty nodded. “Cute, I think you once said. But you’re a clever man. How did you discover the truth?”

“Trevelyan. I was sent for by his solicitor. I found he’d been shifted. It struck me — you know.” Smith was speaking in conversational tones. “I asked a lot of questions. The solicitor had had a tip. None of it was direct, but it all pointed one way. I sent a smart man down to Danden Street. He recognized one or two well-known people. He saw Pink taken away. That was good enough for me. I knew!”

A gun seemed to come to Smith’s hand by magic. He added, with a snarl: “Hold your arms above your head. So! Stand still!”

He stepped forward and, feeling at her skirt, located her little pistol pocket and relieved her of the weapon.

“Now you can sit down,” he said.

She did so. Her heart was beating very steadily, but slightly more heavily. She was watchful and alert; and all the time she realized the stupendous folly of that entry into the flat.

Smith went on. “It was a clever scheme — getting Pink and me together — to talk. I suppose you were coming along to supply conversational leaders, eh? So that we should say all that we’d done.”

“That’s right,” agreed Kitty. “Out of the mouths of babes and sucklings, you know. There’s nothing like getting evidence of a man’s guilt from his own lips. It’s usually conclusive, especially when he’s sane and levelheaded like you are. It seemed to me the only way of doing it. Things were getting pressing. Pink messed things by shooting Bordington, you see.”

“And getting your pet boy pinched,” sneered Smith.

Some color showed in Kitty’s cheeks. “You’ll have seen the evening papers?” she asked.

“Oh, yes. I know he’s safe. You’re a wonder, aren’t you?”

Kitty shrugged her shoulders. “What do you intend to do?”

“Kill you.”

She leaned back. She stared at him, and saw him vaguely, wolfish, grim. His teeth were showing.

“Listen,” he said. “Directly I was phoned about Pink I knew the net was tight. I guessed that when I didn’t show up at Pink’s every policeman in Britain would be looking for me. I guessed that every port and every ship would be watched.

“They’d at last got a line on the leader of the Fellowship, and all hell would be shifted to hold him. But — they reckoned without one or two things. I’m a man who always has believed in care. I learned to fly a year or two back — when flying was become a very practicable thing. I’ve got a house in Surrey where I keep a plane, and that plane has been prepared this evening for flight. Round the corner I’ve got a fast car, and I’m riding for Surrey when I’ve finished with you.

“I guessed the police would be watching trains and boats — perhaps roads — I’ll have to chance that. But the last place they’d watch would be this little flat, eh? So I came to settle with you first.”

He was right. Kitty knew that. He had put his finger on the one weak spot. He could kill her in this flat, and only the morning would show the crime. By morning, if he won through to his plane, he would be hundreds of miles away.

He added: “Did Pink put himself in the soup?”

“He stated that he had killed Lord Bordington, if that’s what you mean,” said Kitty. “Although, for that matter, it was largely unnecessary. I had him all right. It was you I wanted to get.”

Smith laughed. “A great many folk have tried to do that — and though you’ve come nearest to them all, I doubt but that nobody will ever succeed.”

“Pink talked of Bradley and a fellow named Hunt,” lied Kitty carelessly.

Smith’s laugh broadened. “Did he? He would. At the time he regarded it as admirable that Bradley should be killed by snake-bite and that Hunt’s death should be carefully arranged to look like accident. Shows how people change. Hunt was an I.D.B., you know. Fell across us. Wouldn’t work in with us. We — removed him.”

“I know.”

Kitty got to her feet. Her action was deliberate. Smith’s finger was itching at the trigger of the big automatic. She wondered whether he would shoot her or kill her more silently.

She thought of Jim Lansdale. He was free. The stigma was removed from him. He would never know — now. He would just think that the superintendent had made other discoveries. He would try and forget her.

She felt aimless. She thought of the flat door. Why had she come in? Why hadn’t she run when she saw Smith? It was folly of that type which changes lives. Half the world’s catastrophies are due to moments of sheer madness.

And now — he would kill her.

Chapter XVII The Lost Moment

She heard him ask a question. “Who brought you into this?”

“My father. At least — he allowed me — under persuasion. I’ve helped him before. He could make no headway; so I came in.”

“Hm. You achieved a reputation, didn’t you?”

“I thought it best. It was a short cut to you.”

“Yes. Cute. Your father’s still in business then?”

“He wasn’t. He retired after the war. But they brought him back on the Fellowship job.”

“Come-backs are never successful,” said Smith. “I’ve always noticed it. Look at Pink. He’ll hang. He ought to have stayed away. Why’d you go after Bordington’s safe?”

“It was this way. I knew about Trevelyan. You know, it’s well known that you and he work together. Well, I learned about the Monte Carlo business — Trevelyan — the woman — Bordington. I didn’t know what was happening, of course; but I did know that those three were associated.

“The woman’s record was no better than Trevelyan’s, and Trevelyan was your employe. Long shots sometimes hit the mark. I thought I’d go through Bordington’s private papers. Under the arrangement by which I worked I couldn’t go straight to him; and, anyhow, if he were in a mess it would do no good.

“Curiously enough, my luck was in. He caught me, offered me the job of robbing you, and so opened the way for me to effect a partnership with you. I decided on it directly he made his offer to me.”

Smith’s eyes gleamed. “You don’t miss much. Funny, that you should overlook the chance of my coming here to-night, wasn’t it? I was afraid you’d reckon on it — and cover against it — when I didn’t show up at Pink’s place. But I had to risk it.”

Kitty took a turn about the room. She knew that he was deliberately wasting time, so that she should be punished. Omnipotent and infallible up to this moment, he hated her for tricking him and for bringing him to the brink of disaster. It was the narrowest shave of his whole life.

“That Levenheim business?” asked Smith. “Was that all in the game?”

“Yes. I knew Levenheim had the goods on him. After all, the goods were the biggest thing. I recovered those — by robbing him — and it gave me a reputation. It was worth letting Levenheim go to get that reputation, because it put the hall-mark on me. I was after bigger game than Levenheim — you!”

“So. And now you’ve got me.” Smith laughed quietly.

He stood and watched her. She could not endure it. He was gloating over her. She knew that. Every nerve in her lithe, slim body was throbbing with suppressed anxiety. Life was curiously sweet.

She kept thinking of the days with Jim Lansdale on the river. That had been a mistake — that business. She should have realized that she was too young, too vividly alive, for flirtations. They might develop into something else — as this one had developed.

Smith looked at his watch.

“Time’s up!” he said.

She turned and faced him. Her heart had leaped to her throat. She read the unutterable things in his eyes. There was no courage now — only flooding, devastating fear; for she was young, and to the young death is dreadful.

But she would not show the fear. It filled her. It racked her. It made her feel faint. She wanted to collapse, to scream, to do all kinds of futile things which would have pleased him because they belittled her; yet she held herself steady. Though the trumpets of terror sounded a diapason in her ears, her eyes were unflinching.

“You’ll hang — Smith—” she said— breathlessly.

His teeth showed. “I’ve a good mind to kiss you, first, for that,” he said. “You’re damned pretty.”

She remained very still.

His gun came up.

The front door bell rang.

Chapter XVIII Murray Retires

Smith was as still as Kitty. His eyes lost their savagery and held a question.

“Who’s that?” he snapped.

She had to recover her wits. She forced her reeling brain to action. She had to answer at once — so that he did not realize how desperately she was thinking — thinking.

“My father,” she said. “I have been expecting him ever since I arrived here. You’ve wasted time, Smith.”

She heard his breath going through his teeth.

“He can wait outside — till I’ve finished,” he said. “Let him ring.”

She shook her head. “You’re wrong. I left the Yale lock unfastened. He can walk in by turning the handle. He’ll do so if there’s no answer.”

It was flimsy, illogical. Had Smith paused to consider it he would have realized how absurd it was. A man who can walk straight into a flat doesn’t stop to ring. If ringing produces no answer he would certainly imagine the flat empty.

But Smith, like Kitty, had now to think quickly. He knew that somebody was outside, and it was quite a sound thing to imagine that somebody was Kitty’s father. She looked so easy and cool that he believed her story about the lock. Anyhow, he could soon prove it.

“Get out to the hall,” he commanded. “And if you make a sound I’ll risk everything and shoot to kill.”

She proceeded him into the hall. Their feet made no sound on the heavy carpet.

There, Smith was able to verify that she spoke the truth. The little slit between the body of the Yale lock and the socket into which the tongue fitted showed no sign of brass.

There was a rap at the door. The ringer was trying knocking.

Kitty looked round. Smith was close.

Kitty took a risk. She was like lightning. She was more athletic than Smith, a modem girl unhampered by voluminous skirts and multitudinous petticoats.

She turned and kicked. Her toe caught the gun. As she kicked, she cried: “Come in! Help!”

The gun went upward — Smith still gripping it. Kitty, with the energy of sheer desperation, flung herself forward, hoping against hope that the person outside would enter, and, on entry, prove a physical match for Smith.

She got her arms round Smith’s arm, and she clung, holding the pistol hand above her head for a few threshing, terrible seconds.

The door handle turned. She heard a cry.

Something came over her head, and clutched Smith’s wrist above her grip. She felt the wrist and arm turned backward, and she heard Smith gasp. The pistol dropped to the floor, and, quick as light, she had it.

Smith was back against the wall, holding his twisted wrist. Kitty said: “The telephone. Call Scotland Yard. Say Murray wants help. Give this address. William Smith, I arrest you for the murder of Hector Bradley in South Africa in — Jim!”

Jim Lansdale was at the telephone. He could not understand it all; but he knew that the girl who was supposed to be a criminal was calling in Scotland Yard on the authority of the name of Murray, and was arresting this man Smith for murder. It was bewildering: but he telephoned.

When, at last, Smith had been taken away, maniacal in his wrath, Jim looked at Kitty.

“Who are you?” he asked.

“My name’s Murray,” she said. “I’m the daughter of Murray, the British Secret Service man who became famous during the war. I was a kid, then, of course. But father retired, and they wanted him to go out against Smith, who is the most notorious criminal alive. I helped — and... well — I became Murray, you know. Father couldn’t make any headway. I’ll tell you the whole story, if you like.”

Jim held out his hands. “Come here a minute,” he said.

She came to him.

Afterward — he whispered: “Would you like to tell me the story over supper somewhere quiet? Or shall we sit in your little room?”

Kitty said judicially: “I think we ought to go round and see father. I want to tell him that Murray has definitely retired — for good.”